What's that, Kevin? You want to let reason and experience get in the way of a good rant? You must be a moonbat leftie...

The rapture police are in charge?

Because now Bush has told them he doesnt' care about civilian casualties and Israel can use any means short of nukes.

Kevin,

This is just Israeli code for "we'll do whatever we feel like." Declare an unachievable strategic objective, keep your people under alert and in line politically, and shoot or don't shoot depending on your daily mood and/or poll results.

Just like Bush.

There goes that skeptical thing again Kevin. You're never going to be able to support Fox News Foreign Policy until you quit thinking that there are limitations on what military strikes can do.

What should Israel do instead of what it is doing?

Because Transformational Thinker (tm) Newt Gingrich sez so, dammit! Why is that so difficult for you appeasers to acknowledge?

I don't see how you will kill a philosophy like Hezbollah other than wiping out everyone who holds that philosophy.

Even then a few will remain - there are still some Nazi followers out there but they are relativily irrelevant. What methods were used to eliminate the philosophy of the Nazis?

Jew-hater! I'd get up and slap you with my cock, but I'm really tired right now.

Have you been following Laura Rozen lately? She has some good stuff on how the IDF doesn't really intend to completely destroy Hizbullah, because they don't think it's possible. Of course, the IDF wants to try to weaken it as much as possible, but also wants to make a buffer zone from Israel and Hizbullah.

Haaretz seems to be the best source of what's going on strategically. Watching Bush and the Admin reminds me of the end of the first Austin Powers movie where AP is snapping his fingers while saying "ignore this".

Syria is now out of Lebanon. I don't know if that is enough of a difference to make a difference, but it may be behind the Israeli thinking.

Because this time they've got will!

Yeah, and moxie, too! Never understimat the importance of moxie!

But seriously, of course they can. Just like we've been able to completely and utterly destroy Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Iraqi resistance....ok, not a good example....

Even if Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon, and killed 50% of its population, Hezbollah can't be eliminated, IMO.

So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?

Because heavy-handed attempts by Israel to wipe out Hezbollah feeds Hezbollah, basically.

Syria is now out of Lebanon.

If I remember correctly, a large part of this was popular sentiment which drove out Syria, not Israeli bombs. Sometimes the "pen" is much more powerful than the sword, though not always.

In a similar note, it's a shame Bush chose not to engage Iran years ago when we they had a sympathetic president and a lot of "reform" sentiment amongst the population. I hope books are written on how much of an utter and dismal failure the Bush foreign policy has been. It goes so far beyond incompetence.

So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?

By declaring a goal that can't be achieved through its tactics -- indeed, whose goal is arguably hindered by its tactics -- Israel has an excuse to continue its war indefinitely -- acting how it pleases -- and all in the name of "self defense."

Of course, the US is experiencing the same situation in Iraq

So if Israel extends the hand of friendship, then Hezbollah will shrink?

Wow, now that is an interesting theory which has been show incorrect all during the Clinton administration.

So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?

Because the NeoCons and their allies in Israel think that the Hezbollah exists only because of Iranian and Syrian support. Drawing those two countries into a general war, defeating them, and replacing their governments would serve to destroy Hezbollah's support and secure Israel's borders once and for all. Never mind the giant pile of bodies that would result, the shockwaves in the global oil market, or the profound unlikelihood that this would ever work - these are NeoCons we're talking about here.

Kevin-

So here's the funny thing. I take your question as being sincere. Virtually every comment on the thread treats the idea of Hezbollah elimination as absurd.

An idea so absurd that it only deserves derision.

Contrast that with the ponderous debates and eager chin-scratching that took place after 911, when Bush declared war on terrorism.

Hey Orwell,
I don't think any serious people consider Bush to have done anything positive in foreign policy throughout his tenure. He couldn't even do Afghanistan right. Reaganite after Reaganite are distancing themselves from Bush on FP. I don't think supporters of the Bush FP have any basis to criticize any other Administration. Saying "Democracy is on the march" doesn't make it so.

"What should Israel do instead of what it is doing?"

For a start.. how about going back to the Oslo accords and abiding my the agreement they signed under Peres?

If Israel hadn't been allowed to abrogate the Oslo accords at Camp David there would have been no infitada and there would very likely be a Palestininan and Israeli state co-existing.

Bottom line: Israel does not want peace. No way.

Not, that is, until they fufill their original objectives of controlling their full 'biblical' empire and tearing down the Dome of the Rock so they can build the 'third temple'.

They really want that third temple... so do the Christians as it's needed for Armageddon. BTW, gotta find that Ochre calf too to purify the steps.

Gaaak. If the majority of the American people only knew what they were supporting.

So if Israel extends the hand of friendship, then Hezbollah will shrink?

beat that strawman! beat him good!

This time we don't have a pansy-assed American administration that is going to make the Israelis stop before they get the job done. Of course back in the eighties when they marched all the way to Beirut and Reagan didn't blink an eye when Sharon allowed mass slaughter of civilians in refugee camps we didn't have a pansy-assed administration either and that only caused the creation of Hezbollah. But never mind about that, this time it will work out okay.

And of course when 241 Marines were killed in that debacle, Reagan invaded Grenada to distract from that major screwup (or to impress Jodie Foster, we can never be sure of the real reason).

. . .a world without Hezbollah sure seems like a good idea — what makes anyone think Israel can accomplish this?

A world without terrorism sounds like a good idea, too — what makes anyone think the U.S. and allies can accomplish this? I think that these views are just part of the big neocon picture: sufficient force of will (not to mention force alone) is needed.

"What should Israel do instead of what it is doing?"

Well, since Lebanese children, infrastrucure, and Greek Orthodox churches are objectively pro-terrorist, it's difficult to imagine a better course of action for that poor little beleagured state.

BTW, Juan Cole wonders how many Hezbollah guerillas have been killed by the IDF. He thinks less than 10. Your bet?

I love George Bush. He opposes stem cell research because he is against "murdering" frozen embryos, but he gives the green light to killing innocent civilians throughout the middle east.

Clearly the man has no moral compass.

Absent a moral compass you would think he would be doing what is in the best interest of the United States of America. Does anyone think sanctioning the deaths of thousands of civilians and the displacement of 500,000 souls is in the best interests of the United States? Obviously not. Now I didn't say Israel--I said the United States. The two countries are really two countries and should have two different foreign policies. No shame there.

