ISRAEL: WHEN WILL THE WEST DO SOMETHING?

[donnie]

Am I alone in feeling outraged that Blair et al have said and done nothing about Israel's incursion into Gaza following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier?

I have been very outspoken on MN about my opposition to the Israeli Government in the past and make no bones about the fact that I do regard it as verging on being a rogue state. Their sustained oppression of the Palestinians is repulsive to me and I see them as legitimised terrorists.

Opinions please.

LLT
Hizbollah are well armed maybe compared to thearms you have in your shed but not compared to the Israelis!
Look at the body count as quoted in the Indy this morning
24 in Israel
196 in Lebanon

What really annoys me is all this mealy-mouthed stuff about Hezbollah being to blame for Israel's disproportionate response.

If a woman picks a fight with her bloke and goads him and swears at him, do we then say it's her fault she got beaten up? No, we don't, we say that her behaviour is bad, but that the man is responsible for his response to her behaviour and that his respons is inappropriate and wrong - criminal in fact.

When it comes to Israel, time and time again those in power appear to suspend the principle that people are responsible for their own behaviour. And the same wankers go on about disrespect in society and how everyone's going to have an ASBO to be taught responsibility. Pisses me right off! (to the point of ranting incoherence, as you will doubtless notice!)

If only American hadn't backed Israel to the hilt over the last fifty years, then maybe Israel would have had to compromise earlier and we would not have got into this mess.
Violence just breeding more violence.
And so many civilians being killed. Makes me very and .
I am not anti-Israeli by the way.

Just been watching pictures of some of the expatriates being re-patriated. It makes me feel so sorry for those left behind.
Couldn't agree more with you Caligula. I feel ashamed for the West's response to all this. Israel seemingly has carte blanche to do whatever the hell it likes. I shudder to think how all this will end.

That is such a good analogy Cali. It just perfectly illustrates the skewed logic coming from our leaders, and why their honesty on every other issue is compromised because of it.

Honesty and judgement

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exactly dinosaur: the ranks of Al Q'aeda will be swelling as we speak . If they ever felt they needed any justification, they need look no further.

I can hardly bear to watch /listen to the news any more. It is so bizarre IMO that Britain and the US are evacuating their nationals from Lebanon yet refusing to condemn the action which has caused the evacuation in the first place.

Who are the real terrorists here?

I cannot bear to watch either but feel I must out of respect for the innocent people who have to endure this onslaught. Am so angry ATM, Israel sickens me to my very core. It is a nation state attacking innocents with the world just sitting by and watching simply because Arab lives are considered worthless and expendable.

But Saddia, it seems to me that even the Israeli lives lost in the Hezbollah retaliations are ultimately meaningless to the Israelis' too. All acceptable collateeral damage. Human life is meaningless to them, on every level imaginable. They are utterly lost.

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bloss no-one in their right mind supports Hezbollah but you have to wonder why Israel is allowed by the US/UN to freely bombard another sovereign state without repercussions when other countries are invaded and taken over on the unproven pretext that they own WMD.

Agree Saadia.
When North korea fired rockets into the sea last month there was instant condemnation by the americans, the EU, the UN.
Japan is bringing in sanctions against NK.

Where was the condemnation of Israel when it started firing missiles into civilian areas of Lebanon?

I know Hezbollah should not fire rockets at the Israelis either but they are a militia not a sovereign state.

ALso the Israeli soldiers that were kidnapped by Hezbollah were not on Israel soil they were in a dispute area which legally belongs to Syria.

I have only read a few on the posts on this thread and I am so glad that I am not alone in my views!
Usually these are things my DH and I only say to each other in the privacy of our own home for fear of being labeled anti-semetic.
The amazing thing is the difference in coverage between here and America where it is an obvious Pro-Isreal stance.
I'm not saying that they deserved what happened to them on 9/11 but you can see why they are so hated in the middle east and other places.

One of my best friends is in 'Jews for Justice in Palestine'. Another is a jewish woman who is married to a muslim man.
There are many Israelis who feel the way we do. Criticisng the Israeli government is not being anti-semitic.

They'd like you to believe it is though. It is a very convenient and easy way of getting everyone to shut up. If people who object to what Israel is doing can automatically be assumed to be anti-semitic by the uninformed (particularly in the USA) then you can effectively close down debate about any of Israel's behaviour.

I mean, what other country on earth could build the rudiments of a second Berlin wall without an international outcry? The sheer symbolism of that, the history of the Wall in the cold war, is so powerful and so stark, that it is quite incredible that Israel is being allowed to build its own symbolic wall with hardly a murmer of protest from the West. I'm still gobsmacked. Has everyone really forgotten what the Wall meant?

I suspect that the problem is not so much what Americans think, but what the Amercians who vote for Bush think. I expect lots of them aren't even aware of the current situation.

Another Israeli spokesperson said yesterday that they were doing the world a favour by destroying Hezbollah. They might destroy an organization currently called Hezbollah, but what else will replace them? The logic is so obviously flawed, but then the Israelis back it up by saying that they are just doing the same thing that Blair and Bush are doing in Iraq...

Bloss, it's not ridiculous. All I mean is that if Israel cared more about their own they would be pursuing a political strategy. The violence will only lead to more deaths on either side, that's the only surety in this. More Israeli's will die, and even more Lebanese.

"But you're kidding yourself if you think either the Israelis or the Palestinians or anyone else are fundamentally different in their humanity. We are all the same..."

And I never said this or anything approaching it. The Israeli's government have long pursued a zero sum strategy in this and it's only ever aggravated the situation.

How can Israel work peacefully with Hezbollah? Hezbollah's declared aim is the entire destruction of the state of Israel.

Pistols at dawn?

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