i call bullshit. if someone wrote a book drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust and didn't correct it you wouldn't just let it slide. especially if that author had previously made a claim that if anyone could find an error in the book they'd pay $10,000 then try and weasel out of it.
his book is disnfo. people will pick up his book and see the much lower numbers and take it as fact.
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
You'd have to ask Professor Novick. And as for Benny Morris, he's widely regarded as one of the foremost historians on the Israeli-Arab conflict, and I've even seen you quote him. I'd hardly say that's scraping the bottom of the barrel. Just because his politics are no longer as far left as they used to be (clearly to your great disappointment), does not mean that he is any less of a thorough and diligent scholar.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
i call bullshit. if someone wrote a book drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust and didn't correct it you wouldn't just let it slide. especially if that author had previously made a claim that if anyone could find an error in the book they'd pay $10,000 then try and weasel out of it.
his book is disnfo. people will pick up his book and see the much lower numbers and take it as fact.
Your focusing on just one problem with the book Pepe. There were hundreds. The book was carefully analyzed and shown to be a massive fraud, largely plagiarized from another fraud written by Joan Peters.
You'd have to ask Professor Novick. And as for Benny Morris, he's widely regarded as one of the foremost historians on the Israeli-Arab conflict, and I've even seen you quote him. I'd hardly say that's scraping the bottom of the barrel. Just because his politics are no longer as far left as they used to be (clearly to your great disappointment), does not mean that he is any less of a thorough and diligent scholar.
So you'll throw out accusations from another author and are unwilling to back those accusations up with any sort of proof when pressed on it? And here you were earlier bragging about how you like to rub shoulders with Professors. You can't have learned much from them.
i call bullshit. if someone wrote a book drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust and didn't correct it you wouldn't just let it slide. especially if that author had previously made a claim that if anyone could find an error in the book they'd pay $10,000 then try and weasel out of it.
his book is disnfo. people will pick up his book and see the much lower numbers and take it as fact.
Your focusing on just one problem with the book Pepe. There were hundreds. The book was carefully analyzed and shown to be a massive fraud, largely plagiarized from another fraud written by Joan Peters.
oh, i know, but the drastically reducing the number of palesinians displaced is a lot harder to dance around. and if such a thing were done in a book written by michael moore or somebody drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust people would be going crazy and yet there sits dershowitz's book on shelves for sale.....
since yosi wants to discuss if finkelstein is a 'scholar' or not i think it's only fair to scrutinize dershowitz, who he used as a source to discredit finkelstein.
can anyone point to something similar finkelstein has done? does finkelstein have incorrect figures in any of his books?
but dershowitz has no interest in it because he has no ethics as proven by the fraud of a book he copied and put out, his refusal to do what he said in regards to 'if anyone can find an error in this book i'll pay them $10,000', his defense of oj simpson.....
it's clear to anyone who's seen him debate finkelstein or chomsky
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
oh, i know, but the drastically reducing the number of palesinians displaced is a lot harder to dance around. and if such a thing were done in a book written by michael moore or somebody drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust people would be going crazy and yet there sits dershowitz's book on shelves for sale.....
since yosi wants to discuss if finkelstein is a 'scholar' or not i think it's only fair to scrutinize dershowitz, who he used as a source to discredit finkelstein.
can anyone point to something similar finkelstein has done? does finkelstein have incorrect figures in any of his books?
but dershowitz has no interest in it because he has no ethics as proven by the fraud of a book he copied and put out, his refusal to do what he said in regards to 'if anyone can find an error in this book i'll pay them $10,000', his defense of oj simpson.....
it's clear to anyone who's seen him debate finkelstein or chomsky
You can find plenty more shit to chuck at Dershowitz than just his fraud of a book though.
Have a look around using Google and check out what went on between him and Chomsky some time back when Chomsky exposed him as a liar.
"Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."
I don't hear you condemning him.
"Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here."
in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."
We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.
"A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."
There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.
"If you expected me to burst into tears, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that."
So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?
"I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don't think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn't have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being."
You do not condemn them morally?
"No."
They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.
"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."
And that was the situation in 1948?
"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."
As for the Jews facing a genocide from the Arabs, that's just pure guff which attempts to turn reality on it's head, as the following article makes clear:
I see, so what you're saying is that you respect Benny Morris when he's useful for your argument, but think he's a brain-dead lunatic when he doesn't. Again, you can't have it both ways. Either the guy knows what he's talking about or he doesn't, and quite frankly I'm going to take Benny Morris's word on the history, cause I know of few people who have spent more time studying it, or who know it better.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Nothing Left
What's with the lovefest for Hezbollah?
Michael Young | February 28, 2008
When Hezbollah official Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated earlier this month in Damascus, the collateral damage was felt in academic departments, newsrooms, think tanks, and cafes far and wide. That's because it quickly became apparent how wrong many of the alleged "experts" writing about the militant Shiite organization had been.
At Mughniyeh's funeral, Hezbollah leaders placed him in a trinity of party heroes "martyred" at Israeli hands. The secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, vowed "open war" against Israel in retaliation. Tens of thousands of people attended the ceremony, and for days Hezbollah received condolences. Iranian officials stepped over each other to condemn the assassination, many of them affirming that Israel's demise was inevitable. In the midst of all this one thing was plain: Mughniyeh was a highly significant figure in Hezbollah, and the party didn't hide it.
And yet over the years, an embarrassing number of writers and academics with some access to Hezbollah dutifully relayed what party cadres had told them about Mughniyeh: He was unimportant and may even have been a figment of our imagination. It was understandable that Hezbollah would blur the trail of so vital an official, but how could those writing about the party swallow this line without pursuing the numerous sources that could confirm details of Mughniyeh's past? Their fault was laziness, and at times tendentiousness.
Hezbollah is adept at turning contacts with the party into valuable favors. Writers and scholars, particularly Westerners, who lay claim to Hezbollah sources, are regarded as special for penetrating so closed a society. That's why their writing is often edited with minimal rigor. Hezbollah always denied everything that was said about Mughniyeh, and few authors (or editors) showed the curiosity to push further than that. The mere fact of getting such a denial was considered an achievement in itself, a sign of rare access, and no one was about to jeopardize that access by calling Hezbollah liars.
