I dont dive two shits for Shirazs situation, when you steal land, expect a fight. And if you're not expecting one, than you deserve to die according to natural selection.
From the looks of it, natural selection might not be too kind to you.
I dont dive two shits for Shirazs situation, when you steal land, expect a fight. And if you're not expecting one, than you deserve to die according to natural selection.
Anyone gonna have the nuts to blame Isreal, like we all KNOW you love to do ,to an isreali's face? Wheres your condemnation of Isreal's "zionist blah blah blah" when you get a first hand account??? Lets see how many isreal/usa haters pop in here. Pussies!
Anyway, to shiraz, be safe. Be smart. Be careful. Thoughts are with you and yours. Peace.
Yea actually I still think Israel is to blame for confiscating Palestinian land amongst other things they have done. I recently spoke with a Canadian citizen from Lebanon. His wife went home to Lebanon for a visit just before this incident and is still there now. She probably feels a lot like the OP. The guy said "Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Bush and Osama have the same face" "Criminals!" he said.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Yea actually I still think Israel is to blame for confiscating Palestinian land amongst other things they have done. I recently spoke with a Canadian citizen from Lebanon. His wife went home to Lebanon for a visit just before this incident and is still there now. She probably feels a lot like the OP. The guy said "Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Bush and Osama have the same face" "Criminals!" he said.
Maybe if the palestinians stopped blowing themselves up on buses or firing rockets into israel they would have peace instead of the wrath of israel; which is something i would never want to experience.
Maybe if the palestinians stopped blowing themselves up on buses or firing rockets into israel they would have peace instead of the wrath of israel; which is something i would never want to experience.
Well it's no different than the wrath of the united states, neither of which descriminate between military and civilians.
I'm really glad I returned to this forum to read your shallow comments Miller
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Well it's no different than the wrath of the united states, neither of which descriminate between military and civilians.
I'm really glad I returned to this forum to read your shallow comments Miller
We dont deliberately target civilians its unwanted damage. The sad thing is no one wants the palestinians..their just a scape goat for the arab world to attack the jews.
We dont deliberately target civilians its unwanted damage. The sad thing is no one wants the palestinians..their just a scape goat for the arab world to attack the jews.
Hold on, what do you mean "no one wants the palestinians"?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
No arab countries are opening their gates to them.
"hey stop fighting and come with us"
their a scape goat for religious extremists to wage war against israel
Fact: in 1967 palestinians fled to neighbouring arab countries, including Egypt, Jodan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
The palestinians are welcome, however what would be the purpose? To allow Israel to seize total control over that region. You have to understand that land is holy to these people, to both Muslims and Jews. That is why Jurusalem is such a hot spot. However you shouldn't call for the destruction of Palestine when it has been occupied by Arabs for almost 2000 years and Israel has only existed for less than 75 years. If we go back to the begining Muslims and Jews lived together peacefully. After the Balfour declaration of the British empire parts of Palestine were taken and given to the Jews. They called it Israel, which is taking their land and giving it to someone else. It's a lot different than saying "hey can the Jews live there with you?" it's actually stealing.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
your're an ass... just because his country's government has fucked things up just as much as the other side has, you expect people to blame or taunt innocent civilians for this nonsense? People condemn (and a lot of times rightfully so) our own government to other americans here on this board.
Anyway shiraz, be safe... take care of yourself and your family.
I know I'm comin into this thing late, but here goes...People condemn our own government all the time, and that's fine, because as a citizen that is your right, and presumably you are well informed enough about your own country to have a worth-while opinion (though many times this is not true). With Israel though, people who know nothing about the history of the region or the conflict, or who care deeply about the plight of humanity but really don't spend time thinking through political reality, critisize constantly and in an unfair way. While I'm not going to pick a fight with anyone, I will say that I am constantly infuriated by people poping up on threads calling Israel a nazi state, or a blatent human rights abuser, or saying that everything is Israel's fault, or even that Israel is led by fanatics. From where I'm sitting, which at the moment is in Jerusalem, and from what I know, which is quite a lot, this is a load of garbage. I'm not opposed to thoughtful criticism, only to criticism that exhibits no thought at all.
Be safe, it probably suck to be in this part of the world right now... Isreal might be victims of terrorism, but Israel govt. are also criminals, bah...
What law has the Israeli govt. broken to make them criminals? Please quote.
Welcome, stay safe, but please, do not try and confuse where you live, the news you hear, with the reality of what is happening.
I quote, in riposte to your statement that what is happening in Lebanon is not related to the Corporal Shilit fiasco.
"By mid-afternoon the Hezbollah guerrillas have captured the Israeli soldiers and, in a statement faxed to CNN in Beirut, the Hezbollah has said that this is dedicated Muhammad Abdullah (ph) the 12-year-old boy -- Palestinian boy who was killed in Gaza last week and whose pictures, as he dies in his father's arms, were released all over the Arab world -- all the world, but it did ignite a lot of anger throughout the Arab world."
A Hezbollah statement says it is in response. End of.
Keep your head down, stay safe, and don't think every Palestinian is a militant terrorist animal. They are human, believe it or not, like you, like me, like us all.
I'm confused...if canada doesn't like what the US is doing in Iraq and starts kidnapping Americans and lobbing missiles over the border it's a legimimate response because canada says so? I just don't get it.
no, by my logic, Iraqis have every right to kill any British soldiers stationed in Iraq (or any other invading army), but if they decided to start attacking main land Britain, i wouldnt like it but i can see why they would want to. And in doing so if they killed a member of my family, i wouldnt be pissed with them, i would be pissed off with my government for starting this.
