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Haha, so after all that they will do a prisoner exchange after all. If it wasn't clear before, its pretty obvious this conflict had nothing to do with captured soldiers, Israel wanted that territory buffer zone.

The Christian Science Monitor, a publication that doesn't skimp on international sources, carries this editorial by Anders Strindberg:

NEW YORK – As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.

Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians.

...

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress.

This CSM editorial seems to be chanelling the Iranian President!

The bit about Palestinians and their neighbours paying the price for European genocide is right out of Ahmedinijad's playbook. Which coincidently, is why the claims that ahmedinijad is a holocaust denyer are false; he relies on the holocaust as a fact of history to make his point. But I hardly expect that fact to gain any traction.

Anyway, no doubt the CSM will get letters over this editorial.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

Eventually, and not too long from now, the costs of maintaining Israel as it exists now will be too great to bear, and when that happens, Israel will probably end up like christian Lebanon (when it's not being shelled, that is). In Israel's case, a mixed nation of majority Muslims with a large Jewish population that shares political leadership.

robco wrote:

"TFA wrote:

Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.

So he's European and lived in Syria.  Of course he's anti-Israel.

ad hominem

Argue the facts, not the man.

Damn!

Is Rummy moonlighting for the Israelis? Sounds a lot like his style.

user wrote:

Damn!

Is Rummy moonlighting for the Israelis? Sounds a lot like his style.

Probably gave them the benefit of his experience.

resedit wrote:

Eventually there will be a cease fire, Hezbollah will declare themselves victorious, but it will take a very long time before they are able to mount such an offensive against Israel again.

The question is whether they'll be weaker or more powerful in Lebanon than they were before...

If Israel fails in its stated quest to disarm hezbollah, then they look weak. But worse for Israeli prestige is overt American support for Iraq's Maliki Dawa/SCIRI led government and a failure to punish Iran and Syria over their support for Hezbollah. This puts Israel in its place the pecking order of things.  I think this is what most worries the Israeli government.

If Iran and Syria get off with a diplomatic slap on the wrist over this affair, or less, then Israel may be forced to  ramp up the violence or give up the northern disputed territories and hunker down behind its wall.

Fledgling?  Lebanon's been a democracy for quite some time.

Ribtorus wrote:

Fledgling?  Lebanon's been a democracy for quite some time.

They were in civil war for quite some time. Not sure how much of a democracy a civil war is.

Ribtorus wrote:

Fledgling?  Lebanon's been a democracy for quite some time.

Well yes, I suppose I'm referring to Bush's comments (prior to this conflict) concerning the progress and stability that that had been made in Lebanon in recent years.

Ribtorus wrote:

They managed.

If by managed - you mean allowed a militant group to stock pile arms and get them into a nasty conflict because they couldn't control them, then I suppose they did manage.

resedit wrote:

If Israel bends over and does a prisoner exchange whenever Hezbollah kidnaps Israelis - they look weak.

Israel has made prisoner exchanges with Hezbollah in the past.

They hold many alleged Hezbollah and Palestinian militants without charge.  I fail to see how the capture of their own soldiers is terribly different.