State of war between Israel and Lebanon

[Ari]

The crucial step Israel hasn't been doing is successfully integrating with its region.  Its solutions have been a combination of bad faith negotiations or stand-over-man "or else" solutions. It really has to stop being an isolationist bully to make progress.

How exactly do you propose we go about "integrating with the region"? I don't think a lot of people here are going to like the idea of transforming Israel to an Islamic dictatorship. My girlfriend is quite thrilled at the idea of having to walk around with a vail on her face for the rest of her life.

Isolationist bully? I'll remind you once more it was the combined army of 7 arab states that declared war on Israel less than a day after the UN voted in favor of creating an Israeli state in Palestine. We didn't choose to become isolationists. It was forced upon us from the very beginning. We never had a chance to become anything else.

[Alistair]

Ari: Your words sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy for Israel.

30 more Lebanese dead..

Must ask something that's been bugging me- Tom, are you a Jew, and what's the origins of the name, "Lewandowski"? I don't mean to cause offence by asking, it's just something I've wondered.

- Alistair

[Tom]

I'm 50% Polish (Father), and 50% French (Mother.)  "Lewandowski" is a common Polish name.  I was the butt of Pollock jokes in elementary school.

[Ari]

Ari: Your words sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy for Israel.

It doesn't look like a prophecy to me, more like an historic fact.

30 more Lebanese dead..

Funny you don't keep count of dead Israelis...  :roll:

[Alistair]

I care about dead Israelites, believe me. In fact I was having drinks last night and talking about it.

But, you look at total dead, and civilian deaths, and there are disproprtionate amounts of deaths between those of Israel and those of Lebanon.

- Alistair

[Ari]

Yes, there are, about 15 to 1, but numbers aren't everything.

what people don't seem to think about is the number of attacks carried by each side against civilians, or the fact that one side aims directly at civilians while the other doesn't, or the fact that one side uses civilians as human shields while the other doesnt, or the fact that one side hides ammunition and explosives in populated areas while the other doesn't.

Hezbollah launches between 150 to 200 attacks a day at Israeli civilians. Civilians are the main target. Granted, most of the attacks don't kill, (just now 3 Israeli civilians died from the most recent attack) but they do cause a great amount of injuries and damage to property.

Israel launches hundreds of attacks a day. We warn before we attack and ask the local population to evacuate which goes to show that we don't target civilians. Occasionally we miss or our intel misses and we hit civilians by mistake. This is very sad, and I am sorry for every innocent Lebanse civilian who dies in the attacks, but the Hezbollah is the one to blame because they fire from populated areas knowing full well that we'll retaliate.

Why is one attack that causes the death of 30 worse than 10 attacks that cause the death of 3? How can you even try to compare deaths in numbers? Who's more of a criminal? a bus driver that accidently crashes a bus and causes the death of 40 or 50 people? or a person who plans and carries out a murder of one single person?

It's easy to count bodies and disregard what stand behind the deaths.
In the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered almost 6 million Jews. The Germans themselves lost some 13 million people. Does that make them the victim? No! They started the war, and they were the ones to blame for every single death in that horrible war.
The same thing goes for Hezbollah. They started this war, with the kidnapping and killing of soldiers and civilians, they are the ones who carried out attacks at Israeli soldiers and civilians for 6 years without Israel retaliating. During those 6 years the Lebanese government stood beside and did nothing to stop these attacks, and now Lebanon is paying the price for it's indifference. Hezbollah is the one you should point your finger at, not Israel.

[kreatorb]

As a hypothetical.. and on the topic of WW2, if the French resistance or other partisan group were using tactics similar to Hezbollah (I bet they did), would it automatically make them in the wrong?  Would the Germans be in the right because they use the cleaner, more technological (surgical??) way of putting down such insurgencies?  Perhaps if they dropped leaflets first or sent radio signals ahead warning civillians to leave it would be ok (I bet they did)?

Hezbollah's rockets are primitive devices.. basically point and shoot and hope you hit something.  They make up for inherent inaccuracies with volume of rockets.  If they could somehow guide them and hit military targets over large distances they would probably love that.  At present, Hezbollah is the de facto army of Lebanon and is engaged in asymmetric warfare against Israel (which was declared by Israel) - as they can't strike back at airplanes, I can't find much strategic (or moral) fault with their tactics.

