It's so discouraging to see so many peoplel from Britain and around the world criticizing Israel for defending itself against the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Hamas and Hezbollah started this mess in the middle East and now everyone is blaiming lsrael. You either support terrorists or you reject them. Those who are criticizing Israel obviously have no understanding of what is going on in the Middle East. They are just anit-semitic. Why don't they tell Hamas and Hezbollah to stop their terrorist activities and release the captured Israeli soldiers.

Quote: "THE British government issued a fierce condemnation of Israel's bombing campaign in Lebanon"

This condemnation is dangerous and must be reconsidered. Britain should not condemn Israel for war on Terror. Israel has the right to look for and destroy these terrorists who are hiding behind civilians. Most of the Arab nations will not crush this terrorist group so Israel has do do this to defend itself.

britain is right in condeming israel for indiscrimanately bombing civilians.killing hundreds of innocent women/children and displacing almost 700000 civilians.
nobody is questioning israels right to defend itself against terrorism but israel is commiting the same evil by targetting civilian population and infrastructure.

LISTEN TO YOUR SELVES!

Of course Israel should defend itself against evil and sadistic terrorists.

Are these same terrorists the children that have died? What about the mother who dies in Gaza with holes blown in her back and the flesh of her leg burned to the bone by an Israeli firebomb?

Israel are attacking WHOLE NATIONS, not just terrorist groups.

Imagine if Britain had bombed southern Ireland in reaction to the IRA.

Ridiculous.

Rethink your comments.

Just because people don't agree with you doesn't mean they are anti-semitic. That is kind of an extreme statement. I personally think Israel has a right to defend themselves, only as far as they have to. The point is, is this much force needed for Israels safety. We see who is destroying who. I think Israel is going above and beyond what they need to do for a safe state.

I the long run I think the US, and all involved with this will pay which is to bad.

Ed,

Reading through the responses to this story, I have to lend my full support and I'm surprised that a U.K minister is taking a position which is the opposite to the government's.

Unfortunately, world history shows that the innocent have been hurt/died from war and I pose this question. Is Israel and its people suppose to sit back and let terrorists and other governments play out their own agendas which places a threat over their head/s?

It is a pity that the World can't live in peace but when agendas do clash with others then; what's the answer?

The United Nations continues to be a lame-duck or lacks the will to do more. That body has peace-keepers currently in Lebanon and they too, must be frustrated in being unable to do anything.

Ironic....Hezbollah starts this war, and now there are protests against Israel. As far as I see it, a vote against Israel is a vote for Hezbollah. I'm sure that Hezbollah is happy at the protests in the Europe. In the U.S.A., we are not protesting Israel. We are protesting the murdering, rapists of Lebanon called Hezbollah and their masters in Iran.

britain is right in condeming israel for indiscrimanately bombing civilians.killing hundreds of innocent women/children and displacing almost 700000 civilians.
nobody is questioning israels right to defend itself against terrorism but israel is commiting the same evil by targetting civilian population and infrastructure.

There is no justification for Israel to continually bomb infrastructure essential to the ordinary people of Lebanon. All that is being achieved through this agressive policy is a growing support for radical organisations and an inevitable war, which - in the present climate, has the potential to send the Middle-East into complete meltdown.
Targeting terrorists is one thing, but targeting an entire nation because of a minority terrorist threat is in no way justifiable, nor is it effective.
It's easy to for some to conclude that comments posted on this issue are anti-semetic, but Israel's continued overkill actions towards its neighbours will only escalate this conflict - not supress it.

As sad as it might be to see all the destruction and death in Lebanon, one cannot and must not blame Israel. All the Israeli attacks have been on facilities that Hezbollah uses. Plus their escape routes must be plugged. It is a very sorry state; but why don't the British (my nation) chip in and help the Isarelis fight these criminals and terrorists? Even the EU refuses to make Hisbollah an outlawed organisation.

Look at the amount of weapons Lebanon has allowed Hezbollah to bring into the Southern country! They blatantly resisted the UN resolutions on Hezbollah, and now they are unfortunately paying for it. If we back Israel in getting the job done this will not happen again.

THANK-YOU BRITAIN FOR FINALLY COMING HOME.

I am of mixed descent, if you will, of Scottish and Arab descent.

I have been disgusted by the willingness and the cheapness of human life wrought by this destruction.

Peace, peace is the only way.

I was a long supporter of Israel, and I still am, but this is utter madness.

What can be accomplished but rendering the country to your north an utter wasteland? It will be a breeding ground and a catalyst around the world for resentment and hatred.

As those who can run away with tails between legs, the Lebonese people are being wiped off the planet.

This is a misuse of power at it's lowest form.

For those who argue about Hezbollah and this and that, and all the rhetoric we have endured for the last 2 weeks, go right ahead.

But actions, my friend speak louder than words, and what we are witnessing is a long trail of evil, moreso surprising as it is being waged by a supposedly enlightened western-like state.

Disgusting, I hope the old men and their willing comptriots are held face down in the mess of their own making.

Treat people who rocket you like criminal. Process, and bring that concept to bear which the world has seem to forgotten:
"Justice."

Remembering that one? Before you start screaming the work "terroist," realize that the only true western progress was brought by a system of laws that punishes those who commit crimes and not collectively their friends and neighbours.

What's going on in Lebanon is an afront against humanity and is about to put the light out on progress in human rights affairs on this planet for decades to come.

Israel, I'm curious, why so many people in jail so many years? Why so many Palestinian dead and why now Lebanese? You're supposed to be smarter than that. Could it be that the set of laws you have for yourselves are not universal enough to extend to your human neighbours?

I susp

Bob, not true. I am an American, I protest Israel going into a sovereign country to get a group of terrorist. Blowing us clinics, and the citizenrys main infrastructure does not help our cause with Islamic people in peace for Israel. Iran and terrorist must love this.

We no longer live in a world where perfect justification is justification enough for violent retribution. Peace means not taking revenge. All of you children - Bush - Israel - Ahmadinejad - grow up. Responding to the latest bullying with violent retribution just continues the cycle. Suck it up, put down your guns, and concentrate on growing your vegetables. (I'm not holding my breath.)

If Israel had deliberately targeted Lebanese civilians, wouldn’t the death toll exceed 10s’of thousands by now?

I'm curious why most of those who write letters condemning Israel's actions in Lebanon aren't condemning Hezbollah too. If Hezbollah released the captured soldiers and stopped firing missles at Israeli civilian centers then the pretext for the war on Lebanon would be removed, and at that stage Israel and America would very likely to resist international pressure to cease its attacks. Clearly, hezbollah is not acting in Lebanon's interest, but those of its sponsors, Iran and Syria. Funny how that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people who claim their interest is in 'peace.'