"Because now Bush has told them he doesnt' care about civilian casualties and Israel can use any means short of nukes."

Um, so what? Even accepting your premise that this level of force is acceptable (which I'm not sure I do), there's no reason to believe the elimination of Hezbollah is militarily achievable even with this level of force.

Wingnuts (and frankly, many other people) have this crazy notion that the further one goes from the "rules of civilized warfare," the more likely one is to achieve strategic goals. It's like they heard too many fairy tales about making a "deal with the devil", and what they took away from them was the rather lunatic idea that if you're willing to do horrible things, the devil will give you what you asked for. You know, just be a tough SOB and you'll get magic powers that the devil reserves specifically for tough SOBs. There's this notion that if you're willing to sacrifice your personal morality--sell your soul, as it were--you will win.

I don't know if it's a fairy-tale or a comic-book view of reality. But they've internalized the notion that Lex Luthor, puny human, could be a nemesis for the infinitely more powerful Superman because Lex was evil and would do things that the moral Superman just wouldn't do. As grownups, wingnuts don't believe in Superman, but they do seem to still believe in Lex Luthor.

But I 'm sorry, reality doesn't care how ethically pure you are. It doesn't change based on your relative state of moral decrepitude--it changes because of your actions. Life isn't a comic book, and doing horrible things doesn't automatically mean you're doing more effective things.

It's not how evil you're willing to be that determines if you win wars--it's how frigging smart you are in your application of force and your understanding of what it can and can't achieve.

Kind of sad--I used to be able to come here for intelligent discussion.

I don't see how you will kill a philosophy like Hezbollah other than wiping out everyone who holds that philosophy.

Hezbollah is a "philosophy"?

What methods were used to eliminate the philosophy of the Nazis?

One thing's for sure: It didn't involve becoming exactly like them.

Nietzsche: "Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

I am not surprised tepid liberals think destroying the party/organization that represents the largest political faction and poorest people in Lebanon by Israel is a good idea. I am not surprised, but I am dismayed.

If you can destroy Al Qaeda by invading Iraq, then you can destroy Hezbollah by invading Lebanon. Any other questions?

Clearly the man has no moral compass.

Sure, it's called moral relativism. It's something, ironically, they criticize the left for.

OK, genuine question here. Hawkish commentators have been filling the airwaves and printwaves with declarations that the war in Lebanon can't end until Israel destroys Hezbollah once and for all. But putting aside for now the question of whether that's good policy — a world without Hezbollah sure seems like a good idea — what makes anyone think Israel can accomplish this? The IDF spent nearly two decades in Lebanon until Ehud Barak withdrew in 2000, and presumably was doing its very best during that time to destroy Hezbollah.

Which, it might be remembered, didn't exist at the time of the Israeli invasion, and was formed as a direct response to that invasion and occupation.

But they weren't able to do it. So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?

We expect the IDF to occupy Lebanon and apply the counter-insurgency techniques the US has developed and proven in Iraq which have eliminated the groups that had sprung up there to resist the US occupation.

"What methods were used to eliminate the philosophy of the Nazis?"

Lol, when was nazi ideology eliminated?

Outside of the extremist skinhead movements, I see plenty of people more than willing to embrace the corporate serving state, ultranationalism, and war between the races, with the natural caveat that they are members of the clearly superior race.

A Nazi government was destroyed, but its ideology lives on in the hearts of US conservatives.

Hezbollah is a "philosophy"?

Well, its a political party that is centered around a philosophy (specifically, Iranian-style Islamic government established through popular democratic means in Lebanon); though, of course, its mostly known in the US for the actions of its military wing.

"What should Israel do instead of what it is doing?"

I just want a plain answer. Going back to Oslo isn't an answer.

Last week, there was a cross border incursion that left eight soldiers dead and two captured. There are the rocket attacks.

You are the Israeli Prime Minister. What do you do?

Discussing who is at fault isn't helpful because every tit has a tat going all the way back to the forties.

But deadly attacks are originating on your people from the sovereign territory of Lebanon.

Hundreds of dead civilians, innocent children. Lebanon set back twenty years. A half a million displaced.

What should Israel do instead of what they are doing?

Bringing up Dar Yasim doesn't answer the question.

If you can destroy Al Qaeda by invading Iraq, then you can destroy Hezbollah by invading Lebanon. Any other questions?

Indeed, the latter is slightly more reasonable (in the context of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2006 invasion of Lebanon) as Hezbollah was actually substantially present in Lebanon before the attack.

Last week, there was a cross border incursion that left eight soldiers dead and two captured.

It's worth remembering that the Hezbollah (and Hamas) attacks that touched off this conflagration were against Israeli soldiers, not civilians.

Israel's retaliation, not so much.

Hezbollah, Hamas, and every other anti-Israel militant group are the radicalized manifestations of Israel's inability to settle the Palestinian question (who's to blame for that is a separate issue). Even if Israel did succeed in crushing Hezbollah, someone worse would replace them. It's an endless game of whack-a-mole, except that each time the moles come back bigger and angrier, and the moderates have less cred with which to stand up to them. As someone noted in a similar context, "Israel's strategy of crushing terrorists has been proven effective, time after time after time after time after...

Because Israel isn't really trying to eliminate Hezbollah—just the rocket-launching capability. And if then they can get the international community serious about not letting Hezbollah resupply (that's the difference from the earlier Lebanon War), then the rocket threat abates. Now, will Hezbollah continue as a political movement? Yes. Even as a terrorist movement, if they switch to suicide bombers or such like. But as a militia right on the border, that might really become impossible.

Interesting book review in WSJ. Here a relevent paragraph:

Our progressive global culture--with its emphasis on convenience and instant gratification--finds it difficult to cope with such warriors, for whom war is a first resort rather than a last one. And what if a warrior takes command of a large and modernizing nation-state, as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done? We are accustomed to adversarial states with rational goals, like China. In the long run, China may constitute a greater threat to American world leadership than Iran. Yet China is a traditional and, therefore, legitimate power. We will have a serious military competition with the Chinese, but only through miscalculation would we ever fight them. Yet the darkest cloud on the 21st-century horizon is big states whose leaders may simply like to fight. Their reasons are tied up with pride, vengeance and martial religiosity and cannot be gratified through negotiations...What then should we do? http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110008674

ISare trying to weaken Hez, create a barriar, and expose to the world the fact that hez has long-range rockets that it has denied having. IS motives are faily clear as these things go, what I can't figure out is why Hez is acting up. Why the kidnapping provocation now? are they really the cat's claw of the Iranians looking to distract the UN from its nuke program? Maybe they want to show IS that they can reach deeper into IS territory with rockets, thus helping their negotiations later. Probably all of the above. Sometimes I think they all secretly relish living dangerously. Nothing like death and rockets to liven up an other ordinary life.

