It is my opinion that using our blogs and the Internet being our speech instruments, we should somehow start organizing a huge anti-war protest.
Israel is clearly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. I condemn these actions and will no longer feel any compassion whatsoever for Israeli soldiers that decide to fight this war for their government. I can not agree with Hezbollah for launching missiles on Israeli cities. I can understand, however, that Lebanese people (like Hezbollah) no longer agree with what Israel has been doing the past years and during the last 12 days.
This way Israel is creating new hatred and aggression against themselves. Question yourself: what would you do if another country bombs your village killing your woman, baby, kid and family members? Imagine finding your kids head and other body-parts in a bloody bombed street or building. Would you not hate the people that did this? Western people live behind their CNN screen. Enjoying “television war”. It actually makes me sick that so many of us, Westerns, have lost reality with what war really is (please, for once: look at it. Even if you are frightned of pictures showing dead children. Look at the reality. See it. Understand it).
Our grandparents fought World War I and II. They learned us, the generations after World War II, never again to go to war. They died for our peace. We, young people, might never understand what they have seen. But please respect them. War is never a solution. War against citizens, what in my opinion Israel is doing, is evil.
It is insanity. I refuse to call this human. We, Europeans, do not want this. If our European politicians would want this, I would tell them here and now that I no longer call myself a citizen of their European union. Luckily so far most of them have been condemning Israel and their recent actions. I hope this will continue. I hope everybody who makes himself guilty of war crimes (both Hezbollah and Israeli) will get severely punished for these crimes against the human race (almost 400 unarmed citizen after only 12 days of war, 350 of them Lebanese people).
I hope the Nuremberg trials will repeat themselves (but please read the interesting 5th comment of Max, I also agree with that).
People who are going to reply with the “terrorist” word in their comment, please read this first. Maybe you should stop being so naive and learn about indoctrination using fear. You might understand what this American president is really doing with his “terrorists are everywhere”-speeches.
To world leaders and the UN: if American leaders show no interest in peace, please no longer consider their opinion to be of any value. Proceed with your peace plans without American support.
Very well said.
The only reason why our grandparents were dying in WW2 in so big numbers is people like you who allowed Hitler to start it in the first place. If European governments weren’t so appeasing they would make the war several years earlier, and many million human lives shorter. Including the 6 million jews who died for nothing. But no, the history has to repeat itself. I am sure your grandparents have taught you nothing. Or maybe those weren’t your grandparents who were doing the fighting. Have they taught you about any anti-war protests they went to?
Yury: learn about for example the Treaty of Versailles and maybe read this page before making such idiot comments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II
*Sigh* about the whole thing. It really, really saddens me to see people destroying innocent life. This isn’t collateral damage, this is downright murder.
I agree to your point that Isreals actions should be condemned. Still i find the sentence “I hope the Nuremberg trials will repeat themselves.” inacceptable.
The Nuremberg Trials were the consequences of the crimes nazi germany had commited in world war 2. We’re talking about both a massive global war and the holocaust here. I really don’t like what Israel and the Hisbollah are doing right now but I see a massive difference to the systematic industrialized murder of as many people (several millions) as possible. Thats why i find the Nuremberg Trials one of the very few accaptable situations for Death Penalty. I would not like to see anyone beeing sentenced to Death for what happens in Libanon and Israel right now.
I think the lesson of WW 2 cannot be read as simple as never go to war again. Due to the massive cooperation in this terror system of the Germans there was no other way of stopping nazi germany but to go to war.
I actually fully agree with your point of view Max. If you want me to change some of the initial text, or rather would like to keep it the way it is, tell me.
Can anything Israel has done with respect to its neighbours since its inception be called human? Yes Hitler and the Nazis did really bad things to the Jews during WW2, but that does not excuse the nation of Israel’s actions in the name of protecting the “right of Israel to exist”. They have pissed off the people in the neighbouring countries (and its own country, look at the number of non Jews when Israel was incepted who were and still are persecuted in a similar way to the blacks in South Africa during Apartheid) in the last 50-60 years, none of whom have anywhere close to the kind of investment put into “defense” as Israel has.
