Caveat: As usual, lets try to be civil.

I didn't want to do this in the thread about thoughts and prayers, so I started a new thread to discuss the issue.

I'll start this important political discussion... with a joke, of course.


The IDF said Monday it had seized two Hezbollah guerrillas "suspected in involvement in terror activities" in Maroun al-Ras. The guerrillas were taken into custody Sunday and are being held in Israel.

Am I the only one who read that, and envisioned the Israelis holding a press conference, and demanding the return of 9,000 Israelis in a "prisoner swap" for these two Hezbollah fighers, with a straight face, saying "its been done before, so why not this time"?

Or "we were wrong to capture them, and we admit it, but now that we have them, Hezbollah should negotiate with us and give us a bunch of free shit - prisoners, beer, bitches, and money!"

At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters, according to security officials.

Great ratio. Excellent.

Source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_israel;_ylt=AqAeY_RDI.GGehS8tXUbBfWs0NUE;_ ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--)


Hezbollah has to go, but not at the expense of the country, and the people.

What people in power fail to realize is Hezbollah is only one third of the problem. The other two thirds have yet to chime in but that is intentional. The others being Hamas and the PLO. Hamas has tried to legitmize itself, and garner new support for it's millant/millitary wing known as Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, but their terrorist operations and strikes do very little to make them sympathetic figures and help the organization grow, so they need to wait until they can come off as heroes or at least justified in their actions. If the Muslim world appears under attack, new support will arrive and their is a legit cause to rally behind.

Israel's defiance and aggression will serve to be that justification, thus adding to the never ending violence. Every innocent life that is taken becomes the building blocks for the future generation of war and terrorism. Ever child that loses a family member or friend will grow up with hatred and revenge in their hearts and minds, and those emotions will be nutured by terrorist groups looking to cleanse the Muslim world of Zionist and Western influence.

The worst thing that could happen to the region is that Hamas, Hezbollah or the PLO be justified. Hamas has spent the last decade preparing for this day, and soon their day will arrive and the seeds that have been planted will grow into a third full scale war of the world.

Mossad has grown too big and too powerful and is now running Israel because we let it happen, we let them go unchecked just like the terrorists in the region. With any other group will would have intervened but it wouldn't have been PC to get involved it would have come off as anit-Israel, when that couldn't be futher from the truth. Mossad is attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon because they like being the big bad bully who carries a big stick, it has nothing to do with trying to rid the world of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a far bigger threat in Syria and Iran, but Israel (Mossad)doesn't want to fight a battle they cannot win.

Its too bad when any innocent civilian dies. However, it is unavoidable in military operations to root out islamic terrorists living within civilian areas.

Having said that, I don't believe for one second the stats about Hezbollah fighers vs. civilian deaths.

Hezbollah fighters don't wear uniforms, and hide within the civilian population. Moreover, when there is an Israeli bombing, many of the people counting the dead are themselves tied to Hezbollah, which has an agenda to manipulate the numbers for international support, and credibility as "players" in the middle east.

In other words, its a propaganda campaign by Hezbollah against Israel.

In their quest to recruit local pissed off middle eastern teenagers to be future radical islamist terrorists, they claim that Hezbollah has an army that can kill Israeli soldiers, that they are too smart for Israeli soldiers to find and kill them, and that Israel is only hitting poor innocent civilians, which doesn't bother them, because they hate arabs anyway.

I don't buy it.

Tay I agree Hezbollah is a threat that are far from victims. Hezbollah are propganda based zealots just any other right wing fundamentalist groups but their are better ways to deal with this situation then the way Israel chose. This situation has a lot bigger implications on the US and the World then what most would like to believe. Further violence no matter the justification that is used to send a missle will only further destablize the region.

J:

I agree that each bomb likely creates another terrorist, as does each US bomb/bullet in Iraq. I would distinguish between the two conflicts, however, by pointing out that Iraq was neither an immediate nor future threat to the US, while on the other hand Hezbollah not only fired on and engaged Israel, but also constitutes a real, daily threat to the future of Israel.

Unfortunately, civilians die in war. Unlike USA v. Iraq II, Israel is literally at war with its next door neighbors for its own survival.

So Israel has to kill civilians and unfortunately take a public relations hit with innocent lebanese people and their ancestors, like Anthony.

Every action has a reaction. You kill a terrorist, and hit a civilian, and make their son a terrorist.

I understand that... but you can't just sit there and allow your country to be invaded, so radical islamists can bath in your children's blood and push 100% of your people into the sea - - - can you???

I wouldn't.

Would you?

I'm sure I know the answer, but heres the question:

Instead of dropping bombs on the country over two kidnapped solders, cant Israel go to the UN and US and whoever else back them and get them to help the Lebanese gov. to disarm Hezbollah? The Lebanon government cant do it them self, because then their messing with Iran as well.

I'm sure I know the answer, but heres the question:

Instead of dropping bombs on the country over two kidnapped solders, cant Israel go to the UN and US and whoever else back them and get them to help the Lebanese gov. to disarm Hezbollah? The Lebanon government cant do it them self, because then their messing with Iran as well.

It's a lot like us and Iraq, if you want to fight you can find a way to start one.

Note that it's the military wing of Hezbollah that is at issue.

Like Hamas, much of Hezbollah isn't involved with aggressive behaviors toward Israel. They run civilian hospitals, schools that don't necessarily train people to be future terrorists, get food to needy people, etc. They may not care for the state of Israel at all, but they're not the ones doing the attacking.

Its too bad when any innocent civilian dies. However, it is unavoidable in military operations to root out islamic terrorists living within civilian areas.


It's not unavoidable, it just reflects the reality that foreign lives, while not worthless, are definitely worth less no matter how innocent they are. If those same islamic terrorists were hiding Tel Aviv I guarantee you airstrikes wouldn't be option one. They'd risk as many of their own as it took to do everything possible to avoid even a single civilian death.

"The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires. ... It is a Jihad for God's sake and will last until (our) religion prevails," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."

Does anyone have an English translation of al Zawahri's full speech (as opposed to just the soundbytes)?

"The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires. ... It is a Jihad for God's sake and will last until (our) religion prevails," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."

Keep putting Lebanese people in danger so you can win mother fucker. Four-eyed son of a bitch. Lebanon is being ruined by a bunch of 5'2 virgins with more body hair on them than an ape.

34 youths among 56 dead in Israeli strike By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago


Israeli missiles hit several buildings in a southern Lebanon village as people slept Sunday, killing at least 56, most of them children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "great sorrow" for the airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the area to launch rockets at Israel, and said he would not halt the army's operation.
The Lebanese Red Cross said the airstrike in Qana, in which at least 34 children were killed, pushed the overall Lebanese death toll to more than 500. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice postponed a visit to Lebanon in a setback for diplomatic efforts to end hostilities. She was to return to the U.S. Monday morning, abruptly breaking off her diplomatic mission in the Mideast.
Before the airstrike, Olmert told Rice he needed 10-14 days to finish the offensive in Lebanon, according to a senior Israeli government official. The two said they would meet again Sunday evening.
"We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents this morning," Olmert said said during Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting, according to a participant in the meeting. "We will continue the activity and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called an emergency Security Council meeting Sunday at the request of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora
The council was expected to discuss a French-sponsored draft resolution spelling out a series of steps meant to resolve the crisis, including an immediate halt to fighting.
Rice said she had called Saniora to postpone her visit to Lebanon; angry Lebanese officials said it was their government that called off the meeting.
Israeli said it targeted Qana because it was a base for hundreds of rockets launched at Israeli, including 40 that injured five Israelis on Sunday. Israel said it had warned civilians several days before to leave the village.
"One must understand the Hezbollah is using their own civilian population as human shields," said Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir. "The Israeli defense forces dropped leaflets and warned the civilian population to leave the place because the Hezbollah turned it into a war zone."
Rescuers aided by villagers dug through the rubble by hand. At least 20 bodies wrapped in white sheets were taken away, including 10 children. A row of houses lay in ruins, and an old woman was carried away on a plastic chair.
Villagers said many of the dead were from four families who had taken refuge in on the ground floor of a three-story building, believing they would be safe from bombings.
"We want this to stop!" shouted Mohammed Ismail, a middle-aged man pulling away at the rubble in search for bodies, his brown pants covered in dust. "May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting."
"They are hitting children to bring the fighters to their knees," he said.
Rice said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" in Israel's attack. But she did not call for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militias.
"We all recognize this kind of warfare is extremely difficult," Rice said, noting it comes in areas where civilians live. "It unfortunately has awful consequences sometimes."
"We want a cease-fire as soon as possible," she added.

The United States and Israel are pressing for a settlement that addresses enduring issues between Lebanon and Israel and disables Hezbollah — not the quick truce favored by most world leaders.
Saniora said Lebanon would be open only to an immediate cease-fire.
"There is no place at this sad moment for any discussions other than an immediate and unconditional cease-fire as well as international investigation of the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now," he told reporters Sunday.
More than 5,000 people protested in central Beirut, denouncing Israel and the United States, some chanting, "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv." A few broke car windows and tried briefly to break into the main U.N. building until political leaders called for a halt to damage.
Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr questioned Israel's claim that Hezbollah fired rockets from the village. "What do you expect Israel to say? Will it say that it killed 40 children and women?" he told Al-Jazeera television.
Qana, in the hills east of the southern port city of Tyre, has a bloody history. In 1996, Israeli artillery killed more than 100 civilians who had taken refuge at a U.N. base in the village. That attack sparked an international outcry that helped end an Israeli offensive.
Sunday's attack drew swift condemnation from several world leaders.
French President Jacques Chirac's office said "France condemns this unjustifiable action, which shows more than ever the need to move toward an immediate cease-fire."
Jordan's King Abdullah II condemned "the ugly crime perpetrated by Israeli forces in Qana."
Lebanese officials said most of their citizens slain in the conflict have been civilians. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 18 civilians.
Fighting also broke out between guerrillas and Israeli soldiers in a zone called the Taibeh Project area, about 2 miles inside Lebanon. The Israeli army said one soldier was wounded. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV claimed two Israeli soldiers were killed.
Heavy artillery rained down on the villages of Yuhmor and Arnoun, close to Taibeh. In northern Israel, rockets fell on Nahariya, Kiryat Shemona and an area close to Maalot, the army said.
Israel has said it would launch a series of limited ground incursions into Lebanon to push back guerrillas, rather than carry out a full-fledged invasion. Israeli troops pulled back Saturday from the town of Bint Jbail, suggesting the thrust, launched a week ago, had halted.
But Lebanese officials reported a massing of troops and 12 tanks near the Israeli town of Metulla further to the northeast, on the tip of the Galilee Panhandle near the Golan Heights, suggesting another incursion could begin soon.
The Security Council has yet to take a stance on the fighting, in part because the United States has not called for a cessation of hostilities.
The French draft circulated also seeks a wide new buffer zone in south Lebanon free of Israeli and Hezbollah forces and monitored by international forces and the Lebanese army.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the strike on Qana was a "tragedy" but stopped short of calling for a cease-fire.
A peace package Rice brought to the region called for a U.N.-mandated multinational force that can help stabilize in the region, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
It also proposes: disarming Hezbollah and integrating the guerrilla force into the Lebanese army; Hezbollah's return of Israeli prisoners; a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to put Hezbollah rockets out of range of Israel; a commitment to resolve the status of a piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon; and the creation of an international reconstruction plan for Lebanon.
The latter two provisions resembled parts of a proposal by Lebanon's government. But they fell short of Hezbollah's demands, including a prisoner swap to free Lebanese held for years in Israeli prisons and the disputed land, known as Chebaa farms, put under U.N. supervision until its status can be resolved.
___ Associated Press Writer Katherine Shrader in Jerusalem contributed to this story.