Hezbollah, Hamas, and every other anti-Israel militant group are the radicalized manifestations of Israel's inability to settle the Palestinian question (who's to blame for that is a separate issue).

Hezbollah only tangentially, in that Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon was related to the Palestinian question; Hamas far more directly. Not to debate, but just to point that out.

Because Israel isn't really trying to eliminate Hezbollah—just the rocket-launching capability. And if then they can get the international community serious about not letting Hezbollah resupply (that's the difference from the earlier Lebanon War), then the rocket threat abates.

At least until they go on the internet and figure out how to make a crude cruise missile in a garage workshop from sheet metal and readily available components.

It's worth remembering that the Hezbollah (and Hamas) attacks that touched off this conflagration were against Israeli soldiers, not civilians.

Israel's retaliation, not so much.

But no sovereign government can allow its people to be attacked, soldiers or not.

It might be helpful if people could describe what Israel should be doing instead this week to stop the attacks.

I had a big argument with my dad where I was rattling off the perspectives I share with Juan Cole about the whole thing, but I am stuck on the question as to what Israel should do right now to keep their people from being rocketed.

"Last week, there was a cross border incursion that left eight soldiers dead and two captured."

it's also probably worth noting that this cross border incursion occurred after israel went in to gaza hard, arrested hamas leaders, killed a fair number of palestinians and destroyed much of their infrastructure, such as it was.

Yet the darkest cloud on the 21st-century horizon is big states whose leaders may simply like to fight. Their reasons are tied up with pride, vengeance and martial religiosity and cannot be gratified through negotiations...What then should we do?

Yes, that is a very good characterization of Bush.

See the quotes where he tells his biographer of his intentions to wage war when he was still just a candidate.

ex-liberal (quoting WSJ): China is a traditional and, therefore, legitimate power.

Totalitarian government, established 1949. Heck, that was before I was born, so I guess it's "traditional" and "legitimate". Interesting criteria.

Now, if only Iran would buy US treasuries and supply cheap labor for TNC's, they'd be "legitimate" too.

Yet the darkest cloud on the 21st-century horizon is big states whose leaders may simply like to fight. Their reasons are tied up with pride, vengeance and martial religiosity and cannot be gratified through negotiations.

I agree, but then why did the WSJ endorse W?

The most likely scenario is an attempt to weaken Hezbollah enough to allow the Lebanese army to occupy the border zone and then include UN peacekeepers who will hopefully moderate between the Lebanese and Hezbollah. In the past, UN "peacekeepers" have often acted as human shields for the bad guys. Maybe this time it will be different. The ultimate solution is a reformation of Islam with an end to the triumphalist wing and an attempt to actually rule the poor folks who have the misfortune to live in these countries. That would be an improvement. Eternal jihad does not put food on the table.

What should Israel do? How about, one of these days, returning to the negotiating table and working out a just peace with the Palestinians?

ex-liberal: Yet the darkest cloud on the 21st-century horizon is big states whose leaders may simply like to fight. Their reasons are tied up with pride, vengeance and martial religiosity and cannot be gratified through negotiations...What then should we do?

Windhorse: Yes, that is a very good characterization of Bush.

Well, except for the part where he "likes to fight." The chickenhawk Bush much prefers to let others do his fighting for him.

What's changed? To start with, the withdrawal from Lebanon and the withdrawal from Gaza, followed by rocket attacks from closer to the Israeli cities, were calculated risks, and the result showed that they were of no benefit to Israel. Israel got no international good will at all from withdrawal of those "occupied territories". Secondly, the rise of the diverse Islamist militias and terrorist organizations has caused a large change in the way that most of the governments in the middle east view them -- mainly as enemies of everybody, not friends of Islam. Thirdly, the sponsorship by Iran of Hizbullah and some of the resistance in Iraq are alarming to the majority of citizens in the middle east, and to the governments. Fourthly, there have been a series of international condemnations of Syria, Lebanon, and Hizbullah, which have tended to portray Hizbullah as a target with few friends (as confirmed by the recent statements of the Arab League condemning Hizbullah.) Fifth, there is a large, powerful, and heavily armed U.S. force at Syria's back.

That's the start of the answer to your question. the goal is not to "destroy" Hizbullah, the goal is to destroy its weaponry. That will bring a respite to Israel. Eventually there will be another 20,000 rockets somewhere else aimed at Tel Aviv, but there will be time for Israel to prepare a plan to deal with them. For now, it is sufficient to destroy the 20,000 rockets that Hizbullah has, and to force Hizbullah away from the Israeli border.

Meanwhile, here is a comment about U.N. "forces" from Jed Babbin, courtesy of WSJ Opinion Journal: The U.N.'s years-long record on the Israel-Lebanon border makes mockery of the term "peacekeeping." On page 155 of my book, "Inside the Asylum," is a picture of a U.N. outpost on that border. The U.N. flag and the Hezbollah flag fly side by side. Observers told me the U.N. and Hezbollah personnel share water and telephones, and that the U.N. presence serves as a shield against Israeli strikes against the terrorists.

"Nazi government was destroyed, but its ideology lives on in the hearts of US conservatives." What a wonderful piece of brain vomit.
Let me try my hand at it.
“While France is a meaningless country with no power, the spirit of surrendering to anyone who looks at them with a mean face is alive and well in the hearts of the American progressive.” That was easy. And pointless, like the Nazi statement.

The Nazi government was not allowed to have a piece of land or permitted to continue in the world. They were essentially eliminated by artillery, infantry, air power, and some Divine help. While the philosophy of the Nazis still resides in various small parts of Germany and North America, they are irrelevant and generally despised by the intelligent world.
The Nazis weren't coddled or made to feel understood; they were stomped and killed and imprisoned. Some are still being rounded up, and they live in fear of being discovered. That is precisely what should happen to every member of Hezbollah and Al-Queda.

What should Israel do instead of what they are doing?

Return to its legal UN Chartered 1948 borders. If the other people in the region find this move unacceptable, the US should guarantee Israel's security.

