Is this a realistic view of the Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon conflict?

Question

Israel: Takes prisoners and kills some people, in attempts to kill militants who may or may not appear to be civilians. Has a history of being attacked by neighbors and militants. Has a government that resticts certain types of speech, religious expresison etc. Has the right to defend itself by attacking those places where its enemies lie.

Lebanon: Contains militants, who prefer to kill rather than capture and capture to negotiate prisoner releases, for prisoners who may not be being held legally. Hizbolah has a history of killing civilians as targets in Israel, and represents a large portion of the population of Lebanon. Lebanon has the responsibility to defend itself from Israel, and to contain Hizbolah, but lacks the power to do so effectively, or without civil war.

Palestine: Ruled by militants with a history similar to Hizbolah only more so. Has the right to autonomy from Israel, and feels repressed. Denies Israel's right to exist. Has the right to defend itself.

Israel does control speech that is aimed at converting people as "inflammatory" or some such. Immigration practices are clearly unfair.

Answer 1

i'd say that's fairly accurate. The whole history of the affair boils down to this- you've got two cultures who have fought over a very small piece of land for an extremely long time. They are both extremely religious cultures and view their right to that land as manifest destiny, and they view their competitors as pure evil. Whereas normally enemies and formerly-conflicting and conquering powers draw big huge lines in the sand and stay on their side, what's unique about this case is that both sides claim rights to one city- Jerusalem. When the Ottomans took Constantine and turned it into Istanbul, they drove the conquered folks the heck out and seized a huge territory around it. The Palestinians were forced into little isolated pockets right inside of Jewish territory, and these popel want each other dead. So there is always going to be series of militant events that spark wars in this region, because neither side will ever give in, and too much of the world is invested in seeing to it that "their side" doesn't come out on the bottom.

Answer 2

A few more rather minor points:

Hezbollah is a constituent part of the Lebanese government because of some very cynical deals between various skanky politicians, including the Lebanese PM. Incidentally, the Lebanese Prime Minister is also doing alot of double talking. He claims Lebanon has nothing to do with the attacks on Israel, while at the same time he says he supports Hezbollah.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas (the Palestinian "Government") openly state that their goal is the complete and total destruction of Israel.


Both Hezbollah and Hamas can immediately bring an end to the current madness. All they have to do is return the soldiers they kidnapped, and stop bombing innocent Israeli civilians.

Israel has repeatedly said that they are ready to totally and completely leave Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, if those two leave Israeli civilians to live in peace.

Answer 3

Couple of minor points where I differ:

Israel: has complete freedom of press and religion (probably in some ways more so than the US), including the only free Arabic press in the Middle East; has more than 100 minority religious groups that live in freedom.

Lebanon: Hizbollah doesn't represent a majority of Lebanese. Lebanon is extremely ethnically diverse, and Hizbollah primarily represents a subset of Shi'ite Muslims only.

Palestine: Pretty much on target. Hamas are Suni Muslim in nature.

Answer 4

You should realize by now it's all part of a conspiracy to start WW111 regardless of the details we are being manipulated by unknown (or known) unseen forces of another world. Get with the program; it's all a program. Read between the lines of prophecy and the logic of another race to control our emotions ,actions and our future.(D'OH!!!) Haven't you noticed the Iranian flag looks like a Winged Dragon or serpent? Jesus said there would be days like these. It's all a game and were just the pieces. Keep ur hands and ur feet inside the ride at all times. (welcome to the hotel California playing in the background)

Answer 5

I agree with your assessment.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WORLD

Dear World,

I understand that you are upset by us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry. (Outraged?)

Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset by us. Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians"; yesterday it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily.

Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we - the Jewish people - upset you.

We upset a German people who elected Hitler and upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians and Romanians. And we go back a long, long way in the history of world upset.

We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us.

For centuries, we upset a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through inquisitions, and we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit.

And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish state. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you (and thus love you) - and have you love us and so, we decided to come home - home to the same land we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.

Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please.

Having left you and your pogroms and inquisitions and crusades and holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state, we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the poor Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East

Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The "radical" Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.

Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel.

In 1920 and 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered tens of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron.Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron in 1929.

Dear world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots between 1936-39? Was it because Arabs were upset over 1967?

And when you, dear world, proposed a UN Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a "Palestinian State" alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried "no" and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that "upset" caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of "upset" then?

The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who ­ when they had all the territories they now demand be given to them for their state -attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea. The same twisted faces, the same hate, the same cry of "itbach-al-yahud" (Massacre the Jew!) that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel. What they failed to do yesterday, they dream of today, but we should not "repress" them.

Dear world, you stood by during the holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres.

You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction.

And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians dream daily of that extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well ­ think of how many times in the past you bothered us.

Anonymous