Israel--current Events

Lets just keep apeasing Hesbula and groups like them and we'll see what happens.

Calling upon Israel to abide by international law is hardly appeasement.

"Mothers of Israel, Lebanon and Palestine: How many more graves until we shout stop? How much collective mourning until we shout stop? Let us look into each other's eyes and recognize each other's pain with empathy; let us see the human being behind the green and the blue. Let us force all to come to the table and not to a grave to talk. How many more of our children need to die before we realize there is no revenge for a lost child? We cannot let them take our children away without a word. Where is our voice in all this madness?"

No Winners, Just Broken Hearts: Haaretz

Israel's whole casus belli in Lebanon revolves around the "abduction" of two IDF soldiers on Israeli territory during a cross-border raid by Hezbollah, thereby making the Israeli attack on Lebanon defensive in nature; a spur-of-the-moment rescue operation to free their two soldiers.

“The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon." AP, 7/12/06

“The two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanese territory, in the area of Aitaa al-Chaab, near to the border with Israel, where an Israeli unit had penetrated” Agence France Presse, 7/12/06

"In a deliberated way, [Israel] sent a commando in the Lebanese back-country to Aitaa al-Chaab. It was attacked by Hezbollah, taking two prisoners." www.VoltaireNet.org, 7/12/06

MSNBC online first reported that Hezbollah had captured Israeli soldiers "inside" Lebanon, only to change their story hours later after the Israeli government gave an official statement to the contrary.

"The Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah movement announced on Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. The two soldiers were captured as they "infiltrated" into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border." Hindustan Times, 7/12/06

"The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon" Forbes, 7/12/06

"It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel." Asia Times, 7/15/06

"For its publication of the true story the two soldiers were on an IDF mission and captured inside Lebanon near the town of Aitaa al-Chaab. The IDF instructed the press to use the term "abducted" instead of "captured". Our refusal to do so, has led to revocation of the accreditation of our journalist Silvia Cattori in Israel." Oui, 7/22/06



"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board." Matthew Kalman, San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 2006

IT'S ALL BEEN A LIE!

My memory of events is a little different than Emmett's (admittedly my Short term memory is not what it once was ) but given the misquoting/out of context qoutin of my own personal posts (not to mention remembering it a bit differently) I could not just take his timeline of recent events at face value.

In fact he is correct while misleading at the same time. Hezbollah did not start off with rockets but with Shelling as is indicated in the following article and every other internet cronology of events from many legitimate news sources. This was how I remembered the events taking place before Israel began air strikes. Emmett has repeated stated that Israel drew first blood.

I.E. on page 19 of this thread
in response to a portion of my post that read

Emmett responded

The following article form which this excerpt is taken can be found in it's entirety at
2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict

I found this article by the History Guy that made me realize why I thought rockets were involved. Again the complete article can be found at History Guy

Here is a quote from the CNN timeline. It seems the only one denying the launch of rockets first by Hezzbollah is Emmett. You can access this timeline off of this page Timeline page look on right side under interactives and maps

I would wait a little longer before I put this stance out again Emmett as it will become increasing difficult to document what the order of operations was, the further away that we get

Again in the interest of your own credibility, I would suggest not rewriting history that can be so easily documented.

Cheers

Mikel

It doesn't seem like it's all that easy to document, though, does it? Emmet is citing a number of sources here, some American and some not, which to my mind is an important distinction. As does the accuracy of the report of exactly where those two soldiers were picked up. There's a big difference between "kidnapping" and "capturing inside enemy territory". The conflicting reports you are posting between you have them either inside Lebanon or between two towns just over into Israel, the three spots making a very tight little triangle. I've got to look at this more carefully before deciding for myself, but I find it very plausible that the Israeli patrol was on the other side.


It looks more and more to me like this is a confrontation that both sides have been aware was coming and have been preparing for. The kidnapping/capture is an initiating event or "spark", but this was fully loaded and even cocked beforehand. What is making it necessary to go through this dance of negotiations, pseudo-cease-fires, comparative casualty counts and all the rest, is the rest of the world watching and lobbing in condemnations and approvals. Neither side has any high opinion of its being any of our business, but both will take any advantage they can get from the content of world uproar, since it is unavoidable.

