[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Troll

I wish people wouldn't quote Kevin. It's the only time I ever seen his drivel. I did not, as he accuses, put everyone on ignore who disagreed with me on the OFFP. I put Kevin on ignore because most of his posts had nothing to do with the topics at hand. He is the only person I have ever put on ignore.

You put me on ignore because I kept asking you questions you didn't like.

[BRussell]

According to this, the Canadian UN observer who was killed, wrote in an email, a week before being killed:

What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Force).

Hezbollah was intentionally firing rockets on Israel from around the area of the UN station.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by BRussell

According to this, the Canadian UN observer who was killed, wrote in an email, a week before being killed:

Hezbollah was intentionally firing rockets on Israel from around the area of the UN station.

Yep. So the question has become: did Israel decide destroying those particular Hezbollah soldiers was worth deliberately sacrificing the UN observers?

In other words: was it a deliberate "necessary evil," or was it an unintentional blunder?

Given that the UN observers were on the phone, begging for the shelling to stop, I have to guess: the former.

[Troll]

Originally Posted by vmarks

What are just a few of the errors that contributed to the Liberty accident?

You've given an extremely one-sided account there. Some of the things you forgot to mention are the fact that the Israeli ships were unmarked. You know that thing terrorists are accused of doing. That the USS Liberty was much bigger than anything Egypt had, that the lettering on the ship was in Latin script etc. etc.

[analogika]

Ah, but there was all that smoke...





...AFTER the initial attack.

[Troll]

This is also not the first time that Israel has attacked UN observers in Lebanon. It happened in 2001 as well.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by BRussell

According to this, the Canadian UN observer who was killed, wrote in an email, a week before being killed:

Hezbollah was intentionally firing rockets on Israel from around the area of the UN station.

Not only that. THAT KNEW they were doing such a thing and still stayed there.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Troll

This is also not the first time that Israel has attacked UN observers in Lebanon. It happened in 2001 as well.

You say it as if it was done on purpose Troll.

AGAIN.

"We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Force)."

It's your pals the Hezbollah that causes that.

But you wont blame them. Noooooooooo because then that would mean Israel didn't "murder" as you say anyone.

Wake up Troll. This self delusion bit is going to do you in.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by Troll

You've given an extremely one-sided account there. Some of the things you forgot to mention are the fact that the Israeli ships were unmarked. You know that thing terrorists are accused of doing. That the USS Liberty was much bigger than anything Egypt had, that the lettering on the ship was in Latin script etc. etc.

The Liberty was the near the same size as the Egyptian ship. They aren't identical, but they do resemble each other in a lot of ways. They had a similar deck line.
The bridge structure is mid-ship. The single smokestack is mid-ship. The Liberty's antennae on aft and fore decks resemble El-Quseir's masts. Some antennae on Liberty's fore decks resemble a gun.

The Liberty's commander did try to prevent his vessel opening fire on the approaching torpedo boats, but his machine-gunners did not receive the command to hold fire, and instead opened fire on the Israeli boats. The fire only strengthened the Israelis' impression that the ship was indeed an enemy vessel. The "Liberty 's" behaviour leads one to conjecture "that she did all in her power to conceal her identity".66

But this has nothing to do with the the UN's giant errors that got themselves bombed by both the IDF and HizbAllah.

This has to do with you using an accident that both parties agree was an accident from 39 years ago as a means of claiming it was intentional and any future incidents like the UN shelling as intentional. (Not bombing. Shelling. Why won't you use the factually correct word? Because bombing sounds more inflammatory?)

[vmarks]

The IDF saved the life of a UN soldier.

is a picture of the IDF taking a UN soldier who was hit by HizbAllah fire to an Israeli hospital.

Here's the UNIFIL report which the picture stems from:

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr08.pdf

One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr09.pdf

This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin.

So HizbAllah hit UN posts twice this week. But there seems to be no mention of that in the media, everyone including Kofi Annan is focused on condemning Israel before any investigation can be conducted.

[Troll]

Originally Posted by vmarks

(Not bombing. Shelling. Why won't you use the factually correct word? Because bombing sounds more inflammatory?)

Vmarks, every time you post you get the facts wrong. It was a precision guided missile dropped from an AIRCRAFT that destroyed the base. That is a BOMB not a shell. For 6 hours they shelled the place then finished it off with a precision guided bomb. For God's sake, read the reports before you start jumping in to defend Israel.

There is no evidence that there were Hezbollah fighters in the compound. The best you can come up with is hearsay evidence that some days or weeks back there may have been Hezbollah fighters nearby. I say again that the Israelis promised to stop the attack rather than telling the UN observers that they needed to get the Hezbollah fighters that were there. Israel knew that they risked killing unarmed peacekeepers and they must have known that they either had to stop the attack or tell the observers to evacuate and give them a chance to get out of there. They didn't do that. I'm prepared to accept that it could have been a mistake but the enormity of the error is beyond precedent.

As for the Liberty, there are enough ex-crew members who disagree with your "facts" for me not to get involved. The simple fact remains that Israel has never explained why it used unmarked boats to attack.

[Y3a]

YEP, ALL THE TERRORIST/MUSLIM EXTREMISTS/ANTI-ISRAEL MIDDLE-EAST ARE LINING UP JUST AS I SAID. SYRIA(holding spot for Iraq's WMD's and other weapons), LEBANON(Hezbollah puppet), IRAN(leading nutcase and horrid leader of all thats unholy), IRAQ(terrorist/insurgent stronghold), ETC, ETC, ETC. I GUESS IT'S TIME TO KILL ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Thank you Al Jezero!

==========================================


Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.

Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.

Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world.”

Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.

The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish.

“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, “then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”

The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.

American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.

There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.

But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.

Egypt’s opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.

An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.

After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.

“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr. Negm said in an interview. “I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: ‘Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!’ ”

In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.

“Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states,” she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.

In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a “new Middle East.” That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.

A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.

Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.

Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah’s rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.

Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.

Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.

“It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine,” he said. “Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine.”

Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.

But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. “Everyone will be asking, ‘Where is Al Qaeda now?’ ” said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.

Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.

“Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rabbani said. “In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs.”

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.

[christ]

Seen elsewhere on the internet:

ISRAEL ATTACKS THE US :
The government of Israel today launched a massive air assault on suspected terrorist targets along coastal cities of the United States of America. Termed operation Just Reward II, hundreds of Israeli fighter jets streamed across the Atlantic in precise formation and fired surgical air strikes at alleged terrorist strongholds in the heavy Muslim populations of Jersey City and North Bergen, New Jersey. The jets then continued south into Elizabeth and Newark, inflicting massive destruction in the densely populated northeastern US state.

Reaction to the attacks was swift. President Bush asked for restraint, but stated emphatically that “Israel had the right to defend itself.” The President, who took an oath to defend the US and to preserve, protect and defend it against all foreign and domestic enemies, said that the fight against suspected terrorist sites and alleged al-Qaeda involvement, coupled with our close relationship with Israel, requires special sacrifices by the American people and special exceptions to both US and international law.

Earlier in the day, the US Congress passed a unanimous resolution in both houses, backing the Jewish state. Even New Jersey Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez voted with the 98 other US Senators, backing Israel’s right to self-defense.

Claiming there were terrorists in New Jersey who had links to al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as other radical Islamic groups, New York Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer appeared at a UN rally just across the river from the Israeli incursion and pledged their unwavering support for Israel. “We are all Israelis now,” Senator Clinton proudly proclaimed.

The attacks were the first on American soil by a foreign country since the December 7, 1941 assault by the empire of Japan.

The American public was mainly upset and worried about what this would mean for the price of gasoline. NJ has several refineries just south of the suspected safe houses. Across the country, most Americans continued their summer vacations, unconcerned with the developments in foreign countries but quite concerned how this might impact the Dow.

Critics called the Israeli self-defense incursion an attack on the US, and anyone supporting the Israeli invasion of the United States as traitors. They were immediately dismissed as anti-Semites and soft on terrorism.

The MSNBC studios in Secaucus, NJ, just a few miles north of the attack, lost power after the air strikes knocked out the local PSE&G power plant, but stayed on the air with emergency backup generators, as news readers marveled at the pinpoint accuracy of the strikes. They praised the Israeli air force for valuing American First Amendment rights to such an extent that they left the studio intact, so ongoing developments could be broadcast to the American people. Newly installed MSNBC president Dan Abrams, a loyal supporter of Israel, sent a telegram to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, thanking him for his restraint. Former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, then appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews in the damaged studios, and defended the Israeli strikes against the suspected terrorist safe houses just a few miles away. “There are no safe houses anywhere in the world when it comes to fighting the war on terror,” said Netanyahu, as the whir of the backup electrical generators could be heard in the background. Matthews stated emphatically, “That’s right.”

The regrettable death toll and collateral damage to the citizens of those stricken cities is expected to be in the hundreds or even thousands, but still below the deaths that occurred on 9/11; this demonstrated the compassion of the Israeli pilots versus the ruthless Muslim terrorists, said an obviously agitated Netanyahu. “We abhor the death of innocent Americans killed in the air strikes, but you have to lay the blame on the terrorists who are hiding in these crowded neighborhoods,” he rationalized.

