To the Editor:

Re "The 'hiding among civilians' myth," by Mitch Prothero ("Salon," 28 July 2006, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/07/28/hezbollah/index_np.html):

Mitch Prothero's insistence that Hizballah guerillas do not hang out and launch attacks among civilians is belied by numerous accounts, e.g. that of "The New York Times" ("Christians Fleeing Lebanon Denounce Hezbollah," 28 July 2006). There also is plentiful evidence showing that civilians have long stored missiles for Hizballah in "rocket rooms."

Besides, the Israeli army isn't nearly stupid enough to target civilians. Israel gets enoug flak as it is; targetting civilian populations would just make the job of eliminating the terrorists that much harder, due to international pressure.

Hizballah, on the other hand, continues to lob hundreds of ball bearing-filled missiles at Israeli population centerswith no military importance...

--

David B. Greenberg

In case you don't all know about this. The Isreali's have created a tool that they are using to alert all their supporters to articles, polls, surveys and other sites of interest that they feel need to have the opinion adjusted more to their favor . Go to http://giyus.org/ and download their tool "megaphone" so you will be alerted to the same sites in order to counter their countering efforts . 2 days ago they had a page on the link where it says "make a "difference"" that showed a snapshot of a yahoo survey before and after they sent out their alert . It showed a totally skewed survey, of course . They pulled that page . The following link shows what they are working on this morning http://giyus.org/alerts/ . Sometimes you must use the oppositions tools . They are clever and organized, that I will give them . Most of the pro israeli posts are from their minions.

More clear evidence of Hizballah's use of civilians is available at http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html.

So far we've had about 5 posts whining that this discussion is being "targeted" by pro-isreal groups.

As long as they don't post form letters, I don't see the problem. The anti-Israel folks normally post at about a 2-1 or 3-1 ratio anyway.

So far, they've been pretty well behaved, and have posted facts and counter points to Prothero's incredibly awkward, misguided drivel, so I say, good!

And to smallpkgs: your post is by far the best post on this lousy article.

Writing Hezbollah propaganda may endear him to some Arabs and ensure that he doesn't get his head chopped off - but it is not what intelligent readers require. Today's Salon is 90% Israel Basher and 10% Israel Supporter. It would be great if we could simply read fact-based journalism (like some of the facts provided by readers to debunk this awful, poorly researched, biased story).

It will be interesting to see how Juan Cole, Mitch Prothero and the other Salon Israel Bashers spin this crisis several months from now when Hezbollah is contained by a multinational force and lays down its arms or is destroyed Lebanon makes peace with Israel. It's also possible that the US and Syria will upgrade relations.

We need to get behind our leaders, no matter how incompetent and corrupt they may be, when they are doing the right thing. Bush is doing the right thing by solving this problem now rather than delaying it by calling for an immediate cease fire. Give Israel time to significantly weaken Hezbollah and create the environment in Southern Lebanon to support peace keeping troops! It is O.K. to detest a president and most of his actions while supporting those actions that are right. Being anti-Right doesn't make you left - it just makes you a sheep.

Liberals who are trying to tie the Israel / Hezbollah war to American policy in Iraq are only providing ammunition to the Republicans come November. This crisis is going to be resolved successfully and any efforts to tie this conflict to Iraq are going to backfire. By the way, those twelve new US military bases in Iraq are starting to look very important for the containment of Iran - the greatest threat to Middle East peace.

Thanks to the Mitch Protheros and Juan Coles of this world, liberals are viewed by many as a bunch of anti-American, anti-Israel loonies.

But for some of the Christians who had made it out in this convoy, it was not just privations they wanted to talk about, but their ordeal at the hands of Hezbollah — a contrast to the Shiites, who make up a vast majority of the population in southern Lebanon and broadly support the militia.

“Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from between our houses.”

“Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.”

Yeah, it's pretty obvious. They might as well be using form letters since they just post the same stuff over and over again.

just like yesterday,

when you went away;

when those who CARED, STOOD:

in the National Guard, the Army, the Air Forse, the Navy or the Marines, not the RARE guard.

Rove On George

Burmingham is not Beirut!

GO TEAM GO from

the "CHEERLEADER NATION"

Bash Israel, Then Attack Those Who Post Facts to Salon. Weak Tactics Directed at the Anti-Israel Sheep

You are hiding behind conspiracy theories like "GIYUS" because there are simply no facts anywhere that can back up this article. If you have them, please share them with us. I would be happy to change my mind on this article if you could show me facts supporting the theory that Hezbollah is not hiding among civilians and attacking from civilian positions.

I've never heard of GIYUS - but I've certainly heard of the reputable newspapers mentioned by the other readers debunking these pro Hezbollah articles.

the notorious left wing UK newspaper 'the Guardian' managed to supply the evidence that for hizballah, hiding amongst civilians is just part of the daily repertoire of this democratic and peace loving servants-of-the-people political movement ... would you want them as neighbours ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1832931,00.html

As Israel currently prosecutes its genocidal war on two fronts (Lebanon and Gaza), two quotes from Israeli sources are quite revealing.

The first comes from the Israeli governments official website:

“Regarding allegations that illegal use has been made of cluster bombs and phosphorous weapons, it should be noted that neither of these types of weapons is prohibited under the Conventional Weapons Convention”!

The second quote is from David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister:

“If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country." --quoted by N. Goldman in his book, “The Jewish Paradox”. Mr. Goldman is a former President of the World Jewish Congress.--Ted Schoneberger