Short, concise, direct....

[calzone]

Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon
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.

<<snip>>

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.

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

<<snip>>

Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists.

The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies.

A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and per- sistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten."

<<snip>>

{ 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. }

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

[Jim Sagle]

1. Exterminationist rubbish, deceitfully cloaked in the language of human rights..

[illinoisprogressive]

2. I heard once or twice about the Isrealis starting stuff at the border and

that was when the guys were captured. Then nothing. blackout on the story. But, it had this ring of truth that the other version didn't. I've heard reports of Israel bullying the neighbors and wanting war with Iran and for us to do the dirty work. It is sparse stuff but, it seems to be right.
I don't have a problem with Israel but, I feel they are like the spoiled child that goes to mommy for protection after throwing dirt in his big brother's face and the big brother gets blamed.

[rockymountaindem]

3. Hamas and Hezbollah are driven by a sense of justice?

Yeah... and I'm the King of Timbuktu.

[madrchsod]

4. gee ,even i do`t agree with 99% of this...

[calzone]

5. A little quiz

Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?

A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?

A: Israel.

Q: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies

(a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?

A: Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?

A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?

A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?

A: Israel.

Q: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?

A: Israel.

Q: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking UN diplomat become prime minister?

A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a US ship in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?

A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified US government documents and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union?

A: Israel.

Q: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?

A: Israel.

Q: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?

A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by US vetoes?

A: Israel.

Q: What country did the United States invade and destroy because "U.N. Security Council resolutions must be obeyed?"

A: Iraq.

Q: Which country is the Bush junta racheting up the same alarmist nonsense for?

A: Iran.

From an article by Charlie Reese
All of the above is open-source, easily confirmed and accurate.

[pelsar]

6. an incredibly simplistic.....

but if it works for you....stay with it.


its kind of like saying the US killed more germans in WWII, hence the US is the guilty party

[oberliner]

7. This artcile is over six months old nt

[Lithos]

8. Locking per I/P guidelines

Article is past the proscribed time limit without moderator exception.

Lithos
DU Moderator