Israel, Lebanon, Etc Crisis

[Shiri]

Yep, got released in November.

[arteta]

Good times?

[Shiri]

Met my girlfriend there and a few good friends. So that's a plus, but other than that I wasn't a fan.

[Ruettiger]

Could you kick my ass with Krav Maga?

[daniel_v]

Stay safe Shiri, and keep us posted.  It's really interesting to hear your point of view on this situation. 

My prayers go out to you and all of your family/friends.

ditto that. *hugs*

What they said.

 

I think I speak for everyone on the board when I say it's nice to have someone with a personality like yours on the board. Although I don't personally know you, the fact that you can keep yourself level headed and cool while discussing a subject as close to you as this I think speaks volumes about your character.

 

Hope you and those close to you come out ok through this.

[Computer]

I'd say Lebanon would be pretty fucked if Israel decided to attack. Israeli pilot's are infamously talented and their airforce is very high ranking within the world's standing.

[Azalroth]

Shit, forgot you were over there Designate. I hope you keep safe and your family is well, be careful out there.

[Crusader]

Lets run Shiri over to Canada.

[Ravenous itchy]

I'm going to jump back a couple pages.

 

I can't imagine Palestinian extremists allowing peace in the Middle East as long as Israel exists. Even if governments can find a way to slow the current conflict, it never really stops. Like Designate said, people there live with this sort of stuff every day. Once in a while the media will plaster it on the news for a couple weeks and get everyone riled up about it, but even when the news stops talking about it here, and people stop thinking about it, there are still conflicts/bombings/whatever happening over there.

 

None of the ideas North Americans have about this stuff are anything more than na

[no yu begin wher i end]

I thought that Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Why is Hezbollah still pushing their resistance shit when they accomplished their main goal six years ago? Or was it only a partial withdrawal? Jus' wonderin'.

[Shiri]

Thanks guys for your words. And I'd also like to thank Matt for posting the email I sent him.

 

As for the withdrawl, it wasn't partial. Though the Hezbollah kept pulling tricks in the area and because we didn't want to go back right after the withdrawl, we didn't really respond. I guess they thought the same would happen after they kidnapped the two soldiers.

[supercanuk]

I dunno James, you walk a fine line on that post, I know you didn't mean it as in "you cant have opinions" but why do you think its naive to talk about this situation? I think there are some conflicts or issues that people deem to be "unspeakable" unless you experiance it yourself. But people make opinions on situations all the time, are you saying all historians are inherantly naive? I am not trying to be argumentative, I just am asking for clearity. (i am also not saying your wrong, im just wondering what you mean by naive)

[Ravenous itchy]

I dunno James, you walk a fine line on that post, I know you didn't mean it as in "you cant have opinions" but why do you think its naive to talk about this situation? I think there are some conflicts or issues that people deem to be "unspeakable" unless you experiance it yourself. But people make opinions on situations all the time, are you saying all historians are inherantly naive? I am not trying to be argumentative, I just am asking for clearity. (i am also not saying your wrong, im just wondering what you mean by naive)

I'll grab this when I get home from work.

[supercanuk]

I dunno James, you walk a fine line on that post, I know you didn't mean it as in "you cant have opinions" but why do you think its naive to talk about this situation? I think there are some conflicts or issues that people deem to be "unspeakable" unless you experiance it yourself. But people make opinions on situations all the time, are you saying all historians are inherantly naive? I am not trying to be argumentative, I just am asking for clearity. (i am also not saying your wrong, im just wondering what you mean by naive)

I'll grab this when I get home from work.

Cool ;)

 

Also, an interesting watch I found to be quite apt for this disucssion is this movie Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land

I highly suggest taking a look:

Discription:

 

Does the news coverage reflect the reality on the ground?

 

Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one.

 

The documentary explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics

[Ravenous itchy]

Well that is actually the sort of thing I was going to bring up. The thing that I find na

[supercanuk]

Well that is actually the sort of thing I was going to bring up. The thing that I find na

Edited July 19, 2006 by supercanuk

[Shiri]

I don't there's such a thing as an illegitamate opinion, everyone is entitled to their own personal opinion.

 

If you're interested in reading more about what it's like living in Isreal or in Lebanon right now, I recommend checking Matt's website and reading Samar's posts and also a couple of mine. Also, read the comments, I find them very interesting.

[borntohula]

rather than stop the shelling of lebanon, we just evacuate our own and call that a resolution... retaliation of any sort is being justified by the west's inaction towards anything israel does. lovely.