Israel stops at nothing to impose its will, as has been seen in the last 2 weeks and also in the last 60 years. They should have the common decency to at least respect human rights, especially as their ancestors had their human rights disrespected by the Nazis.
colpompidou said in my blog: “It is unfortunately true. Jews can’t trust non-Jews if they are not protected by a state as Jews are a minority.” This shows a complete distrust of non jews and this kind of attitude is possibly contributing to Israel’s lack of care for basic human rights (other than for their Jewish population).
Man, you are so correct…
[quote]Western people live behind their CNN screen. Enjoying “television war”. It actually makes me sick that so many of us, Westerns, have lost reality with what war really is.[/quote]
I believe this is the main reason your opinion is so crippled and your facts are so incorrect… I also fully agree with yury, the only thing your grandparents taught you is to turn the other cheek.
[quote]I can understand, however, that Lebanese people (like Hezbollah) no longer agree with what Israel has been doing the past years and during the last 12 days.[/quote]
What Israel has been doing for the past years is leave Lebanon and hope that her northern border would stay quiet. Believe me, no one wants to deal with this border again, Israel has enough to deal with anyway. And for the past 12 days, maybe we were wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t have left Lebanon in the first place, but we did and now Hezbollah has roots in many many civilian villages. The situation is that missiles directed to Israeli cities are being shot. You cannot judge Israel for trying to eliminate this threat. NO civilians are being targeted. Every target is warned hours before the attack to enable the civilians find a safer place. The villages are of course being destroyed, there is no other option when dozens of missiles are being shot everyday from these villages.
[quote]It is insanity. I refuse to call this human. We, Europeans, do not want this. If our European politicians would want this, I would tell them here and now that I no longer call myself a citizen of their European union.[/quote]
Go ahead, do so. After that you will have plenty of time to look for your Utopian community…
And for the most juicy part:
[quote]This way Israel is creating new hatred and aggression against themselves. Question yourself: what would you do if another country bombs your village killing your woman, baby, kid and family members? Imagine finding your kids head and other body-parts in a bloody bombed street or building. Would you not hate the people that did this?[quote]
This is the most demagogic paragraph I have ever read. The opposite question can be asked just as easily. Question yourself: what would you do if your son, serving your country’s army, was kidnapped by a terrorist group? And no, don’t hide behind “my son shouldn’t have been there anyway” nonsense, Israel was trying to keep this border quiet, as it has (almost) been for the past few years. Thing is, the past few years were just a convenient relief for Hezbollah to rearrange and plan a bigger attack. So what would you do? Actually, I’m not sure anymore…
lior2b: I’m not saying Israel doesn’t have the right to defend itself. I do say the current violence is out of proportion. I do say AT LEAST 350 Lebanon citizens have already died. You can not tell me Israel isn’t targeting civilian targets. I just don’t believe it anymore. I have eyes, you know. I can see for myself. I SEE civilian targets being destroyed by Israeli arms.
And lior2b or (other) Israeli people: please don’t tell us we are idiots. We can SEE what Israel IS doing. We also SEE what Hezbolla is doing. It will be remembered. I assure you Israel will not simply get out of this without guilt. This will hunt Israel for years to come.
There are plenty of myths that have been manufactured to defend the actions of Israel over the years. Too many to list.
Myth #1: Israel has left Lebanon Alone.
Unlike the commenter above stated, was “What Israel has been doing for the past years is leave Lebanon and hope that her northern border would stay quiet.” The problem is that Israel has not kept its northern neighbor alone.
Israeli war planes frequently invaded the Lebanese air space using “jet, helicopters and drones as well as ground violations”, going as far as Beirut, a sight that even the folks in Beirut are used to. Sometimes the air-space violations when they go through the border are documented by UNIFIL (The UN mission to ensure peace in the border) because they are seen, sometimes they go through the Mediterranean and they are not seen by UNIFIL.
