Israel/Palestine et al... Who's Right?

[bignaf]

thanks.

[BigJon@Work]

Good in the sense of highly skilled, top performance. Really good.

[Haggis@wk]

We’re Losing World War IV

”Today, Iran’s emboldened mullahs are on a triumphant roll, waging a bloody, three-front proxy war against us, using the Mahdi army to assassinate dreams of peace and democracy in Iraq, using Hezbollah to blow up those same dreams in Lebanon, again, and using Hamas to make a grotesque mockery of them in the Holy Land. Now they threaten to activate Hezbollah terror cells, here in America and throughout the world, to kill and maim us at home and inflict more carnage on our allies. This week, they mocked our efforts to prevent them from becoming a nuclear power, announcing that nothing we do — in the U.N. or elsewhere — will stop them from going nuclear, and sharing their WMDs with other rogue states and Islamofascist terror groups at will. More ominous yet, they threaten to unleash an apocalyptic surprise on us on August 22, the night they believe Mohammed lit up the skies by ascending to heaven from the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.”

Fortunately we have Jimmy Carter and, maybe soon, Ned Lamont to talk sense into these people. After all, isn’t it an article of faith among Democrats that we are always only one or two good conversations away from peace? Look how effective Jimmy’s been in North Korea!

I expect a nuclear-armed Iran in the next 3-4 years and nuclear-armed terrorist group within the next 10 years, maybe sooner.

The gates of Hell are opening and Jimmy Carter’s there with the WD-40 for the hinges.

[Shapley]

Reuters Purges Photo Database

Seems Reuters' freelance photographers in Lebanon have been 'doctoring' the photos coming out of there. Another score for the bloggers, who spotted repetitive patterns in smoke clouds and realized the photos were retouched.

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

Haggis,

I assume you refer to this drivel from Carter regarding Israel's and the United States' culpability in the current state of affairs in the Middle East.

V/R
Shapley

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

The people of the Middle East deserve peace and justice, and we in the international community owe them our strong leadership and support.

Well, that part of the article I can agree with. Sadly, not all of the "deserving" mideasterners want peace and justice.

The urgent need in Lebanon is that Israeli attacks stop, the nation's regular military forces control the southern region, Hezbollah cease as a separate fighting force, and future attacks against Israel be prevented. Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms, and release the Lebanese prisoners. Yet yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected a cease-fire.

He fails to acknowledge that the dismal failure to prevent past and present attacks against Israel is an ongoing problem; it is apparently enough to chide Israel for objecting to the attacks.

There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians.

There you go. It's all the fault of Israel that the arabs are all restless and cranky.

A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions.

What? Where did that come from?

I wonder if we could talk Mr. Carter into personally investigating the area of conflict and perhaps talking all of them into peaceability? That's, maybe, what he was offering to do in that claim that we owe them leadership and support? Gandhi placed his own personal body between injustice and the victims thereof. Perhaps Carter's own personal body is what the Lebanese need to shield them from those fierce nasty Israelis.

[GreatCarouser]

This is from Globalsecurity.org

I found the links to the Iranian president's letter to Bush as well as those to the Koran particularly interesting....

[analog]

I keep remembering this line from eric hoffer:

"My feeling is that no one in this universe has the right and the competence to tell Israel what to do in order to survive. On the contrary, it is Israel that can tell us what to do. It can tell us that we shall not survive if we do not cultivate and celebrate courage, if we coddle traitors and deserters, bargain with terrorists, court enemies and scorn friends."

[dai bread]

An air strike on Iran is no doubt feasible, but all it will do is ensure that all Iranian nuclear facilities are put underground, not just some of them.

I'm a great fan of the surgical approach.

Also, too many people are still wedded to the effectiveness of air power in WW2 & probably Korea. In the 1860s, Maori earthworks withstood British cannons. Upgrade both to the 21st century, and you have the same result.

[bignaf]

A major weapon of terrorists is propaganda, see how the AP and Reuters help them out:
http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

[Shapley]

Bignaf,

Remove the space after [.asp] to activate the link.

I posted a link on this earlier, see my link Reuters Purges Photo Database above, or here.

This ties in with the stories Haggis and GC posted regarding stories slanted to favour the Hizbollah (when that change from Hezbollah?) position.

V/R
Shapley

[bignaf]

I guess I was too busy counting beer bottles on a wall...

[bignaf]

Ahmadinejad should not be underestimated, he's a dangerously smooth manipulator.

[dai bread]

A major weapon of terrorists is propaganda, see how the AP and Reuters help them out:
http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

Most news media seem to be staffed by people on William Gilbert's little list:

"...the idiot who praises, in enthusiastic tone
all centuries but this and every country but his own".

[GreatCarouser]

Found this on the web

I also received this via e-mail:
Analysis: Ceasefire is Bad, Gov't Must Go
By Hillel Fendel

Columnist Caroline Glick & int'l legal scholar Prof. A. Bayefsky analyze the ceasefire resolution, concluding it is an "unmitigated disaster" for Israel.
Columnist Ari Shavit says Olmert must go.

The conclusions reached by Bayefsky [pictured] and Glick, which appear in a
Jerusalem Post article authored by Glick, are summarized below:

* Responsibility for determining compliance is in the hands of UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has "distinguished himself as a man
capable only of condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense while
ignoring the fact that in attacking Israel, its enemies are guilty of war
crimes."

* No mention of Hizbullah-patrons Syria or Iran, thus ignoring the regional
aspect of the war.

* Rewarding Hizbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its
demand for territory - namely, the Shaba Farms - via acts of aggression.
Moreover, by allowing Lebanon to make territorial claims on Israel despite
the fact that in 2000 the UN determined that Israel had withdrawn to the
international border, the resolution sets a catastrophic precedent for the
future.

