proof of Israel breaking yet ANOTHER international law

[sharky 2]

I've lost count of how many laws they have broken by now:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm

evidence that is difficult to refute, still that won't stop Risto, Mawailson, Charlesandnessa, Luckystrike etc from trying.....

[vartan 0]

I personally agree that Isreal violated some laws.. those cluster bombs were uncalled for... but this doesn't make Hezbollah the good guy either.

[Ban Hammer 14,293]

I've lost count of how many laws they have broken by now:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm

evidence that is difficult to refute, still that won't stop Risto, Mawailson, Charlesandnessa, Luckystrike etc from trying.....

and when it comes to anything hezbollah has done, you're

maybe this explains why you can't see anything other than lower intestine

link

Edited August 31, 2006 by charlesandnessa

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Terrorists must be stopped at all cost. I recommend a tactical nuke next time.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It looks like they were trying to turn Southern Lebanon into a no-man's land, regardless of any actual future political settlement.

Just wonder if we can't all agree that none of the sides involved here are morally spotless, in any way.

Why is it always about promoting (by-proxy) either one or the other?

[cmartyn 0]

Nahhh Dont nuke em.

Drop more Daisy Cutters. I think we should sell them a few dozen used B52's and an airport.

[sharky 2]

Hey guys you never let me down with your predictable replies!!!

(except erekose: the only radically sane person here)............

and once again just because I post some facts about Israel's war tactics you come back with the "well he supports Hezbollah" ...... and "it's better that supporting terrorists".......... you guys are so zany....

I have never, in any post, condoned what Hezbollah has done........... but I was expecting these replies. Deny the facts and say "well it's better than supporting terrorists".......... so predictable......

and Luckystrike's comments?............well now there's someone showing his true colours.......... let's just nuke em all eh??? you should go for the next presidency?? I'm sure a lot of Americans would support you!!

[Jenn! 918]

Just wonder if we can't all agree that none of the sides involved here are morally spotless, in any way.

Sort of comes with the territory, if you know what I mean, don't you think? One side sees both sides and the other side sees only one side.

[Alex+R 0]

I personally agree that Isreal violated some laws.. those cluster bombs were uncalled for... but this doesn't make Hezbollah the good guy either.

Vartan, you are so lucky. I wish I lived in black-and-white world, with good guys and bad guys. And the possibility of Superman.

[jjjimmy 0]

Here s a good idea if you dont want to get bombed dont shoot bombs at other countrys at some point the lebonise people have to be responsible for causing this retaliation.but you act as if isrial just decided to bomb them for no reason!

[I'm Gone 60]

Terrorists must be stopped at all cost. I recommend a tactical nuke next time.

Israel started the sh*t. People had free elections and because the "wrong" side won they started cutting off their money and locking up people.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10663

The latest phase began on June 24, when the Israeli army kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. They were "detained" according to brief notes in the British press. The U.S. media mostly preferred silence.4 They will presumably join the 9,000 other Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, 1,000 reportedly in prison without charges, hence kidnapped -- as were many of the rest, in that they were sentenced by Israeli courts, which are a disgrace, harshly condemned by legal commentators in Israel. Among them are hundreds of women and children, their numbers and fate of little interest. Also of little interest are Israel's secret prisons. The Israeli press reported that these have been "the entry gate to Israel for Lebanese, especially those who were suspected of membership in Hezbollah, who were transferred to the southern side of the border," some captured in battle in Lebanon, others "abducted at Israel's initiative" and sometimes held as hostages, with torture under interrogation. The secret Camp 1391, possibly one of several, was discovered accidentally in 2003, since forgotten.5

