This is interesting from Juan Cole's blog:

"The death toll late Tuesday stood at 235 people killed in Lebanon and 25 in Israeli. About half of the Israeli deaths were military personnel. Only a handful of the Lebanese deaths have been military, and only a fraction of those have been Hizbullah fighters. In fact, have even ten Hizbullah guerrillas been killed by the Israelis since this fight began? They say it is a fight with Hizbullah. But then they bomb Greek Orthodox churches and milk factories far from Shiite areas. Hmmmm.

Israeli air strikes killed 30 more civilians on Tuesday:

The Israeli attacks were mainly concentrated on the Bekaa district, as Israeli warplanes launched missiles at the towns of Zahle, Baalbek, Rachaya al-Fokhar and others. The St. Gregorius Church in Rachaya al-Fokhar suffered a direct hit, as did the Lake Qaraoun Dam and the ambulance donated by the Emirates in Dahr al-Baydar. Dozens of civilians were killed and wounded in the attacks. Over 30 civilians were killed in Israeli air strikes against Lebanon on Tuesday. Ten civilians who had taken refuge inside the Greek Orthodox Church in Rachaya al-Fokhar were wounded in an attack. Lebanese security sources said Israel had used phosphorous missiles in the attack, an internationally banned weapon.

Some people just don't like their neighbors to have nice things. The Israelis hit Lebanese privately owned factories on Tuesday, including a dairy farm! These targets had absolutely nothing to do with Hizbullah, and were not military targets. These strikes are war crimes and part of a continuing Israeli campaign to ensure that Lebanon is economically poor and weak for decades to come:

Israel switched gears in its military campaign against Lebanon Monday and Tuesday, launching a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout the country and dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure. The production facilities of at least five companies in key industrial sectors - including the country's largest dairy farm, Liban Lait; a paper mill; a packaging firm and a pharmaceutical plant - have been disabled or completely destroyed. Industry insiders say the losses will cripple the economy for decades to come."

It's incomprehensible how Alan Dershowitz can issue a "challenge" over at HuffPo for an "alternative" to Israel's campaign against Hibzallah firing rockets into Israel when the target list above shows that Hizballah is barely being hit.

Clearly something else is going on here than Hizballah.

I await any military expert explaining to me how hitting dairy farms in Lebanon are going to suppress Hizballah.

Israel would love to be bombing Hezbollah targets but they are dispersed and on the move. Consequently, the Israelis are bombing military bases, the Beirut airport, and other targets that they can actually find. This, in turn, will turn the Lebanese population against them and play into the hands of Hezbollah. Just like Iraq. Why can't we learn? The U.S. should have been strengthening the hand of the Leganese government to deal with this problem before it exploded. The Israelis need to quit trying to win by random bombing. Every child who is killed as collateral damage will have brothers who grow up to join the extremists.

I have been wondering for some time, given the history of the region, if Israel really wants a stable, democratic government in Lebanon. Any thoughts on that?

Rachel, Having read a few of your articles I believe you to be a nice and honest person. Im comfortable saying you would in all likelihood make a very good neighbor in New York.Israel and Lebanon make terrible neighbors, this is just the latest episode. Having said that you were living in in Israel at one point I will go ahead and make the connection that you also have a Israeli passport, You can correct me if Im wrong. Regaurdless your perspective is one of a citizen of Nazareth and very biased as such. The problem with 2 passports is simple, Only half your heart will fly the American Flag, The other half is always dreaming of another flag and whats best for it. I believe one of your statements is very telling,

"One thing we should do now is applaud Israel's crushing of Hezbollah, which richly deserves to be crushed,Rachel"

Who is saying Hezbollah has been crushed, If anything they have been empowered, dispersed, and will simply regenerate and morph. Doing the simplist of math this current action is just intolerable. 2 kidnaped soldeirs = multibillion dollar damage and 500,000 homeless/displaced, not to mention the largest evacuation since WW2 which is just chilling. Let none of us forget the history of these kinds of actions, The one's that have brought us here today. None of us wish to have our children live in fear, Not in Israel, Lebanon, or New York. Israel has gone in and destroyed the place and expect the UN to now move in as the new police force to hold the ground, This will never work, never has, never will. Oh the bill for such things, Who will pay?

While I freely admit I'm a Sunni Muslim I only hold one passport, A American one. I still beleive your a nice person. Bryan Lee

What is Hezbollah doing with missiles and rockets? They are not a nation. Second, since Hezbollah headquarters in located in a civilian Shiia suburb of Beirut they are inviting attacks on nearby targets. According to CNN the Christian and even the Sunni neighbors in Beirut if not untouched are largely in one piece.

Since Hezbollah has been armed by Syria and Iran Israel wants to make sure they do not get rearmed.
Thus the attacks on the ports and airport.