But not to worry.. Hezbollah has apparently been been preparing for a land invasion for years, and should Israel try to reoccupy (and it will be an occupation.. perhaps lasting years) their buffer zone, it could get dirtier still.  By invading, Israel is giving them exactly what they want.. the ability to directly engage Israeli troops in urban warfare on their own territory.  This may distract Hezbollah from some rocket attacks - so perhaps this is what you wanted (more attacks on genuine military targets)?

Integrating with the region is done with economic partnerships, military cooperation, sport, etc.  It works for Australia.. we exist in Asia despite not having an Asian population (and despite being threatened with invasion by Japan in WW2).  We also have a large Islamic nation as one of our closest neighbours (Indonesia), which has a huge army and isn't exactly friendly towards us.. but we get along.  Granted, we've never felt the same measure of threat and fear that Israelis have - but I don't see any other alternative.

And becoming an Islamic dictatorship? That's really an unrealistic extreme.  It won't require anything like that to fit in with other Arab nations.  I guess Israel will never know till it tries.. but it has never tried has it?

Israel can choose to live in the past, where it is fixated on the holocaust and the threat of Arab invasion (which realistically has not been possible for many years) - or try to solve the problem at hand. Peacefully, effectively and finally.

[shad0wfax]

I've read a very interesting newspaper article written by Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most important hispanic writers of the last decades. He always declares himself being "a loyal friend of Israel", but he is critizising very hardly Israel's campaign in Lebanon. As he says, a "loyal friend" is not an "inconditional friend"; a true loyal friend has the duty to tell his/her friend when he/she thinks is acting wrongly, in spite of friendship. An inconditional friend is more like a slave than like a friend.

He knows very well the situation of Israel and points out that it has become (luckily) a rich and powerful country, so powerful that even islamic terrorist strikes are like "scrapes in an Elephant's skin", which makes it bleed, but cannot really hurt nor kill the state of Israel. But that's no excuse for large-scale and indiscriminate military operations that leads to the death of several civilians; it seems as if Israel simply couldn't live in peace and had to live in a permanent state of war, taking lots of military operations like a training for its military forces, and giving no chance at all to diplomacy and negotiation.

Hezbollah's attacks are unjustifiable, but the reaction of Israel is seriously wrong. Every friend of peace and rights has the duty of condemning this attitude. If my government did something simmilar, I'd be ashamed of being a spanish citizen (this in fact was already the case when the former government gave support to the invasion of Iraq).

[Boogeyman]

But that's no excuse for large-scale and indiscriminate military operations that leads to the death of several civilians; it seems as if Israel simply couldn't live in peace and had to live in a permanent state of war, taking lots of military operations like a training for its military forces, and giving no chance at all to diplomacy and negotiation.

Hezbollah's attacks are unjustifiable, but the reaction of Israel is seriously wrong. Every friend of peace and rights has the duty of condemning this attitude. If my government did something simmilar, I'd be ashamed of being a spanish citizen (this in fact was already the case when the former government gave support to the invasion of Iraq).

I agree with that completely.
We probably wouldn't be dealing with this crisis if Ariel Sharon were still in power.
He was doing a MUCH better job than this.

[Ari]

As a hypothetical.. and on the topic of WW2, if the French resistance or other partisan group were using tactics similar to Hezbollah (I bet they did), would it automatically make them in the wrong?

It would've been a nice analogy if the Germans weren't the ones who started the damn war, but I guess that's a minor point for you.

Would the Germans be in the right because they use the cleaner, more technological (surgical??) way of putting down such insurgencies?  Perhaps if they dropped leaflets first or sent radio signals ahead warning civillians to leave it would be ok (I bet they did)?

No, because they started the war.

Hezbollah's rockets are primitive devices.. basically point and shoot and hope you hit something.  They make up for inherent inaccuracies with volume of rockets.  If they could somehow guide them and hit military targets over large distances they would probably love that.

