"Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself"

Gee I take it you don't mind that Hezbollah was created, trained and supplied by Iran. The same Iran who's president has been spouting anti-Semitic garbage ever since he took office. The same man who has publicly declared his desire to wipe out Israel. That for you is not a problem. THat right there ends your legitimacy. You do not ignore unprovoked attacks from an enemey that already has declared their intentions to destroy millions of innocent people who have committed the crime of being of a particular ethnic origin.
Never the less you also ignore all of Israels unilateral actions to try to promote a peaceful environment, i.e the voluntary retreat from Lebanon, the giving up of land like the Gaza strip, with no Quid Quo Pro, none what so ever.
Stop defending evil. Israel has every right to stomp through Lebanon and crush Hezbollah and they should do it and do it completely. That will be one less group of evil protagonists in this world. Syria and Iran better be on alert their days of sponsoring and promoting terrorism in this world are numbered.They better believe it.

Enjoyed reading this article, Jade. Yours sounds like a voice of reason to me. (I'm wondering how Keith can "take" what he does from it?? Seems he often reads words that no one else sees.)

KK: It matters not who supports or funds Hezbollah. The fact is Hezbollah exists and they don't seem to a problem recruiting folks to their cause.

But you ignore the fact Hezbollah--while certainly an irritant to Israel--has absolutely no power to endanger Israel's survival. And you blithely accept that Israel has some sort of right to kill and displace innocent civilians--many of whom have nothing to do with Hezbollah.

By your logic, you should have the 'right' to kill whoever and however many you please because someone has punched you in the face.

Thanks, Sandy!

Unfortunately, the conservative extremists tend to see all issues as black and white when in reality they're almost always somewhat gray.

I agree, Jade. Unfortunately, in order to stuff everything into their ill-fitting black and white boxes, they most always have to alter until nothing is recognizeable.

"Gee I take it you don't mind that Hezbollah was created, trained and supplied by Iran."

and i take it that you believe bombing lebanon is the solution to iran and hezbollah.

bloodlust.

Although I don't agree with your characterization of Israel's response, I am always interested in alternative approaches.

What would you do if you were in charge of Israel, Jade?

no, john/ben. if they are serious, then they should be bombing iran and syria.

third time i've said that and no one wants to comment.

Jade, I disagree with your characterization of what Israel is doing. Israel is not "attacking and occupying a sovreign nation and indiscriminantly killing civilians."

Israel is responding to Hezbollah's unprovoked attack across Israel's northern border, killing and abducting Israeli soldiers. Civilians are in Israel's line of fire because of Hezbollah's deliberate placement of its facilities in very close proximity to civilians. Where is the outrage over Hezbollah's unnecessary endangerment of Lebanese civilians? Where is the outrage over Hezbollah's deliberate rocket attacks against Israeli citizens?

Hezbollah should not be in a position where it was able to start this conflict. In 2004 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559 calling upon Lebanon to disband the military wing of Hezbollah. In 2005, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1583 calling upon Lebanon to exercise its sole and effective authority throughout the south. Again this year the UN Security Council called on Lebanon to make more progress in controlling its territory and disbanding militias. Had Lebanon complied with the UN demands, the present crisis could have been avoided.

Jade, Very good article and you speak with reason.. many will refuse to see the reality of what is actually happening. Israel is not only creating more terrorist but crossed the line to become what it says it fights. To resort to mass murder of a country under the guise of self defense is well at best manipulative... very sad .. sad indeed...

Kelly,

You continue to assert that Israel has some other reason for war in Lebanon other than defeating Hizbollah, in your words "To resort to mass murder of a country under the guise of self defense is well at best manipulative".

May I ask what you call the unprovoked attack across Israel's borders and the continued rocket fire from this country?

If someone was shooting missles at China from the US, do you think China would much care about who was doing it? It would be an act of war, particularly if the US was unable to stop it.

Israel didn't start this, and the Lebonese government is incapable of stopping the rocket attacks and attacks across the border. What would YOU do?

Sitting around and waiting for Hizbollah to stop is ineffective. They provoked this, so who's to say that they aren't planning on shooting everyone of those 20,000 reported missles at Israel?

Jade,

Despite what you say in your article, it's clear that you DON'T believe Israel has a right to defend itself.

This entire war was provoked from within Lebonese borders by a group that the Lebonese government tolerates or is incapable of controlling.