The next day, June 25, Palestinians kidnapped an Israeli soldier just across the border from Gaza. That did happen, very definitely. Every literate reader also knows the name of corporal Gilad Shalit, and wants him released. The nameless kidnapped Gaza civilians are ignored; international law, while rightly insisting that captured soldiers be treated humanely, absolutely prohibits the extrajudicial seizure of civilians. Israel responded by "bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right?" as the fine Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote, adding that "[a] state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization." Israel also kidnapped a large part of the Palestinian government, destroyed most of the Gaza electrical and water systems, and committed numerous other crimes. These acts of collective punishment, condemned by Amnesty International as "war crimes," compounded the punishment of Palestinians for having voted the wrong way. Within a few days, UN agencies working in Gaza warned of a "public health disaster" as a result of developments "which have seen innocent civilians, including children, killed, brought increased misery to hundreds of thousands of people and which will wreak far-reaching harm on Palestinian society. An already alarming situation in Gaza, with poverty rates at nearly eighty per cent and unemployment at nearly forty per cent, is likely to deteriorate rapidly, unless immediate and urgent action is taken."6

The pretext for punishing Palestinians is that Hamas refuses to accept three demands: to recognize Israel, cease all acts of violence, and accept earlier agreements. The editors of the New York Times instruct Hamas leaders that they must accept the "ground rules that have already been accepted by Egypt and Jordan and by the Arab League as a whole in its 2002 Beirut peace initiative" and, furthermore, that they must do so "not as some kind of ideological concession" but "as an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government" -- like us.7

Unmentioned is that Israel and the United States flatly reject all of these conditions. They do not recognize Palestine; they refused to end their violence even when Hamas observed a unilateral truce for a year and a half and called for a long-term truce while negotiations proceed for a two-state settlement; and they dismissed with utter contempt the 2002 Arab League call for normalization of relations, along with all other proposals for a meaningful diplomatic settlement. Even when it accepted the "Road Map" that is supposed to define U.S. policy, Israel added fourteen "reservations" that rendered it entirely meaningless, eliciting the usual tacit approval in Washington and silence in commentary.8

The Hamas electoral victory was eagerly exploited by the United States and Israel. Previously, they had to pretend that there was "no partner" for negotiations, so they had no choice but to continue their project of taking over the West Bank, as they had been doing systematically since the Oslo Accords were signed (extending earlier actions). The pace of settlement peaked in 2000, the last year of Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then escalated under Bush-Sharon. With Hamas in office, Olmert and his cohorts can lament that there is "no partner." Therefore, they must proceed with annexation and destruction of Palestine, counting on articulate Western opinion to applaud politely, perhaps with mild reservations about unilateral "convergence," and to suppress the fact that while Hamas's programs are in many respects entirely unacceptable, their own are comparable or much worse, and are not just rhetoric: They are systematically implementing their denial of any meaningful Palestinian rights, a crucial difference.

The next act in this hideous drama opened on July 12, when Hezbollah launched a raid in which it captured two Israeli soldiers and killed several others, leading to an all-out Israeli attack, killing hundreds and destroying much of what Lebanon has painfully reconstructed from the wreckage of its civil wars and the Israeli invasions. Whatever its motives, Hezbollah took a frightful gamble, for which Lebanon would surely pay dearly. Here we see the danger of processes that have led to the rise of "parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect [civilian populations] and deliver essential services" with their own military wings, as veteran Middle East correspondent Rami Khouri has noted.9

On the motives, analysts differ. "Hezbollah's official line," the Financial Times reports, "was that the capture was aimed at winning the release of the few remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. But the timing and scale of its attack suggest it was partly intended to reduce the pressure on the Palestinians by forcing Israel to fight on two fronts simultaneously." Many agree, recalling Hezbollah's reaction to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 -- when it seized soldiers in a cross-border raid that led to a prisoner exchange -- as well as its response to Israel's devastating attacks in the West Bank in 2002 (Amos Harel).10 Others highlight the prisoner motive, which is also suggested by the exchange in 2000, by the fact that Hezbollah had attempted capture of soldiers before the recent crisis, and by the matter of Israel's secret prisons, mentioned earlier. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese academic specialist on Hezbollah, regards the Gaza connection as primary, but argues that one should not ignore "the domestic significance of these hostages."11

