Has Israel gone to far?

[crazygrad]

If the Arabs laid down their guns there would be no more war.

If Israel laid down her guns there would be no more Israel.


Perhaps we can acheive world peace yet-

CRAZYGRAD AGREES WITH HAPPYFATCHICK

The world will now grind to a halt.

Oh, and the tensions, as we see them now are not milennia old, as someone stated. Indeed, during the period of Muslim rule in the region, Hews often considered living as a dhimmi in the Muslim lands to be better than living amongst Christians. the current tensions and violence derive more from the emergence of nationalism as a powerful political force in the late 1800s. After WWI, when the British and French divided the region, they played Jews and Arabs against each other. This is NOT to say that everything was peachykeen in the Levant before the 1880s. There were problems, but usually limited in nature and often related to specific events. The violence and hatred we see now is much more related to the rise of nationalism and horrible mismanagement of mandate regions, especially by the British.

[FitChick]

Originally Posted by PolarKat

but survival is connected to the people of Israel in Israel..



Here's the flip to that equation... 1930-40's.. Sorry.. we're not letting your kind in.. try another country..

Have you ever read the book, Perfidy by Ben Hecht? How about "Through the Ashes"? The zionist state banned the first book for 30 years and its still hard to find.

Both books document the fact that the early zionist leaders (who were secular Jews) deliberately prevented most of the religious Jews in Europe from coming to the Holy Land. They were afraid that if the Holy Land filled up with old, sick, religious Jews, it would not help their cause.

Further, they felt that if "enough" Jews died at the hands of the Nazis in Europe, it would make the world that much more sympathetic for the idea of the creation of a "Jewish" state AFTER the war. And from the looks of it, it worked.

[Chode McBlob]

You can never go too far when defending yourself against the Islamic Nazi terrorists. Islamics don't even value the lives of other Islamics anyway. take a look at Iraq. They blow each other up. So why should Israel be careful of them? Every Islamic there would like to wipe out Israle and every Jew world wide. So let Israel kill as many as it takes to stop the Hezbollah. They hide among the civilians, They don't care about them. They use them for inneffective shields. And the Hezbollah are civilians themslves. They are not a recognized army of any country. Unless you can call them an Iranian army.

[GenericGeek]

Originally Posted by crazygrad

Anti-zionism is not necessarily antisemitism... but goodness! ...

To further complicate things -- the term "Anti-Semite" is in itself a misnomer, for ARABS are Semites, too!

Quoth Webster's:

"Semite n. A member of any of the peoples whose languages is Semitic, including the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, etc.; not, specifically, a Jew."

So it would appear that what we have here is a Semitic Civil War, so to speak!

[Chode McBlob]

Violence is the only language Islamics understand. There is no diplomacy with terrorists. You can never go too far defending yourself. Hezbolla started this war. They are the cause of all the destruction Israel has done to Lebanon. They hide among the civilians. They made the civilians into targets. As long as the the Hezbollah keep launching rockest at Israel. Israel should keep bombing the crap out of Lebanon. As someone else said earlier. I don't think a candlelight vigil will get the Hezbollah to lay down their arms.

Islam has launched a war against non Islamics. Don't forget about the Al Queday and the whole mess in Iraq too. Islamics kill each other there. Even if there had never been an Israel in the midlle east Islamics would still be killing each other. But who cares if they kill each other? It like gangsters killing gangsters.

[crazygrad]

Wbster's def of semite is fine- the term semite was coined to refer to a language group with related characteristics, like the germanic language family, slavic and so on. By extension, this was applied to the people who spoke said languages. But anti-semitism (not my prefered spelling) was coined Wilhelm Marr (or some other German antisemite of the late 1800s) to give a scientific veneer to Jew-hating. For many scholars, the prefered spelling is antisemitism to reflect that (a) there really is no such thing as a semite (there isn't), (b) there is no such thing as semitism (there isn't) and that (c) the whole concept was created to give legitimacy to an old problem.

There are many Arabs who insist they can't be antisemitic since they speak a semitic language and are semites themselves. hence they say they are anti-zionist or anti-racist (made possible by the whole zionism is racism controversy of the 1970s and 80s). As a result, they can gain supporters and deflect the Jew hating that is inherent in their actions.

Do keep in mind that I'm not condoning Israel's actions here. It is a complicated situation that only gets more tragic all the time. I'm not convinced there is a tenable long term peace possibility. The Arab nations have sought Israel's destruction since 1948, and Israel, it appears, has lost any trust it could have had with its neighbors.