Hizbollah creeped across the Israeli border, killed soldiers in an unprovoked attack IN ISRAEL, and then fled BACK to Lebonon with hostages.

Israel's initial attack's on Hizbollah positions prompted missle attacks on CIVILIAN POPULATIONS IN ISRAEL, not military targets. The fact that they haven't killed "many" people in Israel is a bit beside the point. They aren't shooting rockets into Haifa and Northern Israel for fun, are they?

I heard several commentators who have said that Israel has reached a tipping point where they are saying "enough is enough". They are destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon and innocent civilians are dying. Israel is at a point where they do not care about world opinion or whether more terrorist are going to be created. They are sending a clear message to Lebanon saying either you fight Hezbollah or you fight us.

I for one, am happy to see something happening over there besides the daily bombings, terrorists attacks, border skirmishes, etc.

It's like having a car full of teenagers in the back seat that keep argueing and taking sucker punches at each other till you've had enough of trying to keep peace so you pull of over the car, put them out on the side of the road, and let them have it out. In a way, I almost don't care who wins, as long as the constant bickering comes to an end when this is all over.

It's really a shame that innocents are caught in the middle, but they always have been. Maybe our job (and that of the UN) is to just get those people out of the way, so that the two adversaries can pummel each other into submission. It's the only productive action we can take. Trying to point blame accomplishes nothing.

"It's like having a car full of teenagers in the back seat that keep argueing and taking sucker punches at each other till you've had enough of trying to keep peace so you pull of over the car, put them out on the side of the road, and let them have it out. In a way, I almost don't care who wins, as long as the constant bickering comes to an end when this is all over."

great parenting skills.

~~

The laws of war and Lebanon
David Kaye

July 27, 2006

SF Chronicle

(snip)

Hezbollah's attacks are manifestly illegal, as they target civilians and indiscriminately shell military and civilian objectives and they undoubtedly give Israel the legitimacy to respond in self-defense. The tougher question is the tactics adopted by Israel in that response; few doubt the Lebanese prime minister's words that the attacks are tearing his country's infrastructure to "shreds." They have degraded Hezbollah infrastructure such as command-and-control and missile sites, but have they been excessive? Given the thousands of missiles raining down on Israeli civilians, and Hezbollah's threats that the worse is yet to come, Israelis may be forgiven for believing in the proportionality of their response -- but tell that to the families displaced by Israel's decimation of southern Beirut neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, the ambiguities of the law make it very difficult to find an objective answer to the question.

Ultimately, Israeli political and military leaders need to take the long view, not just the narrow one prescribed by the law. Israel's risk in its operation is not merely military, in the sense that its actions may not lead to the stated long-term objective of degrading Hezbollah.

It is also political, risking the political legitimacy it should seek and value as a state that adheres to the laws of war.

David Kaye directs the Center for International and Comparative Law at Whittier Law School and has served as a lawyer handling the law of war at the State Department.

Lebanon 101: Behind the headlines
July 27, 2006
CNN

(snip)

"The Lebanese do not have a common sense of identity, and they have never been able to develop a central government that is strong and is able to represent all the people," said Sandra Mackey, an expert who has written extensively about the Middle East.

CNN: Why is Hezbollah so powerful in Lebanon?

Mackey: In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon and really destroyed southern Lebanon and Beirut, Hezbollah really took off and became popular among the Shia.

Hezbollah was the group that was behind a lot of attacks against the American presence in Lebanon, including the Marine barracks incident when 241 American soldiers were killed. The Americans left in 1984.

Israel, when it retreated from Beirut in 1983, established what it called a 'southern security zone' that ran along Israel's northern border and extended 18 miles into Lebanon, and they stayed there. By the time the Civil War ended, Hezbollah, with its militia, refused to disarm in fighting the Israeli presence in the security zone, which it said it was doing in the name of the Lebanese state.

In 1990, [Hezbollah wasn't] that good. In 1991, they're doing a little better. In 1992, they're doing even better. They're getting arms and equipment from Iran, and it's coming via Syria. By 1999, Hezbollah is really making Israel pay a price for its occupation of southern Lebanon. In 2000, Israel made a unilateral withdrawal and Hezbollah became a hero to most Lebanese. They are seen as liberating the Lebanese from Israeli occupation.