* Though Israel had demanded an an arms embargo against Hizbullah, this
issue is put off to a vague date in the future - and the power to oversee
such an embargo is placed in the hands of the Lebanese government, of which
Hizbullah is a member.

* The resolution calls upon Israel to withdraw all of its forces from
southern Lebanon even before Lebanese and UNIFIL forces are fully deployed
in the area - creating a vacuum allowing Hizbullah to reinforce its
positions in south Lebanon.

* The resolution makes no operative call for the release of IDF soldiers
Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev being held hostage by Hizbullah. "By
relegating their fate to a paragraph in the preamble, which then immediately
turns to Hizbullah's demand for the release of Lebanese terrorists held in
Israeli jails, the resolution all but eliminates any possibility of their
returning home."

* It should be assumed that Hizbullah's presumptive victory in its war
against Israel will act as a catalyst for violence by Hizbullah allies in
Iraq against the Iraqi government and coalition forces in the weeks to come.

* Iran emerges as the main victor in the current war.

* By handing a victory to Hizbullah, the resolution strengthens the belief
of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is
winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of
destroying Israel and running the US out of the Middle East.

Shavit Calls for Olmert's Ouster
Meanwhile, Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit called on Friday for an end to Prime
Minister Olmert's government. Excerpts:

"...If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able
to remain prime minister for even one more day. Chutzpah [nerve] has its
limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce
humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in
cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down
deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say, 'Oops, I made
a mistake. That was not the intention. Pass me a
cigar, please.'

"There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month. He went to war hastily, without properly gauging the outcome. He blindly followed the military without asking the necessary questions. He mistakenly gambled on air operations, was strangely late with the ground operation, and failed to implement the army's original plan, much more daring and sophisticated than that which was implemented. And after arrogantly and hastily bursting into war, Olmert managed it hesitantly, unfocused and limp. He neglected the home front and abandoned the residents of the north. He also failed shamefully on the diplomatic front...

"The day Nasrallah comes out of his bunker and declares victory to the whole
world, Olmert must not be in the prime minister's office. Post-war battered
and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a real
prime minister."

[Haggis@wk]

Mark Steyn

” If you had told an Englishman on Sept. 10, 2001, that within five years all hand luggage would be banned on flights from Britain, he'd have thought you were a kook. If you'd told an Englishwoman that all liquids would be banned except milk for newborn babies that could only be taken on board if the adult accompanying the child drinks from the bottle in front of a security guard, she'd have scoffed and said no one would ever put up with such a ludicrous imposition. But now it's here. What other changes will the Islamists have wrought in another five years?

Absent a determination to throttle the ideology, we're about to witness the unraveling of the world.“

[Shapley]

Oops! This one was a rehash of the link already posted.

[bignaf]

A major weapon of terrorists is propaganda, see how the AP and Reuters help them out:
http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

Most news media seem to be staffed by people on William Gilbert's little list:

"...the idiot who praises, in enthusiastic tone
all centuries but this and every country but his own".

precisely, except for newspapers in Totalitarian countries.

[bignaf]

* Rewarding Hizbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its
demand for territory - namely, the Shaba Farms - via acts of aggression.
Moreover, by allowing Lebanon to make territorial claims on Israel despite
the fact that in 2000 the UN determined that Israel had withdrawn to the
international border, the resolution sets a catastrophic precedent for the
future.

* Though Israel had demanded an an arms embargo against Hizbullah, this
issue is put off to a vague date in the future - and the power to oversee
such an embargo is placed in the hands of the Lebanese government, of which
Hizbullah is a member.

* The resolution calls upon Israel to withdraw all of its forces from
southern Lebanon even before Lebanese and UNIFIL forces are fully deployed
in the area - creating a vacuum allowing Hizbullah to reinforce its
positions in south Lebanon.

these are the big unacceptable issues.
Diplomats are only trouble. they feel that their job is to reach an agreement, not to find a solution, and therefore resort to vague language. In practice, you have to do something, and the vagueness causes the next war, thus keeping the diplomats in business. and then they can proudly claim at the end of their career, "we brokered such and such number of agreements, aren't we awesome."
The cease-fire's principles are good, and in keeping with US's demand for a change in the situation, rather than a immediate cessation of hostilities that would just allow Hezbollah to regroup. unfortunately, only the elements of pure cessation, of the type which would benefit Hezbollah, are immediate and real. all the elements meant to produce a change, are vague or hopeless.

Unifil troops with a mandate to use force in keeping S. Lebanon militia-free, are a good thing. but no has agreed where they'll come from, and the recent statements about their mandate successively diminish their ability to us force. on the other hand, the Lebanese army (not exactly a impartial anti-Hezbollah force) states it'll be in S. Lebanon in 72 hours.

the Embargo hasn't been implemented, and it's implementation is unlikely by a Lebanese government which includes Hezbollah members.

the disarming of Hezbollah has been brought to discussion in the Lebanese government today, and officially postponed indefinitely, in other words, it won't happen.

And now Israel, because it suffered an unprovoked act of aggression, must now discuss giving a shabaa farms present to the aggressors. land which no country (zero countries) in the world, aside from Lebanon, recognizes as part of Lebanon. Not even Iran.

[barfle]

the Embargo hasn't been implemented, and it's implementation is unlikely by a Lebanese government which includes Hezbollah members.

the disarming of Hezbollah has been brought to discussion in the Lebanese government today, and officially postponed indefinitely, in other words, it won't happen.

There's that nasty "democracy" thingy, causing all those problems in Lebanon. How are you going to have a representative government, when a substantial portion of your population is in favor of terror and totalitarian theocracy?

The question is as valid in Iraq as it is in Lebanon.