Monday, August 07, 2006

Peace Keeping?

This fucking war makes me so angry.* I didn't actually think anything could make me madder than a temporary cease-fire specifically so that the Israeli government could say that all the civilians had left Southern Lebanon on the non-existant roads and bridges (when they pretend there are no civilians it becomes all the better to bomb you with).** But I was wrong.

They want to put a peace-keeping force in Southern Lebanon. What the fuck? If you actually want to keep the peace you don't put peace-keepers where the bombs are falling, you put peace-keepers in the place that is sending the bombs. That's where the peace is being broken.

The proposed troops won't be peace-keeping troops, they will be doing Israel's work for it.

* I think the first sign that the stupidity and ridiculousness of this war would be worthy of Peter Sellars was the fact that some aid agency had manage to get an add collecting money for the civilians of Lebanon withing about 36 hours of the bombing starting - as my Mum said "don't ask us, ask the fucking Israelis"

** And every time anyone from Israel talked about everyone in Southern Lebanon supporting Hizbollah I thought 'well they are now'. Jesus fucking Christ there's nothing more likely to gain support for resistance fighters than bombing the fuck out of a country.

12 comments:

  1. Hizbollah started this latest war by firing rockets into Israel, and they continue to do so. The Israelis are fighting back.

    what is the problem with this?

    You cannot condem the Israelis with out also condeming Hizbollah.

    Are you saying that it is OK for Hizbollah to attack Israel, but it is not OK for Israel to fight back?

    Israel is in a shit of a position, Hizbillah have positioned their military forces within the civilian comminity - this is a standard guerrilla tactic - It is impossable for the Israelis to attack the military positions without involving the civilian community.

    Hizbollah could not exist in the location is does with out the acceptance of the civilian community, the guerrilla force is part on the civilian community and vice versa. In this situation the civilians are the military and therefore a target

    You say that the peace keepers need to be sent to the place that is sending the bombs, fair enough. We need peace keepers in the communities in southern Lebanon to stop Hizbollah, as well in Israel.

    Hizbollah must carry much of the blame for 1) firing rockets into Israel, 2) placing its military forces within the civilian population and thereby placing civilians in the firing line.

    There are two sides to this war. You cannot condem one side and not the other.

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  2. Yes I can - in fact I believe I did.

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  3. Bond I object to you using the term 'Jew' instead of 'Israeli'.

    Over 500 Lebanese civilians have died, and about 40 Israeli civilians.

    I'm not the one arguing that 10 Lebanese lives are worth 1 Israeli life. That's the people who are justifying Israel's actions.

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  4. Maia, I just want to say hi and thank you for your wonderful blog which I have been lurking in for many months now and thought it was time I popped my head up to say something.

    This argument that the "Israeli's are just defending themselves" is absolute bollocks and I want to scream every time I see it used to justify the inexcusable death toll of so many innocent Lebonese and Palestinian citizens.

    The western media has been sanitising the history of the Israeli occupations of Palestine and Lebanon for decades and I am just so sick of it.

    Bond, you and your fellow Israeli apologists really need to start getting your historical facts in perspective and you might want to start by reading this article from Christian Science Monitor:

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

    This is just one of many independent unbiased news sources about what is really going on in that region and the total futility of the actions of the Israeli, British and US government to bring a lasting peace to the middle east.

    Nothing is going to change until the mainstream public start educating themselves about the historical perspective of our current crisis and putting pressure on their governments to treat the Arabs with true equality and respect.

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  5. And some more articles for you to read:

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0802-04.htm

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-02.htm

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-05.htm

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0731-02.htm

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-03.htm

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14166.htm

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14264.htm

    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1205977.ece

    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1214522.ece

    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1205977.ece

    I do not support terrorism in any way, and I have even less tolerance to state-sponsored terrorism or states that justify their own actions (war crimes) by demonising resistance fighters as terrorists. A country has the right to defend itself inside it's own borders but not to invade or occupy anothers territory and call it self-defense.

    Don't you dare to tell me that Israel is innocent or justified in all this.

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  6. Zanavashi - OK there have been skirmishes between the Israelis & Hizbollah before this.

    No doubt both sides will say the other started it.

    Why are Israeli troops going over the border into Southern Lebanon in the first place?

    Why has Hizbollah upped the ante by firing rockets into Israel?

    Why has Syria & Iran supplied Hizbollah with the rockets? - Anti tank & anti aircraft missiles would be more use.

    The rockets Hizbollah are firing are of no use as a tactical military weapon.

    You say that Israel is not innocent or justified in this war, but who is?

    I am not condemming Hizbollah & supporting Israel as you seem to believe.

    What is happening now is a continuation of conflict that has been going on in this region for thousands of years.

    There was the kingdom of Israel about 3,000 years ago & before the Israelis (or Jewish race?)The Philistines inhabited the area. Since then the land has been over run by the Assryains, Romans, Christian Cursaders, Arabs, Turks etc...etc...etc...

    Who started it or who is too blame is not the issue.

    But who is continuing to fan the fire is it the Israelis supported by the USA. Is it Hizbolla supported by Syria? or by Iran?

    Unfortunately it seems that it is only Israel and USA that gets the blame, (in left wing or Independant media) while groups like Hizbolla are almost forgiven because they are said to be racting to Israeli or US transgressions.

    Israel has a right to exist as a state. The Jewish people have a right to a homeland.

    Considering the presecution & attempted extermination of the Jewish people in Europe for the past thousand or so years, it is not surprising thet the Israelis defend themselves in such an agressive manner, and to be honest Israel ofton carries out pre-emtive strikes in what they beleive to be justifiable self defence.

