A moderate arab's point of view on the lebanese conflict

Which concessions do you feel Israel would have to make to Hezbollah, considering they already withdrew from south Lebanon and this did not stop Hezbollah from attacking into Israel.

Of course “large chunk” is somewhat relative when we’re talking about a nation (Israel) that’s about the size of postage stamp, but you will remember that Israel already withdrew from Lebanon. Which large chunks of Lebanese land occupied by Israel should they withdraw from?

No they’ve alway though it is a really smashing idea to kill Jews. Take if from the horse’s mouth. A quick Wiki look will give you half a dozen quotes on the genocidal nature of Hezbollah.

  • You’ll notice Hezbollah is really trying to win over the hearts and minds here. Racism and genocide. It is dreams like this which people in the thousands march in western cities in support of, so I guess he has been able to touch some hearts and minds.

If it’s a genocide, it’s a pretty poor one. Isn’t the term “genocide” reserved for attempts to wipe out an entire genetic line (usually a “racial” or ethnic group), and NOT for just plain old killing?

The Israelis aren’t making much attempt to round up and “get” all the Lebanese. As genocide goes, it’s lame.

If you truly meant to use it refer to killings with any intent other than to exterminate a specific genetic group, you’ve misused it, IMHO. Isn’t that the “spin” decried by the OP?

Sailboat

If you believe the war started 23 days ago over a raid in Israeki occupied land ,you are simply writing off years of conflict as irrelevant. Could be Israel is trying to pigeon hole the Arabs into non voting areas.Demographic trends a few years ago indicated as things were going along ,Palestinians and Arabs would soon have a voting majority in Israel. This is a oermanent solution…

If Weirddave supported the palestinians, he would say something like:

The palestinians were living in peace, not bothering anybody. The U.K forcibly colonized them and imposed their rule in 1917. Before leaving in 1947,They gave the authorization to a bunch of jews after WW2 to create a state there on palestinian land. The arabs tried to reclaim their land, failed miserably against much better organized, equipped and U.S backed Israeli army. Israel claimed a bunch of land after those victories.Ever since, sporadic conflict has reigned. Israel thrives and kills 3.3 palestinians for each of their dead. The end.

Oh, and did I mention that the arabs were URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi]much nicer to said jews than europeans. No pogroms, no Inquisition, no Hitler.

See, my description is also factually correct. And it’s just as useless as Weirddave’s. I just wish we could stop with all the f***ing spin. There are no “good guys” and “bad guys”. All adults should realize that at one point or another if they’re not complete idiots.

Fixed link from last post

Better late than never. Hhere]([Quote:Originally Posted by Gozu) here is a pretty compelling proof of the Rampant Pro-Israeli bias in the U.S press.

Ack! I don’t know what’s wrong with me today! (Well, I know what it is…I didn’t preview). Here is a fixed version of my last post. My apologies.

Better late than never. Hhere is a pretty compelling proof of the Pro-Israeli bias in the U.S press.

You tell me. Why do YOU think Hezbollah started things then? Do you consider it justification?

The debate? Certainly its turning into such (been there for a while from my perspective)…simply because you STILL refuse to actually engage in the debate. And most of the folks on your side are exactly the same. You toss out raw statistics without context as if that proves something (but…but…BUT…Israel has killed more civilians than Hezbollah has! :eek: ). You make statements without backing any of it up…even with logic. You refuse to engage the points brought up by Finn or myself or any of the other people in the various threads…you just keep recycling the same bullshit over and over again. When your bullshit IS engaged, you move on to the next point and don’t engage on the points covered…until you figure enough time has gone by, or you are in a different thread. In which case, you bring the point up again, as if its fresh and new.

So yes…calling this thing a ‘debate’ is mislabelling it. Only one side seems to be even attempting to engage IN the debate thus far. And I’ll give you a clue here…it isn’t your’s (or you).

Can you say ‘strawman’? IOW, who exactly do you think is saying that this thing started 23 days ago, blah blah blah? Who was this meant to reply too…because I don’t see anyone saying this.