Fox, CNN, and MSNBC are reporting that there are now over 60 dead from these strikes. 40 Children. All civilian. Fuck Israel. All this loss of life over two fucking soldiers? But they said they were sorry, so I guess that makes it ok. Give me a fucking break.

US urges restraint after Qana By Caren Bohan1 hour, 8 minutes ago


The United States urged Israel on Sunday to take more care to avoid civilian casualties in Lebanon after an air strike killed at least 60 people, but still resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was working to arrange the conditions for a "sustainable" halt to the violence as soon as possible.
"This is a horrible event, a terrible event, and we certainly want to make it clear that not only do we feel sorrow for what happened, but determination that it really is important to end the conditions that led to that," Snow told a group of reporters by telephone.
President George W. Bush is under pressure from Arab leaders as well as many in Europe who want an immediate ceasefire.
Despite Sunday's events, he still insists on a resolution that aims to end Hizbollah's military control of southern Lebanon, officials said.
Snow repeated that "Israel does have a right to defend itself" but said it should show restraint and remember that in the end it will need to have positive relations with Lebanon and work for a two-state solution for the Palestinians.
Bush was informed of the Qana attack at 6:40 a.m. EDT (10:40 GMT) by national security adviser Stephen Hadley and discussed it on the telephone with Rice and Hadley.
Snow said Bush wanted to push ahead this week toward a U.N. Security Council resolution that would set conditions for a ceasefire and establish a multinational force.
The Security Council met in emergency session on Sunday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urging the body to condemn the Qana attack and call for an immediate end to hostilities.
Despite growing calls around the world for an immediate ceasefire, the United States has insisted for days that hostilities should only be halted on a basis that will last.
It backs Israeli demands for the Lebanese army, bolstered by an international force, to deploy to the south of the country currently controlled by Hizbollah which has used the territory to rain rockets down on towns in northern Israel.
Images of destruction and mass civilian casualties in Lebanon are fueling anti-American fury throughout the entire Arab world and may force Israel to end its offensive sooner than it would like, without achieving its strategic goal of inflicting massive damage on Hizbollah.
Bush has insisted that a ceasefire package must include steps to compel Hizbollah to stop attacking Israel while putting pressure on Syria and Iran to stop arming Hizbollah with rockets and other weapons. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland)

Listen.

I'm not saying what's going on is Israel is right or wrong... but if you accept that Israel is only trying to do what is necessary to keep their people safe, and to stabilize the region and provide security and peace over the long haul, and if you accept that they are fighting a front on the globar war against islamo-fascism, then you're going to have to live with civilian deaths.

Shit, we dropped atomic bombs on thousands if not millions of innocent japanese people in WWII, to prevent nazi'ism, causing deformed children even today, and for many years to come there will be more and more deformed children, and childrens' children, as a result of our acts against a civilian population.

If you think what is happening in Lebanon is ANYTHING NEAR like what the US did to Japan in WWII, you're fucking crazy.

I'm just saying you can't determine good or bad or right or wrong based on how many innocent civilians die in a war situation.

If we are truly in a war against islamo-fasism, then unfortunately innocent civilians will have to die to save the world.

If, on the other hand, neocons are making us go to war to make money and suppress the third world, then its a huge waste and people should be pissed.

Unfortunately, no one really knows for sure whether its an unavoidable war with islamo-fascism, or a neocon stunt to control the world.

I wish I had the answer.

Shit, we dropped atomic bombs on thousands if not millions of innocent japanese people in WWII, to prevent nazi'ism, causing deformed children even today, and for many years to come there will be more and more deformed children, and childrens' children, as a result of our acts against a civilian population.
Actually, there's been fairly limited evidence of pronounced generational genetic effects resulting from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in humans. The big reproductive effect on survivors involved their not being able to reproduce at all, which limits the real-world sample size some.

I don't claim to be an expert, but my understanding is cancer/leukemia/deformities are a lot higher there than most other places.

EDIT:

Anyway, my point was this part:


If we are truly in a war against islamo-fasism, then unfortunately innocent civilians will have to die to save the world.

If, on the other hand, neocons are making us go to war to make money and suppress the third world, then its a huge waste and people should be pissed.

Unfortunately, no one really knows for sure whether its an unavoidable war with islamo-fascism, or a neocon stunt to control the world.

I wish I had the answer.

Yeah, the survivors have more leukemia and whatnot, to this day. I'm referring more to the "children and children's children" remark, though. The evidence of inherited problems in humans has been remarkably limited. Very recent research has shown some level of genetic mutation that would be passed on, but not at a level that results in gross genetic defects. It doesn't take much (relatively speaking) to cause overall sterility, though.

Listen.

I'm not saying what's going on is Israel is right or wrong... but if you accept that Israel is only trying to do what is necessary to keep their people safe, and to stabilize the region and provide security and peace over the long haul, and if you accept that they are fighting a front on the globar war against islamo-fascism, then you're going to have to live with civilian deaths.

Shit, we dropped atomic bombs on thousands if not millions of innocent japanese people in WWII, to prevent nazi'ism, causing deformed children even today, and for many years to come there will be more and more deformed children, and childrens' children, as a result of our acts against a civilian population.

If you think what is happening in Lebanon is ANYTHING NEAR like what the US did to Japan in WWII, you're fucking crazy.


There's no need to reach all the way back to WWII for a comparison. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is very similar to what we're doing in Iraq, just smaller in scale with fewer civilians killed.

Fighting a pre-emptive war of choice to advance what you have defined as your security interests is what both countries are doing. Of course Israel has a much stronger case, with Hezbullah posing a direct threat right on their border stockpiling missiles and calling for the destruction of Israel.

There's no need to reach all the way back to WWII for a comparison. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is very similar to what we're doing in Iraq, just smaller in scale with fewer civilians killed.

What Israel is doing in Lebanon is quite similar to what Israel did in Lebanon in 1982, only it was the PLO instead of Hezbollah on the south Lebanon border at that time. There was the similar ambiguity over who crossed the border to attack first. There was a similar foreign-sponsored terrorist instigator within Lebanon (the ANO, who had broken off from the PLO) that resulted in Israel attacking all of Lebanon. Same shit, different decade...


Fighting a pre-emptive war of choice to advance what you have defined as your security interests is what both countries are doing. Of course Israel has a much stronger case, with Hezbullah posing a direct threat right on their border stockpiling missiles and calling for the destruction of Israel.

The key is to ask yourself why there's anti-Israeli people right at the border. Why don't they disperse into other population mixes, get the fuck out, etc. In the PLO's case, they were there because they were pushed out of Israel and Jordan, not because the Lebanese or Palestinians particularly wanted them to be there. Hezbollah more-or-less built upon that.

IMO, FWIW, opinion stuff to get people worked up:

The formation of Israel owing to the Zionist movement and British imperialism led to this recent displacement which has never been addressed. The Palestinians and other Arabs pushed back, Israel pushed some more with the aid of U.S. support (the U.S. having replaced Britain as the sponsoring superpower in the eyes of most), and the pushing and shoving in the region continues to this day. Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe. Follow the cause-effect linked list and there's a repetitive bloody mosaic of pain going back centuries. Righteousness gets thrown out the window.

A lot of people who aren't particularly on either side want to turn the whole bloody region into a giant parking lot as a consequence, in much the same way you might fantasize about strangling a bunch of loud crying babies at a public place to stop your head from hurting. I'm sure this doesn't help.

I think it's morbidly amusing that the U.S. is the arms dealer of choice for both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The formation of Israel owing to the Zionist movement and British imperialism led to this recent displacement which has never been addressed. The Palestinians and other Arabs pushed back, Israel pushed some more with the aid of U.S. support (the U.S. having replaced Britain as the sponsoring superpower in the eyes of most), and the pushing and shoving in the region continues to this day. Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe. Follow the cause-effect linked list and there's a repetitive bloody mosaic of pain going back centuries. Righteousness gets thrown out the window.

I don't see anything in that description about jews buying a good portion of the land that comprises Israel, fair and square, from its arab neighbors in the first place, dating back to the 1800's.

And I don't see anything in that description about Israel taking control, fair and square, of abandonded desert wasteland that had no owner - land that comprises another very good portion of the land that comprises Israel - and turning it into a desert oasis.


Redemption of land in Eretz Israel, much of which had fallen into neglect under foreign rule, began in the mid-1850s with the first attempts to enable Jews to live productively in Ottoman Palestine without reliance on the "old yishuv" model of overseas support. Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885) made the first known land purchase by someone from outside the region in 1855: 10 hectares (250 acres) of orange groves in Jaffa, under a newly-made arrangement with the Sultan allowing these first-ever purchases. Other private acquisitions followed, and by 1882, some 2,200 hectares had been purchased by Jews....

Each purchase entailed a cumbersome bureaucratic procedure vis-à-vis the local Turkish authorities, which, in the final declining phase of the Ottoman Empire, were either hostile to or uninterested in Jewish holdings in the sparsely populated backwater province that Palestine had become. Nearly all land was owned by the state (and was passed on to subsequent sovereigns) or by private and public entities through title or leasing arrangements. This state of affairs, coupled with the frequent need to resort to bribery in official dealings, gave the Jewish purchases a clandestine complexion that would recur in subsequent years....

The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael) was established to buy land in Palestine for reclamation and Jewish settlement. In its first decade, the JNF built a worldwide fundraising organization based on sale of stamps, collection "Blue Boxes" in homes and schools and solicitation of donations. In the spring of 1903, JNF acquired its first parcel of land: 800 acres in Hadera. Other modest purchases were made in 1904 and 1908 in Lower Galilee, Judea, and the Lake Kinneret region, and two forms of settlement that would prove crucial in the land-acquisition enterprise were pioneered there: the cooperative (moshav) and the collective (kevutsa, later kibbutz).

From the start, the organization focused on greening the land through the planting of trees....

In 1908, the first JNF trees were planted at Hulda: olive trees in memory of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism. In 1920, JNF expanded its role to help reclaim the swamps of Palestine. There quickly followed afforestation efforts. Since 1920, millions of trees have been planted in Israel by the Jewish National Fund.

Baron Benjamin (Edmond James) de Rothschild (1845-1934) enlisted in this cause after being petitioned by the leaders of Rishon Lezion, one of the First Aliya villages. His patronage embraced 12 settlements at all three levels of land redemption: purchase, reclamation and economically viable settlement....

In a military biography of Moshe Dayan, the early Zionist activity is described this way:

"Using Rothschild's money, these Jews purchased land from absentee Turkish landlords. To the Arab tenant farmers, the transfer of land from Turkish to Jewish ownership was of little consequence since the Jews rehired them as agricultural workers."

By the time Israel became a state in 1948, JNF owned 12.5 percent of all the land of Israel on which 80 percent of Israel's population now lives. With this ownership came the responsibility of transforming the land into a beautiful and fertile area that would be a suitable home for the new state.

Shlomo Gravetz of the Jewish National Fund says: "Throughout the history of land reclamation by Jews in Eretz Yisrael, the Arabs have always claimed that the Jews were throwing them off their land. In 1932 the High Commissioner appointed the Bentwich Committee to investigate these claims, and out of 700 purchases of Arab property, the committee did not find one case in which the Jews had acted immorally."