Hezbollah have missiles with a range of 250km covering almost half of Israel, and threatening more than 2/3 of Israel's population. You'll probably be happy to know that It's More than enough to hit half the Israeli military installations in the country. But they don't do that, and they say they want to hit civilian targets. Never in this war have they made any attempt to discriminate between civilians and the military. They go for both whenever they can. If they had jetplanes and 500lbs bombs, they'd use them against Tel-Aviv, against Haifa and against every Israeli city they could reach, and you know that full well.

At present, Hezbollah is the de facto army of Lebanon and is engaged in asymmetric warfare against Israel (which was declared by Israel) - as they can't strike back at airplanes, I can't find much strategic (or moral) fault with their tactics.

That's grand. I guess a war isn't a war till you declare it. If you only commit an act of war but don't declare, that's what, an act of peace?
Hezbollah started the war with the killing of 8 soldiers, the kidnapping of 2 and the killing of a civilian and injuring of dozens with katusha rockets, with no reason whatsoever. That was an act of war. All Israel did is make it official.
You can't find moral fault with deliberately attacking civilians, well, enough said, I guess. I'll just let that hang in the wind for a while.  :roll:

But not to worry.. Hezbollah has apparently been been preparing for a land invasion for years, and should Israel try to reoccupy (and it will be an occupation.. perhaps lasting years) their buffer zone, it could get dirtier still.  By invading, Israel is giving them exactly what they want.. the ability to directly engage Israeli troops in urban warfare on their own territory.  This may distract Hezbollah from some rocket attacks - so perhaps this is what you wanted (more attacks on genuine military targets)?

So, in other words, Hezbollah wants an Israeli invasion, so they stock up, provoke a gruesome attack, and then wait for Israel to come in with guns blazing... for what? for peace? These aren't my words, these are your words.

Integrating with the region is done with economic partnerships, military cooperation, sport, etc.  It works for Australia.. we exist in Asia despite not having an Asian population (and despite being threatened with invasion by Japan in WW2).  We also have a large Islamic nation as one of our closest neighbours (Indonesia), which has a huge army and isn't exactly friendly towards us.. but we get along.  Granted, we've never felt the same measure of threat and fear that Israelis have - but I don't see any other alternative.

You get along because you live more than a thousand kilometers away from your closest neighbour. You get along because there's no land dispute with anyone else. You get along because the other side wants to get along with you. How can you compare the two situations? Have you been threatend by anyone in the last 60 years? Has anyone called your neighbours to join arms and destroy you? Do I really need to start bringing quotes from arab leaders about what should be done with Israel? Can you supply any kind of quotes concering Australia? What does Japan have to do with anything? It's hardly the same country anymore. They don't even have an operational army! What are they going to attack you with? DVD players? Has Indonesia ever threatened to attack you? have they ever tried to invade your country? have they ever sent suicide bombs to your home city to blow up civilians?
Of course you get along.

And becoming an Islamic dictatorship? That's really an unrealistic extreme.  It won't require anything like that to fit in with other Arab nations.  I guess Israel will never know till it tries.. but it has never tried has it?

Oh, right. There's no peace treaty with Egypt or Jordan, I suppose. There's no tourism and natural gas supply deals between us and them.
There were no peace talks in the 90's which Hamas tried to blow up (literally) every chance they got. I guess I dreamed the whole thing up, right? Better get your facts straight before you make such accusations.

Israel can choose to live in the past, where it is fixated on the holocaust and the threat of Arab invasion (which realistically has not been possible for many years) - or try to solve the problem at hand. Peacefully, effectively and finally.

So what if they can't invade us anymore? Does that make the constant killing and bombing of civilians any less severe? We've tried to solve the situation peacefully with the Oslo peace talks. All it got us were a thousand dead Israelis.

Kreatorb, you've really got your facts pretty twisted. It's sad to see that Hezbollah and Iranian propoganda are actually accepted so easily.

[Ari]

I've read a very interesting newspaper article written by Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most important hispanic writers of the last decades. He always declares himself being "a loyal friend of Israel", but he is critizising very hardly Israel's campaign in Lebanon. As he says, a "loyal friend" is not an "inconditional friend"; a true loyal friend has the duty to tell his/her friend when he/she thinks is acting wrongly, in spite of friendship. An inconditional friend is more like a slave than like a friend.

