Quote:Original post by honey

Quote:Original post by Straudos
Israel gave the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt as part of a peace deal, so Israel has made sacrifices in the name of peace.

have you researched why Israel gave that piece of land back? If Israel wanted peace it would withdraw its more than 200.000 settlers from the West Bank ..... lets face it, Israel only pretends to want peace (e.g. withdrawing 8000 settlers from Gaza while at the same time extending West Bank settlements) to make it look better for the USA when they send another round of military equipment over. The true aim is to drive out all the Palestinians. Just read a couple of Israeli newspapers and listen to the talks of the right wing Israeli parliament members ....they actually state their aims pretty clearly.

I disagree, The Israelis had a policy of disengagement from Gaza, and what happened? The terrorist groups in Gaza got more brazen and decided to shoot rockets into Israel. The Israelis wanted to leave Gaza alone, they want peace, but were forced to reoccupy it for security reasons. The abduction of Corp. Shalit and the deaths of his fellow solders from an attack from over the border, was the action that was just too much to allow.

Hezballah kidnapped the two soldiers in Northern Israel while they still had the situation in Gaza, this seems like a big provocation to me.

What is Israel supposed to do when you are surrounded by countries that want your state to no longer exist? If you give them more land back, they still want more land, it won't contribute to peace until in the minds of Hamas, all of the jews are driven into the Ocean

Perhaps Israel has overreacted (if they are, they sure could overreact a lot more), but not doing anything in fear of killing civilians isn't going to solve the problem. Hezballah has their main bases in Beirut, if Israel is going to neutralize them they have to bomb Beirut.

Arg, why can't they just get along... :(

I'm reading this article about the G8's discussion on the ME crisis. I found this particular part rather ...onimous.

Quote:Original post by Financial Times.com
Under domestic pressure to make public criticism of Russia’s alleged backsliding on democracy, Mr Bush largely limited himself to acknowledging that the two men had discussed their “governing philosophies”.

He added: “I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing.”

But in a jibe at the violence and turmoil in the country, Mr Putin replied that Russia would “certainly not want to have the same kind” of democracy as Iraq.

Amid laughter, Mr Bush said: “Just wait.”

I'm not sure if he means that Iraq will get better or that Russia will soon find itself in the same position. Bush is a wily one. That he is.

Quote:Original post by shmoove

Quote:Original post by phantom

Quote:Original post by shmoove
Bullshit. Our part of the deal was to get out of southern Lebanon. And we did that. Six years ago. What other form of cooperation are you expecting? You expect us to sit back and nothing while Hizballah fires rockets freely from a few meters north of the border? I'm sorry, but that's asking too much.

right, so bomb/attack the locations the miltants are attacking you from, not blow the crap out of the country and generally cripple it (which is what is going on).

Which is what we have been doing for the last six years (not including this week obviously). It didn't help. The result was that now Hizballah are capable of reaching all of northern Israel and probably more with their rockets.

Quote:
As I said before, the responce to losing 3 soliders and being attacked is to attack the area you are being attacked from, not bomb the country back to the stonage.

You'd have to be very naive to think this is just about three abducted soldiers. That's just the straw that broke the camels back.

shmoove

You must be without a TV, radio, newspapers, Internet, or ears not to notice that every new battlefront was justified by the kidnapping of soldiers.

Quote:Original post by honey

Quote:Original post by Straudos
Israel gave the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt as part of a peace deal, so Israel has made sacrifices in the name of peace.

have you researched why Israel gave that piece of land back?

Probably because it served as an embarrassing reminder that they spent fourty years wandering about trying to find their way out of it once? ;-)

Quote:Original post by shmoove

Quote:Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
You must be without a TV, radio, newspapers, Internet, or ears not to notice that every new battlefront was justified by the kidnapping of soldiers.

A world war seems like an overreaction for the assasination of an archduke. And just like in 1914, the kidnappings are just a trigger for something that runs a lot deeper.

shmoove

Just so you don't think we think Israel is ALL wrong and everyone else is ALL good. Anyone with common sense (which most of the people posted have shown) knows that both sides are messing up. It's just that "with great power comes great responsibility". Right now, Israel is not being very responsible. In fact, all things considered it's throwing a very violent tantrum. And to make things worse none of the Arab League nations recognize the Peace Process saying it's and I quote "dead". At this point, it's not hard to see why they came to that conclusion.

Quote:Original post by shmoove
It's not a tantrum. Most people on this thread have recognized that the Lebanese government would prefer it if the Hizballah was disarmed. But it is scared of the consequences of taking action against them. The reason for the attacks on Lebanon is to make a point: not disarming them can be a lot scarier.

shmoove

The problem with that is disarming them could lead to civil war which could lead to: a) reoccupation (or annexation) by Israel, b) reoccupation (or annexation) by Syria, c) no more Lebanon, or d) Hezbollah-stan. So forcing them to deal with a problem they're not equipped to handle with any sort of success will lead to even more problems (worse even).