Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah Crisis Thread was the "Is Israel right" thread

I think perhaps the fact that you have a sister in Israel is giving you a blinkered view of the situation there Conor.
Israel is no more belonging to the jews than Ireland belongs to people of Viking descent they were a race that had a big prescence in that area many years ago. They were allowed to return there (in large numbers, i know a certain amount arrived before the war) due to the guilt of the western world after the holocaust and have since made it a mission to take more and more land.
They ve oppressed a financially weak race with advanced weapons given to them by a country with a vested interest in having a strong ally in the middle east.
While i totally disagree with suicide bombers and other guerilla tactics used by Hamas i can also see how they are driven to it, they cant fight an all out war using battered 4x4 s against APC s, helicopters and tanks now can they? so what would you do in their situation, allow Israel to just take land and dump your people out of their homes or change your tactics? Dont forget that if we had taken the conventional approach to warfare during OUR occupation British rule would have lasted a lot longer.

These people along with Hamas , Islamic Jihad and Al-Queda all have just one goal and that is to destroy OUR ideals and values

No they dont that's quite honestly bul****, we have always had a good relationship with Palestine, theres a large number of Irish aid workers there now, Jihad was originally due to the jews moving into sacred areas(correct me if im wrong), whats that got to do with us?? I think your confusing Ireland and America, You ever heard of Bobby Sands road Tehran??

http://www.labournet.net/events/0402/sands1.html

If Palestine distanced themselves from terrorism then of course my opinion might change. As long as they remain bound up with muderers, then they determine their own future. And the more and more they align themselves with terrorists, then the more terrible the reaction should be.

Your using the American/Israeli definition of palestinians, they are not terroists, they re just using different tactics in a war, the only tactics available to them.
Are the Israeli s any less terrorists because they use gunships and tanks instead of suicude bombers?

Both sides are wrong.

Agreed but imo Israel is more wrong.

hat it was almost accidental that they settled on the area we now call Israel.

I never said that, i said they were allowed to return.

But the status quo is now that the state of Israel exists.

Doesnt make it any less wrong, the geography of the world has changed many times through history, are you suggesting this is the way itll stay forever?

It may have been a mistake in policy, but we can't undo it. Palestinians are going to have to recognise that.

Why should they? Its not their fault they ve been invaded, "Them damn palestinians just wont accept they should be walked all over"

We can't shake our fist at the past, we can only hope to move forward and deal with the realities.

Is that not just what Israel is, a fist shaking at the past? Come on "God promised us this place, weve been oppressed for millenia", covers both shaking a fist at the past and not dealing with reality no?

on this particular issue Hamas should intervene and insist that the soldier be returned. That is the only correct and appropriate response.

Copout, "our soldier s worth more than your political prisoners"

But then you see footage of palestinian gun men standing on buildings watching the buildup of Isreali armour,troop buildups,fighter jets flyiong overhead.....and what does Hamas do...do they make every effort to release the soldier???....do they drop thier demands for the release of terrorists in Isreali jails????....no they dont..but what they do do is make threats,make demands and last but not least(and this made me laugh) gave Isreal an ultimatium to withdraw its troops!!!!!!

If Hamas had the best intentions of its people at heart it would be bending over backwards to find this soldier and to avert a major ass whooping!!

They know where he is,they know who is holding him and they know that they can avoid all the misery,hurt and anguish that goes with conflict. But no...they want to draw Isreal into a scrap that will only lead to more people being killed....Im sorry but the blaim lies squarely with Hamas with this one!

I feel like kicking the computer at this stage, the fact is that if it wasnt this incident there would be another one for Israel to use for its expansionism.
Answer me this, do you think that the people being held in israel as "Terrorists" are just that? Do you realise that a lot of these people are locked up because they object to the occupation of their country? And your talking about a soldier who has been trained by Israel with the intention of using him in a campaign against the palestinians, and you call them terrorists for using him as a bargaining tool.