Now, that's not the only thing that's making Hezbollah very popular. Shia population in Lebanon continued to grow and grow, and they were in the south where most of the damage from Israeli counterattacks was occurring and consequently were very poor.

CNN: Syria is Sunni and Hezbollah is Shia. Why is Syria backing Hezbollah?

Mackey: What Syria was up to originally and still is today is that it was interested in Hezbollah because of strategic interests. They were interested in keeping Israel in southern Lebanon and keeping them from moving northward. Syria has a morbid fear that they're going to be invaded, especially by Israel. They have no natural borders. The only natural borders Syria has are the mountains in Lebanon, and that's why Syria got involved in the Civil War to start with. They wanted to control Lebanon in order to protect their borders against Israel.

What the Syrians were really afraid of was that the Israelis could come up through the Bekaa Valley, and once they got to the border of Syria, they'd be 20 miles away from Damascus.

it goes on.

to say that lebanon should shut down hezbollah is ridiculous and uninformed.

i'll do it again.

~~

ATTENTION PEORIA - ATTENTION PEORIA

DUE TO THE PRESENCE OF GANG MEMBERS IN YOUR AREA, WE ARE GOING TO BEGIN BOMBING YOUR CITY INDISCRIMINATELY.

IF YOU ARE NOT A GANG MEMBER,
PLEASE LEAVE NOW.

Reminds me of when we killed the whole family because we thought the father was abusive.

So, what's your solution, Martin?

I think you said bomb Iran, right?

because saying "Hizbollah should leave Israel alone; attacking the Israeli army will only cause reprisal killings" would be a stupid goddam thing to say.

Neither Jade nor Martin will respond to the question of what should Israel do when attacked by Hizbollah.

Answering a question must be beyond their snipe and critique modus operandi, as you point out, John.

Lots of laughs for all.

Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"

"Neither Jade nor Martin will respond to the question of what should Israel do when attacked by Hizbollah."

actually, ben - i've said five times now that israel should be attacking syria and iran, not lebanon. ketchup.

~~

apu - wake up, son. you're at work - not home dreaming.

~~

john - uss liberty?

Neither Jade nor Martin will respond to the question of what should Israel do when attacked by Hizbollah.

Gosh, I'm so sorry I haven't had the time to respond to Benji's demands. While Benji apparently has a lot of time to flack a self-published vanity book on 'leadership,' my time has been constrained by the needs of the Fleet.

What to do WRT Hezbollah attacks on Israel? Well, we've seen that what Israel has been doing and continues to do hasn't worked very well. And, in point of fact, Hezbollah was created by Israel's occupation of Lebanon in the early 1980's. So, we have a 25-year history--or lessons learned--of a continuous cycle of attacks and retaliations.

Now, mouthbreathers like Benji apparently believe the best response to this cycle of violence is to continue doing what has been done in the past. That will certainly lead to the very same outcomes: Hezbollah attacks, Israel retaliates disproportionately, Hezbollah gains more support and attacks continue. Rinse and repeat.

In the short-term, a cease-fire has to be arranged. No conflict can be permanently settled when both warring parties are firing at each other. Additionally, the external diplomacy that will be needed will be rendered next to impossible while people are being killed.

Second, the members of the G8 nations must unequivocably emphasize the killing of civilians is unacceptable by either side. No more of this 'they did it, so can we' mentality.

The Bush administration has failed miserably--as usual--in taking the necessary steps to curb Israel's baser instincts. This failure essentially negates the US's global leadership at a time when it is needed most.

Second, we need to dispel all the false assumptions. We can't proceed to a meaningful solution if all our assumptions are built upon lies and misrepresentations. In the eyes of the Arab world, Israel is the US's proxy in a larger war against Arabs. In neocon eyes, Hezbollah is a proxy of Syria, Iran, Al Qaeda or whatever boogeyman the neocons are pushing in their daily talking points.

Both assumptions are false. In reality, Syria and Iran support Hezbollah with military and financial assistance. We fill the same billet WRT Israel. But in reality, neither the US nor Syria nor Iran dictate the actions of either Israel or Hezbollah.

In fact, both Israel and Hezbollah are driven by intense nationalism. Once that fact is understood, a solution becomes more apparent.

I wonder if the PLO, another terrorist group no longer there, had anything to do with Israel's occupation of Lebanon?