In my next installment, I'll debunk the pushing and shoving argument.

OK. I'll do it now.

In reality, in 1948, arabs could have had 45% of all of the land at issue, with the jews getting 55%. Since the jews owned more of the land than the arabs did (see above) it was actually a steal of a deal for the arabs.

In reality, they were buying land from jews - not selling land to jews (for pennies on the dollar - the same land they sold to the jews a few decades earlier for top dollar.)

Sorry if I blame them for this conflict. It could and should have been over in 1948, but its the arabs' fault it isn't. Sorry. Truth hurts.

Then, Arafat got a second bite at the apple. Israel handed him on a silver platter up to 97% of what his people wanted. He turned it down outright, continued to steal from his people and put the money overseas, and supported suicide bombers.

Sorry if I blame Arafat for this conflict. It could and should have ended in 2000, but Arafat didn't want 97% of EVERYTHING HIS PEOPLE WANTED. He wanted ZERO PERCENT of everything his people wanted.

And sorry, too, if I blame the palestinian people (although there really is no such thing) for teaching their youngsters each and every single day in school how glorious the smell of a martyr is, how wonderful the feel of fresh jewish blood is, and how they should grow up to be a suicide bomber.

Israeli schools teach math and science. This is what palestinian schools teach.


Palestinian kids raised for war
Taught to hate, kill Jews through 'Sesame Street'-type TV show
By Jon E. Dougherty and David Kupelian
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers shooting at innocent Palestinian children caught in the crossfire. That is the image that has dominated international press coverage of the five-week-old wave of violence that has wracked the Middle East, during which, according to some accounts, over 40 Palestinian children have died.

With each new report of youthful casualties, the perception of something unthinkable -- that Israeli soldiers are targeting children -- is reinforced in media coverage, a great deal of which tends to favor the perceived underdog in the clashes, namely the Palestinians.

The reality is indeed unthinkable, but not in the way so neatly portrayed by sound-bite media accounts of Palestinian children being shot by Israeli soldiers. Indeed, powerful and secret forces are at work in Palestinian nurseries, preschools, entertainment venues, classrooms and summer camps - forces that shape the current and future battles between Palestinians and Israelis, indeed, make them all but inevitable. However, up until recently, this amazing story has for the most part been hidden from Western eyes.

Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, to glorify "jihad" (holy war), violence, death and child martyrdom almost from birth, as an essential part of their culture and destiny.

As captured on an Israeli video documentary produced in 1998, a "Sesame Street"-like children's program called the "Children's Club" -- complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey Mouse and other characters -- focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating violence against them in a perpetual "jihad" until the day the Israeli flags come down from above "Palestinian land" and the Palestinian flag is raised.

In one song on the "Children's Club," very young children are shown singing songs about wanting to become "suicide warriors" and to take up "a machine gun" to direct "violence, anger, anger, anger" against Israelis.

During the show, which features children aged 4-10, one young boy sings, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber." Afterward, other children stand to call for "Jihad! Holy war to the end against the Zionist enemy."

In another segment, a boy who appears to be no more than 8 or 9 years old chants: "My patience has run out. All Arab existence cries for revenge" against the Jews in Israel.

The documentary also juxtaposes the children's programming with television news reporting, in which the news anchor - reflecting the same message the children are receiving -describes Palestinians as "noble, courageous" fighters, while describing Israel as "mean, fascist, racist, genocidal" and "Nazis."

Other "highlights" of the "Children's Club":

Groups of children are gathered together, shouting for "Jihad against Israel."

One girl, who appears to be in a Palestinian school classroom, sings of donning "battledress" to "attack the Zionists."

A small girl chants the now-familiar ditty, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."

An adult narrator reads material in a Palestinian school pamphlet: "I have raised my children for jihad and on the principle that they never give up on their land."

One segment depicts a small boy on the street chanting, "Revolution until victory."

Another boy is shown in class proclaiming, "We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."

In Palestinian school classrooms, the message is the same.

"It's very scary - it's a state-run educational system that teaches its children to be martyrs," said Meyrav Wurmser, Ph.D., an expert in Middle East politics who taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Johns Hopkins. Wurmser is the author of the recently published book, "Schools of Ba'athism," in which she makes a comprehensive survey and analysis of Syrian school textbooks. What she found is identical to what goes on with the Palestinians, she says.

"In the Palestinian case, what we see is the cynical use of children, who are exposed to a state-run ideology that pushes them to their death, in the name of Palestinian nationalism," she says. "Children are taught to idealize death, to view it as a positive. In many cases, they are told that death is not death at all, but rather the beginning of a new life."

Wurmser is currently the executive director of The Middle East Media & Research Institute, or MEMRI, and has published extensively on the Middle East and Arab and Israeli politics.

How can children be sold on dying in battle?

"The state threatens children if they're not willing to commit jihad," says Wurmser, "and tells them they will be punished by God if they do not commit jihad. If they do commit jihad, they and their families will be benefited by the state. [Their families] are promised major financial benefits if they kill themselves in suicide attacks against Israel."

To get over the fear, explained Wurmser, "they are told by their teachers that they're not going to die at all. There is definitely an element of denial they are exposed to."

This is not to say that some parents won't object to having their children converted to terrorists, says Wurmser, "but in the more religious families, there is no sense of sorrow. We see Palestinian mothers who have lost children - especially parents from very fundamentalist Muslim backgrounds -- who are not upset at all, but who say their sons have brought great honor to their families." This is typical, she says, of "radical national Arab regimes who have adopted the Islamic line."

This shocking assessment was bolstered in an Oct. 27 Jerusalem Post editorial, in which writer Gerald M. Steinberg provided details of statements made by Palestinians to reporters after their children had been killed in fighting.

"Interviewed by journalists after [recent] tragedies, some of the parents of these young victims refer to their children as shaheeds (martyrs), whose lives were given willingly and proudly to the Palestinian cause in fighting the hated Zionist enemy," Steinberg said.


Palestinian man teaching children how to fire M-16 automatic assault rifles.

"In an unbelievably shocking scene, one mother boasted that she bore her son precisely for this purpose, and the father proudly claimed credit for providing the training. The parents will also receive a sizeable financial 'reward' from the Palestinian Authority," he said.

You know. Sometimes its ok to take a stand. Sometimes its ok to say there's a right side and a wrong side. Sometimes political correctness is incorrect.

Has anyone in Israel ever done anything bad to anyone anywhere else?

The answer is yes.

Is Israel at fault for the inability to have peace in the middle east?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. They are surrounded on all sides by people who hate them. They have more motivation than any of their neighbors for peace - their very survival! They are a democratic government, with a parliamentary congress, a supreme court, a free press, and absolutely ZERO teaching of children to hate arabs.

The reality is that Israel wants peace and accepts a two state solution.

The reality is that some arabs don't want peace and do not accept a two state solution.

So the problem, as a whole, in reality, and without nitpicking every bomb dropped, and every dead civilian, really is 100% the fault of the arabs, and 0% the fault of the Israelis.

Here endeth the lesson.

Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe.

The problem is they picked the wrong elsewhere. Instead of spending the last 50 years fighting over jerusalem, they could've been chillin in the US. The occasional mad gunman not withstanding, america is a pretty good place to be jewish.

Even today jews still flock to that crappy patch of dirt surrounded by enemies. I know that suffering is part of the jewish identity but maybe it's time to give it a rest and take the path of least resistance for once.

In my fantasy world, the rallying call for peace in the middle east would be "Come to America!" We'd even pay for it. If it meant we could stop giving billions annually it israel and billions annually to egypt (to keep peace with israel) we'd still come out ahead.

Hours after the killing of 15 Israelis in a Jerusalem restaurant last week, the brother of the 23-year-old suicide bomber delightedly announced that "this is a unique operation for its quality and success... Palestinians everywhere can now hold up their heads."

Likewise, after a 22-year-old suicide bomber two months earlier killed 21 Israelis at a Tel Aviv discotheque, his father announced: "I am very happy and proud of what my son did and, frankly, am a bit jealous... I wish I had done it myself."

And so it has been with nearly all suicide operations - family members rejoicing at the "martyrdom" of their brothers and children. Some fathers even publicly announce a hope that their children will kill Israelis in suicide operations.

Puzzled by this apparent denial of the primal human urge to protect one's young, President George W. Bush has commented, "I just can't understand this." He is hardly alone.

Two main factors account for this bizarre behavior. The first concerns the Palestinian Authority drumming into impressionable youth the glory of suicidal death while killing Israelis.

PA television harps constantly on this message. On the Children's Club (a Sesame Street-like children's program), a young boy sings: "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber." A repeatedly shown television clip calls on children to "Drop your toys. Pick up rocks." In another, the words to a children's song go: "How pleasant is the smell of martyrs, how pleasant the smell of land, the land enriched by the blood, the blood pouring out of a fresh body."

Ikrima Sabri, the PA's ranking religious leader, says, "The younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respect him," while praising mothers who "willingly sacrifice their offspring for the sake of freedom." PA schools indoctrinate pupils on the virtues and joys of martyrdom, then honor and celebrate suicide killers. Four summer camps are currently training eight- to 12-year-olds for suicide bombings. Organizations like Hamas promise to look after the killers' families' financial needs.

In all, notes Meyrav Wurmser, a Hudson Institute specialist on the indoctrination of pupils, the PA has developed "a state-run ideology that pushes [children] to their death." Why does this indoctrination work and why do Palestinian families enthusiastically send their children to die? What pressure could overcome the human instinct to protect one's beloved?

That pressure is not hard to locate, for it pervades Middle Eastern life. It is an unrelenting, compulsive preoccupation with family honor. The power of this obligation goes far beyond anything Westerners encounter.

The fixation on family honor takes two main forms. The negative one, called ird in Arabic, concerns the sexual purity of women and it accounts for the Middle Eastern custom of murdering female relatives for perceived offenses to the family. Such honor killings are intended to purify the family from its shame; thus do brothers kill sisters, cousins kill cousins, fathers kill daughters, and even sons kill mothers....

The positive form of honor (sharaf in Arabic) involves efforts to enhance the family's status by taking steps to win it praise and renown; and nothing can win a family as much glory as its willing sacrifice of a family member for a noble cause.

Thanks to PA propaganda, suicide bombing has become a highly honored act. Thus, the Tel Aviv bomber's father crowed about his son, "He has become a hero! Tell me, what more could a father ask?"

Combined, the monstrous social environment created by the PA and the families' preoccupation with social status goes far to explain why Palestinians glory in the destruction of their youth.

THE USE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
IN THE AL-AQSA INTIFADA
....


Since the recent disturbances began, media reports have often highlighted instances in which Palestinian children have been killed or injured by Israeli troops or policemen. These reports have generated much criticism of Israeli policies, although few in the Western world have thought through the chaos they see on the news to consider whose interests are served by the violence. Even fewer have access to the information necessary to place in legal and historical context these weeks of death and disorder.

The appearance of Palestinian children in these riots, it will be demonstrated, is not accidental. The Palestinian Authority has intentionally mobilized Palestinian children to man the front line in its struggle against Israel, frequently using them as shields to protect Palestinian gunmen. This mobilization of Palestinian youth has, moreover, been facilitated by the long-term impact of Palestinian Authority (PA) curricula, government-controlled media, and summer camp programs, which indoctrinated the youth for armed confrontation with Israel even prior to the current crisis.