And what, by gods hairy balls, does Palestinian voting have to do with the situation in Lebanon? Are you seriously contending that if Israel gave Palestinian’s the vote (after anexing all of Palestine I suppose…why else would they let them vote?), this would some how magically fix things between Israel and Hezbollah? If so…well, why?

Can you say ‘strawman’ too? YOu are putting words into Weirddave’s mouth, assuming you know what his position is…based on one rough summary post of the history of the '48 conflict. I note also that you didn’t answer my own questions by engaging them, but instead answered with this strawman post of what you THINK is Wierdave’s position. Your strawman being more factually incorrect than Dave’s btw.
I think I’m winding down at this point folks. (listens for the cheers of joy that XT is finally going to shutup :stuck_out_tongue: ). I know I promised some cites to DMC (one of the few on the other side to even attempt to engage the debate), but I’m not sure I’m up for continually beating my head against the wall here. We’ll see…

-XT

I don’t understand why you two are arguing about this. Both sides think it’s acceptable to kill civilians. Each side hates the other because of it. Simple.

If India decided that they had enough of all the cow-killings going on in the U.S and attacked, would they be wrong? What if the americans were eating kittens? What if they were eating the children of the homeless? What if they ate the americans of indian descent? (the OTHER indians this time). Who decides at what point one side is wrong and the other isn’t? Does that person have to be a cow-eating one or not? You just have to accept that for it to be an absolute answer, there must be an absolute viewpoint. But there isn’t one! There never will be. We humans like to disagree on things. So the only possible solution would be an ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny and reduce the human population to 1. Or maybe 2 if they’re both mormons. The mormons never disagree.

US gave no miltary support until 1962 to Israel & really did not provide anything close current levels until after the 1973 Yom Kippur Wars

No, it isn’t . Most of what you wrote is factually incorrect. There’s a difference, you know.

Correct, incorrect, it’s two little letters!

And there are few of them, thankfully. Plenty of conservatives though.

I think of them the same way I think about those german soldiers in WW2 who were not nazis and who believed they were just fighting for their country.Many of them believe in what they’re doing and sacrifice everything for their righteous cause. I’d disband them but not exterminate them. Never demonize people. Good and bad people everywhere. Hizbollah and Hamas are no exception.

True.

True.

Unfortunately, there are many Likud supporters. As many as Bush supporters over here, proportionally speaking.

And I assume some early americans were disgusted to fight Indians to whom they had given rifles. These things happen often.

Minimum disruption = not invading and not killing hundreds of civilians and causing billions worth of damage to a relatively poor country (compared to the U.S and Israel). Nobody forced them to do all this, no matter what anyone says. And they sure as heck didn’t do it for a handful of kidnapped or killed soldiers.

I have seen lebanese people being interviewed and they seem to overwhelmingly disagree with you. Even the 75% who aren’t hisbollah sympathizers.

I agree with you 100%.

Jerusalem does not belong to them alone. It belongs to all 3 major religions and they should all have equal say in it. Since there are 2 bn christans, 1.2 bn muslims and only a few dozen millions jews in existence, I’d say this is a fair deal to them. How much have they spent restoring it? i’m sure they can deduct that amount from all the indemnizations they owe the palestinians who lost their houses, lands and other properties when they went into exile or flew to protect their spouses and children from all the violence. Assuming those lands, houses and properties were taken by the jews. Fair is fair.

I believe they still have a number of settlements in those territories you speak of. Are you sure they have no territorial ambitions?

Would that be extremely humiliating to them? Anyways, the two palestinians I met seemed fairly sane to me. One of them was some cab driver who clearly hated Israel but I didn’t hold it against him, assuming he probably had valid reasons. I paid the bastard 45 bucks. So much for solidarity amongst muslims :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Good advice.