Looking at the reports since 2000 (when Israel finally withdrew its invasion from Lebanon, after 18 years of) one can notice a continuous stream of violations, you can read these here: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/unifilDrp.htm The previous quote about the jets can be found on the S/2005/460 report.
There are other contentious issues in addition to the sovereignty of the Lebanese territory. When the Israeli army withdrew they left behind hundreds of mines that have left the soil unusable, in the words of the UNIFIL report “the presence of large numbers of mine-fields in the UNIFIL area of operation, located mainly along the Blue Line, remained a matter of serious concern”. One of the requests that the Lebanese have made for the past six years since the withdrawal is to get a map of where those mines are to extract them.
And finally there are covert operations inside Lebanon (I know, movies with covert operations are fantastic, specially with Matt Damon) but they are still a violation of international law. Some of these covert operations include assassinations. Regardless of how justified someone believe he is in ordering a murder, it remains a murder, and it is not how humans in the 21st century should behave.
Myth #2: No Civilians Targeted
The reports are overwhelming of civilians being targeted, of course in this Orwellian age of newspeak, they are called “collateral damage”. Effectively, leaflets have been dropped on the cities, and when people have fled, shinny F16s have burned complete convoys of cars of fleeing refugees in one swift pass. The milk factory, the electricity plants, the TV stations, the telephone systems all of them packed with civilians, and all of those civilian infrastructure.
You only have to read the reports sent from Beirut by Journalists and bloggers. Or Gaza for that matter, the news of the family that were killed from a gunboat as they were enjoying a day at the beach.
Myth #3: The Only Solution is a Military Solution.
There are millions of options to recover kidnaped citizens. One really has to be stupid to think that the only possible solution is to unleash the F16s on the civilians and causing billions of dollars in losses. If this was a high-school exercise, they would fail the grade
I think the source of the problem is that the Israeli society is a heavily militarized society, so they look at every problem in terms of “how many bombs it would take”.
Further thoughts of mine on the topic of the militarized society can be found here: http://codedemigod.com/blog/?p=11#comment-36
Am reposting this comment that I left on a separate blog, regarding the issue of other possible solutions to the problem, as it was just raised here:
—————-
There are so many ways the situation could have been handled better; It could have been escalated to the UN; They could have president Bush ask for their release; They could have negotiated a prisoner exchange; They could have asked (gasp) help from Syria. They could have asked the UN to staff up UNIFIL instead of working against the UN and boycotting UNIFIL.
Anyways, if I can come up with a handful of this, am sure career politicians can come up with a few hundred other options short of bombing the shit out of the population. It either lacks imagination or shows that there is no interest in peace, but only violence. Evidence of the past 20 years sides with the later.
So the recent events can be traced back to the kidnapping of the soldiers. Yes, it was wrong. Is the escalation proportionate? I do not think so, neither does this article:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738739.html
Like the saying so, arguing with an idiot just turns you into an idiot. I think the same applies here: Fighting like Hezbollah, killing like Hezbollah, behaving like Hezbollah, and using excuses like Hezbollah does not make you better than Hezbollah. It just makes you a better equipped Hezbollah.
As for Israel being the victim, and following all the rules, first google match for “unifil background” shows the sad reality. Both sides are guilty, but again its like watching a discussion between two idiots. They both look like idiots, one of them just happens to have planes, planes that routinely (it seems to be a theme in the Unifil report) violate the Lebanese airspace (”serious breaches” is the expression used in the document).
This is making the rounds on the blogs:
http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/
Warning: extremely graphic.
Regarding crimes of war, it might be interesting to get some folks to mail the International Crime Court, directions are here:
http://www.terrorism.plus.com/
(btw, one of my long comments has not shown up)
Another Lebanese blogger talks here of the convoy of journalists being bombed:
http://ghazieh.com/
This war is a result of hezbollahs coward guerilla tactics. They are hiding between civilians, and got hidden weapons in civilian buildings and in religious places like moskees.
