Several questions for Arabs re: Lebanon/Israel/Hezbollah?

Question

I would like to hear from Arabs, especially Arabs from Middle-Eastern countries on several questions relating to the current events.

1. Before the current conflict broke out, why was Hezbollah shooting rockets at Isreal across the border?

2. When Hezbollah crossed the border into Israel to kill and kidnap soldiers, how do you think Israel should have responded?

3. How many Arab prisoners does Israel have and how/when were they captured? Were they captured inside the country of Israel?

4. Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon (2000) and Gaza (2006) but both areas are now used to launch rocket attacks against Israel. What incentive does this give Israel to withdraw from the West Bank?

5. Can Israel and Arab nations ever live peacefully side by side?

6. Do you blame Hezbollah - even in part - for the destruction taking place in Lebanon?

Again, just very interested to understand how Arabs view these issues.

Answer 1

I am an Arab American with both Palestinian and Lebanese heritage. I have immediate family in Beirut now. I visit Lebanon at least once a year.

1. Hezbollah was throwing rockets at Israel because the two parties have been engaged in skirmishes since Israel withdrew in 2000. It is practically impossible to say, for every incident, who started it. Israel also has been making incursions into Lebanon in the South and kidnapping Hezbollah "suspects." This is, over and above the people already kidnapped during the Israeli invasion, who were never returned home after Israel withdrew. Israel does not bother documenting whether the people it kidnaps are effectively Hezbollah and no one knows anything about them after they are kidnapped. Further, Hezbollah never saw it as Israel having totally withdrawn from Lebanese territory, and thus, no more at war with Lebanon. To be fair-handed, the territory disputed by Hezbollah is not being disputed with Israel by the Lebanese government.
2. Israel could have entered into negotiations with Hezbollah through a third party to exchange prisoners. There is no denying the existence of Hezbollah and this I won't talk to "terrorists" attitude is not realpolitik. Hezbollah themselves claim that there is no such thing as Israel and it has no right to exist, yet they are more sensible, in that they will negotiate through a third party.
3. Israel has thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of both Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. The very majority of them were captured in Palestinian or Lebanese territories. Israel bulldozes into Palestinian neighborhoods routinely, and kidnaps people there in the middle of the night, or early morning hours.
4. It costs Israel more to continue occupying the West Bank in both human and financial ways than it does to withdraw. As for security, in the long run, occupation is way more dangerous, with the injustice and humiliation it imposes on the occupied, than withdrawal, even if rockets continue to be launched against Israel after it withdraws. By the way, those rockets are not launched without Israeli provocation. As is the case with Hezbollah, the skirmishes never stop, and you can never say that some rocket launching came out of the blue. The Palestinians in the occupied territories and in the territories where Israel has supposedly withdrawn are subject to ongoing persecution by the Israeli authorities.
5. Theoretically, yes. The religious fanatics must not be permitted to have a voice though. For the fanatic Muslims to say that there should not be any Jews on Muslim soil and for the fanatic Jews to maintain their Godly right to all of the Biblical Israel and their superiority as a people before God will only lead to righteous violence. Israel should further recognize a Palestinian state, and apologize for their conquering Palestine, just as many nations have apologized to the people of a nation it brutalized. Israel should start and be willing to stick its neck out, because in our eyes, there is no truth whatsoever that the land belongs to the Jews, that there was no such a thing as a Palestinian nation, and that the Palestinians either sold their property or ran away. Nor does it matter that once the Zionists established Israel, they were willing to "give" the Palestinians their own country side by side with them, because the Zionist established Israel by brutally terrorizing, kiling, and dislocating Palestinians from their home, in what the Zionists called Israel. The Arabs should then recognize Israel, even though recognizing it had a right to exist will not come, for the reasons just related.
6. I go back and forth on this. Yes, Hezbollah should have known that Israel would respond in a disproportionate way and that it was hijacking Lebanon. But then, Hezbollah has prisoners in Israel, and this is one way to get them, without injuring civilians. Hezbollah also wanted to show support for the people in Gaza, and there is nothing wrong with that. We are all Arabs, and appalled at the horrors Israel commits on the people of Gaza. Then, I go back and say, yes, but, here Lebanon was all rebuilt, having a fantastic tourism season ahead. Why awaken the monster? Then, I go back and say, the monster indeed. Did they have to respond like this? This is like shooting someone for burning a red light! Pulverizing a country, dropping bombs measured in tons over entire buildings, using cluster bombs, chemical weapons, bombing Red Cross ambulances, UN Posts, "warning" people to flee after you bombed the roads then burning them in their cars as they do try and flee. All of that even though you're supposed to have pinpoint accuracy? And they'll tell you, Hezbollah is throwing hundreds of rockets a day. OK, tell us your damage and your injuries, and let's compare.

Jack F is paranoid. He thinks I'm a terrorist. Your question does not mean you are pro-Arab. You are asking for a point of view. You don't have to adopt it.

Answer 2

Hi, I'm a ninteen year old girl from Jordan and I would like to answer your questions.

1. Hezbollah did not start shooting at Israel before the conflict broke out, Hezbollah started shooting at Israel after Israel initiated and started the attacks.