That's fucked up. It's one thing to fight an occupier. It is quite another to murder civilians in their homes. It's the basic difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. If the Palestinians had restricted themselves to attacks on soldiers in the territories they would be freedom fighters. They're terrorists because they go after kids on buses and women in cafes.
Regardless of what you think, we (those of us not close enough to the situation) are for the main part ignorant of all the facts of the situation.
Quoting some news story headline or article from CNN, hardly qualifies as making you or me educated on the matter. We only know bits and pieces of what has occured.
If that's the case then Israel and all it's inhabitants are ignorant of the people their army is killing. Vice versa for Hezbollah and Hamas and any others trying to kill Israelis.
“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
What a sad sad man you are, have you ever lived under oppression. I have, My whole life, Living under the aparthied Goverment of South Africa. I know how it feels to be oppressed. I fought the goverment, I stood up for my rights, nut not once, not once did we target civilians and children to get our point across. SO Palestines, fuck them they get no sympathy from me.
Not completely, but they, coupled with (what the Pretoria Government at the time stated as) militant, terrorist activities by the ANC and Inkatha certainly did.
Impose the same UN resolutions and economic sanctions upon Israel, then peace is what we will have.
And please, wil you f*** off with your South African crusade. How dare somebody like you, who claims to have struggled through the atrocities committed against your people, can deny the Palestinians the right to do the same, beggars belief.
FACT - Nelson Mandela was tried and convicted for manslaughter, and should have been murder. He signed orders killing Afrikaner civillians. He may even have committed those atrocities himself before he was imprisoned.
He is not whiter than white, but he was right. As are these poor, coloured, oppressed, beaten, starved and exploited Palestinians.
Get off your blind fucking high horse and defend the oppressed in Palestine, those THAT ARE AS OPPRESSED IF NOT MORE SO THAN YOU AND YOUR COUNTRYMEN!!!
This is sick! Where are you writing from? Who are you? Are you really going to lecture this guy about oppression? Look, he's right. The Palestinians didn't have to resort to terrorism. The first Intifada was a popular uprising that resulted in the Oslo process because it showed Israel that they could not continue to occupy the Palestinian territories. Oslo led to the most comprehensive offer the Palestinians could hope to have gotten. All of Gaza, almost 100% of the West Bank, half of Jerusalem, joint control of the Temple Mount. If that isn't Israel negotiating I don't know what is. Did they take the offer? NO. Did they even come back with a counter-offer? NO. They walked away from the table and started bombing Israeli civilians. So why in God's name are people still supporting them so whole-heartedly, when at the very moment when they could have peacefully realized their goal of national independence they instead turned to terrorism and murder? I just don't get it.
Fuck you. I will not support anyone that goes out and purposefully kills children. If that is what you want to do then fine, And fuck you, you dont know me, you dont know what I had to go thru. FUCK YOU. While you were playing with you dick as a little kid, I had to fucking dodge police, dogs, bullets, angry boers, trucks, I was beaten, insulted, belittled, ridiculed, embarresed, had to watch as my mother was beaten and there was nothing that I could do, SO FUCK YOU. Go back to your sliver spoon and stick it up your arse.
Fact: in 1967 palestinians fled to neighbouring arab countries, including Egypt, Jodan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
...in 1967....however, the arab league of nations made it illegal for any arab nation to grant citizenship to palestinian immigrants. Jordan, the only arab country to historically grant citizenship to palestinian immigrants, began granting only tourist visas to the palestinians starting in 1988. So, no, they aren't exactly "welcome".
"PALESTINES" as it's been so bluntly put - have not... those "Palestinian" civilians are totally innocent, just like the Israeli citizens.
For some reason people always get off base and start calling Palestinians terrorists...
You'd think you could tell the difference between an armed militia and a family with a newborn that just had their house blown up and their members torn to shreds...
*We may see the international community further pursue a cease-fire in the coming days.
*A cease-fire really does seem like the reasonable thing to pursue - but look how they are going about it:
"You're not going to get a cease-fire on both sides until you put in place the conditions that allow that to happen." - Blair
What are the conditions?
"Blair met US President George W. Bush on Friday and they agreed that a multinational force should be dispatched quickly to help Lebanon regain control of the southern part of its country from the Hezbollah militia."
In other words, send more troops - to help Israel further bomb the crap out of Lebanon - in order to get rid of Hezbollah... Which is Israels current objective - which is no way to pursue a cease-fire - which just doesn't make sense.
Hezbollah are the Lebanese resistance - they are fighting for Lebanon. Fighting against Israeli occupation. Lebanon is theirs. Bush and Blair shouldn't be going in there saying, "We're here to liberate you!" Bush and Blari are goin in there saying, "We are here to take your land and lives for the safety and security of our 'friendly' neighbor, Israel."
The only reason Hezbollah are fighting is because Israel is aggressively occupying Lebanon - that's just my opinion - you may call Hezbollah racist or anti-zionist, but bullshit. They just want their land back. How do I know?
... I don't. But when you look at the fact that Hezbollah formed in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation - and that has been their target all along - well, it makes sense that the Lebanese would form some sort of resistance in order to take back what was stolen from them... by Israel. I just can't let Israel get away clean and neat in this conflict - they're acting like pirates - and we're acting like the bankers that have supported them all along.
What law has the Israeli govt. broken to make them criminals? Please quote.
What law has the Israeli government broken? Are you serious?
As we speak, the Israeli government is in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. They are currently committing war crimes in Lebanon by deliberately targeting civilians. Ehud Olmert should be tried at the Hague and put away fro life for this.
What law has the Israeli government broken? Are you serious?
