BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 03:55 AM

Today I was at a meeting with Muslim Australians. One of the women on the committee I have been working on is from Baalbak, she is a government worker in the area of human rights and anti discrimination. As we had lunch we watched the bombings of Baalbak, while she explained to me that this was her home and many of her family still live there.

I hope none of the people killed were members of her family.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,seth
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 03:24 AM

5 members of one family killed on the raid against Baalbak.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 02:55 AM

Peace - I have said it several times. Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and only Hezbollah may be justifiable. That depends on a different argument, namely whether Hezbollah are freedom fighters or terrorists.

Even if Hezbollah had taken civilians hostage, it would not be justifiable to kill the hostages in order to kill the Hezbollah personnel. It might be militarily advantageous, but it would be wrong. If you don't understand that then you do not know right from wrong. You advance only the argument of necessity. The end does not justify the means.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,yanno
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 01:35 AM

Yeah,operations against a hospital finished,patients captured or is that kidnapped and many civilians dead!
yanno

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,garry
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 01:33 AM

I thought hopitals were meant to be places exempt from being targetted from military action?
garry

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 01:23 AM

"Baalbek operation completed successfully

IDF commando units return safely to Israel after nightly raid in Lebanese territory. Several Hizbullah gunmen, killed, at least three terrorists captured in operation. Lebanese officials say 10 civilians killed in IDF air strike"

FYI

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 01:17 AM

"I have just read that a group of Israelis commandos has raided a hospital in Baalbak well in the north of Lebanon...the report says some ofthe commandos are trapped inside the hospital and a fierce firefight is going on with Hizbollah otside and the commandos inside.
simon"

The spelling is Baalbek.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,Simon
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 01:10 AM

I have just read that a group of Israelis commandos has raided a hospital in Baalbak well in the north of Lebanon...the report says some ofthe commandos are trapped inside the hospital and a fierce firefight is going on with Hizbollah otside and the commandos inside.
simon

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 12:29 AM

"Hello, Peace, try really really hard to understand this."

Richard, hello back to you. Please now, YOU try real hard to understand THIS! People rob banks because that's where the money is. Simple. Hezbollah is in Lebanon using civilians as cover for rocket attacks. Do you suggest that instead of attacking Hezbollah where they are that Israel attack them where they aren't? True, there would be no Lebanese casualties. Just Israeli casualties. I suppose that that would be OK, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 11:57 PM

"The innocent should not suffer for the wrongs of the guilty."

That is true. And I think you should say that to Hezbollah.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 07:49 PM

Bobad, I do not accept that the end - namely killing or seeking to kill Hezbollah fighters - even if itself justifiable - justifies the means under discussion, namely killing others.

I might, if I were convinced of the alleged facts, condemn Hezbollah for hiding amongst civilians, or for fighting near UN posts, but that does not justify Israel killing the civilians nor the UN officials. I don't care where Hezbollah are hiding. Even if it were in my house (which it isn't) that would not entitle the Israelis to shell my house,for I am not Hezbollah. Indeed, until the events that imelled me to start this thread I was pretty pro-Israel.

The innocent should not suffer for the wrongs of the guilty. If the current US and Israel governments cannot see that, they are even more morally bankrupt than I feared.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 07:28 PM

"Hezbollah has been firing them, randomely, into civilian areas of Israel for the last 6 years or so"

I've been hunting around for the actual dates when Hezbollah has fired rockets across the border over the period preceding this latest war, and I couldn't find any within the last couple of years. That surprised me, because my impression from the media had been that there had indeed been some kind of constant bombardment. The latest case I have seen a specific mention of was back in 2002.

If there has been a steady continuation of random rockets aimed by Hezbollah at civilian areas over the last couple of years and the last few months, I think it would be useful to have the instances. And that's a serious request, not a debating point I'm making.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,walt
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 06:18 PM

1 Israel has a blatant record of major and minor invasions and raids into the Lebanon

2 Think for example to april 1996 when Israeli forces rained shells onto Qana killing over 100 refugees at te UN post in one barrage.

