re. post by beardedbruce:

"You have NOT addressed the stated point ( by the UN observer) that the Hezbollah forces are using such as human shields, and thus bear the guilt THEMSLVES for any civilian casualtie"

I haven't yet seen any evidence that Hizbullah are actually using civilians as human shields. They are firing their rockets from areas where civilians live, but that describes most of Lebanon. Perhaps they should fire them from the moon, where we can be sure there are no civilians. On the other hand, the Israeli Defence Force warns civilians to flee southern Lebanon, and then drops its bombs bombs almost immediately, catching numerous civilians as they are trying to escape. I also remember seeing a photograph published in Newsweek magazine in April of 2004 (if I remember correectly) of Israeli soldiers with a 13-year old Palestinian teenage boy tied to their jeep as a human shield. I doubt this was an isolated incident. For students of history, this technique was pioneered by the Black and Tans in Ireland in 1920. Knesset originally justified its invasion of Lebanon on account of the kidnapping of two of its soldiers (despite Israel having kidnapped hundreds of Palestinians, as noted elsewhere on this thread). Proof that this is nonsense can be partly found in the probability that these two soldiers are probably dead by now under houses reduced to rubble by bombs dropped by their IDF colleagues. The most logical explanation I have come across yet anywhere for Israel's invasion is their desire to grab control of the Litani river in southern Lebanon, an important source of fresh water in an increasingly arid region. On the news the other night Knesset announced its intention to push as fas as the Litani river, unsurprisingly. The only problem is that this will create a huge new wave of recruitment to Hizbullah, and thus be counterproductive to Israel's other stated aim of destroying that organisation. Then, with Hizbullah activity NORTH of the Litani river, Israel will say it has to invade Lebanon NORTH of the Litani river in order to defend itself, and so on all the way up to the North Pole, probably. US interest in the region will last as long as the oil lasts, leaving Israel surrounded and alone amongst very hostile Arab neighbours. It would make sense for them to do the magnanimous thing and strike a workable deal with their Arab neighbours and not leave a legacy of fighting and war to their grandchildren. Even if the palestinians did not go for a seperate state in 1948 is no reason for Israel not to puruse that line now. Indeed they were doing so up to recently, but two things got in the way: the Palestinian people democratically choose Hamas to represent them, and Israel began a series of land grabs with their wall, withdrawing from some settlements but gaining better ground elsewhere, including whole palestinian farms of olive trees and so on. It was not a deal palestinians were ever likely to go with.

As for comments on the correleation betwen Zionists and Nazis, the connection is not as far-fetched as John on Sunset Coast and others claim. Just because the Jewish people were victims of the Nazis, does not mean they can never be like them: indeed bullies usually learn their behaviour from being bullied by others. The Irish were victims of British colonial rule, but Irishmen (and ocassionally, women) could be found imposing Britain's imperial will as footsoldiers in its army, or among the most brutal of slave plantation overseers in 1800s USA. The word 'Nazi' has become lazy shorthand for 'evil' or 'monstrous'. Of course, in a sense it's true - there was something very evil, even demonic, about the Nazis. But they were not the only villians in history and they did nothing that hadn't been done before. Genocide: had been carried out many times before - in South America by Spanish conquistadores who treated the native indians like dirt, in the USA when native American Indians were wiped out with dieseased blankets (germ warfare), gatling guns and herded into reservations (concentration camps). The British did their fair share, as did the French and so on. Anti-Jewish pogroms were a fairly regular feature of the Jewish experience in Europe throughout their diaspora: the massacre of Jews in York in the 13th century, the expulsion of Jews from Spain in the 15th century, the pogroms of 19th centruy Russia and eastern Europe. These are only a tiny fraction of the examples, which would fill a volume of books if given in full. Ironically, the one place where Jews had a relatively untroubled existence was in Germany, until the Nazis took power. As someone else said in this thread, the Germans blamed the wrong people for thier hardship after WW1 - they should have blamed the French, British and to a lesser extent, Americans, for the ridiculous and unjust terms of the Versailles treaty, but instead Hitler found a convenient scapegoat in the Jews. But the Nazis did nothing new - except to conduct the pogrom on a industrialised scale. The scale was so big it shocked the world, even one jaded by all the centuries of previous anti-semitism, and the horrors of WW1. It couldn't be brushed under the carpet like other pogroms. But the notion that Britain and the USA fought WW2 to save the Jews is an unfounded one, whatever Spielberg might like to claim in his movies (see e.g Band of Brothers - "Reasons Why We Fight"). It might not be popular to say it now, but many American servicemen of WW2 would have gone home if they thought they were fighting a war to save the Jews: anti-semitism was not unknown in the USA either. But in recent times this justification has been put forward as the motivation for British and US involvement in WW2. It's not that it's not a noble idea - any attempt to save an innocent people from a horrible extermination is noble - it's just that it's not true. It was more an accidental result of US and British involvement in WW2 than a predetermined goal. But by advancing that idea, the Brit and US governments and idealogues are trying to create a moral continuum in which the Nazis of today (read: 'the enemy / terrorists / witches') are Isalmic fundamentalists, "we fought a moral war back then, and so we are fighting one now' - even though what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan flies in the face of all morality. The probloem with this idea is that there is a bit of the Nazi psychology in all the sides, in the sense that there is an element of fascism in the ideology of Islamic fundamentalist, Zionist and Republican right-winger alike. For example they all put blind faith in military might to solve their problems, believe their way of life is superior to any other, believe they are Divinely inspired (poor God must be wringing His hands in sorrow), that their will must be imposed on others by bomb and bullet. None of them will countenance any dissent from their viewpoint.

No doubt John will simplistically accuse me of being anti-semitic. Well, not a bit of it. I believe Jews are entitled to a homeland as much as anyone. True, I only know a few Jewish friends, but I like and regard them highly. My like / dislike of anyone is based on their personality, not their race /ethnicity. Accusations of anti-semitism is a smokescreen to avoid any scrutiny or criticsim of what is going on in Palestine and Lebanon. Accusations of 'Nazi' in relation to Islamic fundamentalists, in the US and UK media is basically a tool employed to deflect serious scrutiny of their own behaviour and policies. The basic premise is that the only real villians in history were the Nazis, and since the US and UK defeated the Nazis (actually it was the Russians who did most of the hard work) they must be the 'good guys'. Wrong!