Some further insights:

1. Source: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/its_another_hezbollah_atrocity_opedcolumnists_john _podhoretz.htm

Re Kfar Qana: August 1, 2006 -- FORGIVE me if I find the general elite discussion of the horrible incident in Qana - in which an Israeli air strike apparently killed 57 civilians, the majority of them children - at the very least bizarrely ignorant and at the very worst simply despicable

Given the amount of coverage these past months of the Geneva Convention and its applicability to the War on Terror and the war in Iraq, you´d have expected the U.S. and European elites who profess their great love for the convention to rush to Israel´s defense: The Geneva Convention makes clear that the moral responsibility for the deaths at Qana belongs entirely to Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah has violated the most basic laws of war in its behavior.

Here´s the relevant language. It comes from Article 37 of Protocol 1, ratified in 1979: "It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy." It lists three types of perfidy; the third is "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status." And, by hiding in and launching missiles from Qana, Hezbollah was feigning civilian status and therefore resorting to perfidy.

This is why Hezbollah bears the specific responsibility for the Qana attack. A substantial number of rocket attacks against Israel (10 percent or more) were fired from trucks hidden inside the populated village. Spy footage released by Israel over the weekend tells the tale: It shows unmarked trucks with rockets hidden on them being driven in and out and around the streets of Qana in a deliberate effort to prevent any Israeli strikes.

Like a particularly malignant kind of parasite, Hezbollah weaved itself thoroughly into the limited infrastructure of Qana so that every person there would serve as a deterrent to an Israeli attack. It had good reason to know Israel might hesitate before ordering a bombing raid. Ten years ago, under a similar set of circumstances, Israel hit Qana and killed 100 civilians - an act that led to the suspension of a potent military campaign against Hezbollah

Israel did hesitate. It waited 17 days into the conflict before risking the assault. But since Israel´s war goal is the complete degradation if not total destruction of Hezbollah´s military capability, it could have hesitated no longer.

Questions are even being raised about whether the Israeli attack actually caused the deaths in question, since the building collapse that caused most of them came seven hours after the bombs fell. Only a naive person would assume that Hezbollah wouldn´t be willing to stage an atrocity for political effect.

Was the "incidental loss of civilian life" at Qana "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated"? I don´t see how any fair reading of the situation would find this to be the case. Qana was, for all intents and purposes, a missile base for Hezbollah, with something like 10 projectiles being fired a day at Israeli civilians for months, from inside its precincts.

If a missile battery is not a legitimate military target, there is no such thing as a legitimate military target.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com (Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. 08/01/06)
------------


http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/200...ilking-it.html


2. ABC News reports that Kfar Qana was hit just after 1 am, while Reuters reports that police said Qana was bombed at 1:30 am (2230 GMT on Saturday). The building containing civilians collapsed only some 7 hours later. Apparently the basement was a Hezbolla munitions store. Hezbolla, which uses humans as living shields, simply discounted the value of these shields in favor of their goal.

Additionally, it appears that many of the photoshots released from Qana have been staged in efforts to increase the atrocity-horror factor. EU Referendum documents how the same photographer team apparently duped the larger news services. This is highly reminiscent of a similar fiasco (in Arafat's time) known as the "Jenin massacre" of April 2002 -- which never was, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Massacre ) but it took the UN only hours to broadcast the effects of this nonexistent massacre, and months to apologize to Israel.

3. Things the world forgets: In seeking a <u>commencement point </u>of some kind for the current violence, and apropos <u>duplicity associated with Israel and directly involving the UN</u>, one would be hard pressed to answer the question of to whom, exactly, the peacekeepers on the Lebanese side of the border should advise of Hezbolla terrorist buildup when, as far back as mid 2000, Kofi Anan legitimized Hezbolla by meeting with Nasralla and thanking him – rather than the official Lebanon gov't – for ensuring law and order in south Lebanon! (see: handshake pic printed/broadcast in all major newspapers/media providers worldwide). The following link (short article) clearly shows that Israel has been drawn into this bout of violence as a long term eventuation of infighting among various Arab extremist groups trying to prove which of them really has control of Lebanon. http://www.meib.org/articles/0007_l2.htm For those who argue that Israel maintained a presence in south Lebanon for some 20 years, this was because neither Lebanon's gov't, nor the UN, were prepared to guarantee Israel a safe border. At no time whatsoever did Israel perceive or relate to south Lebanon as being, or ever becoming, part of Israel.
Note: The Shiite Lebanese Diaspora provides Hezbollah with a base for lucrative criminal activities, such as diamond smuggling in West Africa, cigarette smuggling in the United States, and drug trafficking in the triple frontier along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. By the end of the 1990s, funding from the Lebanese Diaspora had outstripped Iranian financing, estimated by Lebanese press reports to be around $10 million monthly. http://www.meib.org/articles/0402_ld.htm

I'm sorry, if you see a truck of armed men with rocket launcher rattling down the street, do you think they're civilians? No, of course not.

Bombs are designed to kill civilians. Full stop, end of story. If you do not want to kill any civilians, don't use bombs.

Military groups use cities to fight from because they have roads to drive around on and buildings to use for cover. Honorable combat? No, but modern armies gave up on the old idea of "honorable combat" a long time ago. Why do you think we have camouflage?

I can make an arguement that anything other than the leaders of both agrieved groups pistol dueling is "perfidy," but I doubt anyone would sign off on it, least of all the politicians who don't want to get anywhere near the killing themselves.

I've had a similar fantasy:

1. put Osama Bin Ladin and George W Bush on a desert island

2. give each a machete

3. tell them it's a duel to the death, but whoever wins will rule the world

4. one or the other wins, then

5. bomb the island

They're tough guys, they can handle it. Maybe both of them can get reincarnated as cockroaches.

Robert Meyer

That's DISGUSTING Robert, a gross and perfidious insult to cockroaches!

Dan,

I agree that “anti-Semitism” has historically usually referred to anti-Jewish hatred. But it is a tricky term. According to Wikipedia , the term “anti-Semitism” was invented to describe the racial theories of Ernest Renan, who claimed that Aryan races were superior to Semitic ones, among others. He had a famous debate with the philosopher Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, in which Renan claimed that Arabs were incapable of developing science, and that Afghani was able to debate well because as an Afghan he was a member of an Aryan race (and not Semitic like the Arabs). Now of course when the term became more widespread, it was used to describe people who dislike Jews, mostly because Jews were the only sizeable population of Semitic peoples in Europe. However, the Arabs I know are quite conscious of the fact that they are also Semitic people (whether they have true Arabian, or Assyrian, Coptic, Chaldean, or Samaritan blood wouldn’t seem to matter on that point), and quite closely related to Jews. They find it sort of strange that the term anti-Semitic only means anti-Jewish. So really the question really, to me, is whether we should continue to use the word in the same way. Words change over time. Though I’ll grant you that anti-Semite rolls of the tongue more easily than “someone with anti-Jewish sentiments” or what you will. Perhaps it will stick. I just wanted say why I am not completely comfortable with the term as used today.