Netanyahu’s justification for the incursion relied heavily on US Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney’s “1%” doctrine, which treats suspicions of terrorist involvement with a likelihood even as low as 1% as a certainty. “We think therefore there are,” he said philosophically.

The European Union, and Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, also supported the Israeli incursion against the US. Both deeply regretted the loss of innocent American lives. British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the Israeli incursion just and proportionate. President Bush phoned Blair and thanked him for his support during this difficult time, and for the sweater Blair had given him on his 60th birthday.

John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, noted that the American casualties from the Israeli raids were not equal to those killed in terrorist attacks, such as those that occurred here on 9/11. “There is no moral equivalence between those killed by a democratically elected government like Israel and those killed by Muslim terrorists,” Bolton emphasized.

UN General Secretary Kofi Annan also refused to criticize the Israeli actions, but suggested he mediate a cease-fire. According to those close to Annan, he offered to end all of this “****” with a simple phone call to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.

The newly elected NJ Governor was harshly criticized by both the Israeli government and the Bush administration for not doing enough to rein in the suspected terrorist guerillas in his state. With tears in his eyes Corzine, the former US Senator and former top executive of Goldman Sachs, took responsibility for neglecting to investigate potential terrorist activities in his state.

Despite damage to several synagogues in the bombardment, traditional liberal Jewish American leaders remained steadfast in their defense of Israel, out of an unquestioning solidarity and blind loyalty to the Jewish state. These are many of the same Jewish Americans who passionately opposed the Vietnam war and even marched with Dr. Martin Luther King during the American civil rights struggle,

But critics of the incursion contend that the Muslims are protected by American and international law, and the strikes against the US should be construed as war crimes. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez stated emphatically that the war on terror supersedes all constitutional guarantees, and international law does not apply to anyone suspected of terrorism or links to Al-Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah.

In the UN, a Security Council resolution introduced by France, condemning the Israeli attacks on the United States, was vetoed by the United States.

Local hospitals overflowed with victims of the Israeli strikes. One of the victims is an Israeli pilot, badly injured after he bravely steered his stricken F-16 fighter jet away from a populated area and crash-landed in New York’s Central Park, so as not to endanger innocent civilians. The NY Times ran his heroic story on the front page, and NY Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is expected to present him with the key to the city after, as expected, he makes a full recovery. His co-pilot parachuted and was kidnapped by local sympathizers. The government of Israel and the Bush administration have demanded the kidnapped pilot’s immediate release. Bush promised Olmert he would send troops to aid in the rescue of the kidnapped Israeli pilot.

But victims of the Israeli self-defense air strikes, many of whom are less than 10 miles away from where the Twin Towers once stood, are now starting to ask not “why do they hate us?”, but rather “why do we love them?”

[Troll]

Originally Posted by vmarks

The IDF saved the life of a UN soldier.

Well done. Nice work.

Originally Posted by vmarks

So HizbAllah hit UN posts twice this week. But there seems to be no mention of that in the media, everyone including Kofi Annan is focused on condemning Israel before any investigation can be conducted.

What are you asking us to do, say that Hezbollah is no better than Israel? Is that really who Israel wants to be compared to?

Israel hit UN posts 4 times in ONE day!! They killed 4 observers despite being told it was about to happen. Three words for you vmarks - precision guided bomb - dropping one of those on a UN bunker requires a lot more planning and intervention than a stray bullet from a light machine gun!

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by vmarks

This has to do with you using an accident that both parties agree was an accident from 39 years ago as a means of claiming it was intentional and any future incidents like the UN shelling as intentional. (Not bombing. Shelling. Why won't you use the factually correct word? Because bombing sounds more inflammatory?)

The simple fact of the matter is that Hizbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda (and whatever other junk jihad handle they fancy with its various spellings) needs to be stopped for just this reason. They will stop at nothing to put women, children, and UN "peacekeepers" in harm's way. We can daintily skip around them until there is not one sane nation left to fight (which would make Troll, Taliesin, and various other anti-semites and duped sympathizers beam from ear to ear with excitement.) or you can continue on until every last extremist is exterminated.

I sometimes wonder how tolerant we'd be of an extremist sect of Christianity promising their reign throughout the world. There are approximately 14 conflicts going on in the world today and extremist Islam is behind every one. Their intent is clear and whether or not they enjoy the support of those not actively bastardizing the Qur'an, It is time to eliminate them. Exterminate the threat whereever it hides up to and including within mosques, civilian apartment complexes, behind women, children and yes, sometimes even around UN peacekeepers. It is unfortunate, but this is where we find ourselves today having not properly dealt with these psychos historically. Many cannot site a reason why Israel would bomb a UN post, but they don't care about reasons, they're more interested in the fight.

If Israel wanted to be ruthless, there'd be no Lebanon.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by christ

...HYPOthetical scenario of Israeli attack against terrorism on US soil, when there is nothing to suggest we'd call on Israel's help to fight terrorism within our country. i.e. a wholly ignorant analogy. ...

The question is; would you send your children into Jersey to fight against Israel?

[Zeeb]

Originally Posted by christ

Seen elsewhere on the internet:

ISRAEL ATTACKS THE US :
The government of Israel today launched a massive air assault on suspected terrorist targets along coastal cities of the United States of America. Termed operation Just Reward II, hundreds of Israeli fighter jets streamed across the Atlantic in precise formation and fired surgical air strikes at alleged terrorist strongholds in the heavy Muslim populations of Jersey City and North Bergen, New Jersey. The jets then continued south into Elizabeth and Newark, inflicting massive destruction in the densely populated northeastern US state.

I can't believe you're using a fictionalized account to make a point. It's not even a decent hypothetical situation and it doesn't make any sense. Since this scenario hasn't actually happened, how can one possibly say how people would react? The actions of people in this fiction are based upon assumptions which are based upon predjudices.

Israel is not a perfect country. They need to work on various unfair social issues in their society and how they relate to muslim populations within and outside of their borders. However, they are also a largely democratic society with far more socially progressive policies than their neighbors, and certainly more than the group they are fighting against now.

If what you stand for is a socially repressive, totalitarian state then grow a beard, catch a plane to Syria and join the fight. Since we're in the hypothetical world, if Canada started launching rockets into New York and performed cross border raids to kidnap people, do you think it would be an over-reaction to invade?

(disclaimer--I love Canada! )

[evfish84]

Well said.

[christ]

Originally Posted by Zeeb

I can't believe you're using a fictionalized account to make a point. It's not even a decent hypothetical situation and it doesn't make any sense. Since this scenario hasn't actually happened, how can one possibly say how people would react? The actions of people in this fiction are based upon assumptions which are based upon predjudices.

Oh goody.

So it is fine to stand foursquare behind Israel when they attack Lebanon for not getting rid of terrorists in their country, but unfair make an analogy.

You in the US definitely had terrorists in your country prior to 9/11. You in the US were definitely (if unwittingly) complicit in their terrorist attack (You taught them to fly). If Israel had decided that they wanted to wipe out this terrorist cell, regardless of collateral damage, by attacking them (and anything that they had convinced themselves was related to them, such as water supplies, gas supplies, roads, railroads, bridges, etc.) on your soil, you think that the reactions of your politicians and populace would have been different to the reaction when Israel attack Lebanon in the same way for the same thing? Why?

You can't believe that a fictionalized account can be used to make a point? So the only points that are valid are those that have actually happened? You seem to have made the entire risk and disaster recovery industry redundundant at a stroke. (Since this scenario hasn't actually happened, I can't say how people would react, but the actions of people in this fiction are based upon assumptions which are based upon what they actually are doing today)

[christ]

... and if those people wouldn't react in the same way, I rest my case against the actions in the Lebanon.

[Y3a]

Hezbollah Says It Has Fired a New Rocket
Jul 28 10:36 AM US/Eastern

BEIRUT, Lebanon

Hezbollah said it fired a new rocket, called Khaibar-1, striking near the Israeli town of Afula, south of Haifa. Israeli authorities reported that five rockets hit fields outside Afula, causing no casualties.

The strike came two days after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech that Hezbollah would start a new phase in the battle striking beyond the Israeli city of Haifa, which has been hit several times in lethal rocket fire.

The area around Afula, 30 miles south of the Israeli-Lebanese border area, has been struck before, but Israeli security officials said Friday's attacks were the southernmost so far.

===================================
These are probably the Russian-Syrian designs made in Iran. heZbollah can't aim them very well either. I guess it's hard when your whole culture is kind of contrary to mechanical things.

[Y3a]

Originally Posted by christ

Oh goody.

So it is fine to stand foursquare behind Israel when they attack Lebanon for not getting rid of terrorists in their country, but unfair make an analogy.