Most of the fighting is taking place in Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, who started this fight and could end it quickly by pulling back from the border and returning the Israel soliders are firing on civil targets inside Israel.
Dershowitz may be an egotist but his question is a good one and you ignored it. What should Israel do about Hezbollah's use of their arsenal?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Does anyone know, did Israel even ask the Lebanese government to intervene on behalf of their kidnapped soldiers before attacking?

Maybe Lebanon wouldn't have been able to do anything, but the point is did Israel even give them the chance?

RogerGathman
There are two problems, I think, with the notion of 'crushing Hezbollah.'

One is that it is unlikely. Israel doesn't have the force, and neither do the Christians or Sunnis in Lebanon. Rather than crushing, the goal should certainly be reconstituting Hezbollah to make it less powerful as a military enterprise.

Two is that Hezbollah does represent the 40 percent of the population that is Shiite in Lebanon. That is a larger percent than approve of President Bush in America -- it is a considerable percent, in other words. By denying the Shiites any form of political power, the Israelis and their Maronite allies legitimated Hezbollah in the 80s. That isn't a historical fact that can be annulled -- it has to be dealt with as one of the givens. Instead of seeking broad plans for eternal peace and security, perhaps Israel and its neighbors should concentrate on more short term plans. In the short term, Israel's interest is not that Hezbollah be crushed, but that it simply normalize itself in the Lebanese context.

Matt Yglesias thinks Rachel concedes too much to the Israeli right.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/blog/yglesias/2006/jul/20/prehistory

Wouldn't we all.

Facts that are openly discussed in Israel can't be absorbed by American cheerleaders because their heads would explode.

Israelis are quite well-informed about their nation's history. Americans know nothing about U.S. history, and even less about Israel's!

(And if you think "nothing" is harsh, look at this way: if you added up the truths that Americans know about history, and subtracted the falsehoods they believe, I'd be surprised if the number was positive.)

The intellectual dishonesty of these questions is now beyond dispute.

Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.

There is no need for further discussion comparing these actions to any other historical events. They stand condemned on their own results: three hundred dead civilians, thousands injured, half a million displaced, two billion dollars in damages (so far, more to come).

Deliberate attacks on Lebanese churches belonging to Christians. Deliberate attacks on hospitals.

Attributing this to "war" is not only disingenuous, it is openly supporting and excusing war crimes.

That there were NUMEROUS alternatives to this course of action is so obvious that Dershowitz's "challenge" is obviously an intellectually dishonest rhetorical device exactly the same as being used here.

"Why can't we learn?"

See, your error is in assuming they WANT to "learn".

That's not their intent.

Their intent is precisely what you say - to MAGNIFY the threat of Hizballah in the future, so they can ensure that the scam of being the "defenders" of the Israelis is never questioned. They KNOW that Hizballah will never be a threat to Israel, and more importantly, they know that Hizballah will never be a threat to the political power of the Zionists in Israel.

It's like Chancellor Sutler in the movie "V for Vendetta:"

"I want EVERYONE to remember WHY THEY NEED US!"

It's merely the Zionist version of the standard statist justification.

Of course, they happen to be wrong - and as soon as some Arab terrorist figures out how to steal an Israeli nuke and set it off, they're going to find out how wrong.

Unfortunately, those Israelis who believed the Zionists are also going to find out how wrong their Zionist leaders were.

From a Transhumanist viewpoint, however, this is called "nature's way of eliminating the stupid."

It's probably going to happen in Washington, D.C., at some point, too - just to reassure everybody that I don't think this is purely a "Jewish" problem.

I think the more telling point is that nobody but you has bothered to ask.

I hasten to add that you are correct to ask.

However, in general, I think the answer would be no, and even if they did, the Lebanese government is not in a position to move against Hizballah, due to the risk of restarting the Lebanese civil war.

So I suspect the Israelis wouldn't have bothered to ask, even if they didn't have their own agenda for starting this war. It really wouldn't have done the Israelis any good and might just have tipped off the Lebanese and/or Hizballah that a major attack was in the offing.

T.H.

Perhaps it was a bit presumptuous of me to imply that Europe condones the Israeli offensive, yet other than Vladimir Putin not one European leader has has shown a hell of a lot more outrage than has Bush; which is hardly any at all. I'm not trying to insinuate that Britain, Germany, and France are "on board" with the current ME endeavors but SOMETHING seems to be placating them...

I was kind of wondering about the 1 myself. Its perfectly fine as Ive been under attack for about every oppinion that I have bothered to type out in the last few weeks.

"Dual Loyalties" is just a reality check, Imagine the kind of accusations I recieve as a American Muslim concerning my loyalty and I only have one passport. How can one not have dual loyalties if one has family in Lebanon and dual citizenship or if one has family in Israel and dual citizenship. There is no difference in such matters. I have very close friends that are Lebanese and Israeli, I don't fault either for where they were born or loving their families, that's reality too.

It's good to meet you, Bryan. I am a Jewish Alaskan who was educated from K-12 at a Catholic school. And besides Nazareth, I have also lived in Russia during the winter of 1992 and the summer of 1993, lived in India, spent a summer in Kuwait, and a few years in England--but I don't have five passports! I am an American, through and through (though I do, often, claim Alaskan identity first!), who believes the best way to understand the world is to spend time--often a lot of time--in it.