Jade, i thought your response was very well done and has the facts of the situation in it which no one seems to want to admit about Hizbollah and Israel.
John A the resolution to disarm hizbollah was created in 2005 so it is only about 2 years old.
ISRAEL TOOK MORE THAN YEARS TO COMPLY WITH THE UN RESOLUTION TO GET OUT OF LEBANON.
Something you guys might want to remember when toting that Lebanon did not comply fast enough with a UN resolution.
Bottom line is until Israel and palestine come to some type of settlement on the land israel occupies there will be NO Peace. The underlying reason for all the hostility is Israel occupying land that is not theirs... This needs to stop but Israel seems to believe it has this right. Now Israel is back in Lebanon once again Israel is creating more of a problem for itself and all of the world. Israel needas to stop the , well no other word for it, mass murder of the lebanese people and start talking with a mediator and the US is no longer in a position to be an honest broker so we will need to look to Egypt por someone else.

Ah, Jade. You didn't say anything about what Israel should do in your comment.

To the contrary, JA2.0, I believe my recommendations were very clear. Perhaps you should breate more deeply through your nose.

In the interest of comity, I'll elaborate.

Nothing will get accomplished--save for escalating violence--without a ceasefire. And a ceasefire simply isn't possible so long as both sides are killing civilians.

And let's not forget the genesis of the current crisis--Hezbollah captured two Israeli servicemen. This was followed by Israel bombing Lebanon. Thejn Hezbollah launches a few missiles and Israel steps up the bombing and begins a ground offensive.

So, please, don't pretend Israel has just "sat back" and is completely innocent.

You mention the UN resolution to disarm Hezbollah; the fact is after the ouster of Syria from Lebanon, disarmament of Hezbollah was the central issue in Lebanese politics. Remember, Hezbollah is a minor political party within the Lebanese Government.

However, Israel's completely grotesque response to Hezbollah's actions have turned a majority of the population in Hezbollah's favor. What's tragic about this is that before Israel's stupid response, Hezbollah's support was pretty limited to the Sunnis. Now they enjoy support among the Druze and Christian factions.

jade you hit the nail on the head. Israel is contributing to it's own peoples death and world wide condemnation. What Israel wanted from Lebanon was coming but now it is very unlikely in the near future..

Amazing is how the lunatic extreme radical left doesn't see the evil occupying Lebanon in th form of the terrorist cowards named Hezbollah.Hezbollah, the true invaders of Lebanon. Their primary goal is to antagonize,attack and annihilate Israel. How many of you would want a significant threat to you daily lives parked just south if the border or just north of the border. You lefties all have a common dysfunctional morality.you never see the evil as the evil they are, but rather you see those who defend their right to exist as somehow the transgressor.
good for you, you don't even know how ridiculous you are. Everything gets boiled down to a little picture, ala Al Gore and his climate concepts . He is a good example, he bases all his global warming theories on a timeline beginning in 1970. Anybody want to explain how he can describe a planet's long term weather trends , a planet that is over 5 billion years old, on a barely significant blip on the radar? I don't even know why I bother, I already know the analogy is lost on left.

""because saying "Hizbollah should leave Israel alone; attacking the Israeli army will only cause reprisal killings" would be a stupid goddam thing to say."

Why's that? Because you know Hizbollah's going to do whatever they damn well please and no one can tell them anything they don't want to hear?

~

no, because israel is bound to laws concerning bombing civilian populations, therefore, it's reasonable to discuss reasons why they shouldn't be doing it.

to say "Hizbollah should leave Israel alone" - well, when you get out of high school, let us know.

Martin, I apologize. I did not actually believe you were sincere in advising to attack Iran and Syria. Thanks for making clear it is your advice.

How would that cause Hezbollah to stop attacking Israel?

Jade, you tried twice, but amidst great praise from Kelly you never gave us more than a cease-fire, an event which has never before been a solution. Repeating past history does not appear viable today and never was in the past.

Having watched the Blair Bush press conference today, they were absolutely statesmanlike and very profound in their estimation of the real problem and in how it is connected to most of the world. Any American would have been very proud of Bush and any Brit would have felt similarly about Blair.

Blair and Bush also provided a very clear path which included agreement ahead of time of exactly how to implement 1559 before a cease-fire. Blair made clear the choices which Iran and Syria face.

Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"

Getting weary of repeating myself:>) Hezbollah is an Iranian creatioon , created for one purpose, to destroy Israel. Time is that we need to destroy Syria's terror sponsoring government as well as Irans. enough said.
As for creating more "enemies" I think that a good enough example is the crushing of the Nazis, they still exist ot some extent, but will never wreak the havoc they once did. shoudl we have "feared" the consequences of defeating them? That logic is nothing but fear and fear has no place in this equaton.

Having watched the Blair Bush press conference today, they were absolutely statesmanlike and very profound in their estimation of the real problem and in how it is connected to most of the world. Any American would have been very proud of Bush and any Brit would have felt similarly about Blair.

To the contrary, Benji.

Your president seemed rather brain-dead on the whole matter. And, frankly, he can't do much even if he completely understood the issue since our standing in the world is only slightly above North Korea's in terms of credibility.

Here's an excerpt of Benji's president being "statesmanlike:"

Bush: David, it's an interesting period because, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability.

For a while, American foreign policy was just, Let's hope everything is calm - kind of, managed calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September the 11th.

And so we have, we've taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice.

And make no mistake: They're still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for.

In the long term, to defeat this ideology - and they're bound by an ideology - you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

And, look, I fully understand some people don't believe it's possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred. I understand that. I just happen to believe it is possible.

And I believe it will happen.

And so what you're seeing is, you know, a clash of governing styles.

For example, you know, the notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them.

And so they respond. They've always been violent.

You know, I hear this amazing kind of editorial thought that says, all of a sudden, Hezbollah's become violent because we're promoting democracy. They have been violent for a long period of time. Or Hamas?

One reason why the Palestinians still suffer is because there are militants who refuse to accept a Palestinian state based upon democratic principles.

And so what the world is seeing is a desire by this country and our allies to defeat the ideology of hate with an ideology that has worked and that brings hope.

And one of the challenges, of course, is to convince people that Muslims would like to be free, you know, that there's other people other than people in Britain and America that would like to be free in the world.

There's this kind of almost – you know, kind of a weird kind of elitism that says well maybe - maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free; maybe it's best just to let them sit in these tyrannical societies.

And our foreign policy rejects that concept. We don't accept it. And so we're working.

It's frightening to think this person has a job involving any more responsibility than shoveling manure.

"Any American would have been very proud of Bush"

rah-rah-rhetoric.

~~

making friends tour 2006

Classy, Jade.

Oh, yeah. I shall sleep fitfully now that a man with something on his chest that resembles a birdstrike on a cockpit's windshield doesn't think I'm classy enough.

I am wondering how anyone objectively reading the quote from the Bush-Blair press conference could come away saying the PResident is brain dead. That shows ignorance and a predisposed bias. Especially the ignorance. I read and heard it loud and clear. Part of what was said is that in the past our foreign policy was to keep the status quo, if the status qou meant that a lid was kept on there being political instability and now that is no longer good enoough, we actually have to address the real underlying problems. A mojjor part of the problem is an ideology that has and is trying to destroy our way of life and what I mean by our way of life , is the freedom to be who we are. Waht I also took from the quopte is that the President is including in our aresenal against these Islamo-fascists is an alternative ideology, one bsaed on hope and freedom....
I understrand that the political left doesn't pursue solutions to problems, they like to keep everybody an angry victim. They themselves are angry victims of their own making. Look at their solution to the war on povverty, it was to herd black Americans into housing projects and keep feeding them a steady diet of governement assistance and hopes and promises that were never coming. BUT the Democrats were there for their votes every November. Ahh but
I digress.
THe political left doesn't understand real leadership and resolutions to problems, they don't want to. Why, I wish someone could give me answer.THey remind me of children throwing tantrums.

Hezbollah were in fact "created" by Israel. They were a response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Where Saddam got it wrong back in 1991 was that he should have provoked an attack by Kuwait and undoubtedly the US and its coalition would have supported an invasion of Kuwait to allow Iraq to defend itself...

The " unprovoked attacks" against Israel that are constantly referred to , would not in the eyes of the wider Arab population BE unprovoked. The Arab population does not define itself exclusively (or perhaps at all) as a single nationality. The Palestinians are part of the Arab nation and Israel's constant attacks and humiliation of the Palestinian people are a constant source of provocation. Solve this problem and you solve a huge chunk of the world's problems.