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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Answering the Israeli Debate



Vanun
08-08-06, 12:19
Answering the Israeli Debate


How can Israel be blamed for this war, when it was Hezbollah who initiated it by kidnapping and killing our soldiers across the border into Israel?

Since the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Southern Lebanon in May of 2000, there were ongoing issues between the Israelis and Hezbollah. For one, Shebaa farms were still occupied. Secondly, Israelis still held Lebanese prisoners in their jails and weren't prepared to release them. They shot dead the 15 year old shepherd Ibrahim Rhayyel last February in Lebanon [1] and have refused to give up maps of land mines they placed during their occupation of South Lebanon which have killed several children over the past six years. Lastly, the Israelis continued their invasions into Lebanese sovereign territory through fighter jets, navy vessels and armored carriers. What would Israel's reaction be if the Syrians flew at low altitude breaking the sound barrier initiating a loud sonic boom over Tel-Aviv, or if the Russians or Chinese did the same over Washington?

The Lebanese government has taken these complaints of the Israeli 13,000+ incursions of Lebanese sovereign land, sea and air borders to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) for which UNIFIL acknowledges and has documented these incursions itself. The UN however has been helpless to stop them, bringing into question the integrity and purpose of the UN. In fact, the UN doesn't have any realistic mandate over the Israelis since condemnations of the Israelis have been vetoed by the United States. Here is a list of United States abusing its veto power to shield the Israelis over forty times [2].

If international diplomacy won't budge the Israelis, what other choices are there to receive justice? Hezbollah viewed its only option was to use Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips. It had worked in the past. The global community has been in shock at the Israelis response. The father of one of the captured Israeli soldiers made this comment "It will be ridiculous to think all this war happening now is because of my son. There were many...in the past there were many kidnaps before and captures and whatever and Israel didn't start the war because of this" [3].

The Israelis, instead of choosing peaceful international diplomacy to release the captured soldiers like has happened in the past with prisoner exchanges, instead decided to put in effect a unilateral war plan it had developed. No military initiates a conflict overnight without a carefully crafted war plan strategy. Some reports have suggested the Israelis had been preparing for this campaign on Lebanon for over a year [4]. This vicious conflict could have been avoided if the Lebanese prisoners were released and Shebaa farms were returned to Lebanon.


Why is Hezbollah attacking Israeli outposts in Shebaa farms? Shebaa farms are Syrian, and therefore Lebanon has no right over them.


1. Syria says the Shebaa farms are Lebanese lands. Syrian officials may be asked this question at any time. No bets on whose claims Syria would defend.

2. Any map of Lebanon (e.g. [5]) predating the current crisis clearly illustrates Shebaa within Lebanon.

3. Shebaa inhabitants say they are Lebanese.

4. The Lebanese government has submitted several maps and proofs of Shebaa farms being Lebanese to the UN for which the UN has not acted upon.

5. For arguments sakes, we will presume the Israeli dispute that Shebaa farms are Syrian (although Syria affirms they belong to Lebanon). Being Syrian land, the Israelis shouldn't be there. If Israelis wanted peace, they should rightfully withdrawal in compliance with Resolutions 242 and 338.


Our citizens in Northern Israel have been living with Katyushas flying over their heads. Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorists threatening its existence.

Israeli citizens weren't being targeted before the current crisis. The number of rockets launched from Lebanon beyond the border line between the Israelis retreat in 2000 and the current re-occupation of Lebanon is negligible. Readers are asked to do their own research on this number. No Israeli town had been under fire until the Israelis began its relentless bombing of Beirut starting with the destruction of Beirut International Airport. Therefore, this argument persistently being heard by pro-Zionist advocates is annulled.


Why do you blame Israel for the killing of civilians, when it is Hezbollah terrorists who hide behind civilians and put them in the firing lines? Our war is with Hezbollah, not with the Lebanese people.

1. Unless Hezbollah had somehow elevated a missile launcher on top of the UNIFIL outpost, the Israeli military cannot use this justification unless of course it can prove that its laser guided bombs somehow steered off course.