The utilization of children in armed conflicts has been increasingly condemned by the international community. It is barred by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and recent UN Security Council Resolution 1261, which specifically described the use of children as soldiers as a "violation of international law."

Moreover, the Palestinian leadership, in a classic case of bad faith, accuses Israel of committing human rights violations for the fatalities while evading its own responsibility for the orchestrated appearance of children at the front lines of the conflict. This constitutes a cynical exploitation of human rights concerns. While the Palestinian Authority is not formally bound by international human rights conventions, it nonetheless is required by the Oslo agreements, which PA Chairman Yasser Arafat signed, to honor "internationally accepted norms of human rights and the rule of law."

Creating Martyrs for the Media

The visuals of a bleeding Palestinian child surrounded by screaming relatives all but obviate the need for most people to consider why and how the child was in harm's way in the first instance....

This data certainly provided an opportunity for Yasser Arafat who, addressing the Emergency Arab Summit in Cairo, appealed for help to stop the "'genocide and massacre' of his people armed with stones."10 Wielding their political clout at the United Nations, the Palestinians prevailed on the UN Human Rights Commission to condemn Israel for "crimes against humanity."11 Even the UN Security Council approved a completely one-sided resolution condemning Israel.12 Although these accusations are transparently rhetorical, there is little doubt that, by their deliberate misuse of children, the Palestinian cause has attracted new sympathy.

"Improved" Palestinian Tactics

The current violence has given the Palestinians the opportunity to improve on their widespread use of children in the original intifada of a decade ago and in other organized rioting during the interim years, such as in Hebron.13 This time the children act as bait, burning tires and shooting slingshots, to attract the television cameras and distract the IDF, in tandem with well-armed Palestinian gunmen in ambush positions.14 Since the Palestinian public knows that Israeli soldiers are ordered not to shoot live ammunition at children, they act as shields to protect Palestinian snipers who shoot to kill any exposed members of the IDF. When the youth rush forward throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, Palestinian snipers on rooftops and in alleys take aim at the IDF, on some occasions actually shooting Palestinian children from behind.15 Alternatively, according to IDF sources, Palestinian gunmen have shot from within a rioting crowd of civilians.16

The extent of the violence directed at Israel is illustrated by statistics from the month of October 2000. Palestinians perpetrated 599 shooting incidents at military,17 police, and civilian targets.18 Twenty-six bombs were detonated with intent to harm or kill Israelis,19 and 400 Molotov cocktails were thrown at Israelis. In all there were 3,209 violent disturbances including 1,397 stone throwing incidents.20 As a consequence, six Israeli civilians and seven soldiers were killed, and 51 civilians and 139 soldiers were injured.21

A cynical use of youngsters and children was repeatedly observed at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip where buildings erected under the pretence of housing members of the PLO naval forces and their families were in fact used as shooting posts against an adjacent Israeli compound. The buildings were also used by the PA to assemble children to throw Molotov cocktails, gas canisters, and stones at IDF soldiers.22

Even the ambulances that wait to pick up the injured often serve a secondary (illegally under international law23) role -- to transport gunmen, Molotov cocktails, and rocks to the confrontation with the knowledge that Israel will not fire on these "medical vehicles."24 This is a clear violation of one of the fundamental precepts of humanitarian law and places at risk the immunity generally granted to medical services. After Palestinian gunmen inside the Red Crescent Headquarters in Ramallah opened fire on the IDF; and on the same day a Red Crescent ambulance was used in a nearby shooting attack, the IDF Spokesman issued this statement: "The IDF harshly condemns and views seriously shooting attacks toward an Israeli community from a Red Crescent building and ambulance, a body that is meant to offer humanitarian and medical assistance."25 In both cases the IDF refrained from responding....

The basic tactics of the intifadists, however, are not new. During the previous intifada, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab extolled the usefulness of children-rioters in the Journal of Palestine Studies:

When the danger alarm is sounded the young people of the neighborhood divide into three teams. The first is composed of lookouts...the second team is basically defensive in nature; its main task is to cover the offensive team...the most courageous. After advancing to the Israeli position and throwing stones, the defensive team goes into action to cover the retreating youths. When the offensive team starts to retreat, it is the job of the defensive team to throw a barrage of stones at the soldiers.

The similarities of these violent tactics to childhood games like "tag" is not coincidental; the Palestinian leadership discovered a way to channel youthful energy into the uprising.

Incitement by Arafat and his Palestinian Authority
Thanks to their empowerment under the Oslo peace process, the Palestinian Authority has new and varied vehicles to motivate their youth to participate in anti-Israeli street violence. Television and radio stations, school textbooks, a range of newspapers and magazines, and even the summer camp curriculum are all, directly or indirectly, under the control of the PA.

Television broadcasts frequently include what in many Western countries would be deemed "hate speech." On July 2, 1998, in derogation of its commitments to combat incitement under the interim peace agreements (discussed below), a Palestinian television children's show called "The Children's Club," similar in its basic structure to "Sesame Street," aired an episode in which young boys with raised arms chanted "We are ready with our guns; revolution until victory; revolution until victory."35 On the same show, an 8-year-old boy announced to the audience (a group of children), "I come here to say that we will throw them to the quiet sea. Occupiers, your day is near, then we will settle our account. We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."36 Also on the Children's Club program, on February 8, 1998, a girl who could not have been more than ten years old declared that she wanted to "turn into a suicide warrior" in Jerusalem.

Other Palestinian institutions are also imbued with incitement. A New York Times reporter observed a PA-run summer camp program where the 25,000 campers stage the kidnapping of Israeli leaders, strip and assemble Kalachnikov assault rifles, and learn the art of ambushing.43 They are given camouflage uniforms and imitation guns.44 They parade and practice infiltration, crawling on their stomachs through obstacles. Training children for the armed struggle reminds one of the terrible price children have paid in other Middle Eastern wars. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian government recruited tens of thousands of child soldiers, dubbed "Revolutionary Guards."45 Sent to the front to clear minefields and attack fortified Iraqi positions, these usually unarmed children faced near certain death.46 They were told that the little plastic key around their neck would open the gates to eternal paradise.

Even in the public schools, politics seem to be playing a major role in education. For example, the PA's Deputy Minister of Education, Naim Abu Humus, called on school administrators to dedicate the first class for praying for the souls of those killed during the Al-Aqsa intifada, saying "Today we glorify Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and remember the Palestinian martyrs."47

President Clinton, in a speech in late 1998, referred to "education for peace" as "the most important element" to make peace "sustainable."48 But Palestinian interest in reconciliation with Israel is notably absent from the Palestinian textbooks, even in the indigenous Palestinian textbooks, which this year partially replaced the old Jordanian textbooks previously used in their public schools. A sixth grade civics book portrays Israel as an aggressor and explains to the children that, "[t]he Palestinian people were expelled from their land as a result of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and have been subjected to massacres and banishment from their land."49 The map in the book makes no reference to the existence of Israel adjoining the PA territories; nor does it include major Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv.50 In fact, the only Israeli cities referenced are ones which previously had large Palestinian populations.51

A Palestinian mental health official confirmed that Palestinian children are chiefly motivated by what they see on Palestinian television: "the role of information is an additional factor behind the will of children to die the death of a saint, for they see on television their relatives as martyrs or wounded and hear the calls of praise that they receive."55 Clearly, PA government-controlled media play a significant role in both the long-term and immediate motivation of children to place themselves in life-threatening situations.

Negating the Raison D'etre of the Peace Process
The new Palestinian violence undermines not only the spirit of the Oslo peace process but its raison d'etre -- to resolve differences through negotiation rather than violence. As Arafat proclaimed in his September 9, 1993, letter to Yitzhak Rabin:

The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and all other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations, and discipline violators.56

This was his price of admission into the U.S.-brokered and funded peace process. In return, Rabin agreed to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and commence negotiations with what previously had been deemed a terrorist organization.57

The problem of incitement to violence has been repeatedly addressed in the interim peace agreements. For example, the Cairo Agreement, signed by Arafat in 1994, obligates the PA to "foster mutual understanding and tolerance" and "abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda [and]...take legal measures to prevent such incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals."58

The Preamble of the Oslo II interim peace agreement, signed by Arafat in 1995, reaffirms the parties' "mutual commitment to act, in accordance with this Agreement, immediately, efficiently and effectively against acts or threats of terrorism, violence or incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis."59 Oslo II also contains provisions which obligate the Palestinian Legislative Council to "foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda...and...take legal measures to prevent incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals within their jurisdiction."60 This is followed by the requirement that "Israel and the Council will ensure that their respective educational systems contribute to the peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and to peace in the entire region, and will refrain from the introduction of any motifs that could adversely affect the process of reconciliation."61 The Palestinian police's "duties and functions" include "combating terrorism and violence, and preventing incitement to violence."62 However, since the Al-Aqsa intifada began, the Palestinian police, whose salaries, assault rifles, training, and uniforms were paid for by Western donors, have done absolutely nothing to stop incitement; many have even trained their rifles on the IDF.

Thereafter, article 2(b) of the Note for the Record of the Hebron Protocol, signed by Arafat in 1997, reiterated the obligation of the Palestinians to "preventing incitement and hostile propaganda as specified in Article XXII" of the Oslo II agreement.63

The endemic problem of the PA's use of textbooks that incite to violence prompted the inclusion of a separate article in the Wye Agreement, signed by Arafat in 1998.64 Section II, A(3), captioned "Preventing Incitement," states:

a. Drawing on relevant international practice and pursuant to Article XXII(1) of the Interim Agreement and Note for the Record, the Palestinian side will issue a decree prohibiting all forms of incitement to violence or terror, and establishing mechanisms for acting systematically against all expressions or threats of violence or terror. This decree will be comparable to the existing Israeli legislation which deals with the same subject.

b. A US-Palestinian-Israeli committee will meet on a regular basis to monitor cases of possible incitement to violence or terror and to make recommendations and reports on how to prevent such incitement. The Israeli-Palestinian and U.S. sides will each appoint a media specialist, a law enforcement representative, an educational specialist, and a current or former elected official to the committee.65

Although the trilateral committee did meet, the Palestinian appointees resisted efforts to edit their textbooks. An editorial in the English language Palestinian newspaper Jerusalem Times, entitled "No Apologies for the Curriculum," proclaimed "[t]he children should know their history well, whether or not it pleases the world," and continued defiantly, "[w]e should not care if our curriculum does not please Israel."66 In the newspaper Al-Quds, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council denigrated the anti-incitement provisions of the Wye Agreement as "the most dangerous as it touches on the national ideology and national consciousness."67

In the most recent Sharm el-Sheikh interim agreement, signed by Arafat in 1999, which intended to implement the outstanding commitments of the previously signed agreements, the PA rededicated itself to: "8(a) ...immediately and effectively respond to the occurrence or anticipated occurrence of an act of terrorism, violence or incitement and shall take all necessary measures to prevent such an occurrence."68 But as demonstrated, none of the anti-incitement provisions in the interim peace agreements, each one signed by Arafat, have been honored in practice....

Why not just bold the whole damn thing?

Palestinian kids raised for war
Taught to hate, kill Jews through 'Sesame Street'-type TV show
By Jon E. Dougherty and David Kupelian
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers shooting at innocent Palestinian children caught in the crossfire. That is the image that has dominated international press coverage of the five-week-old wave of violence that has wracked the Middle East, during which, according to some accounts, over 40 Palestinian children have died.