Sorry, to clarify, Israel and America would be unable to resist international pressure to cease the attacks if Hezbollah released the captured soldiers and ceased its missle attacks. If Hezbollah truly cares about Lebanon, why don't they do that? If the posters here care about Lebanon, why aren't they insisting on that?

The problem I see is Israel is blowing us areas with lots of people to get a few terrorist. I can't justify killing 100 people for 10 terrorists. Thats the way I think most of the world is seeing this. And yes most of the world hates this. They needed to stop the bombing of northern Israel, but this getting out of control.

Israel has killed hundreds of women and children. Israel has confused self-defense with ABUSE. Justice will come. God, who is the same for Christians, Muslims and Jewish, will have no mercy with assassins (of any religion, of course). US won't intervene, as usual.

Hezbollah did not start it. Israel has occupied Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories, bulldozed homes, and made war on its neighbors since it was born in a terrorist campaign to form its own brave new world. If, if if - if Hebbollah released the soldiers (and they are soldiers, not civilians) maybe Israel wouldn't have bombed this time, but it would some other time, Israel is the aggressor here - or at least not by any means an innocent victim. Talking ifs, if Israel would recognise the legitmate needs of the Palestinians first - then talk, without preconditions, maybe, just maybe there would be peace.

Israel has killed hundreds of women and children. Israel has confused self-defense with ABUSE. Justice will come. God, who is the same for Christians, Muslims and Jewish,

Shame on the US President, the Congress, and the American people for promoting this new holocaust of the Palestinian and Lebanese people. How can the G8, the UK, and half of Europe (thank you France, at least) sit by while this destruction and death continue?
Have we all gone mad. The root of this all is religion, whether Zionism, Christian, or Moslem.
Killing for God.

Death and destruction in war are always sad and unfortunate. But again how many have died after such intense Israeli bombing? Sadly but furtunately only 300 plus. Surely that is very sad. The same thing happened when we fought Germany. We also bombed to over kill did we not? Ever heard of Dresden, just to cite one example?

Israel could have had the same amount of deaths were it not for the shelters that they had to put inplace due to people like those that they are fighting. People whom Europe refuse to cite as terrorists.

Israel is not indiscriminately bombing. They bomb only where Hisbollah is involved, and they are every where. And of course some bombs do fall astray. Instead of criticizing Israel why do we not do all to get rid of Hezbollah? Heaven help us if we allow Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Europe turned a blind eye to Israel's protests when Hezbollah attacked along the border many times, attempted kidnaps, and fired rockets into Israel sparodically. Now that they became more daring due to our connivance, and now that Israel has said that enough is enough, as usual, we blame Israel.

When have European papers published the daily atrocities that Hamas and others do to Israelis? But let Israel do one wrong thing and we all jumb on her. Well, enough is enough. Hisbollah must go or the world will always be in tormoil.

The condemnation by this minister from the UK here's come I think a week too late.What the hell has Phoney, sorry Tony Blair been doing since Israel started this terror campaign against the Lebonese civilian population?????(Probably checking microphones are switched off). As I said in an email to Tony Blair's office I find it disgusting in this century that both the UK & US are standing by whilst innocent civilians are slaughtered.The US have given the go ahead to Israel to wipe out a population & the country's infrastructure before it does aught. The US won't do anything anyway it after all supports Israel & Bush is ever mindful of the Jewish vote at home.
Already 100's of women,children & men have died in Lebanon by terror tactics used by the Israeli state in the name of 'defence'.All we hear from the UK & US Gov is how it's in response by Hezbollah kidnapping a few Israeli soldiers.How can this country condone the murder & maiming of countless Lebonese nationals in this fashion?.Ordinary people are suffering at the hands of Israel, how many people have to die before the west takes notice.
Frankly I think it a bloody disgrace waiting for so long so that the Israeli military can do it's work, dragging heels whilst people die.
We value our lives highly in this country , but seemingly lives in other let's say arab states is worth less, than Xtian/Jewish ones. Unless of course OIL is under their feet, even then the ordinary man/woman is worthless.
Yes I know why Israel started this war, but as far as I know Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers for the release of Palestinians held illegally by Israel.Israel uses thuggish bully boy tactics, on a country that's suffered enough.
The US can't decry other countries supporting terrorism, the US's in the past seen fit to fight wars by proxy & support terrorist organisations to it's own end.
I'm fed up too of 'Anti semitism' being thrown in the face of anyone who 'd

I am no sympathizer of Hezbollah, but the Israeli reaction is so outrageous as to turn my sympathies against them entirely. If a person has cancer you don't shoot them in the head. You use a surgical approach with the tools available. It is hard to believe that the Israelis cannnot pinpoint every rocket launch by Hezbollah, and take out the firing positions one by one. Instead, they are targeting civilians and vital Lebanese civilian infrastructure. The numbers say a lot: nearly 300 Lebanese killed, almost all of them civilians and one thrid of them children, while Israel has lost about 1/10th that number. Even if an eye for an eye were a valid concept (it isn't) it appears that the Israelis are extracting a pound of flesh from the heart of Lebanon for the sake of two of their kidnapped soldiers. Is it any wonder that the Arabs hate them so vehemently? If the Israelis were to display some understanding and compassion for what the Arabs (and especially the Palestinians) have lost on their account, perhaps the road might lead to peace. But war-mongering in the name of national defence appears to be the nature of the Israeli regime. It makes me ashamed of my own country (US) that we are the ones supplying the bombs and the bullets being used against innocent Lebanese. Hatred and murder do not solve problems. They only escalate them.

I noticed a poster here from China thinks that this is all Israel's fault and they started it. I guess you must actually believe the nonsense your state news agencies are feeding you. By the way, how's that occupation and ethnic cleansing of Tibet going for you? You guys are doing a much more effecient job there than the Isrealis.

Over the last couple of years we have seen advances in leaps and bounds of peace in the Middle East. Israeli and Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon allowed it to beging to develop a normal/safe society. Hamas announced a cease-fire and it seemed things were headed in the right direction. But this wasn't the direction Israel wanted and has launched indiscriminatory attacks on the whole of Lebanon, including Beirut and the north along Syria's border (which doesn't even have hezbollah). This proves Israel cannot survive without constant conflict and war.