As we speak, the Israeli government is in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. They are currently committing war crimes in Lebanon by deliberately targeting civilians. Ehud Olmert should be tried at the Hague and put away fro life for this.
Niether of those articles say anything about "deliberate" targeting of civilians. Therefore, neither of those articles really support your accusations. Have you not been reading this thread? The Hezbollah deliberately conducts its operations amongst the civilian population, with the hopes of giving people like you more propaganda material whenever Israel has no choice but to conduct raids on those civilian areas where the Hezbollah hide like the cowards that they are.
What law has the Israeli government broken? Are you serious?
As we speak, the Israeli government is in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. They are currently committing war crimes in Lebanon by deliberately targeting civilians. Ehud Olmert should be tried at the Hague and put away fro life for this.
I asked you to please quote the law. You haven't done this. You have merely referenced news articles detailing civilian deaths. And yet the articles point out that the village Israel bombed was the sight of missile launchers used to fire into Israeli cities (hitting civilians on purpose) and that Israel had dropped leaflets warning the civilian population to leave. According to International law an army is allowed to target military installations (such as missile launchers) even if they are in civilian population centers so long as they do their best to minimize harm to civilians (warning the civilians of the impending attack so they can get out of the way). These deaths are tragic, but they do not constitute a war crime. One might want to ask though, why it is that Hezbollah would put their missile launchers in civilian areas in the first place? Why not put them someplace that doesn't place civilians in harms way? Either they recognize (as you do not) that Israel is more reluctant to strike targets within civilian populations, and so Hezbollah are using civilians as human shields, or Hezbollah knows that civilians deaths will make Israel look bad, and so they put their launchers in civilian areas to maximize civilian deaths which serves their purposes. Either way, Hezbollah's actions are cynical and sick, and certainly deserve you criticism more than Israel's tragic, though unintended, killing of civilians.
Niether of those articles say anything about "deliberate" targeting of civilians. Therefore, neither of those articles really support your accusations. Have you not been reading this thread? The Hezbollah deliberately conducts its operations amongst the civilian population, with the hopes of giving people like you more propaganda material whenever Israel has no choice but to conduct raids on those civilian areas where the Hezbollah hide like the cowards that they are.
The "hiding among civilians" myth
Mitch Prothero, Salon
Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.
Jul. 28, 2006 | The bombs came just as night fell, around 7 p.m. The locals knew that the 10-story apartment building had been the office, and possibly the residence, of Sheik Tawouk, the Hezbollah commander for the south, so they had moved their families out at the start of the war. The landlord had refused to rent to Hezbollah when they requested the top floors of the building. No matter, the locals said, the Hezb guys just moved in anyway in the name of the "resistance."
Everyone knew that the building would be hit eventually. Its location in downtown Tyre, which had yet to be hit by Israeli airstrikes, was not going to protect it forever. And "everyone" apparently included Sheik Tawouk, because he wasn't anywhere near it when it was finally hit.
Two guided bombs struck it in a huge flash bang of fire and concrete dust followed by the roar of 10 stories pancaking on top of each other, local residents said. Jihad Husseini, 46, runs the driving school a block away and was sitting in his office when the bombs struck. He said his life was saved because he had drawn the heavy cloth curtains shut on the windows facing the street, preventing him from being hit by a wave of shattered glass. But even so, a chunk of smoldering steel flew through the air, broke through the window and the curtain, and shot past his head and through the wall before coming to rest in his neighbor's home.
But Jihad still refuses to leave.
"Everything is broken, but I can make it better," he says, surrounded by his sons Raed, 20, and Mohammed, 12. "I will not leave. This place is not military, it is not Hezbollah; it was an empty apartment."
Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.
But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they'll get some fighters, too. The almost nightly airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut could be seen as making some sense, as the Israelis appear convinced there are command and control bunkers underneath the continually smoldering rubble. There were some civilian casualties the first few nights in places like Haret Hreik, but people quickly left the area to the Hezbollah fighters with their radios and motorbikes.
But other attacks seem gratuitous, fishing expeditions, or simply intended to punish anything and anyone even vaguely connected to Hezbollah. Lighthouses, grain elevators, milk factories, bridges in the north used by refugees, apartment buildings partially occupied by members of Hezbollah's political wing -- all have been reduced to rubble.
In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah. Does mere support for Hezbollah, or even participation in Hezbollah activities, mean your house and family are fair game? Do you need to fire rockets from your front yard? Or is it enough to be a political activist?
The Israelis are consistent: They bomb everyone and everything remotely associated with Hezbollah, including noncombatants. In effect, that means punishing Lebanon. The nation is 40 percent Shiite, and of that 40 percent, tens of thousands are employed by Hezbollah's social services, political operations, schools, and other nonmilitary functions. The "terrorist" organization Hezbollah is Lebanon's second-biggest employer.
People throw the phrase "ghost town" around a lot, but Nabatiya, a bombed-out town about 15 miles from the Lebanon-Israel border, deserves it. One expects the spirits of the town's dead, or its refugees, to silently glide out onto its abandoned streets from the ruined buildings that make up much of the town.
Not all of the buildings show bomb damage, but those that don't have metal shutters blown out as if by a terrible wind. And there are no people at all, except for the occasional Hezbollah scout on a motorbike armed only with a two-way radio, keeping an eye on things as Israeli jets and unmanned drones circle overhead.
Overlooking the outskirts of this town, which has a peacetime population of 100,000 or so -- mostly Shiite supporters of Hezbollah and its more secular rival Amal -- is the Ragheh Hareb Hospital, a facility that makes quite clear what side the residents of Nabatiya are on in this conflict.
