ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

Advocate, There's a big difference between defending itself and targeting non-offensive civilian populations like Israel did last summer against Lebanon.

When I asked you whether or not you thought that the Irgun terror attack was legitimate, you said that it was okay because




Tell me, Advocate: why is Irgun killing 91 people in a terror attack okay, but Hezbollah kidnapping 2 Israeli soldiers not?

Are military targets okay? Even if civilians are killed in the attack?

Instead of questioning me, please make your points (should you have any).

I'm not sure how Advocate continues to justify terror attacks by Israel, but refuses to see his inconsistency by the "other" side. He's so consistent in the other forums.

Easy.

Either both the Irgun attack on a military target (killing 91 people bombing the British military headquarters) and the Hezbollah attack on a military target (kidnapping two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid) was okay - or neither one was.

Israel does not engage in indiscriminate attacks on civilians or terroristic attacks. Their attacks are focused on those who attack Israel, and are sometimes retalitory.

So, do you think the Hezbollah attack, which was strictly aimed at a military target, was okay?

Advocate, Can't you see that those "indiscriminate attacks" have killed more innocent Palestinians than the other way around - even when the Palestinians attack innocent Jews are discriminate?

You see, that's the same problem with the war in Iraq; Americans doesn't seem to care how many innocent Iraqis are killed as long as American soldiers are not killed in large numbers. We say we don't target innocent people, but the numbers belies that rhetoric. Some estimates puts Iraqis killed by coalition forces at 100,000. Is one American soldiers life worth 2,800 Iraqis? Is that your argument for the Jews?

Are you saying that Israel didn't have the right to retaliate for that attack, as well as the hundreds (or thousands) of attacks on civilians by Hez?

That doesn't answer the question.

In the cross-border raid, Hezbollah kidnapped two IDF soldiers. It was an attack on a strictly military target.

Is that okay?

What is your view?

It seems like you're desperately trying to avoid answering the question.

ISRAEL'S DIVIDED ROAD
By Steven Erlanger
New York Times
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:08/11/2007 01:37:59 AM PDT


JERUSALEM - Israel is constructing a road through the West Bank, east of Jerusalem, that will allow both Israelis and Palestinians to travel along it - separately.

There are two pairs of lanes, one for each group of people, separated by a tall wall of concrete patterned to look like Jerusalem stones, a beautification effort indicating that the road is meant to be permanent. The Israeli side has many exits; the Palestinian side has few.

The point of the road, according to those who planned it under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is to permit Israel to build more settlements around East Jerusalem, cutting the city off from the West Bank, but allowing Palestinians to travel unimpeded north and south through Israeli-held land.

"The Americans demanded from Sharon contiguity for a Palestinian state," said Shaul Arieli, a reserve colonel in the army who participated in the 2000 Camp David negotiations and specializes in maps. "This road was Sharon's answer - to build a road for Palestinians between Ramallah and Bethlehem, but not to Jerusalem. This was how to connect the West Bank while keeping Jerusalem united and not giving Palestinians any blanket permission to enter East Jerusalem."

Sharon talked of "transportational contiguity" for Palestinians in a future Palestinian state - which means that while Israeli settlements would jut into the area, Palestinian cars on the road would pass unimpeded through Israeli-controlled territory and even cross through areas enclosed by the Israeli separation barrier.

The majority of Palestinians, unlike Israeli settlers, will not be able to exit in areas surrounded by the barrier or travel into Jerusalem, even into the eastern part, which Israel took over in 1967.

The road accomplishes this by having Palestinian traffic continue through underpasses and over bridges, while Israeli traffic will have interchanges allowing turns onto access roads. Palestinians with Israeli identity cards or special permits for Jerusalem will be able to use the Israeli side of the road.

The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently made conciliatory gestures to the Palestinians and says it wants to do what it can to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state. But Olmert, like Sharon, has said that Israel intends to keep the land east of Jerusalem.

To Daniel Seidemann, a lawyer who advises an Israeli advocacy group called Ir Amim, which works for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in Jerusalem, the road suggests an ominous map of the future - one in which Israel keeps nearly all of East Jerusalem and a ring of Israeli settlements surrounding it, providing a cordon of Israelis between largely Arab East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, which will become part of a future Palestinian state.

In a final settlement, Israeli is expected to offer the Palestinians "land swaps" elsewhere to compensate.

Khalil Tufakji, a prominent Palestinian geographer, says the road "is part of Sharon's plan: two states in one state, so the Israelis and the Palestinians each have their own roads." The Palestinians, Tufakji said, "will have no connection with the Israelis, but travel through tunnels and over bridges, while the Israelis will travel through Palestinian land without seeing an Arab."

In the end, he said, "there is no Palestinian state, even though the Israelis speak of one." Instead, he said, "there will be a settler state and a Palestinian built-up area, divided into three sectors, cut by fingers of Israeli settlement and connected only by narrow roads."

The road strikes me as a good solution.

First, east Jerusalem was a prize of war, taken in the '67 war in which the Arabs attacked Israel. Israel should not give it up, and should buttress its possession. Before the war, Israelis were not allowed entrance, although there were many, many, important holy sites. Also, the sites was desecrated and otherwise ruined. E.g., the area around the Western Wall was used as a cheap market place.

A divided road would be unnecessary if the Pals did not constantly try to kill Israeli motorists.

Advocate, You do remember the question posed to you by old europe, don't you?

When OE gives HIS answer to the question, I will give mine.

Advocate, I hate to point that out to you, but I've asked you three times before you asked your question. Here, here and here. You've so far failed to answer the question. You've chickened out. Asked questions in return. Refused to answer.

I believe it's really bad style to demand an answer to a question when you're so desperately trying to avoid giving an answer yourself.

Just as I thought; Advocate has found himself in a catch-22 situation.

Before I answer a somewhat absurd question, I need to be sure that you guys are willing to answer it. Thus, I will give my answer as soon as I get yours. After all, the question is rhetorical.

I don't think the question is "somewhat absurd" or "rhetorical".

You have stated that a terrorist attack in which 91 people died was legal. You seemed to give as a reason that it was an attack on a military target.

Now, the cross-border raid by Hezbollah in which 2 Israeli soldiers were kidnapped was also an attack on a strictly military target.

Seems to be logical to ask you whether or not you would consider that kind of attack as "legal" as well.


But just so you can't weasel out again, here's my answer: I would consider any kind of terrorist attack as illegal. That goes for the Hezbollah kidnapping of the IDF soldiers as well as for the Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel.