I am not sure what you mean by "keep it real." I think a very good case can be made that the previous feelings were the real ones, based on an assessment of Hezbollah and their actions, and that the current feelings are the faux statements
intended to mollify their people.

Saudi Ambassador Then: Let's keep it real here, Hezbollah is a non-state actor fed missiles by Iran and they just invaded Israeli sovereign territory to kidnap soldiers and have launched missiles indiscriminately towards civilian populations. No sovereign state would put up with that.

Saudi Ambassador Now: Um, having seen the people marching on the castle, please consider the previous statement to be inoperative.

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

Your last paragraph describes U.S. targeting, and general theory of the use of air power. Israel is trying to kill the Hezbollah leadership, knockout its missiles and prevent it from being rearmed. How do you think that gets done?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Supposedly, Israel, through the mechanism of the 1994 treaty with Jordan has promised to protect the Hashemite rule. Jordan also was getting Saddam's oil at ludicrously cheap prices and was promised the same deal for helping out in the attack on Iraq. Don't know how long this bargain basement pricing (50% for free/50% at half lifting cost) was supposed to last, but Jordan couldn't stand the oil shock of paying retail.

In other words, just because someone is singing a sweet soprano, don't assume it's because it's the natural pitch.

I am not sure of the significance of your point, but thank you for the reference. The United States like Israel has deliberately targeted bridges and power facilities otherwise known as command and control facilities.

Israel's approach which you seem to be unaware is about preventing Hezbollah from being rearmed. Perhaps you have missed Hezbollahs continuing firing at Israeli civilian centers? CNBC revealled that Israel has also targeted banks that Israeli intelligence has determined funnels money to Hezbollah. Hezbollah has also located itself and its weapons among civilians including homes.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Baloney! Israel is intentionally targetting CIVILIANS even fleeing ones, and among other things they've blown up are CIVILIAN targets in the norht of Lebanon, not to mention milk factories.

In fact ISrael is engaging in a sort of mass punishment of the Lebanese:

"Israel is gambling that the right strategy is to make the people who elected Hamas and a government that includes Hezbollah reckon the costs of their representatives' recklessness. That is why Israel has targeted not only Hezbollah leaders and strongholds but has also bombed infrastructure that sustains daily life for everybody in Lebanon."

CNBC revealled that Israel has also targeted banks that Israeli intelligence has determined funnels money to Hezbollah.

I swear, you just can't make this stuff up.

I am not sure of the significance of your point, but thank you for the reference.

The United States like Israel has deliberately targeted bridges and power facilities otherwise known as command and control facilities.

Perhaps you have missed Hezbollahs continuing firing at Israeli civilian centers?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The Jerusalem Post talks about 10 buildings per rocket.
Claim was later denied. But then the denial itself was denied.
Looks like Halutz said it but the leak was not part of the plan.

Do you have the link to the quote? I looked at both the Haaretz.com and the JerusalemPost.com sites and could not find it. I saw that Israel claimed to have destroyed 10 buildings in Beirut including one key target. If Hezbollah is hiding weapons in such buildings what is their height having to do with them?

Nasrallah announced on television tonight that Hezbollah intends to fire longer range missiles at Israel and allegedly will reach Tel Aviv. They already hitting civilian targets killing a 15 year old Israeli girl.

As best as I can tell there is getting to be some dissatisfaction with the IDF given that Israel could bring to bear a lot more power and Israelis would like to stop the missiles being fired at them.

How would you get Hezbollah to stop?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Thank god, they were killed and not wounded. Might have had to use ambulances.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742261.html

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291987290&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

For the record: I rated this a 1 for personal attacks on other posters, including one not participating in this thread.  Note that hcb's comment above received a 2 for similar reasons; its more substantive nature is what justifies the higher rating in my schema. 

PSA: There is a Users' Help Forum.

Thank you link.