The hospital's carefully sculpted and trimmed front lawn contains the giant Red Crescent that denotes the Muslim version of the Red Cross. As we approach it, an Israeli missile streaks by, smashing into a school on the opposite hilltop. As we crouch and then run for the shelter of the hospital awning, that giant crescent reassures me until I look at the flagpole. The Lebanese flag and its cedar tree is there -- right next to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It's safe to say that Ragheh Hareb Hospital has an association with Hezbollah. And the staff sports the trimmed beards and polite, if somewhat ominous, manner of the group. After young men demand press IDs and do some quick questioning, they allow us to enter.
Dr. Ahmed Tahir recognizes me from a funeral in the nearby village of Dweir. An Israeli bomb dropped on their house killed a Hezbollah cleric and 11 members of his immediate family, mostly children. People in Lebanon are calling it a war crime. Tahir looks exhausted, and our talk is even more tense than the last time.
"Maybe it would be best if the Israelis bombed your car on the road here," he said, with a sharp edge. "If you were killed, maybe the public outcry would be so bad in America that the Jews would be forced to stop these attacks."
When I volunteered that the Bush administration cared little for journalists, let alone ones who reported from Hezbollah territory, he shrugged. "Maybe if it was an American bomb used by the Israelis that killed an American journalist, they would stop this horror," he said.
The handful of people in the town include some from Hezbollah's political wing, as well as volunteers keeping an eye on things while the residents are gone. Off to the side, as we watch the Israelis pummel ridgelines on the outskirts of town, one of the political operatives explains that the fighters never come near the town, reinforcing what other Hezbollah people have told me over the years.
Although Israel targets apartments and offices because they are considered "Hezbollah" installations, the group has a clear policy of keeping its fighters away from civilians as much as possible. This is not for humanitarian reasons -- they did, after all, take over an apartment building against the protests of the landlord, knowing full well it would be bombed -- but for military ones.
"You can be a member of Hezbollah your entire life and never see a military wing fighter with a weapon," a Lebanese military intelligence official, now retired, once told me. "They do not come out with their masks off and never operate around people if they can avoid it. They're completely afraid of collaborators. They know this is what breaks the Palestinians -- no discipline and too much showing off."
Perhaps once a year, Hezbollah will hold a military parade in the south, in which its weapons and fighters appear. Media access to these parades is tightly limited and controlled. Unlike the fighters in the half dozen other countries where I have covered insurgencies, Hezbollah fighters do not like to show off for the cameras. In Iraq, with some risk taking, you can meet with and even watch the resistance guys in action. (At least you could during my last time there.) In Afghanistan, you can lunch with Taliban fighters if you're willing to walk a day or so in the mountains. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Fatah or Hamas fighter is almost ubiquitous with his mask, gun and sloganeering to convince the Western journalist of the justice of his cause.
The Hezbollah guys, on the other hand, know that letting their fighters near outsiders of any kind -- journalists or Lebanese, even Hezbollah supporters -- is stupid. In three trips over the last week to the south, where I came near enough to the fighting to hear Israeli artillery, and not just airstrikes, I saw exactly no fighters. Guys with radios with the look of Hezbollah always found me. But no fighters on corners, no invitations to watch them shoot rockets at the Zionist enemy, nothing that can be used to track them.
Even before the war, on many of my trips to the south, the Lebanese army, or the ubiquitous guy on a motorbike with a radio, would halt my trip and send me over to Tyre to get permission from a Hezbollah official before I could proceed, usually with strict limits on where I could go.
Every other journalist I know who has covered Hezbollah has had the same experience. A fellow journalist, a Lebanese who has covered them for two decades, knows only one military guy who will admit it, and he never talks or grants interviews. All he will say is, "I'll be gone for a few months for training. I'll call when I'm back." Presumably his friends and neighbors may suspect something, but no one says anything.
Hezbollah's political members say they have little or no access to the workings of the fighters. This seems to be largely true: While they obviously hear and know more than the outside world, the firewall is strong.
Israel, however, has chosen to treat the political members of Hezbollah as if they were fighters. And by targeting the civilian wing of the group, which supplies much of the humanitarian aid and social protection for the poorest people in the south, they are targeting civilians.
Earlier in the week, I stood next to a giant crater that had smashed through the highway between Tyre and Sidon -- the only route of escape for most of the people in the far south. Overhead, Israeli fighters and drones circled above the city and its outlying areas and regular blasts of bombs and naval artillery could be heard.
The crater served as a nice place to check up on the refugees, who were forced by the crater to slow down long enough to be asked questions. They barely stopped, their faces wrenched in near panic. The main wave of refugees out of the south had come the previous two days, so these were the hard-luck cases, the people who had been really close to the fighting and who needed two days just to get to Tyre, or who had had to make the tough decision whether to flee or stay put, with neither choice looking good.
The roads in the south are full of the cars of people who chose wrong -- burned-out chassis, broken glass, some cars driven straight into posts or ditches. Other seem to have broken down or run out of gas on the long dirt detours around the blown-out highway and bridge network the Israeli air force had spent days methodically destroying even as it warned people to flee.
One man, slowing his car around the crater, almost screams, "There is nothing left. This country is not for us." His brief pause immediately draws horns and impatient yells from the people in the cars behind him. They pass the crater but within two minutes a large explosion behind us, north, in the direction of Sidon, rocks us.