And what if a warrior takes command of a large and modernizing nation-state, as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done?

...or Bush/Cheney a little closer to home?

We are accustomed to adversarial states with rational goals, like China.

The implications that the US' adversaries are irrational are getting rather old. One suspects that they're viewed as irrational simply because they perceive their national interest as in opposition to the US'.

Yet the darkest cloud on the 21st-century horizon is big states whose leaders may simply like to fight. Their reasons are tied up with pride, vengeance and martial religiosity and cannot be gratified through negotiations...

Again, the author doesn't draw the obvious comparison to George W. Bush.

What then should we do?

What indeed?

A better question may be: Can Israel destroy Hezbollah without destroying Lebanon ?

no sovereign government can allow its people to be attacked, soldiers or not.

True, but unfortunately, unlike Israel, Lebanon is able to do fuck-all about it.

It might be helpful if people could describe what Israel should be doing instead this week to stop the attacks.

Bullshit. That Israel should not be targeting civilians -- as they plainly are -- is all that need be said. There's no need to change the subject to debate Israel's hypothetical other courses of action when her current course of action -- which is, I might add, likely counterproductive -- is the topic.

What is different?
Nothing.
This is just an ongoing issue that stems from 1948, and to be perfectly honest, will be continuous in 2048 as well.
As long as Israel exists, one, or another muslim nation will get an itch to distract their population from their own national issues, and substitute the headlines with the [fill in hyperbole here] of Israel, and how the Jew's are [fill in more nonsense here].
You know, kinda of like when the Republicans get a little antsy when the public starts focusing in on their malfeaseance they'll throw out, "Homos, Terrorists, Values...oh my!" with the hopes that we'll all get distracted.

And the funny thing is..it works!

The most likely scenario is an attempt to weaken Hezbollah enough to allow the Lebanese army to occupy the border zone

Would that be the same Lebanese army whose barracks Israel has been bombing?

" So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?"

Perhaps the difference this time is that they aren't going to let reasonable, compassionate people stop them? As if WE could. The US military is already enmeshed in the region, and Bushco has been making warlike noises re Iran, so might welcome the opportunity to wage another war. They have to act like they are appalled, while shipping weapons to Israel.

"Convert or die" is an effective strategy--whether it is the Catholic Inquisition during the middle ages, genocide in Darfar or the Israel of the Old Testament. The ancient Israelis dominated the region because they were able to practice genocide whenever enemies threatened. Well, until that whole Babylonian exile thing. Today, civilized people are appalled by these historic tactics, but they worked a lot better than most of us care to believe. Immoral yes, effective, yes. And Right wing Christians and conservatives would celebrate such tactics them if it keeps "their" side safer: Torture, spying, genocide...whatever is necessary to protect the homeland.

Israel has more fire power than other ME countries--they could destroy & control Lebanon & Syria, if the rest of the world would let them. Maybe, now that the US has so conveniently destablized Iraq, the Israelis and oil-rich Iranians are squaring off for the final shootout at the Beirut corral. It's a religious war between the Judeo-Christians and the Muslims, thanks to GWB and the neo-cons bright ideas.

The way I see it, Israel has decided to create a DMZ in the south of Lebanon, with all the future benefits thereof (easier response to future Hizballah attacks). I believe Israel has actually formally told the citizens of that area to leave for the north. End of story.

I think Israel is trying to 1) temporarily stop the rocket attacks by destroying as much as possible (Hezbollah uses up/Israel destroys all the immediately available arsenal, and Hezbollah can't bring in new ones because there are no roads), which will enable Israel to claim victory at approximately the same time as 2) massive civilian Lebanese casualties prompt Europe and the U.N. to beg permission to send in a peace-keeping force, which will then keep the peace. Israel gets to declare victory and then declare that it has declined to go on to invade Lebanon and submits to European interference solely out of its humanistic impulses.

If Hezbollah's rocket attacks don't stop, Israel can always just ask the Europeans to send in a peacekeeping force, again citing their humane concerns for the Lebanese people (whose humnitarian crisis they will have in fact created, but this is where Murdoch does his bit for the cause). This version does not include the little victory dance, so it is not as much fun, but it still enables Israel to see what kind of rockets Hezbollah can actually fire and it gets Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon.

what *should* Israel do? Treat everyone under their rule fairly and freely, stop using "the situation" as the prennial stopgap for all their domestic issues, and instead resolve their internal issues over whether Israel will be secular or religious, socialist or capitalist, etc. But that would be too much work. Far better to indulge in Etgar Keret's bloody nostalgia

"The ancient Israelis dominated the region because they were able to practice genocide whenever enemies threatened."

wtf?
We are talking about ancient Israel, right?
Practice Genocide?
Whenever enemies threatened?
Dude, seriously, what are you taking, cause I want some too.
Subtract out Israel and substitute in Chaldean, Sumerian, Hittite, Eygptian, etc and you get the same statement.
Mighty big brush your stroking with there, buddy.

Israel should not be targeting civilians.

That's true.

They seem to think that they can convince Lebanon that accomodating Hezbollah is over, but attacking civilian infrastructure and populations to achieve political or military objectives is completely illegitimate. That simple fact is what we have all been trying to get across to Hamas for years.

The alternative, I guess, would be to reoccupy Southern Lebanon, directly attacking Hezbollah instead of bombing the Beirut airport. But then Israel would be occupying South Lebanon again, and it's not as though there aren't hundreds of thousands of civilians there.

So, that's why I'm asking what Israel should do. Not because what Israel is doing is acceptable but because it is unacceptable.

But nobody has come up with any kind of realistic answer so you should feel lucky you are not the Prime Minister of Israel.

"The ancient Israelities dominated the region because they were able to practice genocide whenever enemies threatened."

And then the ancient Israelities crossed paths with the ancient Romans, and discovered that, lo and behold, there were situations in which this tactic didn't work.

"And then the ancient Israelities crossed paths with the ancient Romans, and discovered that, lo and behold, there were situations in which this tactic didn't work."

As did the Germanics, the Dacians, the Eygptians, the Parthians...oh wait, no, fought that one to a stand still. Oh well, can't win everything all the time, now can we.
Yep, history, in it's full, unadulturated context disabuses the propagandist each and everytime.

Everything I know about war I learned from John Wayne and Tom Clancy.

This time Jesus is going to come down personally and kick Hezbollah's ass, and then convert all the Jews into nice little Republicans.