- Daniel

FWIW, my half-Palestinian friend in college was also ticked off by the term "Anti-Semitism." He'd said to me, "Excuse me, I'm a Semite. Most of the Jews you run into are of European ancestry, not Semitic." Of course you're not supposed to talk about that, but one of the basic rules of anthropology is "When two peoples meet, they may not always bleed, but they always breed."

The other trouble with Anti-Semitism is that one group gets a special term whereas everyone else has to make do with garden variety "prejudice." Well, women do have "misogyny" but even that has fallen out of fashion as a term in favor of the more egalitarian word "sexism."

KAM, as it happens, your college buddy was wrong. he's likely also a big fan of that Koestler character as well, who insists Ashkenazim are all descended from the medieval Khazars -- not that it's a crucial point.

edited in: I just saw Zogby and Deshowitz arguing on CNN. If you don't know which is which, I'd swear Zogby was Jewish, which, in my world-view, is not surprising. And Amin Al Husseini -- Jerusalem's "mufti" of the 30s and 40s -- you would peg as a celt, most likely, with his red hair. Denial that Jews are semites is an odd attitude, not one you're "not supposed to talk about," just plain old crackpot stuff.

But to swap a story for a story: Back in the day, I took a side gig handling a newsletter for the ADC (Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee, the Arab equivalent of the Anti Defamation League.)

One woman asked why I wanted the job at all. I answered "because I don't like Anti Semitism." This met with blank stares all around. I think it took two or three beats for this to sink in. I got the gig, but I'm not sure anybody in that room got the bon mot to this day. Or, maybe they got it, but were pissed off that, at least in the abstract, we could be hated by the same people.

Of course, it's also possible to say that both I and some of the other people in the room, weren't semites at all, if we needed to be native speakers of a Semitic language to be a Semite. Conversely, if we needed to be sprung from such stock, we were all Semites.

I'm comfortable with the term "Anti-Semitism" as its currently used, unless we decide we need to break it into "Anti-Arabism" and "Anti-Judaism" for purposes of this debate.

As for the contention that Jews aren't semites: Kevin, the word of a college buddy is not scholarship. Put more effort into research and a little less into having something avant-garde and shocking to say.

Dan



[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited August 03, 2006).]

Never take sides when the sons of Abraham are fighting. Observe, yes. Judge, yes. But take sides and get entangled? No thanks!

As a brief judgement, I'd say that Israel was in the wrong when they went into Gaza for two mere kidnap victims, but that they are in the right when pursuing Hezb'allah in Lebanon. Lebanon can't both be at war and not at war with Israel, and if it ain't at war, it shouldn't have left Hezb'allah alone, far less into its government. So Israel has the right to treat this whole war as if it was Lebanon itself that had declared war, and I think that in some respects they are showing good restraint compared to what they could have done.

Not that I don't shudder at the loss of civilian life and despise the inherent collectivism of states and groups at war.

As for human shields ... look back to Gaza , where Israel is in the wrong.

But what has me wondering is why Hezb'allah chose to strike right now. If they expected this kind of response from Israel: What are their underlying motives? Could it be related to Iran's desire to acquire nukes? If they didn't expect this kind of response from Israel, what kind of honorable game do these soldiers hiding in their mothers dresses think they are playing?

------------------

--Svein Olav

Dan,

Stating that some Jews are not ethnically very Semitic is hardly crackpot stuff. Between adoptions, conversion, intermarriage, and kids begat on the lefthand side of the bed, you can easily have someone whose percentage of actual ethnic Semitic ancestry is equivalent to my percentage of Irish ancestry--my father's father's father's father's father's father may have been Irish, but me? Apart from the name, not so much.

As for Zogby and Deshowitz, interestingly enough, I was watching the same segment on CNN. Only a portion, but what Zogby was saying sounded like good sense, but I thought Deshowitz sounded absolutely batshit. Ancestry-wise, judging from skin tone, facial features and baldness pattern, Deshowitz looked Eastern European Jewish, whereas Zogby looked like he comes from the Eastern Mediterranean.

As for red hair, you don't need to be a Celt to have that. There are plenty of red haired Italians (Titian red anyone?), Greeks, Jews, Egyptians and so on. Just went and looked up a picture of Amin Al Husseini. Celtic? Hardly. But judging by his facial features from the one grainy photo I found, I'd peg him as Turkish or somewhere in that neighborhood.

I have a degree in anthropology and human morphology is something of a hobby of mine.

And men, lest we forget, have 'misandry'.


[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited August 03, 2006).]

KAM,

Get your money back. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif

I kid because I love, of course. Your earlier formulation was much stronger -- between your college roommate's wisdom and "I don't see what's wrong with saying...." "most Jews" turned into "some Jews." OF COURSE you can convert to Judaism, for example, and you cannot convert to "Arabism," it has (as you point out) always possible to marry into and out of most tribal groups.

The larger "myth of race" and "myth of ethnicity" would also founder... the fuzzy edges of a group cannot be treated as explaining the bulk thereof. But that's another argument. Work now.

Dan

Kevin, intermarriage yes, but that doesn't mean the original stock has been wiped out. Here's some discussion of studies that have investigated the genetic history of Ashkenazi Jews (I have no idea how credible the studies are):

'A study of haplotypes of the Y chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al[8] found that the Y chromosome of most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews was of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced primarily to the Middle East.

The first research on Ashkenazi maternal ancestry was less conclusive. A 2002 study by Goldstein et al[9] found that "the women's origins cannot be genetically determined", but that "his own speculation" was that "most Jewish communities were formed by unions between Jewish men and local women."

More recent research indicates that a significant portion of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry is also of Middle Eastern origin. A 2006 study by Behar et al[10], based on haplotype analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women. These four "founder lineages" were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE. According to the authors, "The observed global pattern of distribution renders very unlikely the possibility that the four aforementioned founder lineages entered the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool via gene flow from a European host population."' from Wikipedia .

Doesn't it strike anyone odd that the pictures Hezbollah allows CNN camermen to show are ALWAYS OF DEAD WOMEN AND CHILDREN--NEVER MEN?

And Mark G--based on your audition poem quite a few posts back I'd say you get the part (on the barn show I proposed)and will probably get a standing O when you pull that long barreled pistol out. However, you better bring you own bale of hay to stand on -- all the other horses.* ate theirs.

Dick


[This message has been edited by Dick Morgan (edited August 03, 2006).]

Actually I saw plenty of dead and wounded Lebanese men on CNN yesterday. Israeli forces had raided a hospital and shot some of the male nurses. There was also some mention of a pregnant woman being killed, but they didn't show her body on camera. Mostly it was interviews with the male nurses from their hospital beds.