IF Lebanon (the official government) is interested in peace, THEY should ask for help to get rid of the armed forces of hezbollah. Im sure they can get all the help from US or Israel to do it. They could even benefit from this relation economicaly and secure stability after the empirial Syria was kicked out of Lebanon.
pvanhoof: have you read the link you gave me yourself? Allow me to quote:
“Some saw in Fascism a force that would militarily oppose the Soviet Union as proxy for Western Capitalism. Not suprisingly, the Nazis recieved a great deal of help from many large corporations, and Britain and France betrayed their European alliances, particularly Czechoslovakia, due to “appeasement”. ”
This is what I am talking about. If you want to understand the real reasons why Hitler was eventually able to come to power in Germany and start WW2 read Victor Suvorov books. In two words: Stalin. Stalin did not want to start a war all by himself thinking it is a good idea to weaken europeans by letting them fight between themselves, and then “liberating” europe. This plan in fact half succeeded, and the “Soviet Camp” was formed. However, all those are reasons for War to start. This is irrelevent to the point of how it could have been stopped, and to the point that the enemy needs to be defeated first, and negotiated with later. And war is war – you can’t avoid civilian casualties. Not to mention that people of lebanon have only themselves to blaim – they have democratically elected government that includes Hezbolah, and their army did nothing against Hezbolah. This is the consequence of making alliance with agressor and letting him harm your neighbour.
All you “condemn Israel – and fast” people are simply shortsigted fools. But wait until islamic terrorism really raises its head in your countries. Then your song will change.
@pvanhoof: Stop pretending to know everything, it’s pathetic. I’m sorry to inform you, you SEE nothing. Every innocent person harmed hurts me as it hurts you. Israeli people and media are feeling sorry for lost of lives and the destruction of infrastructures. Every IDF action is being rethought lots of times before it’s committed, they are doing everything possible to minimize the impact on civilians. I haven’t told anyone he is an idiot, but I will say you are ignorant.
I don’t want you to REMEMBER what Hezbollah are doing, I want you to LEARN from that. It almost sounds like you are threatening when you say Israel will be hunted. Everything has consequences, this is the price Lebanon pays for letting Hezbollah prosper in it’s territory. I just hope this war will come to its end soon…
@miguel: The (awful) site you linked to is nothing better than pvanhoof demagogy. Both sides have lots of material of this kind, but there is only one eager to show them, trying to win some sympathy through horror pictures.
Myth #1: Israel has left Lebanon Alone.
Yes, there were flights above Lebanese sky. The Lebanese army done nothing to assure this kind of attack won’t happen, and it would be VERY bad for Israel if it hadn’t collected some intelligence. Had the UN were busy taking care of Hezbollah, these documents wouldn’t have the time to be created nor the necessity.
Myth #2: No Civilians Targeted
Believe what you want, I can say nothing to convince you anyway.
Myth #3: The Only Solution is a Military Solution.
This is true, there are other options. The minute anyone comes up with a better idea that assures the safety of Israeli citizens we will comply.
miguel, the use of demagogy insults your intelligence, please don’t.
lior2b: As far as I can remember, there were no lebanon-based rocket attacks in the last three month. So why all this violence? Why this israelian terror? Why all this dead civilians? Just to get back to kidnapped soldiers? That’s nonsense.
This war will not stop the Hezbolla. Quite the opposite; this war will just spread more hate and violence. No Lebanese will forget these terroristic attacks, this so called “war”.
Many of those who have lost relatives will, even if they never had any grude against Israel, now hate Israel and everything it stands for: Congratulation! Hate for the next thirty years. Good job, really.
Yury mentioned the Second World War and the terrors and atrocities commited by the Hitler regime. Yury’s grandparents had to suffer because of those madmans.
You’d think that people learn of the past mistakes….
Concerning the “From Israel to Lebanon” site. Yes, it’s propaganda. But I don’t think that only the lebanese people use propaganda, both sides use it. Quite extensivly.
