Israel, Lebanon, Palestine: The road to war

To punish the people of Gaza and Lebanon because their governments haven't figured out how to control these outfits would be a bit like bombing the Vatican as retribution for the violence of the IRA,” writes Trinidad & Tobago blogger Jeremy Taylor, as he weighs in on the situation brewing in the Middle East.

71 comments

  • Mary-Beth Frazee

    Israel has the power to wipe out these terrorists. The world would be better off if they would just step back and let Israel take care of it. America is behind Israel all the way – stand your ground Israel.

  • Dory

    Do you sometime look at your watch and don’t know what time it is?
    Do you sometime go sleep, wake up thinking you’re somewhere but discover you’re somewhere else?
    Do you sometime go to a room in your house and wonder why you went there?
    Do you sometime feel so helpless that you say to yourself “God help me” regardless of what your religion is?
    – I do too!

    I can go on with an exhaustive list of those little things that we have in common and define us as human beings…
    Does one have any right to decide of the fate of others?
    We could go on and point out responsibles and blame them for the death of innocent people because it’s the easiest we can do, but would the problem be solved?
    Some of you blame israelis or arabs, others Islam or Judaism, others the CIA and the United States…Would this bring the innocent victims back to life?
    Many of you think “those are war casualties”, for me they’re human beings and I feel ashamed if that arab little boy or that israeli little girl asks me “Why did I die?”…
    Why did they die? Did they die for any reason at all? Was the “Cause” worth the blood they spilled?
    Almost 58 years and our people are still suffering. Now show me if you can tell little Mohammed and little Sarah if their blood helped for anything!

    Do you deserve Qatioshas? – no you don’t! But my people and my family members who have F16s and Apaches flying over their beds do not deserve to die either.
    For what? For the personal ego of Olmert and Nasrallah who think they’re saviors ??!!
    Let’s send the slaughtered jewish and arab babies to them both and see what God they worship!
    That’s enough! We’re tired of your flying gadgets, we’re tired of your stupid politics and beliefs!
    We have grown-ups with a 12-year-old-child’s slang fighting their own war by sending other people’s children to die!!!
    That’s enough! I want Sarah as much as Mohammed to live the life they are meant to have!
    Shed your tears people, shed your tears to this human cruelty instead of encouraging this party or that to keep fighting!
    Let’s mourn these innocent people who are dying by hundreds but can’t see because of our media!
    Whichever God you worship, no religion tells you to kill and to those who do not concur go read the books!
    My sympathy to all the victims and I urge every single one of you who still has some compassion to read these lines in the name of all the victims who died asking “Why?!”:

    We are sorry for the pain the human cruelty imposed on you.
    We are sorry for the blood you shed for the weakness of our governors.
    You do not deserve to die and for that we cannot but cry.
    Your names will be remembered and your souls never forgotten.
    Were you a Sarah or a Mohammed, we shall weep you equally as your lives were equally important.
    Peace to all of us…

  • Floridian

    Hizbollah attacked Israel many times during the last few years, with no retaliation, mostrly because they didn’t manage to kill anyone. Eventually they entered Israel on ground, killed several soldiers and kidnapped two.

    Now stop and think what you would have done being the country just attacked. Would you be as nice as Israel has been, giving warning before each airstrike?

    Israel is too moral for the middle east.

  • Maria

    To the person who commented that Israel is too moral for the middle east:
    Do you call the MASSACRE of CIVILIANS in open pickups fleeing the bombardments in their villages after being ordered by the agressing army to evacuate a MORAL thing? Or the total destruction of a country in order to get back 2 captured soldiers a MORAL thing?
    Any escalation on the hizbollah side has also been done with very clear warnings.
    If Hizbollah is a terrorist organisation, Israel is also a terrorist state.

  • Maria

    The massacre of lebanese civilians in open pickups fleeing the bombardments in their villages after being ordered by the agressing army is anything but moral.The total destruction of a country in order to get back 2 captured soldiers is nothing but a terrorist activity.
    If Israel claims that it has been giving warnings before each airstrike, escalations on the hizbollah side has also been done with very clear warnings.
    If Hizbollah is a terrorist organisation, Israel is also a terrorist state.