What is sad to me is that Israel has persistently refused to lend aid to the governing bodies of neighbors like the Palestinian Authority and the Lebanese government to help root out the minority of terrorists among them who insist on attacking Israel. Instead, they have for decades pursued a policy of militarism which is so extreme that they even deliberately attacked an American ship in 1967. Israel has been caught spying on the US, has engaged in assassinations in foreign nations and in general behaves exactly as we would characterize a rogue terrorist state, yet they receive the unquestioned support from the US government despite the fact that they provide nothing of benefit to America and their arrogant warmongering serves to stir up violent terrorist sentiments against America and Europe. Why America doesn't simply destroy all the absurd weapons we have sold them over the last several decades and refuse to provide them with more is incomprehensible. Israel has never cooperated with international efforts to curb nuclear proliferation and by most estimates possesses hundreds of illegitimate nuclear weapons, yet they continue to get a free pass from America. It is time that America holds Israel to the same standards we do other nations. These people are engaged in a campaign of indiscriminate violence against Lebanon in the same way the Bush administration invaded Iraq. These sorts of ham fisted militarist actions can only lead to harm to the entire Western world in the long term by bringing on more terrorist attacks on innocent people who did not vote to elect George Bush. Certainly the Israeli people have every right to defend themselves from terrorist attacks, but not by engaging in the kind of militarism we have seldom seen since the Empire of Japan was defeated in World War II.

Hezbollah, Hamas, Israel, all terrorists. Terrorists kill women, children, old people, non combatants. What is the difference here? Easy The H's have little rockets and followers who blow themselves up. I.E. there damage is small and fairly limited. Israel has Tanks, F-16 and every piece of equipment that a well equipped modern army has.

To say that Israel is responding appropriately is to say we kill cockroaches with 1000 pound bombs.

what is happening here? I think we are seeing the US government countenance the destruction of Lebanon. Further I belive it supports Bush's desire to cause world war 3 and bring on the Rapture.

Please lord don't let the world think that what the US government does represents what americas people think or want.

Shame on all these people.

I have lived in the Middle East for many years and have a lot of first hand knowledge and many many dear friends who are suffering on both sides.

Here is the facts: Over 1000 Rocket are launched into Isreal. If Hezbollah lanched a 1000 Rockets into London or 1000 missles into Washington. What would the Americans and the British do ? - they would stand together and anniliate the outrage. Its not that people don't care about Hezbollah and the families and people behind the scenes we do indeed care our weakness What going on here is a media and political charade that means nothing - the peole reading this are way too smart & what will play out is the return to the middle road since the extremes never fully materialize in enduring time but will continually reappear. The unfourtune thing is that itelligence cannot catch up with insipid stupidity fast enough in this situation as in others- the British government is a victum caught in the middle to pacify the enemy within, clearly that the articulate painting missed by most.

Isn't it most amazing how we have not criticized the Muslims for the dreadful carnage of their suicide bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the world.

One paper said that this god fearing people are killing one hundred a day. And these people killed are not soldiers, but innocent men, women, and children. Where are our mouths condemning this orgy of death there?

But now that Israel seeks to defend herself from similar slaughter everyone condemns; thank God for America and Blair so far. I personally do not like such death and destruction, but it becomes unavoidable when the world stands back and refuses to restrain terrorists organisations like Hisbollah and Hamas. Do any one reaslise how many Euros have been given to the Muslims in Israel? Billions! And where have they gone? Into arms in the main.

If the Muslims will try to love the Israelis then we will have different environment; but they are incapable of loving their half brother. They only hate. And we see the results of this hatred in total disrespect for human life. May God help us all to love and not hate and exploit one another.

The comparisons between Israel -acting like terrorists- and the "so called" terrorists are Justified. Like them Israel is a disgrace to decency.

Isreal is encouraging terrorism by displacing almost a million people and killing hundreds.
If isreal was really fighting terrorism it would have massed its troops at borders day one and wiped out the terrorists by now, instead isreal chose to create a holocaust environment in lebanon first then go for terrorists.

It is very strange to hear thousands of times the same assertion again and again when no one, no one is arguing against it! "Israel has the right for self-defense", "Israel has the right for self-defense," "Israel has the right for self defense" ......who is against it? Every nation has the right for "self defense," including Lebanon, Egypt, France, USA, Germany...etc. There around 200 members at UN, all of them have the right for self defense by UN Charter and International law. Among these nations also Palestinians have been included. So, why repeat the same thing over and over when no one is against it? What is this, some kind of brain washing tactics? Palestinians also have the right for `self defense". isn't it? So, why you ladies and gentlemen, singled out "Israel right for self defense"? Who doesn't? So does Palestinians. Israel destroys milk factory in Lebanon and you say that was in "self defense" from terrorists? Israel destroys power stations and you say that was in "self defense" from "terrorists"? Israel destroys bridges, factories, roads, the only civilian airport, and you say that was in "self defense" from so called "terrorists?" Israel destroys residential apartment buildings in Beirut and you say that was for "self defense" from "terrorists?" Israel blocs sea routes, destroys bridges and roads and you say that was for "self defense" from "terrorists"? Are you going to eliminate an entire small defenseless nation and then proclaim you won the struggle against "terrorism?” Do we have anything left in our soul resembling "sanity?" Are you driving us into barbaric, dark middle ages?
I resent that most forcefully!

By the way folks, some say that it's only a minority of terrorists in Lebanon, the Hezbollah. Well there are over half a million Shia or Shiite muslims in Lebanon, and Hezbollah is Shiite like its grandfather Iran. These Shia are funding and helping Hezbollah along with Syria which is Sunni.

So even Sunni and Shia unite in trying to liquidate Israel with Europe's connivance. But God will not allow that to happen, it appears. I trust that we will see a quick end to this sad war that we have allowed to take place by our depreciation and disregard of Israel.

If you approach conflict as a "zero sum game" (one side loses and the other side wins), then it is easy to condemn the Muslim fanatics and support the Israeli response. But the world will not survive such thinking. No one is 100% right, and no one is 100% wrong. As human beings, we need to come to grips with the fact that we are all fallible, and that if someone is steamed, they probably have a reason. Acknowledging each person's and each culture's experience is a fundamental step towards reconciliation. Look how Desmond Tutu ad Nelson Mandela responded to the disgraceful behavior of the racist regime of South Africa. Instead of bombs, bullets, and condmenation, they offered reconciliation, acknowledgement, respect, and peace. This is the example we must follow--that Israel must follow if it is sincere in seeking peace with its neighbors.

But the Israeli regime, like the American Regime, seems intent on its own political survival, rather than peace, prosperity, and the well-being of all.

James, US 2.30am

Much of what you say is just not correct. Only recently did Israel supply US made small arms to the Palestinian Authority for Abbas' new security agency, to assist in cracking down on the terrorists. Unfortuantely these same weapons have already been used to kill Israelis. Under the Oslo Accoprd, Israel armed the PA.