You in the US definitely had terrorists in your country prior to 9/11. You in the US were definitely (if unwittingly) complicit in their terrorist attack (You taught them to fly). If Israel had decided that they wanted to wipe out this terrorist cell, regardless of collateral damage, by attacking them (and anything that they had convinced themselves was related to them, such as water supplies, gas supplies, roads, railroads, bridges, etc.) on your soil, you think that the reactions of your politicians and populace would have been different to the reaction when Israel attack Lebanon in the same way for the same thing? Why?

You can't believe that a fictionalized account can be used to make a point? So the only points that are valid are those that have actually happened? You seem to have made the entire risk and disaster recovery industry redundundant at a stroke. (Since this scenario hasn't actually happened, I can't say how people would react, but the actions of people in this fiction are based upon assumptions which are based upon what they actually are doing today)

By your same logic, everybody in an organization is responsible if one person is fooled or deceived by another?

BTW- it was really LAME fiction.

[christ]

Originally Posted by Y3a

- it was really LAME fiction.

Agreed, but it makes a point.

Originally Posted by Y3a

By your same logic, everybody in an organization is responsible if one person is fooled or deceived by another?

No. Exactly the opposite. That appears to be the logic by which Israel can with impunity devastate Lebanon (and anywhere else that it sees fit with apparently the exception of the USA), but it is not logic that I subscribe to.

[evfish84]

Originally Posted by christ

Agreed, but it makes a point.

No, I'm afraid it does not. What I think Y3a meant was that the fiction you posted was so ludicrous on so many different levels that it cannot be used to make an analogy. The whole thing was just ridiculous.

[christ]

Originally Posted by evfish84

No, I'm afraid it does not. What I think Y3a meant was that the fiction you posted was so ludicrous on so many different levels that it cannot be used to make an analogy. The whole thing was just ridiculous.

OK.

Why?

What would happen if Israel did that?

What would your politicians say?

[evfish84]

Originally Posted by christ

OK.

Why?

What would happen if Israel did that?

What would your politicians say?

Because the US has a strong government, they would take care of it. Israel is going in because Lebanon did nothing to stop terrorist activities in the south, either through inaction or inability. If America did have terrorists targeting Israel, Israel would offer to help get rid of them, but they would not be necessary. Terrorists do not run the police and military in the United States - they did (do?) in parts of Lebanon. That is just one of MANY reasons that fictitious article was meaningless.

[Sky Captain]

Hiz-blow-allah using the UN as shields?
Say it isn't so!

Anyone really surprized by their terrorist tactics?
They are after all, a well organized mob of terrorists.

[christ]

Originally Posted by evfish84

Because the US has a strong government, they would take care of it.

OK - So if Israel attacked the USA under the pretext of clearing up the terrorists that live in your country "the US has a strong government, they would take care of it." They would take care of it how, precisely - attacking Israel?

I have to say that I misread you - I expected you to say that Israel would never attack the USA, but I see that you at least concede that point.

Now - if your "strong government" would take care of it, then why is your "strong government" supporting Israel when they are doing the same thing to the Lebanon? Is it because they are only strong in self-interest?

[christ]

Originally Posted by Sky Captain

Hiz-blow-allah using the UN as shields?

To pick up a quote from earlier:

Originally Posted by Troll

There is no evidence that there were Hezbollah fighters in the compound. The best you can come up with is hearsay evidence that some days or weeks back there may have been Hezbollah fighters nearby.

Has there been any more evidence of "Hiz-blow-allah" using the UN as shields in the run up to the recent Israeli "accident"?

[Sky Captain]

I caught a bit about it on CNN this morning.
Really didn't pay that much attention to it though.

[evfish84]

Originally Posted by christ

Now - if your "strong government" would take care of it, then why is your "strong government" supporting Israel when they are doing the same thing to the Lebanon? Is it because they are only strong in self-interest?

There is an immense difference between there being terrorists in your country and attacking a foreign nation than them being halfway around the world and attacking. The US is not assisting because it is not America's fight, it is Israel's. On the other hand, if Hezbollah was attacking America or from America, then it would be a different story. I would think this is obvious. UN peacekeepers should be deployed to help whichever side the UN deems right, but it is not the US's business to randomly deploy troops wherever it wants to attack whoever. Bush did that already, and he's getting a whole lot of flak for it. He could never get away with another foreign war without good reason.

Examples:
- Hezbollah attacks US - US would probably retaliate.
- Hezbollah attacks from US - police and national guard or whatever other DOMESTIC force is available stops them.

I do not like making these "what if" assumption, because they are in NO WAY PROVABLE, JUST LIKE WHAT YOU POSTED. Lebanon had nothing with which to stop terrorists, so Israel felt that retaliation was their only option. UN couldn't stop Hezbollah, Lebanon couldn't (didn't want to, even) stop Hezbollah, so that left Israel doing it themselves. Do I support Isreal? It depends. Is she right? Maybe, but who knows? What I do know is that to argue that the story you posted could in any way, shape, or form be at all plausible is completely absurd, and I think that either of us arguing about it is a colossal waste of your time and mine. With that, if you still want to preach its viability, that is fine with me. I'm done arguing about it.

[Zeeb]

Originally Posted by christ

Oh goody.

So it is fine to stand foursquare behind Israel when they attack Lebanon for not getting rid of terrorists in their country, but unfair make an analogy.

You in the US definitely had terrorists in your country prior to 9/11. You in the US were definitely (if unwittingly) complicit in their terrorist attack (You taught them to fly). If Israel had decided that they wanted to wipe out this terrorist cell, regardless of collateral damage, by attacking them (and anything that they had convinced themselves was related to them, such as water supplies, gas supplies, roads, railroads, bridges, etc.) on your soil, you think that the reactions of your politicians and populace would have been different to the reaction when Israel attack Lebanon in the same way for the same thing? Why?

You can't believe that a fictionalized account can be used to make a point? So the only points that are valid are those that have actually happened? You seem to have made the entire risk and disaster recovery industry redundundant at a stroke. (Since this scenario hasn't actually happened, I can't say how people would react, but the actions of people in this fiction are based upon assumptions which are based upon what they actually are doing today)

Fictionalized accounts can sometimes be used to support a point when they don't presume a certain outcome like yours did. It was like you were saying, "I've made up this story, I've made up the ending and now you have to believe me because this is the ending to my story" A better fiction would have been, "What if rockets were fired at Gosport, England? Would England have the right to attack the country of origin or would they have to wait for diplomacy?" This doesn't presume an ending but asks a question about it.

As has been pointed out already, the U.S. is taking care of its terrorist problem. At the very least, the terrorist organizations that may operate in the U.S. do not have seats in our government, like Hezbollah did/does in Lebanon. Lebanon is incapable and unwilling to stop Hezbollah from its attacks on Israel, therefore Lebanon does bear part of the responsibility. As for attacking infrastructure that is very unfortunate and I feel badly for the Lebanese people. Just because I support the invasion doesn't mean I don't feel empathy for people with destroyed homes, lost loved ones etc. However, in wartime you cripple the enemy by destroying its infrastructure and unfortunately those assets were being used by Hezbollah.

[Taliesin]

Indeed the fictional story has a very big hole: While there might well be terrorists in the US, the US is not allowing them to use their soil for attacks against other countries, so...

But to expect Lebanon to do the same after Syria withdrew is just unrealistic, it takes time, training, support and military equipment to bring the lebanese army to the level that is needed to truly become souvereign over its whole territory, but as we all know Israel and the US didn't want that as it would strengthen a state considerably that has not made peace with Israel.

So it's obviously a dilemma: Supporting Lebanon and strenghtening its military, logistical, tactical capability or not.
Both have their downsides, and Israel and the US have obviously chosen the lesser downside, ie. a weak Lebanon with a strong resistance-guerillia-force.

That guerillia-force is able to throw Katjusha-rockets over the border, which do mostly psychological damage, and are able to conduct surprise attacks on israeli soldiers in order to kidnap them, and are able to lead an assymetric war against an invading force by using the run-and-hide (among civilians) tactics that can demoralise even a way stronger army.

But they can't invade Israel and go on the offensive and on the ground, which a strong lebanese army could do, so that's probably why it is now like it is.

Considering all that, I find all the statements and justifications of israeli and american politicians highly hypocritical if not dishonest.

I haven't talked yet about the other side, Hezbollah's, Syria's and Iran's interests and policies:

Hezbollah is a mainly (there are some minor sunni and even christian members/supporters/sympatisants) shia resistance group formed by Syria and supported ideologically, politically, financially and militarily by Iran, using Syria as the middle-man.

Hezbollah's ideology therefore has maximalist goals just like in Iran: "Death to America" and "Israel must be destroyed".

But because Hezbollah is a lebanese resistance group it has moderated its ideology to only applie to lebanese territory and lebanese people, ie. the liberation of Lebanon from Israel's occupation. That had been achieved eventually in 2000, when Israel's army withdrew, but Hezbollah found a map from the sixties where the sheeba-farms were marked as being part of Lebanon. Israel denies this and the UN says the map must be false, that the sheeba-farms belong to Syria, but that hasn't stopped Hezbollah, and so they occasionaly fire rockets into the sheeba-farms in a tit-for-tat-action with Israel, while Israel fired rockets and shells, and often violated the lebanese airspace.
The other major grip for Hezbollah is the fate of lebanese prisoners in Israel.