As we drive south toward Tyre, we soon pass a new series of scars on the highway: shrapnel, hubcaps and broken glass. A car that had been maybe five minutes ahead of us was hit by an Israeli shell. Three of its passengers were wounded, and it was heading north to the Hammound hospital at Sidon. We turned around because of the attack and followed the car to Sidon. Those unhurt staked out the parking lot of the hospital, looking for the Western journalists they were convinced had called in the strike. Luckily my Iraqi fixer smelled trouble and we got out of there. Probably nothing would have happened -- mostly they were just freaked-out country people who didn't like the coincidence of an Israeli attack and a car full of journalists driving past.
So the analysts talking on cable news about Hezbollah "hiding within the civilian population" clearly have spent little time if any in the south Lebanon war zone and don't know what they're talking about. Hezbollah doesn't trust the civilian population and has worked very hard to evacuate as much of it as possible from the battlefield. And this is why they fight so well -- with no one to spy on them, they have lots of chances to take the Israel Defense Forces by surprise, as they have by continuing to fire rockets and punish every Israeli ground incursion.
And the civilians? They see themselves as targeted regardless of their affiliation. They are enraged at Israel and at the United States, the only two countries on earth not calling for an immediate cease-fire. Lebanese of all persuasions think the United States and Israel believe that Lebanese lives are cheaper than Israeli ones. And many are now saying that they want to fight.
I asked you to please quote the law. You haven't done this.
So you don't recognise international law then? I stated that Israel is currently in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. This would make Israel a 'rogue' state which sees itself as above the law. I suppose it helps that the U.S supports their illegal activities 100%.
So you don't recognise international law then? I stated that Israel is currently in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. This would make Israel a 'rogue' state which sees itself as above the law. I suppose it helps that the U.S supports their illegal activities 100%.
In point of fact I do not believe in international law, because it doesn't exist anywhere except in the minds of those that believe in it. Certainly the people Israel is fighting don't believe in it, and are therefore not constrained by it. If there is no power of forceful persuasion to back the law then the law doesn't really exist. I am not saying that I would not like for there to be international law. I am saying that right now international law is a utopian fiction.
Leaving that aside, again, I asked you to quote from international law. You still have not done so. What are the UN resolutions Israel is in breach? This should be pretty easy to find, because you're right that Israel is indeed in breach of many UN resolutions. Nevertheless, for the sake of intelligent argument could you please quote the resolutions instead of simply making blanket statements. Once you've done that we can get into the issue of how biased most of those resolutions are, growing out of Cold War politics and Arab hatred of Israel. As a starter, let me just say that Israel has been reprimanded by the UN more than all other countries in the world combined. This should speak to the ridiculous nature of these UN resolutions more than to Israel's actions, since it is insane to argue that Israel is worse in its conduct than China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or any of the other regimes that daily make any "atrocities" committed by Israel look like child's play.
Comments
From the looks of it, natural selection might not be too kind to you.
Nice ignorant comment re: the bloke's situation.
Yea actually I still think Israel is to blame for confiscating Palestinian land amongst other things they have done. I recently spoke with a Canadian citizen from Lebanon. His wife went home to Lebanon for a visit just before this incident and is still there now. She probably feels a lot like the OP. The guy said "Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Bush and Osama have the same face" "Criminals!" he said.
Maybe if the palestinians stopped blowing themselves up on buses or firing rockets into israel they would have peace instead of the wrath of israel; which is something i would never want to experience.
Well it's no different than the wrath of the united states, neither of which descriminate between military and civilians.
I'm really glad I returned to this forum to read your shallow comments Miller
We dont deliberately target civilians its unwanted damage. The sad thing is no one wants the palestinians..their just a scape goat for the arab world to attack the jews.
Hold on, what do you mean "no one wants the palestinians"?
No arab countries are opening their gates to them.
"hey stop fighting and come with us"
their a scape goat for religious extremists to wage war against israel
Fact: in 1967 palestinians fled to neighbouring arab countries, including Egypt, Jodan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
The palestinians are welcome, however what would be the purpose? To allow Israel to seize total control over that region. You have to understand that land is holy to these people, to both Muslims and Jews. That is why Jurusalem is such a hot spot. However you shouldn't call for the destruction of Palestine when it has been occupied by Arabs for almost 2000 years and Israel has only existed for less than 75 years. If we go back to the begining Muslims and Jews lived together peacefully. After the Balfour declaration of the British empire parts of Palestine were taken and given to the Jews. They called it Israel, which is taking their land and giving it to someone else. It's a lot different than saying "hey can the Jews live there with you?" it's actually stealing.
I know I'm comin into this thing late, but here goes...People condemn our own government all the time, and that's fine, because as a citizen that is your right, and presumably you are well informed enough about your own country to have a worth-while opinion (though many times this is not true). With Israel though, people who know nothing about the history of the region or the conflict, or who care deeply about the plight of humanity but really don't spend time thinking through political reality, critisize constantly and in an unfair way. While I'm not going to pick a fight with anyone, I will say that I am constantly infuriated by people poping up on threads calling Israel a nazi state, or a blatent human rights abuser, or saying that everything is Israel's fault, or even that Israel is led by fanatics. From where I'm sitting, which at the moment is in Jerusalem, and from what I know, which is quite a lot, this is a load of garbage. I'm not opposed to thoughtful criticism, only to criticism that exhibits no thought at all.
What law has the Israeli govt. broken to make them criminals? Please quote.
I'm confused...if canada doesn't like what the US is doing in Iraq and starts kidnapping Americans and lobbing missiles over the border it's a legimimate response because canada says so? I just don't get it.
That's fucked up. It's one thing to fight an occupier. It is quite another to murder civilians in their homes. It's the basic difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. If the Palestinians had restricted themselves to attacks on soldiers in the territories they would be freedom fighters. They're terrorists because they go after kids on buses and women in cafes.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Thank you.