2. How is destroying Beirut International Airport weakening Hezbollah? Let alone the destruction of its civilian infrastructure including its power stations which other than cutting electricity to the whole nation caused the worst ecological disaster of the Mediterranean Sea due to the crude oil run-off from the destroyed plants. Dumping 13,600 metric tons of crude, the slick has so far covered two thirds of Lebanon's coastline crippling its fishing industry to a complete halt. The slick is expected to reach as far as the coasts of Cyprus and Turkey.

3. No Hezbollah rocket launchers or Hezbollah deaths have been recorded after the Israelis committed the Qana Massacre II or the destruction of other civilian buildings. One would expect that Hezbollah soldiers would be pulled out of the rubble. On contrary, the survivors themselves have vouched that only civilians were in the area [6a] and that it wasn't in the nature of Hezbollah to put the civilians and towns the group was created to protect, under danger. The Israelis later admitted the Qana attack was a "mistake" [6b]. Further adding to their admitted "mistakes" is the civilian carnage in Bekaa Valley [6c], a far North-Eastern territory of Lebanon.

4. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert - "If the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years." [7]

5. Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon - "Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah." [8] (Note, Mr Ramon is the "justice" minister)

6. Israeli Mayor of Haifa Yona Yahav - "I am in favour of smashing the entire infrastructure of Lebanon." [9]

7. One Psyops (Psychological Operations) tactic used by the Israelis is this very accusation. They, for example, have released cockpit footage of trucks being moved into civilian buildings "after they launched rocket attacks", although the footage isn't showing the truck launching the rockets [10a]. Firstly, there is no way to verify the nature of truck shown in the footage. Secondly, [10b] describes how "Trucks, vans and cars have been a daily target for the Israeli military in its war with Hizbollah" as the example of the fruit truck hit in Bekaa Valley killing 40 civilians (refer to [6c]); [10c] describes "The Israeli attack in Ashrafiyeh, the Lebanese capital's principal Maronite Christian neighborhood, targeted a pair of well-drilling trucks and was carried out with what appeared to be precision missiles carrying small explosive charges."; [10d] shows Israeli warplane cockpit footage of a rocket launcher in action with no civilian infrastructure in the vicinity; [10e] describes how "what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?"; [10f] is an example of western journalists on the front line describing "The "hiding among civilians" myth" and lastly but most peculiar is the embarrassing media release of Palestinian fighters posing for the camera in civilian areas being dubbed as Hezbollah soldiers [10g]. That same group of Palestinians was later interviewed on Dubai television.

8. There have been reports of house-to-house [11] fighting on border villages, Maroun Al-Ras an example. When Israeli soldiers entered the abandoned village to take up posts there, Hezbollah soldiers fought to expel them. Israeli footage of house-to-house combat (for which the IDF itself took up positions) is then labelled as "hiding behind civilians".

9. Hezbollah has never fired a rocket from Beirut, so why were Beirut's civilian suburbs demolished? You can see the before and after satellite images of the Southern suburbs of Beirut here [12].


The Lebanese have said they don't want those terrorists controlling areas in Lebanon and controlling a state within a state which the terrorists have created, why doesn't Hezbollah submit to the Lebanese people's calls?

Defying the interests of the Israelis, Arab leaders and the US administration, is the sudden spotlight being beamed on Hezbollah in that instantly the world is now, more than ever, studying Hezbollah's history. For the US to label the group as a terrorist organization, they had to associate them to some terrorist acts. These acts total to mainly four. Three taking place in the early eighties during the Lebanese civil war, and the forth in 1994 outside of Lebanon. They are:

1. Attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April of ‘83
2. Attack on U.S. marines in Beirut in October of ‘83
3. TWA 847 hijacking in Beirut in June of ‘85
4. Argentina Synagogue bombing in July of ‘94

Obviously Hezbollah has denied any association with these attacks. The difficulty is contradicting Hezbollah's claims. For one, the Argentineans to the distaste of the Israelis and the US have not come to any solid conclusions concerning the Synagogue attack [13] and with the current surge of anti US "imperial" sentiments flourishing across South America, it doesn't look like any new findings will come to light.