I guess you missed the part about the hospital being a known Hezbollah headquarters....and the part about the kidnapped Israeli soldiers being either taken or treated there after their earlier capture from the Israeli side of the border.

You also probably missed the part which explained that the men who were killed or captured were heavily armed Hezbollah "guards" as well as the fact that the Israeli's were able to seize a large cache of weapons, including the infamous Kalashnikov rifles, as well as Hezbollah computer equipment, cell phones and "huge" amounts of Hezbollah documents and Hezbollah intelligence information.
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/
raiders_followed_trail_of_kidnapped_troops
_to_terrorists_hosp_worldnews_uri_dan
_______mideast_correspondent.htm

Does the fact that the word "Hezbollah" keeps turning up mean anything to you, Kevin? Not "doctor" not "nurses" not "sick people" not "surgical patients" but Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah" over and over again?

Even on CNN.

Strange how you can keep missing that.

Lo
**Link edited at Michael Cantor's request and with my apologies for extending the page way beyond the limits of a computer screen. I can't figure out how to shorten the link and still make it work, so I've left the main site linked and if anyone wants to read the exact article, they can cut and paste the lines that follow into their browser window.
Sorry 'bout that.

[This message has been edited by Lo (edited August 03, 2006).]

Daniel,

If you want to really have fun, look up "Cohen Modal Hapolyte" and "Lemba."

A couple of ironies suggested to me in this particular discussion are just delightful.

First of all, there's the spectacle of Jews being kicked out of Europe for being "Semitic," and then having neighbors who want them dead because they're "European." I can't think of a better example to point out the necessity of having a Jewish state.

Secondly, the interesting phenomenon of the same people saying "Jews are not a racial [sic] (or ethnic)group," declaring Israel racist because it is a Jewish state.

I think a lot of confusion about and hostility toward Jews comes from an inherent cultural bias in the West, which seeks to push other groups into its own models (Islam faces the same dilemma.)

During the renaissance, it became popular to come up with new and different forms of Anti-Semitism (toward Jews,) to replace theological Anti-Semitism on the part of the Church, which could only lose potency as the nation-state became more powerful.

One argument brought forward was that Judaism is not, in fact, a religion, because it had no Church. At that point, there was a great deal of interest in establishing Jews to be a sort of devolved tribe of mumbling, half-religified oddities, related by race but not by any faith to speak of.

The basic issue is that the Jewish people share kinship, but is not based solely on kinship; the Jewish people share history, but are not a historical society. The Jewish people share a religion, but even that is not the totality of Jewish "peoplehood." In the West, you can be a Catholic, but you would also be Irish, or German, or African-American. My parents are from England and Austria, but I don't identify as being of Austrian or English Stock. In fact, the Austrians and English identified my parents not as fully Austrian or English, but as Jewish. I identify as a Jew - and as an American first, so don't even bother with that one. America, to my mind, is the one place outside of Israel this denial of "autocthonous" citizenship has not been repeated.

Not fitting the categories infuriates one's detractors. They believe you to be slippery and tricky, when in truth, you simply come from a long history, with a lot of twists and turns, by comparison with historical youngsters like the European nation-states.

I think this aids in the simultaneous categorization of Jews as being behind International Capitalism and International Communism; being too European for the Middle East, and too Middle Eastern for Europe; being entirely a racial group with no church, and entirely a religion without common kinship; being simultaneously cowardly and warlike; etc.

Anti-Semitism is unlike other forms of prejudice in this regard, because you can accuse a Jew of being anything you want. Perhaps because Judaism has had such a long history, you can find the germ of a theory for anything. Simply declare your distaste for one or another trait, find this trait among Jews in some guise, and voila!

Side-road over... we now return to our actual subject of debate, Israel and Lebanon.

Dan

Dan,

I truly hope that one day the Jews are welcomed as a vital and integral part of the Middle East. A far off dream? Maybe, but nothing happens in the world without dreams. I think the ultimate answer lies, at least partly, in the direction of people seeing Europe and the Middle East as part of one greater civilization. One reason that the continual fighting between Lebanon and Israel is so sad in my mind is that much of Lebanon is very modern and sees nothing contradictory in being both in the Western and Middle Eastern world, like Israel I guess in that way.

- Daniel

Daniel,

From your lips to God's ears (and I'll throw in an Inshallah.)

The peoples of the Middle East could interact with each other to obvious mutual benefit... sadly, as you say, it now seems a far-off dream.

Maybe our granchildren will discuss it beneath their respective vines and fig trees. I just hope they don't damn the whole project by naming it the "Greater West Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere."

Dan

Well, CNN did note that Israel had claimed it was a Hezbollah stronghold, but what sort of "stronghold" has only four "heavily armed" guards? Doesn't that sound an awful lot like them just going in and shooting hospital security? CNN also questioned whether the men captured were high-ranking Hezbollah members or simply five guys in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And get this quote from the NYPost article you linked:

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was asked whether any of the five men seized were "big fish," he replied, "They are tasty fishes."

Tasty? That's not a word I want to hear out of the lips of any world leader. It sounds, how should I put this? Ah yes, ghoulish. Also, likely an overstatement, since he could hardly say, "Well, it was a raid, what do you expect? We didn't have time for lengthy interviews. We think we've got one big fish, one vaguely appetizing fish, somebody's brother-in-law, the janitor, and some guy waiting for his wife to deliver. If it's any consolation, I heard we shot the wife."

Since the NYPost article doesn't even mention that nurses were shot--and they were interviewing the injured nurses live on CNN--one can only assume that the NYPost is pandering to the pro-Israel side and doesn't want to report on anything even possibly disquieting, including the fact that if you kill "at least ten others" and only enumerate four "heavily armed guards," it can be guessed that the other six plus were unarmed (elsewise the NYPost would be bragging about their armed-ness) and were likely doctors, nurses, patients and visitors, as one might expect at any working hospital.

As for the "treasure trove" of intelligence information, from the sound of it they grabbed a bunch of papers, computers and cell phones and are busy trumpeting DA-style the significanse of these things, despite the fact that it's going to take time to analyze them and figure out whether what they found behind Door Number 2 was the crown jewels or a can of SPAM. Likely somewhere in between, but not yet cause to brag except for propaganda purposes.

Anyway, CNN's coverage yesterday was not an interview with the soldiers who had done this "daring raid" but an interview with a couple nurses they'd shot. A detail the NYPost evidently felt irrelevant or inconsequential, or at best not likely to sell papers to its regular readership.

[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited August 04, 2006).]

You're entirely right, Kevin, one WOULD expect to find doctors, nurses, patients and visitors at any "working hospital." And one would hardly expect to find "four heavily armed guards" at a "working hospital." One would expect to find a few moonlighting off-duty cops with service revolvers on their belts hanging around the nurses station in the emergency room in the middle of the night.

Thing is - the hospital at Baalbek was NOT a "working hospital" - and that comes straight from the horse's mouth.