As Michael Oren demonstrates in the definitive histopry of the 1967 war, the attack on the US ship was accidental, and both sides treated it as such.

Jonathan Pollard is still in a US jail (longest sentence ever in the US for espionage) for passing on information that the US was obliged under treaty to supply to Israel, but had refused to do so.

According to the US, the value of the services (military, intelligence, etc) which Israel supplies to the US is many times the value of US aid.

Israel's nuclear weapons are not "illegitimate" in law as Israel has never signed any non-profileration treaties.

Halima from China has a point... a bit biased but nevertheless, a point. Its a similar point the Foreign Office minister has pointed out. The fact that the victims of this crisis has shifted from minorities to entire nations, and alarmingly getting worse.

A clear failure of the Lebanese to weed out Hezbollah as an informal military, whom were originally formed to protect the region from Israel; thus inherently alluding to the last few decades, seems scathing and bleak.

Then, clear failure of the Isrealis to open their hearts to the Palestinian people's cause and weed out criminals once the anger has healed, seems like a burden haunting a whole people riddled with geographical identity.

I find it naive and innept to think that you can change paradigms of an entire people by force, since it takes a healthy spirit to be able to live in peace with your neighbors, regardless of who they are.

Having said that, I am still not convinced Islam is a violent religion and so, criminals of course should be rectified with empathy and example. Tonight, again, I will pray for wisdom and peace.

Is that what you really think Ronnie?

Because I am sure a lot of Muslims would disagree with you.

We need to stop pushing religion on top of political debates.

The Jewish people have been through a lot. If Israel asks us to take human rights seriously we expect them to hold themselves to a higher standard than what they are now.

This is Cain and Abel non-stop for thousands of years. If your two best friends were fighting and it got of of hand, then you step in, stop it, and they bow to the higher power.

What's going on now is utterly useless. The world needs Israel to be a successful beacon of human rights and fairness.

We don't need this kind of Israel, do we? If so, what's the difference? Who's right and who's wrong?
It's a stupid fight and it must be stopped right away.

It is very strange to hear thousands of times the same assertion again and again when no one, no one is arguing against it! "Israel has the right for self-defense", "Israel has the right for self-defense," "Israel has the right for self defense" ......who is against it? Every nation has the right for "self defense," including Lebanon, Egypt, France, USA, Germany...etc. There are around 200 members at UN, all of them have the right for self defense by UN Charter and International law. Among these nations also Palestinians have been included. So, why repeat the same thing over and over when no one is against it? What is this, some kind of brain washing tactics? Palestinians also have the right for `self defense". isn't it? So, why you ladies and gentlemen, singled out "Israel right for self defense"? Who doesn't? So do Palestinians. So what are you saying? Israel destroys milk factory in Lebanon and you say that was in "self defense" from terrorists? Israel destroys power stations and you say that was in "self defense" from "terrorists"? Israel destroys bridges, factories, roads, the only civilian airport, and you say that was in "self defense" from so called "terrorists?" Israel destroys residential apartment buildings in downtown Beirut and you say that was for "self defense" from "terrorists?" Israel blocs sea routes, destroys TV stations and telecommunication systems and you say that was for "self defense" from "terrorists"? Are you going to eliminate an entire small defenseless nation and then proclaim you won the struggle against "terrorism?” Do we have anything left in our soul resembling "sanity?" Are you driving us into barbaric, dark middle ages?
I resent that most forcefully!

Now that I think of it, after reading many of these comments... why didn't the US negotiate with the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, instead of declaring war? And why didn't the British keep their self-defense against Hitler's air attacks strictly withing their own borders? Oh yeah... maybe because today neither the US or Britain would actually exist as we know them. To those who don't get it, war is an ugly business. And it seldom ever ends until one side or the other is completely defeated. Cease fires are merely temporary bandages, with no lasting effects historically.

The way I look at it, in the long run this is a war that will eventually have to be played out, since that is the intention of Iran and most of the middle east. Maybe we should just wait until they nuke Israel, and maybe even New York. How many civilians do you think might be affected by waiting for that, and the requisite nuclear response which will undoubtedly follow. Perhaps it's better to fight the war now, than when there can be no winner (unless you believe in the religious concept of winning through suicide.)

pgbob, to clarify, UK no longer supports it, no longer considers this Israel's "self-defence", no longer supports the offence.

First, a short refresher of the facts: After the State of Israel was unanimously created by the UN over 50 years ago, this fledgling state was attacked by Arab countries on 5 occasions and were defeated each time. Having failed to defeat this small country the so-called "displaced" Palestinians have continued to live in refugee camps because not one of their kindred countries ever went to their assistance in taking them back.
Over the ensuing years the embarrasment and resentment towards Israel has grown into the development and refinement of the terrorist. Hezbollah and Hamas represent the most extreme of these. From this grew the introduction of the 'suicide bombers' who have taken the lives and maimed hundreds of innocent men, women and children in various Israeli cities and towns. Terrorists who were caught at this were justifiably imprisoned in Israel and most remain so today.
Six years ago Israel forcibly removed their own people from Gaza in order to turn the land over to the palestinians. They did so voluntarily and without conditions. The hope was that this would allow the palestinians to build and grow and develop.
Peace reigned for almost 6 years when, suddenly, Hezbollah in Lebanon decided to raid Israel, capture 3 soldiers and then start lobbing hundreds of rockets indiscriminately into various high density areas of Israel.
As any country would do Israel has retaliated and continues to do so. In so doing Israel is accused of over-reacting and using more force than necessary. Israel has no choice: so-called surgical strikes are an impossibility because Hezbollah hide within the main centers of South Lebanon and deliberately blend in with the population. How typically cowardly of them.

A fair analogy for those who know their history is that thousands of innocent Germans were killed by allied bombs in order to defeat Hitler and the Third Reich. It was horrible and terrifying but it was a necessary and

For a little further reading I might suggest this article from Times online.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2281184,00.html

In response to Phil's comment from Oregon Coast USA

I can see how the momentum of entire cultures can create these tensions that leave politicians with seemingly no choice but to wage war. I can see how war is a risky and dirty business.

But I also see how the way in which war is waged can tip a balance of opinion in a highly diverse world where fundamental morality and biological needs are of the few things we have in common. If we do not embrace these common traits with mututal respect, then we see a lot more variables come into play. That is my worry and i believe many share this worry all around the world.

So, if war is a dirty business, then I suggest to those that wage it, to clean themselves up and set a good example as leaders and not fill the populace with their filth.

