Quote:Original post by deathtrap
I think its pretty f'ed up, but it was inevitable anyways. Jordan(or was it Syria?), Egypt and Saudi Arabia have condemned Hezbollah for their actions and are supporting the Lebanese government. I think this time Hezbollah is going to get uprooted and either wiped out or driven out of Lebanon.

Now we're going to get Lebanese refugees, as if we didn't have enough refugees from all the other wars that are going on around us :(

If Arab countries stepped in and offered their co-operation in eliminating Hezbollah once and for all, it would greatly boost their credibility in this process and could perhaps prevent Israel from taking these matters into their own hands.

Quote:Original post by trzy

Quote:Original post by QzarBaron
I wouldn't say thousands of years... the conflict is really only about 60 years old... Arabs didn't really mind jews too much, they were actually quite friendly towards them (they had to... according to the Sharia, the Islamic Law).

Sharia is a very negative aspect of Islam.

I never quite said that it was a positive thing, It is a very important part of Islam and the Arab states none the less though.

Anyway, I do admit I did make it sound like they were TOO friendly towards them, but in comparison to how they were being treated in Europe at the time (and even right up to the creation of the Jewish state), the Dhimmi allowed for the Jews to live normal lives in their countries. I have a Jewish friend who can trace back his family to when they were in Spain during the Moorish rule, and he will tell you that his family was living in a very comfortable situation until the Moors left, then they were exiled to Russia where they suffered right up until they immigrated to the US.

Quote:Original post by Steadtler
Israel is not "defending" itself at all. They dont want peace, and never wanted it. As long as they have US's support, they will continue their rampage. Couple of kidnapped soldiers? What a shitty excuse to bombard civilian targets in 3 different countries.

What about all those fucking rockets that are being fired north and south? Not good enough? Hope someone will fire rockets into where ever you live.
3 kidnapped soldiers a shitty excuse? Have you ever served in an army? Do you want your government to abondone you once you are kidnapped?
If Israel were on a rampage and tried to kill civilians the numbers would have been WAY WAY higher. Israel is barely flexing its muscles, the fact that rockets are still flying proves that. It is hard enough to chose targets without hurting civilians.

Quote:Original post by firahs
Actually, if you look up the code of dhimma in Sharia, you'd see how you're wrong. Unless you want to show some proof how you are right. Dont bring up anything in the postcolonial era since Sharia has not been enacted since before WWI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi

Feel free to Google "dhimma" and read up on it yourself. If you want to claim bias, you'll have to provide evidence that Islamic countries do not discriminate against non-Muslims.

Quote:To save you the trouble, just look up the history of al-andulus...

Again, we can start with Wikipedia which offers a good summary of the controversy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus

Feel free to branch out from there. There is certainly no consensus that non-Muslims were afforded any sort of meaningful tolerance under Muslim rule. Don't forget that Islam was brought to people at the tip of a sword. You've claimed before that early Muslim armies were welcomed by the peoples they conquered, but this is clearly not the case. The Islamic world was expanded through military conquest and violence. Some places, such as Egypt, fell quicker than others because of the ineptitude and corruption of the Byzantine empire which the Arab conquerors brilliantly used to their advantaged, but in most cases, it was anything but peaceful or welcome.

Quote:Original post by ChurchSkiz
I haven't even defended Israel today, just pointing out the extreme double standards and flaws of logic that have been thrown out.

Quote:Original post by ChurchSkiz
The bottom line is that when an organized country has their 3rd largest city attacked repeatedly, they are going to retaliate.

It looks like you've defended Israel today.

Quote:Original post by ChurchSkiz
According to you [Mith], Hamas has a right to attack Israel when they feel wronged. Same courtesy does not apply to Israel when they are attacked unprovoked by Hezbollah via rockets and mortars into a civilian population.

Juan Cole points out something relevant to this charge in his blog today: Is the Arab Spring turning to Dust under Israeli Bombardment?