3 Think of the battering of Beirut in 1982 in which thousands were killed and the city destroyed.It looked like Dresdenin 1945.

4 Think of the massacres ar Sabra and shatila camps outside Beirut in which around 2000 palestinian women and children were killed despite Israeli and American guarantees of safety.

5 Think of the Lebanese prisoners in Israel and the assassinations,the landmines left behind and the illegal airflights over the Lebanon.....
its almost endless
walt

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:48 PM

"So far as Hezbollah is concerned I'd imagine that some misguided notion that the arsenal of rockets might deter an attack by Israel might have entered into it. "


The FACT that Hezbollah has been firing them, randomely, into civilian areas of Israel for the last 6 years or so shows the falsehood of this statement.


" The suggestion that this all happened in response to a rain of Hezbollah rockets and shells across the border in recent months or even years, is just not true. "

Care to give some indication which angell came down from heavan and told you this? There is NO evidence presented by you to support your claim,and much to indicate that you are wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:38 PM

freda,

"this is a claim that is often cited as a justification for bombing civilians - also that Hezbollah is "hiding" among civilians. What balderdash. It is a justification for indiscriminate genocide against the Lebanese people."


First,

""this is a claim that is often cited as a justification for bombing civilians - also that Hezbollah is "hiding" among civilians."

How does the fact that it is cited make it false? Do you claim they are NOT in those areas being attacked by Israel? Have you any evidence of that to present to justify your allegations?

The International laws pertaining to war specify that the side USING civilians as shields, locating military units in the midst of civilian areas, specifically targeting civilians in areas with no military targets, and putting war materials in prohibited places such as schools and mosques is in violation, and guilty of war crimes. THAT is Hezbollah, not Israel.



And secondly,

"It is a justification for indiscriminate genocide against the Lebanese people."


Israel has shown that its attacks are not indiscriminate, nor genocidal. The Hezbollah attacks, using unguided mass bombardment rockets against a civilian population ARE, and much closer to genocide than the targetting of military forces that hide in civilian areas.

Do you claim that the rocket launchers and arms of Hezbollah are NOT a military target, but that Israeli civilians and chilsdren ARE?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:31 PM

"What is Hizbollah doing massed on the border of Israel with thousands of rockets aimed at them?"

A similar question could be levelled at Israel. Except their vastly greater weaponry is slightly different, and with a modern airforce you don't need to be massed on a border.

So far as Hezbollah is concerned I'd imagine that some misguided notion that the arsenal of rockets might deter an attack by Israel might have entered into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,hugo
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:28 PM

THE TERROR TIME WILL END!
It 's true that many Israelis believe that they are the victims in the on going conflicts between Israel,its neighbours and the Palestinians.
And of course they are continually fed that belief by the various govts of Israel who constantly seek to dominate Their neighbours.


However,they are victims in the sense that the whites in South Africa believed they were the victims of african aggression.

The position of the Zionists is basically unsustainable in the long term.....there will be more and more violence and wars and the pounding of neighbours....but there will still be neighbours even if the new border runs up to the outskirts of Beirut.And there will still be the Palestinians to deal with and they are like the undigested meal in the belly of the beast.


The Israelis will keep on killing ,backed by the power of the USA but it won't last forever.
hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:20 PM

freda, I suggest you read the letter in this post sent to C.Ham from a friend in Israel:

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: C. Ham - PM
Date: 31 Jul 06 - 05:23 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:19 PM

'Righteous Gentiles' is the phrase used for those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

What we need now is some Righteous Jews among the Israeli government.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:13 PM

Red Cross workers and residents of Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 60 civilians, have told Inter Press Service that no Hezbollah rockets were launched from the city before the Israeli air strike. (Tuesday, August 1, 2006 by Inter Press Service )

The Israeli military has said it bombed the building in which several people had taken shelter, more than half of them children, because the Army had faced rocket fire from Qana. The Israeli military has said that Hezbollah was therefore responsible for the deaths.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:13 PM

Mr.McGrath, what you say is true but it begs the question; "What is Hizbollah doing massed on the border of Israel with thousands of rockets aimed at them?"

