georgeob1 wrote:Advocate wrote:Israel has never targeted civilians. Certainly, there is always collateral death in wars, and there is a relatively small amount in the current fighting.
We can't say this about Hezbollah, with its suicide bombers and rockets that are strictly aimed at civilian death. The same applies to the Palestinians.
Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, and is drawing the line at its own borders. Lebanon shelters and supports the terrorist group Hezbollah, and will pay for the latter's attacks on Israel. Perhaps it will sink in with Lebanon and the Palestine that they will pay a big price when their terrorists attack Israel.
I believe such attempts to draw a moral distinction between the Israeli metods of war and those used by Hezbollah (and others) are meaningless and often absurd. Both sides use the weapons and tactics available to them with equal ferocity. When the Israelis were attempting to create their state they used terrorism quite willingly and effectively. The situation is merely different now, and conventional warfare has become their preferred technique.
I would agree with you to the extent that if one doesn't condemn the past use of terrorism by Israel to achieve its goals that its hypocritical to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas for the same approach. Fortunately for Israel, condemnation of their past practices cannot deprive them of their current "legitimate," means whereas if condemnation alone could put a stop to anything (and of course it cannot) Hezbollah and Hamas would be weaponless.
In any case Hezbollah and Hamas are not fighting Israel of the 1940's, they are fighting Israel of 2006. The question is not what a group of Israeli radicals did 60 years ago, it's what the State of Israel is doing now.
You are quite wrong in one regard, Israel is not using the weapons and tactics available to it with the same ferocity as Hezbollah. If they were, the south of Lebanon would be a large simmering crater.
There is also the point that I believe Lash addressed to you. Notwithstanding the truth or lack thereof of Gunga's claim concerning the Israeli attack of this morning, it is pretty clear that Hezbollah is using Lebanese civilians and UN monitoring posts as shields. It's difficult to imagine that they are not fully aware of the potential consequences of this tactic, and therefore I think its fair to conclude that they find a dual benefit is using human shields:
1- Making it more difficult for Israel to target them
2- Providing them with all important propaganda when civilians are killed in the effort to strike at them.
This is a particularly cynical and heartless tactic which I doubt anyone can accuse Menachim Begin of employing.
This morning's tragedy could quite possibly change the course of this war. The US is now very hard pressed to resist calls for it to pressure Israel into a cease-fire.
It goes without saying that a cease-fire at this time is a victory for Hezbollah, and it's fairly clear that they do not have the offensive capabilities to force Israel to seek cessation of hostilities. Given these factors, how far fetched is it to suggest that rather than waiting for their civilian shield practice to provide them with the desired tragedy, they engineered one? How large a step is it between deliberately placing civilians in harm's way to deliberately setting them up to be killed?
I don't know that we will ever know the truth if such a thing did transpire. Even if Israel was somehow able to secure proof that it did, the rest of the world would never believe them.