The alternative, I guess, would be to reoccupy Southern Lebanon, directly attacking Hezbollah instead of bombing the Beirut airport.

No, the alternative would be to not bomb the Beirut airport (and assorted other civilian targets), period.

So, that's why I'm asking what Israel should do. Not because what Israel is doing is acceptable but because it is unacceptable. But nobody has come up with any kind of realistic answer

As I indicated above, wetzel, "attacking Hezbollah" and "attacking Lebanese civilians" (to say nothing of "destabilizing the Lebanese government) are not at all inherently synonymous. The dilemma you seem to envision doesn't exist. The "realistic answer" is for Israel to attack Hezbollah and not civilian targets, full stop.

so you should feel lucky you are not the Prime Minister of Israel.

Would that the citizens of Lebanon were so lucky.

Israel could be doing more in the line of commando actions in Southern Lebanon, directly disrupting Hezbollah operations.

Dear International Friends of OneVoice,

There are rockets flying into Israel’s Northern towns as far down as Haifa as we write this, while the people of Gaza are in fear for their homes and lives, without electricity and running water. People are suffering, people are dying and people are afraid. It’s a crisis. We are writing to tell you though not to give up on us, or to give up on hope for an end to the conflict.

The situation today makes it very difficult to talk about conflict resolution - to see an end to the conflict. Sometimes it is easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel, at the moment the tunnel is dark. But this crisis and this conflict will end, and we say that with sobriety and rationality. As much as we feel helpless today, as rational people we must see any crisis as an opportunity to rise up and overcome the reasons that brought that crisis.

The situation will come to an end, when we do not know. In the meantime both people suffer so badly. Believe us that no-one is happy with this life. We want everyone around the world to know that we, and many friends and colleagues like us at OneVoice, are working to change this situation. We are ready. We are ready to do anything necessary to help end this situation. We have done so many activities and introduced so many people to OneVoice and it always gives them hope and energy. We can not and will not lose all of this however hard it is at this moment. We will strive to improve this life.

A resolution to the conflict may seem like a dream, but let us dream it and keep helping us do whatever we have to do to make it a reality. The day will never come when Israelis and Palestinians are prepared to accept living with this situation. How far we are from the day when we have a situation we will accept is hard to say, but we will work for it, even as the fighter jets and rockets go overhead, we will work for it.

Thank you,

Saed and Elad

Saed has been involved with OneVoice for around a year. He visits the OneVoice office to meet with other youth leaders and staff at least once a week and has even pioneered his own workshops on OneVoice in Ramallah, which have recruited many new volunteers. He spoke about OneVoice in Synagogues, community centers and campuses during OneVoice’s International Education Program tour to Canada.

Elad has also been volunteering for around a year. He uses his Arabic and Hebrew language skills to speak with both Arabs and Jews about the work of OneVoice and has served to educate and recruit activists in the Region and also in the US, where he spoke at over 10 venues on behalf of OneVoice during their International Education Program tour to New York.

OneVoice is a grassroots, non-partisan Israeli-Palestinian group working to empower moderates to stand up against extremism and seize back the agenda for conflict resolution. At a time when extremists are once again dominating the agenda, its need to exist and to deliver could not be more crucial

Israel could be doing more in the line of commando actions in Southern Lebanon, directly disrupting Hezbollah operations.

They do that already, but there's only so much a commando force can do against an army.

Orwell: . . . there are still some Nazi followers out there but they are relativily irrelevant.

Bushco is irrelevant.

Nice.

Kevin: So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?

People who believe in imaginary things, like Iraqi WMDs, are in charge.

"The "realistic answer" is for Israel to attack Hezbollah and not civilian targets, full stop."

And I would say not a egregious expectation, either. This is the same situation with the palestinians a few years ago when the Israeli Air Force dropped a thousand pound bomb on an apartment complex to take out one bomb maker. Yeah, they got the bomb maker, and 17 people who had nothing to do with the bomb maker either.
There are times when I just hang my head and wonder, "What goes through the mind of a politician when he orders a go for something like that?"
There is a time and place for a thousand pound bomb, and there is a time and place to send in a team to locate and neutralize a target.
Israel should know this, and why they are presently waging a full scale operation against Lebanon proper is confusing to me. It makes no sense.

Red: This time Jesus is going to come down . . . and . . . convert all the Jews into nice little Republicans.

One down (Lieberman) and millions more to go.

Would that be the same Lebanese army whose barracks Israel has been bombing?

This is exactly like when Israel started bombing the Palestinian security forces and said they would keep doing so until the Palestinian security forces successfully constrained militants attacking Israel.

Did a good job an weakening the PA and strengthening Hamas and Islamic Jihad, not so much good at constraining extremists.

One might almost think that some in the Israeli government prefer to weaken the less extreme forces and empower hostile extremists so as to justify continuing violence without any serious effort to reach a durable solution.

Bush is perfectly willing to let Israel continue its rampage, because it takes the focus off of the now-acknowledged civil war in Iraq.

Interestingly, the Iraqi parliament voted UNANIMOUSLY to condemn the Israeli actions against Hamas and Hizbullah. about the only thing they've been able to agree upon.

I am still waiting for MY existential question to be answered though; and that is: Israel is bombing civilian infrastructures and urban areas, blowing up apartments and so far 300-women and children.

When Palestinians do this, the world calls it "terrorism." How is it different, except as multiple orders of magnitude?

The alternative, I guess, would be to reoccupy Southern Lebanon, directly attacking Hezbollah instead of bombing the Beirut airport.

Israel is already using artillery, air strikes, and ground troops to attack Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. So, yeah, an alternative to doing that and attacking civilian targets that have little or nothing to do with Hezbollah is to do that without attacking civilian targets that have little or nothing to do with Hezbollah.

Israel's ability to wage war comes directly from US military aid and loan guarantees. Stop US aid to Israel and we stop Israeli military aggression.

The difference between this and other conflicts is the Lebanese state and the people of Lebanon are not belligerents. But they are treated as ‘enablers’ of a non-state entity that they cannot control and have been targeted. It may simply be that they will be required to police the remnants of Hizballeh and yield territory on their southern border to create a buffer zone.

Israel exists in a Hobbesian state of naked conflict against non-conventional forces at a time when the entire world is becoming post-modern. Because of this, there are no noble military solutions and any political compromise with such weak enemies would be defeat. The only hope is that the immoral bombing of the hapless Lebanese cannot continue without considerable international resistance. So Israel will have to fight its nasty demoralizing war on a fairly quick timescale.

