Israel launches raids on Lebanon

[Shaka Zulu]

But not too many classify them as terrorrists(for the reasons you stated), besides the minor terrorist acts, which many Western countries and other influential UN members dont see as enough reason to lable them as terrorists(Its not terrorism to flat out attack your enemy and such).

I don't think any terrorist act can be described as minor. It's kind of an oxymoron.

Obviously, yes. Meant in comparison to the track record of other internationel terrorist groups, and their political agenda and being more or less a strictly localized resistance group instead of a bit more extremist "kill everyone" terrorist group.

[Brainpiercing]

Yeh, my last post may have come off as a little harsh. I am trying very hard to resist emotional influences. I'm still trying for a differentiated view on the conflict.
I am, however, also becoming quite cynical about it. This may show now and then.

[Quest]

brain, you come across as a strong proponent for israel: "israel must survive. israel must survive."

any reasons for the strong emtions?

[Brainpiercing]

I have several reason.

First of all, nothing will be solved by getting rid of Israel. All that will cause is more harm. At present, the muslim states and populations around Israel just haven't realised that it's too late to turn back time. In fact, nearly every country around Israel could profit immensely if they just stopped fighting. The Palestinians could profit immensely if they were to make a real peace.
Also, I have a firm belief that the agression initially did not come from the Israeli people, but that the muslim and other people around Israel suddenly wanted to wipe it off the map. YES Israel was founded with an unclear heritage, and there are numerous reason why it doesn't belong where it is, but it IS there.

Second, Israel is a democracy and a state where democratic ideals are followed. YES they have their share of radicals, but generally anybody can live in Israel without fear of persecution. It's also a western state, and an ally of the west. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that has meaning for you, but as a citizen of a western state, I feel an alliance with other nations who follow this way of life. YES I know that the west is wasteful and arrogant and probably has many other flaws, but I can't say I don't like living here. I don't know whether I would be just as satisfied living elsewhere. There are numerous ideals in western democracies which are not found elsewhere, and I would not want to miss them.

And finally, I doubt the ideals and motives of those who want to destroy Israel. They are fighting mostly for themselves, because they can only gain authority while there is no peace. If there were peace, many radical leaders in the middle east would lose influence. The people who have to actually do the fighting and dying are the victims of those leaders.

That being said, I can't deny that the number of victims in this recent war is horrifying. And the socital make-up of the victims, as almost exclusively civilians, is even more terrible. However, I have to agree with the recent position by the Israeli government and the US government that a cease-fire now will not solve anything. It will merely extend the conflict. Which is why I hope the Lebanese people near the border DO follow the leaflets and leave, because I anticipate a lot more destruction to come in the next few days.

[Oro]

Four U.N. peacekeepers killed by Israel,most likely it was deliberate,just to tell U.N. to mind there own business.

[Quest]

Four U.N. peacekeepers killed by Israel,most likely it was deliberate,just to tell U.N. to mind there own business.

yeah my gut is telling me that too.
psi's post on the liberty mostly skew my thinking to that.

=)

[Sortep]

but if anyone does anything.... instantly they're ostracized as anti-semitic... thats got to be the greatest shit ticket to do whatever you want in history

[elric le tueur d'amis]

false,they can kill who they want cause they have the better ally in the world : U.S.A.
It is true that Israel call "anti-semitic" anyone who doesn't agree with his view but it isn't the reason why this state is not punished for his crimes...

[Quest]

the reason is that they already control the US government and EU!
now all they have to do is take over the middle east and soon the world!!!

[elric le tueur d'amis]

the world isn't enough,they want the whole universe.

[Quest]

no way! the centauri will stop the evil semintics with their time machine.

[psi29a]

source

JERUSALEM (AP) - U.N. observers in Lebanon telephoned the Israeli military 10 times in six hours to ask it to stop shelling near their position before an Israeli attack destroyed their border outpost, killing four observers and sparking widespread international anger with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep regret" for the deaths and dismay over U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's accusation that the attack Tuesday on the observation post in Khiam, near the eastern end of the border with Israel, was "apparently deliberate."

USS Liberty anyone? Israel's message is "Mind your own business."