[olivefun]

I have not ever heard of Israeli suicide bombers going to cafes and school yards to target young people.

I was in a Toys-R-Us and met 2 young israeli sisters who had been terribly disfigured by screws that were in a bomb that exploded in Tel Aviv where they were visiting. I was in the store with my beautiful child and was just talking to the mother of these girls. I cannot imagine someone pricing bolts and screws trying to decide which ones would do the maximum damage to human flesh. The way the mom looks the injuries is heart breaking, but she is happy that they are alive, I am sure.

Makes me crazy, this kind of thinking does.

I don't think that innocents on either side of any border should be used as pawns. It is heartbreaking to really consider the impact of these things.

[ssbbwlover2]

Originally Posted by olivefun

I have not ever heard of Israeli suicide bombers going to cafes and school yards to target young people.

I don't think that innocents on either side of any border should be used as pawns. It is heartbreaking to really consider the impact of these things.

Israel does not need to resort to the war of the poor or the weak. They use weapons like it has in Lebanon and Palestine.

[Observer]

Any nation that has to use its war equipment is going to harm and sometimes kill noncombatants, including children. Its horrific but simply a fact.

There is, however, a major difference between terrorism where random injury and death of the innocent is intentional and there is no legitimate target (a la Hezbollah) and incidental injury and death while taking out a legitimate target.

To those who wish to criticize Israel I would ask once again, what should they then do (other than what they have done) to neutralize the kidnapping of their people and the firing of random missiles across their border?

Someone in one of these threads mentioned that Israel has held some Lebanese prisoners for years - would Hezbollah renounce its goal of destroying Israel and voluntarily disarm if these prisoners were to be released? Let's not forget that Hezbollah itself is a foreign occupying force - financed by Syria and Iran - on Lebanese soil. Lebanon is just to weak militarily to control Hezbollah, which has given itself legitimacy by providing local services to the people.

[ssbbwlover2]

Originally Posted by Observer

Someone in one of these threads mentioned that Israel has held some Lebanese prisoners for years - would Hezbollah renounce its goal of destroying Israel and voluntarily disarm if these prisoners were to be released? Let's not forget that Hezbollah itself is a foreign occupying force - financed by Syria and Iran - on Lebanese soil. Lebanon is just to weak militarily to control Hezbollah, which has given itself legitimacy by providing local services to the people.

I am sure they would if Israel returned the prisoners and did not invade Lebanon again. The return of Sheebah Farms is part of that. Hezbollah is only seeking that Israel should leave Lebanon. I am sure people would live in peace if Israel wanted to do the same. Hezbollah was a creation of the Israeli incursion in 1982. There was no Hezbollah before that time. The idea that every nation in the Middle East is out for the destruction of Israel is simply wrong.

[FitChick]

Originally Posted by olivefun

I have not ever heard of Israeli suicide bombers going to cafes and school yards to target young people.

I was in a Toys-R-Us and met 2 young israeli sisters who had been terribly disfigured by screws that were in a bomb that exploded in Tel Aviv where they were visiting. I was in the store with my beautiful child and was just talking to the mother of these girls. I cannot imagine someone pricing bolts and screws trying to decide which ones would do the maximum damage to human flesh. The way the mom looks the injuries is heart breaking, but she is happy that they are alive, I am sure.

Makes me crazy, this kind of thinking does.

I don't think that innocents on either side of any border should be used as pawns. It is heartbreaking to really consider the impact of these things.

If you listen to interviews with Arab women who are the mothers (?) of some of the homicide bombers, you can plainly see that many Arab Muslims don't even value the lives of their own children. They give them names like Jihad (holy war) and Raad (a missle developed by the Arabs).

I will never forget one interview where an Arab "mother" said she had her son purposely so he could blow himself up as a homicide bomber. Its hard to battle a crazy group of people like that.

[TheSadeianLinguist]

Originally Posted by FitChick

If you listen to interviews with Arab women who are the mothers (?) of some of the homicide bombers, you can plainly see that many Arab Muslims don't even value the lives of their own children. They give them names like Jihad (holy war) and Raad (a missle developed by the Arabs).

I will never forget one interview where an Arab "mother" said she had her son purposely so he could blow himself up as a homicide bomber. Its hard to battle a crazy group of people like that.

Gee, kind of like those American mothers who say they would feel good if their sons died for this war... I know one of these mothers PERSONALLY.