Still others regard Iran and/or Syria as the main actors. Many experts and Iranian dissidents disagree, though few doubt that Iran and Syria authorized Hezbollah's actions. Most Arab rulers place the blame on Iran. At an emergency Arab League summit, they were willing "to openly defy Arab public opinion" because of their concerns about Iranian influence. One Dubai military specialist commented that the Iranians, by means of Hezbollah, "are embarrassing the hell out of the Arab governments," who are doing nothing while "[t]he peace process has collapsed, the Palestinians are being killed. . . . And here comes Hezbollah, which is actually scoring hits against Israel." The criticism of Hezbollah was opposed by Syria, Yemen, Algeria, and Lebanon; the Iraqi parliament, "in a rare show of unity," condemned the Israeli attack as "criminal aggression," and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose designation Washington applauded, "call[ed] on the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression." The fact that most Arab leaders, however, are willing to "defy public opinion" may have large-scale regional implications, strengthening radical Islamist groups. It is noteworthy that the "Supreme Guide" of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Mahdi Akef, sharply condemned the Arab states. "The Brotherhood would win a comfortable majority" in a free election in Egypt, according to Middle East scholar Fawwaz Gerges, and has broad influence elsewhere, including with Hamas, one of its offshoots.12

A broader analysis is suggested by retired colonel Pat Lang, former head of the Middle East and terrorism desk at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency: "This is basically tribal warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and you're unwilling to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas offered, then you have to destroy them. The Israeli response is so disproportionate to the abduction of the three men it appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal both to their public and to the U.S."13

Speculation about motives and conflicting factors should not blind us to the tragedy that is unfolding. Lebanon is being destroyed, Israel's Gaza prison is suffering still more savage blows, and on the West Bank, mostly out of sight, the United States and Israel are consummating their project of the murder of a nation, a grim and rare event in history.

These actions, and the Western response, illustrate all too clearly the amalgam of savage cruelty, self-righteousness, and injured innocence that is so deeply rooted in the imperial mentality as to be beyond awareness. One can easily understand why Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, is alleged to have said that he thought it might be a good idea.

[sharky 2]

I've lost count of how many laws they have broken by now:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm

evidence that is difficult to refute, still that won't stop Risto, Mawailson, Charlesandnessa, Luckystrike etc from trying.....

and when it comes to anything hezbollah has done, you're

maybe this explains why you can't see anything other than lower intestine

link

Great link Charles.............I would suggest people strongly read the part about:

* The claim that Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. This claim, which gave such incendiary traction to the lie that Israel deliberately targeted civilians, was repeated by ITV News, Time Magazine, the Guardian, Boston Globe, The Age, NBC News, the New York Times and thousands of outlets around the world.

Zombietime, however, convincingly exposed this claim as a fraud. It is worth reading its analysis in full in order properly to grasp both the enormity of the libel and the way it was not only uncritically accepted but gleefully embellished by respected media outlets, whose journalists either didn’t know or care that they were transmitting an outright fabrication. Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the kind of missiles used by the Israeli air force would grasp immediately that the hole in the roof of the ambulance whose picture went round the world could not have been caused by such a missile. If a missile had indeed hit it there would have been no roof remaining to inspect; nor would there have remained an ambulance. Yet the rest of the ambulance in the pictures, although damaged, was pretty well intact — and the allegedly seriously injured ambulance driver not only was pictured with minor injuries, but even these had miraculously disappeared without trace in pictures taken a few days later.

In short, the whole claim was patently risible. As Zombietime revealed, the hole was almost certainly made by an air vent in the roof. It was part of the ambulance. There was no attack on the ambulance. The whole claim was a lie, a hoax, a fraud. Yet this lie has gone round the world, been ‘shown’ on TV, been embellished by familiar trusted commentators and thus has attained the status of unchallengeable truth. But it is a lie.

then see pictures of the "intact" ambulance........:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...6lr%3D%26sa%3DN

yeah that's pretty much drivable I would say Charles....... in fact that air vent is very visible, along with a cluster of smaller air vents in the roof........ god it must get hot in the those ambulances........

keep taking your pills guys and things will be just fine.........

oh and by the way, are you sure that blogg was called Zombietime??? I think it was probably Zionisttime myself!!!!