But there was more here than just manipulation. The Mughniyeh affair highlights a deeper problem long obvious to those who follow Hezbollah: The party, though it is religious, autocratic, and armed to the teeth, often elicits approval from secular, liberal Westerners who otherwise share nothing of its values. This reaction, in its more extreme forms, is reflected in the way many on the far left have embraced Hezbollah's militancy, but also that of other Islamist groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad—thoroughly undermining their ideological principles in the process.
The primary emotion driving together the far-left and militant Islamists, but also frequently prompting secular liberals to applaud armed Islamic groups as well, is hostility toward the United States, toward Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, and, more broadly, toward what is seen as Western-dominated, capitalist-driven globalization.
Fred Halliday, himself a man of the left, wrote scathingly of the dangers in the accommodation between Islamists and the left based on a perception of shared anti-imperialism: "All of this is—at least to those with historical awareness, skeptical political intelligence, or merely a long memory—disturbing. This is because its effect is to reinforce one of the most pernicious and inaccurate of all political claims, and one made not by the left but by the imperialist right. It is also one that underlies the U.S.-declared ‘war on terror' and the policies that have resulted from 9/11: namely, that Islamism is a movement aimed against 'the west.'"
A bizarre offshoot of this trend has been the left's elevation of Islamist "resistance" to the level of a fetish. You know something has gone horribly wrong when the writer and academic Norman Finkelstein volunteers to interpret Hezbollah for you, before prefacing his comments with: "I don't care about Hezbollah as a political organization. I don't know much about their politics, and anyhow, it's irrelevant. I don't live in Lebanon."
In a recent interview on Lebanese television, Finkelstein made it a point of expressing his "solidarity" with Hezbollah, on the grounds that "there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question."
It is indeed uncomplicated if you remain mulishly unwilling to move beyond the narrow parameters you've set for discussion. But the reality is that Hezbollah is an immensely complicated question in Lebanon, where a majority of people are at a loss about what to do with a heavily armed organization that has no patience for state authority, that refuses to hand its weapons over to the national army, that is advancing an Iranian and Syrian agenda against the legal Lebanese government, and that functions as a secretive Shiite paramilitary militia in a country where sectarian religious assertiveness often leads to conflict. That many Lebanese should have seen Finkelstein praise what they feel is Hezbollah's most dangerous attributes was surpassed in its capacity to irritate only by the fact that he lectured them on how armed resistance was the sole option against Israel, regardless of the anticipated destruction, "unless you choose to be [Israeli] slaves—and many people here have chosen that."
But Finkelstein is no worse than Noam Chomsky, or that clutter of "progressive" academics and intellectuals who, at the height of the carnage during the 2006 Lebanon war, signed on to a petition declaring their "conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance," described resistance as "an intellectual act par excellence" and condemned the Lebanese government for having distanced itself from Hezbollah, even though the party had unnecessarily provoked a devastating Israeli military onslaught that led to the death of over 1,200 people.
This behavior comes full circle especially for the revolutionary fringe on the left, which seems invariably to find its way back to violence. In the same way that Finkelstein can compare Hezbollah admiringly to the Soviet Red Army and the communist resistance during World War II ("it was brutal, it was ruthless"), he sees in resistance a quasi-religious act that brooks no challenge, even from its likely victims. What is so odd in Finkelstein and those like him is that the universalism and humanism at the heart of the left's view of itself has evaporated, to be replaced by categorical imperatives usually associated with the extreme right: blood; honor; solidarity; and the defense of near-hallowed land.
Blind faith in the service of total principle is what makes those like Finkelstein and Chomsky so vile. But their posturing is made possible because of the less ardent secular liberal publicists out there who surrender to the narratives that Islamists such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or others peddle to them—lending them legitimacy. That's because modern scholarship, like liberalism itself, refuses to impose Western cultural standards on non-Westerners. Fine. But as the Mughniyeh case shows, when Islamists dominate the debate affecting them, there are plenty of fools out there dying to be tossed a bone.
reason contributing editor Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
A bizarre offshoot of this trend has been the left's elevation of Islamist "resistance" to the level of a fetish. You know something has gone horribly wrong when the writer and academic Norman Finkelstein volunteers to interpret Hezbollah for you, before prefacing his comments with: "I don't care about Hezbollah as a political organization. I don't know much about their politics, and anyhow, it's irrelevant. I don't live in Lebanon."
In a recent interview on Lebanese television, Finkelstein made it a point of expressing his "solidarity" with Hezbollah, on the grounds that "there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question."
It is indeed uncomplicated if you remain mulishly unwilling to move beyond the narrow parameters you've set for discussion. But the reality is that Hezbollah is an immensely complicated question in Lebanon, where a majority of people are at a loss about what to do with a heavily armed organization that has no patience for state authority, that refuses to hand its weapons over to the national army, that is advancing an Iranian and Syrian agenda against the legal Lebanese government, and that functions as a secretive Shiite paramilitary militia in a country where sectarian religious assertiveness often leads to conflict. That many Lebanese should have seen Finkelstein praise what they feel is Hezbollah's most dangerous attributes was surpassed in its capacity to irritate only by the fact that he lectured them on how armed resistance was the sole option against Israel, regardless of the anticipated destruction, "unless you choose to be [Israeli] slaves—and many people here have chosen that."
But Finkelstein is no worse than Noam Chomsky, or that clutter of "progressive" academics and intellectuals who, at the height of the carnage during the 2006 Lebanon war, signed on to a petition declaring their "conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance," described resistance as "an intellectual act par excellence" and condemned the Lebanese government for having distanced itself from Hezbollah, even though the party had unnecessarily provoked a devastating Israeli military onslaught that led to the death of over 1,200 people.
This behavior comes full circle especially for the revolutionary fringe on the left, which seems invariably to find its way back to violence. In the same way that Finkelstein can compare Hezbollah admiringly to the Soviet Red Army and the communist resistance during World War II ("it was brutal, it was ruthless"), he sees in resistance a quasi-religious act that brooks no challenge, even from its likely victims. What is so odd in Finkelstein and those like him is that the universalism and humanism at the heart of the left's view of itself has evaporated, to be replaced by categorical imperatives usually associated with the extreme right: blood; honor; solidarity; and the defense of near-hallowed land.