But that ain't all: Hezbollah, even if it has become a lebanese resistance group is also supported by Syria and Iran. Syria uses the Hezbollah as the last ace in its bid to make peace with Israel, to gain back the Golan-heights and to escape its isolation. Iran on the other hand tries to use Hezbollah to instigate a shia-islamic revolution in Lebanon just like in Iran, but it didn't work and even worse Hezbollah retreated from these shia-revolution-dreams.

But what about Israel: Israel is angry that Hezbollah hasn't been disarmed, that it gained continuously strength and success in politics, and considering the abilitiy and reality of rockets flying over occasionaly from Lebanon and the prospects of an iranian nuke-program, that could one day lead to nukes flying over through the hezbollah at some time in the future. As unrealistic as it sounds that are the fears and thoughts of israel's military. So, the plan is obviously to defeat the Hezbollah before that unrealistic but dangerous future materialises, but there lacked enough justification to convince the international community that action was needed, so what to do?

Then the kidnapping of Shalit happened by Hamas, and then Israel's military intelligence counted one and one together: Hezbollah was already trying to capture israeli soldiers for months and said so openly, in order to use them to press free lebanese prisoners, and Israel knew it. If Hezbollah was allowed to achieve the capturing of an israeli soldier on israeli soil it could be sold as an act of war allowing Israel's military to bombard Lebanon and invade it again in order to defeat Hezbollah once and for all.
What we know is that right before the kidnapping of the two israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others, Israel's military gave out the instruction to lower the guard, ie. it reduced the patrolling and observation of the border, allowing Hezbollah to succeed in what it tried to achieve but failed in for months.

This is all an operation of the israeli military and military intelligence, while the civilian leadership was probably unaware of it.

The plan was to force the civilian leadership into invasion of Lebanon, but until now they haven't completely given in to the demands of the military, and allowed only airbombardments and small ground incursions.

But what should and can be done to solve the crisis? You can't talk Israel into sense, they have their half-legitimate fears of being annihilated in the future, and you can't either expect Hezbollah to lay down their arms in the face of bombardments and incursions by Israel and without a political solution solving the legitimate gripes of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.

It's so obvious that the only human authority that can achieve something for the better is the UN-security-council. It should develop and enforce a broad peace-plan that would enable Syria to come out of its political isolation, to get back Golan and the sheeba-farms for a signed peace-agreement with Israel, and to force Israel to free all lebanese prisoners for the freeing of all kidnapped israeli soldiers and to make peace between Lebanon and Israel, that would also force Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, which would over a time of two-five years be achievable considering the stop of support by Syria.
Oh, and let's not forget Palestine, which should be founded in Gaza and Westbank with East-Jerusalem as its capital, the militants and political groups should be forced to sign peace-agreements with Israel for the establishing of such a palestinian state, the soldier should be released and Israel should be forced to use a broad amnesty for all palestinian prisoners, and allow the palestninian refuggees outside of Gaza and Westbank to choose their destination: a) Either to remain in the diaspora, b) to become palestinians in Palestine, or c) to become israelis in Israel. The last option is merely symbolic as the vast majority of palestinian refuggees wouldn't want to become israelis.

In order to create incentives for the players to follow the UN-security-council-peace-programm, economic sanctions can be used or threatened.

Before such UN-security-council intervention can be succesful though, a broad media-campaign, including movies, books, newspapers, TV, artists... should be conducted that would show the benifits and necessary of such a form of broad peace-agreement and concessions, so that in the end enough public support and pressure can be put upon the US not to vetoe such a peace-movement in the UN-security-council.

Taliesin

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by Taliesin

Indeed the fictional story has a very big hole: While there might well be terrorists in the US, the US is not allowing them to use their soil for attacks against other countries, so...

Your fiction that follows isn't much better.

But to expect Lebanon to do the same after Syria withdrew is just unrealistic, it takes time, training, support and military equipment to bring the lebanese army to the level that is needed to truly become souvereign over its whole territory, but as we all know Israel and the US didn't want that as it would strengthen a state considerably that has not made peace with Israel.

FALSE. Lebanon had six years to take care of eradicating HizbAllah's power within Lebanon.

Instead, the Lebanese president acts like an advertising campaign for them,

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...428391,00.html

and the Lebanese Army talks about its partnership with them.

http://www.lebarmy.gov.lb/article.asp?ln=en&id=6915

So it's obviously a dilemma: Supporting Lebanon and strenghtening its military, logistical, tactical capability or not.
Both have their downsides, and Israel and the US have obviously chosen the lesser downside, ie. a weak Lebanon with a strong resistance-guerillia-force.

Absolutely not. Israel and the US both prefer a Lebanon with a Lebanese army and no HizbAllah. The US and Israel did not make a choice, especially not the one you're claiming.

That guerillia-force is able to throw Katjusha-rockets over the border, which do mostly psychological damage,

Let me know how 'psychological' it is when one lands on you. Let's not fool ourselves, they're missiles with the power to kill, and they do. The fact that Israelis have incorporated a bomb shelter into each apartment as a part of the building code in no way makes firing Katyusha missiles at them acceptable.

and are able to conduct surprise attacks on israeli soldiers in order to kidnap them, and are able to lead an assymetric war against an invading force by using the run-and-hide (among civilians) tactics that can demoralise even a way stronger army.

But they can't invade Israel and go on the offensive and on the ground, which a strong lebanese army could do, so that's probably why it is now like it is.

Considering all that, I find all the statements and justifications of israeli and american politicians highly hypocritical if not dishonest.

Yes, but that's just your bias showing: you're predisposed to do so even though you have no factual basis for doing so.

I haven't talked yet about the other side, Hezbollah's, Syria's and Iran's interests and policies:

Hezbollah is a mainly (there are some minor sunni and even christian members/supporters/sympatisants) shia resistance group formed by Syria and supported ideologically, politically, financially and militarily by Iran, using Syria as the middle-man.

Hezbollah's ideology therefore has maximalist goals just like in Iran: "Death to America" and "Israel must be destroyed".

But because Hezbollah is a lebanese resistance group it has moderated its ideology to only applie to lebanese territory and lebanese people, ie. the liberation of Lebanon from Israel's occupation.

Nonsense. At no time have they ever moderated their maximalist goals. Ask them and they still claim to intend to eradicate Israel and America.

That had been achieved eventually in 2000, when Israel's army withdrew, but Hezbollah found a map from the sixties where the sheeba-farms were marked as being part of Lebanon. Israel denies this and the UN says the map must be false, that the sheeba-farms belong to Syria, but that hasn't stopped Hezbollah, and so they occasionaly fire rockets into the sheeba-farms in a tit-for-tat-action with Israel, while Israel fired rockets and shells, and often violated the lebanese airspace.

The other major grip for Hezbollah is the fate of lebanese prisoners in Israel.

You mean, like Samir Kuntar. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...rnational/home

When Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks now of freeing Lebanese prisoners from Israel, it is Mr. Kuntar he is seeking.

But Mr. Kuntar is a killer. In 1979, at the age of 17, he and three others, recruited by a Palestinian militant group fighting an Israeli incursion into Lebanon, launched a small boat from the tip of Lebanon’s southern coast and came ashore at the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. There, they killed a police officer they encountered, before taking a family of four in an apartment hostage.

The mother, Smadar Haran, had managed to slip into a crawl space with her two-year-old daughter Yael and avoid detection. But as police began to arrive, the gunmen took her husband Danny and four-year-old daughter Einat down to the beach, where they shot Danny in front of his daughter and smashed in her skull with a rifle butt.

The tragedy didn’t end there; Smadar’s frantic efforts to keep her little one quiet resulted in Yael’s death from suffocation. ...

“Experience tells me there have been many prisoner swaps, and at the end of the day there will be one [involving Kuntar],” said Buthaina Duqmaq, a lawyer and founder of the Mandela Institute in Ramallah, an advocacy group for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli institutions, who visits Mr. Kuntar regularly.

From her bag, she pulls out a half-dozen strings of worry beads — some in the red-and-black colours of Palestine, some in the yellow-and-green of Hezbollah — all made by women in prison as gifts for Mr. Kuntar.

“He is a symbol of the Arab prisoners’ movement. He is very much liked . . . thousands of prisoners that have been inside Israeli jails talk about him. Even those who have not met him talk about him,” she said. ...

“I have never heard him repent. I have never heard him regret. To him, he joined a liberation movement and he is proud of that,” Ms. Duqmaq said.

eklipse, another poster here, used to question why prisoner exchanges were reasonable saying something to the effect that if they were guilty, they should remain locked up.

HizbAllah overplayed its hand here, expecting more of the same old exchanges, and they bought themselves war instead.

But that ain't all:

This is your first use of the word 'ain't' in these forums. Don't pick up bad habits from the native English speakers unless you're using it for effect.