[sharky 2]

Terrorists must be stopped at all cost. I recommend a tactical nuke next time.

Israel started the sh*t. People had free elections and because the "wrong" side won they started cutting off their money and locking up people.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10663

The latest phase began on June 24, when the Israeli army kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. They were "detained" according to brief notes in the British press. The U.S. media mostly preferred silence.4 They will presumably join the 9,000 other Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, 1,000 reportedly in prison without charges, hence kidnapped -- as were many of the rest, in that they were sentenced by Israeli courts, which are a disgrace, harshly condemned by legal commentators in Israel. Among them are hundreds of women and children, their numbers and fate of little interest. Also of little interest are Israel's secret prisons. The Israeli press reported that these have been "the entry gate to Israel for Lebanese, especially those who were suspected of membership in Hezbollah, who were transferred to the southern side of the border," some captured in battle in Lebanon, others "abducted at Israel's initiative" and sometimes held as hostages, with torture under interrogation. The secret Camp 1391, possibly one of several, was discovered accidentally in 2003, since forgotten.5

The next day, June 25, Palestinians kidnapped an Israeli soldier just across the border from Gaza. That did happen, very definitely. Every literate reader also knows the name of corporal Gilad Shalit, and wants him released. The nameless kidnapped Gaza civilians are ignored; international law, while rightly insisting that captured soldiers be treated humanely, absolutely prohibits the extrajudicial seizure of civilians. Israel responded by "bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right?" as the fine Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote, adding that "[a] state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization." Israel also kidnapped a large part of the Palestinian government, destroyed most of the Gaza electrical and water systems, and committed numerous other crimes. These acts of collective punishment, condemned by Amnesty International as "war crimes," compounded the punishment of Palestinians for having voted the wrong way. Within a few days, UN agencies working in Gaza warned of a "public health disaster" as a result of developments "which have seen innocent civilians, including children, killed, brought increased misery to hundreds of thousands of people and which will wreak far-reaching harm on Palestinian society. An already alarming situation in Gaza, with poverty rates at nearly eighty per cent and unemployment at nearly forty per cent, is likely to deteriorate rapidly, unless immediate and urgent action is taken."6

The pretext for punishing Palestinians is that Hamas refuses to accept three demands: to recognize Israel, cease all acts of violence, and accept earlier agreements. The editors of the New York Times instruct Hamas leaders that they must accept the "ground rules that have already been accepted by Egypt and Jordan and by the Arab League as a whole in its 2002 Beirut peace initiative" and, furthermore, that they must do so "not as some kind of ideological concession" but "as an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government" -- like us.7

Unmentioned is that Israel and the United States flatly reject all of these conditions. They do not recognize Palestine; they refused to end their violence even when Hamas observed a unilateral truce for a year and a half and called for a long-term truce while negotiations proceed for a two-state settlement; and they dismissed with utter contempt the 2002 Arab League call for normalization of relations, along with all other proposals for a meaningful diplomatic settlement. Even when it accepted the "Road Map" that is supposed to define U.S. policy, Israel added fourteen "reservations" that rendered it entirely meaningless, eliciting the usual tacit approval in Washington and silence in commentary.8

The Hamas electoral victory was eagerly exploited by the United States and Israel. Previously, they had to pretend that there was "no partner" for negotiations, so they had no choice but to continue their project of taking over the West Bank, as they had been doing systematically since the Oslo Accords were signed (extending earlier actions). The pace of settlement peaked in 2000, the last year of Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then escalated under Bush-Sharon. With Hamas in office, Olmert and his cohorts can lament that there is "no partner." Therefore, they must proceed with annexation and destruction of Palestine, counting on articulate Western opinion to applaud politely, perhaps with mild reservations about unilateral "convergence," and to suppress the fact that while Hamas's programs are in many respects entirely unacceptable, their own are comparable or much worse, and are not just rhetoric: They are systematically implementing their denial of any meaningful Palestinian rights, a crucial difference.