Of course, the IDF wants to try to weaken it as much as possible, but also wants to make a buffer zone from Israel and Hizbullah.

Such a buffer is, of course, completely impossible but for either a negotiated armistice between the actual parties (Israel and Hezbollah) or a third party armed, capable, and willing to actually enforce the buffer against both sides.

(Obviously, Israel can't enforce a "buffer" that actually separates Israeli and Hezbollah positions, it can only move the de facto border.)

Wetzel..

If the british army and air force had laid waste to Northern and Southern Ireland every time that the IRA set off a bomb then I am sure that would not have helped matters at all. The only thing that stopped that situation was when all the actors involved came together and recognised that the only way forward was through negotiations rather than violence.

What response should Israel have made to the border incident? They should have demanded that the prisoners were returned and probably offered to return some or all of the lebanese they are currently holding prisoner after their own cross border adventures. What's good for one is good for the other.

This indescriminate violence just makes things worse.

Cmdicely,
Well, it takes two to make peace, and we know that those two are forever hostile to each other, so I guess we're left with option 2: Third party.

Now, who wants to get between those two inimical lions and keep them apart by force?

The genuine answer is that Hawkish commentators are a waste of time. They just make a living popping off at the mouth while other people go about solving problems in spite in the negative impact of hawkish commentators.

Hezbollah won't be wiped out, but they would lose much influence and power if Israel would come to an agreement with the Palestinians. Until that happens, there will always be a Hezbollah, even if it goes by another name.

Now, who wants to get between those two inimical lions and keep them apart by force?

Well, a number of European states have been offering forces and suggesting a UN stabilization force with a strong mandate, so that seems to answer that question.

" Israel could be doing more in the line of commando actions in Southern Lebanon, directly disrupting Hezbollah operations.

They do that already, but there's only so much a commando force can do against an army. "

And here's the hypocrisy...we keep hearing that Israel *must* respond because Hezbollah crossed the border to hit a military target. But we all know Israeli commandos do this routinely. Just as it became an international incident in Gaza when Palestinians crossed the border to kidnap a soldier but we heard *nothing* when JUST THE DAY BEFORE(!!) Israeli commandos went into Gaza and kidnapped two Palestinians!

Glad you have raised this question. It is a kind of bleeding obvious flaw in the Israeli objectives.

They have set a condition for ceasefire, (the disarming of Hezbollah) which is impossible. They have set objectives (the destruction of Hezbollah, withdrawal 30 miles into Lebanon) that are impossible. You have to conclude that one or more of the following are true. Israel...
1) doesn't want the conflict to end
2) has leaders that are stupid
3) doesn't care about its credibility

There is a very significant moral lesson here that should have been learned when we figured out that Osama bin Laden, a ruthless killer who was trained and funded by our CIA, was responsible for the WTC attacks in 2001 - Namely, that in trying to kill one enemy, we created another.

Will we ever learn???

wetzel writes:

But nobody has come up with any kind of realistic answer so you should feel lucky you are not the Prime Minister of Israel.

Use all their intelligence resources to locate their soldiers, and launch a commando raid to rescue them. Don't the Israelis excel at those type of actions, and is what they've done historically? If your question is what should Israel to do rescue their soldiers, that's what they should've done. But it's apparent that is not what Israel wants - they want to punish Hezbollah for sympathizing with Hamas. It's pretty obvious that the border incursion is just an excuse.

"It might be helpful if people could describe what Israel should be doing instead this week to stop the attacks."

I am assuming that you are talking about Israel's response to the original 2 captured soldiers. Here's what i would do.

Pick a list of Hezbollah military sites, preferably where they have difficult to move expensive military hardware. Israel seems to be pretty confident it knows where they are, as evidenced by the bombing campaign. Send in lightning ground raids with supporting air strikes. You will either destroy the Hezbollah military infrastructure unchallenged, or kill and perhaps capture alot of Hezbollah fighters. Do this until you have killed and captured about five times your losses from the original raid. Of course that would entail further Israeli military casualties, but if Israeli sovereignty is so important, surely its worth a few IDF lives?

At the moment it just looks like Israel would rather kill several hundred Lebanese civilians, than suffer any more IDF casualties, which makes Israel look weak and hypocritical.

I'm becoming angrier by the day as this 'crisis' wears on. The US media is back to fearmongering with reporting threats to US soil by Hezbollah. Unfortunately, the idiots don't even report those facts correctly. They seem to think that the threat comes from Lebanese-based Hezbollah (as if they don't have their hands full right now) instead of reporting that it is the Iranian Hezbollah, an entirely different group. I fail to understand how anyone could support the demolition of an entire country in order to form a buffer zone between Israel and S. Lebanon. I'm beginning to lose my ability to stay centered in the middle somewhere. This is outrageous. I'm sick of the US and Israeli governments and their mindless aggressions.

Such a buffer is, of course, completely impossible but for either a negotiated armistice between the actual parties (Israel and Hezbollah) or a third party armed, capable, and willing to actually enforce the buffer against both sides.

I disagree with you there. Israel can create a buffer by defeating Hezbollah, and they can maintain it unilaterally for probably a couple decades at least. What Israel probably can't do is prevent the Syrians from accumulation 20,000 longer-range rockets up near the Syria-Turkey-Iraq borders; or prevent Iran from distributing 20,000 longer-range rockets along the coast of the Persian Gulf.

There is a "permanent" desire to destroy Israel, and Israel can survive only be defeating each emergency temporarily.

Well, when Israel enterred Southern Lebanon oh so many years ago, there was no Hezbollah. Israeli policies helped create Hezbollah.

One thing all these years show, Iraeli policies of military solutions and punishment of civilian populations doesn't work to reduce violence and terrorism. It does act as good smoke screen if the long term policy is full control of Jerusalem and the juicy parts of the West Bank, if not all, based I guess on the idea that time is the best weapon. The fly in the ointment is that the Palestinians continue to refuse to accept Bush's "facts on the ground" as the best they can get or deserve.

The argument that continued violence after the withrawl from Gaza shows that a peaceful solution is impossible rings false when any objective analysis shows that the Israelis have never stopped interfering, militarily and politically, with Palestinian attempts to form some kind of strong governing entity that could negotiate effectively.