Hamas is the legally elected goverment of palestine, there are members of Hamas locked up in Israeli jails, a jewish soldier in palestine territory therefore can be taken prisoner in the same way.
You seem to be looking at the situation from the point of this one incident, to look at the bigger picture, Hamas would not be there if Israel didnt spend all their time trying to take as much land for themselves as possible.

Palestine is a country with as much right to exist as Israel, your coming down on them for doing once what Israel have down many times.
They can make demands if they want, the same as Israel have made demands the whole time its been in existence.
Mybe you just cant grasp the concept that there are people in the world who would rather fight than allow a foriegn power the right to tell them what to do and when to do it, do you think its correct for a country to have total power over another countries borders?? is that fair?

If the situation was that Israel had always been fair to them i could maybe see where your coming from, but your defending a country that regularly stops supplies coming in to Palestine because they forced them into a corner and they decided to fight. Make no mistake that the ideal situation for Israel is to take over Palestine completely and expel the Palestinan people to the outlying Muslim countries.

Sand wrote:

And one mans insightful comment is another man's clapped out cliche.

Cliche it may be, but its true.

New_Departure06 wrote:

That was tit for tat. Israel started it with its colonial aggression.

That's shockingly simplistic. Too simplistic. One would almost assume from that that there were no troubles before May 14 1948 (or Nov 29 1947 depending on who's being blamed).

aidan24326 wrote:

Would even this war-mongering US administration dare to p*ss off the Russians and China? Would even they dare, or be so stupid? Let's hope not.

I think they're more concerned with p***ing off the domestic jewish population who wield a hell of a lot of political clout in the US. A strong Israel is important for the US both in terms of domestic political gain and geographical presence in the middle east.

New_Departure06 wrote:

There were tensions and violence sure, but nothing on the scale of what followed. The great powers just rushed into this momentous decision without adequate consultation with the Arabs.

Obviously the violence wasn't going to be anything on the scale of what followed - no Arab state was going to invade a territory administered by the British. There were, however, plenty of terrorist actions by the Irgun, Haganah (one member of which was the last Israeli PM) and Lehi/the Stern Gang while Amin al-Husayni in particular was making his own efforts on the other side. They're easily comparable with recent efforts by the more exhuberant supporters of their own side (read as "idiots with guns and bombs that aren't afraid to use them") in that the achievements slightly exceed what's currently going on and the intended achievements easily exceed them.

As for the great powers rushing into the decision, momentous or otherwise, there are a number of factors to consider that you didn't bother listing. The 1922 mandate (which precedes the creation of Israel by 26 years) has as one of its two main aims the creation of a Jewish homeland. That in particular can hardly come as news to anyone in 1947 (or 48). Territory east of the Jordan was exempt from various provisions, territory west of it wasn't. To preempt any questions of what my views are on the creation of a Jewish state or state for Jewish people or whatever way people care to put it, a state has a right to exist. The current state has a right to exist. One may argue about the territory that should be controlled by that state at your whim.

The ending of that mandate is where most of the intelligent historical arguments arise. It's important to remember that in 1947 the UK had seventy thousand trops stationed in the Palestine mandate. That's a big troop outlay even by today's standards, at the time it was even more so. The terrorist actions of the time were the reason most of them were there, as well as regular calls by al-Husayni, who by then was heading the Arab Higher Committee (representing Arabs in the territory) to kill as many Jews as possible. For years the British administrators had ignored attacks by Fawzi Al-Qawuqji and his ilk on the basis that these weren't attacks on their own personnel, which oddly enough backfired on that particular side of the conflict later on as it led to a pretty organised militia. Meanwhile the British were making major PR errors like sending the Exodus ship to Germany in 1947. Faced with that the UK had little option but to turn the mandate over to the UN.