Of coure, I'm not saying that it isn't our business. Everything that has potential to negatively affect territories or populations, inside or outside any group's national boundaries, in any way, is everybody's business. No effects are contained in such a way as not to affect anyone else, and never will be again. Some of the world is knuckling under to that reality faster than others. Islamic fundamentalist factions are notoriously reactionary about this new world order, but you can't say in honesty that either America or Israel are making any speed records on it.

Oh, so it's only me, isolated and all alone, hallucinating all of those citations from Associated Press, MSNBC, Forbes, and the San Francisco Chronicle in the U.S., Agence France Presse, VoltaireNet, and Oui in France, Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH in Germany, Hindustan Times in India...nice try. Simply because the dutiful White House stenographers of the mainstream American media regurgitate IDF press releases verbatim doesn't necessarily make them true. As for allegedly misquoting you, I think your original posts speak volumes on their own to anyone with half a brain. Please do try to come up with something a bit more thoughtful to bring to the discussion than simply smirking and calling me a liar.

In addition to Donne's maxim, I would point out that this atrocity is being executed with weapons supplied by us, financed by us, cheerleaded by us, and under the protection of a guaranteed veto in the Security Council compliments of us. Around 11 billion dollars a year should give us some sense of shared responsibility and co-ownership of the actions and their consequences; it sure as hell hasn't gone unnoticed among the rest of the world.

Incidentally, if the allegations that the Israeli soldiers were legitimately captured inside Lebanon are true, that would make all arms sales and resupply efforts to Israel illegal under the Arms Export Control Act (22 USCS § 2778). If the U.S. knew about it and violated U.S. law anyway, the Bush administration has made America equally complicit in the crimes against humanity now being perpetrated by Israel.

Another random fact makes me think this was anticipated and not a spur of the moment rescue mission: Hezbollah has gotten hold of some very powerful, very effective anti-tank missiles (from whom, I wonder? I doubt very much it's home manufacturing) that can actually penetrate and destroy one of the Israeli Merkava tanks. Those tanks are like a walled fortress on wheels; they are designed to be extremely troop-protective. It makes me wonder whether, combined with the known fact that lower Lebanon is very difficult terrain for ground troops, the initial decision was a mini-shock-and-awe campaign, again prepared beforehand and waiting for a trigger. I have no doubt Israeli intelligence would have picked up that these anti-tank missiles were being brought in.

How do you know that I am smirking Emmett?(you must have some sort of internet spy system of your own - which BTW is also inaccurate) If we had a smirking smiley you would not have seen it on any of my posts.

I never called you a liar, I am not in the habit of calling other people on this board names.

Because someone has a slanted viewpoint and trys to make a case by pulling comments out of context (different than misquoting) does not make them a liar, just not a credible source in my book. YOu will notice that I would like to see credible posts from you, and as I have stated before.......

***Even if I agreed with you Emmett, I would have problems with material that you use to support your case, due to this total disregard that you have for context of quotes and information****

Now that the argument over who fired missiles first is in the garbage, we go to where the soldiers were acquired. I can see why that could come into question and why in the beginning the information might even be contradictory, but again you history in the mishandling of quotes by me makes me question the accuracy of what you presented above my previous post (which by the way I was preparing while you were posting so even though chronologically is comes after, it is no way to be construed as a response) I take issue with a number of thoughts presented in that post as well, but I won't confuse the issue with my viewpoint, history and sources since you obviously don't care about all of that.

As far as your misquoting/out of context quoting me, allow me to make that more clear to you what I am talking about. YOu see the 2 amount to the same thing to me as either is altering the intent of what I actually said. Sorry if that generated any confusion.

For example - the following is only an example of how important context is to quoting
Emmett wrote

so even you admit this??

The previous is only an example of a misquote/out of context quote and why I view them as the same thing.

BTW I do think my posts speak what I really mean by themselves. Thank you so much for noticing (smiley not a smirk)

This is indeed a difficult thing to research the farther we get from the actual events. I never said the sources were not good, only the way they have been used. Now that some time has elapsed it is a bit more difficult to see what each of the cited agencies actually said as they are of course on to the latest thing and a few weeks ago is ancient history.