Given the current Israeli campaign of bypassing Hezbollah to destroy the economy of Lebanon as a whole and sabotage the political progress made since the winding down of the Lebanon civil war, I would say that Israel doesn't want a strong effective negotiating partner in Lebanon either.

Since the current Israeli government doesn't want an effective negotiating partner, I see no reason to beleive that the cycle will not continue just as it has done, with the Israel-can-do-no-wrong supporters of Israel in the US controlling our internal political discussion of the issue so the outcome follows the current Israeli government's line. Contrary to the position of pro-Israel fanatics that control so much of this discussion on any forum, throwing the weight of the US toward some solution that may not be the prefferred outcome of the Israelis doesn't equate to wanting to wipe Israel off the map.

Of course, since what is happening now is following the PNAC script closely, we dont appear to be anywhere near the point of a new national discussion about a possible independent position regarding Israel and its neighbors.

Just as it became an international incident in Gaza when Palestinians crossed the border to kidnap a soldier but we heard *nothing* when JUST THE DAY BEFORE(!!) Israeli commandos went into Gaza and kidnapped two Palestinians!

I'm generally a strong Israel supporter, but good point.

For accuracy's sake, I do wish people would stop saying the soldiers were "kidnapped." The capture of an armed soldier in a war zone by hostile fighters he's in combat with is not a "kidnapping." Our POWs in WWII, for example, were not "kidnapped" by the Germans and Japanese.

All those people around the globe that have been "disappeared" by US agents, though -- now they've been kidnapped, but the media never uses that term and says they were "captured."

Yes, it's a topsy-turvy world out here....

I am surprised at the bad intel the IDF has - on the number and the range of the Hezbollah rockets, the positions of the missile batteries (since Hezbollah are still firing), and of course, on where Nasrallah himself is.

Looks like it's not only the USA that has problems in this area.

what is happening now is following the PNAC script closely,

With that, you pretty much wiped out the preceding parts of your post.

"So what's changed since then to make us think that the IDF can do it now?"

Hezbollah has expanded their weapons arsenal, which means it's even LESS likely that the IDF can rub them out.

Some Israeli military muckity-muck just admitted they were ambushed when they tried to cross the Lebanese border, took extensive casualties, and had to retreat.
.

VJ -- I dunno, dude. More weaponry=more stuff to blow up. The IDF probably likes their chances.

I am surprised at the bad intel the IDF has - on the number and the range of the Hezbollah rockets, the positions of the missile batteries (since Hezbollah are still firing), and of course, on where Nasrallah himself is.

Looks like it's not only the USA that has problems in this area.

Interesting.All those who talk about the the IDF moving in with " lightning raids" supported by airstrikes as better than what Israel is doing now dont seem to grasp that Hezollah HAS ITS MILITARY HARDWARE, MATETRIALS & FORCES STASHED AMONG CIVILIAN TARGETS.
Maybe you geniuses can explain how the Israeli Air Force can take out a rocket launcher mounted atop an apartment building without destroying that apartment building.

After that , you can explain how the Israelis can attack a military camp without civilian casaulties if the the military camp is located IN THE VILLAGE.

Finally, you can explain how the IDF can destroy a Hezbollah weapons cache without hurting civilians if its located inside someone's HOME.

Once you figure those things, then you can tell not only the IDF but EVERY military that has had to fight a guerilla war.Nobody has figured out how to do this yet, but we must have some military geniuses posting on this blog, because they sure seemed to have figured it out...

This doesn't mean all that the IDF is doing is right. It does mean that its a damn sight tougher than some of these moralistic " geniuses" will admit.

I don't know exactly how it will get there, but i have a bad feeling that this will end with US military bases in Lebanon and the West Bank.

My response to those who will point out how overstretched our military has become is that every day US troops remain in the Middle East bring us one day closer to the resumption of the draft.

republicrat:
My post wasn't really directed at an eternal-armageddon-paradigm fanatic like you seem to be. There isn't much reasoning with those who believe morality and law doesn't apply to them because their very existance is ALWAYS at stake. They dont come easily to the negotiating table because it requires a dramatic shift in self-identity.

On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if there is a US backed attack on Iran and/or Syria. If so, that would show events on the ground following the PNAC script pretty closely. I never really paid much attention to PNAC as much more than some vague musings, even with the Iraq war and occupation fitting it. But my radar's beeping now.

I don't know exactly how it will get there, but i have a bad feeling that this will end with US military bases in Lebanon and the West Bank.

10 years ago I would have said that would be (a component of) a good solution.

Today, not so much; but then, I don't see it happening. The US is evidently uninterested in containing Israeli-Arab fighting, and is actually encouraging it; it seems unlikely that even if the US doesn't outright veto an expanded and toughened replacement for UNIFIL (much less a stabilization force in Palestine) that the US would bother to contribute ground troops to such a force.

If a nation allows terrorists to openly wage war on their neighbor, then that nation must be treated as an enemy. If nations like
Syria and Lebanon learn that lesson, it will be a better world.

'mjk' posted:

"VJ -- I dunno, dude. More weaponry=more stuff to blow up."

Not only can't they find Hezbollah's arsenals, the IDF doesn't even know what they have. Look at whatever it was (missile, drone) that severely damaged an Israeli naval vessel at sea. The Israeli military really freaked out over that one.

.

"The IDF probably likes their chances."

They didn't like how their special forces got ambushed earlier today when they tried to cross the Lebanese border. Then the military forces sent to rescue them took direct mortar hits, and they all had to retreat.

The IDF doesn't seem to like it when somebody actually fights back.
.

If a nation allows terrorists to openly wage war on their neighbor, then that nation must be treated as an enemy.

Do you really want to encourage the annihilation of one of the US's "major non-NATO allies" by its democratic neighbor?

Syria and Lebanon learn that lesson, it will be a better world Walter E. Wallis 7:54 PM

pssst Mike -- you aren't supposed to notice that.

Israel is filled with poor victims of the holocaust, who are murdering their neighbors so they can have a homeland.

Genocide is okay if you are a refugee from Hitler, or some such nonsense.

IS anybody starting to question the bull crap we've been fed for half a century???

Who is responsible for the distorted history books? Who is responsible for the distorted coverage of the carnage?

Who is responsible for the absence of an anti war candidate in either party???

ITS THE JEWS _ STUPID!!! -- aways has been - and if we speak up - WE are evil nazis.

Now THAT is a propaganda machine that works.