Blind faith in the service of total principle is what makes those like Finkelstein and Chomsky so vile. But their posturing is made possible because of the less ardent secular liberal publicists out there who surrender to the narratives that Islamists such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or others peddle to them—lending them legitimacy. That's because modern scholarship, like liberalism itself, refuses to impose Western cultural standards on non-Westerners. Fine. But as the Mughniyeh case shows, when Islamists dominate the debate affecting them, there are plenty of fools out there dying to be tossed a bone.
reason contributing editor Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon
So, 'Hezbollah is an immensely complicated question in Lebanon'? Maybe, and so what? How does this detract from the fact that the Lebanese people had a right to defend themselves against an Israeli attack on the civilian population of Lebanon that left over 1000 civilians dead?
As for 'a heavily armed organization that has no patience for state authority, that refuses to hand its weapons over to the national army...and that functions as a secretive paramilitary militia in a country where sectarian religious assertiveness often leads to conflict'...how do they differ from the Israeli settler movement?
When I read that Hezbollah 'had unnecessarily provoked a devastating Israeli military onslaught that led to the death of over 1,200 people' I can see why you like the author of this article. He fits perfectly within your topsy-turvy world, where black is white, and up is down. Say hello to the Mad Hatter for me!
So if Hezbollah had not provoked Israel, that war still would have happened? I don't follow that logic, Byrnzie. Seems like rather basic cause and effect. I wouldn't hold Hezbollah responsible for Israel's carpet bombing of populated areas, but I'd lay the responsibility for the war itself at the feet of those who provoked it.
So if Hezbollah had not provoked Israel, that war still would have happened? I don't follow that logic, Byrnzie.
Why? What do you know of the circumstances that led to the war? Go ahead and enlighten us to the massive provocation that justified Israel bombing the towns and cities of Lebanon and killing over 1000 civilians.
So if Hezbollah had not provoked Israel, that war still would have happened? I don't follow that logic, Byrnzie.
Why? What do you know of the circumstances that led to the war? Go ahead and enlighten us to the massive provocation that justified Israel bombing the towns and cities of Lebanon and killing over 1000 civilians.
Well, as I stated previously, I am not justifying the en masse bombing of Lebanese towns. I AM saying that provoking the IDF by capturing a couple of their soldiers backfired pretty damn horribly, and my understanding is that many Lebanese also feel this way. What good could have come of poking the bear, in this instance?
The Lebanese Prime Minister, Faoud Siniora, has said that ‘the gates of hell have been opened up in Lebanon’ — and it’s difficult to disagree. But what has not been so widely reported is that while officials will blame Israel for the misery and chaos, a substantial number of Lebanese — in some cases, ironically, the officials themselves — have a more nuanced view. Of course the people here are angry and anxious about the possibility of a widening of the Israeli attacks, but their rage, as they see the country being taken apart, is often directed against Hezbollah.
The Lebanese people have watched as Hezbollah has built up a heavily armed state-within-a-state that has now carried the country into a devastating conflict it cannot win and many are fed up. Sunni Muslims, Christians and the Druze have no desire to pay for the martial vanity of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Nor will they take kindly to his transforming the devastation into a political victory.
Some even welcome Israel’s intervention. As one Lebanese politician said to me in private (but would never dare say in public) Israel must not stop now. It sounds cynical, he said, but ‘for things to get better in Lebanon, Nasrallah must be weakened further’.
Even some Shiites are beginning to have doubts about Nasrallah. If interviewed on television they will praise Hezbollah, but when the cameras are off, there are those who will suddenly become more critical. Many have had to flee, leaving behind their homes and possessions with no hope of recovering anything of any worth.
So if Hezbollah had not provoked Israel, that war still would have happened? I don't follow that logic, Byrnzie.
Why? What do you know of the circumstances that led to the war? Go ahead and enlighten us to the massive provocation that justified Israel bombing the towns and cities of Lebanon and killing over 1000 civilians.
Well, as I stated previously, I am not justifying the en masse bombing of Lebanese towns. I AM saying that provoking the IDF by capturing a couple of their soldiers backfired pretty damn horribly, and my understanding is that many Lebanese also feel this way. What good could have come of poking the bear, in this instance?
So they provoked the war by capturing two soldiers? And that's justification enough for you is it?
Meanwhile, here's what Chomsky had to say about this provocation which you think was the sole reason behind the massacre of 1000 civilians:
http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky08162006.html Recall the facts. On June 25, Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured at an army post near Gaza, eliciting huge cries of outrage worldwide, continuing daily at a high pitch, and a sharp escalation in Israeli attacks in Gaza. The escalation was supported on the grounds that capture of a soldier is a grave crime for which the population must be punished. One day before, on June 24, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, Osama and Mustafa Muamar, by any standards a far more severe crime than capture of a soldier. The Muamar kidnappings were certainly known to the major world media. They were reported at once in the English-language Israeli press (Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz English edition, June 25), basically IDF handouts. And there were indeed a few brief, scattered and dismissive reports in several newspapers around the US; the only serious news report in English that day was in the Turkish press. Very revealingly, there was no comment, no follow-up, no call for military or terrorist attacks against Israel. A google search will quickly reveal the relative significance in the West of the kidnapping of civilians by the IDF and the capture of an Israeli soldier a day later.
The paired events, a day apart, demonstrate with bitter clarity that the show of outrage over the Shalit kidnapping was cynical fraud. They reveal that by Western moral standards, kidnapping of civilians is just fine if it is done by "our side," but capture of a soldier on "our side" a day later is a despicable crime that requires severe punishment of the population. As Gideon Levy accurately wrote in Ha'aretz, the IDF kidnapping of civilians the day before the capture of Cpl. Shalit strips away any "legitimate basis for the IDF's operation," and, we may add, any legitimate basis for support for these operations. The same assessment carries over to the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border, heightened, in this case, by the (null) reaction to the regular Israeli practice for many years of abducting Lebanese and holding many as hostages for long periods, and of course killing many Lebanese. No one ever argued that these crimes justified bombing and shelling of Israel, invasion and destruction of much of the country, or terrorist actions within it. The conclusions are stark, clear, and entirely unambiguous.
All of this is, obviously, of extraordinary importance in the present case, particularly given the dramatic timing. That is, I suppose, why the major media chose to avoid the crucial facts, apart from a very few scattered and dismissive phrases.