Hezbollah, even if it has become a lebanese resistance group is also supported by Syria and Iran. Syria uses the Hezbollah as the last ace in its bid to make peace with Israel,

HUH? What peace with Israel? Syria has avoided peace with Israel for years! All Damascus has to do if they want to make peace is begin to talk to Israel: Israel is ready.

to gain back the Golan-heights

Unlikely. Security buffer. Needed.

and to escape its isolation.

Israel and Syria both could benefit from trade and it sure would be nice to have Damascus back on the list of good summer vacation spots for Israelis. It used to be a marvelous place in the first half of the 20th century.

Iran on the other hand tries to use Hezbollah to instigate a shia-islamic revolution in Lebanon just like in Iran, but it didn't work and even worse Hezbollah retreated from these shia-revolution-dreams.

But what about Israel: Israel is angry that Hezbollah hasn't been disarmed, that it gained continuously strength and success in politics, and considering the abilitiy and reality of rockets flying over occasionaly

Frequently, not occasionally. There hasn't been a week in the past six years where a missile hasn't come down on Kiryat Shmona or the kibbutzes in the north.

from Lebanon and the prospects of an iranian nuke-program, that could one day lead to nukes flying over through the hezbollah at some time in the future. As unrealistic as it sounds that are the fears and thoughts of israel's military.

Why is that unrealistic? The Iranians have said in pretty clear terms what their nuclear intentions are, and you have laid out how the Iranians support HizbAllah. It is a logical speculation to consider that HizbAllah may one day have nukes aimed at Israel.

So, the plan is obviously to defeat the Hezbollah before that unrealistic but dangerous future materialises, but there lacked enough justification to convince the international community that action was needed, so what to do?

Far better to defeat HizbAllah before that event than have to do it after. After, with nukes in play, is messy.

Then the kidnapping of Shalit happened by Hamas, and then Israel's military intelligence counted one and one together: Hezbollah was already trying to capture israeli soldiers for months and said so openly, in order to use them to press free lebanese prisoners, and Israel knew it. If Hezbollah was allowed to achieve the capturing of an israeli soldier on israeli soil it could be sold as an act of war allowing Israel's military to bombard Lebanon and invade it again in order to defeat Hezbollah once and for all.

You're making this up now: You have no source that Israel's military intelligence arrived at this conclusion. Say it's your opinion, because it is not fact.

What we know is that right before the kidnapping of the two israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others, Israel's military gave out the instruction to lower the guard,

There you go again, manufacturing. Did you receive such an order? Are you on the border guard?

ie. it reduced the patrolling and observation of the border, allowing Hezbollah to succeed in what it tried to achieve but failed in for months.

I do not know this to have happened. I do not know that Israel reduced the border patrols. If it happened, did it happen as Israel was focusing on the Gaza front? Was this simply a troop allocation problem, that Israel was unprepared for? I do not know.

This is all an operation of the israeli military and military intelligence, while the civilian leadership was probably unaware of it.

Again, you have cited no proof.

The plan was to force the civilian leadership into invasion of Lebanon, but until now they haven't completely given in to the demands of the military, and allowed only airbombardments and small ground incursions.

Sorry, you've seen too many Hollywood movies. The military does not force the hand of the rest of the government. The Israeli government happens to be composed of people who have all performed distinguished service in the military. There is no such silly plan in my opinion.

But what should and can be done to solve the crisis? You can't talk Israel into sense, they have their half-legitimate fears of being annihilated in the future,

Which is it? You can't talk sense to them or their fears are half-legitimate? If their fears are half-legitimate, then their fears are sensible. You are contradicting yourself.

and you can't either expect Hezbollah to lay down their arms in the face of bombardments and incursions by Israel and without a political solution solving the legitimate gripes of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.

You damn well can. UN 1559. They have to be disarmed. Their unceasing attacks on Israel all these years? They have to be disarmed. And those are reason enough without the worries of the future. Israel did not regularly bomb HizbAllah for the past six years, but instead mostly suffered through the bombings on Israel. Israel did not go into Lebanon in the past six years. Israel did not provoke Hamas in any way other than existing.

It's so obvious that the only human authority that can achieve something for the better is the UN-security-council.

Why is that obvious? The UN has had forces on the ground there which have been able to do precisely nothing.

It should develop and enforce a broad peace-plan that would enable Syria to come out of its political isolation, to get back Golan and the sheeba-farms for a signed peace-agreement with Israel,

That resolution already exists. It is number 242. In 242, Israel agrees to offer lands captured in exchange for peace. It doesn't say all lands, simply 'land' - so the land that gets exchanged is negotiable. Israel is keeping the Golan, I assure you.

and to force Israel to free all lebanese prisoners

Guilty unrepentant murderers who admit their crimes and would readily commit such acts again? No thank you.

for the freeing of all kidnapped israeli soldiers and to make peace between Lebanon and Israel, that would also force Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, which would over a time of two-five years be achievable considering the stop of support by Syria.

UN 1559.

Oh, and let's not forget Palestine, which should be founded in Gaza and Westbank with East-Jerusalem as its capital, the militants and political groups should be forced to sign peace-agreements with Israel for the establishing of such a palestinian state,

a) territories need to be negotiated. Gaza is already done. If you're angling for the agreements Israel made in 1937 and 47 and UN 181 partition plan, sorry, you don't get to launch war after war and claim those old deals are still available. You get to take and negotiate over the deal being made currently, those offers are expired because Palestinians violated them.

b) agreements forced are not agreements that get upheld. You can have the warmest friendliest peace agreement ever, but if the people aren't ready to uphold them, it won't matter one bit.

the soldier should be released and Israel should be forced to use a broad amnesty for all palestinian prisoners, and allow the palestninian refuggees outside of Gaza and Westbank to choose their destination: a) Either to remain in the diaspora, b) to become palestinians in Palestine, or c) to become israelis in Israel. The last option is merely symbolic as the vast majority of palestinian refuggees wouldn't want to become israelis.

Actually, you'd be surprised by the number of Palestinians living in Jerusalem that would rather be Israelis. It's amazing what a value living in a free, non-corrupt society can be to people who have a choice as they do. I can provide quotes if necessary to back this assertion up.

In order to create incentives for the players to follow the UN-security-council-peace-programm, economic sanctions can be used or threatened.

Before such UN-security-council intervention can be succesful though, a broad media-campaign, including movies, books, newspapers, TV, artists... should be conducted that would show the benifits and necessary of such a form of broad peace-agreement and concessions, so that in the end enough public support and pressure can be put upon the US not to vetoe such a peace-movement in the UN-security-council.

Taliesin

Then why can't these incentives and media campaigns be done already, since the resolutions that make sense already exist?

Heck, the US President has said and worked for a Palestinian state repeatedly. Today in a press conference with Tony Blair, he repeated his call for a Palestinian state. Kadima, the ruling party of Israel, is founded on the principle of establishing a Palestinian state.

The only ones who aren't motivated towards establishing a state seem to be the Palestinians, whose elected representives still insist on the aim of destroying Israel first and establishing a state later.

[Jawbone54]

.......wow....
.....
.....
.....

*stands and applauds*

[Y3a]

Hezbollah leader said to be hiding in Iranian Embassy
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 28, 2006

Intelligence reports indicate the leader of Hezbollah is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.
Israeli military and intelligence forces are continuing to hunt for Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary-general, who fled his headquarters in Beirut shortly before Israeli jets bombed the building last week.
"We think he is in an embassy," said one U.S. official with access to the intelligence reports, while Israeli intelligence speculates Sheik Nasrallah is hiding in the Iranian Embassy.
If confirmed, the reports could lead to an Israeli air strike on the embassy, possibly leading to a widening of the conflict, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Foreign embassies are sovereign territory and an attack on an embassy could be considered an act of war.
But other reports from the region indicate Sheik Nasrallah may be in Damascus. A Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Seyassah, reported from the Syrian capital yesterday that Sheik Nasrallah was seen moving through the city with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car, Associated Press reported. He was dressed in civilian clothes, not his normal clerical robe.
The newspaper quoted Syrian government sources as saying Iranian national security council official Ali Larijani was in Damascus and was to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Sheik Nasrallah.
Hezbollah officials in Beirut said they did not know whether Sheik Nasrallah had gone to Damascus.
Asked about the reports of Sheik Nasrallah in Syria, a U.S. official said they are unconfirmed, but noted that because of the proximity, it is easy to travel between Lebanon and Damascus.
U.S. officials confirmed the existence of intelligence reports about Sheik Nasrallah hiding in a Beirut embassy after Israel's Ma'ariv newspaper reported Wednesday that the Hezbollah leader was thought to be in the Iranian Embassy. The newspaper, quoting intelligence officials, said Sheik Nasrallah has set up an operations center in an embassy basement that is coordinating Hezbollah attacks.
However, the U.S. officials said the intelligence reports have not confirmed Sheik Nasrallah's precise location.
Iran's embassy in Beirut is located in the Shi'ite stronghold known as the Bir Hasan section, in the western part of the city.
The embassy also is a major base for Iranian intelligence and is used by large numbers of Ministry of Intelligence and Security agents, as well as by senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's shock troops that are linked to international terrorist activities.

