From the MSNBC article:
…“Security officials in Jerusalem, speaking anonymously, acknowledged involvement, though the Israeli government issued no statement.”
Isn’t the government usually the official spokesman for the country?
Who is this ‘anonymously’ character?
No, it isn’t, chap. Wars take place between states. (If you recall, that was the Administration’s stated reason for denying POW status to alleged terrorists captured in Afghanistan.) The “war on terror” is a public-relations misnomer for what is essentially a policing problem.
Israel is at war with Syria, and has been since 1948.
So? It’s on hiatus, and a surprise Israeli attack on Syrian territory, even if directed at a legitimate military target, would still be ranked as a Pearl-Harbor-level atrocity.
Furthermore, the attack was not on any Syrian military target, it was on a leader of a terrorist organization called Hamas who happened to be in Syria.
Nothing about this situation justifies the use of an indiscriminate weapon which might kill innocent Syrian civilians.
Furthermore, Israeli authorities have no legitimate business doing anything in Syria – no more than they have any legitimate business sending agents into Argentina or wherever to capture Nazis like Adolf Eichmann without the host government’s permission.
Assuming opponent is the same as “enemy,” booby traps are used and have been used for years. If upon your retreat you set an explosive charge to go off when a toilet is flushed there is no guarantee than an enemy soldier will be the first to use the toilet.
Planting land mines and then not taking them up when they have served their purpose kills as many people world wide as car bombs I think.
That’s what is bad about war. You never kill only designated enemies.
That’s even true of smart weapons. They will hit the designated target with great accuracy and reliability. But unless you have someone with 100% reliable intelligence information on the ground talking to the pilot and designating the target, you’re never sure that the designated target is really the intended target.
There is just no way to conduct a sanitary war and references to “surgical strikes” are palliatives to ease the conscience of civilian supporters of wars.
Do you have a problem understanding the concept of “state of war”?Under the rules of war, a country has a right to do anything inside an enemy country. It’s perfectly legitimate. Bombing an enemy is not an atrocity - it may not always be the smartest thing to do, but if they don’t want us to bomb them, maybe they should think about peace. The fact that the target was a terrorist doesn’t make a difference. He was not an innocent civilian, and he was under Syrian responsiblity. If he had been in, say, Egypt, killing him would have been wrong.
And please don’t assume that it was a regular car bomb, operated by the ignition key. That would be a sloppy way to work. The car was probably detonated by remote control, after men on the ground made visual confirmation that the target was inside and that no civilians were in danger. I know how these people work.
Eichmann, BTW, was arrested under Godwin’s Law, which as you know, supercedes all others.
From the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Syria):
I don’t call this an active state of war. Even if there was some declaration of war which was never officially rescinded, what Israel and Syria have now is a de facto cease fire, and it’s not kosher to violate that by hostile state action on Syrian territory. Which the Israelis have done, in 2003 as related above, and more recently with this car-bombing.
Resolutions 242 et al are non-binding, as you surely know; peace agreements are made between nations, not between nations and the UN.
Your article also omits the battles between Israeli and Syrian Forces in Lebanon in 1982-83 (jet against jet, tank against tank, infantry against infantry warfare), as well as Israel’s fighting with Syrian stooge Hizballa between 1983 and 2000. Israeli/Syrian combat has been going on and off for the past decade; today happened to be an “on” day. A de facto peace fire is worth the paper it’s de facto written on.
The bomb was almost certainly not keyed to the ignition of the car alone:
From yahoo news
Sounds like the bomb was keyed to both the phone and the ignition and visual sighting (in order for the call to come as he entered the car) - that’s about as surgical as these operations get. (Note: I realize that this could have been a coincidence, but I doubt it…)
Dani
This is a misleading thread title. The bomb is “a bomb in a car”, designed to kill those inside. A “car bomb” is a terror weapon composed of as much explosive as possible, packed into a car, and then detonated, in order to cause massive collateral damage.
I ask that the thread title be changed. I ask that the thread starter ask as well.
Also from the Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas:
It seems as if, at least at this point in history, Hamas is more sinned against than sinning.
Are you even reading your own cites? The leader of Hamas said that maybe - if he’s in a good mood, and he can’t vouch for anyone else - he’ll accept everything Israel would ever consider offering, in return for waiting a few years before he’ll continue trying to kill them all. That’s like saying “give me everything I ask for and I’ll give you some time to settle your affairs before I kill you. Hey, I’m offering you a bargain!”.
Or maybe you believe that because Hamas is losing its fight, they’re obviously in the right. That’s an attitude I can’t help with, but let me reveal something, something that may shock you: sometimes, the underdog is the bad guy.
No, I don’t believe the underdog is always in the right. On the other hand, I do believe things have progressed to the point where Israel could well afford to meet Hamas’ demands – that is, they could withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, or something near, and Israel would still be safe from attack in the form of conventional warfare. And once that was done, the Palestinians could get on with the business of building themselves a real society, and the impetus for terrorist attacks on Israel would gradually fade, even if some organizations like Hamas still make noises about taking back all of Palestine the way the Kuomintang on Taiwan used to make noises about taking back the mainland. But Sharon won’t consider it. So the bloodletting goes on.
Because Lord knows, before 1967 Arabs and Israelis lived in peace and harmony.
The 1967 borders are not defensible. From the 1967 borders, Israeli cities are open to rocket attack and shelling. It’s not going to happen. As long as the Arab world keeps up their ignorant conspiracies, blood libels, and claims to want to destroy Israel, Israel is never going back to the 1967 borders. Any political leader in Israel who tries to do that will be thrown out of office.
The Arabs are the bad guys here. They have repeatedly attacked Israel without provocation. They maintain an open stance of religious and ethnic intolerance. Their governments are totalitarian. They commit grievous crimes against their own people, subjugate women, spread racist lies, and advocate genocide against Israelis (with some exceptions - Jordan is doing its best to shed its past).
Israel would be insane to trust its security to the word of Arab governments.
This does not mean Israel is squeaky clean. It has operated with a heavy hand in Palestinian regions on many occasions, going further than it needed to and accepting more casualties among Palestinian innocents than it should. But Israel has been pushed into a very difficult position, and in my opinion has acted with far more restraint than most other democracies would have, including the United States and Canada.
Motivated by what? If the Israelis stopped occupying and oppressing the Palestinians, and let them have their own truly independent state with no Israeli military presence, the main point of conflict would be solved. There’d still be a lot of grudges held on both sides – but wouldn’t the Palestinians be too preoccupied with nation-building to be concerned with hating Israel?
Why was Israel attacked by seven Arab armies while the “Palestinian” areas were all under Arab control? Gaza and the West Bank were not Israeli-occupied before 1967, but that didn’t stop the Arab Muslims from being intent on the destruction of the Jews in the Middle East.
That was then, this is now. In 1967 Israel could make a case that the occupation of the Territories was necessary for defensive purposes. But now most nations and peoples of the region, even if they won’t admit it, do accept Israel’s existence, at least in the sense they’d just like the whole problem to go away. I do not believe granting independence to the Palestinians would expose the Israelis from new attacks by its other Arab neighbors. Quite the contrary, it would reduce the possibility the wars would ever be renewed.
I’ve never heard of Israel referred to as “the whole problem” before, that’s a new one.
:dubious: “The whole problem” is, of course, not Israel but the Arab-Israeli tension. And I’m sure most of the Arabs are just as sick of it as the Israelis are.
Simple then, renounce the use of violence, sit at the table, and talk, as humans should.
If not…let the bloodshed continue.