Apologists for state crimes claim that the kidnapping of the Gaza civilians is justified by IDF claims that they are "Hamas militants" or were planning crimes. By their logic, they should therefore be lauding the capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier in an army that was (uncontroversially) shelling and bombing Gaza. These performances are truly disgraceful.
Still waiting for someone to find where I justified Lebanese civilian deaths.
You say Israel was provoked. This implies that the attack on Lebanon was the response to a provocation. The article we were discussing suggested that the killing of 1000 civilians was Hezbollah's fault. I didn't hear you contest that statement.
explain: to account for, to highlight causal influences
......................... There is a big difference between excusing Israel's actions in Lebanon and holding Hezbollah accountable for the role they played by way of explanation. And all the Chomsky quotes in the world do not change the basic likelihood that there would have been no full-scale war in the absence of provocation. Could Israel have fought a much cleaner war, or no war at all? Absolutely. But that's a direct reference to Israel's role in this, and Hezbollah's provocation of Israel still looms large as a key factor, even as one holds Israel accountable for civilian deaths. Israel does these things in a complete vacuum? Also, Chomsky is a master at "two wrongs make a right" logic, which renders him difficult to take seriously. He evokes kidnappings of Gaza civilians, as if this somehow JUSTIFIES Hezbollah actions with regard to Shalit.
all the Chomsky quotes in the world do not change the basic likelihood that there would have been no full-scale war in the absence of provocation.
Really? You think so?
And I suppose the same could be said of the massacre in Gaza a year ago, right? If we remove some inconvenient facts such as how the bombardment of Gaza had been planned 6 months in advance, and the inconvenient fact of Israel's breaking of the ceasefire agreement on November 4th 2008.
He evokes kidnappings of Gaza civilians, as if this somehow JUSTIFIES Hezbollah actions with regard to Shalit.
Except he said nothing of any justification for the Shalit kidnapping. He was looking at the bigger picture. If you honestly think that Israel conducted a full-scale military assault on Lebanon over the kidnapping of one soldier then we really are in Alice in Wonderland territory here.
Except he said nothing of any justification for the Shalit kidnapping. He was looking at the bigger picture. If you honestly think that Israel conducted a full-scale military assault on Lebanon over the kidnapping of one soldier then we really are in Alice in Wonderland territory here.
So, in the interests of keeping an open mind, what evidence suggests that Israel's invasion had NOTHING to do with the kidnapping? And evidence is not Chomsky's opinion, evidence is some valid documentation or other tangible proof that the Lebanon war was caused by factors that had nothing to do with Shalit. Oh, and we're not talking about Gaza right now, or are we? I'm confused.
And all the Chomsky quotes in the world do not change the basic likelihood that there would have been no full-scale war in the absence of provocation.
Oh dear, look at this inconvenient truth I just found...You could have found this just as easily. Why is it always left to me to do the fucking work around here?
· Olmert's leaked testimony contradicts earlier remarks
· Criticism from inquiry may force resignation
* Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv
* The Guardian, Friday 9 March 2007
Preparations for Israel's war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at least four months before two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbullah in July, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has admitted.
His submission to a commission of inquiry, leaked yesterday, contradicted the impression at the time that Israel was provoked into a battle for which it was ill-prepared. Mr Olmert told the Winograd commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel's perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in March.
According to the Ha'aretz daily, which obtained details of Mr Olmert's testimony, the prime minister chose a plan featuring air attacks on Lebanon and a limited ground operation that would be implemented following a Hizbullah abduction. Hizbullah had made several attempts to capture Israeli soldiers on the border since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Israeli commentators believed that Mr Olmert and Amir Peretz, the defence minister, took the opportunity of the kidnapping to show they could manage a war in spite of their limited military experience. But the outcome of the war seemed to highlight their lack of experience and also deficiencies in Israel's military planning.
The commission's interim report is expected to be delivered by the end of the month. It was appointed by the government but if it were critical of Mr Olmert, it would be unlikely he could continue in office.
Shmuel Sandler, a political analyst, said it seemed that people close to Mr Olmert had leaked his submission, made on February 1, in an attempt to increase his popularity. In an opinion poll published this week, only 3% of Israeli voters said they would back Mr Olmert in an election, while 72% said he should resign.
Zalman Shoval of the Likud party said Mr Olmert's testimony cast his decisions in a worse light that before. "If he had prepared plans, then to any objective commentator this makes the situation worse," he said. "Why were the plans not carried out? It all also places a darker complexion on his decision to expand ground operations which led to the loss of 33 more Israeli lives."
On July 12, Hizbullah fighters abducted Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, both Israeli reservists, in an incident on the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel responded by launching air strikes on southern Lebanon before attacking other areas. Hizbullah began firing hundreds of rockets at northern Israel.
Mr Olmert said at the time that Israel went to war to force the return of the soldiers, eliminate Hizbullah's rocket supplies and push the militia north of the Litani river in southern Lebanon.
Israeli forces launched several ground operations, which met strong resistance. Troops had difficulty in moving supplies and troops around the battlefield because of Hizbullah's deployment of anti-tank weapons. After a final offensive in which Israel lost 33 soldiers, the government agreed a ceasefire without having achieved its objectives. In the fighting 1,200 Lebanese and 158 Israelis were killed. Of the dead almost 1,000 Lebanese and 41 Israelis were civilians.
Mr Olmert told the committee that he had ordered the final offensive to put pressure on the UN security council to improve the wording of the ceasefire in Israel's favour.
The war raised major concerns in Israel about the quality of preparations. Bomb shelters were badly maintained and many reservists found inadequate supplies at their depots. Many suggested that the army had become accustomed to fighting the ill-equipped Palestinians and was not prepared for Hizbullah's expertise.
Since the war, Mr Olmert has been fighting for his political survival. He has been battered by scandals involving himself and close colleagues and is subject to a series of inquiries into his competence and probity.
OK, so this article 1) clearly states that Israel "took the opportunity of the kidnapping" to launch the war, and 2) also states that Israel was, and I quote, "provoked". That's what I was arguing. Israel drew up plans, but needed Hezbollah to give them the reason to execute the plans. No Hezbollah provocation (your article, Brynzie), no enactment of said plans.
OK, so this article 1) clearly states that Israel "took the opportunity of the kidnapping" to launch the war, and 2) also states that Israel was, and I quote, "provoked". That's what I was arguing. Israel drew up plans, but needed Hezbollah to give them the reason to execute the plans. No Hezbollah provocation (your article, Brynzie), no enactment of said plans.