================================================== ===

Cowards run...

[Troll]

That resolution already exists. It is number 242. In 242, Israel agrees to offer lands captured in exchange for peace. It doesn't say all lands, simply 'land' - so the land that gets exchanged is negotiable. Israel is keeping the Golan, I assure you.

A negotiation involves TWO parties sitting down and talking not ONE part smacking the other into submission. If you think that negotiation still needs to take place around 242, then why isn't Israel negotiating? Or perhaps that is what Hezbollah is doing by attacking Israel - negotiating.

Resolution 242 does NOT simply say lands. If you know anything at all about this resolution, you know that Israel's view that they are not obliged to retreat from all territories occupied in '67 is EXTREMELY controversial and has very little support.

There are two versions of the Resolution and here's what they call for:

English Version
"Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

French Version
"Retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit."

On the English version, there is a semantic argument that the word "some" is implied before "territories". That is a very, very weak argument that is based on a weak grammar argument and has no basis in law. The Americans and the Israelis thought they were clever taking the word "all" out but in fact they changed nothing. Under the laws of interpretation (the Expressio unis est exclusio alterius, noscitur a sociis and the Golden Rule), the resolution would mean withdrawal from all lands that were occupied. It is incompatible with the laws of interpretation to insert the word "some" in there.

Secondly, I'm sure you've heard of the dogs in park analogy. There's a sign in a park saying "Dogs must be kept on the lead near ponds in the park." The fact that there are no definite articles in that sentence does not imply that only SOME dogs need to be kept on leads or that they only need to be kept on leads near SOME ponds. It means anything that is a dog must be kept on a lead near anything that is a pond. Israel must withdraw from anything that is a territory occupied during the recent conflict. This is evident from Resolution 242 itself. Paragraph 2 (a) of the Resolution guarantees "freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area." The interpretation rules that you are arguing would allow Arab states to interfere with navigation through SOME international waterways of their choosing.

Thirdly, the French version (French is an official language of the UN) uses the article "des" - i.e. withdrawal from ALL of the territories occupied in 1967. The laws of interpretation say that when you have two versions of a text, you have to look for a common meaning in both texts. Your interpretation of the English is incompatible with the French therefore that interpretation cannot hold. The English can very easily be read to mean withdrawal from all territories (that is how the law says it should be read) and that reading is compatible with the French too therefore, to the extent that there was any doubt, the discrepancy is resolved in favour of withdrawal from all territories.

Finally, there is an overwhelming basic principle of international law called the ‘inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war’. This means that a state cannot acquire territory through war. There is no way to give effect to your interpretation of Resolution 242 without offending one of the central principles upon which the United Nations system was founded.

Israel knew precisely what was expected of it and arguing a semantic point like this is not ony embrassing but dishonest. If Israel had genuinely wanted to make peace it would have argued for a resolution that included the word "some" not tried to hide behind the omission of an article in one of the versions of the resolution. Israel must have realised that if Resolution 242 didn't once and for all deal with the problem then the conflict would likely continue.

Again I say that this is precisely why there is so much tension in the region. Because both sides are cheating, conniving bastards. The reason the fighting continues is because every peace treaty is wriggled out of. There is an inherent lack of commitment to peace due to weak leadership from both sides. What is needed is leaders on both sides that actually have the balls to make a genuine peace, to commit to it and to ignore provocations aimed at derailing the process.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by Troll

A negotiation involves TWO parties sitting down and talking not ONE part smacking the other into submission. If you think that negotiation still needs to take place around 242, then why isn't Israel negotiating? Or perhaps that is what Hezbollah is doing by attacking Israel - negotiating.

Resolution 242 does NOT simply say lands. If you know anything at all about this resolution, you know that Israel's view that they are not obliged to retreat from all territories occupied in '67 is EXTREMELY controversial and has very little support.

There are two versions of the Resolution and here's what they call for:

English Version
"Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

French Version
"Retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit."

On the English version, there is a semantic argument that the word "some" is implied before "territories". That is a very, very weak argument that is based on a weak grammar argument and has no basis in law. The Americans and the Israelis thought they were clever taking the word "all" out but in fact they changed nothing. Under the laws of interpretation (the Expressio unis est exclusio alterius, noscitur a sociis and the Golden Rule), the resolution would mean withdrawal from all lands that were occupied. It is incompatible with the laws of interpretation to insert the word "some" in there.

Actually, the word that was removed was the word 'the.' Not 'some.' Not 'all.' Know your history, it would help you.

Also, I wasn't aware that the Golden Rule was a law of interpretation.

The removal of the definite article 'the' was an explicit compromise engineered by the United States to allow Israel to retain territories necessary to assure secure boundaries. The secure boundaries language is in the resolution. The language as an explicit compromise is there in anticipation of agreeing on secure borders and anticipation of negotiations that settle those questions. It is not wriggle room, it sets forth the principles under which peace can be settled between nations that renounce belligerancy.

Secondly, I'm sure you've heard of the dogs in park analogy. There's a sign in a park saying "Dogs must be kept on the lead near ponds in the park." The fact that there are no definite articles in that sentence does not imply that only SOME dogs need to be kept on leads or that they only need to be kept on leads near SOME ponds. It means anything that is a dog must be kept on a lead near anything that is a pond.

What has this got to do with the price of beer in Tanzania? Nothing. Likewise, it has nothing to do with the interpretation of Resolution 242.

Remember, 242 says that the withdrawal from territories occupied in the recent conflict (1967) can happen with the termination of all claims or states of belligerancy and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovreignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threat or force.

So, Israel immediately agreed to the resolution. They would withdraw from territories occupied as long as those territories did not compromise a secure boundary for Israel, IF AND WHEN Israel is recognized as a sovreign state with a right to exist and no claims are made on her land.

So far, that hasn't happened, because the Palestinians and HizbAllah continue to make claims on all Israel's land and refuse to acknowledge her political independence or cease their belligerancy.

Finally, there is an overwhelming basic principle of international law called the ‘inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war’. This means that a state cannot acquire territory through war. There is no way to give effect to your interpretation of Resolution 242 without offending one of the central principles upon which the United Nations system was founded.

Now, you must know your history: This was the first time EVER that the UN Sec. Co. ordered a nation to return territories lawfully captured in a defensive war. But it ordered this only as a part of the agreement recognizing Israel's right to live in security.

On June 19 1967 Israel decided that it would "give up Sinai and Golan in exchange for peace" with Egypt and Syria. "Within days, both Egypt and Syria had rejected the overture." - quotes from Benny Morris' Righteous Victims New York:Vintage Books 2001, p330

Israel really thought that 242 would be agreed to by the Arabs and that peace would ensue.
Moshe Dayan, defense minister at the time, was quoted as saying that he was "waiting for a telephone call from King Hussein" to discuss an exchange of land for peace. That call didn't come until decades later.

Israel knew precisely what was expected of it and arguing a semantic point like this is not ony embrassing but dishonest. If Israel had genuinely wanted to make peace it would have argued for a resolution that included the word "some" not tried to hide behind the omission of an article in one of the versions of the resolution. Israel must have realised that if Resolution 242 didn't once and for all deal with the problem then the conflict would likely continue.

Israel has in fact implemented the operative principles of 242 by returning all territory sought by Egypt when Egypt terminated its claims of belligerancy against Israel.

Israel also returned land claimed by Jordan as a part of the peace treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom. Hussein renounced all claim to the West Bank in favor of the PLO (who we should remember had given him trouble before in their attempts to take over Jordan, 1968-1970, when Hussein evicted them to Lebanon.)

Israel as recently as 2000 made offers to the Palestinians over the territory renounced by Jordan, and those claims were rejected, and instead they pursued a state of belligerancy. That has to be renounced under 242.

Again I say that this is precisely why there is so much tension in the region. Because both sides are cheating, conniving bastards. The reason the fighting continues is because every peace treaty is wriggled out of. There is an inherent lack of commitment to peace due to weak leadership from both sides. What is needed is leaders on both sides that actually have the balls to make a genuine peace, to commit to it and to ignore provocations aimed at derailing the process.

You mean a commitment like the Israelis, where they consistently come to the table for peace even in the midst of assaults and broken promises from the Palestinians. Repeatedly offering a state, 1937, 1947, the advances in that direction at Oslo, 2000, 2001, and even today where Kadima's founding principle is to establish a Palestinian state.

How much more balls do Israel's leaders need when the ruling party was established on the basis of forming a Palestinian state? How much more do America's leaders need when the President said in 2001 that a state could be guaranteed by 2004 if both parties complied with basic steps (the Palestinians never complied with any of them, the Israelis began but stopped when it became clear the Palestinians had no intention of following the path.)

And in spite of that, President Bush said yesterday that he was committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Everyone is ready but the Palestinians. Let's look to history to find out.