He knows very well the situation of Israel and points out that it has become (luckily) a rich and powerful country, so powerful that even islamic terrorist strikes are like "scrapes in an Elephant's skin", which makes it bleed, but cannot really hurt nor kill the state of Israel. But that's no excuse for large-scale and indiscriminate military operations that leads to the death of several civilians; it seems as if Israel simply couldn't live in peace and had to live in a permanent state of war, taking lots of military operations like a training for its military forces, and giving no chance at all to diplomacy and negotiation.

Hezbollah's attacks are unjustifiable, but the reaction of Israel is seriously wrong. Every friend of peace and rights has the duty of condemning this attitude. If my government did something simmilar, I'd be ashamed of being a spanish citizen (this in fact was already the case when the former government gave support to the invasion of Iraq).

The problem with the "scrapes in an Elephant's skin" analogy is that human life isn't comparable to skin cells. Skin cells have no mind, have no family, have no loved ones. When a skin cells dies, it doesn't leave a mourning family of skin cells. A human being does. Israel as a state isn't treatened by terrorism. Terrorism won't kill the Israeli state, but Israeli citizens are dying daily, their famalies destroyed.
If we just sit there and do nothing about it, the terrorists will just find it more worthwhile to kill us. They say we're weak because we cry over our dead and that this is the time to attack, when we're weak (I'll find you the exact quote if you don't believe me). Have you any idea how many suicide bombings and other terror attacks were attempted and carried out when we showed restraint in the 90's and in the early 00's? Do you want to make a wild guess? You'll be amazed at the numbers.
We offered them everything and they refused. What should we do now? Really, what are we supposed to do?

[Alistair]

You get along because you live more than a thousand kilometers away from your closest neighbour. You get along because there's no land dispute with anyone else. You get along because the other side wants to get along with you. How can you compare the two situations? Have you been threatend by anyone in the last 60 years? Has anyone called your neighbours to join arms and destroy you? Do I really need to start bringing quotes from arab leaders about what should be done with Israel? Can you supply any kind of quotes concering Australia? What does Japan have to do with anything? It's hardly the same country anymore. They don't even have an operational army! What are they going to attack you with? DVD players? Has Indonesia ever threatened to attack you? have they ever tried to invade your country? have they ever sent suicide bombs to your home city to blow up civilians?
Of course you get along.

Ari, perhaps you've forgotten the infamous "Bali bombings" where in Indonesia the Al-Qaeda group "Jemaah Islamia" bombed the Sari nightclub and killed mainly westerners (mainly Australians).

The relationship between Australia and Indonesia has not been good for a long time now. They perceive us as racists and we perceive them as terrorists (those of us who generalise and don't look with unbiased eyes, of course).

Indonesia also has the largest Muslim population in the world.

Regards,
- Alistair

[Ari]

But it wasn't Indonesia that allowed the bombings, was it? so where's the connection?
It's like the bombings in Egypt, in Sinai, a very popular tourist resort for a lot of Israelis (how's that for integration, Kreatorb?). We didn't blame Egypt for these bombings a year ago when some 5 Israeli tourists died in the bombings, because they weren't responsible. They didn't allow Al-Qaeda to flourish inside Egypt and let them launch attacks at Israel, in fact, they're pretty much doing all they can to prevent that from happening, something Lebanon didn't so much as even object to.

So what if Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims? that in itself doesn't make them responsible for terrorism or make them enemies.
Turkey has a very large Islamic population, and we've got a military pact with them, and tourism and a lot of economic deals, so what's the point?

I really don't the connection between the two things.  :roll:

[Alistair]

There is more of a conenction than just that, though my main point was that you say we live happily with our neighbour. I think that jsut because two Governments can have a neutral relationship  doesn't mean the people of both countries like or accept each other.

Anyway. Indonesia's government does very little to counter terrorism and the courts let Jemaah Islamiah's "spiritual leader" (basically the guy who calls the shots) out of jail recently after only a couple of years in jail.

Indonesia's police also don't do very much to hunt down terrorism which to me amounts to at least deference towards Al-Qaeda/JI and terrorism.



