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| 5/17 |
| 2006/7/28-8/1 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others] UID:43826 Activity:kinda low |
7/27 I don't know if you guys are aware of this. Traditionally, there
is an ideological war waged within the Islamic Middle East: Shiite
preaching backed by Iran, and Sunni by Saudi Arabia. Traditionally,
Saudi is very wary of Iran's intention and don't support activities
of Hezbollah. But thanks to Israel's dispropotionate response and
US' silence on this matter, we have effectively rallied Sunnis behind
Hezbollah: http://tinyurl.com/ljmkr --hussein@soda
\_ The Sunnis and Shiites have always been able to get together on
the subject of destroying Isreal.
\_ Israel should just evacuate for 5 years, then come back and
move back into the (decimated but) depopulated wasteland that
would remain.
\_ They did that. It allowed Hezbollah to build up stronger
than ever before and made them bold enough to attack over
the boarder, kill a bunch of Israeli soldiers and kidnap
a few others.
\_ Hehe. You misunderstand. I mean evauate Israel. Imagine
the battle over that one.
\_ Yes, I misread. Cute.
\_ They've never "been able to get together", even for this goal.
They've independently pursued the same aim. -John
\_ I love the phrase "disproportionate response". Which is just a
way of saying, "Israel shouldn't defend her people or attack her
enemies. Israel should put up with attacks that no other nation
in the world would even consider putting up with. Israel should
die. I hate Jews."
\_ Your dictionary needs revising. Disproportionate response implies
the existence of a proportionate response, i.e., targeting
Hezbollah missile crews or even the possibility of creating a
a DMZ in southern Lebanon. Bombing Beirut into dust, OTOH, is
overkill. Btw, I wholeheartedly support Israel's right to defend
itself, so drop the accusation of anti-Semitism. It's not
relevant to this conversation.
\_ Ok, the last part was a cheap shot. I take that back. As to
the rest: Beirut is not being carpet bombed. Hezbollah is
mixed in with the general population. How do you propose
they kill Hezbollah thugs without harming the civilians they
hide among? And you want the DMZ back? No one including
Israel wanted the DMZ in the first place. The DMZ was
Hezbollah's (and other's) excuse for six years to attack
Israel. They called it 'occupation' which was an accurate
description. And with missile ranges getting longer and
longer DMZs no longer make sense in such tiny places. Soon
all of Lebananon will have to be a DMZ which is just silly.
Why did the UN broker a fake peace in 2000 which was supposed
to have Israel leave southern Lebanon *AND* disarm Hezbollah
and then do nothing to make sure Hezbollah was disarmed?
Quite the opposite, the UN betrayed Israel and stood by
'observing' while Hezbollah spent the last 6 years becoming
stronger than ever while doing and saying nothing about it
and now Khofi whines when his unarmed and missionless
observers get killed because they allow themselves to be used
as human shields. At least finally today they pulled those
guys out and sent them to hang out with "lightly armed UN
peace keeping forces" elsewhere in the region. So here's the
theoretical: you're King of Israel for the day/week/month/etc,
and you can have the country do anything you'd like for that
time period. What's your plan?
\_ Step one: Stop bombing Beirut.
Step two: Mumble mumble.
Step three: Profit?
The point has been made, the punishment has been inflicted,
the international community is now ready to step in and
act. Let them. Then reevaluate.
\_ Where do you see the international community being
willing to do anything? Link?
willing to do anything? What do you expect
them to do? Link?
\_ I expect them to put UN Peacekeeping Troops on the
ground with explicit orders to shoot Israels or
Hezbollah or anyone who brandishes a weapon or fires
a missile. Sure, I'm optimistic, but I think they
deserve a chance.
\_ Ok, I don't exactly disagree, but I'm pretty
sure Hezbollah could still fire rockets
whenever they wanted under those conditions.
\_ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5225358.stm
\_ Who is going to donate troops?
\_ are you blind or something. Ever since Israel pull out
of Southern Lebanon, Lebanon has made tremedous progress.
It got a centeral government for the first time, each
of ethnic fractions has stopped killing each other. Roads,
hospitals, schools, power plants were being build, economy
were humming at 3-5%. Politically, Lebanon slow gaining
is autonomy and finally kicked out Syrian troops;
Hezbollah is finally being integrated into Lebanon's
political progress. Rocket attacks and border incursion
has dropped to virtually zero. Hezbollah was under
tremedous pressure to either be incorporated into
Lebanonese Army or completely disarmed... now, 15 years
of work, completely went down to the drain. Do you think
Lebanonese is going to disarm Hezbollah now? No. In
fact, I bet many of them is going to either join Hezbollah
or going to fight along with them.
