HEZBOLLAH AND ISRAEL WIDEN THE CONFLICT

But the truth is that Israel's secret weapon is the Arabs themselves."

I don't, at all, consider it naive hold the government of a sovereign state responsible for repeated attacks against a neighbor from within its borders.

Oh, let me see, there's Panama, Grenada, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, ...

The government of a state clearly has responsibilities for the activities occurring within its borders. Should those activities represent an attack on neighboring countries the government has either explicitly or implicitly declared war, or is responsible for putting a stop to the attacks.

You mean actually doing something moral instead of simply pardoning or ignoring the criminals and their criminal behavior.

As I have said all along; I consider Iraq to be the perfect starting point, no more.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Set, they have. They withdrew from the vast majority of Lebanon, who in turn neither disarmed Hezbollah nor took any steps to ask for help in doing so.

How very noble of the Israelis... (a bunch of idiotic straw man nonsense)... You then suggest that they should have asked the Israelis to "help" in disarming Hezbollah--we can see right now what methods the Israelis use--do you seriously think any Lebanese government would be that mad, or would survive if it did so?

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As you pointed out yourself; Hezbollah holds a small fraction of seats in government... but where's the majority? Why didn't they demand that Hezbollah disarm? Had this majority asked even Israel itself for help in doing so; do you think they wouldn't now be negotiating trade agreements? I think you are too quick to turn the blind eye to Lebanon's role in their own destruction.

That is either the most cynically disgusting or hopelessly naive position you've taken. The Lebanon has no need of trade agreements with Isreal. Left in peace by Israel, the Lebanon has all it needs for a successful economy, and Syria has always been their largest trading partner. To claim that Lebanon has a role in their own destruction is just disgusting--that sort of snotty disregard for this type of human tragedy lowers you considerably in my opinion. I know that won't matter to you, but don't be surprised if i address you in future with a due regard for the criminal and inhumane attitudes you express.

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Asking them to release Hezbollah, while continuing to suffer attacks from Hezbollah, is a bit much, no?

As has been pointed out repeatedly in this thread, mostly by others, Isreal has done exactly these sorts of deals in the past. Once they have complied with any negotiated action in good faith, the international community has consistently leaned on their opponents to step up and match the gestures.

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I couldn't agree less. Do you have any links to support that Iran has drastically reduced their support and has been disengaging for any purpose other than plausible deniability?

Plausible deniability? That's hilariouis--do you think the Mullahs attended the Richard Nixon School of Political Deception? The Persians have never been shy about avowing their support for organizations which we consider terrorists. No, i don't have a link for you--my remarks are based on what i've read and heard in the last few months. Do you have a link to support a claim that either Damascus or Teheran are pulling the strings? If it is a link to an opinion piece, then i'll just go find an opinion piece which contradicts yours--or just ignore it.

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My understanding is that no such exchange ever took place on demand or by force and was in fact many many months after such prisoners were taken that exchanges were worked out. Is this not so?

Even so, in this, Israel has itself to blame for rewarding bad behavior.

Do you get e-mails from PNAC for your talking points? What you call "rewarding bad behavior" would be described by a good many honest observers as righting the injustices the Israelis have committed. A good deal of the reason you fail to understand much of the situation is based on your simple-minded views of the players and their game. Apprently, you see it as: Israel=always good, always innocent victim, always acts in good faith; Isreal's opponents=always bad, always evil terrorists, never act in good faith. It's kind of hard to discuss these things when your world view is informed by propaganda at the outset. But the Israeli lobby in Washington sure loves folks with your attitudes.

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Isn't this essentially what they did with Palestinians and Gaza?

No, what happened with the Palestinians on the west bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip is that the Israelis returned to them the land from which they were driven in 1967, and which was their homeland and birth place.

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And didn't that "Good will" buy them renewed attacks from the very territory they gave back and a majority of Palestinians (not scorning) but rewarding Hamas by electing them? What makes you think this would be any different?

What makes me think it would be different is a stupid question--because that is not what happened in the first place. Once again, you rely upon the armor of invincible ignorance. The Israelis returned to the Palestinians the land from which they had been driven by ethnic cleansing in 1948-49, and 1967. They then erected barriers, set up Jewish immigrant settlements, and in every way possible, violated every agreement they made with the Palestinians--resulting eventually in the two Intifadas. The first Intifada occurred in 1987, because the Israelis ha kept none of their promises, in particular were failing to provide education, medical services and other public services in the occupied territories, to which they had agreed in advance, and for which the monetary source was the revenues of taxes and imposts in those territories, and foreign aid freely given to the Palestinians. In short, the Israelis were robbing the Palestinians, and whining to the world about terrorists in their midst. This first Intifada ended with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis continued to break their promises made to the Palestinians and the United States about Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and willfully withheld Palestinian revenues, collected by Israel, to attempt to cripple Yasir Arafat and the PA. There can be little doubt that the PA was corrupt, but i'd be amused to see you justify theft as a cure for corruption.

