(no subject)

[teddywolf]

I'm not going to touch Gaza right now because that would be an even bigger flamewar, but I am annoyed - yea, to the point of pissed off - with Hesbollah.

Israel left the Golan Heights and the rest of southern Lebanon. They completely withdrew. Their reason for staying in the Golan Heights was specifically because it was far too easy for missile strikes on Israel to be launched from there.

Hesbollah dashed into Israel - invaded, technically - kidnapped a soldier, and started firing a surprisingly large number of rockets at Israel. Apparently, they had some help from another country or two, like, oh, say, Syria and Iran. Many rockets fired, a number of casualties in Israel.

We know what Israel's response was: blockade the ports, wreck the main roads to Syria and make the airport unusable, as well as target some government buildings as they feel the government might have more sway than publicly reported (ie None). The reasons given: they do not want Hesbollah to take their soldier out of Lebanon, and they do not want Hesbollah to have easy access to resupply. Hesbollah talked about 'prisoner' exchange - the soldier for a goodly number of Hesbollah members in Israeli jails. This time, Israel refused. This is the first time I can think of where Israel flat-out refused such an exchange.

Oh, the reason I put prisoner in quotes? The Hesbollah prisoners in Israeli jails have been tried in a court of law, been found guilty in said court, and have been kept in jails. The kidnapped soldier has not been tried or convicted in a court of law and is not, to the best of anybody's knowledge who isn't holding him, in an official jail.

I initially thought that the Israeli response was too severe, as it was causing intense damage to infrastructure. I'm not as sure of that any more owing to the extremely provocative nature of Hesbollah's attack, the lack of Lebanese actions of any sort to rein in Hesbollah, and the stated reasons for why Israel is targeting what it is targeting.

Israel does not want to take over Lebanon. It wants its soldier back and wants Hesbollah to stop attacking.

If, say, Cuban nationalist terrorists* came into the US, kidnapped a US soldier, fired rockets into Florida, and demanded that the US release a large number of Cuban nationalist terrorists* in return for the US soldier, what do you think the US would do? What do you think the US should do?

*Yes, I know there has been no sign of Cuban nationalist terrorists. I am using these mythical beats for purpose of example.

All right, talk to me.

Comments

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Hezbollah had now taken at least two IDF soldiers. For that matter, aren't there four missing from Israel's navy, now?

You're right two kidnapped by Hezbollah, and those four navy sailers were killed by that missile.

The Lebanese government has done nothing to check them,

Hezbollah IS part of the Lebanese government! They have 23 members in parliament and two acting ministers. So it's not as if the Lebanese government can pretend to ignore them. Of course the pundits will try and claim that the Hezbollah has different "branches", and the political one should not be accountable for the military one.

The Hezbollah actually have nothing in common with the Palestinians, they don't even share the same religion, as they are Shiites, while the Palestinians are exclusively Sunni (anybody following the news from Iraq knows how well these two groups "get along"). This organization was created, and to this day is maintained by Iran (and Syria), as their long-arm against Israel. It's like Osama bin Laden claiming he did 9/11 "for the Palestinians", when he had never actually mentioned them in his rhetoric prior to that.

giving the Palestinians land of their own and leaving them to sink or swim in it,

The problem is, that this type of solution is precisely what created the present mess. We pulled-out of Gaza, and dismantled the settlements there. This was taken for a sign of weakness, and the Hammas won the following elections, for their part in "forcing Israel out". While part of the reason they won was due to their social-works "branch", they took their win as support for their "Destroy Israel" agenda, and continued directly or condoned others attacking Israel, to the tune of a thousand Qassam rockets raining down on south Israel, which we mostly did nothing about. The non-stop cross-border attacks kept getting more brazen until they finally kidnapped that first soldier. So giving the Arabs/Palestinians exactly what they want, only makes things worse.

As you say, peace in the Middle-East - "not going to happen".

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Israel isn't faultless here. I give them credit for pulling back from the settlements. I have no problem with them killing Hamas members, nor with attacking Hizbollah or for that matter Lebanon. Like I said, the Lebanese government (the ones who aren't Hizbollah members) aren't doing anything to force Hizbollah to stop attacking from Lebanese soil, so the people of Lebanon basically can suck it up and deal or rise up and toss out Hizbollah. Pulling out of the occupied territories is the right thing to do. If there are attacks after that, then I'll have zero sympathy for the attackers, absolutely none.