Israel Wants Apology For Bombing UN Building

[jochhejaam]

[QUOTE]

Israel intentionally kills civilians. That's terrorism, too. I don't hear Israel apologizing for any mistakes.

I must have missed the proof that you provided of this. Mind posting it again? Thanks.

[Yonivore]

Hezbollah intentionally kills civilians. That's terrorism by any reasonable definition.

Israel intentionally kills civilians. That's terrorism, too. I don't hear Israel apologizing for any mistakes.

I have no problem with Israel (or any nation) defending itself, but there is a big problem with the way Israel is defending itself.

Name one war where innocent civilians weren't killed.

[MannyIsGod]

Name one war where innocent civilians weren't killed.

Sincerely,
Hezbollah.

[MannyIsGod]

It always amazes me how both sides to this conflict use the exact same justifications and don't realize it.

[Obstructed_View]

Ok, now Fox News is saying that the Israelis have bombed Lebanese army bases and relay stations for state tv. I thought their beef was just with Hezbollah, right?

Do some homework. Hezbollah runs those TV stations.

[Obstructed_View]

We are not talking about civilians but UN soldiers on a CLEARLY MARKED UN post.

It's just a huge communications error within the Israeli ranks but I don't see why they can't just apologize instead of being "outraged" by UN's insults

With Israel, it is always someone elses fault. Always.

Guys, they have apologized. What they are also doing is trying to make sure the UN doesn't demonize them for it, because the UN is looking for any excuse not to have to send peacekeepers.

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/National...04352-sun.html

[MannyIsGod]

You're right, they accepted responsibility right away. I made the mistake of accepting the arguements of the resident idiots (the UN was stupid to be near Hezbollah and thats why they got bombed) as an official Isreali position when I knew it wasn't.

Anyhow, Israel has never stopped doing someting out of fear of collateral damange. They don't care who gets in their way as long as they can get the job done.

[jochhejaam]

You're right, they accepted responsibility right away. I made the mistake of accepting the arguements of the resident idiots (the UN was stupid to be near Hezbollah and thats why they got bombed) as an official Isreali position when I knew it wasn't.

Anyhow, Israel has never stopped doing someting out of fear of collateral damange. They don't care who gets in their way as long as they can get the job done.

You lost me on the second paragraph MIG. That's your opinion, fine, but it's certainly not something you can substantiate.


In actuality I believe they've shown far more restraint over the years than we would have shown under the same cir stances.

[Yonivore]

Well, it appears that Kofi may, indeed, owe Israel an apology

Annan's Claims On Casualties May Unravel

A Canadian U.N. observer, one of four killed at a UNIFIL position near the southern Lebanese town of Khiyam on Tuesday, sent an e-mail to his former commander, a Canadian retired major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, in which he wrote that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the U.N. position, Mr. MacKenzie said. Hezbollah troops, not the United Nations, were Israel's target, the deceased observer wrote.

Interesting.

Oh, by the way, jochhejaam; Substantiation isn't something Manny worries about. If it occurs in his brain, it must be true.

[spurster]

By all accounts, the vast majority of deaths and causalties on the Lebanon side have been civilians. The Israeli justification is that these same places are Hezbollah strongholds and offices and the civilians are Hezbollah supporters. It seems to me the same justification works just as well for Hezbollah's attacks on Israel.

[Yonivore]

By all accounts, the vast majority of deaths and causalties on the Lebanon side have been civilians. The Israeli justification is that these same places are Hezbollah strongholds and offices and the civilians are Hezbollah supporters. It seems to me the same justification works just as well for Hezbollah's attacks on Israel.

Really? Haifa is an Israeli military stronghold? There are Israeli soldiers bunkered down in residences and among families in Israel? The IDF is firing from fence lines and rooftops of UN compounds?

And, I don't recall Israel ever claiming the dead civilians were Hezbollah supporters. While many of them probably are, I don't think that could be said of the infants and young children.

Seriously, what choice did the Israelis have? When the Hezbollah chooses to engage, militarily, from civilian and residential -- and ostensibly nuetral -- locations, what do you do? Hope they run out of bullets and that none of their munitions hit their mark -- and, then, go in and arrest them?

[clambake]

The Canadian email sums up the uselessness of UN troops and observers. Think Ahnan will dodge questions about this?

[Yonivore]

The Canadian email sums up the uselessness of UN troops and observers. Think Ahnan will dodge questions about this?

UNIFIL's mandate expires next Monday. I doubt it will be renewed.

They spent a couple of decades doing nothing more than watching Hezbollah entrench themselves in Southern Lebanon and facilitate skirmishes with Israel.