It wasn't a provocation, it was a pretext.
This article says the attack on Lebanon was planned a year in advance:
'Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.
Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University: "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."
More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified...'
OK, so this article 1) clearly states that Israel "took the opportunity of the kidnapping" to launch the war, and 2) also states that Israel was, and I quote, "provoked". That's what I was arguing. Israel drew up plans, but needed Hezbollah to give them the reason to execute the plans. No Hezbollah provocation (your article, Brynzie), no enactment of said plans.
It wasn't a provocation, it was a pretext.
Well, I cannot prove that Israel would NOT have invaded Lebanon, with 100% certainly, in the absence of Hezbollah attacks ... Nor can you prove that they would have. I think its safe to conclude that the poor Israeli showing (by the Israeli's own standards) in the war had a lot to do with rushing into Lebanon to flex muscle, such that the brain got left behind.
There is of course the fact that countries are planning for wars all the time, whether or not they are actually thinking about starting one. I'm sure at this very moment somewhere deep in the Pentagon there are American military planners figuring out how the U.S would fight a war with Russia, or China, or Bangladesh, or whomever. That doesn't mean that four months from now the U.S. will be at war with any of these countries. Is it really surprising that Israel would have planned ahead on how to fight a war against Hezbollah, a clear enemy sitting right on top of their northern border?
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
There is of course the fact that countries are planning for wars all the time, whether or not they are actually thinking about starting one. I'm sure at this very moment somewhere deep in the Pentagon there are American military planners figuring out how the U.S would fight a war with Russia, or China, or Bangladesh, or whomever. That doesn't mean that four months from now the U.S. will be at war with any of these countries. Is it really surprising that Israel would have planned ahead on how to fight a war against Hezbollah, a clear enemy sitting right on top of their northern border?
Seems pretty straightforward to me:
'Mr Olmert told the Winograd commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel's perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in March.'
But then this clearly would never be proof enough for you would it Yosi? You prefer to dismiss such reports and instead rely on 'nuance' to excuse Israel and claim that all countries prepare for war all the time. Because, of course, despite one year of planning to attack Lebanon, Israel had no intention of attacking Lebanon until the kidnapping of a soldier.
Does the existence of these plans somehow prove that an attack WILL happen, with 100% certainty? Or is the US just, you know, drawing up plans for a possible scenario?
Does the existence of these plans somehow prove that an attack WILL happen, with 100% certainty? Or is the US just, you know, drawing up plans for a possible scenario?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6376639.stm 'BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack [on Iran]reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran...'
Maybe we can focus on the difference between contingency plans based on the possibility of an attack by Iran, and on a planned attack, carried out to the letter, and executed on the basis of a soldier being kidnapped? Since when is the kidnapping of a soldier a legitimate pretext for a war?
There's a big difference between a high-casualty attack on your own forces, and the kidnapping of a soldier.
Anyway, I don't why I'm wasting my time explaining this. These debates have mostly become debates for the sheer sake of it. I actually don't think that you yourself believe what you're saying. Quite, frankly, this all bullshit.
The kidnapping of a soldier is legitimate cause for war because it is an act of war. Hezbollah violated Israel's border and attacked Israel's armed forces. How is this NOT an act of war?!
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Anyway, I don't why I'm wasting my time explaining this. These debates have mostly become debates for the sheer sake of it. I actually don't think that you yourself believe what you're saying. Quite, frankly, this all bullshit.
Well, you were just haranguing me for not debating with you directly (which is horseshit, considering we've both been here for years), and now we go and and forth for a bit and you take your toys and go home? Yes, I believe what I am saying. The kidnapping was a trigger for the war. How is that such a stretch? First off, kidnapping soldiers is a direct act of war. I'm sure you and Noam would both say the same thing about Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories to snatch militants. Secondly, what sense does it make to argue that Hezbollah is some sort of sideshow or pretext for Israeli aggression and nothing more? Hezbollah is a well-equipped force that Israel has viewed as a threat for years now. Sure, there's a difference between a nuclear strike and a cross-border raid. But in either case, you plan for contingencies. The plans themselves are not de facto proof that war is a certainty.
The kidnapping of a soldier is legitimate cause for war because it is an act of war. Hezbollah violated Israel's border and attacked Israel's armed forces. How is this NOT an act of war?!
Was the kidnapping of two Palestinians the day before also an act of war? And I'm not asking for your opinion, because I'm not interested in opinions. Maybe you can provide the legal definition of what constitutes an act of war?
Comments
i call bullshit. if someone wrote a book drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust and didn't correct it you wouldn't just let it slide. especially if that author had previously made a claim that if anyone could find an error in the book they'd pay $10,000 then try and weasel out of it.
his book is disnfo. people will pick up his book and see the much lower numbers and take it as fact.
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Your focusing on just one problem with the book Pepe. There were hundreds. The book was carefully analyzed and shown to be a massive fraud, largely plagiarized from another fraud written by Joan Peters.
So you'll throw out accusations from another author and are unwilling to back those accusations up with any sort of proof when pressed on it? And here you were earlier bragging about how you like to rub shoulders with Professors. You can't have learned much from them.
oh, i know, but the drastically reducing the number of palesinians displaced is a lot harder to dance around. and if such a thing were done in a book written by michael moore or somebody drastically reducing the number of jews killed in the holocaust people would be going crazy and yet there sits dershowitz's book on shelves for sale.....
since yosi wants to discuss if finkelstein is a 'scholar' or not i think it's only fair to scrutinize dershowitz, who he used as a source to discredit finkelstein.
can anyone point to something similar finkelstein has done? does finkelstein have incorrect figures in any of his books?
but dershowitz has no interest in it because he has no ethics as proven by the fraud of a book he copied and put out, his refusal to do what he said in regards to 'if anyone can find an error in this book i'll pay them $10,000', his defense of oj simpson.....
it's clear to anyone who's seen him debate finkelstein or chomsky
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
You can find plenty more shit to chuck at Dershowitz than just his fraud of a book though.
Have a look around using Google and check out what went on between him and Chomsky some time back when Chomsky exposed him as a liar.
That's right, and I'll quote him again now:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShAr ... mNo=380984
Ben-Gurion was a "transferist"?
"Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."