Now let's talk about the actions of the "great powers". The 1947 partition plan was neither drafted nor organised by the "great powers". The 1937 Peel recommendations (which offered more territory to the Arabs than any other proposal since) were but these were pretty much forgotten about by 1947. There were some big states like Canada involved in the 1947 proposals but none of the eleven members of the UNSCOP committee could be classed as "great powers" in the way that term ic usually interpreted. Most Jewish organisations accepted the plan (though none of the extreme types did), all of the Arab ones and countries rejected it. Had the Arab organisations and countries accepted the plan they'd control far more territory now than they are ever likely to in the future. This was followed by the 1947 Jerusalem riots where a number of Arab militants burned the commercial centre of Jerusalem and attacked a number of residental areas, followed by the Jewish group Haganahdeciding to use terrorist tactics to stop future attacks on Jews (it's always surprised me that when the Shinners side with one party in this argument on the basis of an occupied people that they forget the comparison that can be made with their own resurgence here on the other side of the whiney argument). Resolution 181 was passed by the UN General Assembly. It may well be the last Resolution that Israel agreed with, for the sake of argument and a little humour let's assume it was.

The declaration of the state of Israel is based on that mandate. It's a unilateral declaration but most declarations of independence tend to be - from an internal legal perspective (though not an international one) ours was for example. Everyone on the planet knew months in advance that the British mandate was due to expire on May 15 1948. The Israeli militants and Arab militants certainly knew, they were pretty much all ready for war the day after.

As soon as independence was officially declared the 1948 war officially started. Whether partition would have been implemented or not is largely irrelevant and certainly unknown as it would never have been accepted.

Since then we've had almost nothing but trouble (though the standard of oranges has been getting better) with two sides led by idiots claiming that God is on their side and promised them the land they want (and presumably also authorised the dealings with the Americans or Russians), including the crappy bits. The militant Jews claim that God promised them the bits west of the Jordan while the militant Arabs swear they were promised everything from Senegal as far east as Kuwait. Israel controls land they shouldn't control and their competitors claim land they shouldn't claim. I've sen children co-operate more, even without a mother with a wooden spoon hanging over them. These children have access to guns, tanks, bombs and the odd nuclear device. Even with my dislike for corporal punishment I'd make an exception here and hand out a good dose of the wooden spoon.

It's a relatively simple thing, which is probably why almost no-one agrees with it - the Arabs recognise Israel's right to exist, Israel recognises the right of the Palestinians to have an independent country that isn't bothered by loud sirens at night, both sides stop killing each other, both sides stop desecrating religious sites of the other side and they've both got access to lots of fish. And a few smaller things, not a single one of which is as important as the first three things I've listed there. The current borders are de facto, may as well make them de jure and basically recognise most of the green line as the actual border.

Who started it? Who cares. We could look back and even if we could manage to agree on what constitutes "starting it" we'd have trouble agreeing on that. And lots of people would be disappointed and say it doesn't matter because the people on the other side are REAL BAD PEOPLE who do REAL BAD THINGS whereas the side they've sympathy for are good people forced to do some bold things by the REAL BAD PEOPLE on the other side. Young children argue that way and seek justification for their actions in that manner. Neither governments nor anyone with the capacity to use a keyboard should be able to justify their own myopia in that manner. I expect better. People in that region of the world should do likewise but a certain percentage of them want all the pie. If the Palestinian militants stop shooting people tomorrow they still get less than they could have had for free in 1948 or at a smaller cost in 1993. The Israelis likewise have to face up to flipping the bird at world opinion for longer than most of us have lived and have managed to lose quite a bit of the sympathy they paid for in advance prior to 1945, especially since 1993. If we had the manpower we could have done worse than to build a big wall around the entire area. Instead we keep going back and talking to them like they're not all being led by big children with bombs. And we've all those people on both sides happily saying that the other side are REAL BAD PEOPLE and that the solution should lie with them as "you know, they've no right to be there anyway". Well done, that's helpful.