  • Maria

    MY COMMENT NEEDS MODERATION?
    WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THAT HALF OF MY FAMILY HAS DIED FROM THE ISRAELI BOMBING IN THE SOUTH 3 DAYS AGO INSIDE THEIR OWN HOUSE?

  • Maria

    The massacre of lebanese civilians in open pickups fleeing the bombardments in their villages after being ordered by the agressing army is anything but moral, and the total destruction of a country in order to get back 2 captured soldiers is nothing but a terrorist activity.

  • Dudu

    Israel’s reasons for attacking the Hizbullah are more than the return of “only” two soldiers. There are a few other things to take into consideration:
    1. Israel has withdrawn to its international border, six years ago, under PM Barak’s ministry, according to 1559 UN decision.
    2. Hizbullah has never stopped attacking israeli towns a villages, through constant bombings and attempts to infiltrate the INTL border.
    3. Hizbullah doesn’t – as a strategy – warn civilians prior to attacking. A threat is NOT a warning.
    4. Talking about “morality” is wrong. Airstrikes cannot (ever!) be moral, but, then again, so is kidnapping.

  • Paul ( New York)

    To understand the current situation you have to look at history and put yourself in their situation.
    Ok you are a Palestinian. You are sitting in your home when Israeli bulldozers turn up supported by the IDF. They tell you to leave your home; they demolish your home and build a new Jewish settlement.

    Imagine if that happened to you here in the US? How would you feel if you could do nothing to stop it?

    Palestine is an AREA not a Sovereign State. There are no legal boundaries so Israel continues to steal land. No laws to enforce.

    The term occupied territories really means STOLEN PALESTINIAN LAND
    Also the occupiers are supported by the Israeli Military. So it’s a Military occupation.

    There have been numerous UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied land.
    Israel ignores them and the USA always vetoes any UN action.

    Terrorists a few facts
    My father was a terrorist!! Well that’s what a German would have told you in 1942. He was part of the French resistance, He would bomb German trains in occupied France.

    When it suits them! the USA supports terrorist’s, it has done this for years. Hey remember the CIA? they funded Bin Laden and the now terrorist outfit called the Mujah Hadin fight the Russian occupiers of Afghanistan.

    The IRA was funded partly funded from Irish American money. They would leave bombs in crowded markets killing children and babies.
    The British fought the IRA for over 30 years. Today 2 of them sit in the UK parliament.
    Imagine Bin laden sitting on capital hill??

    Oh and just the other day the UK extradited 3 British citizens back to the USA on Enron related charges, while the UK is told by the USA that they will not extradite Irish Americans that are wanted for IRA atrocities and trial back in Britain.
    American double standards.

    Who let the first terrorist bomb off in Palestine????
    That same person won a Nobel peace prize and also became a Prime Minister.
    Go and do a Google search to find out who it is.
    If you don’t have time it was the Jews and one of the bombers were Menachem Begin.

    Another world famous terrorist, he won the hearts and minds of millions of people and also won a Nobel peace prize. His name is Nelson Mandela. He was a terrorist and fought the apartheid regime in South Africa.

    So the lesson to learn here is.
    One man’s terrorist is another man’s Freedom Fighter.

    Why does everybody hate the USA in the Middle East???

    The Camp David accord and America’s unrelenting support of an Apartheid like regime.
    Yes look at the way Israel treats the Palestinian’s its policies are like the White South African Government policies towards the black population.

    Remember it is very difficult for any US President to criticize Israel because of the powerful Jewish lobby here in the US.

    The Camp David Peace accord. Oh Israel for its part in signing this agreement receives from the USA $ 3 Billion Dollars a year, nice.
    BUT! They have to spend that $3 Billion on Military hardware!!! USA Military hardware. So if you are an Arab you see the USA supplying weapons that kill your Arab brothers. That is why you see on TV Arabs chanting Death to America.
    If you pay Tax! you partly fund the Israeli military opression.