Indeed.

xtisme, FinnAgain: ignoring the Human Rights Watch report cited above isn’t going to make it go away.
They’re impartial observers, as their merciless dissection of Hizbullah shows (and they’re correct; every katyusha fired is in effect a new war crime) and they conclude that Israel has indeed deliberately targetted civilians.
My objection to what Israel is now doing is the same reason I wrote off the Palestinians long ago: if you target civilians, you gain nothing but hate from the victims. It doesn’t win you anything. And militarily it’s worthless. Not to mention, as I have before, that the precipitate way in which they made all of Lebanon pay for what happened at the border killed any chance of cooperation from the rest of Lebanon in the enterprise of neutering Hizbullah, and undermined potential allies who now can’t be seen to cooperate with Israel without being labelled traitors.
All of which does wonders for the receiving end’s will to resist, though, a lesson Israel should have known from its own history. All in all, remarkably crude, cruel, and stupid. That our dolt of a Prez supports them wholeheartedly in this enterprise is a measure of its stupidity and short-term orientation at the expense of long-term security.
Meantime, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear nirvana.

Why didn’t you point the flaws in it? That way, I can write another statement which is JUST as anti-Israel and which also happens to be factually correct. Even by your standards. Do you doubt it can be done?

Here is a factual description of the united states:

Bunch of europeans came, massacred the natives, put the few remaining in tiny reservations, enslaved black people and thrived.

The end.

I was trying to make a point, Alessan. That point was that these short, simplistic statements who clearly favor one side over the other are actually quite worthless and certainly out of place here in great debates. Once again, there are no good guys, there are no bad guys. Not when you’re talking about whole populations and countries.

I thought it would please you that I do not think of Israelis as bad guys. Heck, I’m pro-Israel in principle. I just wish things had worked out better. For both sides.

I tend to agree with you.

My understanding is that the Israelis (and the US) misread the situation on two significant points.

Firstly that Hezbollah was the disorganised, rabble-like force it may have been in the early days. It is not. Given its resources, it is an extremely well-organised, proficient military organisation.

Secondly that demonising Hezbollah would cause more Lebanese to ostracise them. In fact the opposite has happened: there is unprecedented support in Lebanon and throughout the wider Arab world, and it is growing. More worryingly, there is significant and growing Sunni support for Hezbollah (which is a Shiaa organisation). This war has become a huge awareness campaign and PR drive for Hezbollah.

Hadn’t intended to jump back into this, but since my name was mentioned…

Ignoring mine (and Finn’s) responses to the HRW report doesn’t make them go away…in fact, they are STILL right here in the thread! Imagine that! :eek:

You are again making assumptions here. First off, that HRW ARE impartial observers. I have my doubts. Secondly, that they have PROOF that Israel has ‘indeed deliberately targetted civilians’. They CLAIM to have such proof, but in the response you chose to ignore from me on this I asked (and ask again)…show me the money! Lets see this proof. They can SAY anything they want…and it will still be a load of hot air until they come up with said proof.

You see, what they HAVE is anecdotal information from folks who were bombed (not exactly unbiased or even reliable sources), claiming that, nope…there was no Hezbollah in these parts. Israel just bombed us 'cause we are civilians.

At least, thats all the ‘proof’ I’ve seen from HRW thus far on the subject. Now, if you want to dig up what they are contending is their proof and present it, then I can look it over and see if it shifts my position on this.

But then, you’d actually be engaging in the debate…wouldn’t want to spoil the record, ehe?

Again, you are making assumptions…namely that if Israel chose to do nothing and just take it up the ass without batting an eye or lifting a finger, that this would have somehow translated into good will and fellowship from their buddies the Lebanese. Again…I have my doubts. History does not seem to be on your side on this one, though I suppose there is a first for everything.

Here’s your big chance to actually engage the question. What SHOULD Israel have done? What was the ‘correct’ response to the constant cross border raiding, most recently marked by the capture of these two soldiers? How long should they have let things just go on? Forever? What should their response been to the buildup in recent years of Hezbollah’s paramilitary capabilities? Nothing?

Feel free to respond in depth.

Uhuh. I can see that their long term security prospects were certainly on the rise from not doing anything before. Hell, their various neighbors were all just starting to trust and love Israel before they willfully attacked poor Lebanon and started laying the country to rest. Just the other day, before all this nasty Israeli aggression, Iran was saying how much they burn for Israel and wanted to give them a present.