Two wrongs don't make one right. The Israel's excessive military action and attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon must stop. It is about time that Israel stops the genocide it is has started in Lebanon. Yes the Europeans and the whole World looks on as if nothing is happening! What a shame!
AK

This war is disgusting and so is the reaction of the rest of the western world. We are supposed to be better than this. It makes me sick that this war is called in the name of self-defence.

Imagine how all this is going to look in 40years? They will think we all went mad in the same way as we look at nazi germany in the 1930-40's. Like it or not Israel and the US are playing similar tactics to Hitler. This 'terrorist' fanasto is a brainwashing campaign to justify the unjustifiable.

Sure terrorists are bad, but you can't get rid of them by breeding more. Which is exactly what the tactics in this war are doing. For every terrorist killed 2 will pop up pissed off about the 10 civilians killed while killing that one terrorist.

If Israel was serious about peace and the removal of Hezbollah then they would have co-operated with Lebanon while offering financial and military support to help remove Hezbollah.

When Israel withdrew to its international border in 2000 it had a U.N. agreement that the Lebanese Army would ensure that the border be quiet. Instead Hezbollah controlled the border periodically attacking Israel. Its attack of Israeli soldiers across the border prompted an Israeli response aimed at first of all eliminating the Hizbollah threat.
Hizbollah continues to attack Israeli cities with missiles supplied it by Syria and Iran.
Israel 's campaign is to eliminate the attacks of Hizbollah on Israeli cities, and bring about the realization of the agreement signed in 2000. It is doing this in such a way as to minimize as far as possible its own civilian and military casualties. In the course of this there are unfortunate civilian casualties on the other side. Israel tries to minimize these but the terrorists implant themselves among civilian population, hide there, and so the effort to destroy them brings civilian casualties also.
All those who condemn Israel should think of what they would do in the same situation, and realize that Israel is acting as morally as possible in a war situation.

I must say I am truly astonished at Britain they are beginning to remind me of the gentleman that ran against Bush the last election, flipping and flopping on a whim to appear good to what every the general census is at that moment. They assist us in Iraq, but condemn Israel. Please do not get me wrong, I am profoundly thankful for any assistance we get in Iraq, there are so few these days that think of anyone but themselves, they are entitled to freedom but the guy across the water isn't. It is not really surprising as many great men have said over the last couple of decades that the US has become so compliant and submissive of the issue's and simply can not see beyond their own doorway, and I sadly must say I agree.
CNN, to my knowledge is the ONLY us station that has bothered to actually do a documentary on the feeling of the Iraqis on the street and dare show it here, but I will admit that the other news stations have mad e me so sick of watching them that I may have missed them doing one and then twisting it into another slanderous mockery.

As for Israel I must say I am astounded! I had truly come to think that there wasn't a Country left "That is a "part" of the UN, aka Useless Nuts. This is twice now that Israel has had to step up to the plate and do what needed done.I watched as the Syria's Ambassador spoke on CNN I believe it was and give his "views" when confronted with the actions of Israel and their departure from the Gaza strip he kept stating that Israel continued to attack Lebanon, yet it was never publicized, the only thing that could be proved was how Hezbollah terrorist continued to attack even after the so called land was vacated. I would love to see some type of proof where Israel did anything other then protect its border even as they sit and watched their own people continue to die and the New Government of Lebanon do NOTHING!
Quite frankly I think the US and the those on the worthless bench warming U

Afzal Khan, I think the term genocide is just a bit exaggerated, and certaily biased and intended to inflame. If you don't know the difference between genocide and collateral damage, maybe you should look the terms up.

Yes, innocent lives lost is absolutely abhorent, but almost impossible to prevent in war when one side hides among the population, and chooses to send suicide killers into public places to deliberately strike non-combatants. Who are the cowards here? Not the poor, ignorant suicide bombers (anticipating their reward and their virgins - strange irony coming from a sexually intolerant society.) No, the cowards are the manipulators who send them to their deaths on a false premise. The terrorist leaders incite the emotions and desires for martyrdom in others, but hide like rats themselves. Yet, when they are rooted out and killed themselves, their followers label them martyrs also. Even when they were running for their lives trying to escape truly facing their enemies. This whole notion that killing people indiscriminately (suicide bombers, markets, cafes, busses...) is some kind of sacred religious right is incompatible with continuing evolution of the human species. All it will get in the end is more death and destruction. You reap what you sow...

thanks for the biased history lesson... but I still dont get it; what is a terrorist again?

Let me answer to you, Mr Phil

The killings and destructions you are calling "war" is not a war at all, it is butchery against an entire, small, defenseless nation who did not go to war against Israel! Israel is armed up to its teeth with most modern weaponry plus nuclear bomb no one, I repeat, no one can match with in the Middle East. Whom are we kidding here? Where is the warrior party against Israel? Egypt? No! Syria? No! Iran?
No? S. Arabia? No! Lebanon? No! Turkey? No! So, Mr Phil, against whom are you fighting this so called "war?" Against a group of poorly equipped young men and boys who joined together to defend themselves against Israel's encroachment of their rights and dignity. They have no tanks, no airplanes, no air defense, no battleship, no artillery, no nothing, nothing....those you call "terrorists" is not an army in military sense, those so called rockets they have, are non sense! They launched 1000, and hardly killed two dozens and a few building damaged. How can you possibly compare this with the Empire of Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, USA? Do you think people reading your post are nuts?

At this point, Israel is perfectly justified in dropping a nuke on Iran. I wish they would go ahead and get it over with before any other nation gets hurt. Why wait any longer? It's only a matter of time until Iran has nuclear weapons, and we all know their plans for the bombs. They are going to destroy Israel in one "storm."

In a nutshell the Israelis are a bunch of hypocrits,they hate when their people and way of life is compromised even a little but care nothing for others. They can't get over wrong that has been done to them in the past and have become violent childkillers to compensate.

I'm tired of reading or listening to statements, which justify the genocide and ethnical cleansing Israel commits in Palestine and in neighbour countries. I'm also tired of a U.N. which acts not only week but ridiculous. I watched the session on TV and you could tell by the voices that those countries which argued in favour of Israel find it untruthful and shabby. The Iranian ambassador gave a factful speech without the hatred we heard from Israel. Those countries which fuel the conflict by delievering more amunition to Israel like USA and Germany should be ashamed.
Has Israel a right to exist? Israel was founded on stohlen land and is still stealing from his neighbours.
Israel's Holocaust industry is still backmaling countries in Europe!
Why do we watch the murder of civlians in Lebanon? Is a five year old child guilty and has to be submitted to bunker buster or cluster bombs?

The Nazis are back and they have allies! What if Germans would call the concentration camps collateral damage?