"Hezbollah fighters prohibited reporters from approaching the hospital, which they said had been emptied of patients at the beginning of the war. Local officials said a number of Hezbollah fighters and guards were inside."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...0200370_4.html

"The Israelis entered the hospital and were starting to leave when a larger force of Hezbollah fighters showed up and started a heavy firefight. Ali and his friends said that three fighters had been killed in the hospital battle, but a spokesman for the Israeli military said soldiers had killed at least 10 fighters there.

Ali was still sweaty and shaken on Wednesday as he talked about the fight. Though he dodged questions about his role, there were signs that he had been involved. His head was scratched and bruised, and several machine guns lay in the car he had pulled up in with two other young men. He walked around the hospital and grounds, working to clear traces of the battle. “They hit a civilian institution, and there was no one even inside it,” he insisted."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/wo...=1&oref=slogin

So honestly, Kevin, I don't know where CNN got it's "nurses." I've literally spent the last two hours online searching various news sources and web sites and I can't find one single reference to any civilians being present in the hospital at the time of the Israeli raid.

If you can help me out here, I'd truly appreciate it. I really don't like getting just one side of a story, and I've been follwing all of this with great interest, but I like for the things I'm reading to be backed up with something and so far, I can't find anything to back up your contention that there were nurses wounded or even that there were nurses present at the time of the attack.

Help me out here, ok?

Lo

Again, you're probably right, Kevin. "Tasty" might not have been too, well, too "tasteful" of a word to use. Much better if, in looking for a long term solution to the war in the Mideast, he had said something like, ""Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Muslim regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented."

Doesn't sound "tasty," does it? Doesn't sound even a little bit like a "peaceful" solution, does it? In fact, it sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it?

Change "Muslim" to "Zionist" and you've got an exact quote from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/....ap/index.html


Go Figure.

Lo

Lo,

To be fair, I don't think Kevin ever compared Olmert to Ahmedinejad, or even implied it. One can oppose Israeli military actions without supporting, or even sympathizing with, its enemies.

- Daniel

P.S. It is common mantra of the right to speak of eliminating the Muslim regime in Tehran, so you do bring up an interesting parallel.

Repulsive as that is, they don't want to "wipe Iran off the map." They just want their Shah back.

Lo,

It was on CNN last night, about an hour or so after Zogby and the other guy. I've just gone onto CNN's website but have been unable to turn anything up in the transcripts of rather extensive coverage they did of the story, since unfortunately they keep it all as separate files, not one large searchable day. It may have been a segment from CNN International, which tends to show less Israel-friendly news. (The first day of the war, Wolf Blitzer completely skipped over the fact that anyone had been killed in Lebanon, while CNN International did see fit to mention it, leading to snarky commentary on Wonkette.com) Or it might have been during Anderson Cooper's show.

All I can report was that there were two guys in hospital beds, they said the first one was a male nurse shot in the raid (and he was still wearing standard blue hospital scrubs), talked with him briefly, and then they showed some footage of a blown up car.

I've looked at the websites you've pointed out and some others, and do have to say some things are definitely not adding up. Hezbollah said that the patients were all removed from the hospital on the 12th, but it's also said that the five people captured in the raid were all civilians, so I take all of their claims with the same grains of salt as I do the Israeli claims.

What would make sense is that while Hezbollah may have removed the regular patients from the hospital, they kept some of the staff on hand to both deal with their own injured as well as treat the captured Israeli soldiers, who were probably injured in the course of their capture. So it might also be be that everyone's telling the partial truth and the civilian "tasty fish" captured in the raid are doctors or other staff who treated the Israeli captives and thus could give some reasonably good intel at least as to their current state of health.

...or a really bad Dracula movie.

Robert Meyer

To be fair, I think I saw the segment you're talking about replayed late last night on CNN on a program called "24 Hours." At that time, before they showed the two alleged male nurses speaking, the commentator stated, "Like many stories coming from the Mideast, these stories have been unable to be verified."

I haven't worked in a hospital in two years and yet I tend to wear scrubs as often as possible. They're lightweight, cool and they're comfortable. More to the point, even when I worked in the hospital and wore standard blue scrubs on a daily basis, the point of fact is, I was not then, nor am I now, a nurse. Many, many people wear scrubs....it doesn't make them hospital, or even medical personnel. In my particualr hospital, our housekeepers, as well as our IT people wore color-coded scrubs - the colors were apparent to staff members, but not to visitors and a wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf.

As for Hezbollah stating that the five people captured in the raid were civilians, well, there are unfortunate "citizens" who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and there are heavily armed "civilians" who are die-hard, gorilla-styled Hezbollah supporters and I'm not sure that the Hezbollah spokespeople make a large distinction between the two when it comes to reporting injuries and/or casualities.

I think this whole exchange is my point, Kevin. There are two sides to every story and the fact that you consistantly report only on inflammatory stories coming from the side with which you believe is "right", well, it tends to makes you appear to be not only limited in your choice of reading sources but severely biased and/or anti-semitic as well.

And no, Daniel, Kevin didn't compare Olmert to Ahmedinejad... he didn't have to. What Kevin does, again consistantly, is totally ignore that there are two sides to this whole sad story. There are all kinds of sins in the world - there are sins of commission and there are sins of ommission. It's become quite noticable throughout this thread that most of the people on it, you and Dan and Roger in particular, tend to bend over backwards to recognize that each side has a vested interest and that each side has it's own "right" as well as it's own "wrong" and you all repeatedly hope for an ending which allows both sides to keep their lands, their lives, their beliefs, and their dignity.

Most of you do not "fan the flames," so to speak. Each time Kevin, or anyone else, posts an inflammatory unsubstantiated "news" story it makes me cringe in both fear and disgust. There are enough real horrors taking place on both sides - there is no need to add to them or to try to further sway public opinion by posting one-sided stories which are "unvarifiable" or just downright conjecture and/or lies....and unless I'm sadly mistaken, there can only be two reasons for anyone repeatedly doing so....one is ignorance and one is racism. Both make me feel quite sick inside.

Lo



[This message has been edited by Lo (edited August 04, 2006).]

Lo,

I'm going to plead ignorance here with a caveat: There are two reasons for ignorance. One is someone being too lazy to do their homework. The other is the result of someone being kept in the dark by other people deliberately hiding data for their own political purposes.

At the start of this war, I saw a note on Wonkette leading to an article at the Huffington Post, link here:

<A HREF="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/cnns-lebanon-problem_b_25031.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert
/cnns-lebanon-problem_b_25031.html</A>

In a nutshell, it said that CNN and especially Wolf Blitzer spent the day talking about a single Israeli death, while only once mentioning--in the international segment--that 45 Lebanese civilians had also been killed.

I can't be watching the news 24/7, so my reaction upon reading this was to conclude that Blitzer had been lying to me for his own political sympathies. I also concluded that anything coming out of Lebanon was likely going to be underreported and spun.