Answer to Myth #3: There are a lot of ideas to stop this war. There were many offerings for peace talks, many nations have offered diplomatic help. The UN could send troups to enforce a de-militarised zone,.. there are many possibilities.
Both sides have contributed to start this war. But only one site, Isreal, can end it.
raphael: no, it’s to make sure this kind of kidnapping and murdering is not going to happen again.
whatever you have to say about how we cannont defeat hezbolah because hezbolah is supposedly undefeateble is complete bullshit. Now what, Israelies should simly lie down and spread the legs because resistance is futile?
Whoever is going to hate israel is his business. I would rather they hated living israelies rather then loved dead ones.
And yes, many of my relatives died becuase of the nazis. Whoever is left and their descendants are living in Israel. Now they are being murdered too. Who are you to open your mouth to say they don’t have the right to defend themselves. Who are you to even mention them and use them in your “arguments”? Pathetic.
Yury: We are the people whose grandparents died to liberate for example (but not only) the Jews from the Nazi’s.
pvanhoof (and raphael): In that case you have betrayed your own grandparents. You have betrayed the Jews they helped saving, yourselves, and everything they fought and died for. Now you are raising their names like a flag above this dishonorable betrayal, adding an insult on top of injury to all those who are still alive. You don’t have the right to use your own grandparents in the argument, let alone mine. You lost that right.
Yury; show me the line where I said that Israel hasn’t the right to defend itself. Israel has the right to defend itself, nobody (at least not I) does deny that.
However; these atrocities the israelian army is commiting right now is by no self-defense. Not anymore. It’s terrorism.
Even if Israel succeeds in eliminating the Hezbollas structure of command, many independent cells will remain. The only way to eliminate them all is to kill the whole lebanese population. Obviously Israel won’t do that (At least I hope that the israelian gouventmen is still sane enought not to plan that). As soon as the israelian army leaves Lebanon, these independent cells will reconnect and build a new chain of command. And with all the hate this war created (the hate you shrugg off so easily) there won’t be any problems recruiting new volunteers. Voilà; the Hezbolla rises from the ashes, stronger than ever before.
Of course Israel could occupy the whole southern Lebanon (And maybe send some right extremist settlers) to prevent another uprising of the Hezbolla. But that was tried before and has not
The only way to peace is through the intervention of the UN and/or neutral parties. The only way to peace is through talks. War will only lead to new hate, new aggression, more dead civilians (on both sides) and more war. The only thing war leads to is total extinction. I don’t believe that this should be the way.
(Complete secont to last paragraph)
Of course Israel could occupy the whole southern Lebanon (And maybe send some right extremist settlers) to prevent another uprising of the Hezbolla. But that was tried before and has not created the desired results. You’d have to occupy lebanon for the next fifty years. And of course that would create an insane amount of unrest. And don’t forget that is was exactly such a method of operation that created the Hezbolla in the first place. And even if you’d succeed in pacifying Lebanon… What about Syria?
“Israel is clearly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. I condemn these actions and will no longer feel any compassion whatsoever for Israeli soldiers that decide to fight this war for their government. I can not agree with Hezbollah for launching missiles on Israeli cities. I can understand, however, that Lebanese people (like Hezbollah) no longer agree with what Israel has been doing the past years and during the last 12 days.”
The moral equivocation in this paragraph is disgusting. Both Hezbollah and Israel are targetting civilians, but the Israelis are the ones who are “no longer human?” Give me a break. What about UNSC Resolution 1559? Do you just pick and choose which standards you want to enforce? Hezbollah is the problem, not Israel. They commit what is tantamount to an act of war without the knowledge of the government of which they are a part! What does Israel have to gain by invading and bombing Southern Lebanon? Do you really think they want to go *back* there, after pulling out six years ago? Do you think they wanted to be involved in yet more fighting along their nothern border, especially now that Lebanon has one of the most pro-Western governments in the Middle East?
The fact is both sides are targetting civilians, yet you seem to be inches away from rationalizing Hezbollah’s actions. Are you just too blind to see the situation Israel is in and why they feel this is their only recourse?