End the war now!

Lebanese TV reporting last night had clips from at least 3 Lebanese stations showing the carnage the "Israeli precision smart bombs were wreaking." One especially disturbing image was of two rescuers lifting the body of a 10 year old boy onto a blanket, his legs blown off below the knees and he appeared to be eviscerated.

The Israeli strikes today knocked out the stations, so that won't be a problem for the Israeli mendacity campaign anymore. Only those who hide behind the simplistic shield of anti-Semitism and Holocaust rememberance arguments will try to weave a tortured argument in favor of Israel's thus removing our access to the truth.

All of which might explain why CNN tonight finally broke with American news reporting when they sent Dr. Gupta to a clearly marked Lebanese hospital to show the damage to an infant care unit and report on the injuries to patients by an Israeli air strike.

What will our coalition of Bush, Blair and Israel have left to say if a terrorist organization like Hezbollah suddenly holds the higher moral ground in the growing international shift against us?

I don't believe the amount of influence the media has had on most of you posting here! Aren't you people missing the whole story by assuming Hezbollah are a terrorist group and Lebanon deserves to be defaced?

I think there is sufficient information for everybody to agree with these statements:
- Hezbollah was a militia group formed intially to defend Lebanon
- Jumping to this date, Hezbollah has since initiated Israeli airstrikes and movement during an attack on an Israli military partrol, killing and capturing a number of soldiers
- In response to Israeli airstrikes Hezbollah began attacking targets near and in civilian areas (no doubt at them also)

One statement above decided to make an analogy of the rocket attacks in Israel to the same in a western country. Why not do the same with the Israeli airstrikes elsewhere? Because from what has been conveyed, it seemed as if Hezbollah just happened to fire rockets into Israel for no reason?

The media has twisted a lot of misinformation into place, please get them right...

Is this a "war on terror" or a "war of terror"? What do I see on the faces of innocent Lebanese men, women and children fleeing Israel's bombers? Terror. How is Israel trying to force the Lebanese to eliminate Hizbollah? Terror. Yes, there is Hizbollah terror, and Hamas terror. But there is also Israeli terror, and it is so much bigger. Israel is descending into the very pit that it seeks to close.

Just reading back on some of the other comments, I'd like to reinforce again that the civilian rocket atrocity has occured ONLY because of Israeli airstrikes! So had there been no over-retaliation, there would have been no over-over-retaliation!

Neville

Absolute rubbish. Hizbollah has been shelling northern Israel regularly since Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, as Islamic Jihad, Fatah ,and Hamas have been doing from Gaza since the pullout there in 2005.

Amazing. Of fifty-eight comments posted so far, only three profess to originate from Scotland. Thirty, or over half of the comments posted, originate in the USA. What is going on here?

Israel is in the wrong. This is a bit like beating someone to death because he dented the door of your car in the parking lot. Israel has the strength to do it, but it is wrong.

Israel, nor the US, can achieve peace militarily. Only a political settlement will result in a lasting peace. The Palestinians need to accept Israel as a permanent entity and stop harassing her.

Israel needs to acknowledge the confiscation of the homes and property of displaced Palestinians was wrong and make a mutually satisfactory monetary settlement or return the property to the dispalced persons or their descendants. Israel must stop building settlements on occupied land, and should build a security fence on her own property.

Question w- When has revenge or violence ever led to more violence? When has it not? Do media and propaganda propogate war or something else? Has any religious leader Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Christ, etc.. etc... ever taught it was good to kill a brother or sister? Has God ever give any man the right to rule any part of this earth? Religions I've studied have always taught God is the most magnificient and beautiful creation in cosmos, and he made, thus is part and parcel of every living thing in existence. Kill a brother a neighbo,r a brainwashed terrorist, or a brainwashed UN soldier, and I guess you just killed God? Funny how this works .Who is behind it? I think education and tolerance, LOVE and LIGHT, TRUTH and PEACE, is the only way to end Violence.

John

This is like a bit like beating someone to death who has dented the door of your car in the parking lot, who claims wrongly that you stole his house, who is carrying a gun and promising to shoot your children and rape your wife, and is with several hundred others, all each making a small dent in the same car.

this hypocrisy by israel is very clear to a wise person with little IQ. except for people who are blindly supporting israel.
israel has done similar acts in 1982 at the pretext of driving out PLO. the result has been killings of thousands of civilians (Israel may say it was not intentional).
israel wants to keep repeating this cycle so that it can keep its neighbours poor and behind in techonlogy for another 20 years. then another group grows and israel bombs lebanon again and cycle goes on... and isreal claims to be victim again.

There is a naive misdefinition of the conflicting parties. On the one side are Iran, Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas, the two major - terror supporting states, and their surrogates. The ideology of these groups is fundamentalist Islamic revolutionary jihad. Their aim along with that of fellow organizations like Al- Quaeda is nothing less than the destruction of the free world, and the creation of an Islamic new order of the world.
The appeasing approaches to the adherents of this ideology have been rebuffed again and again. No one has tried such appeasement more than Israel. Remember it voluntarily withdrew both from Lebanon and Gaza. All signs of concessions are viewed by the fundamentalists as weakness. Hizbollah leader Nasrallah calls Israel a ' spider web' which will easily fall apart upon being touched. He just touched it one time too much.
Israel is not simply fighting for itself in Lebanon and Gaza it is fighting for the free world also. Fortunately many understand this and it is not alone in this struggle.

Can you imagine the international outcry if Britain, in response to an IRA mortar attack on a PSNI station or barracks, was to send in fighter jets and bomb Dublin and Shannon airports, send destroyers to obliterate Dublin port and fire artillery barrages from Newry into Dundalk.
Israel claims to be targeting Hezbollah, but their obvious targetting of civilian areas is disgraceful.

Typical….politics…Britain has to take this cowardly position because of the immigration mess they have in their own country….bless the good Lebanese…damn the terrorists that have hijacked their country….very simple. Anyone who would argue otherwise is simply ignorant or anti-Semitic. Finally the peace process is making some headway, but don’t wait in the recovery room just yet, we still have to wait for the surgery to be completed. That’s the word!

I have been watching this war ever since it has happened and I am greatly amazed that Bush or anyone here has not done a thing. I am ashamed of the support we give in killing innocent people and all the lies the government tells to hide these actions. Bush has the power to get Israel to stop, but he does not have a care in the world for Arab countries. Israel is doing a pathetic job in attacking Hezbollah, as they murder Lebanese civilians. I have not been proud of my country for quite sometime now and this only digs our country deeper into a hole.