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:05 PM

reply to ifor:

You must be one of only a very small number across the world who still believes that Israel is not targetting civilians deliberately.

you mean the civilians among which Hezbollah is hiding when they train their people, paint the walls with their slogans, and fire into Israeli territory indiscriminately with their sophisticated rockets?

From the very beginning Israel has set out to inflict collective punishment on the Lebanese people.

Uh, what 'beginning' are we talking about, the beginning where Hezbollah crossed from Lebanese into Israeli territory to kill and kidnap Israelis?

Early on it attacked the suburbs of south Beirut, car convoys full of refugees, roads and bridges, power stations and petrol stations , schools and so much more.

Early on Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into the city of Haifa, into Nazareth, and never stopped saying it was going to fire more and better rockets.

Hundreds of innocent people have been killed and hundreds more have been maimed.Tens of thousands have been terrorised by the Israeli military.

Much of the damage has been done to Hezbollah held territory. Either the Lebanese government and army could not or would not control the territory and restrict the aggressive planning, training, and activities of the terror group Hezbollah. Oh, and when you live in Northern Israel and are aware of hundreds of rockets coming your way, you are terrorized.

700000 have become refugees in their own land.

Then Hezbollah determined that their own land became a training ground for terrorism and aggression across the border into Israel.

The Israeli military lied about Qana ..where it committed mass murder slaughtering women and children while they slept.

The Israeli military did not lie, but you and others on this thread were overjoyed to pounce on the deaths of these people to make a case.

They claimed that it was a place where Hizbollah fired rockets from but all the eye witnesses including western film crews said there was absolutely no sign of any military equipment there apart from the shards of the American made bomb that the Israelis used to destroy the building.

I believe there are photographs that put your contention in dispute. The firing upon Israel from areas with many civilians in them is a tactic used by terrorists for generations. Check out the flick "The Battle Of Algiers" which was put together with the help of the terrorists themselves. They used every avenue including religious garb of the women, civilian targets, civilian bombers, and every bit of publicity they could generate. So does Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Israelis delivered the "Shock And Awe" tactics that the US used in Iraq and showed the same lack of concern about the lives of the civilians in the freefire zone.

If that were true, there would be tens of thousands of civilian deaths, not scores.

It is far more likely that the Israelis want to clear the south of Lebanon up to the Litani river which has always been one of the Israeli strategic goals for its northern border.

It is very likely the Israelis want to eliminate the firing of enemy rockets into their territory.

The actions of the Israeli military and its political leadership have been widely condemned across the world.It has attacked civilians with the most powerful of weapons in a totally indiscriminate way. At least half of its victims have been children.

It is unfortunate that you and your co-GUESTs take such joy in that. Bombs are clumsy discriminaters, as are rockets.


Of course the Israeli should face an international war tribunal to answer for their crimes....but I am not holding my breath.Two decades ago the USA was found guilty in an International Court of mining a port in Nicaragua...but totally ignored the findings of the Court.

And in your courts Hezbollah would receive a series of medals for bringing on this war which Israel did not want nor start. And your comment on Nicaragua has nothing to do with this thread.

But I don't mind if you hold your breath!

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 05:04 PM

"To me the victims are all the innocents killed or injured on both sides of this conflict. " True, victimns of terrorist attacks by the other side. The huge majority of those have been killed by the IDF, but the smaller number killed by Hezbollah's rockets are just as dead, and just as innocent.

And all this has happened because of a conflict arbitrarily escalated out of a stupid skirmish. The suggestion that this all happened in response to a rain of Hezbollah rockets and shells across the border in recent months or even years, is just not true.

If you hit someone on the head with a meat-axe not many courts would be impressed by the claim you were trying to kill a wasp which had been sitting on the dead man's forehead. (Typical cowardly wasp behaviour.)