This is sick! Where are you writing from? Who are you? Are you really going to lecture this guy about oppression? Look, he's right. The Palestinians didn't have to resort to terrorism. The first Intifada was a popular uprising that resulted in the Oslo process because it showed Israel that they could not continue to occupy the Palestinian territories. Oslo led to the most comprehensive offer the Palestinians could hope to have gotten. All of Gaza, almost 100% of the West Bank, half of Jerusalem, joint control of the Temple Mount. If that isn't Israel negotiating I don't know what is. Did they take the offer? NO. Did they even come back with a counter-offer? NO. They walked away from the table and started bombing Israeli civilians. So why in God's name are people still supporting them so whole-heartedly, when at the very moment when they could have peacefully realized their goal of national independence they instead turned to terrorism and murder? I just don't get it.
Well said.
...in 1967....however, the arab league of nations made it illegal for any arab nation to grant citizenship to palestinian immigrants. Jordan, the only arab country to historically grant citizenship to palestinian immigrants, began granting only tourist visas to the palestinians starting in 1988. So, no, they aren't exactly "welcome".
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
Hezbollah are attacking the innocnet, true.
"PALESTINES" as it's been so bluntly put - have not... those "Palestinian" civilians are totally innocent, just like the Israeli citizens.
For some reason people always get off base and start calling Palestinians terrorists...
You'd think you could tell the difference between an armed militia and a family with a newborn that just had their house blown up and their members torn to shreds...
Anyway - AN UPDATE:
http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Lebanon/10056101.html
*We may see the international community further pursue a cease-fire in the coming days.
*A cease-fire really does seem like the reasonable thing to pursue - but look how they are going about it:
"You're not going to get a cease-fire on both sides until you put in place the conditions that allow that to happen." - Blair
What are the conditions?
"Blair met US President George W. Bush on Friday and they agreed that a multinational force should be dispatched quickly to help Lebanon regain control of the southern part of its country from the Hezbollah militia."
In other words, send more troops - to help Israel further bomb the crap out of Lebanon - in order to get rid of Hezbollah... Which is Israels current objective - which is no way to pursue a cease-fire - which just doesn't make sense.
Hezbollah are the Lebanese resistance - they are fighting for Lebanon. Fighting against Israeli occupation. Lebanon is theirs. Bush and Blair shouldn't be going in there saying, "We're here to liberate you!" Bush and Blari are goin in there saying, "We are here to take your land and lives for the safety and security of our 'friendly' neighbor, Israel."
The only reason Hezbollah are fighting is because Israel is aggressively occupying Lebanon - that's just my opinion - you may call Hezbollah racist or anti-zionist, but bullshit. They just want their land back. How do I know?
... I don't. But when you look at the fact that Hezbollah formed in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation - and that has been their target all along - well, it makes sense that the Lebanese would form some sort of resistance in order to take back what was stolen from them... by Israel. I just can't let Israel get away clean and neat in this conflict - they're acting like pirates - and we're acting like the bankers that have supported them all along.
What law has the Israeli government broken? Are you serious?
As we speak, the Israeli government is in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. They are currently committing war crimes in Lebanon by deliberately targeting civilians. Ehud Olmert should be tried at the Hague and put away fro life for this.
'50 killed' as Israeli air strike hits children
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1204845.ece
Straw breaks ranks on Middle East in revolt against Blair
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1204523.ece
Whoa, that just sent me the image of that crazy "I love smell of napalm in the morning!" dude in Apocalypse now.
http://www.cinefile.biz/redux4.jpg
.
Niether of those articles say anything about "deliberate" targeting of civilians. Therefore, neither of those articles really support your accusations. Have you not been reading this thread? The Hezbollah deliberately conducts its operations amongst the civilian population, with the hopes of giving people like you more propaganda material whenever Israel has no choice but to conduct raids on those civilian areas where the Hezbollah hide like the cowards that they are.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
I asked you to please quote the law. You haven't done this. You have merely referenced news articles detailing civilian deaths. And yet the articles point out that the village Israel bombed was the sight of missile launchers used to fire into Israeli cities (hitting civilians on purpose) and that Israel had dropped leaflets warning the civilian population to leave. According to International law an army is allowed to target military installations (such as missile launchers) even if they are in civilian population centers so long as they do their best to minimize harm to civilians (warning the civilians of the impending attack so they can get out of the way). These deaths are tragic, but they do not constitute a war crime. One might want to ask though, why it is that Hezbollah would put their missile launchers in civilian areas in the first place? Why not put them someplace that doesn't place civilians in harms way? Either they recognize (as you do not) that Israel is more reluctant to strike targets within civilian populations, and so Hezbollah are using civilians as human shields, or Hezbollah knows that civilians deaths will make Israel look bad, and so they put their launchers in civilian areas to maximize civilian deaths which serves their purposes. Either way, Hezbollah's actions are cynical and sick, and certainly deserve you criticism more than Israel's tragic, though unintended, killing of civilians.
not exactly...only 4 settlements from what I can see.
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j53/pha_ri_ching/ppstateorfcefeb.jpg
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
The "hiding among civilians" myth
Mitch Prothero, Salon
Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.
Jul. 28, 2006 | The bombs came just as night fell, around 7 p.m. The locals knew that the 10-story apartment building had been the office, and possibly the residence, of Sheik Tawouk, the Hezbollah commander for the south, so they had moved their families out at the start of the war. The landlord had refused to rent to Hezbollah when they requested the top floors of the building. No matter, the locals said, the Hezb guys just moved in anyway in the name of the "resistance."