You yourself said that you did see the segment with the two guys in scrubs who claimed to be nurses. Why do you doubt them? There must be nurses somewhere in the country, and a hospital seems a sensible enough place to keep them. And a militia like Hezbollah must have some need for medical services.

I have trouble buying any army's claim that any male "of fighting age" is automatically an insurgent, a terrorist, etc. etc. The only time anyone admits to having killed a civilian it seems is when they kill a child, and even then they argue unless the kid was preverbal. If we believe everything an army says, we have to conclude that the entire country is filled with crazed fighters, which sounds delusional or at best paranoid.

I'll admit that I hadn't paid a damn bit of attention to Hezbollah before this conflict, but after looking at it, it looks like an IRA/Sinn Fein style organization, ranging from the proverbial crazed militants to the various civilian politicos trying to do their best for their cause (if not always in the best possible fashion) to the people who just vote for it because it provides for their community. Worse, I just read that Hezbollah got its start after the 1982 Israeli bombing of Beirut, and no, I don't know what that was about. Apart from remembering seeing a limp body being tossed out a window like a ragdoll when I was in high school with the news blurb "War Torn Bombing in Beirut" -- this macabre interlude coming during a commercial break for "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever -- I know next to nothing about it.

This war? Heart-on-my-sleeve moment here: My sympathies generally lie with the country getting bombed. I had a lot of sympathy for Israel during the Gulf War. However, bombing the shit out of a relatively peaceful country during tourist season? That really doesn't do it for me. And when a country's leader starts channeling C. Montgomery Burns and referring to people as "tasty fishes," I have less. Ditto when Israel's chosen spokeswench came out on tv and issued ritual "regrets" for dead Lebanese kids with the same glassy-eyed smile you'd use to announce the evening weather.

Obviously yes, Hezbollah was a problem, but since it was/is also part of the coalition government in south Lebananon, there had to have been some form of diplomatic solution.

We do know the numbers, but I agree with you: if you did an analysis of minutes-per-death, we would know more per Israeli than per Lebanese. I think I've seen a few pieces on Israelis who have died, far less than on the terrible, terrible price of war in Lebanon, but the scale of deaths is something like 10-1, and there might not yet be an hour on the Lebanese deaths for every six minutes on the Israelis.

I would add a caveat, however: there's mounting evidence that Hezbollah encourages the deaths of its countrymen. (Now there's something someone should do a feature on.) I mean beyond the obvious encouragement of hiding among the populace. Israel, by contrast, has spent years "hardening" buildings (you can't build a house in Northern Israel without a bomb shelter, I hear,) specifically because Israel is under constant attack. This, and the fact that Israel has pretty much evacuated the North (as opposed to cramming refugees into houses filled with explosives,) explains much of the difference.

Long story short: there's a story on the Israeli side as well as on the Lebanese side; to expect the time apportioned to each to directly mirror the death counts, marks the full import of this exchange as a body-bag-counting activity. As much as Hezbollah would like you to believe it is, it is not.

So, having read this, you have decided a priori to skew anything reported in the press to a compensatory anti-Israeli point of view. Upon reading your posts here, I doubt that point of view was absent on first seeing "Wonkette's" complaints.

The fact that Lebanese eyewitnesses said the hospital was "empty" has no bearing on the question? It's pretty clear that the Israelis were interested in Hezbollah operatives, not in shooting up a fully occupied "hospital," as we understand the word. But how was it ever reported at all on that dastardly CNN? And how was it not emphasized that the "hospital" seemed to have no patients?

I cannot emphasize enough my belief that those with strong opinions should pay more attention before a flash-point. But your point is valid - that Hezbollah does operate a variety of community interests in support of its terrorist activities. The IRA, however, did not demand that England be pushed out of the British Isles, just that they leave Ireland. This is a crucial point: Hezbollah's stated purpose is defense of Lebanon, but Hezbollah's pronouncements and teachings in their oh-so-community-minded schools, preaches genocide as a form of defending Lebanon.

Israel's concerns in Lebanon amounted to establishing a terror-free area in the South; they eventually got assurances, and went home. Meanwhile, eighteen different factions fought for the country, including the Christian, south-Lebanon based South Lebanon Army; Christian militias elsewhere collectively called Phalange; Nabih Berri's Shia Amal; Hezbollah (with occasional reported rifts between pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian bits, although I'm skeptical of that); the PLO (which was forced to depart as a result of Israeli actions,) Walid Jumblatt's Druze militia, and - no typo here - a cost of thousands. Syria and Israel both invaded the country, with Israel leaving in 2000, and Syria in 2005. Lebanon has had peaceful interludes (primarily as a Syrian vassal), it's true, and Beirut was once (as Mr. Haar put it) the Paris of the Middle East. They are a European-facing bit of the region, and it is sad to see them rebuild that reputation, and then lose it once again to their own extremists. Israel withdrew in 2000, on the premise that Hezbollah would be disarmed along with the other militias, and that Lebanon would responsibly patrol all her territory, including the bits rockets were being launched from. This never happened.

Does this help to see Israel's actions as other than sudden, brutal, repressive invasion?

Like Nazi Germany in 1944? You're going to have to develop a little more sophisticated eye; there are sometimes countervailing considerations, other than "but they're losing."

The argument from Simpsons catchphrase. I like it. So if you say you got a "big fish," using an analogy to fishing, a sport in which you get more to eat from a bigger fish, it's okay. But if it's a tasty fish -- not really that big, but with much to savor (we would imagine another level of analogy, perhaps refering to intel possessed by someone who himself is not a leader,) it's ghoulish? Again, this sort of analysis is no substitute for study of -- or for that matter, interest in -- the region and its peoples.

Spokemen and spokeswomen, or spokeswenches if you prefer, are not trained to emote while announcing official condolences. Please refer me to examples of government spokespeople who turn into soap opera actors when they are describing their governments' regrets, and I will take this complaint seriously. It's the second time you've trotted it out. It had no bearing the first time, but was politely ignored. I think it's time you assess realistically what the options of a government spokesperson are, when delivering a government's condolences -- or better, begin rationally examining the implications of a world full of terrorist rump states.

Yes, there is one. Sign an instrument of Israeli withdrawl. Israel did so. Hezbollah and Lebanon did so. Syria did so. This instrument has been breached by cross border attacks since it was signed. Israel has evidently lost faith in purely diplomatic solutions with no teeth. (I hope the "teeth" thing isn't too ghoulish.)

I understand how easy it is to see a morsel or two from the point of view from which one begins, and then to color all further observation with that morsel. But I strive (though perhaps it's not apparent) to take into account the problems with Israel's present actions. I do have to come to a conclusion, to support them or not, just as anyone who chooses to take a position does. I am not automatically on the side of Israel, but it is my belief that they are far more in the right than is recognized on the left.

Thanks again for the handy soapbox, and my regrets to those who suffer through my monologues. But in the words of Carlos Santana or someone, "He who remembers history is condemned to recite it."

