Letters to the Editor
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Photos that damn Hezbollah
Let's see what the photos show:
1) A group of people on an old anti-aircraft gun. Group of people could be anything from Lebanese army, milita to civilian volunteers manning an AA gun to shoot back at bombing Israeli planes.
2) Middle-aged man with an AK47. There's a lot of AK47s in the middle-east.
3) Zoom of first picture.
4) Claims of a Katyusha truck blown-up, but not shown. But a Katyusha can't hit Israel from Beirut.
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Israel was founded by terrorists
Israel was in part founded on a terrorist campaign, of which the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 91 (mostly civilians), was only the most notorious example. The bombing was instrumental in the British decision to quit its mandate over Palestine by 1948, leading to the War of Independence and the foundation of the Israeli state. Menachem Begin, later Prime Minister of Israel, ordered the attack. This indicates how at bottom Israel feels about the use of terrorism - it's justified in advancing Zionist interests.
Modern Israel's collective punishment tactics are in morally indistinguishable from terrorism and indeed from Nazi practices of collective punishment.
So this hypocritical bleating about Arab terrorism is really stomach-churning.
Israel has become the new South Africa - a pariah state with only one or two friends. Such a state cannot survive in the long term, nor does it deserve to do so.
Obviously, the only just solution to the Palestinian 'problem' is a single, secular democracy in 'greater Israel' where Jews and Arabs live as equals. However, as the Jews have decided that they cannot outbreed the Palestinians, and therefore could not dominate them in such a state, it seems a two-state solution is the only politically acceptable outcome to the Jews. So be it.
What is NOT acceptable to the whole world is that Israel continues to treat the Palestinians and their neighbours like 'dogs' (to quote Golda Meir, another Israeli Prime Minister) until Kingdom Come. In the meantime, excuse us if we shed very few tears for the poor Israeli 'civilians' caught up in the conflict. After all, Israeli brutality tactics are helping to export terrorism throughout the world. Why should non-Israelis pay for the sins of Israel?
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Right? Wrong? Who knows.
The standard responses to this article, and in fact the article itself betray the standard biases that pollute even the noblest attempts to observe the world as it is. To attempt to divine any kind of binary evaluation of responsibility: "It's hezbollah's fault! It's Israel's fault!" is such a drastically oversimplified way of thinking that it doesn't really deserve any credence whatsoever.
Right now what's going on there is CHAOS, pure and simple and it doesn't matter whose fault it is or who started it. Each side has a valid and well supported argument.
Israel got attacked and Hezbollah's political base as well as their military base NEED to be destroyed for Israel to feel safe (true).
Israel continuously and violently interferes in the attempts of indigenous people to self-determination neither of(true).
The actual causes of what is happening right now are impossible to accurately define and understand. It's just not possible. Israel needs to think about the safety of its own citizens and Hezbollah needs to think about itself.
So cast your lot where you like, but don't pretend that you can say who's responsible and who's not, and who's behaving atrociously and who's not. It's impossible. Accept it and be more honest with yourselves about your own biases. Those who would divine a single truth from this multifaceted mess are on two sides of the same coin, a coin which is truly not worth a single cent.
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Bears repeating...
Herald Sun
"I thought my points were quite clear:
a) It was claimed that rockets were launched from a suburb in Beirut. Hezbollah has no rockets that can hit Israel from Beirut.
b) There are pictures of a group of men riding on an anti-aircraft gun. There's no indication they are Hezbollah at all, and an anti-aircraft gun is a defensive weapon.
c) There's a picture of an aged man holding a AK47, no indication at all that he's Hezbollah. Plus how many AK47 owners do you think there are in the middle-east?
-- anonymous"
"Actually that Herald Sun photo claimed to have a broken down truck IN A CHRISTIAN NEIGHBOURHOOD, in the east of Lebanon.
Some genius might like to inform us all why the shi'ite Hezbollah would be in a christian neighbourhood and then pin point any christian neighbourhood that has been bombed to bits.
The Herald Sun is a rag. The article also claims that Katushya rockets had been fired from that christian area - if so were the christians firing them when we know for sure that none have been fired from Beirut at all.
-- Joanne
Let's see how fast it pops up again! Apparently, it has more lives than several cats.
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The Butcher of Beirut
Thanks to Cardshark for clarifying the ratio of Lebanese killed to Israelis killed has, of late, been 14.7 to 1. Unfortunately, the ongoing killing of Lebanese reminds one of the 1982 massacre which took place in Beirut, earning Ariel Sharon the title "The Butcher of Beirut." The I982 Israeli offensive reportedly caused 18,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries, most among civilians. Paricularly egregious were the consequences of particular military actions taken by Sharon's allies, the Phalangist forces-- operations which he authorized. The consequences of these military actions have justifiably been deemed a massacre and genocide. Here's what UN General Assemby, and Tom Friedman had to say about it:
On 16 December 1982, the UN General Assembly adopted 37/123 which included the following:
"The General Assembly . . .
1. Condemns in the strongest terms the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps;
2. Resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide ."
This resolution also included the following:
"The General Assembly . . . condemns Israel's aggression and practices against the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories and outside these territories, particulary Palestinians in Lebanon, including the expropriation and annexation of territory, the establishment of settlements, assassination attempts and other terrorist, aggressive and repressive measures."
The American journalist Thomas Friedman was reportedly one of the first witnesses on the scene after the massacre. Here is part of what he had to say about the massacre in his 1989 book, From Beirut to Jerusalem:
"The Israeli soldiers did not see innocent civilians being massacred and they did not hear the screams of innocent children going to their graves. What they saw was a 'terrorist infestation' being 'mopped up' and 'terrorist nurses' scurrying about and 'terrorist teenagers' trying to defend them, and what they hears were 'terrorist women' screaming. In the Israeli psyche you don't come to the rescue of 'terrorists.' There is no such thing as 'terrorists' being massacred. Many Israelis had so dehumanised the Palestinians in their own minds and had so intimately equated the words 'Palestinian,' 'PLO,' and 'terrorists' on their radio and television for so long, actually referring to 'terrorist tanks' and 'terrorist hospitals,' thay they simply lost track of the distinction between Palestinian fighters and Palestinian civilians, combatants and non-combatants."