Everyone knew that the building would be hit eventually. Its location in downtown Tyre, which had yet to be hit by Israeli airstrikes, was not going to protect it forever. And "everyone" apparently included Sheik Tawouk, because he wasn't anywhere near it when it was finally hit.
Two guided bombs struck it in a huge flash bang of fire and concrete dust followed by the roar of 10 stories pancaking on top of each other, local residents said. Jihad Husseini, 46, runs the driving school a block away and was sitting in his office when the bombs struck. He said his life was saved because he had drawn the heavy cloth curtains shut on the windows facing the street, preventing him from being hit by a wave of shattered glass. But even so, a chunk of smoldering steel flew through the air, broke through the window and the curtain, and shot past his head and through the wall before coming to rest in his neighbor's home.
But Jihad still refuses to leave.
"Everything is broken, but I can make it better," he says, surrounded by his sons Raed, 20, and Mohammed, 12. "I will not leave. This place is not military, it is not Hezbollah; it was an empty apartment."
Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.
But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they'll get some fighters, too. The almost nightly airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut could be seen as making some sense, as the Israelis appear convinced there are command and control bunkers underneath the continually smoldering rubble. There were some civilian casualties the first few nights in places like Haret Hreik, but people quickly left the area to the Hezbollah fighters with their radios and motorbikes.
But other attacks seem gratuitous, fishing expeditions, or simply intended to punish anything and anyone even vaguely connected to Hezbollah. Lighthouses, grain elevators, milk factories, bridges in the north used by refugees, apartment buildings partially occupied by members of Hezbollah's political wing -- all have been reduced to rubble.
In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah. Does mere support for Hezbollah, or even participation in Hezbollah activities, mean your house and family are fair game? Do you need to fire rockets from your front yard? Or is it enough to be a political activist?
The Israelis are consistent: They bomb everyone and everything remotely associated with Hezbollah, including noncombatants. In effect, that means punishing Lebanon. The nation is 40 percent Shiite, and of that 40 percent, tens of thousands are employed by Hezbollah's social services, political operations, schools, and other nonmilitary functions. The "terrorist" organization Hezbollah is Lebanon's second-biggest employer.
People throw the phrase "ghost town" around a lot, but Nabatiya, a bombed-out town about 15 miles from the Lebanon-Israel border, deserves it. One expects the spirits of the town's dead, or its refugees, to silently glide out onto its abandoned streets from the ruined buildings that make up much of the town.
Not all of the buildings show bomb damage, but those that don't have metal shutters blown out as if by a terrible wind. And there are no people at all, except for the occasional Hezbollah scout on a motorbike armed only with a two-way radio, keeping an eye on things as Israeli jets and unmanned drones circle overhead.
Overlooking the outskirts of this town, which has a peacetime population of 100,000 or so -- mostly Shiite supporters of Hezbollah and its more secular rival Amal -- is the Ragheh Hareb Hospital, a facility that makes quite clear what side the residents of Nabatiya are on in this conflict.
The hospital's carefully sculpted and trimmed front lawn contains the giant Red Crescent that denotes the Muslim version of the Red Cross. As we approach it, an Israeli missile streaks by, smashing into a school on the opposite hilltop. As we crouch and then run for the shelter of the hospital awning, that giant crescent reassures me until I look at the flagpole. The Lebanese flag and its cedar tree is there -- right next to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It's safe to say that Ragheh Hareb Hospital has an association with Hezbollah. And the staff sports the trimmed beards and polite, if somewhat ominous, manner of the group. After young men demand press IDs and do some quick questioning, they allow us to enter.
Dr. Ahmed Tahir recognizes me from a funeral in the nearby village of Dweir. An Israeli bomb dropped on their house killed a Hezbollah cleric and 11 members of his immediate family, mostly children. People in Lebanon are calling it a war crime. Tahir looks exhausted, and our talk is even more tense than the last time.
"Maybe it would be best if the Israelis bombed your car on the road here," he said, with a sharp edge. "If you were killed, maybe the public outcry would be so bad in America that the Jews would be forced to stop these attacks."
When I volunteered that the Bush administration cared little for journalists, let alone ones who reported from Hezbollah territory, he shrugged. "Maybe if it was an American bomb used by the Israelis that killed an American journalist, they would stop this horror," he said.
The handful of people in the town include some from Hezbollah's political wing, as well as volunteers keeping an eye on things while the residents are gone. Off to the side, as we watch the Israelis pummel ridgelines on the outskirts of town, one of the political operatives explains that the fighters never come near the town, reinforcing what other Hezbollah people have told me over the years.
Although Israel targets apartments and offices because they are considered "Hezbollah" installations, the group has a clear policy of keeping its fighters away from civilians as much as possible. This is not for humanitarian reasons -- they did, after all, take over an apartment building against the protests of the landlord, knowing full well it would be bombed -- but for military ones.
"You can be a member of Hezbollah your entire life and never see a military wing fighter with a weapon," a Lebanese military intelligence official, now retired, once told me. "They do not come out with their masks off and never operate around people if they can avoid it. They're completely afraid of collaborators. They know this is what breaks the Palestinians -- no discipline and too much showing off."
Perhaps once a year, Hezbollah will hold a military parade in the south, in which its weapons and fighters appear. Media access to these parades is tightly limited and controlled. Unlike the fighters in the half dozen other countries where I have covered insurgencies, Hezbollah fighters do not like to show off for the cameras. In Iraq, with some risk taking, you can meet with and even watch the resistance guys in action. (At least you could during my last time there.) In Afghanistan, you can lunch with Taliban fighters if you're willing to walk a day or so in the mountains. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Fatah or Hamas fighter is almost ubiquitous with his mask, gun and sloganeering to convince the Western journalist of the justice of his cause.