However the author of the column went on to say:

"Unlike some of my colleagues, I believe that Israel is fighting a no-choice war that we must do everything possible to win. Air strikes, ground operations - whatever it takes so that Hezbollah, exhausted and beaten, pulls back and a multinational force is deployed along the international border together with the Lebanese Army, in keeping with Security Council Resolution 1559. "

Yoel Marcus the Haaretz columnist was complaining about the lack of seriousness of the IDF. His point wasn't that Halutz was doing too much but too little.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

"Since 2000, Hizbullah violated the Blue Line on the Israeli-Lebanese border 100 times, while Israeli violated that line 11,782 times. (These numbers are based on UN observers and were cited by Lebanese Speaker of Parliament in his interview with Al-Arabiya TV)."

Your link does not work.

Your claim does not actually prove anything. As CNN reported today those portions of Beirut that are Christian and Sunni are relatively intact.

You don't address the point acknowledged by Michael Waltzer and the UN humanitarian representative that Hezbollah is hiding among Lebanese civilians.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

We seem to be getting a bit stressed, are we, as we continue to make up things I have not said:

The only position you have is that Israelis should die.

When you offer to go fight for Hezbollah or live in northern Israel I will be a lot more impressed. You just like being a bigot and don't like being called on it.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I understand the difficulty, but am cussed enough that I don't want to give up a substantive thread because of the emotion surrounding it. As best I can explain, I have been following the theory of hitting the mule over the head with the 2x4 to get its attention. Unfortunately, I am not running into people in this thread that are not intensely partisan.

I'm frankly rather neutral, and there aren't many people that want to talk on that basis. There is a significant amount of misinformation being spread about weapons systems and the degree to which they can and cannot be controlled.

I ask you, most sincerely, and you can answer offline if you wish: what does one do with posters who invent quotes from me, and then attack them?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The will of the people (in Arab and Muslim neighbors of Israel) opposes acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state.  I've tried and have not found anyone who can necessarily connect non-acceptance of Israel's Jewish ethnic status with hate.  Nobody has done so in the discussion table post "Any connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism?" or even made a serious effort to try.

I conclude that it is not necessary to "hate" to favor a return of Palestinian refugees, which would end Israel's identity as a "Jewish State".

Your use of "hate" here, unless it is just a rhetorical device, betrays a bias on your part, but worse, it betrays a misunderstanding of the other side's perception that can only make a understanding and therefore finding a resolution more difficult.

Daniel Greenbaum says

However the author of the column went on to say:

"Unlike some of my colleagues, I believe that Israel is fighting a no-choice war that we must do everything possible to win. Air strikes, ground operations - whatever it takes so that Hezbollah, exhausted and beaten, pulls back and a multinational force is deployed along the international border together with the Lebanese Army, in keeping with Security Council Resolution 1559. "

Yoel Marcus the Haaretz columnist was complaining about the lack of seriousness of the IDF. His point wasn't that Halutz was doing too much but too little.

You obviously read the same article I did, but I think you misinterpreted it. Marcus wasn't complaining that the IDF was doing too little or too much, he was complaining that they were doing the wrong thing. That is, they were bombing irrelevant infrastructure when the only way to root out Hezbollah is to put a massive number of boots on the ground, and take high casualties, something he thought the IDF was unwilling to do.

Just where do you get off being neutral?

(More seriously, I don't believe there is such a thing as a neutral observer, and it leads to problems of hubris as can be seen in the craptacular job our media is doing to us.)

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

An obvious reason for the initial restraint on the part of Egypt, S Arabia etc. may be that they were worried that the crisis would distract from the diplomatic efforts against Iran's nuclear activities which is exactly what appears to have happened. The US has actually been quite skillfull in isolating Iran in the last year or so but much of that effort may be down the tube after this crisis.

It's hard to exaggerate the strategic and moral bankruptcy of the US government (both the administration and Congress) in responding to this crisis. The knee-jerk defense of Israel even as the Lebanese people were being pulverised was bad enough but in general the US has appeared pathetic and irrelevant which will sharply reduce whatever authority it still has left in the region.