With each new report of youthful casualties, the perception of something unthinkable -- that Israeli soldiers are targeting children -- is reinforced in media coverage, a great deal of which tends to favor the perceived underdog in the clashes, namely the Palestinians.

The reality is indeed unthinkable, but not in the way so neatly portrayed by sound-bite media accounts of Palestinian children being shot by Israeli soldiers. Indeed, powerful and secret forces are at work in Palestinian nurseries, preschools, entertainment venues, classrooms and summer camps - forces that shape the current and future battles between Palestinians and Israelis, indeed, make them all but inevitable. However, up until recently, this amazing story has for the most part been hidden from Western eyes.

Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, to glorify "jihad" (holy war), violence, death and child martyrdom almost from birth, as an essential part of their culture and destiny.

As captured on an Israeli video documentary produced in 1998, a "Sesame Street"-like children's program called the "Children's Club" -- complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey Mouse and other characters -- focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating violence against them in a perpetual "jihad" until the day the Israeli flags come down from above "Palestinian land" and the Palestinian flag is raised.

In one song on the "Children's Club," very young children are shown singing songs about wanting to become "suicide warriors" and to take up "a machine gun" to direct "violence, anger, anger, anger" against Israelis.

During the show, which features children aged 4-10, one young boy sings, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber." Afterward, other children stand to call for "Jihad! Holy war to the end against the Zionist enemy."

In another segment, a boy who appears to be no more than 8 or 9 years old chants: "My patience has run out. All Arab existence cries for revenge" against the Jews in Israel.

The documentary also juxtaposes the children's programming with television news reporting, in which the news anchor - reflecting the same message the children are receiving -describes Palestinians as "noble, courageous" fighters, while describing Israel as "mean, fascist, racist, genocidal" and "Nazis."

Other "highlights" of the "Children's Club":

Groups of children are gathered together, shouting for "Jihad against Israel."

One girl, who appears to be in a Palestinian school classroom, sings of donning "battledress" to "attack the Zionists."

A small girl chants the now-familiar ditty, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."

An adult narrator reads material in a Palestinian school pamphlet: "I have raised my children for jihad and on the principle that they never give up on their land."

One segment depicts a small boy on the street chanting, "Revolution until victory."

Another boy is shown in class proclaiming, "We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."

In Palestinian school classrooms, the message is the same.

"It's very scary - it's a state-run educational system that teaches its children to be martyrs," said Meyrav Wurmser, Ph.D., an expert in Middle East politics who taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Johns Hopkins. Wurmser is the author of the recently published book, "Schools of Ba'athism," in which she makes a comprehensive survey and analysis of Syrian school textbooks. What she found is identical to what goes on with the Palestinians, she says.

"In the Palestinian case, what we see is the cynical use of children, who are exposed to a state-run ideology that pushes them to their death, in the name of Palestinian nationalism," she says. "Children are taught to idealize death, to view it as a positive. In many cases, they are told that death is not death at all, but rather the beginning of a new life."

Wurmser is currently the executive director of The Middle East Media & Research Institute, or MEMRI, and has published extensively on the Middle East and Arab and Israeli politics.

How can children be sold on dying in battle?

"The state threatens children if they're not willing to commit jihad," says Wurmser, "and tells them they will be punished by God if they do not commit jihad. If they do commit jihad, they and their families will be benefited by the state. [Their families] are promised major financial benefits if they kill themselves in suicide attacks against Israel."

To get over the fear, explained Wurmser, "they are told by their teachers that they're not going to die at all. There is definitely an element of denial they are exposed to."

This is not to say that some parents won't object to having their children converted to terrorists, says Wurmser, "but in the more religious families, there is no sense of sorrow. We see Palestinian mothers who have lost children - especially parents from very fundamentalist Muslim backgrounds -- who are not upset at all, but who say their sons have brought great honor to their families." This is typical, she says, of "radical national Arab regimes who have adopted the Islamic line."

This shocking assessment was bolstered in an Oct. 27 Jerusalem Post editorial, in which writer Gerald M. Steinberg provided details of statements made by Palestinians to reporters after their children had been killed in fighting.

"Interviewed by journalists after [recent] tragedies, some of the parents of these young victims refer to their children as shaheeds (martyrs), whose lives were given willingly and proudly to the Palestinian cause in fighting the hated Zionist enemy," Steinberg said.


Palestinian man teaching children how to fire M-16 automatic assault rifles.

"In an unbelievably shocking scene, one mother boasted that she bore her son precisely for this purpose, and the father proudly claimed credit for providing the training. The parents will also receive a sizeable financial 'reward' from the Palestinian Authority," he said.

I'm sure Jews love arabs too.



The reality is that some Arabs don't want peace and do not accept a two state solution.

Ohhhh Sure, the Lebanese people love being bombed to the tune of hundreds civilain deaths. We love it. In fact, we send letters to Israel every day to ask them to continue it.


Israel isnt raging war on Hezbollah, they're raging war on all the people of Lebanon. It gets more and more obvious every day. And this is the arabs fault? You dont think Israel is overreacting just a little here? All this damage over 2 soldiers? Two fucking soldiers? They kill hundreds of innocent over two soldiers?

Im' sure they're not to blame at all though. They never do nothing to no one. Its all our fault.

Both sides are at fault. Unfortunately the wrong people are being killed. Kids, women, and men who have nothing to do with this fight.

Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe.

The problem is they picked the wrong elsewhere. Instead of spending the last 50 years fighting over jerusalem, they could've been chillin in the US. The occasional mad gunman not withstanding, america is a pretty good place to be jewish.

Even today jews still flock to that crappy patch of dirt surrounded by enemies. I know that suffering is part of the jewish identity but maybe it's time to give it a rest and take the path of least resistance for once.

In my fantasy world, the rallying call for peace in the middle east would be "Come to America!" We'd even pay for it. If it meant we could stop giving billions annually it israel and billions annually to egypt (to keep peace with israel) we'd still come out ahead.



the United States government turned away thousands of European Jews fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II

Anthony. You misunderstand my point.

I said forget about individual battles, such as the current conflict in Lebanon.

My point was, overall, if it were up to Israel, there would be peace, recognized borders, and stability.

You can argue that by bombing Lebanon they are going against their own interests, but I'm not talking about a single military issue, or about whether it was a mistake, or whether it was disproportionate.

I'm talking about the grand scheme of things in the middle east conflict.

In the grand scheme of things, Israel wants peace, but some of its partners don't.

Do you disagree with that?

I don't see anything in that description about jews buying a good portion of the land that comprises Israel, fair and square, from its arab neighbors in the first place, dating back to the 1800's.

And I don't see anything in that description about Israel taking control, fair and square, of abandonded desert wasteland that had no owner - land that comprises another very good portion of the land that comprises Israel - and turning it into a desert oasis.
Both these were HUGELY enabled by British Palestine, which I did mention, and which your writeup on land ownership totally ignores That's how you go from a few acres of desert in 1920 to a sizable % of the entire region. Once there was anything resembling a sizable amount of Jews and Jewish ownership facilitated by British-"occupied" Palestine, there was revolt.


In my next installment, I'll debunk the pushing and shoving argument.

OK. I'll do it now.

In reality, in 1948, arabs could have had 45% of all of the land at issue, with the jews getting 55%. Since the jews owned more of the land than the arabs did (see above) it was actually a steal of a deal for the arabs.
No, they owned a much-smaller portion than that, as your own quote shows:


By the time Israel became a state in 1948, JNF owned 12.5 percent of all the land of Israel on which 80 percent of Israel's population now lives.
Not that it was really relevant, as there were a lot of problems with the Israel-Palestine split as laid out by the U.N. Rather than post Asimov's collected works of quotes and talk about who had access to fresh water and who had desert and all sorts of matters pertaining to the particulars of the land itself, just take a look at the image of how it was supposed to work:

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/maps/IMAGES/PART.JPG

Note how Israel and Palestine each consist of three largely-discontiguous blobs. You could infer conflict just by looking at the map boundaries and having no idea of who the parties are.

Originally posted by something Taymelo dug up


Rather than post Asimov's collected works of quotes...

LMFAO @ me.

Anthony. You misunderstand my point.

I said forget about individual battles, such as the current conflict in Lebanon.

My point was, overall, if it were up to Israel, there would be peace, recognized borders, and stability.

You can argue that by bombing Lebanon they are going against their own interests, but I'm not talking about a single military issue, or about whether it was a mistake, or whether it was disproportionate.

I'm talking about the grand scheme of things in the middle east conflict.

In the grand scheme of things, Israel wants peace, but some of its partners don't.

Do you disagree with that?

The only thing I know is there will never be peace there.
Hell, I have a strong dislike for Israel, I admit.

I just think this is a huge over reaction on Israelis part.
I want what most want: Hezbollah to disarm. Who dosnt want that?
Maybe those who support them. But they only support them because they help the poor in the south. They take care of them.
It makes me sick when I see people on the news who are displaced and moving around from town to town because of the bombings and their still singing the praises of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah put you there.

Israel could have gone about this a different way.
The thing that most Lebenese, even those who dont support Hezbollah at all, are pissed about, is all the civilian lives that are being wasted, and what little progress is being made against Hezbollah its self. More supporters are being killed than actuall members. Its a waste.

This is a long thread. Can the OP dumb it down for those of us who could care less about what goes on outside our immediate region?

Maybe add a running score in the first post.

Israel 3 - Hezbollah 2 @ Halftime. Something like that.

Then, Arafat got a second bite at the apple. Israel handed him on a silver platter up to 97% of what his people wanted. He turned it down outright, continued to steal from his people and put the money overseas, and supported suicide bombers.

Sorry if I blame Arafat for this conflict. It could and should have ended in 2000, but Arafat didn't want 97% of EVERYTHING HIS PEOPLE WANTED. He wanted ZERO PERCENT of everything his people wanted.
To be fair, Barak's offer was on the table twice -- once in 2000, once in 2001. Arafat walked away the first time. Barak walked away the second. And it certainly wasn't what a lot of Palestinians actually -wanted- -- just what they'd possibly accept.

But yeah, I agree. He missed his "do or die" moment, and died. If you think Arafat really had the power to accept on behalf of "his" people, then he was stupid not to accept. (On the other hand, if he knew a sufficiently large / influential % of Palestinians wouldn't live with his deal and replaced him with Hamas, Arafat might have justified rejecting the offer to save lives.)

Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe.

The problem is they picked the wrong elsewhere. Instead of spending the last 50 years fighting over jerusalem, they could've been chillin in the US. The occasional mad gunman not withstanding, america is a pretty good place to be jewish.
It is now. It wasn't back then. Jews were second-class citizens in the eyes of many folks in the U.S. back when Israel was formed, which was why you didn't see large masses of Jews fleeing to the U.S. during the Holocaust. It didn't help that liberal Jews already living in the U.S. didn't much care for the more-conservative European Jews (much as the Dutch of West Michigan don't have the same political slant on life as the Dutch in the Netherlands).


Even today jews still flock to that crappy patch of dirt surrounded by enemies. I know that suffering is part of the jewish identity but maybe it's time to give it a rest and take the path of least resistance for once.
That sentiment is how most of the Jews that did get here pre-Israel.