Look at the bigger picture. Hezbollah is heavily backed by Syria, who is allied with Iran. Meanwhile, Iran’s Prime Minister is essentially repeating Nazi propaganda, calling for what is tantamount to a second holocaust. Nasrallah, after abducting two soldiers and launching missles across the border, threatens to gas Haifa because of Israel’s disproportionate response.
This does not justify Israel’s actions, which I think are morally questionable and politically inadvisable, but you can’t pretend that Israel is the aggressor here. Do you think Hezbollah didn’t know what it was doing when it did what it did? That Israel wouldn’t see this as an act of war an that it would hold Lebanon complicit, since Hezbollah holds 20-some seats in the Lebanese parliament?
Of course I can’t say for certain, but Nasrallah would have to be an idiot not to see this happening any other way.
Also, I find it a little disturbing that a nice Belgian boy is calling Israelis inhuman. Wie würden Sie die Judenfrage antworten? Ugh.
Vann, are you now trying to accuse me of what the Nazi’s did with Jews? Is that how Jews explain what they are doing and why?
I’m not accusing you of anything except having no moral clarity. That you imply the Israelis are “inhuman” is just icing on the cake.
I’m calling what IS happening inhuman. Both Israeli and Hezbolla forces are making mistakes. I specifically wrote that Israeli actions caused already more than 350 civilian deaths, yes. Because that is the truth.
Hmm, even though it’s turning a little rough i really like this discussion because there are a lot of people from different perspectives involved.
I’d just like to make a points that I think is necessary for a constructive discussion:
The Groups we are talking about are quite heterogenous. Just talking about Israel, the Jews, the Libanes and so on is not very helpfull because it ignores conflict lines within those groups that actually imho are the only source of a solution. Of course we still have to work with some categories. So i’d like to talk about for example the current isreaelian government, the peace movements on different sides, the hezbolla etc. – since they have more or less common politics within these groups.
For example there is a (very small) tradicion of refusing to go to the military in israel. Normaly everyone (men and women) have to do some (3?) years of military service there (please correct me if i’m wrong). Refusing to do this is a huge thing in a society that has to rely on it’s military strength to survive.
At the current level of the conflict i am pretty sure the Israelian Army actually is necessary for Israels existance. Still i believe that attacs like those we are seeing right now are counterproductive even from an israelian point of view. Afaik Hezbollah grew very strong in the beginning during the 80s when Israel was attacing Palestinians in Lebanon. So a similar tactic to todays tactics has helped the Hezbolla to come into existance in first place. So refusing to participate in another mistake (as i see it) is really a chance to also show to the other sides of the conflict that there are movements against the war in Israel.
At the same time on the Lebaneese side I can understand people are attracted by Hezbolla and feel connected to them. They had their programms to build schools and medical services in some areas. But still i would call upon everybody there to see how fatal their ideology is. Trying to drive the israelis into the sea is totally inaccaptable and will not lead to any solution but the fatal desaster we are seeing. This conflict can not be won by one side – Israels army is too strong to be defeated and fighting in a asymetric war in Lebanon will only strengthen the Hezbolla and alike.
So i think it would be both peoples job to stop their goverments / guerillas from doing what they are doing. It seems impossible but even small steps are way better than none.
This discussion also keeps coming back to WW2 and most of my ideas come from a reflection on WW2 (beeing born in germany and having mostly former Nazis as grandparents). I would not blame anyone for their appeasement politics. I think it would have been the Germans job to get rid of the Nazis in the first place. They did not – instead most of the germans supported them (including my grandfather entusiastically joining Waffen-SS on his 18th birthday). So there was a point where it was obvious that the Nazis could only be smashed from outside. And this is the point where i disagree to just saying “War is never a solution” – Of course – if the Nazis would have accepted that – there would not have been the need for a war – but in this situation it was the only possible solution.
So the questions remain – Is there another solution possible and is war a possible solution. I would call upon resistance to this assymetric war from both sides cause i think it reduces the chances for solutions to the long term conflicts.