The Hezbollah guys, on the other hand, know that letting their fighters near outsiders of any kind -- journalists or Lebanese, even Hezbollah supporters -- is stupid. In three trips over the last week to the south, where I came near enough to the fighting to hear Israeli artillery, and not just airstrikes, I saw exactly no fighters. Guys with radios with the look of Hezbollah always found me. But no fighters on corners, no invitations to watch them shoot rockets at the Zionist enemy, nothing that can be used to track them.
Even before the war, on many of my trips to the south, the Lebanese army, or the ubiquitous guy on a motorbike with a radio, would halt my trip and send me over to Tyre to get permission from a Hezbollah official before I could proceed, usually with strict limits on where I could go.
Every other journalist I know who has covered Hezbollah has had the same experience. A fellow journalist, a Lebanese who has covered them for two decades, knows only one military guy who will admit it, and he never talks or grants interviews. All he will say is, "I'll be gone for a few months for training. I'll call when I'm back." Presumably his friends and neighbors may suspect something, but no one says anything.
Hezbollah's political members say they have little or no access to the workings of the fighters. This seems to be largely true: While they obviously hear and know more than the outside world, the firewall is strong.
Israel, however, has chosen to treat the political members of Hezbollah as if they were fighters. And by targeting the civilian wing of the group, which supplies much of the humanitarian aid and social protection for the poorest people in the south, they are targeting civilians.
Earlier in the week, I stood next to a giant crater that had smashed through the highway between Tyre and Sidon -- the only route of escape for most of the people in the far south. Overhead, Israeli fighters and drones circled above the city and its outlying areas and regular blasts of bombs and naval artillery could be heard.
The crater served as a nice place to check up on the refugees, who were forced by the crater to slow down long enough to be asked questions. They barely stopped, their faces wrenched in near panic. The main wave of refugees out of the south had come the previous two days, so these were the hard-luck cases, the people who had been really close to the fighting and who needed two days just to get to Tyre, or who had had to make the tough decision whether to flee or stay put, with neither choice looking good.
The roads in the south are full of the cars of people who chose wrong -- burned-out chassis, broken glass, some cars driven straight into posts or ditches. Other seem to have broken down or run out of gas on the long dirt detours around the blown-out highway and bridge network the Israeli air force had spent days methodically destroying even as it warned people to flee.
One man, slowing his car around the crater, almost screams, "There is nothing left. This country is not for us." His brief pause immediately draws horns and impatient yells from the people in the cars behind him. They pass the crater but within two minutes a large explosion behind us, north, in the direction of Sidon, rocks us.
As we drive south toward Tyre, we soon pass a new series of scars on the highway: shrapnel, hubcaps and broken glass. A car that had been maybe five minutes ahead of us was hit by an Israeli shell. Three of its passengers were wounded, and it was heading north to the Hammound hospital at Sidon. We turned around because of the attack and followed the car to Sidon. Those unhurt staked out the parking lot of the hospital, looking for the Western journalists they were convinced had called in the strike. Luckily my Iraqi fixer smelled trouble and we got out of there. Probably nothing would have happened -- mostly they were just freaked-out country people who didn't like the coincidence of an Israeli attack and a car full of journalists driving past.
So the analysts talking on cable news about Hezbollah "hiding within the civilian population" clearly have spent little time if any in the south Lebanon war zone and don't know what they're talking about. Hezbollah doesn't trust the civilian population and has worked very hard to evacuate as much of it as possible from the battlefield. And this is why they fight so well -- with no one to spy on them, they have lots of chances to take the Israel Defense Forces by surprise, as they have by continuing to fire rockets and punish every Israeli ground incursion.
And the civilians? They see themselves as targeted regardless of their affiliation. They are enraged at Israel and at the United States, the only two countries on earth not calling for an immediate cease-fire. Lebanese of all persuasions think the United States and Israel believe that Lebanese lives are cheaper than Israeli ones. And many are now saying that they want to fight.
-- By Mitch Prothero
So you don't recognise international law then? I stated that Israel is currently in breach of over 60 U.N resolutions. This would make Israel a 'rogue' state which sees itself as above the law. I suppose it helps that the U.S supports their illegal activities 100%.
And so the deliberate targeting of the U.N observation post whick killed 4 U.N observers. Was that not a war crime?
Could you specify? Do you mean that Israel only offered to pull out of four settlements, or that they would have retained only four settlements?
In point of fact I do not believe in international law, because it doesn't exist anywhere except in the minds of those that believe in it. Certainly the people Israel is fighting don't believe in it, and are therefore not constrained by it. If there is no power of forceful persuasion to back the law then the law doesn't really exist. I am not saying that I would not like for there to be international law. I am saying that right now international law is a utopian fiction.
Leaving that aside, again, I asked you to quote from international law. You still have not done so. What are the UN resolutions Israel is in breach? This should be pretty easy to find, because you're right that Israel is indeed in breach of many UN resolutions. Nevertheless, for the sake of intelligent argument could you please quote the resolutions instead of simply making blanket statements. Once you've done that we can get into the issue of how biased most of those resolutions are, growing out of Cold War politics and Arab hatred of Israel. As a starter, let me just say that Israel has been reprimanded by the UN more than all other countries in the world combined. This should speak to the ridiculous nature of these UN resolutions more than to Israel's actions, since it is insane to argue that Israel is worse in its conduct than China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or any of the other regimes that daily make any "atrocities" committed by Israel look like child's play.