In my fantasy world, the rallying call for peace in the middle east would be "Come to America!" We'd even pay for it. If it meant we could stop giving billions annually it israel and billions annually to egypt (to keep peace with israel) we'd still come out ahead.
I take it they're going to live in Dearborn? :)

Israeli raid near Syria
Israeli airborne troops raided a Lebanese hospital near the Syrian border Wednesday, sparking a firefight that Israel said killed 10 Hezbollah militants.

The hospital used as a Hezbollah post in Baalbeck, Israel Defense Forces top leader Dan Halutz said. Israeli forces captured five militants in the raid, Halutz said.

The hospital and surrounding area was thought to be a remote Hezbollah logistics base where many Hezbollah leaders lived, said Israel Defense Forces top leader Dan Halutz. The hospital was raided to gain intelligence information, which Halutz said the IDF obtained.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said though the scene of the fighting is called a hospital, "there are no patients there, there is no hospital. This is the basis of Hezbollah in disguise. It's named a hospital precisely to mislead you and others that will consider it a place no army will intervene with."

Ten militants were killed and five were captured in and around the hospital during the operation, Halutz said. The IDF also destroyed a large supply of missiles during the raid.

No Israeli casualties were reported.

Lebanese Internal Security Forces said 16 people were killed and 13 were wounded during the Baalbeck airstrike.

There are an estimated 25,000 Israeli soldiers operating in nine southern Lebanese villages near the Syrian border as part of a campaign that Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said has wiped out 300 of the estimated 2,000 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

"Hezbollah has taken a serious beating and that is why the pressure of a ground offensive will produce the expected results," said Ramon, speaking on Israeli Channel 10.

Arabic language networks reported that Hezbollah denied Ramon's claims....

As of Tuesday night, Lebanese authorities said nearly 560 civilians and soldiers have also been killed, most of them as a result of Israeli airstrikes. Israel has reported 54 deaths, including 19 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks. (Watch Lebanese racing to get out of range -- 1:51)


Take note of three things.

First, the fact that Hezbollah not only hides in residential areas using women and children as human shields, and then disingenuously wailing on television for world sympathy at how terrible the Israelis are for killing their human shields... but they also use hospitals as military bases, and fill them not only with militants, but with scores of rockets and other munitions, and use them as military headquarters.

Second, that if nearly 560 people have died, and 300 of them were Hezbollah, then "only" 260 civilians have died.

In other words, Israel has killed considererably more Hezbollah than innocent civilians, athough people like Anthony were lied to by CNN and believe more civilians than Hezbollah were killed. Put yet another way, the lies broadcast on CNN are at least partially responsible for Anthony's anger towards Israel right now.

Third, what you believe after watching television is that Israel is indiscriminantly bombing all of Lebanon, and killing more civilians than bad guys - taking it all out on the innocent.

What is REALLY happenning, however, is that Israel is targeting Hezbollah and mostly hitting Hezbollah, but because Hezbollah don't wear uniforms, fire from apartment buildings and hospitals, etc., Hezbollah has caused Israel to unintentionally kill a lot of civilians - some of them "innocent", some of them staying behind specifically to provide cover for Hezbollah (i.e. knowingly and voluntarily acting as human shields and collaborators with Hezbollah).

I'm sure that a few TRULY innocent civilians have died, but the rest is just propaganda.

Israel drops leaflets and tells people to evacuate. Those that don't evacuate are ALLEGEDLY the sick, old, children, etc.

BULLSHIT. Most of those allegedly sick, old and children are (children of) Hezbollah and/or Hezbollah sympathizers, who volunteered to stay behind and be human shields during Israeli bombing.

Now, because some Hezbollah nutcase forced his children to stay in an apartment where he fired rockets at Israel, and Israel took him out, its allegedly Israel "targeting civilians".

Fuck that.

Of course, by that metric, Hezbollah hasn't targetted civilians either.

Israel has reported 54 deaths, including 19 civilians

Yeah tay, I just started to hate Israel. I've never hated them before these actions. No, i've always thought they were a piece of shit nation that should have never existed where they do in the first place. They make all the trouble in the middle east. Its like a black man moving into a well known racist town in the south and taking one of the better houses.

You know everything. Your always right and everyone else who disagrees with you is always wrong. I'm so glad you can hold your self in such a high regard.

So what your saying is that its OK for the Israelis to kill those people because of their support of hezbollah? They have no where to go.

Look, I want what Israel supposedly wants. Hezbollah out. They should have been wiped out by the Reagen administration in the early 80's. The same way they should have gotten Osama under Billy boy.

But dont tell me its ok to kill hundreds of Lebanese people simply because of their support of Hezbollah. Its wrong and its not right.

Another thing, you blast Bush about the war in Iraq every time you get the chance. So why do you back up Israel? Huh? Why? Its the same fucking thing, different countries.

But then again, i'm the one who's misinformed simply because you have a different POV. I'm sorry for even challenging your wide spread knowledge. What the fuck was I thinking.

Yeah tay, I just started to hate Israel. I've never hated them before these actions.

I was just making a point, using you as an example, that by, as Bush would say, catapulting the propaganda on behalf of Hezbollah, everyone seems to think that only civilians are being hit.

Sorry if I used your name in making an example.


No, i've always thought they were a piece of shit nation that should have never existed where they do in the first place. They make all the trouble in the middle east. Its like a black man moving into a well known racist town in the south and taking one of the better houses.

Yes.

Don't blame the racists.

Blame the guy who is trying to live in peace in his nice house.


You know everything. Your always right and everyone else who disagrees with you is always wrong. I'm so glad you can hold your self in such a high regard.

I'm going to say this once and fucking for all, for you and EVERYONE on this board.

Just like you, I am fucking entitled to my own fucking opinion.

If I believe my opinion is fact, I'm fucking entitled to that, too.

I'm entitled to post what I believe, to support it with quotes I like, and you are entitled to read it, don't read it, respond to it, debunk it, make my opinion look stupid with well informed facts, whatever.

But don't get your fucking panties all in a bunch because I state MY OPINION on this board and not yours.

You want your opinion known, TYPE IT, fucker. I'm not going to make your fucking arguments for you. I'm not going to author my posts to make points for you.

I post for - - - surprise surprise --- ME!!!


So what your saying is that its OK for the Israelis to kill those people because of their support of hezbollah? They have no where to go.

I have no easy answer for that. I don't know if its 50% their fault, 50% the Lebanese government's fault, 50% Hezbollah's fault, 25% someone else's fault.

All I know is that prior to 1948 Israel had many terror groups and militias. Its true. Look it up. They even terrorized the British. However, when the government was formed, the militias were disbanded, and now all education and military action comes from a centralized and legitimate government.

Since 1948, neither the Lebanese nor Palestinians have organized a government that has created legitimate educational institutions, hospitals, military, etc. They have NOT disbanded their militias, although they promised in writing several times to do so.

Apportion the blame as you see fit, but if Hezbollah was disbanded and the only army was the Lebanese army, we wouldn't be having this discussion.


But dont tell me its ok to kill hundreds of Lebanese people simply because of their support of Hezbollah. Its wrong and its not right.

I don't believe I ever said it is "ok". I believe all I said is its a tough situation for Israel, and that not all of the people they say are civilians really are.


Another thing, you blast Bush about the war in Iraq every time you get the chance. So why do you back up Israel? Huh? Why? Its the same fucking thing, different countries.

If Iraq were located in Canada, killed 3 US soldiers, kidnapped 2 more, and started launching rockets into Detroit before the US bombed Iraq, then I'd say the Iraq war is the same.

Its a really bad comparison. One was a war for regime change to protect the supply and price of oil, among other things.

One is to protect a border from attack.


But then again, i'm the one who's misinformed simply because you have a different POV. I'm sorry for even challenging your wide spread knowledge. What the fuck was I thinking.

If my wording made it seem like you are ignorant or something, I apologize. That wasn't my intent.

I was ripping on CNN, not you.

Since 1948, neither the Lebanese nor Palestinians have organized a government that has created legitimate educational institutions, hospitals, military, etc. They have NOT disbanded their militias, although they promised in writing several times to do so.
Lebanon had a quality educational system for a long time. Taymelo, you may want to investigate this thing called a URL, rather than posting voluminous amounts of text. Here's an example of a URL, talking about the education that you think Lebanon didn't have:

http://www.me-schools.com/countries/lebanon.htm

Dunno about hospitals in particular, but Beirut was considered the "Paris of the Middle East" for a spell, so I suspect they had something resembling hospitalization.

As for the military... remember that Lebanon itself was historically neutral, like Switzerland. They weren't making waves, and didn't think that they needed a big military. Then, in the 1970s, they got pushed by the Syrians from one side, and the Palestinians (that Israel and Jordan were ejecting) from the other, and the place turned into a battleground.

I was just making a point, using you as an example, that by, as Bush would say, catapulting the propaganda on behalf of Hezbollah, everyone seems to think that only civilians are being hit.

Sorry if I used your name in making an example.

From what i've seen all the major news channels seem to be reporting the same thing. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, all of them. And this weekends actions dont make me think any different.




Yes.

Don't blame the racists.

Blame the guy who is trying to live in peace in his nice house.


My point is, why would you go where you know your not welcomed.



I'm going to say this once and fucking for all, for you and EVERYONE on this board.

Just like you, I am fucking entitled to my own fucking opinion.

If I believe my opinion is fact, I'm fucking entitled to that, too.

I'm entitled to post what I believe, to support it with quotes I like, and you are entitled to read it, don't read it, respond to it, debunk it, make my opinion look stupid with well informed facts, whatever.

But don't get your fucking panties all in a bunch because I state MY OPINION on this board and not yours.

You want your opinion known, TYPE IT, fucker. I'm not going to make your fucking arguments for you. I'm not going to author my posts to make points for you.

I post for - - - surprise surprise --- ME!!!

Its the way it fucking reads. I'm not saying your not entitled to your opinion. I dont care if you share your opinion.

I never asked you to make my arguments.



I have no easy answer for that. I don't know if its 50% their fault, 50% the Lebanese government's fault, 50% Hezbollah's fault, 25% someone else's fault.

All I know is that prior to 1948 Israel had many terror groups and militias. Its true. Look it up. They even terrorized the British. However, when the government was formed, the militias were disbanded, and now all education and military action comes from a centralized and legitimate government.

Since 1948, neither the Lebanese nor Palestinians have organized a government that has created legitimate educational institutions, hospitals, military, etc. They have NOT disbanded their militias, although they promised in writing several times to do so.

Apportion the blame as you see fit, but if Hezbollah was disbanded and the only army was the Lebanese army, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I dont know, nor do I care, about the rest of that post, but I do agree with that. I've never said anywhere that I support Hezbollah. Just that I dont support Israel and what their doing. If they felt this strongly about Hezbollah you go to the UN, and have them and the US help the Lebanese government get rid of them. Hezbollah is a Iranian and Syrian supported group. Theres nothing the Lebanese "government" can do about them. Their stronger than the government.



I don't believe I ever said it is "ok". I believe all I said is its a tough situation for Israel, and that not all of the people they say are civilians really are.

Fair enough, thats what you believe, I dont believe that.


If Iraq were located in Canada, killed 3 US soldiers, kidnapped 2 more, and started launching rockets into Detroit before the US bombed Iraq, then I'd say the Iraq war is the same.

Its a really bad comparison. One was a war for regime change to protect the supply and price of oil, among other things.

One is to protect a border from attack.