[Tempest]

Hezbollah : "We've got some of your men!"
Isreal : "We can fix that."
Hezbollah: "Do'h!"



What did they expect was going to happen?

[Brainpiercing]

It's hard to believe the Israeli army has such communication problems that the UN phonecalls didn't reach the right people. So even I'll agree that most probably the bombing was deliberate.

The only thing that could stand against that is that the outpost wasn't in fact hit by a precision weapon from an aircraft, but rather by a dumb bomb or an artillery shell. The news media has ridiculous accuracy reporting this kind of thing. They call everything a precision weapon nowadays. However, most of the ordnance Israel is shooting into lebanon still has to be artillery. If the outpost was somewhere out in the open then it might have been a target zone for artillery, since it was reported that even during rescue operations the outpost was still under fire. I don't imagine that even Israel throws precision bombs into fields.
All that doesn't change the fact that while it may not have been 100% deliberate, it was definitely a risk they were willing to take.

[Buzkashi]

Hezbollah : "We've got some of your men!"
Isreal : "We can fix that."
Hezbollah: "Do'h!"



What did they expect was going to happen?

Not that. That would be like some Mexican Gang, iono Latin Kings maybe, coming and kidnapping to soldiers from Miramar then driving back to Mexico asking for whatever they wanted from us. In retaliation we go in and bomb the shit out of most of Mexico killing hundreds if not thousands. I dont think that would be justified and I dont think Israel's actions are justified.

[psi29a]

source

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday called Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki an "anti-Semite" for failing to denounce Hezbollah for its attacks against Israel.

Al-Maliki has condemned Israel's offensive, prompting several Democrats to boycott his address to a joint meeting of Congress and others to criticize him. Dean's comments were the strongest to date.

"The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite," the Democratic leader told a gathering of business leaders in Florida. "We don't need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah."

Another fucking democrat shooting his mouth off again. Guess he didn't get that memo, Arabs are Semites too... dipshit.

Sem·ite Audio pronunciation of "Semite" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (smt)
n.

1. A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.

[panasonic]

damn those people for hating themselves

[psi29a]

vtwahoo pounted this piece out to me:
source

Profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-semitic in their effect if not their intent.

Lawrence Summers, 17 September 2002



When the president of Harvard University declared that to criticise Israel at this time and to call on universities to divest from Israel are 'actions that are anti-semitic in their effect, if not their intent', he introduced a distinction between effective and intentional anti-semitism that is controversial at best. The counter-charge has been that in making his statement, Summers has struck a blow against academic freedom, in effect, if not in intent. Although he insisted that he meant nothing censorious by his remarks, and that he is in favour of Israeli policy being 'debated freely and civilly', his words have had a chilling effect on political discourse. Among those actions which he called 'effectively anti-semitic' were European boycotts of Israel, anti-globalisation rallies at which criticisms of Israel were voiced, and fund-raising efforts for organisations of 'questionable political provenance'. Of local concern to him, however, was a divestment petition drafted by MIT and Harvard faculty members who oppose Israel's current occupation and its treatment of Palestinians. Summers asked why Israel was being 'singled out . . . among all nations' for a divestment campaign, suggesting that the singling out was evidence of anti-semitic intentions. And though he claimed that aspects of Israel's 'foreign and defence' policy 'can be and should be vigorously challenged', it was unclear how such challenges could or would take place without being construed as anti-Israel, and why these policy issues, which include occupation, ought not to be vigorously challenged through a divestment campaign. It would seem that calling for divestment is something other than a legitimately 'vigorous challenge', but we are not given any criteria by which to adjudicate between vigorous challenges that should be articulated, and those which carry the 'effective' force of anti-semitism.

...

What are we to make of Jews who disidentify with Israel or, at least, with the Israeli state? Or Jews who identify with Israel, but do not condone some of its practices? There is a wide range here: those who are silently ambivalent about the way Israel handles itself; those who only half articulate their doubts about the occupation; those who are strongly opposed to the occupation, but within a Zionist framework; those who would like to see Zionism rethought or, indeed, abandoned. Jews may hold any of these opinions, but voice them only to their family, or only to their friends; or voice them in public but then face an angry reception at home. Given this Jewish ambivalence, ought we not to be suspicious of any effort to equate Jews with Israel? The argument that all Jews have a heartfelt investment in the state of Israel is untrue. Some have a heartfelt investment in corned beef sandwiches or in certain Talmudic tales, religious rituals and liturgy, in memories of their grandmother, the taste of borscht or the sounds of the old Yiddish theatre. Others have an investment in historical and cultural archives from Eastern Europe or from the Holocaust, or in forms of labour activism, civil rights struggles and social justice that are thoroughly secular, and exist in relative independence from the question of Israel.