[FitChick]

Originally Posted by TheSadeianLinguist

Gee, kind of like those American mothers who say they would feel good if their sons died for this war... I know one of these mothers PERSONALLY.

I don't suppose you see the insanity of comparing a legitimate war and the action of a legitimate sovereign nation with illegal terrorists and terrorism. No, I didn't think so. What you just did is like comparing the actions of the USA or the UK during WW2 with what the Provisional IRA did in Northern Ireland.

[TheSadeianLinguist]

Originally Posted by FitChick

I don't suppose you see the insanity of comparing a legitimate war and the action of a legitimate sovereign nation with illegal terrorists and terrorism. No, I didn't think so. What you just did is like comparing the actions of the USA or the UK during WW2 with what the Provisional IRA did in Northern Ireland.

NO ONE should wish for their children's death. That's my point.

And well, I don't consider this war legitimate, considering we've changed our motive for war several times.

[ssbbwlover2]

http://www.counterpunch.com/loewenstein08102006.html

August 10, 2006

Hizbullah, Zionism and the Ideology of late Imperial America

Awakening the Resistance

By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN


Across a stretch of land demarcated by barbed wire and signposts stood a lone Israeli watch-tower. From Fatima’s gate one could just make out the shapes of helmeted soldiers within, behind a small rectangular window of bullet-proofed glass: the hapless targets of rocks hurled continually across the border by all who could manage to throw them and the cheering on-lookers applauding each lob.

The summer of 2000 has taken on the transient quality of a landscape brightened by a break in the clouds for an all too brief interlude.

That was the summer Lebanon began to awaken again; to bloom into a metropolis of culture and scandal, nightlife and slums, commerce and tourism, stretching, yawning and weeping with sorrow and relief. The stiflingly hot streets of Haret Hreik in the south suburbs were neighbors the of the Bourj al-Barajneh, Chatila and Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camps all full of the squalor and pulsing of life, the worlds within worlds of poverty, hope, despair and faith. There in the slums of the city a young, intelligent doctor from the camp hospital invited me to his home to meet his mother and sister and to explain why he, a Sunni Muslim and a Palestinian, had chosen to become a member of Hizbullah. Safwat was an anomaly then, or so I believed. But now, when I traverse the str! eets of Haret Hreik in my mind, the fruit and vegetable stands, the phone stores and electronics shops, the clothing stores, restaurants and cafes, the banks and Internet stops, the grocery and household supply marts where one could purchase all her daily necessities, it is clear that the seeds of a vast resistance had just begun to germinate. It was unclear to me then just how fully it would bloom; just how tenacious its roots would become.

Today, the bustling streets of Haret Hreik are gone. Where families lived and thrived, struggled and laughed, is an emptiness of rubble –the bombed ruins of a greedy imperial war that stops at nothing. Today Lebanon stands behind Hizbullah. The Lebanese have become the bitter, cheering on-lookers of the resistance which lobs its out-dated missiles relentlessly across the border as the Israeli war machine refuels again and again. But US precision guided bombs, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, unmanned aerial drones, drones to guide the bombs, helicopters armed with missiles, F-16s, gun ships and state-of-the-art armed and trained ground forces with night vision surveillance and combat goggles have succeeded in uniting far more than the Lebanese behind the daring defiance of Hassan Nasrallah.

Sixteen years of civil war, of murderous sectarian acrimony, of inter-ethnic killing, suspicion and paranoia and today –after 28 days of hell unleashed upon it by the arrogant racism of a militant and ideological Zionism— 89% of Lebanon’s Sunni Muslims, 80% of its Christians, 80% of its Druze and 100% of its Shiite populations support Hizbullah’s resistance against Israel and the United States.

At least as telling are statistics showing that 97% of Palestinians support Hizbullah’s position toward Israel including 95% of Christian Palestinians. Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Iran are not the only places where support for Hizbullah has increased dramatically in the last month. Among the populations of the American-backed Arab states, notably Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, there is also widespread support. Indeed, seizing ! upon the corruption and obsequiousness of these regimes and their tacit support of Israel, Nasrallah intoned in a recent address, “there will be no place for [you] if you abandon your moral and national responsibility…. For the sake of your thrones I say to you gather [up your humanity] and act for one day in order to stop this aggression on Lebanon.” He understands, as do they, that their unwillingness to condemn the insouciant murder of more than a thousand people will cost them dearly. Suddenly these merciless, sell-out regimes are left scrambling to help author a ceasefire agreement less embarrassing than the Bolton-Gillerman diktat that left the Israeli military in place in south Lebanon while seeking to disarm Hizbullah.!