\_ Nice way to completely ignore why Israel is currently
attacking. If their kidnapped soliders were returned
they would stop attacking and leave Lebanon. How about
you blame the victims? Oh wait, you already are.
Hezbollah isn't under any pressure to do anything.
They run the country and there is zero pressure to
disarm them. Your evaluation of the situation is a
complete fabrication.
\_ you really think this bombing of Lebanonese
infrastructure is about these two captured
soldiers?
\_ yes. you really think that israel attacked just
because they wanted to destroy lebanese
infrastructure? no. there had been peace for
6 long years which is a near miracle in that area
until the cross border attack by hezbollah.
\_ So they would show their true stripes, I say.
\_ i don't know. do you blame them for it? at the
time their population was 2+ million, over 18000
civilians were killed by Israelis. Israeli-backed
Christian group were killing every Muslim they can
find. Fastfoward to today, close to 10% of the
population is now being displaced by Israelis. IDF's
tactic is almost constitute as a terror campaign
as fleeting convoys, IFRC relief trucks are bombed
on daily basis. If your family and 4 of your
child brother sister died of IDF bombing as they
were trying to flee, what would you do? say
"ohh well, shit happens?" and blaming Hezebollah
for it?
\_ Again, you ignore history, write your own
version and blame the victim. The IDF invaded
in 1982 because... Jews are mean? They invaded
again in 2006 because... Jews are mean? You
make it sound like there is no reason for
Israeli actions, as if they operate in a
vaccuum. If you'd like to post something that
makes sense, please do, but enough of the
bizarre historical reconstructions. There has
been peace on the border since the Israeli
pull out in 2000 which was supposed to include
a UN mandated disarming of Hezbollah. In 2006
after 6 years of build up and no response from
the UN but to 'observe' the build up, Israel
was attacked over the border, soliders killed
and others kidnapped. Come back when you'd like
to have a reality based discussion.
\_ There is a differences between Hezbollah's
attack of soldiers versus IDF's indiscriminate
attack of Lebanonese civilians and civilian
infrastructures. Israel knows Lebanon can't
control Hezbollah, yet holding entire
4 million Lebanon civilians accountable for
it.
\_ I love how you try to reframe the debate
by choosing inflamatory words but you
avoid facts, context and history. It's
such a cheap rhetorical tactic but I'll
briefly correct you once again even though
I know you're just trolling now. I'm
posting because I think the truth is
important, not because your troll comment
deserves a reply: Hezbollah shouldn't
even exist today. Their very existence is
a violation of the 2000 UN brokered peace
agreement. They attacked a sovereign
state across a peaceful border, killed
some soldiers, kidnapped others who they
won't return and now fire hundreds of
rockets every day into civilian areas in
Israel with the intent of killing and
terrorising civilians. Hezbollah *is* the
Lebanese government and have the support
of the Lebanese people, directly or
indirectly. The cross border attack is an
act of war of one nation against another.
Unfortunately for the civilians in
Lebanon, their government uses them as
shields, storing weapons and firing
weapons from within apartment buildings
and other normally purely civilian areas.
If the Lebanese people can't or won't
change their government to something civil
and can't or won't clean Hezbollah out
then Israel is going to do it for them and
some of them are going to die. Civilians
always get the most hurt in war. What
would you have Israel do to defend itself?
Nothing. You would have Israel cease to
exist or the Israeli population fall under
daily rocket attack with no response.
Stop supporting terrorist states so the
people in those states can have normal
lives. Why are you so opposed to the
Lebanese having a real life without
Hezbollah? I'd like to see everyone in
the region have a long happy prosperous
life. That can't happen when terrorists
are running around armed to the teeth
functioning as proxy armies for Syria and
Iran.
\_ With implicit UN support, no less.
\_ Bombing and killing Muslims is always a good idea...Faster,
please.
\_ Then the Orthodox Jews, then the Fundies, hurray!
\_ Will all religious fanatics worldwide please report
to the martyrdom booths? Paradise is waiting!