I don't hear you condemning him.
"Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here."
in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."
We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.
"A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."
There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.
"If you expected me to burst into tears, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that."
So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?
"I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don't think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn't have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being."
You do not condemn them morally?
"No."
They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.
"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."
And that was the situation in 1948?
"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."
........................................................................................................................
As for the Jews facing a genocide from the Arabs, that's just pure guff which attempts to turn reality on it's head, as the following article makes clear:
http://www.counterpunch.org/martin03112005.html
March 11, 2005
Who is Pushing Whom into the Sea?
By WILLIAM MARTIN
What's with the lovefest for Hezbollah?
Michael Young | February 28, 2008
When Hezbollah official Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated earlier this month in Damascus, the collateral damage was felt in academic departments, newsrooms, think tanks, and cafes far and wide. That's because it quickly became apparent how wrong many of the alleged "experts" writing about the militant Shiite organization had been.
At Mughniyeh's funeral, Hezbollah leaders placed him in a trinity of party heroes "martyred" at Israeli hands. The secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, vowed "open war" against Israel in retaliation. Tens of thousands of people attended the ceremony, and for days Hezbollah received condolences. Iranian officials stepped over each other to condemn the assassination, many of them affirming that Israel's demise was inevitable. In the midst of all this one thing was plain: Mughniyeh was a highly significant figure in Hezbollah, and the party didn't hide it.
And yet over the years, an embarrassing number of writers and academics with some access to Hezbollah dutifully relayed what party cadres had told them about Mughniyeh: He was unimportant and may even have been a figment of our imagination. It was understandable that Hezbollah would blur the trail of so vital an official, but how could those writing about the party swallow this line without pursuing the numerous sources that could confirm details of Mughniyeh's past? Their fault was laziness, and at times tendentiousness.
Hezbollah is adept at turning contacts with the party into valuable favors. Writers and scholars, particularly Westerners, who lay claim to Hezbollah sources, are regarded as special for penetrating so closed a society. That's why their writing is often edited with minimal rigor. Hezbollah always denied everything that was said about Mughniyeh, and few authors (or editors) showed the curiosity to push further than that. The mere fact of getting such a denial was considered an achievement in itself, a sign of rare access, and no one was about to jeopardize that access by calling Hezbollah liars.
But there was more here than just manipulation. The Mughniyeh affair highlights a deeper problem long obvious to those who follow Hezbollah: The party, though it is religious, autocratic, and armed to the teeth, often elicits approval from secular, liberal Westerners who otherwise share nothing of its values. This reaction, in its more extreme forms, is reflected in the way many on the far left have embraced Hezbollah's militancy, but also that of other Islamist groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad—thoroughly undermining their ideological principles in the process.
The primary emotion driving together the far-left and militant Islamists, but also frequently prompting secular liberals to applaud armed Islamic groups as well, is hostility toward the United States, toward Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, and, more broadly, toward what is seen as Western-dominated, capitalist-driven globalization.
Fred Halliday, himself a man of the left, wrote scathingly of the dangers in the accommodation between Islamists and the left based on a perception of shared anti-imperialism: "All of this is—at least to those with historical awareness, skeptical political intelligence, or merely a long memory—disturbing. This is because its effect is to reinforce one of the most pernicious and inaccurate of all political claims, and one made not by the left but by the imperialist right. It is also one that underlies the U.S.-declared ‘war on terror' and the policies that have resulted from 9/11: namely, that Islamism is a movement aimed against 'the west.'"
A bizarre offshoot of this trend has been the left's elevation of Islamist "resistance" to the level of a fetish. You know something has gone horribly wrong when the writer and academic Norman Finkelstein volunteers to interpret Hezbollah for you, before prefacing his comments with: "I don't care about Hezbollah as a political organization. I don't know much about their politics, and anyhow, it's irrelevant. I don't live in Lebanon."
In a recent interview on Lebanese television, Finkelstein made it a point of expressing his "solidarity" with Hezbollah, on the grounds that "there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question."
It is indeed uncomplicated if you remain mulishly unwilling to move beyond the narrow parameters you've set for discussion. But the reality is that Hezbollah is an immensely complicated question in Lebanon, where a majority of people are at a loss about what to do with a heavily armed organization that has no patience for state authority, that refuses to hand its weapons over to the national army, that is advancing an Iranian and Syrian agenda against the legal Lebanese government, and that functions as a secretive Shiite paramilitary militia in a country where sectarian religious assertiveness often leads to conflict. That many Lebanese should have seen Finkelstein praise what they feel is Hezbollah's most dangerous attributes was surpassed in its capacity to irritate only by the fact that he lectured them on how armed resistance was the sole option against Israel, regardless of the anticipated destruction, "unless you choose to be [Israeli] slaves—and many people here have chosen that."
But Finkelstein is no worse than Noam Chomsky, or that clutter of "progressive" academics and intellectuals who, at the height of the carnage during the 2006 Lebanon war, signed on to a petition declaring their "conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance," described resistance as "an intellectual act par excellence" and condemned the Lebanese government for having distanced itself from Hezbollah, even though the party had unnecessarily provoked a devastating Israeli military onslaught that led to the death of over 1,200 people.
This behavior comes full circle especially for the revolutionary fringe on the left, which seems invariably to find its way back to violence. In the same way that Finkelstein can compare Hezbollah admiringly to the Soviet Red Army and the communist resistance during World War II ("it was brutal, it was ruthless"), he sees in resistance a quasi-religious act that brooks no challenge, even from its likely victims. What is so odd in Finkelstein and those like him is that the universalism and humanism at the heart of the left's view of itself has evaporated, to be replaced by categorical imperatives usually associated with the extreme right: blood; honor; solidarity; and the defense of near-hallowed land.
Blind faith in the service of total principle is what makes those like Finkelstein and Chomsky so vile. But their posturing is made possible because of the less ardent secular liberal publicists out there who surrender to the narratives that Islamists such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or others peddle to them—lending them legitimacy. That's because modern scholarship, like liberalism itself, refuses to impose Western cultural standards on non-Westerners. Fine. But as the Mughniyeh case shows, when Islamists dominate the debate affecting them, there are plenty of fools out there dying to be tossed a bone.
reason contributing editor Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon
So, 'Hezbollah is an immensely complicated question in Lebanon'? Maybe, and so what? How does this detract from the fact that the Lebanese people had a right to defend themselves against an Israeli attack on the civilian population of Lebanon that left over 1000 civilians dead?