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 04:55 PM

Hizbollah is using UN posts and civilians as shields -

this is a claim that is often cited as a justification for bombing civilians - also that Hezbollah is "hiding" among civilians. What balderdash. It is a justification for indiscriminate genocide against the Lebanese people.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,hugo
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 04:20 PM

"If Israel wanted to punish lebanon, Beirut would be flattened by now"
says Bobad............................................................
But that is what has happened! And it has happened twice in the past 24 years.
Neighbourhoods destroyed,apartment buildings crushed, streets torn apart and civic buildings blown up.
Thousands of residents killed in the lst onslaught when Israeli tanks and artillery lined up in rows on the hills overlooking the city to pour down shells while F-II jets fired missiles and dropped bombs.
hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 04:08 PM

Just as I thought, guest "hugo", idealogues of your stripe don't regard the innocents on other side as human beings capable of pain and suffering, in that regard you are no better than the terrorist killers you support.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,hugo
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 03:06 PM

VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE
I see the victims as those driven out of their towns,cities and villages at the point of a gun in 1948.Those people are now elderly and do not have the right to return to their homes and homeland...their children are the ones being bombed and shot at in Gaza and the West Bank.They are the ones who were murdered by Israel's fascist allies in Sabra and Shatila in 1982 while the Israeli army guarded the perimeter of the refugee camps.

The victims are the thousands of Palestinians who have had their homes in the West Bank demolished by bulldozers.Often they had to get out with only a few minutes notice.In some cases they did not manage to get out at all.Rachel Corrie was killed trying to stop one such demolition.

The victims are also the hundreds of Palestinian children and women held in Israeli jails.Many were kidnapped from their homes by the Israeli army which illegally occupies the West Bank.

The victims were those Palestinian teenagers who had their legs and arms broken as a matter of policy by Israeli soldiers during the last Intifada.

The victims include the Palestinian boy of 8 and the girl of 12 both shot dead at close range by Israeli soldiers.

The victims were those pounded and pulverised in Jenin 5 years ago. Fiftytwo were killed in that atrocity...some were fighters but at least half were civilians and one was a disabled man in a wheelchair .

The victims are the kids in Qana and all those others blown up,crushed or incinerated in the present invasion of the Lebanon.
hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 01:36 PM

You seem, Mr. Bridge, to have missed the posts, pastes and links to the articles describing how Hizbollah is using UN posts and civilians as shields for their rocket launching, or are you just ignoring them because they do not support your position?

As for Israel's attacks against the infrastructure in Lebanon, this is a tactical defensive measure to prevent the restocking of Hizbollah's rockets and not a punishment of the Lebanese people. The enemy is Hizbollah. If Israel wanted to punish Lebanon, Beirut would be flattened by now.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 01:19 PM

"Your argument is a bit like blaming the victim for being beaten up"

I guess that all depends on who one see's as the victim. To me the victims are all the innocents killed or injured on both sides of this conflict. That includes the killed and injured Israeli innocents as well as the Lebanese. It also includes the innocent Israelis killed by suicide bombers as well as the innocent Palestinians who are killed when Israel retaliates.

Who do you see as being the victim?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 12:55 PM

For heaven's sake Bobad, can you not read? Israel is not only attacking Hezbollah. It is attacking UN observers, Lebanese civilians, the Lebanese state, the Lebanese infrastructure that non-Hezbollah Lebanese need, and so ad infinitum. It begins to look as if you simply tar all Lebanese with the same brush, which in turn begins to look "inappropriate" (one of my least favourite words).

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,neil
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 12:35 PM

Your argument is a bit like blaming the victim for being beaten up.

The Palestinians have been expelled,massacred,imprisoned and humiliated for decades.

The Lebanese have been invaded twice by Israel in 25 years with Beirut smashed up both times.