[Matt]

We studied this quite extensively in my history class in grade 12 a few years back. Basically, the internment camps in World War II were just the straw that broke the camel's back for the Jews. They have been kicked out of pretty much every country in Europe at one time or another, Nazi Germany just took it to a new extreme. Part of the problem was that quite frequently Jews would accumulate in "Jewish Ghettos" which were usually near synogues, so of course, they never quite fit into the rest of the culture in the country they resided in, which made them outsiders. So, after World War II, the holocaust survivors realized they were truly alone, and worse was that they realized being passive just didn't work for them, their entire religion, culture, you name it, was almost wiped out. So, of course when Jewish people were offered a land of their own they took it. And withing a few days of Israel coming into existance, all their neighbours invaded them. The only reason Israel survived the invasion was because it was poorly co-ordinated. When each country invaded it was at different times, so it gave Israel a chance to re-deploy its troops elsewhere to fend off the next invasion after it finished fighting off the last one. Most of the land they have since taken has actually been more or less for strategical or sensimental purposes. The Golan Heights, part of Egypt (since been returned), were all, so they could keep an eye on their neighbours. Jersulam was of course taken because it's the Jewish holy city, the problem is for muslims, it's also a holy city. The trick is learning to share the city, which neither side seems to want to do... For the most part they were on their own for the longest time too, the only reason the Americans got involved was because the Soviets started buddying up in the middle east, so of course the Americans needed to do the same as well.

[Ruettiger]

Order 8 was called in pretty recently in Israel, meaning they're drafting all the reservists.

[borntohula]

from the new york times...

 

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

 

 

By DAVID S. CLOUD and HELENE COOPER

Published: July 22, 2006

 

WASHINGTON, July 21

[Shiri]

Order 8 was called in pretty recently in Israel, meaning they're drafting all the reservists.

Not all, just a part. If they'll call everybody, it means that it's going to get really ugly.

[sodamntired]

i got this from the (International) Noise Conspiracy mailing list.

 

 

i thought it was pretty accurate saying what the lebanese are facing right now.

 

 

Imagine your nearest airport being bombed. Imagine bridges and roads

around you being destroyed. Imagine power plants, electricity, hospitals,

government buildings being destroyed and sewers stop functioning. Imagine

no water coming from the tap. Imagine no food or medicine or outside

humanitarian help being allowed into your country. Imagine a rain of bombs

falling over houses, churches and stores so that ten, twenty, fifty

civilians are killed every day.

 

Imagine an army kidnapping half of your government and taking them out of

the country. Imagine the same army every night firing sound bombs above

your roof so your windows are blow open, nobody can sleep and your kids

getting stomach pains from pure stress. Imagine having to pass through

military checkpoints every day to get to your job. Imagine being refused

to travel outside your country. Imagine a concrete wall, eight meters

high, being built around and inside your city. Imagine waking up in the

middle of the night and being told that you got five minutes to leave your

house because it

[no yu begin wher i end]

I thought that Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Why is Hezbollah still pushing their resistance shit when they accomplished their main goal six years ago? Or was it only a partial withdrawal? Jus' wonderin'.

I read in the paper yesterday an editorial by a professor in Beirut, Hilal Khashan, why Hezbollah still puts themselves up as a resistance movement.

 

The Doomsday Movement

With its back to the wall, Hezbollah decided to act s

 

Sun Jul 23 2006

 

Hilal Khashan

 

 

 

BEIRUT -- Hezbollah is a doomsday politico-military movement born of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to evict the Palestine Liberation Organization from the country.

From its onset, Iranian influence gave shape and meaning to this fundamentalist Shiite movement. In fact, it was the Iranian Revolutionary Guards unit then present in eastern Lebanon that contributed to the rise of Hezbollah and indoctrination of its members into Ayatollah Khomeini's brand of militant Shiite Islam.

 

By 1985 the party took the shape and hierarchy that we know today and embarked immediately on the task of challenging Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah's efforts bore fruit on May 25, 2000, when Israeli troops pulled out unilaterally from southern Lebanon.

 

Hezbollah's achievement won the party acclaim, not just within Lebanon, but throughout the Arab world. This marked the first time in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict since its inception in 1948 that Arabs succeeded in driving out Israelis from lands they occupied. As a result, an aura of invincibility shrouded Hezbollah both as a liberation movement and for its purported ability to establish a balance of deterrence with the Israeli army along both sides of the border.

 

Hezbollah did not get the chance to enjoy its moment in southern Lebanon, because shortly after Israelis withdrew from southern Lebanon, the movement came under intense domestic pressure to disarm in accordance with the terms of the 1989 Ta'if Agreement that formally ended the Lebanese civil war (1975-89).