What do we make of Jews such as myself, who are emotionally invested in the state of Israel, critical of its current form, and call for a radical restructuring of its economic and juridical basis precisely because we are invested in it? It is always possible to say that such Jews have turned against their own Jewishness. But what if one criticises Israel in the name of one's Jewishness, in the name of justice, precisely because such criticisms seem 'best for the Jews'? Why wouldn't it always be 'best for the Jews' to embrace forms of democracy that extend what is 'best' to everyone, Jewish or not? I signed a petition framed in these terms, an 'Open Letter from American Jews', in which 3700 American Jews opposed the Israeli occupation, though in my view it was not nearly strong enough: it did not call for the end of Zionism, or for the reallocation of arable land, for rethinking the Jewish right of return or for the fair distribution of water and medicine to Palestinians, and it did not call for the reorganisation of the Israeli state on a more radically egalitarian basis. It was, nevertheless, an overt criticism of Israel.

Bottomline: You can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitec. You should question any Government that does things you oppose.

The problem is not race, it isn't people, it is political ideology mixed with faith. With the after-life and eternity at stake, faith is a powerful motivator that can make any person a hardliner and/or suicide bomber.

Remember, for the Jewish Messiah to return, they have to rebuild Solomon's temple. To rebuild Solomon's temple they must knock down The Dome of the Rock.

A Muslim's soul passes through the Dome of the Rock to go to heaven. Knock down the Dome and you sentence all Mulsims to hell.

Edit: Caps and Grammar edited by Killfile at request of originating source.

[MrFelony]

wow i never knew that the temple of Solomon had to be located exactly where the Dome of the Rock is located. That's gonna cause a LOT of drama. do you think that Israel could knock it down and replace it before anyone found out lol

[Buzkashi]

http://www.nkusa.org/index.cfm

Recently on Fox News they brought up a Rabbi, I'm assuming from this organisation, that just kept ragging on Zionists. The site fills you in on how Orthodox Jews feel about Israel.

An Open Letter
A Salam Aleikem
To all our friends and acquaintances:

Recently some Zionists have taken a new tactic in their war against Judaism and their falsification of the Torah which prompts us to write this letter.

We have become aware that letters bearing the name of our organization, “Neturei Karta”, and my name, “Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss”, have been sent to our friends and their organizations stating falsely that we have changed our Torah view. We wish to reassure you that with G-d’s help, we remain true to the Torah and pray to G-d that we will always be true and loyal to G-d and His Torah. We will never recognize the state of “Israel” and will always stand in opposition to Zionism and the State of “Israel” and all that emanates from it and its affiliates.

Should you receive any letters purporting to be sent by myself or Neturei Karta which do not contain my original signature (not a copy) or that seem suspect, please disregard their content and be so kind as to contact us immediately.

Thanking you kindly in advance,
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss
22 May 2005

edit: added picture (ripped from site) -- psi29a

[Shaka Zulu]

Check out this link. A very interesting man named George Galloway(brittish politician) who says his opinions in a very stern, fresh, brave and compelling way, laying out the truth and describing the unbalanced view of the ME, and this conflict, the media sometimes has.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jK6O3aGzIk

[Quest]

thanks for the link, shaka.
lol sky news is the fox news of europe. i believe both are part of the same organisation.

[psi29a]

Good stuff and I agree with his viewpoint, Lebanon had signed a cease-fire... not a peace treaty. Technically a state of war has always existed between the two countries since the 60's.

[Quest]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrdFFCnY ... ed&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7bQLw0s0I
whoa i am loving this guy more and more.
he is a hero.

[Brainpiercing]

This ceasefire will turn into another UN fiasco. It's only a matter of time before the same war breaks out again if Hisbollah is not disarmed.