Some 20000 Lebanese died in the first invasion and we can all see what is happening in the second attack.
neil

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 12:29 PM

"In the west it means continuing to build up a massive, active anti war movement in solidarity with the people of Palestine and the Lebanon"

To that I will add: "and Israel and all other countries that find themselves under attack"

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,david
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 12:25 PM

Reports are coming in that humanitarian aid convoys are unable to reach the south of Lebanon because the danger of airstrikes by Israel. Israel has refused to give these convoys safe passage    and thus the remaining population in the south are facing an appalling crisis with the lack of water,lack of water and other essentials for life.
david

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 11:38 AM

I don't totally agree about public opinion being what really counts in the world. Although of course it is extremely important.

Many times during our recent history policies have been pursued in defiance of world opinion.

The war in Vietnam comes to mind.That war took place in the face of world opinion and indeed of a huge domestic anti war movement in the USA itself.

The war dragged on for years and a million Vietnamese were killed in the bombing,the freefire zones and in the fighting etc.Agent Orange is still killing people in Vietnam.

More recently of course the USA has turned Iraq into a killing zone despite huge worldwide anti protests.

While we can console ourselves that we are right and the aggressors are wrong people are still going to be killed,wounded and terrorised in the countries under attack which means the wargang have to be stopped.

In the west it means continuing to build up a massive, active anti war movement in solidarity with the people of Palestine and the Lebanon.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 10:43 AM

Reply to ifor

Whereas it is obvious that Hizbollah is purposely tageting civilians it is not as obvious that Israel is for all the reasons that have been previously cited (no need to go over the same ground). Eventually the truth will out and even though a tribunal's sanction can be ignored, the world's opinion is what really counts.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 10:16 AM

reply to bobad,

You must be one of only a very small number across the world who still believes that Israel is not targetting civilians deliberately.

From the very beginning Israel has set out to inflict collective punishment on the Lebanese people.

Early on it attacked the suburbs of south Beirut, car convoys full of refugees, roads and bridges, power stations and petrol stations , schools and so much more.

Hundreds of innocent people have been killed and hundreds more have been maimed.Tens of thousands have been terrorised by the Israeli military.

700000 have become refugees in their own land.

The Israeli military lied about Qana ..where it committed mass murder slaughtering women and children while they slept.

They claimed that it was a place where Hizbollah fired rockets from but all the eye witnesses including western film crews said there was absolutely no sign of any military equipment there apart from the shards of the American made bomb that the Israelis used to destroy the building.

The Israelis delivered the "Shock And Awe" tactics that the US used in Iraq and showed the same lack of concern about the lives of the civilians in the freefire zone.

It is far more likely that the Israelis want to clear the south of Lebanon up to the Litani river which has always been one of the Israeli strategic goals for its northern border.

The actions of the Israeli military and its political leadership have been widely condemned across the world.It has attacked civilians with the most powerful of weapons in a totally indiscriminate way. At least half of its victims have been children.

Of course the Israeli should face an international war tribunal to answer for their crimes....but I am not holding my breath.Two decades ago the USA was found guilty in an International Court of mining a port in Nicaragua...but totally ignored the findings of the Court.
Ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 09:35 AM

" Israel's crimes against civilians in Lebanon constitute war crimes that must be punished. "

Israel is not targeting civilians, freda, it is targeting Hizbollah terrorists who are using civilians as shields - there is a difference you know.

I agree that it should be investigated for war crimes by an impartial international court and suffer the consequences if found guilty.

I also agree that this conflict is causing untold horror for the people of both countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 09:04 AM

The Progress Report
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney
Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin
www.progressreport.org
7/31/06

MIDDLE EAST
A Return To The Consensus

Yesterday saw the Mideast crisis escalate further, with the tragic loss of dozens of Lebanese lives after an Israeli air strike in Qana, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's aborted second effort at diplomacy. It's important to remember how we got here: Since President Bush took office, and even more so following the September 11 attacks, there has been wide bipartisan agreement on America's national security priorities: to support a sustained NATO-led effort to help rebuild the failed state in Afghanistan; to aggressively contain Iraq and weaken Saddam Hussein's regime with targeted sanctions; to work with allies to battle the global threats of terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation and climate change, with particular focus on the nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea; and to lead the Middle East to a comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In each case, President Bush disregarded the consensus, and the consequences are evident in the crises erupting around the globe. Now, with the Middle East upturned again by the war in Lebanon, the case for a return to this progressive bipartisan national security consensus is stronger than ever.

ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSE OF HEZBOLLAH AND HAMAS: Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft wrote on Sunday that Hezbollah is not the "root cause" of the current Mideast crisis, as President Bush and administration officials have said; "it is a derivative of the cause, which is the tragic conflict over Palestine that began in 1948." Others have echoed his analysis. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), who led diplomatic advances in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, said recently, "There's only one resolution of this conflict and that's going to be through a negotiation that produces a two state solution, Israeli and Palestinian." Likewise, in a speech to the Brookings Institution on Friday, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) argued that the "core of all challenges in the Middle East remains the underlying Arab-Israeli conflict. The failure to address this root cause will allow Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorists to continue to sustain popular Muslim and Arab support, continuing to undermine America's standing in the region, and the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others -- whose support is critical for any Middle East resolution."

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,zac
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 08:46 AM

As someone wote in one of the papers today the capture of two soldiers on the Lebanese border was hardly the Tet offensive.

Israel is holding hundreds of Lebanese in its prisons and will have to release some of them to get its soldiers back.

Their predicament must be desperate as is the situation for those hundreds of Lebanese and thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.....many of whom are women and children.
zac

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 08:32 AM

"we are the good guys"

There are no "good guys" in this aside from some of the rescue workers and the medics.
...................

And bearded bruce - that wasn't a false statement. Yes, there have been Hezbollah rockets in the past, just as there have been Israeli bombings, but in this current episode it was Israel that escalated from a small-scale ground clash to bombing raids, most specifically with a raid on Beirut International Airport, which is far away from Hezbollah territory, and was an attack directly against Lebanon rather than Hezbollah.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 08:02 AM

"when the rockets only started getting unleashed after Israel had started to bomb Lebanon. "

False statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 07:57 AM

For people who are identifying with one particular side of the conflict are quick to paint others are "Zionist apologists" or Hezbollah apologists.

Under international law, there can be no doubt that many of the actions carried out by Hezbollah and Hamas constitute war crimes that must be punished.

and under the same international laws, Israel's crimes against civilians in Lebanon constitute war crimes that must be punished.

Many of us shocked by the events in Lebanon condemn all forms of illegal violence, irrespective of who commits them.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,TEPP
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 07:36 AM

Teachers and educators belonging to TEPP [Teaching English for Palestine Purposes ] ,a network of language teachers in Gaza and the Lebanon and neighbouring countries have spoken out against the destruction of both Gaza and the Lebanon.

They have said that children and parentd have been killed,schools blown up and houses destroyed making education a nightmare for teachers and students alike.

The one thing that the children being bombed will learn to do is hate says the Tepp members and they are calling for no more Qanas and no more bombings.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,from Qana
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 04:44 AM

Qana is ,or rather was, a mixed christian and muslim village in southern Lebanon a few miles north of the border with Israel.
In 1996 a UN post full of local refugees was struck by shells and over a hundred of these people were killed with a hundred more badly wounded.

Two days ago the same village was hit again by an Israeli bomb killing around 60 people ,some 37 of them were children. The phraes "Never Again "obviously does not apply to the residents of Qana.

The following is part of a statement issued by survivors in Qana.

"We thought that the massacre the enemy carried out at the UN outpost would cause him shame and that he would not repeat it but the years have proved that this arrogant enemy ,when he senses failure in battle against he heroic fghters of the resistance turns to crimes and kills innocent civilians"

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 04:32 AM

Hello, Peace, try really really hard to understand this.

Hezbollah may be attacking Israel. But not everyone in the Lebanon are Hezbollah. Nor is the Lebanese government Hezbollah. The infrastructure of the Lebanon may be used by Hezbollah but it is not theirs, it belongs to the people of the Lebanon and the Lebanese government.

Israel is not attacking only Hezbollah. Yet it is only Hezbollah that is the legitimate target, to the extent that it is. The Lebanese people and the Lebanese government cannot drive out Hezbollah, or make them stop firing missiles. Yet they are attacked because they cannot.

