The shah made the mistake of being pro-Israel--King Abdullah knows what will happen if he goes that route. I believe there would be peace in the Middle East if the leaders prepared their populace, that won't happen, therefore, peace will only be attained when Jews are driven into the Sea. Sadly, that will probably eventually happen because muslims control the oil--and that's why Jews are less than rational about this.

Bombing bridges and civilians is the action of terrorists--or those that feel doomed. The only hope for Israel is a deterrent that the Arabs fear--thus this dance macabre shall be played for a very long time. Maybe an Arab leader will appear with the will and the power and the sway to make peace--more likely, not.

"Israel is trying to kill the Hezbollah leadership, knockout its missiles and prevent it from being rearmed. How do you think that gets done?"

It will never get done--where there is a will, there is a way. The equation will change only when some Arabs find a way to sell the ideal of honorable peace. Egypt and Jordan were somewhat successful because they are not democracies. In this case, the will of the people favors hate and war.

Oh? I invite you to produce current US documents on targeting policy that are as simplistic as you suggest. If you wanted something in civilian book form, a good reference is COL (Ret) John Warden's The Air Campaign, which observes that optimal targeting is different in every war. The underlying concept, however, is to analyze the enemy and determine its "centers of gravity", a term first used by Clausewitz.

In Iraq, given the centralized control exerted by Saddam, the innermost center of gravity was the leadership. In the WWII European theater of operations, the center of gravity was much more manufacturing and transportation, without which mechanized armies ground to a stop. In Viet Nam, the center of gravity that the enemy attacked was the establishment of trust between the central government and the populace.

From available information, Israel's approach is quite questionable with respect to the objective of eliminating Hezbollah as a political and military force, which is different than killing the current leadership.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Killing UN peacekeepers?

In Haaretz today:

"Chief of staff [Dan Halutz] threatens to blow up a 10-floor building for every missile."

Is that the way to kill Hezbollah?

Or is Halutz just desperate?

Yes; but think what it's done for our Daniel's recent conversion to sweetness and light.

Well; Lebanon's a small country. After a week or so finding new targets take's some imagination.

moved

A U.N. forward position was hit killing at least two and perhaps four U.N. Observers.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

You got to be kidding me. You are an obnoxious and condescending. You whine about what I said but you don't address it. You just attack Israelis.

You have not be trying to respond to me. You have tried to smug and self-righteous. You have been one side and basically indifferent to the murder of Israelis. You use a lot of verbiage and say nothing. You are worse than juvenile.

The only position you have is that Israelis should die. The joke of you and the likes of Trans Human you take some moral stances as if you and only you care about anyone. However, you ignores that Hezbollah is sacrificing the Lebanese as well as killing Israel.

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.

You have a very impressive biography. Now you should learn to mature.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

>> How would you get Hezbollah to stop?

Comprehensive peace plan:

'67 borders, shebaa to lebanon, golan to syria, US security arrangement with iran.

Then the small pockets of nut jobs can be taken care of.

I don't think this is a plan. I think this is THE ONLY plan that can work.

Syria and Iran are not natural enemies of Israel (despite Ahmadinejad's mad rhetoric). In fact, Iran was dying to make nice with the west after 9/11. Bush told it to go to hell.

Iran is in the position Egypt was before Begin. And we know the rest.

About Saudi Arabia,

The Saudi leadership are Saudis too.  If they say one thing then another, it may be that they really believe the first thing they said but are retreating in the face of the public.

But it is also possible that they really believe the second thing they said, just like most other people in their country, but said the first thing to placate the Americans.

Oh, I did a search on saudiembassy.net for the word Sunni and found a dozen or two matches, all were related to Iraq except one where a Saudi ambassador gave a technical explanation of why the main Saudi school of Sunni scholarship is not Wahhabi.

I did a search for the words Arab and Islamic and found tens or hundreds of thousands in each case.

I have a feeling the idea that the Saudis identify themselves as Sunnis in opposition to Shiites in Iran is probably a little overblown.  To discriminate against people who practice the five pillars of Islam is also forbidden very strongly in the Koran.

oy vey:

"What should Israel do? Just sit on its hands while Hezbollah rains missles on it?"
Answer: Exactly! The statement that Hezbollah has been constantly attacking Israel over the past six years is just a big lie. Since Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the border has been quite calm, except for very minor incidents and skirmishes.
It was precisely the calm border that was putting Sheikh Nasrallah under increasing international pressure to disarm. His main excuse not to, was that Hezbollah needed arms to defend Lebanon against Israeli agression. But what is he defending if no attacks on Lebanon are taking place?

imo, the way to get Hizbullah to stop firing rockets at Haifa is to give them the same precision-guided munitions that the Israelis have, thus enabling Hizbullah to target the illegal Israeli settlers and settlements. That way, they could eliminate the true root of this problem, from the Arab standpoint.