Are we really surprised by the vast, Hizbullah-led resistance? By the linkage it makes with people across the boundaries of national insult, defeat and humiliation? Are we really surprised that 40 years after Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights and 6 years into its continued occupation of the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon that people are have had enough? Are we really surprised that 3 and a half years into the US occupation and devastation of Iraq, 5 years after the US invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and decades of killings, intrusions, violations, abductions, assassinations, meddling, economic sanctions, pilfering and exploitation of the people, lands and resources of the Middle East that the reckless, racist, power-drunk mercenaries of empire should finally be met with a legitimate popular resistance? –not an outgrowth of displaced fana! ticism, not an al-Qaeda gang of killers, but the beginnings of a grassroots pan-Arab and pan-Islamic movement seeking to heal the wounds of perpetual subjugation?

What message have the purveyors of state power brought with them that their listeners should wish to continue to bow in subservience? The conditions are not right for a ceasefire, say George Bush and Condoleeza Rice. First burn down the house and then we can discuss how to put out the flames. We are not just fighting Hizbullah, says Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, but Syria and Iran as well. Accept our vision of a Starbucked-MidEast; a Middle East with sanitized Muslims appointed by the corporate board of Ziocondriacs who break into hives at the words “Islam” and “Arab;” whose peace imposes fast food franchises; whose freedom is the right to purchase arms at the Great Mall of the Gulf States; whose riches are the oil w! ells mortgaged to Texas; and whose water resources run through the processing plants of the Ariel and Gush Etzion settlement blocs.

They tell you that a Jewish state is democratic but a Muslim state is evil; that Palestinians living in Palestine have no rights and no state but Jews living in the rest of the world can ‘return’ and live there as rights’-bearing citizens; that Jesus wants you in Palestine unless you are a Palestinian or a Muslim; that Washington, London and Tel Aviv can produce nuclear warheads but that Tehran is a global threat for daring to enrich uranium; that legitimate resistance is terrorism but state terrorism is “self-defense”; that the desert state of Syria is Nasrallah’s courier and puppeteer but that Washington is an honest broker and a partner for peace; that Iran is a rogue state for arming Hizbullah but that America is freedom-loving for arming Tel Aviv; that we cannot talk to Damascus or Tehran unless they ! renounce themselves out of existence first; that expansionism and regime change are necessary for American and Israeli national security but that the Arab and Muslim winners of free and fair democratic elections should be arrested in the middle of the night and imprisoned in secret police detention centers for attempting to rule.

They tell you that three soldiers captured by Hamas and Hizbullah are worth the collective destruction of Palestine and Lebanon but that civilians kidnapped by Israel are not worth the price of a printed page; that the tens of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails and the hundreds of Afghanis, Pakistanis, Arabs and others at Guantanamo Bay are worth less than the abandoned pets of the residents of North Israel fleeing to the bomb shelters. They sing sanctimonious hymns to the glory of international law as they veto it into the oblivion of a million shell fragments.

Don’t count the blackened bodies of the peach farmers of Qaa laid out in the afternoon sun along the roadside. Don’t weep for the petrified, death-stolen children under the concrete rubble of Qana. Don’t suffer the incinerated of Marwaheen, the blasted of Srifa and Khiam and Tibnine. Don’t list the villages lost or the homes destroyed; don’t number the dead of Beirut and Tyre. Don’t listen to the wailing on the beaches of Gaza. Don’t mourn the lost lives of Khan Yunis or Beit Hanoun, people of the sand and the dust; of corrugated iron and uprooted orange groves. Don’t number the fallen in Nablus or Jenin: the old shepherds, the young rebels, the pregnant wives and weary husba! nds, the somber schoolgirls and the angry boys in the lost alleys of the camps. We will hear all of their voices again; see their likenesses in the shattered streets of the Levant. They will gather beneath the cedar and the minaret; carry with them the kuffiyeh and the Qur’an; they will speak the language of the resistance that we have breathed into them like fire.

Jennifer Loewenstein is a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University's Refugee Studies Centre. She has lived and worked in Gaza City, Beirut and Jerusalem and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, where she has worked as a free-lance journalist and a human rights activist. She can be reached at: amadea311@earthlink.net

[sirumberto]

I know this belongs in the movie quote thread, but it just seemed appropriate.