Dan

Why do I doubt them?

1. Because it was a known and admitted "non-working hospital" and therefore there would be no need for nurses to be in said "non-working hospital." You don't leave your key medical staff in a hospital which has been vacated and abandoned. It's just not good medical or military strategy...you put them where you can use them....unless, of course, you're using them for something more important....like guarding weapons and protecting classified information.

2. For the same reasons you've stated above -
a. "The other is the result of someone being kept in the dark by other people deliberately hiding data for their own political purposes."
b. "I can't be watching the news 24/7, so my reaction upon reading this was to conclude that Blitzer had been lying to me for his own political sympathies."
c. "I also concluded that anything coming out of Lebanon was likely going to be underreported and spun."

If a, b and c are good enough reasons for you to doubt the things you hear on the news, then they are also good enough for me, no?

3. Nursing is a traditional "woman's" field, isn't it? Even in the USA...I can only imagine the horror an Arab man might feel at taking a "woman's" job. I will give you this --perhaps they were medics, which would make more sense in a way. Medic's are mostly males and unfortunately (for the sake of your arguement, anyhow) in a war-torn country, they are mostly military males. And I believe the only "military" in that hospital that night besides Israeli soldiers were Hezbollah soldiers.


If we believe everything an army says, we have to conclude that the entire country is filled with crazed fighters, which sounds delusional or at best paranoid.

From what I've read when it comes to Hezbollah and the people whose country they are attempting to run, you are either with them or you are against them. It would stand to reason that if you were "against" them, especailly if you were a military aged male, you would have made yourself scarce a long time ago....nothing like being caught between a rock and a hard place to make a man want to be elsewhere until the problem's solved. If the Prime Minister is afraid to disagree publically with Hezbollah, think of how much harder it must be for the man on the street to speak up against them.


"This war? Heart-on-my-sleeve moment here: My sympathies generally lie with the country getting bombed. I had a lot of sympathy for Israel during the Gulf War. However, bombing the shit out of a relatively peaceful country during tourist season?"

No sympathies for the Jews who have made peace treaty after peace treaty with people only to have those treaties ignored and mocked? No sympathies for the soldiers who were guarding their own borders on a warm summer's night in a time of relative peace...probably talking amongst themselves about their girlfriends, their new cars and/or their dinner plans for the weekend and were suddenly and brutally attacked, killed and kidnapped on their own land in their own country by a militia from another country with whom they had a "peaceful agreement" signed in the year 2000? No sympathy for a country which another country has vowed to "wipe off the face of the earth?"
I'm surprised at you, Kevin. If it's the underdog you're looking for, Israel was ready made for you.

I guess I differ from you in that I seldom sympathize with the instigators in anything. I figure, you started it, you better be prepared to finish it. The rules in our house were simple when my children were growing up...I find out you started a fight, you're gonna fight with me. I find out you finished a fight, or you fought on the behalf of someone smaller or more afraid, I'm gonna be right there fighting with you.

It stood us in good stead and I stick by it. If you start shit, you gotta be prepared to take shit coz eventually people are going to get tired of your shit and they're gonna give you shit back....in triplicate.

Hezbollah pushed and pushed and pushed....they pushed America long before they pushed Israel this time around. They pushed us bad when they bombed our marine barracks in Beruit in 1983 and killed 241 of OUR men...not Israeli men, Kevin, but AMERICAN men....ours. And we did nothing...which only lead Hezbollah to believe that all countries would roll over and play dead when faced with their particular brand of terrorism. By our inability or our refusal to respond to them at that time we helped teach them that people are afraid, countries are afraid, and that they could continue to use that fear to further their own causes.

Israel did not roll over this time. Good for them. I only wish we would have had the same courage 23 years ago...perhaps the Middle East would be in much better shape today if we had.

"Obviously yes, Hezbollah was a problem, but since it was/is also part of the coalition government in south Lebananon, there had to have been some form of diplomatic solution.

See above paragraph. Violence begets violence. As dozens of peace treaties in The Middle East are broken time and time again it begins to become apparent that you cannot speak peace to a people or a government which only speaks war...it is a language Hezbollah does not understand and one which they have consistantly refused to learn. If Israel has decided enough is enough and that it is time to speak the language of their self-professed enemies then so be it....how can they be blamed for eventually speaking a foreign language when it may be the only effective means of communication left to them?


Lo

Actually, Dan, it is again the Paris if the Middle East. It has a number of fancy shopping districts. Students at the AUB are dressed as if they were on fashion runways. Quite the bar scene (we went to one when we were there that had a transvestite belly dancer at the end of the night!) The Downtown has been beautifully rebuilt by Mr. Hariri, and its streets are lined with lively outdoor cafes, like Paris, except everyone is smoking arghiles. Of course a downside is that it is a bit materialistic. I do find myself feeling bad that I keep hoping that the city is unharmed even while so many people are dying.

It certainly does give it more context, yes. I still don't approve, mind you, but I do have more understanding of the situation.

Don't think I'm so unsophisticated, Dan. And if you really believe the above statement, write something on how the firebombing of Dresden was the proudest moment of the war, print it on a T-shirt, and wear it to the next Oktoberfest.

There's winning a war and there's punitive bombing.

Ever heard of someone named Ronald Wilson Reagan, also known as The Great Communicator? I personally couldn't stand the man, but he had a great gift for public speaking.

There's also a difference between having an appropriately grave demeanor when announcing sad news and smiling like you're trying to sell Israeli tourism. A viewers reaction to such an announcement should not be, <cite>Good god, over thirty kids are dead and this wench could obviously care less</cite>.

It's probably not apparent because in all this because, in all the many things you've said about Israel, you haven't mentioned anything that you consider a problem, a shortcoming, even a simple miscalculation. It looks like you've been speaking <cite>ex cathedra</cite> the whole time, at least in regards to Israel. I'm not talking about "A terrible thing, but it had to be done" caviling, but honest-to-god "Holy fuck, that didn't go as we planned" moments.

Kevin, I'm not sure I have the uncertainty regarding the Israeli actions you would want -- though as I've said, the jury is out regarding the wisdom of the action. Time will tell. I certainly don't feel Israel's without the right to respond as she has.

I wanted to post the following while it's fresh on my clipboard, although I recognize it's backtracking (I actually found it on a Lebanese discussion board... opinions there are all over the map, by the way.)
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/12/6769

Abstract

Haplotypes constructed from Y-chromosome markers were used to trace the paternal origins of the Jewish Diaspora. A set of 18 biallelic polymorphisms was genotyped in 1,371 males from 29 populations, including 7 Jewish (Ashkenazi, Roman, North African, Kurdish, Near Eastern, Yemenite, and Ethiopian) and 16 non-Jewish groups from similar geographic locations. The Jewish populations were characterized by a diverse set of 13 haplotypes that were also present in non-Jewish populations from Africa, Asia, and Europe. A series of analyses was performed to address whether modern Jewish Y-chromosome diversity derives mainly from a common Middle Eastern source population or from admixture with neighboring non-Jewish populations during and after the Diaspora. Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities. A multidimensional scaling plot placed six of the seven Jewish populations in a relatively tight cluster that was interspersed with Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations, including Palestinians and Syrians. Pairwise differentiation tests further indicated that these Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations were not statistically different. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.