While a corrupt and ineffective PA was being starved for operating revenue by the Israelis, Hamas consistently used foreign aid donations by other Muslim nations (for which those nations have been accused by rightwingnuts as being supporters of terrorism) to fund education, medical and dental clinics, sewage and clean water projects--in short, everything the PA was too corrupt and broke to provide, and everything the Israelis had promised to provide in their typical mealy-mouthed fashion, and then reneged upon. Small wonder Hamas won the last election.

When the second Intifada broke out in 2000, because of the broken promises of the Israelis, and the latest land thefts and water thefts, and the newest restrictions on Palestinians, Hamas was declared a terrorist organization. That's good enough for you, isn't it? Decent, innoncent, well-meaning Israel a victim of the bad old terrorists. You really live in fantasy land.

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The "terrorists" in Lebanon wish to destroy Israel.

That is not necessarily so--unless and until Israel returns all Lebanese territory and either exchanges prisoners, or turns Lebanese citizens held in Israeli prisons over to an international tribunal, you cannot definitely say that Hezbollah's object is the destruction of Israel. Time enough for that if Israel acts in good faith (something they rarely do) and is still attacked, at which point, if the Lebanese government cannot disarm Hezbollah, an international force should do so--not Israel acting as a rogue militarist state.

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No amount of appeasement or retreat will change that.

I know this is the popular Israeli lobby propaganda line, but you haven't established the case, and even if you did, that does not authorize the indiscriminate attacks on the Lebanon which kill Lebanese civilians, and haven't yet stopped the Hezbollah rocket attacks (and note to the Candleless One: No--Hezbollah made occasional rocket attacks on Israel for years without this response--daily, multiple-rocket attacks and attacks on the urban area of Haifa did not begin until after the Israelis made massive air raids and rocket attacks on the Lebanon. Prior to that time, the target of choice for Hezbollah rockets were the Israelis on the Shebaa Farms, yet again an example of the attempt to establish Jewish settlements on occupied territory.)--the likeliest result of the Isreali attacks, as i and others have pointed out, will be to garner support for Hezbollah, which until the present has been a fringe group.

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It will only give them something to brag about, and use to show new recruits how they're winning the battles.

You pointed out yourself that Hezbollah was not a majority group politically, so your thesis is dubious. In fact, making martyrs of the Lebanese people is far more likely to draw new recruits.

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Contrarily, if Israel continues to meet new threats with overwhelming force, I for one would think twice about being next in line to needle them. Soon after I would learn to despise the stupidity inherent in attacking a superior force by my so-called countrymen. While punishment may or may not prove an effective deterrent to bad behavior, rewarding it is no deterrent at all.

Your use of the term "rewarding" is propagandistic. Constructive diplomatic engagement could effectively isolate Hezbollah, and cut their support from outside the Lebanon, while undermining what little support they have within their nation. These attacks don't deter Hezbollah--they are prepared to be martyrs, and undoubtedly cynically use civilian deaths for their own propagandistic purposes. Once again, these tactics failed to destroy the PLO thirty years ago, and did nothing to abate attacks on Israeli territory (or what they call Israeli territory, after they steal it from their neighbors)--there is no good reason to suppose this idiotically simple-minded formula will work now. These are the theories of playground fist-fights, not of international relations in a very, very complex world. I know simple explanations reassure people that they have the answers, but they are unrealistic. Fifty years of such behavior by the Israelis has not diminished their enemies, and, if anything, had increased the animus toward them.

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What worries me most; is that it won't at least wake the American public up to the fact that these people wish to destroy both Israel and the United States. Which part of Ahmadinejad's rhetoric suggests otherwise?

While there are members of Hezbollah who would wish to destroy the United States, it is as the flea wishing to destroy the elephant--we have nothing to fear from them.

Ahmadinejad is Persian, not Lebanese--he lives in Teheran, not Beirut--the lives of Lebanese civilians are on the line, not Persians.

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I think you are way to quick to dismiss the common goals and myriad of links between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. Last I checked, both Hezbollah and Hamas are still held in high esteem by the Supreme Leader (the real head jerkoff in Iran for those who don't know) and both remain on the payroll of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard... who is of course the business end of Ahmadinejad's mouth. You have way too much faith in good will, IMO.

Any interested in finding out just what the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is should click here.

You are way to quick to want to link all of this to Iran--if you're so goddamned hyped to take out the evil Persian terrorists, why don't you join up, O'Bill--go fight the good fight on the ground. Your rhetoric makes me sick, because you are not the one who will ever have to pay the price. But you certainly are a loyal purveyor of all the half-truths, innuendo and outright lies which PNAC and the Israeli lobby want the world to believe.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Setanta wrote:

If Finn wants to claim that the PLO created Hezbollah, fine.

This is a terribly weak and baseless claim, and, irrespective of my regard for you, I am surprised and disappointed that you have asserted it.

Clearly, the assertion that the PLO created Hezbollah is an extension of your logic and not an actual argument made by me.

The point, which both you and O'Bill are ignoring, is that the situation in the Lebanon at the time of the 1978 invasion by Israel was a direct result of the expulsion of the Palestinians after the 1967 war.

As for your putative regard for me, the viciousness you've displayed in the past, completely with character assassination, complete gives the lie to this pious bit of hypocricy on your part.