2. First of all, when Hezzbollah crossed the border into Israel, they didn't do that to kill any soldiers, but to kidnap the soldiers so that they could trade them for other Arab prisoners in Israel. If Israel agreed to the trade (which it didn't), the situation wouldn't have escelated.

3. There are thousands of Arab prisoners in Israel prisons, most of whom are "convicted of terrorism" against Israel. I honestly can't tell you how or when they're captured because we're talking about thousands of Arabs of different nationalities!

The Israelis tend to launch their wars of choice in the summer, in part because they know that European and American universities will be the primary nodes of popular opposition, and the universities are out in the summer. This war has nothing to do with captured Israeli soldiers. It is a long-planned war to increase Israel's ascendency over Hizbullah and its patrons.

That this war was pre-planned was obvious to me from the moment it began. The Israeli military proceeded methodically and systematically to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, and clearly had been casing targets for some time. The vast majority of these targets were unrelated to Hizbullah. But since the northern Sunni port of Tripoli could theoretically be used by Syria or Iran to offload replacement rockets that could be transported by truck down south to Hizbullah, the Israelis hit it. And then they hit some trucks to let truck drivers know to stay home for a while.

4.You have to agree that it is human nature to respond to terror with terror, and to racism with racism, these are facts that all decent people must accept and deplore simultaneously. No matter what the circumstances are (such as the urge to seek vengeance, revenge, reprisals, etc.), targeting civilians to achieve political or military objectives, in either war or non-war situations, is terrorism. It should be noted that the Palestinian people have been on the receiving end of Israeli terrorism (the chief aspect of which are the collective DISPOSSESSION and ETHNIC CLEANSING of 8.5 million Palestinians) for the past five decades

5. The problem isn't with Israeli people, it's with their government and policies. Israel is treating Palestinains the same way they were treated in the Holocaust which was terrible and there is nothing in the world that can justify it. All people have a right to live.

I'm just sorry that some of the survivors lost sight of what its like to be oppressed, and took by force what they felt they needed for themselves.

How would you like if you were kicked out of the house you grew up in and lost all your land that was your source of income? Palestinians just want back what's rightfuly there's.
These ppl who they forced out of there land... well eventually, you push someone hard enough and they'll push back.... it stemmed from that and grew and other things got involved... really, the whole thing can go back to the zionist movement which started before WW2 even happened... but with out going into a big history lesson right now... here is what euro/american history tends to ignore...

Before isreal, other ppl lived on the land...palestinians
after isreal, the paletiians were forced off their land in many cases by zionist soldierse..
according to many accounts, these palestinians were also sometimes just simply exterminated...
there were records of these soldiers poisoning the water supply for these palestinian nations

6.Blame Hezbollah? For an attack that was going to happen on Lebanon anyway? No. Hezbollah is showing the whole world, and especially Israel, that Arabs will not be pushed around by Israel anymore.

Answer 3

a million. The Golan heights is likewise an quite strategic region militarily, its is the "Eyes and the ears of the Israeli north" and Damscus is in its variety. eighty% of the Syrian military is in between Damscus and Golan. this is risk-free to assert that if ever confronted with war, Israel could have a super militia income over Syria, and this is in all risk Syria could choose for to no longer attack, 2. It exchange into traditionally the Jewish native land. whilst, Jesus' birthplace, it exchange into no longer a Christian native land, which has by no ability incredibly been a 'u . s .' wide-spread in Jerusalem. Christians getting a protracted in Lebanon with their Muslim associates? this is laughable, my relatives fled Beirut with the aid of fact of their combating. look up the Lebanese civil war. 3. continuously is a protracted time, no. I do think of that despite if Gaza and the West financial company acquire finished independence and autonomy, even of their airspace, etc, etc, there'll nevertheless be war. 4. The non secular take is that, as quickly as a land is take over with the aid of Muhammed's military this is an Islamic waqf and could be constantly below Islamic rule. i've got heard claims for Spain too. you need to check out the status on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. 5. The demographic time bomb, pertains to the Jewish character of the State of Israel, and a super Muslim demographic irritating it. i don't be responsive to of any government classes encouraging Muslims to go away, although i be responsive to that Muslims in Israel savor lots of the main suitable residing circumstances (literacy, existence expectancy etc) in assessment to the Arab worldwide. 6. The Lebanese Civil war (which I see you have heard of!) is an quite complicated one that i do no longer thoroughly understand. In my information, the main events have been Lebanese Christians and Muslims combating over representation and status. 7. N/A 8. i will purely wager at their reasons. i in my view think of this is an attempt to a approach or the different have a stability and an equivalence this is thoroughly skewed. 9. i think of u . s . a . of america could chew the bullet and oppose using nuclear weapons. 10. It does not ought to do with a psychological deficiency, yet extremely a social and cultural inertia this is sluggish and violently proof against exchange.

Answer 4

If you only ask arabs dont you believe the answers you get will be biased towards the arab point of view? Of course they will be. But maybe thats what you want to hear, so more power to you. I just hope you dont use ur very unscientic results to badmouth Israel.

Answer 5

I'm also curious why so many Arab states are named after people/places in the Hebrew Bible?

(Lebanon, Jordan, "Palestine")

They hate Jews so much you would think they'd invent their own names for these places.