The Middle East spirals out of control!

I'm not sure about the location of the kidnapping, but Arabs consider the Shebaa Farms part of Lebanon, and not Israel. That might account for the issue, as it is land Israel stole in a previous war.

The escalation of this war has been absolutely perposterous however. Israel has been brutally slaughtering innocents for an action, while serious, amounts to very little and could be resolved through diplomacy. Israel's behavior is more of that of a terrorist orginization than a soverign state.

As for hitting Tel Aviv, they might have some ordinance capable of that. New weapons keep emerging every once in a while.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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Terrorism is a deliberate action designed solely to harm civillian targets.

Israel has only killed civillians because Hezbollah hides among civillians, making them collateral damage.

And yet a majority of Israel's targets are civilian targets. Four bridges today, multiple airports, as well as other infastructure areas, and civilian houses have been hit. Hezbollah having southern Beirut as a stronghold does not justify blasting the entire city under the pretense of collateral damage.

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You can't negotiate with an organization who wants your country destroyed - completely. You either kill them or they kill you. It's that simple.

Israel has negotiated with Hezbollah in dealing with prisoners before. Both groups have prisoners of each other and would like them back.


You're simplifying the situation a lot more than it actually is. Also, the classification of Hezbollah as a terrorist orginization isn't even complete, while the US, Canada, and Israel say so, the EU thinks differently.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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<sigh> I can't believe people are STILL using this as a pathetic excuse to justify Hezzbolah's actions. Once a bitch, always a bitch eh? Maybe Israel is tired of being pushed around?

It tends to be the case that Israel does a lot of the pushing. Palestine jumps to mind pretty quickly.

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That and other similiar asserations are soo much bullshit. Answer one question:

1.) Is Israel using its full military might on Lebanon?

maybe some other side issues to consider is why isn't Israel using it's nuclear weapons if its intent was to cause maximum civillian casulties? Why is Israel bothering to tell people to evacuate ahead of time? Why is Israel doing house to house fighting when it could just level the entire city?

I mean damn... if a military general was aiming for maximum civillian casulties they sure SUCK AT IT.

And yet they've still managed to kill roughly 700 civilians, and considering the amount of ordinance used for an army roughly 3000 strong, its excessive.

Also, they've done a pretty good job of leveling cities anyways. Beirut, Tyre, and a few other places have taken billions of dollars worth of damage.

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So Hezzbollah as an organization cares so much about their own people that they will ONLY operate in the Southern Lebanon theater and promise not to run north?

Until Israel started destroying the country, they wouldn't have been able to. The attitude was shifting against Hezbollah, but of course, thats not the case anymore.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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You can dismiss the Hezbollah attack by saying “they just kidnapped 2 soldiers”, but you’d be missing the point (as well as some facts). Since the withdrawal from Lebanon, every now and then, the Hezbollah decides to abduct a few soldiers (during 2006 and 2000), and even a citizen. From time to time, they test the recent shipment of Katyusha rockets from Syria and Iran, by launching them into Israeli territory. In between, they’re smuggling other weaponry from Iran and Syria, calling for the destruction of the “Zionist enemy”. You know, regular stuff. As han89 has stated, us not retaliating in the past, has only encouraged the Hezbollah to continue (“you’ve done nothing before, why now?”).
It’s true that we negotiated the exchange of prisoners in the past. But it is also true that all of the above has happened even AFTER the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanon to the border approved by the UN. And although, some of you seemingly disagree, it is also (according to, at least, most of the world) true that the attacks by Hezbollah were taking place inside Israeli territory.

Now given those facts, tell me, Onyx, Rock, and whomever else who might want to answer: what is a sovereign state that wants to defend its citizens and even its <gasp> soldiers </gasp> to do? Should we use military power? Even the slightest bit? (it seems that we’re using too much. Maybe if we just fired Katyusha rockets back unto Hezbollah strongholds, it would have been OK? Or maybe we should just wait a bit, until the Hezbollah catches up and kills more Israelis before we’re allowed to carry any military operation?).
Wait a minute, I know. We should negotiate. Stupid us, how did we not think of this earlier. Oh, wait a minute… we did. And shockingly, it resulted in more attacks. And more abductions.