Underneath this is the issue of whether Israel is rightfully entitled to occupy land that its forbears left 2,000 years ago, and to drive from that land those who (and whose forbears) occupied it for 2,000 years. Were the powers that be entitled to decide this in 1948 or 1967? Did those powers have the proper right to give away the land of others? Those are the underlying issues, but the present one is far simpler.   Those issues determine whether Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorists or freedom fighters. But they do not determine the right and wrong of Israel's attacks on the Lebanon.

The present issue is this. Assuming, for the purposes only of this post and discussion of it, that Israel is entitled to defend itself against Hezbollah, does that entitle it to attack other Lebanese and other civilians, to destroy the infrastructure, the roads, the power, the water supplies of Lebanon, to turn the entire south of Lebanon to a wasteland, metaphorically to salt the land, to bury alive civilians hiding in their basements, to tell the elderly, cripples and babes in arms to flee or be immolated?

The answer is plainly "No".

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,Thomas
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 04:10 AM

BREAD NOT BOMBS!
People in the city of Swansea in Wales will be holding a candlelit vigil this evening starting at 6pm and going on for 24 hours.

The vigil is in support of the people of Palestine and Lebanon who are being killed,wounded and terrorised by the Iraeli military forces.

They will be calling for
an immediate ceasefire
an end to the invasion
the relief of Gaza
and humanitarian aid to be delivered instead of bombs.

The vigil will start at 6pm at the Castle Sq Gardens in the city centre this evening [tuesday].
Thomas

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,ray
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 01:39 AM

"cowards"......What could be more cowardly than to fly a modern jet warplane over Gaza and shoot a missile into a crowded apartment building and then fly home for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit?

Meanwhile back at the half demolished apartment block rescuers are trying to dig out children and old people with their bare hands.

Who are the cowards? It would take a real act of bravery to accept that the Palestinians have legitimate rights and to deal with them.

Those rights include the right of return for Palestinians expelled from Israel in both and 1967 and 1948.

It also includes the right not to be attacked on the West Bank or Gaza on a daily basis and the removal of armed Zionist colonies from the West Bank.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 06 - 12:32 AM

"One against the Lebanese and the Lebanon is not."

Then tell Hezbollah to stop. Israel will also. Simple, Bridgie.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 31 Jul 06 - 07:17 PM

"make a meaningful peace with Hamas or Hizbollah."

No peace, meaningful or otherwise, can ever be made with terrorists whose sole mission is to eliminate the LEGITIMATE state of Israel. The only reasonable way to deal with them is elimination, and this Israel is in the process of carrying out.

It is truly sad to see the terrorist sympathizers on this thread succumbing to the obvious and simplistic ploy of the Hizbollah cowards who fire their rockets from the cover of civilian dwellings and UN observer posts then sit back and gloat as the world's press is only too happy to accomodate their propaganda victories when Israel strikes back.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,roberta
Date: 31 Jul 06 - 06:41 PM

The BBC has reported that the video clip released by Israel to justify the attack on Qana showing "rockets" being fired from some buildings were not of Qana.

Probably yet another mistake by Israel.

What a bunch of bare faced liars the Israeli apologists are .The truth is that Israel has gone out to collectively punish the Lebanese people---all sections of them, for the crime of fighting back against the Israeli onslaught.

Lebanese prisoners are still in Israeli jails ...there are over 100000 landmines still killing people on Lebanese land while the people of Palestine continue to be bombed,strafed and shelled on a daily basis.

What is happening in Gaza is being somewhat overlooked because of the invasion to the north but the strangling of Gaza is also a crime against humanity.

I think Israel has entered a quagmire and is going to regret it so brutally invaded its neighbour to the north.The road back to the border could well be a long and bloody one but the extremists in power in Tel Aviv will not be the ones to make a meaningful peace with Hamas or Hizbollah.

They have ordered new big bombs from the USA but did they order enough body bags?