Anyway- I'm not saying we identify with you as someone in a warzone. I thankfully have no idea what it's like for a neighbour to deny my country's right to exist and to want my fellow men dead. But, terrorism isn't something that only happens in the Middle East, either.


As for Indonesia and Muslims, I don't think that in tiself makes Indonesia the most dangerous place ever. But, it means there's the potential, should world circumstances change (e.g. a lot of Muslims die in a war, or the Australian Govt. passes some perceived racist bill), for Indonesia to become very hostile to our country. But hopefully that won't happen.

- Alistair

[kreatorb]

Well from Hezbollah's point of view the existance of Israel represents an occupying force - which they are resisting (and Germany invading France was mostly payback for unfair war reparations - and nobody was in the right in WW1). Things are rarely as simple as right and wrong. So it's not so flawed an analogy then is it?  

Anyway my point was that you can't really criticize Hezbollah for using what they have, now they are being attacked.. as at the moment they have no other effective option (and of course they are going to point them at cities rather than empty space).   The funny thing is that by attacking Lebanon with such disproportionate force - Israel has legitimized Hezbollah's tactics as it is their only possible means of resistance.  

You exaggerate with respect to the range of their rockets.. most of their rockets have a range of only 50km (according to the BBC anyway).  I do believe the longer ranged ones were mostly destroyed by Israeli strikes (a move I totally agree with btw).  The rockets that make the bulk of those being used have not capability to be guided as you are implying - they target nobody, and are just fired in a general direction.

And funnily enough.. no it isn't a war until you declare it.  The two soldiers taken hostage + 8 killed was no more an act of war than is an Israeli operation into Palestine to assassinate whomever they deem a threat.. or unilaterally annexing territories to build convenient borders.  Regardless, the Israeli response was totally out of line with the magnitude of the incident (even taking into account prior rocket attacks).. this is the main problem I have (remember I did agree that some limited actions were required).

Hezbollah certainly desired to drag Israel into a quagmire - and now Israel is indeed being drawn into one.  I'm not sure how you think this is the best way forward.

RE: comparing Australia to Israel - I guess the situation seemed vaguely similar, and I'd hoped you wouldn't do a knee jerk reaction as you did. I doubt I could persuade you anyway, so I won't persue it.

[shad0wfax]

Ari said:

The problem with the "scrapes in an Elephant's skin" analogy is that human life isn't comparable to skin cells. Skin cells have no mind, have no family, have no loved ones. When a skin cells dies, it doesn't leave a mourning family of skin cells. A human being does. Israel as a state isn't treatened by terrorism. Terrorism won't kill the Israeli state, but Israeli citizens are dying daily, their famalies destroyed.

I totally agree with you, but I'm not sure whether you understood what I tried to say. Of course, the "Elephant" is a metaphor, and of course humans are not like skin cells. But metaphors are useful to point out some analogies between the image used and the reality.

In this case, the metaphoric image was that the terrorist attacks makes the elephant bleed, and thats points out to the victims and their families. The blood and the horror are real. Also from the perspective of the whole country, bleeding is very disgusting and causes pain, although no serious threat for the health or the life.

On the other hand, the argument should work on both sides (remember universality?) If the death of innocent israeli people is injustified and causes horror and pain, the same goes for all the lebanese civilians (they also have families). Maybe don't they suffer? or maybe they are just all guilty and not innocent? There's no single argument that could justify those deaths as morally right.

[Ari]

Well from Hezbollah's point of view the existance of Israel represents an occupying force - which they are resisting (and Germany invading France was mostly payback for unfair war reparations - and nobody was in the right in WW1). Things are rarely as simple as right and wrong. So it's not so flawed an analogy then is it?

And what were the Germans "paying back" for when they invaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece et cetra? Was that payback for unfair repartions as well?

Anyway my point was that you can't really criticize Hezbollah for using what they have, now they are being attacked..  

For God's sake, man, they're the ones who initiated the attacks!! I don't care if "from their point of view Israel's existance represents an occupying force". If from their point of view Australia was satan himself, would that make it ok to attack? The point is, that they have no legal claim against Israel. It's not Israel who claims that, it's the UN!

as at the moment they have no other effective option (and of course they are going to point them at cities rather than empty space).   The funny thing is that by attacking Lebanon with such disproportionate force - Israel has legitimized Hezbollah's tactics as it is their only possible means of resistance.  

