“Proportionality” is not possible in any meaningful sense. Now, if Hezbollah were to assemble like a traditional fighting force, separable from civilians, there’d be proportionality all over the place. But since they make a point of embedding themselves among civilians, and no one - not the Lebanese populace, not the Lebanese government, no one - has done anything to change that, there will sadly be large numbers of civilian casualties associated with any strikes aimed at Hezbollah.
If Hezbollah didn’t and wouldn’t fire rockets at Israel, there would be no civilian casualties on either side.
If the Lebanese people and/or government prevented Hezbollah from doing its thing in the midst of civilian areas, there would be little or no Lebanese civilian casualties.
But you advocate that Israel should just stand by twiddling thumbs and let Hezbollah continue its unprovoked attack on Israeli civilians unimpeded, because the only effective thing they can do doesn’t have “proportionality?”
Put the responsibility where it belongs. Get Hezbollah to stop - NOW - and the civilian casualties will stop as well. (Don’t hold your breath, though.)
The two are interwoven in the minds of those actually trying to do said extermination. As you should know BG. To them Israel DOES equal The Jews in Our Neck of the Woods. You can attempt to separate them in your own mind…but for the participants (Israeli’s and Arab’s alike) on both sides there is no meaningful separation…they are one in the same.
/ Completely unrelated hijack: I’ve heard that there have been some cases where police officers have shot armed criminals in self defense; and then had the unmitigated gall to take the wounded criminal to the hospital for treatment! Oh the hypocricy!
I was simply showing rock party that they needed to broaden their sources of news just a bit, if they didn’t want to remain ignorant about the various Lebanese takes on this. The Lebanese are not the Borg, and various people have various stances on just about everything, much like every other nation. I’m not actually expecting for the response to have any bearing on their choice of news sources, but you never know.
WTF? Find a single post of mine where I express any kind of support for Hezbollah. Since you won’t, because there aren’t any, I fully expect a retraction from you.
Other than that, I must commend your debating “technique”, where all you do is attack the source and ignore the content. For instance that last article comes from Arabnews.com, merely the leading English language daily.
No wonder you only understand one viewpoint: yours.
And what, exactly, does that have to do with the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians, comprised mostly of women, children, the elderly and the very poor?
That’s precisely what was happening as the Lebanese political machinery, army, and government was taking control. Hezbollah foresaw this, didn’t want to become marginalized, and Israel gave it exactly what it wanted.
It really furthers no one’s long term interests except for Hezbollah’s.
Hezbollah and other extreme, and not so extreme, Arab groups openly state that Israel must be eradicated. Could you point out a place where “moderate Arabs” say that the extremists are wrong and some accomdation with Israel must be made?
Until that position is either answered “Yes, Israel must go.” or “No, Israel must stay.” All discussion about who started what and who is the most to blame are a waste of time.
If the numbers were skewed the other way and thousands of deaths of Isralies and a few dead Lebonese ,you would be crying about the inhumanity of the Arabs. The love like you do. they bleed like you do, and they mourn their deaths like you do. Do not dismiss their deaths as deserved. Israel is blowing the hell out if the country. The infrastructure happens to be where people live. These are not collateral deaths .They are taken as part of the equation to cripple Lebonon.
Hezbollah is the second biggest employer in Lebanon. They help feed the people ,provide hospitals and supply water. You may argue that they are recruiting,but when someone helps you ,you are grateful. The Lebanese are capable of distinction. They watch Hezbollah and often disagree with them, But they will never forget or forgive what Israel is doing to them.
This is a soverign state. Would you accept someone lobbing bombs into the USA because they had trouble with a white power organization or the KKK. You would mourn your dead and hate tyhe killers. Do not think your logic of "oh well they started it "flies either. This has been going on along time. Cross bordr scirmaches have been done by both sides for long time.
Its a nice appeal to emotion (well, actually its the same old bullshit you’ve been saying for weeks now…does it ever get tired saying the same old things like a broken record, having people actually respond with debate points, but ignorning them so that you can just keep the mantra up? Appearently not…), but you are making a serious assumption here:
Why do you think that because the numbers are skewed towards the Lebanese that people aren’t saying this anyway? As you’ve been told (I don’ know…100 times so far in GD? More? Not sure exactly), HB is DELIBERATELY targetting Israeli citizens. At the same time, they are using Lebanese as human shields, fighting among them, storing their munitions and weapons in their homes and buildings etc. You never seem to actually GET this point however…it slides right off of your impervious self rightousness.
Heres some advice. Instead of saying the same thing, over and over again, why not try and actually engage in the debate. Instead of mindlessly repeating, over and over again, your little mantra, why not attempt to actually respond to what people are writing and talking about? Instead of appealing to emotion, why not do some research and come back with some actual points to debate?
Or, I guess, you could just keep doing these little drive, content free appeals to emotion you call posts, I guess. Though really…we get it. After the 40th one of these we figured out where you stand on this. Really.
Repeating over and over. You mean me .Oh. I see you doing that I write less because I know you arent listening. It is a waste of time. There is only one side for you.
Americans despise the KKK. Americans don’t elect the KKK to public office. Americans don’t let foreign governments fund the KKK. Americans certainly don’t encourage the KKK to start bombing buildings and attempting to kill innocent civilians in African American or Catholic or Jewish neighborhoods. Americans sure as hell don’t turn the leaders of the KKK in American heroes. And most of us sure as hell wouldn’t say it was okay for poor whites Protestants to support the KKK because they are sometimes get involved in charitable endeavors among poor white Protestants.
David Duke has held public office, and while he claims he wasn’t in the KKK when he did, no one seriously believed he wasn’t a white supremacist at the time.
I don’t think America could stop that, actually.
If you think there wouldn’t be happy people if the KKK was still violent, you’re sadly mistaken.
Once again, some do.
I don’t know what relevance this has, as I don’t think anyone has said it was okay for people to join Hezbollah. Understandable? Sure. Okay? Not from anyone that I’ve seen.
As noted earlier, not everyone in Lebanon is engaging in group think. It’s actually a fairly diverse country compared to some others in the region, and opinions reflect that.
What do you mean? A lot of us are crying about the inhumanity of Arabs. We’ve been doing that for years. Arabs are killing a lt more Arabs than Israelis are.
But they don’t seem to care about the innocent Israelis they kill. Israelis do care about the innocent Arabs they kill.
So did the Nazis for jGermany. Not for the Jews though. Has Hezbollah employed any Jews?
I believe that. You see, that is the difference between Israelis and Lebanese Arabs. Israelis have forgiven the Germans. They don’t hang on to their anger for centuries.
I truly believe that if the KKK became a powerful militia in Texas, harrassing and killing Mexican illegals near the border, the rest of America would neutralize and disarm them before any large scale Mexican response was neccessary. I do recall that Americans fought a bloody civil war to end the slavery of an oppressed people.
I wonder what the difference is between the Taliban in Aphganistan and Hezbollah? Why does Lebanon allow a terrorist group to exist in their country? The Taliban allowed Bib Laden to train terrorists there. Why did Hezbollah take the 2 Israeli’s captive? Was it on the orders of Iran? Where did they get their weapons and why were they allowed to be stronger than the Lebonese army? Why is it different than Isreal getting rid of Hezbollah,than the UN getting rid of the Taliban and Bin Laden?
Israel was not going into Lebanon until the Lebonese did nothing to try to get Hezbollah to free their soldiers. There is no war that innocents do not die for the rest.
The head of Iran’s government openly stated it wanted to get rid of Israel.Their followers in other countries want it too.
There were many Aphganistanies who were innocent and were killed. Terrorism by anyother name still stinks.