    So Zanavashi how can you justify Hizbollah - freedom fighters - as you call them hiding amoung civilians firing rockets at Israel, why not just attack the Israeli army when they cross the border, why dont they send their freedom fighters into Israel to attack an army or airforce base.

    When Hizbollah fires rockets from positions surrounded by civilians Hizbollah makes the civillians targets. This is an unfortunate fact of war.

    Both sides in this conflict have blood on their hands, and trying to blame just one side in favour of the other will not solve the problems in the middle east.

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  7. I am not defending Hezbollah.

    But despite your claims it sounds to me like you are defending Israel, and I am not going to bother responding to most of your comments because they resemble soundbytes from US Republican party press releases.

    I speak out in defense of the rights of innocent civilians in Lebanon and Palestine who have never lifted a finger to harm Israel or it's citizens and the fact they are constantly being killed in HUGE numbers by the methods of this US-funded Israeli military machine.

    I am speaking out to say that the Israeli justification of self-defense is complete and utter BULLSHIT and to assert the argument that there is NO EXCUSE for so many civilian casualties in either conflict. I place more blame on Israel for this because of it's superior military technology and the fact that it is constantly punishing innocents by targetting known civilian areas and bombing the Lebanese civilisation back to the stone age by destroying billions of dollars of it's homes and infra-structure.

    I am also speaking out to protest the justification that Israel must target civilian areas because the resistance fighters are using "human shields". There have been many reports coming out of Lebanon of how Lebonese civilians have been fleeing areas which are known to have Hezbollah fighters because they do not want to be in the vicinity of anything that might resemble a missile launching site to the Israeli military and get caught in the crossfire - even the local supply vans and garbage collection trucks are being targetted as being mobile rocket launchers by the Israeli miltary for chrissakes.

    It is absolutely abhorent to suggest that Lebanese civilians would actively place the lives of their families and loved ones in danger by remaining near Hezbollah strongholds, much less volunteer to let themselves be used as a "human shield". When they see Hezbollah fighters in the area they FLEE and if they are really really lucky they will not be bombed by Israeli missiles as they flee. And furthermore, there has been no evidence found by independent Human Rights investigators of Hezbollah casualties or terrorist weaponry in any of the civilian sites where Lebonese civillian deaths have occured.

    And I especially don't give a rats arse about who did or didn't start the conflict when I see it being used as an excuse to justify all these innocent civilian deaths, as much as it pisses me off to see the history of the conflict in the region sanitised to make Israel look like the poor homeless victims of wherever.

    I don't want to hear this justification bullshit anymore! I just want the the civilian deaths to STOP and I want the UN and our governments to grow a fucking spine against these warmongers and stand up for rights of these innocents.

    Is that clear enough for you Bond?

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  8. >you put peace-keepers in the place that is sending the bombs.

    Still - we put peacekeepers into east timor NOT into indonesia.
    Besides peace keepers shouldnt be a harm to your country - if they are then one has to ask what is wrong with our peacekeepers!

    Besides most people don't see it as the UN's job to kick the ass of the guilty party. More to just do whatever it can to reduce the suffering.

    The other solution I guess is to suport brutal military action against the side you dont like. One could support for example suicide bombings in Israel or maybe an international force to crush the israeli military into submission.

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  9. "Hizbollah could not exist in the location is does with out the acceptance of the civilian community"
    The Israeli military could not exist without the acceptance of its civilian community. Does that make Israeli civilians legitimate targets?

    "We need peace keepers in the communities in southern Lebanon to stop Hizbollah, as well in Israel."
    The problem is that there is no proposal to put peacekeepers in Israel.

    "When Hizbollah fires rockets from positions surrounded by civilians Hizbollah makes the civillians targets."
    And how many rockets have been fired at Israel from inside Beirut?

    "Still - we put peacekeepers into east timor NOT into indonesia."
    That was a mistake. They should have gone into Indonesia.

    "The other solution I guess is to suport brutal military action against the side you dont like."
    How about opposing brutal military action by any side?

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  10. "That was a mistake. They should have gone into Indonesia."

    Why do you think that didn't happen?

    I think your not much of a pragmatist

    I suggest
    1) if you think Iraq or Vietnam are/were quagmires try taking on Indonesia in Indonesia! That would have to be one of the most insane ideas ever - even if the whole of the rest of the world donated all of their military to the effort.
    Either Indonesia invites you in - or the whole idea is a total non starter.

    2) How will you stop fighting in east Timor while your forces are in Indonesia? Sure you could shoot a few Indonesians for revenge (just before you die of course) but that wont help.

    3) Indonesia is rather big do you want to have peace keepers in ALL of it?

    4) the whole idea is to give the strong side an easy way to back out without loosing face and without killing the other side - not to try and make it as big a war as possible (one I note we would loose in a humiliating manner) just because we want to fight the 'bad' guy.

    > How about opposing brutal military action by any side?

    NZ and most of the world DOES oppose brutality on both sides.

    The question is 'what is it doing about it?'

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  11. Anonymous5:44 pm

    "Hizbollah started this latest war by firing rockets into Israel, and they continue to do so. The Israelis are fighting back."

    Nope, the latest flare up began when Hizbollah launched an attack on a military target (an Israeli patrol). The Israeli military have breached the Lebanese border repeatedly since 1968. To begin with, they engaged Palestinian guerillas who had been driven from their homes by force. Hizbollah turned up in 1982 to defend Lebanon from the Israeli invasion.

    The roots of the problem lie in the Israeli government booting people off their land and preventing any redress. Stop blaming people for fighting back.

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  12. Zanavashi - This is a link you might want to look at.

    http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

    Probably not what you would want to look at, unfortunatly the first casualty in war is truth - on both sides.

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