I'd say, don't point them at us to begin with. Israel had done nothing to provoke that first attack. If they can't stand our mere existance, that's they're problem. They had no right whatsoever to attack us in the first place. Give me one legitimate claim the Hezbollah had against Israel before the war started (I stress the word "legitimate", not some sorry excuse such as "from Hezbollah's point of view the existance of Israel represents an occupying force", which would never hold up in any kind of court, international or otherwise).

You exaggerate with respect to the range of their rockets.. most of their rockets have a range of only 50km (according to the BBC anyway).  I do believe the longer ranged ones were mostly destroyed by Israeli strikes (a move I totally agree with btw).

First of all, it's more like 70km. The reason I'm being scrupulous about it is because the difference between 50km and 70km, when it comes to Israeli standard, is the difference between 200,000 people being in the range of those rockets and almost half a million people. 50km is nothing for you. It's the distance between your town and the next. In Israel, it's the difference between the sea and the west bank.
Second, If they have 7000 Katusha rockets and only 100 long range SSMs with ranges of up to 250km or more (That's according to Mr. Nasrallah himself), that's still 100 rockets. How would you like 100 rockets to fall on Sydney? How much damage and death do you think that would cause?

The rockets that make the bulk of those being used have not capability to be guided as you are implying - they target nobody, and are just fired in a general direction.

So if I go out to the street, get myself a machine gun and start spraying bullets in every direction, not targeting anyone specific, but killing and wounding dozens, what does that make me? What do you charge me with? accidental killing, manslaughter, or murder? I must say your logic is seriously flawed.  :roll:

And funnily enough.. no it isn't a war until you declare it.  The two soldiers taken hostage + 8 killed was no more an act of war than is an Israeli operation into Palestine to assassinate whomever they deem a threat.. or unilaterally annexing territories to build convenient borders.

Yeah, they're both acts of war.
The only difference is that the first is an act of starting a war, and the second is an act of war in a war that has been in progress for 6 years.
The first is an act of aggression, while the second is an act of retaliation against a prior act of aggression (such as a suicide bombing).
If the Hezbollah were retaliating against something, it would be a different case, but they weren't (and if you're going to argue they were, please state what act of aggression they were retaliating against, otherwise, your claim is worthless).

Regardless, the Israeli response was totally out of line with the magnitude of the incident (even taking into account prior rocket attacks).. this is the main problem I have (remember I did agree that some limited actions were required).

Really? so, how many prior attacks would it take for our actions to be legitimate? a thousand? two thousand? How many deaths should we endure before we're allowed to retaliate the way we did?

Hezbollah certainly desired to drag Israel into a quagmire - and now Israel is indeed being drawn into one.  I'm not sure how you think this is the best way forward.

It's not the best way forward, it's the only remaining way forward, since there's nothing more we can offer them in a peace treaty (again, if you're going to claim there is, please state what we can offer them that we haven't already).

RE: comparing Australia to Israel - I guess the situation seemed vaguely similar, and I'd hoped you wouldn't do a knee jerk reaction as you did. I doubt I could persuade you anyway, so I won't persue it.

Try me. If there's logic to it, I can be persuaded.

[Ari]

Ari said:

The problem with the "scrapes in an Elephant's skin" analogy is that human life isn't comparable to skin cells. Skin cells have no mind, have no family, have no loved ones. When a skin cells dies, it doesn't leave a mourning family of skin cells. A human being does. Israel as a state isn't treatened by terrorism. Terrorism won't kill the Israeli state, but Israeli citizens are dying daily, their famalies destroyed.

I totally agree with you, but I'm not sure whether you understood what I tried to say. Of course, the "Elephant" is a metaphor, and of course humans are not like skin cells. But metaphors are useful to point out some analogies between the image used and the reality.

In this case, the metaphoric image was that the terrorist attacks makes the elephant bleed, and thats points out to the victims and their families. The blood and the horror are real. Also from the perspective of the whole country, bleeding is very disgusting and causes pain, although no serious threat for the health or the life.

But this is exactly where the analogy fails. Death is death, you can't compare it to anything else.