Israel has no rights. They unilaterally declared statehood on land that doesn't belong to them. Its a bunch of foreigners squatting on Arab land. you can repeat something as many times as you like but it doesn't make it true.

It seems to me that the kids suffer because the grown-ups act like kids.
The grown-ups that we select to govern us are often psychopaths and sociopaths who gravitate towards politics because it affords them an opportunity to gain power and assume control over people. It's the nature of politics that causes many problems because the common man forgets-or doesn't realize- that government is supposed to serve the people.
When you have governments that are top heavy with psychopaths and sociopaths, you can't really expect a good outcome.
If the people of the world would make the governments of the world serve us with fear and trembling, many of our troubles would disappear because the government would work so much harder to ensure justice for the weak and the oppressed.
Terrorism is the only weapon available to the weak in their pursuit of justice and freedom. Not all terrorists are the weak at work; often it's the strong using terror to frame the weak to keep them down, or to just cause war, because their is a huge market for weapons of war.
"Whoever" fired the first rocket into Israel succeeded in causing a war. There is big big money to be made off that war. Hezbollah says they didn't fire the rocket- but they got blamed. Now Israel will be in the market for billions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition.
War profiteers and military industrial complexes NEED war to survive. If all they have to do is shoot a rocket at Israel to start one........................

Peace Peace Peace

Hatred does not solve problems. Killing innocent people is terrorism…
What is Israel doing with help from west? Killing terrorist is ok to some extent. But what is Israel achieving by bombing Lebanon? Breeding more terrorists by oppressing the helpless people. They too will take up arms against the west and Israel. Terrorist are good at playing with emotions of the people around. So in rage people take arms (think if you were in their place… for no reason your friends or family killed .. somebody give you gun and bombs and say they are your enemy … go against them(West or Israel) ….you would do that too..). Do the Super powers think anything about this? Where is this war going to end up??? Finally this becomes religion vs. religion. Don’t destroy the world.

A number of years ago the American government arranged for Saudi frontmen to detonate a car bomb in Beruit to get rid of a Shia leader. They failed to get him but killed a substantial number of innocent civilians. Afterwards the Saudis changed tactics. They asked their intended target what they had to do to get him to stop going after the Americans. It turned that funds supplied for good works in the Shia area solved the problem in a peaceful manner. Now it appears that again the sme solution will have to be attemted.

If Nasrallah/Hezbolla/Hamas people want to really turn the tables (in terms of re-framing the issues/debate) at this opportune juncture, they should recognize Israel's right to exist while demanding not only a prisoner exchange, but also the added demand that the US and Israel stop the illegal settlements and conform to UN Resolution 242-"land for peace," and return of Israel to 1967 borders- in return for a pledge to suspend their rightful "resistance" by any means neccessary.

It is obvious that Israeli Likudniks, et. al, and US neocons (Likudniks?) are just using the "terrorism" boogeyman as a diversion from attention to their "Greater Israel" ambitions. The resistance could really put them (Likudniks, etc.) on the spot if they focus on the occupation unflaggingly...
Lav

The U.S. is the root cause of all that is wrong in the Middle East, Israel is a pawn controlled by the U.S. and selfishly used to as a forward nuclear base to protect U.S. oil intrests.

The shameful and wholesale extermination of the Jews was a European problem, a shameful black stain on the history of supposed civilisation. Thereafter the Jews pre and post the formation of the state of Israel ethnically cleansed the Palastinians out of their historical heartland, ironically employing tactics which were the pre-cursor to the terrorism we see deployed by extremists today.

Israel has fulfilled the self fulfilling policy, like those who found the murder and and mass extermination of the Jews in Europe expedient, Israel has become numb to the suffering it inflicts on it's neighbours through subjication of their human rights and the negation of their economies. The U.S. has facilitated the birth of modern terrorism both from a historical and contemporary perspective, and has rendered the United Nations a toothless and impotent organisation with endless self interested veto.

I abhor terrorism as fundamentally as I abhor the murder of innocents by an army which is one of the most technoligally equipped and motivated in the world. The Lebonese nation is being subjected to a wholesale punishment for the misdeads of Hesbollah in the taking of Iraeli 'SOLDIERS', their response has no sensible or measurable proportion.

Israel has an absolutue right to exist and live in peace, though the actions of their government suggest that they have no desire to live in peace with their Arab neigbours. By constantly poking a stick into the environment which is the hornets nest of the Middle East they are sewing the seeds of their own ultimate destruction. Their's is not a sustainable policy and what happens when the U.S. finds a cheaper infinite source of fossil fuels? Will it still be expedient to spend the billions of dollars which fund it's forward base in the

Reading the postings here it is clear most of you have no idea about what goes on in the middle east. Within hours of the Israel declaring statehood on land given by the UN in 1948, every surrounding nation attacked with the goal of annihilating her. Israel has not enjoyed a moment's peace since. She withdrew from southern Lebanon six years ago in good faith, essentially meaning Hezbollah no longer had a cause. For six years these terrorists continued to wreak havoc on the citizens of northern Israel. Israel did nothing in response, which was interpreted as a weakness by the terorrists of Hamas, Hezbollah and the nations that sponsor them, Syria and Iran. Ahmadinejad means it when he wishes for Israel to be "wiped off the map". So Israel can no longer do nothing. I feel for the innocent civilians in Lebanon who are suffering, but don't blame Israel. Blame Hezbollah who deliberately locate their weapons stockpiles and rocket launchers in civilian areas so that they may use innocent people as human shields. They are the enemy of not only Israel, but the Lebanese also.
Those of you who accuse Israel of not wanting peace, nothing can be further from the truth. They would take it in a heartbeat if it was forthcoming. Imagine if the countries surrounding all your borders, wherever you live, wanted to annihilate you. Would you not want your government to do all it could to protect you?

Nothing good can come from this.

If I could trade myself for the Israeli captives to give an “honourable” resolution to this situation I would do it.

Fact: Hezbollah shot more than 150 rockets into Israel on Saturday targeting ONLY civilian populations. I would like to condemn Scotland on Sunday for forgetting to mention that minor point. If you want to tell a story please add all the facts.

It is convenient for Israel and their supporters to say this began by the kidnapping of soldiers but Israel thinks it can do what it wants with impunity. Israel is extremely good as provoking incidents and then playing the victim card. You need to go further back and ask yourself why Hezbollah exists. From where I am it seems they came into being because of severe grievances against Israel for their land grabbing and unjust treatment of the Palestinians. The Middle East problem is never going to be sorted until a just settlement is given to the Palestinians and this doesn't mean the Israelis controlling the water rights in the region. It is all very well for the Israelis to say they have a right to land in the Middle East because of a historical claim going back two thousand years. If this is so I look forward to George Bush giving Texas back to the Indians who owned Texas only a few centuries ago. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. What I cannot understand is why a race which suffered so badly under the Nazis are so prepared to dish out similar treatment to another race. Palestine or Warsaw? Come Israel - you can't hide behind the Holocaust for ever and remember the first Israeli government were formed from terrorists who were handy at murdering British soldiers and planting bombs in Palestine.