Not that i'm necessarily advocating that, however, it proves a point: neither group is going away, and it's a mistake to think that a opposition group can be 'removed' from the fabric of a country, via firepower or otherwise.

Also, it's funny how Hizbullah is Lebanon's problem, but the Likudnik settlers are...what exactly to Israel? Couldn't Israeli society 'deal' with them the same way they are prescribing for the Lebanese govt to deal with Hizbullah?

I found the link. [New York Times Magazine http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21]

You also left out the balance of the quote.
The full quote is

"For its part, 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. 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. "

This does not reflect the view in either Haaretz or the Jersulem Post but the balance of the paragraph changes is meaning.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Daniel, I'm sorry to have missed it, but I don't understand how the balance of the paragraph changes its meaning.  Could you please explain? 

PSA: There is a Users' Help Forum.

Since Nabih Berri is both pro-Syria and pro-Hezbollah he would hardly be the best source of facts. Do you have a site to the U.N. source? Given that Hezbollah claims to have 12,000 missiles and rockets Israel's incursions don't seem to have made too much of a difference.

Also since when does a non-state actor provide protection for a sovereign state by possessing an arsenal? I thought only the NRA took that sort of position. Or are you saying that Hezbollah is the really government of Lebanon?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

For the record, conversation, argument and dialogue and the exchange of ideas can be ugly things. Sometimes out of ugly can grow beauty.

Perhaps because talking on a web forum is so unlikely to lead to real physical violence, I see no need for the decorum one might want at a PTA meeting.

I have been victimized by another through a silent treatment which can be just as abusive as any physical slap. Demanding overdue diligence to decorum is just another form of violence.

"You said a bad word, talk to the hand!"

I think that anyone that posts at TPMcafe is enough of a grown up to be able to take some written, verbal abuse.

So I modded you down as a forum NAZI. Keep it up and I'll stick you in my signature, the 10th circle of hell.

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

Howard, I think Mr.Greenbaum is stressed.  I hesitate to speak for him, but I think he is probably worrying about the safety of friends, perhaps relatives, and certainly Israelis.

Look, it's not uncommon for someone who is seriously invested emotionally into one side of a conflict to see things differently than others who are standing on the sidelines attempting to be impartial and logical. Since this is only discussion here, and some good debate, I personally don't having any problem respecting Daniel's position whether of not I agree with him. 

I hope I don't sound patronizing - that's always a risk.  I'm just trying to understand Daniel's position and respond accordingly.  You know me, I love debate.  But there's not much to win here, I think. 

Neoboho

Is anybody here interested in discussing Matt's post?

It does seem clear that public opinion in the Arab world is moving sharply against the pro-American regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan for failing to stand up against Israeli aggression and that admiration for Hezbollah is now widespread among Sunnis as well as Shia.

The Saudi vacillation is certainly motivated by that as Matt suggests -but the complexity of the linkage is worth analysing further.

If the objective of US policy is not to strengthen pro-American regimes and support Israeli domination over the Palestinians but to unleash a democratic revolution in the region regardless of the fact that democratically elected governments will inevitably be more islamist and anti-American than the present rulers, then it is working rather well.

Looks like the US is about to propose a settlement meeting Hezbollah's basic demands for a prisoner swap and an end to the Israeli occupation of a small strip of Lebanese territory which Israel pretends is Syrian to annoy the Syrian government.

In return, Israel will require (ie for the first time in its history accept) a third party military force on its borders - thus paving the way for actual Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank through transition to a similar force there as long demanded by the Palestine Authority.

Israel has now totally used up its pollitical capital in US public opinion and any attempt by the Zionist lobby to mobilize against US insistence on an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank by painting Bush as "soft on terrorism" will go nowhere.

Likewise settler resistance based on similar claims will be more easily dealt with and they may not even have to shoot many of the Israeli extremists when compulsory evacuation begins.

Regimes like Iran and Syria are not vital US concerns, since contrary to US and Israeli propaganda they have nothing to do with the Wahabi-Salafi terrorism behind 9-11 and both regimes are in any case "walking corpses" with no prospect of surviving against the opposition of their own people.

Ending autocratic stagnation in Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the other hand is a vital US interest because the stagnation of those two countries in particular, as well as others like them, is the "swamp" that breeds jihadi islamo-fascist terrorism.

Current US policy has made it easier to distance itself from its strategic liability, Israel, and strengthened its objective (though tacit and denied) allies among the Shia while very seriously weakening its targets, the autocratic regimes that have left the Middle East a stagnant swamp.

Expect rather less gratitude from the Muslim Brotherhood when it enters government in Egypt than from Hezbollah's counterpart Dawaa when it entered government in Iraq. But likewise expect less of swamp breeding jihadis from a democratic Egypt.

No wonder the Saudis are nervous.