Finally don't think that I don't think that I can learn anything from you Emmett. As a result of this exchange, I have figured out how to break out mulitple quotes and am paying more attention to the spell checker.

I got nothing but mad love for you Emmett!

Mikel

Jeez, you guys. If I didn't know this was really an outbreak of peace between you, I'd say we should get Condie in here while she's on hold and see what she can do with you.

I hold by Donne's maxim, for what it is. Ever read the whole passage, not just the ringing part? http://www.incompetech.com/authors/donne/bell.html

But I'm talking about much more concrete interdependence, mostly economic and environmental.
Take a look here, for example:
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/08/07/you_ca..._of_lebanon.php

OK -- this is from The Scotsman as a kind of tongue in cheek to all us celtic types -- but it's all around the web today. Do you think this is the next massive headache, either as a crowbar to force "better" UN plan conditions for Hizbollah, or to actually provoke an Israeli response? Syria isn't Lebanon. They'd have an all-out regional engagement if Israel attacked Syria.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/internatio...m?id=1141692006

Mikel

Yes, "for what it is". One of many reasons I think that shallow plastic patriotism and rabid nationalism are highly dubious luxuries humanity simply can no longer afford in the modern world. Focusing upon our commonalities rather than our differences is increasingly becoming quite literally a matter of survival.

Great article. Provides a much more plausible scenario than Israel's pious claims of self-defense. On numerous occasions I've read of Israel's capping of Palestinian wells, and I recall once reading that they'd run a pipeline from the Litani River during their last occupation of Southern Lebanon. I'll have to look for some citations.

Personally, I think it's false bravado; Assad bellicosely standing on the border rattling his rusty, old, Soviet-era saber in hopes of dissuading Israel from attacking Syria (Syria's military certainly isn't much of a deterrent).

However, I'm not at all sure that "an all-out regional engagement" isn't precisely what Bush has been hoping for all along. Many of the neo-Fascist lunatic fringe that manipulate our idiot king's marionette strings have been militating for attacking Syria and/or Iran ever since the first American boots hit Iraq, and their rabid talking heads on the talk shows have been enthusiastically frothing at the mouth about "World War III" ever since Israel dropped the first bomb. It fits with their imperialistic plot for a "New American Century", dovetails perfectly with the American Taliban's bloody-minded eschatology, would mean massive profits for their patrician war-profiteer oligarch patrons, and grabs the headlines while relegating their colossal failures, crimes, and betrayals both domestically and internationally to the back pages, while hopefully rallying enough semi-literate jingoes and frightened dimwits to carry them through the fall elections (or at least provide a plausible enough fiction for the co-opted commentators of the corporate-controlled mainstream media to explain why once again all of the the exit polls were so very, very wrong).

You bring me back to a project I abandoned many years ago, that's due for resurrection, it would seem. It was a broad historical and social comparison of national anthems, both for words and the subjective character of the music. (I was a music student at the time, and the instructor thought the musical analysis was too subjective to be useful, and the whole project not enough about music per se. He also thought I wasn't old enough to write the book he thought it would take, and that may have been fair. I'm not so easily tyrannized by teachers these days.)

Your last paragraph does bring me up short. I have been wondering why the first pass with Auntie Condie fell so flat, with the administration subsequently dallying about immediate cease-fires, and why they have come up with the preposterous idea of leaving Israeli military in Lebanon (what the hell for? Peacekeeping? Maybe training their legitimate army? Build a few schools and hospitals?) in this cease-fire packet being put together now? I know the area will need policing for quite a while, but by one of the warring forces? The message is so insulting I can't see how the Arab world could take it: Israel is our boy in the region, and that's where your policing is going to come from.

On the wider scale, do they have any idea what they would be setting loose by encouraging a regional escalation? You would think the crap that came loose and started rolling around in flaming balls in Iraq would be an immediate object lesson.

If anyone wants to read something very interesting but at the same time frightning, read the new thread I just started. I've been critized for being anti-muslim. I DON'T hate muslims. But what I've been trying to convey and what Israel knows is explained on that thread.