Further adding to this complexity is that terrorist organizations adore claiming responsibility for their attacks to gain attention and cat-walk under the limelight, a common character assigned by academic circles to terrorist organizations. We see that constantly with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups scrambling to claim responsibility for their attacks. "In his September 2001 FRONTLINE interview, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the US still lacks "actual knowledge of who did the bombing" of the Marine barracks. But it suspected Hezbollah, believed to be supported in part by Iran and Syria. Hezbollah denied its involvement." [14]

The US has also had problems equating the marines attack as terrorism since the attack contradicts the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) official definition of terrorism [15] as marines were military personnel in the middle of a civil war. One can only assume the bombers viewed the embassy as the formulating centre for CIA covert operations that also provided intelligence to the Israelis. Being labeled as terrorist attacked doesn't go down too well with survivors and families of the CIA car bombing assassination attempt of Mohammed Hussein Fadlullah [16], that missed its target and killed instead eighty worshippers leaving Friday prayers from the local mosque. Little evidence has surfaced suggesting the Shia men who hijacked the TWA flight were working under Hezbollah. Four weak allegations are hurting the Israelis cause, particularly since current long sitting Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah wasn't the leader of the group till after the mid-nineties, during which Hezbollah had undergone a complete transformation. Logic also articulates that not all Lebanese Shia men represent Hezbollah.

But perhaps the most damaging to US and Israeli convictions, is the vindictive mentality of nation states, academics, religious leaders and various politicians. Many would argue, that the only accusation against Hezbollah for the past twenty years is that of the Argentinean Synagogue attack, and that with the power Hezbollah has demonstrated so-far fending off the Israelis, surely they have the logistical aptitude, sophistication and capacities to have wreaked global havoc similar in nature to that of Al-Qaeda, just once within the past two decades, but have chosen instead to limit their operations up to today against the Israeli military, and starting missile launches against Israeli towns only after the Israelis began their destruction of Lebanon. They deplored the New York, London and Madrid bombings as acts of terrorism bent on defacing the reputation of Islam and Muslims globally and called on free, public, open, transparent, unbiased and independent investigations to be held into the nature and real motivations behind these attacks.

The argument being placed before the Bush administration concerning Hezbollah is, if Bush solemnly considers Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and US strict policy is of no negotiations with terrorists, why is Rice and Bolton negotiating a cease-fire? Mr Bush had made a comment in a media release [17] "We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace." The question arising is, will Hezbollah suddenly lose its terrorist label if they were to disarm? I.e. since their arms are an apparent threat to the IDF, is this the reason they are listed as terrorists? Furthermore, major anti-terrorism player the EU has so far abstained from adding Hezbollah to its terrorist list [18a], and recently neither has Russia [18b], angering the US & Israelis partnership. It would seem the only reason Hezbollah hit that list was due to pressure from the pro-Israeli lobbyists needing reason to vindicate the organization. The practical realities however seem to contradict what's written in US foreign policy. At the back of their minds, no doubt the US and Israeli perceptions, whilst unpronounced, is that the character of Hezbollah can't be compared to terror groups such as Al-Qaeda due owing to the above stated facts.

On the home front in Lebanon, Hezbollah reigns huge respect. With all its capacity, it has never attacked fellow Lebanese with the exception of the South Lebanese Army (SLA) which operated as an Israeli funded proxy during its occupation of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah did however allow SLA folk who followed the retreating Israeli army in 2000 to return to Lebanon without fear of retribution. Upon their return they weren't harmed, although some SLA men were tried under Lebanon's legal system for treason and given two to ten year prison sentences.

Created to protect the Shia community neglected by previous Lebanese governments, Hezbollah "had built an entire social welfare network for Lebanon's Shi'ite community, much like Hamas does in the Occupied Territories. Hezbollah provides and runs schools, clinics, orphanages, war widows aid centres and surprisingly high-tech hospitals" [19]. As a political party that holds several parliamentary seats, it has assisted Lebanese Security Intelligence in capturing Al-Qaeda terrorists [20] and Mossad cells operating within Lebanon [21]. Lebanon's president has throughout his term in office referred to Hezbollah as a resistance movement. Saad Hariri, son of the late assassinated former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri has also passed on the message to President Chirac that he (Hariri) refused to place responsibility of the current conflict on Hezbollah [22]. Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud in his interview with Canada's CBC news [23] during the conflict explicated "a Lebanese poll claiming that Hezbollah has the support of 86 per cent of the country in its battle with Israel. He hailed Nasrallah for his campaign the past several years to fight for the rights of the southern Lebanese. "All Lebanese respect him and I respect him," Lahoud said".

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