Middle East Conflict

[Blue and true]

Was it a close quarters kill or did they just drop hundreds of bombs and wipe out generations of family?

How many lost due to ‘collateral’?

Owing to the footage coming out, hundreds more innocent Arabs have lost their lives; to the add to the thousands they have already indiscriminately slaughtered.

 

[Blue and true]

Will check and come back to you but think they took out a dozen terrorists including Nasrallah. Don’t think generations of families were wiped out. Aren’t you happy that the leader of a terrorist organisation can no longer function. People in Lebanon, Syria, Israel etc are all celebrating, I wonder why. Were you happy when Bin Laden was killed?

Bin Laden was killed solely in that operation. The US didn't drop bombs on his head and wipe out thousands of innocents in the process like those war criminals just have.

 

[west didsblue]

What’s left of the Hezbollah leadership will now need to do something to publicly save face but hopefully once they’ve done whatever that is a ceasefire can be put in place. And hopefully Iran will have got the message not to continue to escalate.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

What’s left of the Hezbollah leadership will now need to do something to publicly save face but hopefully once they’ve done whatever that is a ceasefire can be put in place. And hopefully Iran will have got the message not to continue to escalate.

That’s got to be the hope. It’s certainly a risky move by Israel but I wouldn’t describe it as reckless, which I thought the pager thing was (although that view may prove to be incorrect).

It’s been a terrible couple of weeks for Hezbollah. No other way of dressing it up.

 

[robbieh]

Agree with much of that, but these last couple of weeks will unquestionably have weakened Hezbollah hugely in the here and now, but the notion this solves anything is absurd.

Yes, I've lost count of the number of their important leaders who've been killed. It will set them back years you'd have thought.

The fact Israel knows Nasrullah is dead suggests they have people embedded in Lebanese society. The percentage of GDP they must spend on their defense/attack program must be extraordinary and I imagine if the US ever changes policy, unsustainable.

I've always thought that the current Israeli leadership is playing a long game that involves the creation of a greater Israel. Netanyahu wants to be remembered for eternity like King David.

 

[Eds]

Bin Laden was killed solely in that operation. The US didn't drop bombs on his head and wipe out thousands of innocents in the process like those war criminals just have.

lol. How many thousands were wiped out yesterday in a precise strike? Are you happy or not that he is dead along with other like minded terrorists. If America had killed him would that have been ok.

 

[robbieh]

lol. How many thousands were wiped out yesterday in a precise strike? Are you happy or not that he is dead along with other like minded terrorists. If America had killed him would that have been ok.

What you and others fail to appreciate is how the country you support is seen by the "terrorists".

The French were finally pushed out of Algeria after a bloody conflict that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Israel is seen by the Arabs as essentially a European colony backed by the US. As such resistance will continue either until Israel disappears or more likely Israel stops stealing Palestinian land, pays some reparation and accepts a two state solution as Rabin and Arafat did

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Israel is seen by the Arabs as essentially a European colony backed by the US. As such resistance will continue either until Israel disappears or more likely Israel stops stealing Palestinian land, pays some reparation and accepts a two state solution as Rabin and Arafat did

The latter is the only workable outcome - and the reparations will have to be huge if it’s going to work.

 

[Two Gun Bob]

This is the Netanyahu who was secretly videotaped during his first term of office saying that the Palestinians should be repeatedly beaten up ‘until it is unbearable’.

This is the Netanyahu whose hand the widow of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin refused to shake because of the part she felt he had played in inciting hatred towards her husband prior to his assassination.

But she was moved by the sincerity and warmth of PLO leader Yasser Arafat when he visited her in person to offer his condolences. “Sometimes”, she observed, “I feel that we can find a common language with Arabs more easily than we can with the Jewish extremists”.

Arafat’s handshake, she explained, symbolised for her the hope for peace, whereas Netanyahu’s handshake represented no such hope.

In the long history of this conflict, there are two prominent Israeli politicians who are better candidates for admiration, based on what I have read about it so far:
Moshe Sharett and Shlomo Ben Ami.

Both come across well in Avi Shlaim’s magisterial study.

Am looking forward to reading this book by Ben Ami (which I think might have been recommended to me by someone on here):

View attachment 133176

Decade after decade of protracted war, political divide, tribal ethnic and religious conflict, some that has been going on for century's tends to bring out the worst in people, but I see Netanyahu as a strong and decisive leader, and strength is what Israel needs right now.

The total annihilation of hamas and hezbollah, is the only way to achieve lasting peace in the region, as the terrorist will not cease or desist until they have fully destroyed Israel. That is their only aim.

I was quite surprised to hear of Rabin's widow being moved by the warmth and sincerity of arafat's gesture, as they are not the two words that immediately spring to mind when hearing his voice mentioned.

This is a interesting read/analogy below from the foundation for defence and democracy.

Arafat: The father of modern terrorism. A thugs life.

The Father of Modern Terrorism; The True Legacy of Yasser Arafat

For the last week of his life, the scuttlebutt about the Palestinian movement’s centrifugal force concerned whether his impending demise was driven by AIDS, likely contracted, according to...

www.fdd.org

 

[St.Pauli support]

What you and others fail to appreciate is how the country you support is seen by the "terrorists".

The French were finally pushed out of Algeria after a bloody conflict that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Israel is seen by the Arabs as essentially a European colony backed by the US. As such resistance will continue either until Israel disappears or more likely Israel stops stealing Palestinian land, pays some reparation and accepts a two state solution as Rabin and Arafat did

As you know, Oslo 1993 didn't solve the issue of a Palestine state, nor a clear definition of territory for either side, nor East Jerusalem.

For a reason: if not BOTH sides are ready for painful (!) compromises, a 2-state-solution is impossible.

We have never seen a realistic version.
It's a sad story with no end in sight.