The next act in this hideous drama opened on July 12, when Hezbollah launched a raid in which it captured two Israeli soldiers and killed several others, leading to an all-out Israeli attack, killing hundreds and destroying much of what Lebanon has painfully reconstructed from the wreckage of its civil wars and the Israeli invasions. Whatever its motives, Hezbollah took a frightful gamble, for which Lebanon would surely pay dearly. Here we see the danger of processes that have led to the rise of "parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect [civilian populations] and deliver essential services" with their own military wings, as veteran Middle East correspondent Rami Khouri has noted.9

On the motives, analysts differ. "Hezbollah's official line," the Financial Times reports, "was that the capture was aimed at winning the release of the few remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. But the timing and scale of its attack suggest it was partly intended to reduce the pressure on the Palestinians by forcing Israel to fight on two fronts simultaneously." Many agree, recalling Hezbollah's reaction to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 -- when it seized soldiers in a cross-border raid that led to a prisoner exchange -- as well as its response to Israel's devastating attacks in the West Bank in 2002 (Amos Harel).10 Others highlight the prisoner motive, which is also suggested by the exchange in 2000, by the fact that Hezbollah had attempted capture of soldiers before the recent crisis, and by the matter of Israel's secret prisons, mentioned earlier. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese academic specialist on Hezbollah, regards the Gaza connection as primary, but argues that one should not ignore "the domestic significance of these hostages."11

Still others regard Iran and/or Syria as the main actors. Many experts and Iranian dissidents disagree, though few doubt that Iran and Syria authorized Hezbollah's actions. Most Arab rulers place the blame on Iran. At an emergency Arab League summit, they were willing "to openly defy Arab public opinion" because of their concerns about Iranian influence. One Dubai military specialist commented that the Iranians, by means of Hezbollah, "are embarrassing the hell out of the Arab governments," who are doing nothing while "[t]he peace process has collapsed, the Palestinians are being killed. . . . And here comes Hezbollah, which is actually scoring hits against Israel." The criticism of Hezbollah was opposed by Syria, Yemen, Algeria, and Lebanon; the Iraqi parliament, "in a rare show of unity," condemned the Israeli attack as "criminal aggression," and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose designation Washington applauded, "call[ed] on the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression." The fact that most Arab leaders, however, are willing to "defy public opinion" may have large-scale regional implications, strengthening radical Islamist groups. It is noteworthy that the "Supreme Guide" of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Mahdi Akef, sharply condemned the Arab states. "The Brotherhood would win a comfortable majority" in a free election in Egypt, according to Middle East scholar Fawwaz Gerges, and has broad influence elsewhere, including with Hamas, one of its offshoots.12

A broader analysis is suggested by retired colonel Pat Lang, former head of the Middle East and terrorism desk at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency: "This is basically tribal warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and you're unwilling to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas offered, then you have to destroy them. The Israeli response is so disproportionate to the abduction of the three men it appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal both to their public and to the U.S."13

Speculation about motives and conflicting factors should not blind us to the tragedy that is unfolding. Lebanon is being destroyed, Israel's Gaza prison is suffering still more savage blows, and on the West Bank, mostly out of sight, the United States and Israel are consummating their project of the murder of a nation, a grim and rare event in history.

These actions, and the Western response, illustrate all too clearly the amalgam of savage cruelty, self-righteousness, and injured innocence that is so deeply rooted in the imperial mentality as to be beyond awareness. One can easily understand why Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, is alleged to have said that he thought it might be a good idea.

good post mdyoung.......... a lot of good historical facts in there........it seems to have silenced the others.............. for the moment..............

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

and Luckystrike's comments?............well now there's someone showing his true colours.......... let's just nuke em all eh??? you should go for the next presidency?? I'm sure a lot of Americans would support you!!

tactical nuke...tactical!!!

[Veiled Princess 1]

I've lost count of how many laws they have broken by now:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm

evidence that is difficult to refute, still that won't stop Risto, Mawailson, Charlesandnessa, Luckystrike etc from trying.....

and when it comes to anything hezbollah has done, you're

maybe this explains why you can't see anything other than lower intestine

link

The same can be said about you regarding Israel. I agree that Hezbullah are terrorists but I also see that Israel is as well.