Perhaps back later,

Dan

Having a right and it being wise to exercise it are two different things. Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, for example, which while legal and approved, etc. can be interpreted as the event that kicked off the second Intifada or at best the event that certainly didn't help. Of course it also helped him get into office, so depending on your opinion of that, you might actually be in favor it.

The plain fact is, none of us can look into alternate realities beyond speculation, and any given event can be pointed to as the cause of Utopia or Doomsday, depending on who's telling the tale. Of course the way most things work, usually the end result is a mixed bag.

This mess? I suspect Israel will create their "security zone" or whatever it is they decide to call the southern swatch of Lebanon while Hezbollah moves operations to the slums of Beirut, with the invasion of Beirut happening in some ten years time as a factor of wash-rinse-repeat. People will die, people will be born, no one will like Israel much except those who do, oobla-di, oobla-da. Unless something really unexpected happens, and hell if I know what that is, except I doubt it will be pleasant.

P.S. The article on haplotypes is definitely neat. Thanks for linking to it.

[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited August 05, 2006).]

And now a message, or rather interlude, from your sponsor:


Yep, that's the bottom line, for us all, no matter whose side we take, or don't take.

Just so long as you have no regrets about your choices, as this
charming little gif so wisely advises.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtm...nson/death.gif

That says quite a lot Dan; it's the nub of the problem as far as I'm concerned, and perhaps one of the main reasons people keep worrying this interminable thread. Few here question whether Israel had the right to respond, but to respond "as she has"?

Maybe if I were Jewish I'd feel differently, though a number of British Jews (Jonathan Miller among them) recently signed a petition which was strongly critical of Israeli tactics. Only a couple of people acknowledged the article I posted by Fisk, in which he makes a small, very obvious, imaginative leap. How would Israel react if the boot were on the other foot; if, in response to the Israeli capture of a PLO/Lebanese soldier, the Lebanese government decided, from the outset, on a severe retaliation (say the bombing of Haifa)? Would you then say that the Lebanese government had 'a right to respond' so heavy handedly?

BTW, your use of pathetic fallacy (Israel as a woman) is interesting. I know it's a time-honoured tradition in many countries (certainly in Ireland: 'Dark Rosaleen' etc. and, no doubt, in the Lebanon). But, to my mind, there's something inherently primitive about it, this allegorising of territory, as if Israel had suffered an assault on its person, as if 'she' has somehow been dishonoured. If we MUST think talk way, at this late stage, better to apply it to the whole godforsaken planet, as with Lovelock's Gaia.

Ah, but I'm just an old weirdo in the wings, as you've probably guessed.




[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited August 05, 2006).]

Mark, I'm not sure whether I've used "she" to refer to other nations on this thread. It's a bit old-fashioned, but a tendency I never shook; I certainly don't restrict this usage to discussions of Israel, and I'm certainly not alone in the usage. If I speak about a particular naval ship, you may catch me using the same language.

Mark, you have hit the nail on the head. Does Israel have the right to respond as she has?

Again, my response is yes. This is a restrained response on the part of the Israelis; it is just not as restrained as letting Hezbollah kidnap their people, and letting Lebanon claim "oh that Hezbollah! We just don't know what to do with them!" (I half expect someone on this board to blame rap lyrics for the whole affair.)

Speaking of proportionality: While we discuss the few hundred dead in this operation ad infinitum, the war next door, despite a similar pace for some three years now, seems to have disappeared. The recent history of Lebanon, drenched in blood, has not just disappeared, it "never was," to judge from American reactions and press coverage.

As for the shoe being on the other foot, Mark: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah -- yes, Israel's best "partner in peace" to date -- have been regularly bombing Israeli cities at every opportunity now, and the only provocation they need is that the city is there in the first place. But as I understand it, that's okay.

So no, I don't think this violation of sovereignty -- of a nation which shouts "we cannot control our territory!!!" -- is beyond Israel's rights. I don't think the death toll is a glorious beautiful thing, but it's certainly not on an unprecedented or even large scale, in the grim history we call war. I don't think Israel is mising a commitment to proportionality, as demonstrated by her choice of actions and her precautions against wholesale slaughter. If Israel cannot respond as she has, how else can she respond?

I think we know the answer: Symbolically. Diplomatically. Ineffectually.

My perspective is that while the military power is Israel's, the decision making power here is Lebanese. Both Israel and Hezbollah have determined their courses of action. But consider:

Lebanon can solve her own law enforcement issues internally, if she does not want her criminal gang to become an international issue. Lebanon treats criminals like heroes, and although Israel does not aim to fight a war against Lebanon or her people, Lebanon is the venue in which Hezbollah chooses to fight Israel. That sounds like a bad thing to have on one's soil, to me.

The Lebanese people and the Lebanese government have had the power to avoid this outcome for quite some time. The Lebanese government -- if it is indeed not a pawn of Syria still -- has the power at this writing to ally with Israel and remove the criminals in its midst. Hezbollah as an armed faction (the last one in Lebanon mind you,) has brought this upon the country as a whole.

We love to speculate that Israel will be irreparably tarnished by these events. How about Lebanon, where the majority of people vote other than Hezbollah? Do you think everybody wants to lose so much, in order to assert Hezbollah's special extralegal priviledges?

Do you really imagine the Christian 40% or so is thrilled to have the spectre of Iranian style rule hanging over them? How about the rest of this polyglot assortment of peoples? Have they really, once and for all, suddenly all become a particular kind of Shi'ite -- the kind that wants an Islamic Republic -- when just a few years ago, Amal couldn't even stand Hezbollah?

I read a transcript of Jumblatt, the Druze leader, bemoaning this state of affairs yesterday -- perhaps a week after he proclaimed that Hezbollah had "won," whatever that means in Lebanon.

Hezbollah has arrested 30-40 "spies" since these events began, as I understand it. The fangs are showing. Hey, they may be spies, of course... but I'll also bet that Christians, Druze, and/or Sunnis are over-represented in this group.

And what does Lebanon need to do to stop Israel's actions? Disarm a group they said they'd disarm, and give Israel back two guys the government of Lebanon has no interest in. That's it.

I'd say Lebanese resolve to shelter this terrorist group - and/or fear thereof - is "disproportionate" to the group's number of adherents.

Daniel -- I hope too the city you remember is there in a year. That kind of place can die either death, a violent death, or a pious one. An Islamic Republic would shut the bars as surely as a rain of 500 pound bombs. There are only two indigenous armed factions in Lebanon now, the Lebanese army and Hezbollah. If the army is finally (!) strengthened to the point where they can have confidence controlling a local Shi'ite militia, you may yet have your Paris.