Hezbollah is the government in south Lebanon. Israel is trying to drive them out.



If my wording made it seem like you are ignorant or something, I apologize. That wasn't my intent.

I was ripping on CNN, not you.

That was the way I read it.
Its all good.

Mxy:

I know the lebanese have a good educational system.

I was trying to be brief, and I was lumping two issues (Lebanon and Palestine) together.

With respect to Lebanon, however, I would argue that their education system is inadequate, in that the Lebanese government doesn't provide education in S. Lebanon.

Hezbollah does.

To me, that's a failing grade on education.

If the US Department of Education left public education in Michigan to the KKK, would you give the US a passing grade?

With respect to Lebanon, however, I would argue that their education system is inadequate, in that the Lebanese government doesn't provide education in S. Lebanon.
No doubt, but it wasn't for lack of trying on their part.

South Lebanon is a mess that Israel helped to create. The PLO who'd initially established South Lebanon as this no-man's-land wasn't there because the Lebanese wanted them there. No, they were there because Israel and Jordan PUSHED them there. Hezbollah rode the coattails of the the PLO. Why doesn't the U.S. ship its prisoners to Canada and declare them the enemy?


If the US Department of Education left public education in Michigan to the KKK, would you give the US a passing grade?
There's far too many reasons for me to not give the U.S. a passing grade on education. You don't have to make it any easier for me. :)

[QUOTE=Taymelo]South Lebanon is a mess that Israel helped to create. The PLO who'd initially established South Lebanon as this no-man's-land wasn't there because the Lebanese wanted them there. No, they were there because Israel and Jordan PUSHED them there. Hezbollah rode the coattails of the the PLO. Why doesn't the U.S. ship its prisoners to Canada and declare them the enemy?

Went right over my head.

Rephrase please.

Take your "bad guy" element:
-- the PLO in Israel's case, our huge prisoner population in the U.S.

and shove the mess en masse out to some neighboring country that isn't hostile toward you and wouldn't be able to hold back such an influx
-- Lebanon in Israel's case, Canada in my example.

Then, watch as the "bad guys" you ejected to your borders do "bad guy" things to you and set up "bad guy" elements in the "weak" country.

Respond by labelling the entire mess an enemy bordering state. I'm sure if we recorded a country-fied version of South Park's "Blame Canada" to rally the troops in the red states and pointed out that those fuckers speak French, that would be sufficient.

Like I said earlier, look at how the voodoo state of South Lebanon comes into
being, how both Israel and Jordan (who don't exactly like each other) agreed that they didn't like the PLO even more and backed them into South Lebanon. This caused Syria (itching for an excuse to invade Lebanon) to get involved, and Lebanon turns into a proxy battle between external factions.

Since you like house analogies: I have a bad guy in my nice house trashing the place and spooking the neighborhood. I shove them to my next door neighbor's house, and now the bad guy is trashing the neighbor's place and spooking the neighborhood. Then I burn my next door neighbor's house down. Is that neighborly of me? :)

You're leaving out the fact that most of the bad guys came from the neighbor's house in the first place, and all Israel is doing is sending them home to their homelands.

Unfortunately, their homelands have regimes in power that don't want them back, because they are oppressive regimes that already have enough poor and angry arabs in their population to keep in line.

These are poor Syrians, poor Lebanese, poor Yemenis, poor Egyptians, poor Saudi Arabians, etc. etc. etc.

They aren't Palestinians.

So don't pretend that Israel is forcing all these people out of their homeland in Israel, and lumping them on the poor, innocent Lebanese and Syrian governments.

The Palestinians came from Lebanon? <laughs> Not anytime recently. My family came from Europe a hundred years ago, so I'm European? We all came from Africa, so we're all African?

There was minimal Palestinian immigration between the late 1800s and when Israel came into the picture -- in no small part because the Ottomans didn't -want- mass migrations of any sort. It was a well-established (if never very precisely bordered) territory within the Ottoman Empire. It had been defined in territorial terms (rather than a distinct "people") for centuries. Jews who lived in the Palestine region were Palestinians. What a concept!

Lebanon as it exists today was the French doing to the Syrian region much like what the British did with the Palestine region -- a Muslim state (Syria) and a non-Muslim state (Christian Lebanon, though in practice it was half Christian/half Muslim). Like every territory, Lebanon fought against Israel at its initial creation in 1948. Subsequently wasn't hostile to anyone for many decades until external forces started controlling the show.

Anthony. You misunderstand my point.

I said forget about individual battles, such as the current conflict in Lebanon.

My point was, overall, if it were up to Israel, there would be peace, recognized borders, and stability.

You can argue that by bombing Lebanon they are going against their own interests, but I'm not talking about a single military issue, or about whether it was a mistake, or whether it was disproportionate.

I'm talking about the grand scheme of things in the middle east conflict.

In the grand scheme of things, Israel wants peace, but some of its partners don't.

Do you disagree with that?

The only thing I know is there will never be peace there.
Hell, I have a strong dislike for Israel, I admit.

I just think this is a huge over reaction on Israelis part.
I want what most want: Hezbollah to disarm. Who dosnt want that?
Maybe those who support them. But they only support them because they help the poor in the south. They take care of them.
It makes me sick when I see people on the news who are displaced and moving around from town to town because of the bombings and their still singing the praises of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah put you there.

Israel could have gone about this a different way.
The thing that most Lebenese, even those who dont support Hezbollah at all, are pissed about, is all the civilian lives that are being wasted, and what little progress is being made against Hezbollah its self. More supporters are being killed than actuall members. Its a waste.

Remember in New Jack City when Nino Brown gave out dinners to the homeless? That's what Hezbollah is doing when they "take care of the poor." They're the bad guys. A smokescreen of charity to keep the locals in line doesn't change that.


If they felt this strongly about Hezbollah you go to the UN, and have them and the US help the Lebanese government get rid of them. Hezbollah is a Iranian and Syrian supported group. Theres nothing the Lebanese "government" can do about them. Their stronger than the government.

The UN doesn't work that way. Seriously, they aren't going to come in and just solve your problems for you. They won't get off their asses for all-out genocide and you think they're going to mobilize an effective military effort to do something about Hezbollah? Pipe dream.

The UN is good for basically two things-- a forum for the nuclear states to hash out differences and occasionally a mechanism for delivering food and medicine to poor people. It's not a world government, global nanny or "higher authority" of any kind.

The Palestinians came from Lebanon? <laughs> Not anytime recently. My family came from Europe a hundred years ago, so I'm European? We all came from Africa, so we're all African?

There was minimal Palestinian immigration between the late 1800s and when Israel came into the picture -- in no small part because the Ottomans didn't -want- mass migrations of any sort. It was a well-established (if never very precisely bordered) territory within the Ottoman Empire. It had been defined in territorial terms (rather than a distinct "people") for centuries. Jews who lived in the Palestine region were Palestinians. What a concept!

Lebanon as it exists today was the French doing to the Syrian region much like what the British did with the Palestine region -- a Muslim state (Syria) and a non-Muslim state (Christian Lebanon, though in practice it was half Christian/half Muslim). Like every territory, Lebanon fought against Israel at its initial creation in 1948. Subsequently wasn't hostile to anyone for many decades until external forces started controlling the show.

Mzy:

I was responding to your previous statement, which I can only interpret to mean that the current Israeli/Hezbollah problem was caused by Israel pushing the Palestinians into South Lebanon, and creating a population of Palestinians in South Lebanon that the Lebanese government wasn't prepare to feed, educate, or police.

I don't think that's the case. I think the people in South Lebanon are not Palestinians forced out of Israel and into South Lebanon.

Either you're wrong, or I'm wrong, or you meant to type something else and that's how it came out. If I'm misunderstanding your previous post, please clarify.

Fun stuff here. Very lengthy article about the experience of a western journalist who went to lebanon to get the post-syrian occupation scoop on Hezbollah back in december of 2005.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/guess-whos-coming-to-iftar/42/

If I were really motivated I'd pull a taymelo and paste the whole thing here with 85% of it bolded for emphasis... but instead, interested readers will have to summon the motivation to click the link and decide for themselves which parts are important. :)

Too much effort.

Gimme the gist of it.

I was responding to your previous statement, which I can only interpret to mean that the current Israeli/Hezbollah problem was caused by Israel pushing the Palestinians into South Lebanon, and creating a population of Palestinians in South Lebanon that the Lebanese government wasn't prepare to feed, educate, or police.

I don't think that's the case. I think the people in South Lebanon are not Palestinians forced out of Israel and into South Lebanon.

Either you're wrong, or I'm wrong, or you meant to type something else and that's how it came out. If I'm misunderstanding your previous post, please clarify.

What initially established South Lebanon as "its own thing" relative to Lebanon was the PLO being shoved there by both Israel and Jordan in the '70s. That pushed the # of Palestinians in the region (who were there because Israel had pushed some out starting in 1948) to a critical mass where the PLO starts pushing around. South Lebanon became a semi-autonomous thing.

Israel invaded Lebanon to get rid of the PLO in South Lebanon (in response to an attack on their British ambassador that wasn't actually made by the PLO, a nice little historical footnote). This invasion succeeded in diluting the PLO further.

-but-

It directly led to Hezbollah, who built upon:

- the PLO foundation that was there initially. Heck, Hezbollah started out by occupying the resettlement camps built by the Palestinians.
- resentment by Shi'ite Lebanese (fueled by Syria and Iran) for being shoved around by Israel being on their soil

and now it's gotten wedged into part of the Lebanese government. It was one thing when Israel attacked Palestinians, who by themselves didn't enjoy a whole lot of support. It was another thing to do so on someone else soil beyond what are clearly your own borders.

I happened to be Google-ing up something as a result of some books I read and hit upon this tack on Hezbollah:

http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/07/baer.html


RB: Speaking Arabic, you can go in you and just chitchat. I went to a Hezbollah school and was talking to these young girls whose dads had blown themselves up. They’re just teenage girls. I asked them what kind of TV they watch; they said Oprah. And I said, “Come on, you’re sitting here on the border of Israel, at war with the Israelis, and you’re watching Oprah?” They said, “We love Oprah!” And then you ask the obvious question: “If the Israelis invaded again, would you sacrifice a brother, a father?” “Absolutely.” So you have these two worlds.

Thats sick. But thats how their taught from the day their born.
They dont know no better.

Thats sick. But thats how their taught from the day their born.
They dont know no better.
What is sick? Oprah or sacrificing family members? ;)

WHY HAS NO ONE ADDED A SCORE CARD TO THIS THREAD?

At least post a running score of Moxy vs. Taymeelo. I got Mox in the late rounds, up 6-4.

I happened to be Google-ing up something as a result of some books I read and hit upon this tack on Hezbollah:


WHY HAS NO ONE ADDED A SCORE CARD TO THIS THREAD?

At least post a running score of Moxy vs. Taymeelo. I got Mox in the late rounds, up 6-4.

Hey!

Google this:

"UberAlles"

No, seriously.

Google it.

Hey!

Google this:

"UberAlles"

No, seriously.

Google it. If you Google that, your head will explode. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Btw, if you don't get the Av, you won't get Uber Alles. But such is life.

Please carry on re-inventing history Taymeelo. [smilie=paca.gif]

WHY HAS NO ONE ADDED A SCORE CARD TO THIS THREAD?
Because I'd rather score with a fine woman than with Taymelo.

WHY HAS NO ONE ADDED A SCORE CARD TO THIS THREAD?
Because I'd rather score with a fine woman than with Taymelo.