I think Annan will dodge questions about this, just as he does with every other UN failure.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; The United Nations did a damn good job of distributing food and bandaids. It's the only thing they ever did well and, they screwed that up when they started meddling in conflict resolution, (i.e. Oil-for-Food). They should give up and go back to strictly distributing food and bandaids.

[Yonivore]

So much for Precision guided bombs and surgical strikes

There was something about this photo that seemed familiar or suggestive of past events...then, it struck me.

The ambulances-for-terrorists scandal

[velik_m]

UN troops operate on mandates, if mandate states that they must not intervene or attack hostile forces then they won't. If they want UN troops to be more effective they must give them more power/full authority. If they are there just as observers they will just observe.

[Yonivore]

UN troops operate on mandates, if mandate states that they must not intervene or attack hostile forces then they won't. If they want UN troops to be more effective they must give them more power/full authority. If they are there just as observers they will just observe.

Or, they will help the terrorists.

The UN should be pulled out if hostilities occur.

[Yonivore]

STOLEN FROM CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER:

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a cinder, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right — legal and moral — to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

What say the Hezbollah apologists? Exactly why did Hezbollah attack Israel?

[velik_m]

STOLEN FROM CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER:


What say the Hezbollah apologists? Exactly why did Hezbollah attack Israel?

because Israel occupied Lebanon.

[Yonivore]

So, the Hezbollah say they invaded Israel, killed 8 IDF soldiers, and kidnapped 2 others so that Israel would be extorted into a prisoner exchange. Their idiotic miscalculation aside, just who do you think they wanted in exchange for the 2 IDF soldiers' lives? And, is their demand reasonable?

From a BBC article:

Israel will not exchange them for the prisoner Hezbollah wants most, Samir Qantar, who attacked a block of flats in Nahariha in 1979, killing a father and his daughter (the latter by smashing her head in).

That's the sanitized version of this monster's crime. Here, in the words of the wife and mother, is what happened:

Abu Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are probably few who remember why Abbas's terrorists held the ship and its 400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli prison for life. Kuntar's name is all but unknown to the world. But I know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.

It was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar's mission against my family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on April 22, 1979.

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

And there are people in this forum who believe the Hezbollah have a legitimate position. Un-frickin'-believable.

I do like what our U.N. Ambassador John Bolton had to say in his opening remarks at yesterday's confirmation hearing:

We are actively engaged in New York to identify lasting solutions to bring about a permanent peace in the Middle East. To do so, however, requires that we have a shared understanding of the problem. The United States has held the firm view that the root cause of the problem is terrorism – and that this terrorism is solely and directly responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today. This terrorism manifests itself, not only in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas, but also in their state sponsors in Tehran and Damascus. We should all take note, particularly Iran and Syria, of the important statement from the Arab League for its courage and conviction in condemning Hezbollah for its role in instigating this latest round of violence.

We take note that some Member States have called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah - but we must ask our colleagues: how do you negotiate and maintain a ceasefire with a terrorist organization, one which does not even recognize the right of Israel to exist? The United States has no confidence that Hezbollah would honor an unconditional ceasefire. History shows us that it would only allow them time to regroup and plan their next wave of kidnappings and attacks against Israel. The United States seeks an end to the violence that afflicts innocent civilians, and for that very reason we are working for the conditions that will make a real cease fire possible and permanent. Our aim is to address the underlying cause of the violence in southern Lebanon – namely terrorism.

[clambake]

Who said they have a legitimate position?

I think your confused. Only in the minds of hezbollah does legitimate position exist. Do you understand the difference? I don't think there are any hezbollah cheerleaders in this place.

Well, maybe "please don't ban me"

[Yonivore]

because Israel occupied Lebanon.

Israel completely pulled out in 2000, pursuant to a UNSC resolution that also placed UNIFIL peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon that were supposed to insure that Hezbollah disarmed.

Again, why did Hezbollah attack Israel this month?

[Yonivore]

Who said they have a legitimate position?

I think your confused. Only in the minds of hezbollah does legitimate position exist. Do you understand the difference? I don't think there are any hezbollah cheerleaders in this place.

Well, maybe "please don't ban me"

And, velik_m apparently.

[velik_m]

i don't cheer for Hezbollah, i just don't like Israel's policy and i think it will be their undoing.

[Yonivore]

i don't cheer for Hezbollah, i just don't like Israel's policy and i think it will be their undoing.

What should have been Israel's policy?

[MannyIsGod]

Does Yonivore have the ability to form his own thoughts? I wonder.