As for 'a heavily armed organization that has no patience for state authority, that refuses to hand its weapons over to the national army...and that functions as a secretive paramilitary militia in a country where sectarian religious assertiveness often leads to conflict'...how do they differ from the Israeli settler movement?
When I read that Hezbollah 'had unnecessarily provoked a devastating Israeli military onslaught that led to the death of over 1,200 people' I can see why you like the author of this article. He fits perfectly within your topsy-turvy world, where black is white, and up is down. Say hello to the Mad Hatter for me!
Your article is a joke.
Why? What do you know of the circumstances that led to the war? Go ahead and enlighten us to the massive provocation that justified Israel bombing the towns and cities of Lebanon and killing over 1000 civilians.
Well, as I stated previously, I am not justifying the en masse bombing of Lebanese towns. I AM saying that provoking the IDF by capturing a couple of their soldiers backfired pretty damn horribly, and my understanding is that many Lebanese also feel this way. What good could have come of poking the bear, in this instance?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/2 ... llah.thtml
The Lebanese Prime Minister, Faoud Siniora, has said that ‘the gates of hell have been opened up in Lebanon’ — and it’s difficult to disagree. But what has not been so widely reported is that while officials will blame Israel for the misery and chaos, a substantial number of Lebanese — in some cases, ironically, the officials themselves — have a more nuanced view. Of course the people here are angry and anxious about the possibility of a widening of the Israeli attacks, but their rage, as they see the country being taken apart, is often directed against Hezbollah.
The Lebanese people have watched as Hezbollah has built up a heavily armed state-within-a-state that has now carried the country into a devastating conflict it cannot win and many are fed up. Sunni Muslims, Christians and the Druze have no desire to pay for the martial vanity of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Nor will they take kindly to his transforming the devastation into a political victory.
Some even welcome Israel’s intervention. As one Lebanese politician said to me in private (but would never dare say in public) Israel must not stop now. It sounds cynical, he said, but ‘for things to get better in Lebanon, Nasrallah must be weakened further’.
Even some Shiites are beginning to have doubts about Nasrallah. If interviewed on television they will praise Hezbollah, but when the cameras are off, there are those who will suddenly become more critical. Many have had to flee, leaving behind their homes and possessions with no hope of recovering anything of any worth.
So they provoked the war by capturing two soldiers? And that's justification enough for you is it?
So why don't we let the man speak for himself?: Norman Finkelstein on Hezbollah and the 2006 Lebanon war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDe65-nF3FQ
Meanwhile, here's what Chomsky had to say about this provocation which you think was the sole reason behind the massacre of 1000 civilians:
http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky08162006.html
Recall the facts. On June 25, Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured at an army post near Gaza, eliciting huge cries of outrage worldwide, continuing daily at a high pitch, and a sharp escalation in Israeli attacks in Gaza. The escalation was supported on the grounds that capture of a soldier is a grave crime for which the population must be punished. One day before, on June 24, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, Osama and Mustafa Muamar, by any standards a far more severe crime than capture of a soldier. The Muamar kidnappings were certainly known to the major world media. They were reported at once in the English-language Israeli press (Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz English edition, June 25), basically IDF handouts. And there were indeed a few brief, scattered and dismissive reports in several newspapers around the US; the only serious news report in English that day was in the Turkish press. Very revealingly, there was no comment, no follow-up, no call for military or terrorist attacks against Israel. A google search will quickly reveal the relative significance in the West of the kidnapping of civilians by the IDF and the capture of an Israeli soldier a day later.
The paired events, a day apart, demonstrate with bitter clarity that the show of outrage over the Shalit kidnapping was cynical fraud. They reveal that by Western moral standards, kidnapping of civilians is just fine if it is done by "our side," but capture of a soldier on "our side" a day later is a despicable crime that requires severe punishment of the population. As Gideon Levy accurately wrote in Ha'aretz, the IDF kidnapping of civilians the day before the capture of Cpl. Shalit strips away any "legitimate basis for the IDF's operation," and, we may add, any legitimate basis for support for these operations. The same assessment carries over to the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border, heightened, in this case, by the (null) reaction to the regular Israeli practice for many years of abducting Lebanese and holding many as hostages for long periods, and of course killing many Lebanese. No one ever argued that these crimes justified bombing and shelling of Israel, invasion and destruction of much of the country, or terrorist actions within it. The conclusions are stark, clear, and entirely unambiguous.
All of this is, obviously, of extraordinary importance in the present case, particularly given the dramatic timing. That is, I suppose, why the major media chose to avoid the crucial facts, apart from a very few scattered and dismissive phrases.
Apologists for state crimes claim that the kidnapping of the Gaza civilians is justified by IDF claims that they are "Hamas militants" or were planning crimes. By their logic, they should therefore be lauding the capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier in an army that was (uncontroversially) shelling and bombing Gaza. These performances are truly disgraceful.
You say Israel was provoked. This implies that the attack on Lebanon was the response to a provocation. The article we were discussing suggested that the killing of 1000 civilians was Hezbollah's fault. I didn't hear you contest that statement.
explain: to account for, to highlight causal influences
......................... There is a big difference between excusing Israel's actions in Lebanon and holding Hezbollah accountable for the role they played by way of explanation. And all the Chomsky quotes in the world do not change the basic likelihood that there would have been no full-scale war in the absence of provocation. Could Israel have fought a much cleaner war, or no war at all? Absolutely. But that's a direct reference to Israel's role in this, and Hezbollah's provocation of Israel still looms large as a key factor, even as one holds Israel accountable for civilian deaths. Israel does these things in a complete vacuum? Also, Chomsky is a master at "two wrongs make a right" logic, which renders him difficult to take seriously. He evokes kidnappings of Gaza civilians, as if this somehow JUSTIFIES Hezbollah actions with regard to Shalit.
Really? You think so?
And I suppose the same could be said of the massacre in Gaza a year ago, right? If we remove some inconvenient facts such as how the bombardment of Gaza had been planned 6 months in advance, and the inconvenient fact of Israel's breaking of the ceasefire agreement on November 4th 2008.
