PS. Don’t compare Hezbollah to the IRA. For one thing the IRA is much tougher, and more skilled. Second, IRA members don’t hate jews. and Third, the IRA are ‘freedom Fighters”, not terrorists like Hezbollah or Al Qaida.

In the case of the American quagmire in Iraq, courtesy of Seymour Hersh (http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060821fa_fact):

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on August 3rd, Rumsfeld was less than enthusiastic about the war’s implications for the American troops in Iraq. Asked whether the Administration was mindful of the war’s impact on Iraq, he testified that, in his meetings with Bush and Condoleezza Rice, “there is a sensitivity to the desire to not have our country or our interests or our forces put at greater risk as a result of what’s taking place between Israel and Hezbollah. . . . There are a variety of risks that we face in that region, and it’s a difficult and delicate situation.”

And if, as Hersh avers, this Israeli war in Lebanon was a dress rehearsal for a US incursion into Iraq, the implications should be well heeded by the wise (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0721/p09s01-coop.html):

Until now the Shiite Arabs of Iraq have been told by their leaders to leave American forces alone. But an escalation of tensions between Iran and the US could change that overnight. Moreover, the ever-increasing violence of the civil war in Iraq can change the alignment of forces there unexpectedly

Come on, you are making a specific claim as to the innocence of the prisoners. I don’t know all the individual cases but it is the official position of the Israeli government that fighters sneaking into the country with no uniforms are criminals entitled to no protection under the laws of war. That applies equally to resistance by individual civilians to an occupying power, civilians being obliged to sstay out of the fighting or loosing their protection.

The act of participation in armed conflict by civilians wearing no uniforms is by itself a war crime, and provided that the Israeli government has convinced a court that a civilian person had a gun, the person wouldn’t be innocent.
But let’s take a specific example - Sameer Kuntar a “freedom fighter” who sneaked into Israel crushing the skull of a child. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.

Just look at the Human Rights organizations, you’ll see all the atrocities commited to prisoners. Until recently, Israel was the only country in the world to have legalized torture.

1,000 of them being held without charges. The other 8,000 were tried and convicted, but the information retrieved from them
was acquired through torture.

This claim is pure bunk.
Are you claiming that those Palestinians held in Israeli prison (and by the way very few of them are of Lebanese nationality) are innocent?
Those imprisoned are persons convicted of acts of murder and terrorism having no right under the laws of war to participate in armed hostilities.
Foreign citizens of whatever nationality sneaking into Israel without observing the laws of war — wearing no uniforms and answering to no lawful command structure — in order to commit acts of murder and attacks on civilian infrastructure are simple criminals and have no right to release.

Israel could end this current conflict by tonight if they wanted to, but they’d face international condemnation for reducing Lebanon- and Hezbollah- to glowing green shards of glass.

Absolutely! Now the question remains, why are some people posting here arguing the merits of Israels case in terms of skin colour?

I think the answer is obvious, and I would encourage all of citizens of Israel both to repudiate the argument and those who offer it (Israel) support on that basis.

Somewhat over half of the Jews in Israel are Sephardic Jews who were driven out of, or are descended from Jews who were driven out of, the Moslem countries of the middle east (Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, etc., etc.). Physically, they are indistinguishable from Arabs. Thus, it is false to say that Israel is a country of 5 million white Jews surrounded by 300 million dark skinned moslems. It would be accurate to say that Israel is a country of about 2-1/2 million dark skinned Jews and 2-1/2 million light skinned Jews and 1 million Arabs. I hope this clarifies matters for you.

As for what Hezbollah wants, I don’t think that’s a big mystery. They want the state of Israel (as they and their Iranian paymasters put it, the “Zionist entity”) to go away, to disappear, to vanish from the face of the earth. I don’t think they care very much if the Jews flee or if they are all killed, but they want to create a judenfrei Islamic state out of all of the land between the Jordan River and the sea. I don’t understand why some of you seem to have such a hard time understanding this.

John, you idiot, Israeli are brown skinned too.

Oil is used in some religions as part of blessings. To be anointed with oil is a blessing. Nations anointed with oil are seldom blessed by their oil. Capitalists know that oil used for political reasons, only increases the price of the oil. Oil used for violence, the money paid for oil used for violence, violence used to take control of oil.

Mark John Hunter - whatever the hell your rant is about, I know that my car won’t run on Pepsi, that we cue up to pay the world’s spot price on imported oil like everyone else(hint: as a commodity it has peaked and reserves are decreasing worldwide) and that Ghandi was a Hindu and not real relevant to the here and now.

clinton - whatever?

MURDER as cover for THEFT is *not* SELF-DEFENSE!

Hezbollah is fighting a defensive war. I hope they get help to turn back the forces of Israeli aggression. This is about Israel’s plan to control the water of the Litani river. Expect Israel to create a “buffer zone” all the way up to Beirut and beyond.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JXTBPAHDIJVXTQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/08/10/nira10.xml

I do not expect that the United Kingdom will now level Armagh.

Both sides are wrong for historical reasons. It’s how frame the problem decides the character of the person. In your frame of reference there is no door open for the solution.

Sir you are too old and mature to miss that.

Right now those brown-skinned arabs are making the IDF look like a second-rate power that still does not have their soldiers back.

What on earth does the colour of Arab or Israeli/Jewish skin have to do with anything? Is this some sort of appeal to racist sentiments?

Disgusting

Did the IRA ever bomb Bali? Did they ever bomb Spain?

The IRA did carry out some bombings in Gibraltar, IIRC.

And in WW-II, England seriously considered invading Ireland a couple of times. A number of reasons held them up, including possible American reaction.

It is also false to claim that the IRish Republic did not turn a blind eye to the IRA’s activities. There was plenty of wink-wink, nudge going on till the assasination of Mountbatten.

The bottom line is, the billions of dark skinned Arabs on their gazillion square miles of territory are brutalizing and oppressing the 6 million white skinned Israelis on their postage stamp sized homeland.

The numbers are somewhat irrelevant because Israel has a huge miitary advantage over its adversaries, including nukes.

I know these anti-semite smears are enough to scare and shut up a lot of Americans. But I’m not going to be intimidated.

If you are so keen that land should be returned to its original owner then please America hand back land to the Native Americans. Many of your ancestors stole it and cheated them out of it.

The IRA had links with ETA in Spain and other countries (Columbia?). Not to mention the Nazis from what I hear… But then so did the Bush family.

I am well aware that in the Arab-Israeli conflict there is evil on both sides. Let’s not mention the Palestianian record on gay rights. But America has made Israel the third best equipped army in the world? Now Iran is equipping the Arabs.

America’s power and influence is about to decline. Fifty years from now, the US could be like Britain was after WW2. Israel should start getting along with its neighbours now.

Open Letter to Hezbollah

I’m going to have to stop reading your blog Jeff.

Bye.

I’m not sure really going back to Roman times (although, granted, Roman laws forbidding Jews from participating in most economic activity that lead to the ghetto-isation both socially and economically added to the early Roman-Christian church’s scapegoating of Jews for the death of Jesus are at the root of European anti-Semitism) is that useful a point of reference. You can go back further than Roman times of course to when the Jews returned to the Holy Land from Egypt and kicked out the Arabs living there then… Going back further of course the 12 tribes of Israel followed Joseph to Egypt of their own volition to escape drought… and we’re into the realms of theological myth…

Risible