 

Hezbollah adamantly refused to disarm and claimed that the task of liberating southern Lebanon had not ended yet, mainly because the Israeli army continued to occupy the Shib'a Farms, which were under Syrian jurisdiction when the Israelis occupied them during the 1967 Six-Day War.   

UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004), which called upon Syria to evacuate its army from Lebanon and upon the Lebanese government to dismantle Hezbollah's military infrastructure and militia, put the party on the spot and may have led to the assassination last year of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

 

A subsequent UN resolution earlier this year tightened the noose around Hezbollah's neck by stressing Lebanon's sovereignty and calling upon Syria and Lebanon to demarcate their borders. Demarcation would force Syria to admit that the Shib'a Farms belonged to Lebanon; the Israelis have already expressed their willingness to leave the Farms should Syria concede that they are Lebanese territory.

 

There is no question that Hezbollah, a party that represents an inseparable part of Iranian Middle Eastern policy, did not want to see the border demarcation take place, as this would have obviated its raison d'etre.

 

Hezbollah has grown in a spectacular fashion since Hasan Nasrallah became the secretary general of the party in 1992, both in terms of its military stature and as a provider of welfare to significant sectors of Lebanese Shi'ites. Its disarmament would have tarnished its image as a movement superior to all other Lebanese groups, one that does not answer to the Lebanese government.

 

As a doomsday movement, Hezbollah, which embodies the Shiite religious ethos, believes that the fight between good and evil is inevitable and its leadership and rank and file have no doubts about its outcome. They see the Shib'a Farms as a minor detail whose reclamation might jeopardize a more noble cause, i.e., the defeat of evil, which according to Hezbollah's ideologues is represented by the United States and Israel, its regional instrument.

 

As a corollary to this stated objective, Hezbollah believes that the triumph of good requires the correction of the path of history as far as the prevalence of the Shiite doctrine in the world of Islam. This explains why Hezbollah has made the Palestine question, which is essentially a Sunni Arab issue, central to its activities.

 

By faring in combat against Israel much better than any Arab army, Hezbollah can endear itself to Sunni Arab masses. In fact, Hezbollah has been keen on supporting Palestinian fundamentalist movements in their fight against the Jewish state.

 

Hasan Nasrallah is held in higher regard by Palestinians than any other Arab leader. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV station is the most viewed Arab language outlet on the Arab satellite. The trend of shifting from Sunnism to Shiism has become discernible, even if only mildly, in recent years in the Levant. Hezbollah successes have been remarkable. Any talk about disarming the party means stopping Hezbollah's agenda before it achieves its long-term goals. In recent months Hezbollah has been subjected to immense pressure from the U.S. backed Lebanese government to disarm. Several rounds of talks that included Lebanon's sectarian leaders took place under the appellation of the "National Dialogue Committee" aimed at putting the Lebanese political system on the track of national reconciliation.

 

From the onset of the talks, Hezbollah's arms became the stumbling block that caused them to fail. Hezbollah has simply refused to disarm under any pretext.

 

With its back to the wall, Hezbollah decided to act. Its decision to attack Israelis across the border and take hostages meant divorce with the Lebanese government, whose figures it intensely dislikes and describes as U.S. lackeys. Hezbollah's leaders concluded that their chances of survival are greater if they precipitate a showdown with Israel than if they talk to fellow Lebanese.

 

Syria and Iran have found in Hezbollah a very useful tool over the years. They used it to score political points with the U.S. and Israel. Nevertheless, Hezbollah's decision to incite tensions with Israel reflects a purely internal choice.

 

The escalation of tensions with Israel at the moment, at such an intense level, serves neither Syria nor Iran. Quite to the contrary, it reveals the extent of their weakness for failing to come to the rescue of their rare ally in Lebanon.

 

Hezbollah has crossed the brink into a full-fledged conflict that the Israeli government must win in order to maintain the perceived inviolability of the idea of the Jewish state.

 

 

Hilal Khashan is a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/...p-4167277c.html

 

It's a subscription-only site, so try the username [email protected] and the password charter if you want to get it from the source.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheeba_Farms

[Ravenous Yam]

Israel 'accidentally' attacked a UN post (LINK) and 2 Red Cross ambulances (LINK).

 

The UN post has been there since 1972, everyone knew where it was. First, they shelled the area for six hours while the UN people called them 10 times to tell them to stop because they were endangering UN lives. Then they were hit with a precision-guided missile.

 

What the fuck is up with that? Israel is saying it was an accident, but c'mon... a precision-guided missile sends a clear message whether you want it to or not.

 

And then the very next day, two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances are attacked by an Israeli gunship for... some reason.

 

Could the fact that they know they have automatic immunity by way of the USA be a factor here? Maybe they really were just accidents...?