Except he said nothing of any justification for the Shalit kidnapping. He was looking at the bigger picture. If you honestly think that Israel conducted a full-scale military assault on Lebanon over the kidnapping of one soldier then we really are in Alice in Wonderland territory here.
So, in the interests of keeping an open mind, what evidence suggests that Israel's invasion had NOTHING to do with the kidnapping? And evidence is not Chomsky's opinion, evidence is some valid documentation or other tangible proof that the Lebanon war was caused by factors that had nothing to do with Shalit. Oh, and we're not talking about Gaza right now, or are we? I'm confused.
Oh dear, look at this inconvenient truth I just found...You could have found this just as easily. Why is it always left to me to do the fucking work around here?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/ma ... lestinians
Israel planned for Lebanon war months in advance, PM says
· Olmert's leaked testimony contradicts earlier remarks
· Criticism from inquiry may force resignation
* Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv
* The Guardian, Friday 9 March 2007
Preparations for Israel's war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at least four months before two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbullah in July, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has admitted.
His submission to a commission of inquiry, leaked yesterday, contradicted the impression at the time that Israel was provoked into a battle for which it was ill-prepared. Mr Olmert told the Winograd commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel's perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in March.
According to the Ha'aretz daily, which obtained details of Mr Olmert's testimony, the prime minister chose a plan featuring air attacks on Lebanon and a limited ground operation that would be implemented following a Hizbullah abduction. Hizbullah had made several attempts to capture Israeli soldiers on the border since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Israeli commentators believed that Mr Olmert and Amir Peretz, the defence minister, took the opportunity of the kidnapping to show they could manage a war in spite of their limited military experience. But the outcome of the war seemed to highlight their lack of experience and also deficiencies in Israel's military planning.
The commission's interim report is expected to be delivered by the end of the month. It was appointed by the government but if it were critical of Mr Olmert, it would be unlikely he could continue in office.
Shmuel Sandler, a political analyst, said it seemed that people close to Mr Olmert had leaked his submission, made on February 1, in an attempt to increase his popularity. In an opinion poll published this week, only 3% of Israeli voters said they would back Mr Olmert in an election, while 72% said he should resign.
Zalman Shoval of the Likud party said Mr Olmert's testimony cast his decisions in a worse light that before. "If he had prepared plans, then to any objective commentator this makes the situation worse," he said. "Why were the plans not carried out? It all also places a darker complexion on his decision to expand ground operations which led to the loss of 33 more Israeli lives."
On July 12, Hizbullah fighters abducted Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, both Israeli reservists, in an incident on the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel responded by launching air strikes on southern Lebanon before attacking other areas. Hizbullah began firing hundreds of rockets at northern Israel.
Mr Olmert said at the time that Israel went to war to force the return of the soldiers, eliminate Hizbullah's rocket supplies and push the militia north of the Litani river in southern Lebanon.
Israeli forces launched several ground operations, which met strong resistance. Troops had difficulty in moving supplies and troops around the battlefield because of Hizbullah's deployment of anti-tank weapons. After a final offensive in which Israel lost 33 soldiers, the government agreed a ceasefire without having achieved its objectives. In the fighting 1,200 Lebanese and 158 Israelis were killed. Of the dead almost 1,000 Lebanese and 41 Israelis were civilians.
Mr Olmert told the committee that he had ordered the final offensive to put pressure on the UN security council to improve the wording of the ceasefire in Israel's favour.
The war raised major concerns in Israel about the quality of preparations. Bomb shelters were badly maintained and many reservists found inadequate supplies at their depots. Many suggested that the army had become accustomed to fighting the ill-equipped Palestinians and was not prepared for Hizbullah's expertise.
Since the war, Mr Olmert has been fighting for his political survival. He has been battered by scandals involving himself and close colleagues and is subject to a series of inquiries into his competence and probity.
It wasn't a provocation, it was a pretext.
This article says the attack on Lebanon was planned a year in advance:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... IDEAST.TMP
Israel set war plan more than a year ago
Friday, July 21, 2006 - San Francisco Chronicle
'Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.
Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University: "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."
More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified...'
Well, I cannot prove that Israel would NOT have invaded Lebanon, with 100% certainly, in the absence of Hezbollah attacks ... Nor can you prove that they would have. I think its safe to conclude that the poor Israeli showing (by the Israeli's own standards) in the war had a lot to do with rushing into Lebanon to flex muscle, such that the brain got left behind.
Seems pretty straightforward to me:
'Mr Olmert told the Winograd commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel's perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in March.'
But then this clearly would never be proof enough for you would it Yosi? You prefer to dismiss such reports and instead rely on 'nuance' to excuse Israel and claim that all countries prepare for war all the time. Because, of course, despite one year of planning to attack Lebanon, Israel had no intention of attacking Lebanon until the kidnapping of a soldier.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6376639.stm
Does the existence of these plans somehow prove that an attack WILL happen, with 100% certainty? Or is the US just, you know, drawing up plans for a possible scenario?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6376639.stm
'BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack [on Iran]reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran...'
Maybe we can focus on the difference between contingency plans based on the possibility of an attack by Iran, and on a planned attack, carried out to the letter, and executed on the basis of a soldier being kidnapped? Since when is the kidnapping of a soldier a legitimate pretext for a war?
There's a big difference between a high-casualty attack on your own forces, and the kidnapping of a soldier.
Anyway, I don't why I'm wasting my time explaining this. These debates have mostly become debates for the sheer sake of it. I actually don't think that you yourself believe what you're saying. Quite, frankly, this all bullshit.
Well, you were just haranguing me for not debating with you directly (which is horseshit, considering we've both been here for years), and now we go and and forth for a bit and you take your toys and go home? Yes, I believe what I am saying. The kidnapping was a trigger for the war. How is that such a stretch? First off, kidnapping soldiers is a direct act of war. I'm sure you and Noam would both say the same thing about Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories to snatch militants. Secondly, what sense does it make to argue that Hezbollah is some sort of sideshow or pretext for Israeli aggression and nothing more? Hezbollah is a well-equipped force that Israel has viewed as a threat for years now. Sure, there's a difference between a nuclear strike and a cross-border raid. But in either case, you plan for contingencies. The plans themselves are not de facto proof that war is a certainty.
Was the kidnapping of two Palestinians the day before also an act of war? And I'm not asking for your opinion, because I'm not interested in opinions. Maybe you can provide the legal definition of what constitutes an act of war?