Oh Boy, a political discussion on a bulletin board!

[Slo-Gorr]

I can't understand why you don't think Hezbollah's kidnappings of Israeli soldiers (and pretty much constant rocket fire into Israel) doesn't justify an Israeli response. You haven't even mentioned the kidnappings, as far as I can tell.

What, in your opinion, should Israel do, or have done, about this?

[JosefK]

Straight off, you're equating the actions of a terrorist organization which is kidnapping and murdering soldiers with the collective punishment and murder of huge numbers of completely unrelated civilians, including large numbers of children, as well as the old and infirm by a sovereign nations military.

Now, specifics:

For one thing, Hezbollah was not firing 100 rockets a day into Haifa (brutally murdering numerous innocent civilians, albeit much less efficiently and on a much smaller scale compared to the IDF LockheedMartin/McDonnelDouglas-equipped air force's obliteration of south Lebanon) until Israel began bombing the civilians and Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon.

For another, the Hezbollah murders & kidnappings of the IDF soldiers had a chain of nasty events leading up to it:

- First, there was a widely publicized shelling of a Palestinian family on the beach in Gaza by an IDF ship, of which only the female child survived. The aftermath was videotaped and shown across the world. The IDF admited to shelling around there, but claims it was someone elses shell that did the dirty deed, NGO's on the scene disagree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcpjpaFTElA&mode=related&search=beach%20gaza

- Within days of the shelling (and apparently some pretty routine IDF kidnappings) Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier from a Gaza border post in order to secure the release of female and juvenile Palestinians in Israeli prisons. "Rendition", kangaroo courts, the whole gitmo bit. Israel has of course previously engaged in prisoner swaps with Hezbollah without invading Lebanon.

- Israel responded by invading Gaza, again, with the predictable "collateral damage". It's worth noting that the first thing the IDF attacked was the civilian infrastructure (the primary power plant for Gaza, powers the hospitals and water treatment plants), a tactic repeated in Lebanon. This is still ongoing of course, but Gaza is routinely subject to brutal suppression, and the choking of the governments funding has already resulted in even more horrific conditions in the, uh, camps.

- Hezbollah then killed and kinapped the IDF soldiers with the stated goal of securing the release of prisoners held by the IDF. No doubt they were looking for an excuse to start lobbing their shiny missles at Haifa, and the IDF gave them one, right on schedule, by bombing the civilian infrastructure of Southern Lebanon (bridges & power stations, nothing new there), and invading, again.

The ravening jackal who is the current leader of Hezbollah, in a recorded meeting with a former US diplomat and others, had in fact expressly stated his intention to kidnap IDF soldiers to instigate a prisoner swap of Lebanese captives a number of months ago. He claimed that Israel would never voluntarily release the Lebanese prisoners in their 'custody' and would require something in return for their release. Of course, he knew the IDF would probably invade, but the piles of bloody baby bits only increase his popularity in the region.

Like our invasion of Iraq, Israel's invasions/occupations/atrocities only result in more extreme terrorist atrocities by the fanatics among the subject populations, increasing the risk of terrorist attacks on Israel's civilian population. The brutal, multi-decade oppression of the Palestinians, ostensibly to eradicate the PLO, only resulted in the PLO/Fatah being supplanted by a much nastier group (Hamas).
As everyone no doubt knows, Hezbollah did not exist until the Israeli invasion of 1982 and subsequent murderous occupation of Lebanon. Our invasion of Iraq appears to have created numerous terrorist groups that did not exist until we ruined that country, increasing our own risk of more numerous terrorist attacks.
So why not at least actually try negotiation first?
On a completely unrelated note, it's tough to unseat a war president.

[JodyPSchaeffer]

It justified an Israeli response, not an overreaction of bloodthirst and stupidity. They're bombing everyone. That's NOT going to make things better.
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Bush is watching. Use big words.

[President_Humungus]

I don't think Hezbollah is anything less than a group of fundamentalist as*holes, nor do I condone anything they have done in antagonizing Israel. I merely point out that Israel, founded as it is on a religious claim to a spit of land they weren't able to acquire for themselves does not possess intrinsic moral superiority simply because they are our client in the region.
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