First things first. One can only be wrenched to see the images and sounds of war, and hope that it comes to a halt as soon as possible so that all innocents are saved from it.

Now...regarding the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair regarding Israel's so-called disproportionate use of force. As I pointed out
in another reply, Israel can not negotiate with a fundamentalist fanatical entity whose psychology defies logic. Their logic is unfortunately one of unrelenting offense...wars and hideous acts of violence, and of attrition with no end in sight.

Mr. Ball's account of civilian terror in Lebanon is heart-wrenching. But one feels that Mr. Ball has left the Government of Lebanon much more off the hook than it deserves for what has taken place. What were they thinking when they allowed an exceedingly violent organization devoted to the destruction of the State of Israel to park itself in the south with no other purpose than to wage war. Does the Government of Lebanon take no responsiblity in allowing the continuous feeding of missiles to Hezbollah on Lebanese soil by the Government of Iran? It does not because then they would have to explain to those now under bombing attacks how they stood quietly by while preparations for war were taking place under their very noses. And to be honest, most literate Lebanese knew what was cooking down south. Did they raise their voices in unison to warn of the possiblity of war? No, they did not. They accepted that Hezbollah had a right to wage war. Well..what were they thinking? That war was going to take the shape of cotton candy floating in the air?

And that brings me to Mr. Salutin's question. Why is infrastructure being bombed? Sadly, in order to convince the Government of Lebanon that
it has to disarm Hezbollah, Lebanon will not disarm them unless they feel the pinch of the cost of harbouring a terrorist organization.

Mr. Salutin is correct in stating that ultimately only political solutions will in the long run turn down or off the extremist groups. But does that mean that in the short run Israel must, as Canadian poet Irving Layton once put it, " be like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery" with its only purpose to be fired upon?

I agree with Israeli journalist Gideon Levy who attributes the Occupation to feeding and fanning the flames of resistance, but the Occupation itself was not the fertilizer that grew the extremist response, it was the establishment of Jewish settlements. Their establishment was a huge error in an attempt to curb terrorist attacks inside Israel. We are in a cycle of violence that can only be brought to an end
when the Occupation ends but also when the actions of extremists who wreak their havoc because they refuse to recognize the State of Israel are neutralized.

Mr. Salutin is at fault for thinking that the end of the Occupation will mean an end to conflict. The conflict will continue simply because a refusal to accept the State of Israel will continue until extremists groups are brought under control. But as Mr. Abbas of the Palestinian Authority once put it, they will not suppress Hamas because to do so would cause a civil war, which they are not willing to risk.
However, it's ok for the former Prime Minister of Israel to risk a civil war in his country by
forcibly removing settlers from Gaza. That's ok.

Mr. Salutin also avoids facing the issue of Israel being used as a useful scapegoat to divert attention from domestic problems in the Arab world. The record shows that domestic problems in the Arab world have had far less vigorous press play in the Arab media than painting Israel as a monster.

When Palestine becomes independent will it not only be too easy to use Israel as a kicking ball whenever anything goes wrong?

Also, reference to Israel being overly armed by the U.S.A. is silly when it is still surrounded by menacing neighbours, a number of which still do not recognize its existence.

As for Linda McQuaig's article on the status of Iran in this conflict, the rest of the world is reporting on the funnelling of arms through Syria into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon, but this piece of information seems to carry no significance in her article. Will the possiblity of hits on Tel Aviv from long range missiles supplied by Iran be as equally insignificant in her eyes?

Geopolitical commentators have long commented on the Iran Shiite and Hezbollah Shiite connection but Ms McQuaig is apparently not watching the news when this information is furnished.

As I've said elsewhere on this site, Iran is a threat to international peace, no more, no less than any others often mentionned on this site. It's a medieval-minded theocracy that's dealt its domestic irritants with as much terror as it plans for its foreign irritants.

Israel and the U.S. have excellent reasons for working on the demise of the current Government of Iran.

And when you showed your faith in Israel by fleeing back to Canada, this fellow was ready to take the bullet. This is what he says about kidnappings:

quote:

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This description, you'll be surprised to know, has nothing to do with the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. It is the story of an arrest I carried out as an IDF soldier, in the Nablus casbah, about 10 years ago. The "soldier" was a 17-year-old boy, and we kidnapped him because he knew "someone" who had done "something."

We brought him tied up, with a burlap sac over his head, to a Shin Bet interrogation center known as "Scream Hill" (at the time we thought it was funny). There, the prisoner was beaten, violently shaken and sleep deprived for weeks or months. Who knows.

No one wrote about it in the paper. European diplomats were not called to help him. After all, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the kidnapping of this Palestinian kid. Over the 40 years of occupation we have kidnapped thousands of people, exactly like Gilad Shalit was captured: Threatened by a gun, beaten mercilessly, with no judge or jury, or witnesses, and without providing the family with any information about the captive.

When the Palestinians do this, we call it "terror." When we do it, we work overtime to whitewash the atrocity.

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Arik Diamant is an IDF reservist and the head of the Courage to Refuse organization

[ 22 July 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]