Remember, back in 1967 when 242 was passed, the Arab states along with the Palestinians categorically rejected the principles of 242, because it required making peace with and recognizing Israel. At a summit in Khartoum they issed the statement: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel." The Palestinians adopted the Palestinian National Charter, which expressly denies Israel's right to exist and pledges to continue "armed struggle" as the only way to liberate all of Palestine. It defined Palestine as all of Israel as well as all of Jordan (hence the Black September trouble that King Hussein had.): "Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit."

That charter also says that the UN "partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel {is} entirely illegal," because they were "contrary to the will of the Palestinian people." It rejects "all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine" through armed struggle.

The charter also demands the transfer out of Palestine of every Jew and descendant of Jews who arrived since 1882. That's right. The Palestinians want to engage in ethnic cleansing.

Under Oslo, the Palestinians were meant to eliminate these portions of their charter. They did not. Instead they claimed they were compliant with Oslo, but later said that they had considered it and decided to not revise the charter.

Currently, Hamas is in the leadership of the Palestinians. They have not changed or tempered their founding principles which also require the total liberation of Palestine through violence and the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

At every opportunity, Israel has extended its hand, its land, its aid, met with those acting to kill her people -while- they were acting to kill Israelis, and in many cases resisted responding to that belligerance. That is how desperately Israel has been willing to attain peace.

So tell me again how Israel are a pack of cheaters, conniving bastards, who lack commitment to peace.

[Y3a]

CNN??? Sure, they have no agenda, and only report FACTS. They are on the side of Hezbollah. Jeez.

[Sky Captain]

People want opinion and solution based "journalism".
It's all crap.

[Troll]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Actually, the word that was removed was the word 'the.' Not 'some.' Not 'all.' Know your history, it would help you.

I know that. What I said was that your interpretation requires the word "some" to be inserted.

Originally Posted by vmarks

The removal of the definite article 'the' was an explicit compromise engineered by the United States to allow Israel to retain territories necessary to assure secure boundaries.

The United States can't engineer a compromise to allow Israel to do anything! This is the United Nations not the United States. The US doesn't make the law. Prepartory discussions have absolutely no relevance to interpretation. The Resolution stands as it is. That is, there are two versions that have to be harmonised and applying the rules of interpretation undoubtedly leads to the conclusion that Israel is obliged to evacuate ALL territories that it occupied during the 1967 war. To argue anything else would be to undo centuries of law of interpretation and also to offend one of the basic rules of international law - that you cannot acquire territory by conquest.

You will note that at the Security Council when their votes were qualified, all but 2 states (the US and Russia) expressly said that their vote should mean that Israel should vacate ALL of the land. That is far more relevant to interpretation than the negotiations are.

Originally Posted by vmarks

What has this got to do with the price of beer in Tanzania? Nothing. Likewise, it has nothing to do with the interpretation of Resolution 242.

If you actually knew anything about the legal interpretation argument around 242, you'd know about the dogs in the park . Professor McHugo of Edinburgh University who I've had the pleasure of being lectured by. You have no valid legal argument under those rules and as this example shows, you also have no valid argument under common grammar.

Originally Posted by vmarks

Remember, 242 says that the withdrawal from territories occupied in the recent conflict (1967) can happen with the termination of all claims or states of belligerancy and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovreignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threat or force.

So, Israel immediately agreed to the resolution. They would withdraw from territories occupied as long as those territories did not compromise a secure boundary for Israel, IF AND WHEN Israel is recognized as a sovreign state with a right to exist and no claims are made on her land.

I can agree with that but this is not the same thing you were arguing before. Before you said that 242 does not oblige Israel to vacate all of the territories occupied in the 1967 war. It does indeed do that. It may be possible to argue that that only has to happen as and when security allows.

Originally Posted by vmarks

Now, you must know your history: This was the first time EVER that the UN Sec. Co. ordered a nation to return territories lawfully captured in a defensive war.

LOL. "Lawfully captured in a defensive war" - you CANNOT lawfully acquire territory in a war. What part don't you understand?

Originally Posted by vmarks

You mean a commitment like the Israelis, where they consistently come to the table for peace even in the midst of assaults and broken promises from the Palestinians.

I said BOTH sides were conniving bastards. How many of us would have done what Israel did and relied on an amiguity in one version of the Resolution upon which to base a resolution of a war? Israel must have reasonably known that most other countries didn't interpret the Resolution the way Israel was so Israel must have realised that the Resolution wasn't going to bring lasting peace. This is why I say they have no balls. Why not stand up and say, "We are not giving back all of the land," if that's what you mean? Why make a weak semantic argument. This is not haggling over terms in a contract or negotiating the price of potatoes in the market. This is people's homes and lives and welfare. I just don't think it shows much courage or honesty at all to rely on the omission of a word in the English version of the Resolution.

But as I said, the Palestinians' leaders are just as conniving and yellow-bellied. This is what frustrates me so about the situation there. The rest of the world is getting increasingly drawn into a spat between two groups that act like toddlers in a sandpit. Instead of spanking both of them and sending them to their rooms, everyone either stands around watching or helping one side or the other. I'm so tired of this bullsh!t honestly. That my tax money goes into building Palestinian and Lebanese infrastructure that we just have to rebuild every time Israel destroys it, that the EU supports Israel and the Palestinians really gets on my tits. It's time to impose sanctions on both sides and force them to make peace. Letting this thing fester is not the solution.

[vmarks]

It is a shame you reflect the UN in that it lacks a moral compass.

It is a shame that you ignore the intent in the negotiations that form resolutions rather make them mean what you wish them to mean, through your manipulations of interpretation. And then weakly accuse me of same, despite the facts that Israel had immediately agreed to the Resolution when all others rejected it.

I know those negotiations. Ethopia, the Soviet Union, Argentina, Brazil, Britain. They all wanted a resolution that unequivocally stated that Israel had to remove military from ALL territories attained in their defense. That wasn't the resolution that got passed. The one that got passed was one that requires Israel to give up land acquired while retaining that which is required for secure borders only when the country that land is going to has renounced claims of belligerance and recognizes Israel's right to exist.

Israel complies with that resolution and awaits the compliance of the remaining states that were involved.

I'm glad you were lectured by McHugo. If only you hadn't stopped there.
I've read McHugo in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly. He comes to conclusions on the thoughts in Abba Eban's head that he could only have known if he were a mind-reader.
It is based on those conclusions that McHugo writes things like "But Eban was unsuccessful in achieving this goal as well. His attempt to have both phrases deleted shows that he appreciated the significance of the wording, and how it would make the Right-wing Interpretation untenable." McHugo reveals his mindreading abilities when he discerns what Eban 'appreciates.' McHugo shows his biases when instead of discussing interpretations objectively, assigns charged words like "Right-wing" to his descriptions.

But let no one speak ill of McHugo, though he undercuts his credibility with mind-reading and inflammatory and incorrect characterization. All Hail McHugo!

That Israel upheld its principles when it took decades for some of the other parties to give up their belligerance and comply.

And that you keep claiming international law forbids the capture of territory for security in response to war waged against a defending country. Yet you cite no law. There is such a thing as a just war, and Israel's have always been wars to defend her right to exist, not wars of conquest.

What I find is UN 2625, which says '"Every State … has the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines of demarcation, such as armistice lines, established by or pursuant to an international agreement to which it is a party or which it is otherwise bound to respect … The territory of a State should not be the object of military occupation resulting from the use of force in contravention of the provisions of the UN Charter. The territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the use or threat of force. No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal …"

Israel didn't threaten to take those territories, those wars were started by Israel's neighbors. Israel simply acquired them when the other states threatened and used force. Israel signed this resolution.

Remember, the UN did not condemn Israel's response to the assault on it in 1967. The UN enabled that assault to happen. The UN's enabling Egypt's attack is one of the reasons the UN has so little credibility with Israelis, it was a defining moment when the UN had surrendered its moral standing.

If you're annoyed by the fact that your taxes fund the reconstruction of infrastructure, stop funding it.

Letting this thing (as you call it) fester has been your solution, the UN's solution for years. The correct answer is to stop attempting to reign in both parties, prolonging the resolution. Hamas, HizbAllah, have to find out the hard way that genocide, ethnic cleansing, and eradicating Israel are not successful answers for the future. The fact that Israel has been willing to negotiate and they will not renounce their belligerancy means that they won't be satisfied without war. Let that war be fought to its conclusion so that peace may be born.

Instead, your position is the obstacle to lasting peace.

[Troll]

Originally Posted by vmarks

It is a shame that you ignore the intent in the negotiations that form resolutions rather make them mean what you wish them to mean, through your manipulations of interpretation.

It's not me who's manipulating the meaning. It's you. Everyone except Israel and the US says it means that Israel must withdraw from all of the territories, the laws of interpretation say the same thing as do simple rules of grammar.

Originally Posted by vmarks

... despite the facts that Israel had immediately agreed to the Resolution when all others rejected it.

The others didn't reject the Resolution. They rejected Israel's bizarre interpretation of the Resolution.

Originally Posted by vmarks

And that you keep claiming international law forbids the capture of territory for security in response to war waged against a defending country. Yet you cite no law.