I’m sure the constant raids on Israel were just the various peaceloving groups in the region being playful and showing Israel that they care…

There’s a shocker. :stuck_out_tongue:

They are fighting Israel…of course they are going to be popular. Oh, thats right! :smack: I forgot that the Arab World™ had just recently started to love Israel and accept them as a neighbor! Before all this started of course…

-XT

He loves us, he really really loves us!

Well, I don’t know… I certainly haven’t pointed out, time and time again, that precise targeting becomes almost impossible during the fog of war if you can’t always tell your enemy from the civilian population, and that outright mistakes will happen much more often.

For those reading along, by the way this is the methodology of the HRW statement. Notice, by the way HRW’s metric:

You wouldn’t find dead or wounded fighters if they were dressed exactly the same as dead or wounded civilians, and you wouldn’t, say, find caches of explosives if they all cooked off in secondary explosions… like whatever caused a building in Quana to suffer enough damage to be ‘flattened’ upwards of six or seven hours after the IDF hit it.

Would HRW have the expertise to distinguish a crater caused by an IDF strike from a crater caused by ammo cooking off after an IDF strike?

Also, on the topic of their actual investigations:

Not exactly the most reliable way of ‘proving’ something, is it?

Notice as well HRW’s, erm… ‘logic’ about responsibility.

Um… yes they do. That’s exactly why it might be very very difficult to have valid intel, and why the fog of war would be much more extreme.

Other gems include but are not limited to:

No evidence to suggest Hezbollah was near the convoy? What, were they looking for Hezbollah tracks? I know what bear tracks and rabbit tracks look like, what exactly would a Hezbollah track look like to prove that they were around there, or that Israel had good reason to think they were around there? Maybe HRW had a Hezbollah-O-meter?

Yet more quality stuff:

Oh, there were no Hezbollah folks in the entire town, and this guy’s neighbor knows. For sure. Without a doubt. And he inspected his neighbor’s basement, and knew whether or not there were rockets in it. Without a doubt. And he knew where the man’s children were, at every hour of the day, and what they were doing, without a doubt.

On HRW’s credibility wrt Israel, there has been a pattern of a rush to judgement, on Jenin, and Quana, on the blast that killed several Palestinians on a beach, etc… They have a habit of often taking Arab claims as gospel and treating Israel’s as lies-to-be-disproven.

At least in discussion over their role in the conflict Israel is in with many of the other nations in the region, HRW is hardly a great source.

That’s from your own little quote.
Those guys wear blue helmets, I believe. Shiny blue ones. That reflect light. That can easily be seen from a helicopter.
But there’s a lot more in there. If you choose to disbelieve this and the sheer weight of hundreds dead, while the number of Hizbullah dead might number maybe 100 (0 dead in the initial ambush, 0 dead in the rocket strike that killed the 12 reservists; as for the rest, all we have are Israeli claims, which, this being war, should be discounted as mere propaganda), well, there’s not much to say, is there?
As for answering what the alternative would be, in depth, I have elsewhere, repeatedly, and been ignored, repeatedly. So, no. Not doing it again. Feel free to dig up the relevant posts and answer them, if you wish.
Besides which, this BS about how the only alternative is that the Arabs were proposing peace & love is your usual tactic of the excluded middle. Which you know, but you don’t care. You just keep doing it, over and over and over like you’re dealing with someone who’s never seen that tactic before.
I have.
Meantime, you ignore pretty much the entirety of Lebanese history and the pre-war words and actions of Saad Hariri (Sunni), Walid Jumblaat (Druze), and the leader of the Maronite Christians (Christian, just in case that passed you by), all of whom, at one time or another, called for the disarming of Hizbullah. Even Siniora (Sunni) came close, although he put up the fig leaf of a national conference or something where it could be discussed.
No, no cites, because this stuff is ridiculously easy to find, for everyone but Israeli intelligence, Fox News, and you guys.
But like my posts on the alternative to what’s happening now, feel free to, you know, do a little research.
Carry on.