If not, you'll have occupied Paris - whether by Israelis (very unlikely), Syrians, EU/NATO, or Hezbollah.

I think we're heading that direction, and I also think that's what Israel meant by "setting back the clock 20 years." It was not because Lebanon was going to party like it's 1989, courtesy of Israeli ground forces. The Israelis are, rather, signaling that they know about the rifts in Lebanon, as do the Lebanese.

Best case scenario: All other militias -- AKA, the Lebanese Army -- disarm Hezbollah. Worst case scenario?

You don't want to know. But Israel most assuredly does not have to be present for it to unfold.

Taking Israel to be a known quantity (a heavily armed neighbor which will fight for its security); and taking Hezbollah to be what it is, a terrorist group sworn to destroy Israel, operating from Lebanese soil; what course of action would you advise for Lebanon?

I mean, it's a bit of an external locus of responsibility, to say we need only pressure Israel for this to end.

It looks like Israel has stated her positions, and made her choices. Lebanon, the nation, has choices pending, however. What are the best ones?

Dan

Kevin:

You are a professional scifi writer, right? You know the arena you create is as important as the characters that populate it and in the end it must play part in your story.I assume from your name you descend from the Irish Catholic and carry those values with you.

If all you get from Hezbollah is "hospitals" "dead woman and children" "innocent civilians" (but never any hezbollah fighters because they carry them away so the can't be counted) then what would you--and the world conclude.

How come your only source of news is CNN? Try Fox sometime.

The fire bombing of Dresden help end the war. We actually killed far more fire bombing Japan--but it took the absolute finality of the "Bomb" to end everything and in the end saved more lives. The usual idea of a war is to win it--not fight to a draw.

Dick

Thanks for the thoughtful response Dan. But you didn't answer my little hypothetical question, not directly anyway, and I find that curious. Fisk put it better than I could:

[July 15th] "But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had actually unleashed air attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon? What if the Lebanese air force then killed 73 Israeli civilians in bombing raids in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Israeli West Jerusalem? What if a Lebanese fighter aircraft bombed Ben Gurion airport? What if a Lebanese plane destroyed 26 road bridges across Israel?"

So, once more Dan, if it was Israel who made the first transgression (not beyond the bounds of possibility surely), would you be now defending Lebanon's right to escalate the conflict at an early stage, not that it has anything close to the ability to do so.

As to Lebanon's failure to control its 'terrorists', please forgive me for once more quoting Fisk, someone who seems, to me anyway, to have a balanced view on the situation:

"There are real issues here. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 - the same resolution that got the Syrian army out of Lebanon - the Shia Muslim Hizbollah should have been disarmed. They were not because, if the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, had tried to do so, the Lebanese army would have had to fight them and the army would almost certainly broken apart because most Lebanese soldiers are Shia Muslims. We could see the restarting of the civil war in Lebanon - a fact which Nasrallah is cynically aware of - but attempts by Siniora and his cabinet colleagues to find a new role for Hizbollah, which has a minister in the government (he is Minister of Labour) foundered. And the greatest now is that the Lebanese government will collapse and be replaced by a pro-Syrian government which could re-invite the Syrians back into the country. So there's a real conundrum to be solved. But it's not going to succeed with the mass bombing of the country by Israel."

Do you think Fisk is being unbalanced or unfair to Israel? It certainly doesn't seem that way to me.

A false assumption, but a common one. I somehow have gotten on the mailing list for both the IRA and the Franciscans, despite the fact that I've never sent either of them money.

I have, but there never seems to be much news on that channel, just scandal and opinion.

As I said to Dan then, please, put that on a T-shirt and wear it to the next Oktoberfest.

One item at a time, then, Mark:

You're sixty years late for the "early stage," Mark. But without sinking into the historical mire:

To create the mirror-image situation, which this is a putative attempt to do, Israel would have to be:
1)Sworn to the destruction of the Lebanese, and often quoted as intending to murder the entire Lebanese people;
2) Periodically intentionally attacking Lebanese civilians; and
3) Not Israel, but, let's say, Irgun or Lehi (Stern Gang).
Now then, Irgun, Lehi, and all other militias were disarmed and absorbed by the IDF, whose core were the Haganah -- the non-terrorist Guerillas of pre-1948 Israel.

So, to answer your question:
If:
1) The IDF claimed an inability to contain Irgun, and
2) Irgun were carrying out raids and bombings against Lebanese soil and
3) Irgun had been doing so for a period of decades, and
4) The Lebanese government were not provoking such attacks, and
5) Irgun was sworn to the destruction of the state of Lebanon and the murder of all Lebanese, for the sin of having been born to that nationality; then

Yes, I would be defending Lebanon's right to defend herself, as Israel is doing now. I know this because as a young man, I -- like you in this post -- was of the habit of disregarding this sort of extended comparison, when making "mirror image" analyses. And as a young man, I much more often came to conclusions very much like your own here, regarding the actions of Israel.

What has changed in the interim, is that I am now more careful to compare apples to apples.

So you are saying that Syria and Lebanon have a good excuse? Or are you saying they did not so much choose to abrogate this agreement, as make it in bad faith to begin with?

I am unclear how the above exonnerates those parties from their international obligations. At any rate, I would guess that Syria, with close to 400,000 men under arms, could quite effectively deal with this militia; up until 2005, Lebanon was a virtual satellite of Syria. Hezbollah, nevertheless, was never disarmed.

You (via Fisk) also imply that Lebanon's national army is simply unwilling to risk the act of disarming Hezbollah, because Shia outnumber other groups within the Lebanese army. Since "ought" implies "can," you are arguing that it is pointless to demand the Lebanese army disband Hezbollah, because in fact they are Hezbollah, at least to a large enough extent that ordering the Lebanese army against Hezbollah is tantamount to civil war.

This makes a fine case for the Army to do nothing, of course, but a poor case for Lebanon's non-complicity in the actions of its own street-gangs. If the argument is that Lebanon is not functional or responsible as a national government, then, once again, it is Israel's duty as a good neighbor to help them discharge those responsibilities.

This is, of course, Lebanon's problem. From the Israeli point of view, it doesn't matter if the rockets are sent from "Free" Lebanon, or from "Syrian occupied Lebanon." Lebanon's internal affairs have not aligned in such a way as to guarantee Israeli security, and Israel's only legitimate interest in the country is to provide for Israel's security. Most Israelis don't want to move their stuff next door and kick the neighbors out; they just want them to turn down the Katyusha music.

Only in that Fisk concerns himself with Lebanon's internal matters. This is the Lebanese concern. Fisk is utterly unconcerned here with the security of Israel, which is the Israeli concern. Lebanon's internal politics only concern Israel insofar as they influence Israeli security.

Good questions, Mark. I hope you don't think me evasive, but the situation did not spring up three weeks ago.

Dan