I am stressed, Neoboho, and I apreciate your efforts. However, besides having some family in Israel the other source of stress is that except for Brad the Dad and Zionista this site is so one sided as to be a virtual "through the looking glass." Whether it is redefining Zionism to make it more comfortable to attack or for every post a onesided assult is mind boggling.

I have shared many of the posts on the Middle East with others both Jewish and non-Jewish and they cannot believe the tone here. A good friend of mine both non-Jewish and a professor of military history said to me he is very familiar with the technique of those who don't like Israel to slide away from one argument when they are confronted with an answer they don't like.

Should I have let Howard's "oh" get to me so much absolutely not. For that I am sorry. I came back to the site to delete it but someone had already rated it.

Richard Cohen in his WaPo column "...No, Its Survival" says what to me is obvious, "After the Holocaust, after 1,000 years of mayhem and murder, the only proportionality that counts is zero for zero. If Israel's enemies want that, they can have it in a moment" [Washinton Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400808.html?sub=AR]

At TPMCafe there is no effort at balance or fairness. Before someone says "you aren't fair either" I can only respond you have no idea what I think. Faced with efforts to wipe Israel of the earth, declare it illegitimate, or generally declare out of bounds what it does to protect its citizens, as the United States would also do, it makes it very hard to have a serious discussion about solutions or fairness. I have seen no one here offer a solution that is suppose to leave Israel as a Jewish state with its citizens not under constant threat.

I am sorry to be so long in my answer to what was only short effort to defend me. However, for almost every issue here simple answers are sought for very complicated problems.

Again Howard I am sorry for my personal response to your personal attack on me and neoboho thank you again.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

From Israel's standpoint, this is no longer a fight with nonstate terrorists who are holding their fellow citizens hostage to their tactics. It is, rather, war between Israel and countries that are pursuing (or tolerating) violent policies endorsed (or at least accepted) by their electorates."

I wasn't quite sure I caught it either, but the above sentence is almost breathtaking.

If this was a widely held policy, the US citizens would be under constant attack because they elected GWB.

Click here for the Users Help Forum.

Thank you, Daniel, and you, Neoboho. Shall we agree that we both perceived personal attacks, and we should try to refrain from that in future? I think the key to success is to recognize we don't know what is in the poster's mind and heart when writing something.

Please bear with me as I try to phrase something. From my perspective, I was trying to have a discussion of specifics related to the specific conflict. I don't see any useful purpose to discussing the meta-issues of the legitimacy of states, etc., which are basically a matter of axiomatic faith in many individuals -- or that others consider largely irrelevant to the immediate problem at hand.

Again, please take the next part as explanation, not any sort of attack. I found both you, Daniel, and also Zionista challenging, or in some cases blockquoting, things I had never said. If you think I implied them, why not ask me if that's what I meant? From my perspective, I made some honest attempts to ask what I considered clarifying questions.

Clarifying questions, to me, are just that. They are not intended to be argumentative, but to deal with situations where the two or more parties seem to be talking past one another. When I get a question, I hope I have the wisdom to look at what it is actually asking, versus what I might think it is suggesting. Now, I'm sure I'll occasionally get tripped up by a question that is really rhetorical and setting me up, but I'm confident I will survive.

In all sincerity, Daniel, I hope you can accept that it is possible to be neutral about the Israeli-Palestinian question without evil in thought, word, or deed. To me, Israel is just one more country with which the US has a number of common interests. I no more want it destroyed than I want Kenya or Viet Nam destroyed -- but it simply is not a crucial world issue to me. The outbreak of nuclear war in the Middle East is a crucial issue.

When you mention the evils being visited on Israel, I think of my friends -- really family -- from Sierra Leone. Atrocities there are much more up close and personal than rocket attacks.

There is one particularly horrible question asked by insurgents there and in other African countries in turmoil:

Long sleeve or short sleeve?

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Sharon broke down the settlements of Gaza and withdrew Israel to the 1967 border. He planned to withdraw settlers from the West Bank when he had his stroke. Olmert was elected to carry on his "covergence" plan.

How are missiles fired from Gaza and Lebanon supposed to encourage that withdrawl?

Daniel A. Greenbaum