There are numerous sources for this law. The reason the prohibition is there is because if you take land away from another people and keep it, there can never be peace. That applies to a defensive or an aggessive war.

1) Treaties
Article 2 (4) :
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”.

There is then also the Hague Regulation of 1907, which have become part of customary law and the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 which also set out the principle.

Then there's Resolution 2625 which Israel voted in favour of. What don't you understand about the operative sentence? "No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal." That is an unqualified prohibition. It doesn't say the prohibition only applies to wars of aggression. It says you can't acquire land by force. Full stop. Israel cannot acquire land by the use of force.

Resolution 2625 goes on to say, "The use of force to deprive peoples of their national identity constitutes a violation of their inalienable rights and of the principle of non-intervention."

2) Customary International Law
If you're still batlling to understand this, turn to customary international law such as this opinion of the International Court of Justice and note how Resolution 2625 is interpreted (http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ipress..._20040709.htm). You can also read John Dugard (another of my lecturers) “Namibia (South West Africa): The Court’s Opinion, South Africa’s Response, and Prospects for the Future”, which sets out the principles in relation to South Africa's attempt to acquire Namibia in similar circumstances to Israel.

You're so interested in negotiations around the time of Resolution 2625. On 21 June 1967, British Foreign Secretary George Brown told the UNGA in re “territorial integrity” as used in Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter: "I see no two ways about this; and I can state our position very clearly. In my view, it follows from the words in the Charter that war should not lead to territorial aggrandizement". Note which country sponsored the draft that went before the UN - the United Kingdom!

Now let's look at what the others that voted on the Resolution said:

Ethiopia - emphasised the "inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war", and said it was imperative that "all Israel armed forces be withdrawn from the territories occupied as a result of military conflict".

India - noted that it was India's understanding "that the draft resolution, if approved by the Council, will commit it to the application of the principle of total withdrawal of Israel forces from all the territories" occupied as a result of the conflict.

Nigeria - Israel should withdraw its forces "from all the territories that they occupied as a result of the recent conflict".

France- "… on the point which the French delegation has always stressed as being essential--the question of withdrawal of the occupation forces--the resolution which has been adopted, if we refer to the French text which is equally authentic with the English, leaves no room for any ambiguity, since it speaks of withdrawal 'des territoires occupés', which indisputably corresponds to the expression 'occupied territories".

Mr. Kuznetsov, representing the Soviet Union, said (at para. 119) that the phrase "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" in the resolution adopted by the Security Council “becomes the first necessary principle for the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Near East”.

Russia - undertood the decision taken to mean “the withdrawal of Israel forces from all … (and he repeated) … all territories belonging to Arab States and seized by Israel following its attack on those States on 5 June 1967”.

Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina and Mali all reiterated their Governments' view that resolution 242 was based on the principle that the occupation or acquisition of territories based on use of force should not be recognised. They also agreed that Israeli forces should withdraw from all territories occupied in June 1967.

So vmarks, even if you look at the background to the Resolution, it still indicates that the parties understood 242 to mean that Israel had to withdraw from ALL territories occupied. You'll also note that after the Yom Kippur War, the Security Council did not condemn Egypt and Syria for attacking Israel to recover the territory they lost to Israel in June 1967. Isn't that strange? Not if you consider that those two countries were implementing a UN Resolution (242)!

Finally, if you've been reading International legal textbooks, you've probably heard of Professor Bowett from Cambridge. He has noted that although the UN did not condemn Israel's resort to force in 1967, it also did not find that Israel's military action was in lawful self-defence. So, even on Israel's own argument, it is not clear that it can keep territory. Bowett also noted that "it is impossible to conceive of self-defence as justifying the acquisition of title to territory. One can conceive of self-defence justifying the temporary occupation of territory but never the permanent acquisition of title, and there is no system or principle of international law which conceives of such a thing". This is why I agreed with you that Israel could TEMPORARILY occupy the Golan for security reasons, but there is absolutely no doubt at all that Israel will have to give it back ... unless Lebanon agrees to cede it to Israel (which seems highly unlikely).

Originally Posted by vmarks

Letting this thing (as you call it) fester has been your solution, the UN's solution for years. The correct answer is to stop attempting to reign in both parties, prolonging the resolution.

The UK Government is in trouble today for allowing Prestwick Airport to be used for the transportation of bombs from the US to Israel. THAT is what I want stopped. Israel will never come to the peace table with a genuine desire to make peace so long as it has the firepower to resist.

[Troll]

According to the UN, FOUR laser guided precision bombs were dropped on the UN position the exact coordinates of which were repeated to the Israelis on the day.

[Troll]

Time Magazine Article

... finger-pointing is also going on inside the Israeli military over who is in fact responsible for the deadly incident.

According to an Israeli senior military officer, both the Air Force and the Northern Command of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are trying to heap the blame on each other, principally because of a dispute over the accuracy of the data that led to the missile attack. This source says that an army spotter saw Hizballah firing from an area near the U.N. building but locked into the U.N. building by mistake. He then passed the precise coordinates on to the air force control, who relayed the target site to one of the fighter planes circling overhead. But the Northern Command is insisting that it relayed the correct coordinates to the air force, pinpointing suspected Hizballah positions and not the U.N. bunker nearby.

...

Regardless of what preceded it, there is no disputing that the position was hit by at least two aerial bombs at 7:20 p.m., killing all four observers. UNIFIL insists there were no reports of Hizballah firing Katyusha rockets from the vicinity of observers' position, and that there was no obvious target for the Israelis that was discernible to UNIFIL. The officer contends that the Israelis did not halt their air strikes because "they don't care. They feel they have more important issues on their mind to hit Hizballah. Everything else is secondary." According to a senior U.N. official in Lebanon, the Israelis used "precision guided missiles," inferring that the air strike was not an accident.

[vmarks]

Have you not been reading UNIFIL's own reports? THEY claim HizbAllah fired on them and were in the vicinity.

Time is lying.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr012.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr08.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr09.pdf

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by Troll

It's not me who's manipulating the meaning. It's you. Everyone except Israel and the US says it means that Israel must withdraw from all of the territories, the laws of interpretation say the same thing as do simple rules of grammar.

The others didn't reject the Resolution. They rejected Israel's bizarre interpretation of the Resolution.

Yes, all other states and claimants involved in the six day war against Israel in 1967 DID reject the resolution. Israel accepted it immediately, but it wasn't until a decade later that Egypt accepted it, and another decade and then some for Jordan to come around. Syria still has not. Lebanon and Israel reached an understanding in 2000, and that was accepted by the UN.

The PLO cum Palestinian Authority, now Hamas, has not accepted the principles of 242.

They and the Syrians remain belligerant, unwilling to accept Israel's sovereignty or right to security.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Have you not been reading UNIFIL's own reports? THEY claim HizbAllah fired on them and were in the vicinity.

Time is lying.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr012.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr08.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr09.pdf

I read them. There are no reports of Hezbollah near the outpost, only reports of Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese region.

And as other posters have noted, it's hard to miss this badly with a pricision missle. Not that I think there is some vast Israeli conspericy. It was probably some pilot making a mistake and firing at what he thought was an enemy target. That still doesn't mean Israel should be off the hook for this. If this was a breakdown in command, it shows the reality of how non-combatents will be affected by this war, even if Israel claims that they are not targeting civilians.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by goMac

I read them. There are no reports of Hezbollah near the outpost, only reports of Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese region.

And as other posters have noted, it's hard to miss this badly with a pricision missle. Not that I think there is some vast Israeli conspericy. It was probably some pilot making a mistake and firing at what he thought was an enemy target. That still doesn't mean Israel should be off the hook for this. If this was a breakdown in command, it shows the reality of how non-combatents will be affected by this war, even if Israel claims that they are not targeting civilians.

You need to re-read. And you need to learn about 'precision' missiles.

from the links I posted

Another UN position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Marwahin in the western sector was also directly hit by one mortar round from the Hezbollah side last night. The round did not explode, and there were no casualties or material damage. Another 5 incidents of firing close to UN positions from the Israeli side were reported yesterday. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Alma ash Shab, Tibnin, Brashit, and At Tiri. All UNIFIL positions remain occupied and maintained by the troops.


This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin.


One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable.

[Troll]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Have you not been reading UNIFIL's own reports? THEY claim HizbAllah fired on them and were in the vicinity.

Time is lying.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr012.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr08.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr09.pdf

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's you who's lying but throughout this thread you've shown an utter lack of comprehension of the facts. You insisted it was artillery that desroyed the post and you've insisted that there were Hezbollah forces there. Neither is true. As we have ALREADY pointed out to you - NONE of those reports says that there were Hezbollah forces at Khiyam. Not one. Khiyam is the base that was destroyed. It is completely irrelevant what was happening at the Ghanaian base.

Plus, there were no Hezbollah troops inside the bunker so no reason why the Israelis had to launch multiple laser guided missiles INTO it. From what the Israeli military is saying, it seems that there was a complete breakdown in communication between the different parts of the Army. The whole performance of the Israeli army in general has been below par this time round.