    So you are sitting in your house, along comes the IDF in an American funded and supplied Abrahams Tank the IDF carry m16’s and they bulldoze your house down and your neibours house where you and your family have lived for centuries. What do you do???
    You join the resistance against Israeli occupation and aggression. Israel destroys and destroys and destroys Palestinian hopes dreams livelihoods to the point where people have nothing left, this is the environment that breeds to and leads to suicide bombers.
    Look at the female suicide bombers… does she expects to be greeted by lots of male Virgins?

    For every action there is a reaction.

    I believe that if there was NO Israeli occupation there would be no resistance fighters/No terrorists.
    So please America you are the only entity that Israel will listen to( they ignore therest of the world including the UN) , PLEASE tell Israel to leave ALL the occupied land and go back to the pre 1967 borders(don’t they have enough land already just look at the map
    ) then hopefully everybody can live in peace.
    A senior Hamas member from his prision cell has demanded this.

    The US Global War on terror!!!
    Can never be won. The British fought the IRA for over 30 years. There was a hard core of a few hundred members, when the British killed one senior member of the IRA they would recruit a dozen or more new members.
    So what catalyst caused the end of this conflict? Sept11 … The American people and its government stopped the funding for the IRA and the world changed for America and it realized that the IRA was the same type of entity that destroyed the world trade center.

    America needs to spend time looking at its foreign policy. This is where the war on terror will be ultimately be won, but I think it will take a grave financial budget crisis caused by the financial cost of this war to make the great American Empire look at itself and it’s policies and then change it’s ways.

    oh one last thing…in 1979 America was in the process of selling Iran Nuclear weapons.

    it’s funy how the world has changed.

    Also worth a read
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/28/IN159328.DTL

  • Noam

    1. Israel did NOT fire upon fleeing pickup trucks. That is a lie. Show me a news story reporting this (which isn’t Al-Jazeera or Al-Manar). On the other hand, Hizbullah terrorists are preventing Lebanese villagers from fleeing north so that they will be killed. Hizbullah is willing to sacrifice innocent Lebanese to incur international wrath against Israel. And it seems to be working.

    2. Lebanon is in no way innocent and they deserve this offensive. Not only have they ignored UN resolution 1559 (Israel withdrew from Lebanon, but the Lebanese government did not disarm Hizbullah and did not deploy it’s army in the south of Lebanon), but the government and people have allowed Hizbullah to florish on Lebanese soil – stockpiling Iranian and Syrian weapons, gaining strategic advantages in the area, and entrenching themselves into Lebanese society (stockpiling weapons in homes, schoolyars, etc.).
    The Lebanese government and, for most part, the Lebanese people are getting what they deserve for ignoring UN resolutions, not to mention countless Israeli warnings.

    3. The same goes for the Gaza strip. Israel withdrew to the international border, and what did the Palestinian people do? They elected an internationally condemned terrorist organization to serve as their government. After the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip, the Hamas government used the oppertunity to dig tunnels under the international border in order to kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers. The Hamas government, and the people who elected them by a landslide are also getting what they deserve for electing a sworn enemy of Israel. The Palestinians cannot elect an organization sworn to the destruction of Israel and then complain when their government attacks Israel and is struck back.

    4. All Lebanese and Palestinian captives in Israel were arrested (not kidnapped) for charges ranging from consipracy to commit terrorist acts to the actual cold blooded murder of innocent men, women, and children. Even administrative arrests (arrests without a trial) cannot be achieved without presenting evidence of the terrorist’s crimes, and so the kidnapped Israeli soldiers CANNOT be compared to terrorists being held captive in Israeli prisons.

    5. Both Palestinians and Lebanese citizens are now reaping what they have sown. They cannot choose to support terrorist organizations and then act outraged when their elected officials do what they promise (i.e attempt to destroy Israel) and are struck by a force much grater then they.

    More power to Israel, and may we rid the region of this bloodthirsty hounds who commit horrid acts in the name of their countries, their people, and their religion (none of which truly support such acts).

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