Don't knock it till you've tried it.

http://lambiek.net/artists/s/saavedra_scott/saavedra_drradium.gif

I'm simply pointing out that I am not chopped liver.

Much like the Middle East Peace Process, I have derailed this thread. [smilie=burgerking.:

This is how loops form. Here's an interview with Shimon Peres:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080401387.html

Q: Is it true that you were the only person in the Israeli cabinet to raise objections to this operation?

A: After two weeks, I forgot everything. We are at war and have to be united. I'm not going to make an account of who was right and who was wrong.

Check your critical thinking at the door... it's war!

While Taymeelo is temporarily incapacitated, I will offer this.

HezBYAAAAAAAAAH!

Its too bad when any innocent civilian dies. However, it is unavoidable in military operations to root out islamic terrorists living within civilian areas.

Having said that, I don't believe for one second the stats about Hezbollah fighers vs. civilian deaths.

Hezbollah fighters don't wear uniforms, and hide within the civilian population. Moreover, when there is an Israeli bombing, many of the people counting the dead are themselves tied to Hezbollah, which has an agenda to manipulate the numbers for international support, and credibility as "players" in the middle east.

In other words, its a propaganda campaign by Hezbollah against Israel.

In their quest to recruit local pissed off middle eastern teenagers to be future radical islamist terrorists, they claim that Hezbollah has an army that can kill Israeli soldiers, that they are too smart for Israeli soldiers to find and kill them, and that Israel is only hitting poor innocent civilians, which doesn't bother them, because they hate arabs anyway.

I don't buy it.


J:

I agree that each bomb likely creates another terrorist, as does each US bomb/bullet in Iraq. I would distinguish between the two conflicts, however, by pointing out that Iraq was neither an immediate nor future threat to the US, while on the other hand Hezbollah not only fired on and engaged Israel, but also constitutes a real, daily threat to the future of Israel.

Unfortunately, civilians die in war. Unlike USA v. Iraq II, Israel is literally at war with its next door neighbors for its own survival.

So Israel has to kill civilians and unfortunately take a public relations hit with innocent lebanese people and their ancestors, like Anthony.

Every action has a reaction. You kill a terrorist, and hit a civilian, and make their son a terrorist.

I understand that... but you can't just sit there and allow your country to be invaded, so radical islamists can bath in your children's blood and push 100% of your people into the sea - - - can you???

I wouldn't.

Would you?


So many points to make...First off, the Hezbollah media control can do a good job of doctoring stats, but whatever stats the media spits out about Iraqi casualities are freaking Gospel, or Torah in this case???

Even though you kind of addressed this point, Arab civilians being killed by USA>>>>Arab civilians being killed by Jews???? Same thing buddy, whatever the reasons, you can't have issue with one, and not with the other, or in your case, you can't say "consequences in war" for one, and war crimes for the other.


Jewish enemies don't wear unis and hide with civilians but Iraqi insurgents do???


While you and I can argue until we are blue in the face about the reasons for war in Iraq (I don't intend to highjack your thread going over our differances), the leaders of our military (once again, being right, wrong, or indifferant) thought Iraq to be a threat, not only to us, but to their own people, we had to go in and deal with our threat, much like Isreal is doing with Hezbullah.

It's humorous to me how much you sound like a conservative on this issue, Tay, which makes sense because we are not the "Let's suck off Islamic terrorists because they hate America almost as much as we do" party.

Sorry you can't respond to this for at least another five days or so, and when you do, I'm sure you'll generate a five page look into the mind of Tay about it.

Side note, I've offered this up at WRH, and I will extend to you the same offer, because I respect you, in some aspect, and think you far too intelligent to be as liberal as you are, but if you want, I'm going to host the audiobook version of Ann Coulter's Godless, and you're welcome to a copy.

Yeah tay, I just started to hate Israel. I've never hated them before these actions. No, i've always thought they were a piece of shit nation that should have never existed where they do in the first place. They make all the trouble in the middle east. Its like a black man moving into a well known racist town in the south and taking one of the better houses.

You know everything. Your always right and everyone else who disagrees with you is always wrong. I'm so glad you can hold your self in such a high regard.

So what your saying is that its OK for the Israelis to kill those people because of their support of hezbollah? They have no where to go.

Look, I want what Israel supposedly wants. Hezbollah out. They should have been wiped out by the Reagen administration in the early 80's. The same way they should have gotten Osama under Billy boy.

But dont tell me its ok to kill hundreds of Lebanese people simply because of their support of Hezbollah. Its wrong and its not right.

Another thing, you blast Bush about the war in Iraq every time you get the chance. So why do you back up Israel? Huh? Why? Its the same fucking thing, different countries.

But then again, i'm the one who's misinformed simply because you have a different POV. I'm sorry for even challenging your wide spread knowledge. What the fuck was I thinking.


Welcome to the world of disagreeing with Tay...I honestly think he gets through life bullying people around in arguements using big words and sounding sure of himself...While, I don't necessarily agree with you on this one, Anthony, because as you pointed out, this IS the same thing as in Iraq, and I support that whole heartedly, I've got a feeling I'm going to some how end this by disagreeing with you and Tay, if that's even possible.

To each his own I guess.

Welcome to the world of disagreeing with Tay...I honestly think he gets through life bullying people around in arguements using big words and sounding sure of himself...While, I don't necessarily agree with you on this one, Anthony, because as you pointed out, this IS the same thing as in Iraq, and I support that whole heartedly, I've got a feeling I'm going to some how end this by disagreeing with you and Tay, if that's even possible.
If that's what you two really think, then I disagree with both of you.

"U.S. vs. Iraq" isn't the same thing as "Israel vs. Lebanon", except in a very broad sense -- they're both conflicts between parties that have clashed before, people on both sides die, guns and bombs are involved, etc. There's interrelationships between the two, of course, but there's far too many differences to call them "the same thing". Does Iraq border the U.S.? Where's the oil in Lebanon?

Like I said Mxy, it's hard for you and Tay to see because of our differances on the reasons for war in Iraq. If you assume that Iraq was a threat, and not over oil, which you and Tay will both NOT do, then you can see the similarites.

I really don't want to turn this into a debate about the Iraq war, which is why I prefaced everything I said by stating our differances in why we went to war there.

For the record, my position on Iraq wasn't and isn't quite that simple. But yes, let's keep this thread on course.

http://z001.ig.com.br/ig/26/02/198274/blig/laylokinha_fotos/imagens/lebanonflag.jpg

The sad part is that most of the U.S. Christians you'd show that flag to would assume the tree was an Arabic symbol.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/10/mideast.main/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

When do y'all think this will become front-page news again?

Israeli PM endorses U.N. cease-fire deal
By KARIN LAUB, A
ssociated Press Writer



Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed an emerging Mideast cease-fire deal late Friday, after a day of dramatic day brinksmanship including a threat to expand the ground war in Lebanon.

The agreement calls for the deployment of 30,000 Lebanese and U.N. troops along the Israel-Lebanon border. It falls short of some of Israel's demands, including a strong mandate for the U.N. forces to take on Hezbollah guerrillas.

However, the draft is the best chance yet for peace after more than four weeks of war that has killed more than 800 people, destroyed Lebanon's infrastructure and inflamed tensions across the Middle East.

Neither the Lebanese government nor Hezbollah has said publicly whether they would sign on to the deal, but it was widely assumed that they did not object to it. Plans to take the resolution to a vote were announced in New York shortly after U.S. Mideast envoy, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, met for a second time Friday with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

Israeli officials said Israel would not halt fighting until Israel's Cabinet has approved the cease-fire deal in its weekly meeting Sunday. It was not immediately clear whether the military would expand its ground offensive in the time remaining, or would only hold existing positions.

Only six hours passed from an initial decision by Olmert to broaden the ground offensive to his acceptance of the cease-fire deal. The zigzag reflected Israel's dilemma after a month of inconclusive fighting.

Israel has been unable to defeat Hezbollah and was concerned about growing Israeli casualties, as well as international condemnation, if the war continued. However, Olmert also feared that accepting a deal that does not rein in the guerrillas could lead to another war down the road and hurt him politically.

Olmert's initial order to send troops deeper into Hezbollah territory came even as U.N. Security Council negotiations reached the final stretch in New York.

Several hours later, France and the United States reached agreement on a final draft, to be put to a vote later Friday. The draft would authorize the deployment of 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon, along with 15,000 Lebanese troops, into the region "as Israel withdraws."

The Security Council, repeatedly accused of taking too long to come up with a response to fighting, would leave out several key demands from both Israel and Lebanon in efforts to come up with a workable arrangement.

"You never get a deal like this with everybody getting everything that they want," Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said. "The question is, has everybody got enough for this to stick and for it to be enforceable? Nobody wants to go back to where we were before this last episode started."

Despite Lebanese objections, Israel will be allowed to continue defensive operations, and a dispute over the Chebaa Farms area along the Syria-Lebanon-Israel border will be left for later. Israel won't get its wish for an entirely new multinational force separate from the U.N. peacekeepers that have been stationed in south Lebanon since 1978.

There is also no call for the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel or a demand for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops. Although the draft resolution emphasizes the need for the "unconditional release" of the two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture by Hezbollah sparked the conflict, that call is not included in the list of steps required for a lasting cease-fire.

The ongoing fighting has killed more than 800 people — including at least 732 Lebanese and 122 Israelis.

After nightfall, there were some signs of troop movement on the Israel-Lebanon border. Battle-ready soldiers carrying heavy backpacks marched near the border as tanks assembled nearby. In south Lebanon, there were no reports of increased troop activity. Israeli officials gave conflicting assessments on whether a wider campaign was under way.

More than 10,000 Israeli troops are already fighting Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon. In the new phase, Israeli forces would push toward Lebanon's Litani River, some 18 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, attempting to capture more than twice as much territory as they hold now.

Olmert has faced growing criticism at home for the army's inability to halt the rocket barrages; Hezbollah has fired more than 3,500 rockets in the monthlong war. Polls also indicated that his initially approval rating, high at the start of the war, was slipping.


Commentators have suggested Olmert's political career was at stake, and that he might even be forced to step down. Many Israelis believe defeating Hezbollah is essential for their country's long-term security.
In Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes pounded south Beirut and border crossings to Syria, killing at least 15 people as ground fighting picked up intensity in the south of the country.

In the Bekaa Valley, an Israeli drone fired missiles into a convoy of refugees fleeing attacks in the southern town of Marjayoun, killing at least six people and wounding 16 others, an Associated Press photographer said.
The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of the incident. The army noted that it had imposed a travel ban on south Lebanon, and had received no request to coordinate a convoy in that area.

Throughout the day, civilians had been fleeing fighting in the Christian town of Marjayoun in long convoys after Israeli forces entered earlier this week.

Lutfallah Daher, the photographer, was with the convoy when it was hit near the town of Chtaura, about 30 miles north of the Litani River. Israel had warned it would attack any vehicle on roads south of the Litani, assuming it was carrying Hezbollah weapons or fighters.
Daher said the convoy consisted of more than 600 civilian vehicles and others carrying a detachment of 350 Lebanese soldiers and police when it left the area around Marjayoun. He said very few of the vehicles had left the convoy when it was hit.

http://z001.ig.com.br/ig/26/02/198274/blig/laylokinha_fotos/imagens/lebanonflag.jpg

Is that someking of x-mas tree skirt?