On the other hand, the argument should work on both sides (remember universality?) If the death of innocent israeli people is injustified and causes horror and pain, the same goes for all the lebanese civilians (they also have families). Maybe don't they suffer? or maybe they are just all guilty and not innocent? There's no single argument that could justify those deaths as morally right.

I'm not trying to justify those deaths. As I said before, I'm sorry to hear about every innocent Lebanese who dies, and I still have faith in my government that they don't target civilians on purpose, and that they do all they can to avoid those deaths. I told you before, and I'll say it again. If I find out our government bombed civilians on purpose, I'll have our prime ministers head.
Have you ever heard of any country in history warning civilians of another country to get out of harm's way?
And yet, we can't just sit around and do nothing and let Israeli citizens die. We've done that for 6 years, and all it brought us was more deaths.

[shad0wfax]

Ari said:

I'm not trying to justify those deaths. As I said before, I'm sorry to hear about every innocent Lebanese who dies, and I still have faith in my government that they don't target civilians on purpose, and that they do all they can to avoid those deaths. I told you before, and I'll say it again. If I find out our government bombed civilians on purpose, I'll have our prime ministers head.

Those deaths may not be directly intentional, but they are a direct consequence of a dangerous and intentional action. Israel knows perfectly that it's very probable that some innocent people may die due the military operations, but this doesn't stop them, and simply say "that's too bad, we're very sorry" but at the end of the day they have killed them by their very own voluntary actions.

It's as if I drive my car at 100 mph in the middle of a crowded street. Maybe I don't want to kill anyone or to make any damages, but it's very likely I'm going to do so and this doesn't stop me. I just cannot say: "hey, I didn't want to hit anybody, and I'm very sorry for the victims, and I was hitting my claxon repeteadly, and shouting GET OUT!!!". In every criminal law system I'm aware of I had to be put in prison for this behauvior.

You may think that this example it's not good enough, so I'm going to modify it a bit in order to better suit the Israel-Lebanon situation. Let's suppose I'm from Brooklyn, and one day some people makes some damages to my home, or (God forbid) injuries or even kills a member of my family. I don't know exactly who're the ones who have done this, other that they're a group of hooligans from Queens, who hate Brooklyn. Of course, not everyone in Queens are like those people. Then I decide that, as a retaliation, I'll drive my car at 100 mph in the center of Queens. I don't want to hurt nor kill innocent people, but I know that if I drive I'll likely do this but it doesn't stop me. I'll hit the claxon and I'll shout 'GET OUT' to prevent this, but at the bottom I have the hope that at least some of my victims will be members of this violent group, so it will be OK. Of course, I'll say I'm very sorry for the innocent victims, but also that my action was right. Shouldn't I be considered a criminal and being imprisoned? Of course I should.

[Ari]

First of all, driving at 100kph and honking or calling people to get out of the way doesn't give them enough time to get out of the way, so in this case, it's really no excuse for anything. The situation is slightly different when you give a 2 hour notice.
But again, the main difference between the 2 things, is like I said at the begining of the thread. In your case, there are other options, such as calling the police and arresting the hooligans. In Israel's case, all other options have been exhausted. We've withdrawn from Lebanon, we've filed hundreds of complaints (yes, hundreds!) to the UN which did nothing, we sat around for years and done nothing while the Hezbollah made repeated attacks at Israel.
Your example doesn't take into account these things, and that's why I don't think the two situations are rightly comparable.
I know these are technicalities. But they do make a great difference IMO.
Theortically speaking, you might be correct, but practically speaking, your way will only cause further deaths in the region, and this is something that simply cannot be tolerated.

It's really sad, because had Lebanon responded to UN resolution no. 1559 earlier, none of this would have happened. But only now, after so many deaths, it seems they're finally coming to their senses. It's a little strange that at first they claimed they couldn't handle Hezbollah and did not have the manpower to spread along the border, and now, all of a sudden, they're prepared to post 15,000 troops in southern Lebanon, which is exactly what we've be asking them to do since before the war began.

I really wish it didn't have to be like that. I really wish Lebanese civilians didn't have to die, I wish no one had to die.
Sadly, you'll never hear such a claim from Hezbollah.