I lived in Nazareth during the summer of 2000 to work for an Arab-Israeli human rights group and an Arab domestic violence organization, because I wanted to understand Israel from the perspective of the Arab-Israelis. I had already spent the summer of 1998 living in Jerusalem, and felt I had a handle on how Jewish Israelis saw their country. My time in Eastern Europe, Russia, Kuwait, India, and Nepal has been similarly motivated. I like to live in countries for a few months at the least, and more if possible, because a tourist-eye view is fairly useless for understanding.

If Americans who care about the world cannot live in other countries without being threatened with dual loyalties, then our state of knowledge will be woeful, indeed.

Director, Truman National Security Project
www.trumanproject.org

 The battle raging in the Levant has fixed the attention of the world's eight most powerful leaders, each of whom foolishly thinks that the Arab-Israeli conflict is solely about Israel's security, and willfully ignores the fact that it fuels the much more dangerous bin Laden-led war against America and the West

 

http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=9369" target="_blank">Doing Bin Laden's Work for Him

http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=9369" target="_blank">Michael Scheuer

Neither Silent Nor Silenced

Voters for Peace http://www.votersforpeace.us/

Agree 100%. That was why I was so angry at the hitting of the Lebanese military bases--and, of course, why minimizing civilian casualties is not only humane and the right thing to do, but essential for effective counterterrorism.

On Israel's leaders' thoughts--those, I cannot divine.

Director, Truman National Security Project
www.trumanproject.org

I don't think you can root out Hezbollah. It has too much popular support. I think instead, you need to settle all the issues outstanding between Israel and its various Arab neighbors and then start focusing on building stable, economically viable Arab states around Israel. All these military solutions do nothing but keep hatred alive and the various conflicts festering. What we need is an international effort to create a Palestinian state, establish permanent borders between Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, and introduce some kind of Marshall Plan for the Levant. Most important, this international effort should begin immediately and come to a conclusion within a year or so. Too much time has been wasted already.

Good post, nice to see you responding directly to commenters as well.

I am a VERY provincial American, having never been outside the country except for my tour in Vietnam.

And I intend to keep it that way. Besides, being an ex-felon, most countries wouldn't let me visit even if I could afford to.

But I value the insights of those who travel and especially live in other countries or who have connections in other countries, as Berkowitz does.

It reminds me of one of my favorite actresses, Britisher Stephanie Beacham, previously in the evening soap opera, "The Colby's" back in the '80's.

Some years back, I think in the '70's or early '80's, she traveled extensively and alone (made all the more interesting by the fact that she is 70% deaf!) into countries like Pakistan. She warned people on her return then about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the countries of Central Asia and the ME and the Indian subcontinent.

I think it's likely that no amount of UN or US support - even if forthcoming, which is highly unlikely given the commitments elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Balkans - would have succeeded to "rooting out" Hizballah.

And the same applies today. See my posts elsewhere describing the relative state of Hizballah's capabilities vs the Lebanese and any likely UN peace keeping force.

I agree that physical US presence would be a disaster in such an effort.

Given that the Lebanese government appears to be shifting to allowing the Lebanese Army to actually resist the Israeli invasion, possibly in direct support of Hizballah, given that half the Lebanese Army is Shia, I'd say Rice's notion of an international force is doomed and Israel just lost the war as Hizballah's forces are likely to swell now to an even greater and more effective insurgency.

Israel would love to be bombing Hezbollah targets but they are dispersed and on the move. Consequently, the Israelis are bombing military bases, the Beirut airport, and other targets that they can actually find.

Clay, you make it sound like the strikes on these targets are just an act of frustration on the part of the Israel and its military, or cases of pilots choosing secondary targets because they can't find their primary targets.

I see no evidence that that is true. The sheer number and diversity of those targets, and the deliberateness with which they eappear to have been selected, suggests that Israel has a clear war plan and is executing it.

Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to be doing decent open source intelligence here. There is good commercial satellite imagery around, but it's expensive.

The information should exist to tell what sorts of weapons are being used on what targets, to decide whether they are primary or not. For example, there have been weapons specifically designed to put runways out of action, such as the French Durandal or the British JP-233. I don't know if Israel uses either of these. The US doesn't have a specific anti-runway weapon, but there are various fuzing options and the choice between blast and penetrator bombs which would give an idea what type of target was being selected -- you can't reset these things in the air.

We are getting into a set of technologies where it would be possible to have an open and independent intelligence analytical function. The MSM haven't been doing well -- in the last couple of days, I may have seen twenty photos on CNN captioned "tanks moving into Lebanon". Unfortunately, only one or two were tanks; the rest were self-propelled artillery, armored personnel carriers, and other specialized vehicles. When CNN doesn't bother checking what the average soldier could recognize in a glance--and their lives may depend on such recognition in a glance--credibility drops.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*