"Here is better than home, eh, sir? I mean, at home if you kill someone they arrest you, here they'll give you a gun and show you what to do, sir. I mean, I killed fifteen of those buggers. Now, at home they'd hang me, here they'll give me a fucking medal, sir."

[djewell]

Originally Posted by crazygrad

Wbster's def of semite is fine- the term semite was coined to refer to a language group with related characteristics, like the germanic language family, slavic and so on. By extension, this was applied to the people who spoke said languages. But anti-semitism (not my prefered spelling) was coined Wilhelm Marr (or some other German antisemite of the late 1800s) to give a scientific veneer to Jew-hating. For many scholars, the prefered spelling is antisemitism to reflect that (a) there really is no such thing as a semite (there isn't), (b) there is no such thing as semitism (there isn't) and that (c) the whole concept was created to give legitimacy to an old problem.

There are many Arabs who insist they can't be antisemitic since they speak a semitic language and are semites themselves. hence they say they are anti-zionist or anti-racist (made possible by the whole zionism is racism controversy of the 1970s and 80s). As a result, they can gain supporters and deflect the Jew hating that is inherent in their actions.

Do keep in mind that I'm not condoning Israel's actions here. It is a complicated situation that only gets more tragic all the time. I'm not convinced there is a tenable long term peace possibility. The Arab nations have sought Israel's destruction since 1948, and Israel, it appears, has lost any trust it could have had with its neighbors.

i heard somewhere that the semitic languages are more like a sprachbund than a genetically related family.

[William]

Hi MISSFA

The OKC bombing was something completely different. In OKC there were no Terrorists shooting rockets out of the area or from the top of the building. Also Israel did not go into the building and plant a bomb.

Israel has to return fire.

William

Originally Posted by missaf

It's sad when kids get involved I remember the horror in my heart when the OKC bombing happened. I remember the horror that drove me to tears for a week when my friends in Jordan saw children die and be kidnapped in the Sudan right in front of their young son. I remember too, all the kids that have died on both sides of the war in Isreal. Their children constantly live with bombing drills and learn to wear gas masks. It's a culture of terror for so many over there, it's what they learn is normal. It's not fair.

It's a small consolation, but at least Israel stopped to acknowledge they screwed up. Accidents or incidents like this only serve to fuel the hatred

[crazygrad]

i heard somewhere that the semitic languages are more like a sprachbund than a genetically related family

I guess I wasn't clear- the languages are related, and 1800s scholars assumed that the people, therefore, were related too. Hence pan-Slavism, for example. That Arabic and Hebrew have some characteristics taht relate them linguistically (with a few other languages) of course, does not mean that the people who speak them are genetically related peoples.

[Fatgirlfan]

I was thinking about the song by Bob Dylan called "Neighborhood Bully".
I think one could find some similarities in the song to what is going on today in the mid east.

[djewell]

Originally Posted by crazygrad

i heard somewhere that the semitic languages are more like a sprachbund than a genetically related family

I guess I wasn't clear- the languages are related, and 1800s scholars assumed that the people, therefore, were related too. Hence pan-Slavism, for example. That Arabic and Hebrew have some characteristics taht relate them linguistically (with a few other languages) of course, does not mean that the people who speak them are genetically related peoples.

isnt that the definition of a sprachbund?

[crazygrad]

basically, but I thought you were saying that I was suggesting that people who speak similar languages are genetically related, which wasn't what I was trying to say, though many scholars of the nineteenth century did think that.

Perhaps I've lost my clarity in my old age.

[mossystate]

Originally Posted by FitChick

I don't suppose you see the insanity of comparing a legitimate war and the action of a legitimate sovereign nation with illegal terrorists and terrorism. No, I didn't think so. What you just did is like comparing the actions of the USA or the UK during WW2 with what the Provisional IRA did in Northern Ireland.

At the end of the day..blah..blah..blah....a dead kid, is a dead kid...

[HappyFatChick]

ssbbwlover- could you possibly post something more left-wing/radical conspiracy theorist/delusional extremist for us? Sheesh...

Did you read that whole story and look at all the ads on that site? The devil horns on my president were a nice touch.

[ssbbwlover2]

Originally Posted by HappyFatChick

ssbbwlover- could you possibly post something more left-wing/radical conspiracy theorist/delusional extremist for us? Sheesh...

Did you read that whole story and look at all the ads on that site? The devil horns on my president were a nice touch.

Did you read the article by Jennifer Loewenstein? It just raises some points to consider.