They seem to think that they can convince Lebanon that accomodating Hezbollah is over, but attacking civilian infrastructure and populations to achieve political or military objectives is completely illegitimate. That simple fact is what we have all been trying to get across to Hamas for years.



The alternative, I guess, would be to reoccupy Southern Lebanon, directly attacking Hezbollah instead of bombing the Beirut airport. But then Israel would be occupying South Lebanon again, and it's not as though there aren't hundreds of thousands of civilians there.

They seem to think tha

Well, a number of European states have been offering forces and suggesting a UN stabilization force with a strong mandate, so that seems to answer that question.

Nonsense! The EU had zero offensive capabilities in Serbia and that's in Europe. There is no chance France can muster the effort.

What has changed is the world view of terrorism since 9/11. While the EU is still scared of its own shadow, the Israeli's have the support of not only America, but other countries as well. Saudi Arabia and Egpyt have spoken against the Hezbollah actions.

Israel knows that they are not alone this time, and since they have done everything that the world wanted them to do by leaving Lebanon in 2000 and giving up the Gaza in 2005, yet still endure violence, they have had enough.

I say Good for Them! I hope we support them by whatever means we have.

It's funny that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, the three countries in the middle east with the worst human rights records, authoritarian governments (in saudi women aren't allowed to vote), endemic corruption, lack of transparency and free speech, are the ones to condemn the actions of hizbullah. Ofcourse they are also the three largest recipients of US military and foreign aid outside of israel and pakistan. As for roberts comment that Israel is fighting back, this is ridiculous as they broke the year-long ceasefire with HAMAS in the first place. Israel has systematically radicalised politics amongst its neighbours to reduce their potential for internal cohesion and hence negotiating strength, much in the way they initially funded HAMAS as an alternative to the PLO in the 1980's. In the meantime, through the fear of terrorism, they have created leeway for their own extremist elements to occupy the most important positions in government. The majority of Israelis, who have no desire for another war and also have strong ideas of social justice and equality, have been largely relegated to the sidelines. An indicator of this is the gradually lower voter participation rates in Israeli elections. I'd suggest people read the Haaretz columnist Uri Avnery for more.

mhr:
I love this new GOP talking point - blame John Kerry! John Kerry's ME policy will lead us down the wrong road! But wait! John Kerry isn't president. Not only that, his party isn't in control of the whitehouse or even one branch of congresss. What am I missing here?

Gingrich and Co day before yesterday blamed John Kerry for the current aimless ineffective N. Korea policy!

Every day you wake up and say the Republicans cant get any more surreal, but they keep topping themselves - like something by that painter Hironymous Gosh. (Bosch? or is that the power tool company? looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue!)

The US is evidently uninterested in containing Israeli-Arab fighting, and is actually encouraging it; it seems unlikely that even if the US doesn't outright veto an expanded and toughened replacement for UNIFIL (much less a stabilization force in Palestine) that the US would bother to contribute ground troops to such a force

The US is interested in the elimination of ALL terrorist organizations and that's Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel now has the strongest supprt from the US under any President at any time. They will operate as they see fit. Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac will have no say in the matter. Israel will end this at a time of their choosing.

Not only is GWB not getting any International pressure he's not getting any domestic pressure. The current liberal absurdity being ripped to shreds is this whacko concept of proportionality.

As a wartime strategy it is the dumbest thing I ever heard of and that seems to be the consensus outside the left fringe.

It's also true the USA will not be contributing any troops to a border guard. GWB will not put US troops under the command of any other institution. What they will support is Hezbollah leave Lebanon and cease to exist.

Israel has never wanted 'peace' just land, for none of which there is the remotest historic justification.

What a pity our own Fundamentalist Leaders (Those of sick jokes such as stem cell research vetos!) have not studied a few facts behind their own religion so that they know the Old Testament is not in any way factual but, written in c632BC, is fictional and largely political propaganda. The doses of religion sre adjuncts.

First land -- 1948.
Second land -- 1956 (made, eventually, to give most back, though)
Third water primarily, but land with it -- 1967
Fourth security land -- 1982 - lost it.

Hitlerian Nazism is alive and well and is in Israel and latently in the US Adminisdtraion.

Just to remind readers --- this list of quotations was posted on the 16th. Even Hitler and Himmler would not have dared make these statements in public!

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.
"I would have joined a terrorist organization."
-- Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
-- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.

"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
-- Israeli Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988.

Wearing his other hat -- terrorist, Yitzak Shamir murdered Count Bernadotte, the UN Repreasentative, in King George Avenue in Jerusalem, in 1948. You know, that same Bernadotte who saved thousands of Jews from the Germans.

"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.

(The King David Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up by Menachem Begin in 1946. Those murders, which he proudly owned, caused him never to land in London on his travels to Camp David for fear of arrest on his own admission. And, BTW, the King David was owned by an old old Egypt and Palestine-dwelling Jewish family called Moseri. They had probably evacuated to Egypt in 70-77AD!)
"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!"
-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."
-- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist."
-- Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
-- David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

It completely amazes me that the US apart from its Zionists did not recognize years ago how bad for our economy it is to support illegal Israel. It is even more important now with Russia becoming stronger and stronger.

Islamic fundamentalism grew out of our actions --and we were bamboozled into those actions by AIPAC and now PNAC.

If we were to turn about tomorrow, stop giving Israel money and demand the loans be repaid, until and unless Israel complies in their entirety with all the Security Council Resolutions we assist it in flouting, there would be an amazing outgrowth of peace, even with the additional 40 years of furious desperation amongst the Palestinians the US's actions have induced.

The US is interested in the elimination of ALL terrorist organizations and that's Hezbollah and Hamas. ..rdw 1:47 PM

Bush has never done anything that would diminish the reasons for people to joint al Qa'ida, Hamas or Hezbollah. In fact, his deeds have encouraged their growth and effectiveness.

Hamas and Hezbollah are political parties, both democratically elected to positions in the government of their respective countries. Like it or not, they have legitimacy.

Bush has utter failure in every policy Initiative, on every front: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Syria, Europe, South American, and Asia.

As long as the US supports Israel unequivocally and Israel commits acts of terror, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other reprehensible acts, groups dedicated to countering Israel and practicing anti-Americanism will flourish.

A sensible, intelligent President could undertake intelligent sensible policies and actually lessen the incidents of terrorism in the world.

That is pretty big talk from a guy who is afraid to join the fight.
maybe you are right....................