Or maybe we should ask the UN to deploy a peace-keeping force along the border. wait… that sounds a bit familiar too…

Oh, I know. We should ask the UN to pass a resolution, asking the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah (or even just take control over it, and add its forces to the Lebanese army’s). What? Resolution 1559?

If only there were as many a solution as complaints…

Israel controls a lot of occupied land however, including the Shebaa Farms, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. You want peace, give the Arabs back their land.

Also, you seem to lack comprehension of the situation. It's not that the Lebanese government didn't really want to disarm Hezbollah, it's that they can't. The Lebanese government is extremely weak due to the way it is set up. While Israeli citizens might not understand that, the government certainly does, and thats why its actions against Hezbollah are terrorist actions - because it knows that the Lebanese government can't do anything, and yet it still destroys the country.

Lastly, the UN force has around 200 members, its not a real force. Don't even act like that is an excuse to justify this slaughter by the IDF.

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And you seem to lack the ability to put yourself in the place of the Israeli people.

And yet less 50 Israeli civilians have been killed, compared to 700 Lebanese. The Israeli's are hardly suffering compared to the Lebanese and the Palestinians, and any argument otherwise is a lie.

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Again, what do you expect us to do? Wait for the Hezbollah to catch up? We don’t need to apologize for being stronger. Comparing the death tolls on both sides, as means of deciding who is right and who is wrong is kinda barbaric.

I think former Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ansewered your claim pretty well on an interview to the BBC:

When the BBC interviewer accused Israel of harming Lebanese civilians, Netanyahu compared the situation to the British Royal Air Force's fight against the Nazis in World War II. He said that when the RAF targeted the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen in 1944, they missed and hit a children's hospital, but "that didn't make the British pilots terrorists and it didn't make the Nazis the good guys."
He also noted that during WW2, the British retaliated to the Blitz, by leveling entire German cities.
So before calling Israel a terrorist state, and stating that Israel is using unproportional force, check your facts first. Because your countries would have used the same amount, if not much more, of "unproportional force". In fact, some of them already did. And if it was you being shelled, you would have asked them to, yourselves. Justly, might I had.

And yet WW2 was a total war between multiple states, this is a war by a regional power to break a feeble nation who wants nothing to do with this. How about remembering that part?

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As much as I’d like to think that, I don’t. I don’t think that the Hezbollah will be completely wiped out. But I do know that what we’re doing is much better than doing nothing while our soldiers and citizens are getting abducted, killed, injured and displaced.
Sure, the war has its price. I agree that more people are getting hurt (I’m talking about Israel here) right now, than there would have been during the same period of time if we wouldn’t have acted. But this is the difference between thinking in the short term, and thinking in the long term.
I also agree that because of this war, many Lebanese will develop\deepen their hatred towards Israel. Some of them might even join the Hezbollah. But it is definitely much better, than sitting idly and not doing anything to defend ourselves.
Stating that this war achieves nothing is untrue. The Hezbollah did not expect this kind of retaliation. As han89 has said, they only wanted prisoners exchange (poor them…). And they are sustaining damage. The proof of that is their secrecy about their losses, their lies in the media (“we hit a second Israeli ship”, “we’ll hit Tel-Aviv if IDF strikes in Beirut”, “We meant the center of Beirut, not just the southern part of it”, “The Israelis are targeting civilians while we are targeting military posts”).
The rockets threat will never disappear, but if the Hezbollah will hesitate the next time, then we did our job.

For the past 60 years Israel has used the concept of "thinking long term" to justify its actions against the Arabs. Where has that gotten you? Israel needs a new policy of treating their neighbors like humans instead of trash if it ever wants to survive. And make no mistake of it, in the region, Israel is outnumbered population wise by a huge margin, it's actions will not lend themselves to the survival of the state in the long term.

Israel's terrorist atrocities against the Arabs don't help, but hell, what can you expect. Israel has slaughtered civilians before. Now is hardly different. And you wonder why everyone hates you.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?