Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong

[Karmadillo]

Another story one is unlikely to see featured on CNN.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10722

Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong
The assault on Lebanon was premeditated - the soldiers' capture simply provided the excuse. It was also unnecessary
by George Monbiot
August 07, 2006
UK Guardian

Whatever we think of Israel's assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah. I repeated this "fact" in my last column, when I wrote that "Hizbullah fired the first shots". This being so, the Israeli government's supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It's an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed.

Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the "blue line" between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line "on an almost daily basis" between 2001 and 2003, and "persistently" until 2006. These incursions "caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas". On some occasions, Hizbullah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns.

In October 2000, the Israel Defence Forces shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hizbullah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hizbullah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like this killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hizbullah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006. Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hizbullah. But, the UN records, "none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation".

On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad - Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub - were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994. Militants in southern Lebanon responded, on the day of the bombing, by launching eight rockets into Israel. One soldier was lightly wounded. There was a major bust-up on the border, during which one member of Hizbullah was killed and several wounded, and one Israeli soldier wounded. But while the border region "remained tense and volatile", Unifil says it was "generally quiet" until July 12.

more...

[erik-the-red]

1. NYT

The article "Sharon Set the Stage His Heir Reacts On" by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times (08-06-06) is similar.

Both sides exchanged fire more than once prior to July 2006, but Mr. Sharon never authorized such a large military operation.

No one knows for sure, but it is thought that Mr. Sharon avoided confrontation with Hizballah based on his negative experience with the Israeli Occupation in southern Lebanon. After all, it almost ended his career.

[bluerum]

2. "Un-provoked" is a canard and a red herring.

To say that anything that happens between Israel and

• the Palestinians
• Lebanon
• Syria
• Iran
• Iraq

and the ME as a whole is "Un-provoked" ignores a very real history of violence and mutual hatred.

Face it - the people living in the ME today have seen continued violence and war on scale that most of us simply cannot comprehend.

Trace this back (at least) to western nations "involvement and intervention" in the area coinciding with WWI and the discovery of vast oil reserves in the area.

Consider also the "creation" of Israel after WWII.

To select any one event (such as the recent "Un-provoked attack" by Hizbollah) and point to it as justification for the current turkey shoot is a vast over-simplification. Analysis based upon this simplification is practically useless for anything except for throwing fresh logs on the eternal flames of hatred.

I am of the opinion that the recent "Un-provoked attack" is another part of the tragic chain of events that most of us in the west simply cannot comprehend. It seems obvious that Hizbollah feels as justified in their "Un-provoked attack" as Israel feels in bombing the crap out of the Lebanese population.

Someone needs to throw some cold water on these dogs.

[MysteryToMyself]

12. My thoughts exactly

until the last word in the last paragraph "dogs". I paused a little there. Having had to separate dogs with a water hose when they were fighting, I know it is a good comparison, but I dislike hearing any human referred to as an animal, since I learned the military tries to dehumanize the enemy, by calling them animals or objects. It is much easier to do bad things to them, if they aren't human. Slime, snakes, dogs, swine are a lot easier to kill than a human. But your are right, they do need to be separated.

And you are probably a dog lover like me. I would have almost as hard a time killing a dog as a human.

Lebanon looks like evil has been unleashed on it. Total destruction.

[leveymg]

3. Just a week ago, this post would been swarmed by the Olmert apologists

What happened to all of them?

[Karmadillo]

6. Strange how they disappeared once postings on GD were

restricted. But I'm sure that wasn't the goal.

[Igel]

8. We got tired of the love,

peace, and tolerance.

Party on.

[Karmadillo]

9. Lookin' for love in all the wrong places.

Last I checked, DU is a discussion board.

[mom cat]

4. Excellent. The ruse about the two soldiers was bogus all along and

is now seen as patently hyped to cover a brutal, pre-planned war of aggression.

[fat dad]

5. And let's not forget:

June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing eight civilians and injuring 32.


Twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.

------------------------------

In less than a TWO WEEK PERIOD!

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2928

[erik-the-red]

7. As a response to?

I have no sources, but I thought that Israel started shelling in response to the renewed Qassam rocket launches.

[eridani]

10. No, the rockets were a response to the shelling n/t

[Karenina]

11. Round and round and round it goes

where it stops, nobody knows.

[OETKB]

13. Changing the language

Maybe we should change the language from terrorists, resisters, state terrorist, defenders, the good guys, the bad guys and just lump them all under the term "the retaliators." As the movie "War Games" showed this tic tac toe game produces a zero sum game of mutual destruction instead of mutual survival.