Quote:
...
Hizbullah got off dozens of katyusha missiles in reply, which they would not have been able to do if the Israeli airforce had been hitting katyusha missile emplacements in the deep south instead of attacking the whole Lebanese economy up at Beirut. The missiles killed two Israeli civilians. One was said to hit the outskirts of Haifa, but Hizbullah denies that one and ordinary katyushas do not have that kind of range. Hizbullah's attacks on Israel during the past two days have been despicable.
...

The IDF attacked Beirut instead of attacking the source of those rockets, thus leaving Israeli citizens open to attack. I suspect one factor in making this choice is knowing the propaganda value those dead Israelis would have. According to Eric Boehlert, CNN's Lebanon Problem, that decision paid off.

Quote:
...
Thanks to CNN, I'd learned that Israeli forces had bombed Beirut International Airport and a blockade was in place to cut off Lebanon's ports, that president Bush announced Israel had the right to defend herself, that Hezbollah had fired missiles into the seaside city of Haifa, and that an Israeli woman in Nahariya had been killed amidst the cross-border violence. But I hadn't learned many details about the more than four dozen civilians in Lebanon being killed, a fact that struck me as central to the unfolding story.
...

How's that for so called 'liberal media bias'?

It seems that Israel is using this conflagration to escalate tensions with Iran: Israel: Hezbollah plans to move abducted IDF soldiers to Iran

Quote:
Israel has concrete evidence that Hezbollah plans to transfer the two Israel Defense Forces soldiers abducted Wednesday to Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Thursday.

"We have concrete evidence that Hezbollah plans to transfer the kidnapped soldiers to Iran. As a result, Israel views Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran as the main players in the axis of terror and hate that endangers not only Israel, but the entire world," AFP quoted Deputy Director General of the Foreign Ministry Gideon Meir as saying.
...

And CNN reported in the last few minutes that Israel is claiming the rockets that Hezbollah is shooting into Israel came from Iran. Right now on CNN, Netanyahu is throwing out the canard that the attacks on Beirut are intended to bring a halt to the attacks on Haifa. An assertion that Juan Cole demolished. Now Netanyahu is trotting out a new variation on the "wipe off the map" canard and following that up with the charge that Syria controls Hezbollah.

It looks to me that the Lebanese screwed up when they called for the withdrawal of Syrian troops. I really don't think this would have happened if Syrian troops had remained in Lebanon.

Quote:Original post by QzarBaron
Anyway, I do admit I did make it sound like they were TOO friendly towards them, but in comparison to how they were being treated in Europe at the time (and even right up to the creation of the Jewish state), the Dhimmi allowed for the Jews to live normal lives in their countries. I have a Jewish friend who can trace back his family to when they were in Spain during the Moorish rule, and he will tell you that his family was living in a very comfortable situation until the Moors left, then they were exiled to Russia where they suffered right up until they immigrated to the US.

Again, there is evidence that the supposed tolerance of the Moores is greatly exaggerated. Also, when the Jews were exiled from much of Western Europe in the middle ages, they settled in Eastern Europe -- Poland, Russia, etc. There, they were offered comparatively greater protection than in Western Europe and became a major component of society. Serious tensions always existed but it's interesting to note that Jewish religious scholarship flourished during this period.

I wonder why the Jews went east instead of south to the supposedly more tolerant Muslim lands closer to their religious homeland?

Quote:Original post by QzarBaron

Quote:Original post by ChurchSkiz

Quote:Original post by Mithrandir
This whole pile of shit started when Israel bombed a beach, killing 7 Palestinian civillians, some of them children.

I'm glad you can condense thousands of years of hatred and violence into one sentence.

I wouldn't say thousands of years... the conflict is really only about 60 years old... Arabs didn't really mind jews too much, they were actually quite friendly towards them (they had to... according to the Sharia, the Islamic Law). While the jews were being butchered, segregated, and deported in Europe for generations the Arabs were living quite comfortably with them. Ironically the best place for Jews to be in during the Middle Ages was Spain.... because it was run by Arabs. After the Moors were kicked out of Spain the jews were "dealt with". Now they had their differences... which indeed go back into biblical times but I wouldn't call it hatred and violence.

Yep. In fact, if you want to point to a thousand years of anti-Semitism, look to Europe and Christendom in general, not to the Arab world.