\_ and/or rapture |
| 5/17 |
|
| tinyurl.com/ljmkr -> www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/middleeast/28arabs.html?_r=2&hp&ex=1154059200&en=d6633724ec1cf9d0&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Changing Reaction Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah Agence France-Presse Getty Images A crowd in Cairo on Wednesday, cordoned off by the police, condemned the killing of Lebanese civilians and expressed support for Hezbollah. Forum: The Middle East 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 groups leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements. 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. Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams for the victims of Israeli aggression. 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 1960s, 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. Egypts 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! 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 Rices 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. 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 Hezbollahs rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight. 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. said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists. Mr Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollahs 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? 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. |
| news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5225358.stm Printable version Bush aims for rapid Lebanon force Pakistani Shia Muslim women trample on posters of Bush and Blair in a protest against the Israeli offensive in Lebanon The leaders have been accused of condoning the Israeli offensive An international force must be quickly despatched to Lebanon, US President George W Bush has said. After talks in Washington with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Bush said the two countries' goal was to achieve a "lasting peace" in the region. The US secretary of state is returning to the region on Saturday. Earlier, Hezbollah said it had fired a new long-range rocket, called the Khaibar-1, into northern Israel. Meanwhile, the UN has called for a 72-hour truce in the conflict zone in southern Lebanon to allow humanitarian aid in and to get casualties out. Mr Bush said he and Mr Blair had agreed an international force would augment the Lebanese army, and assist with the distribution of humanitarian aid. He told reporters their top priorities in dealing with the crisis were to: * Help provide immediate humanitarian relief * Achieve an end to the violence * Return those displaced by the crisis * Help with reconstruction Mr Bush said Condoleezza Rice would hold talks with the leaders of Israel and Lebanon to agree a proposal to achieve lasting peace. The UN Security Council would meet next week to discuss the issue, he added. This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East... UN calls for truce "Our goal is a Chapter Seven resolution setting out a clear framework for cessation of hostilities on an urgent basis and mandating the multinational force," he said. "Prime Minister Blair and I believe that this approach gives the best hope to end the violence and create lasting peace and stability in Lebanon." The leaders' meeting comes amid growing pressure on the US and UK to join calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. But the BBC's James Coomerasamy in Washington said that their fundamental position did not appear to have changed - rather than demanding an immediate ceasefire, Mr Bush and Mr Blair called for a framework to enable the cessation of hostilities. "This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East," Mr Bush said. "Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region." Hezbollah's missiles Mr Blair said he and Mr Bush agreed that a UN resolution was needed as quickly as possible to stop the fighting in Lebanon. But he warned: "Nothing will work unless as well as an end to the immediate crisis, we put in place the measures necessary to prevent it occurring again." As the two leaders held talks, the violence continued on the ground. Hezbollah said its new rocket had landed south of the city of Haifa, the deepest strike inside Israel so far. Israeli police have confirmed that a previously unknown rocket carrying up to 100kg of explosives had struck an area near the town of Afula. The attack came as the Israeli army said it would deploy patriot anti-missile batteries near Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city, in case Hezbollah started using longer-range missiles. The strike formed part of a barrage of more 100 rockets fired into northern Israel, injuring at least seven people. Israel has carried out dozens of fresh strikes on Lebanon. Lebanese officials said at least 12 people had been killed. Israel said late on Friday that 26 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in fighting around the town of Bint Jbeil. Convoy hit Earlier on Friday, two mortar rounds hit a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians escaping the violence in southern Lebanon. In pictures: Lebanon crisis The convoy, organised by the Australian embassy, was returning to the port city of Tyre from the border village of Rmeish, where hundreds of people have been trapped by the Israeli offensive. Our correspondent says the cars were clearly marked as a press and civilian convoy, and that individual journalists had been in contact with the Israelis who knew about the journey. The Israeli Defence Forces said they did not believe the mortars were theirs but were still checking. Air strikes Some 425 Lebanese, the vast majority civilians, are confirmed killed in the 17 days of the conflict - but a Lebanese minister has suggested scores more bodies lie under the rubble. Send us your views Fifty-one Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, have been killed, mostly by Hezbollah rockets. The Israeli assault began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on 12 July. Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz stressed on Friday Israel had no plans to start operations against Syria. In other developments: * A Jordanian man was killed and at least three other people wounded in one of several strikes in Kfar Joz, close to the south Lebanese market town of Natabiyeh * There were multiple strikes on the Bekaa Valley to the east, on villages around Tyre, and roads in the south-east * Israeli soldiers killed at least 15 Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbeil, the Israeli army said. Israel suffered its worst single losses in the southern town on Wednesday * Unarmed UN observers have been temporarily relocated from border positions in southern Lebanon after the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli strike on Tuesday * Israeli military chief Dan Halutz was taken to hospital after feeling unwell but later returned home, Israeli Channel 10 TV reported. |