It's encouraging to see that the British public is at long last beginning to realize - better late than never! - that successive governments, together with most of the media, have brainwashed them for so long into giving totally uncritical support to Israel, which is nothing more than a twentieth-century European colony foisted on Palestine and for which there is not the slightest moral or historical justification. Hopefully it'll suffer the same fate as Prussia - but only after it drags the rest of the world into nuclear war.

Israel is fighting a war against people who wish only to wipe Israel (by definition--Jews) of the middle east map... Iran through Syria and hezbollah is engaged in a powerplay assisted by the gullible in the western world
This is Israels last chance to sort it out because once iran gets its hands on longrange missiles.the "Disproportionate response" school of thought will be silenced forever and casualities will be on an immense scale
Israel must do whatever is necessary to negate iran and syrian influence in Lebanon ( throughout the middle east-many governments will breathe easier) then with no-one stabbing it in the back it can cast a jaundiced eye at iran
Any peacekeeping force has in the past betrayed Israel by only remaining long enough for Israels attackers to rearm and reform

This war that Israel is fighting is the same war as in Afghanistan,Iraq and throughout the world where global jihad is going on every day and totally ignored by the west who refuse to see it and name it for what it is--- There is no appeasement of this jihad- it only understands force

Hezbollah wanted to get thousands of Lebanes out of Israeli prisions that have been in for many years without charges. A prisoner swap. If Shaorn was alive he would have done it. He did swaps of prisoners many times. Hence capture soldiers

Israel has gone over the UN Blue Line many many times.It was brought to UN's attention and logged. Israel also goes over Lebanon airspace whenever they want making sonic booms and swooping down low to spy, and UAV to take pictures, plus they put a spy satellite up to track the entire M.E. to make the point they are the M.E. super power and can do anything they like. Just a week or so before Hezbollah went over the UN Blue Line, they flew into Lebanon's airspace and nothing was done and the US, UK and Israeli citizens said nothing to their gov't so they have no leg to stand on! They have broken the UN Blue Line more times then anyone without question! When the UN and the other countries did nothing to stop Israeli aggressions, it make this Israeli attack on Lebanon' citizens and infrastructure possible, with Israel knowing no thing will be done to them because US will Veto any UNSC sanctions or resolutions. Israel said they were targeting citizens and their infrastructure so they would turn against Hezbollah! No roads, water, electric grid,, bridges, airports, factories, etc. they said they would turn back the clock on Lebanon 20 yrs. Referring to their LAST occupation of Lebanon! Hezbollah was formed to STIP and get rid of Israeli and US help occupation of Lebanon. US-Bush an Evangelical believe its his duty to protect Lebanon and whatever it want he will back, he told Omert on his visit to U.S. no pressure will be pout on them ever, no matter what they do. 9.11 was 5 yrs. ago. The occupation of Palestine is 40 YEARS! SIX OF THOSE 40 YRS. ON BUSH'S WATCH! Israel left Gaza but kept air, land and sea control! Gaza is a biggest prison in the world. While Israel continues to steal land, put illegal settlements and outpost on

Hezbollah wanted to get thousands of Lebanes out of Israeli prisions that have been in for many years without charges. A prisoner swap. If Shaorn was alive he would have done it. He did swaps of prisoners many times. Hence capture soldiers

Israel has gone over the UN Blue Line many many times.It was brought to UN's attention and logged. Israel also goes over Lebanon airspace whenever they want making sonic booms and swooping down low to spy, and UAV to take pictures, plus they put a spy satellite up to track the entire M.E. to make the point they are the M.E. super power and can do anything they like. Just a week or so before Hezbollah went over the UN Blue Line, they flew into Lebanon's airspace and nothing was done and the US, UK and Israeli citizens said nothing to their gov't so they have no leg to stand on! They have broken the UN Blue Line more times then anyone without question! When the UN and the other countries did nothing to stop Israeli aggressions, it make this Israeli attack on Lebanon' citizens and infrastructure possible, with Israel knowing no thing will be done to them because US will Veto any UNSC sanctions or resolutions. Israel said they were targeting citizens and their infrastructure so they would turn against Hezbollah! No roads, water, electric grid,, bridges, airports, factories, etc. they said they would turn back the clock on Lebanon 20 yrs. Referring to their LAST occupation of Lebanon! Hezbollah was formed to STIP and get rid of Israeli and US help occupation of Lebanon. US-Bush an Evangelical believe its his duty to protect Lebanon and whatever it want he will back, he told Omert on his visit to U.S. no pressure will be pout on them ever, no matter what they do. 9.11 was 5 yrs. ago. The occupation of Palestine is 40 YEARS! SIX OF THOSE 40 YRS. ON BUSH'S WATCH! Israel left Gaza but kept air, land and sea control! Gaza is a biggest prison in the world. While Israel continues to steal land, put illegal settlements and outpost on

Those who wish to return Palestine to the Palestinians should not the following:

"A Palestinian Jew is a Jewish inhabitant of Palestine throughout certain periods of Middle East history.

After the modern State of Israel was born, nearly all native Palestinian Jews became citizens of Israel, and the term "Palestinian Jews" largely fell into disuse. It is still used in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish from Muslim, Christian or Druze Palestinians who are together termed "Palestinian Arabs". (See also Arab Israelis). Jews from Arab lands are today typically not termed Arab Jews, so "Palestinian Arab" today also implies the exclusion of Palestinian Jews.

Palestinians themselves may be either Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Druze, or other. "

Source:

wikipedia

So, tell me what will you do with the native Palestinian Jews or the Israeli Arabs come to that? The solution is not as simple as you think ..........

"Israeli Arabs comprise around 15% of the country's total number of citizens (19.5% when East Jerusalem residents are included).[1] They call themselves or have been called "Israeli Arabs", "Arab citizens of Israel",[2][3][4] "Arab Israelis"[5] and "Palestinian Arabs in Israel".[6][7][8]

Most Israeli Arabs, including 170,000 Bedouin, are descendants of the 150,000 Arabs who remained within Israel's borders during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and of the Wadi Ara Palestinians who came under Israeli jurisdiction as part of a territory exchange under the 1949 Armistice Agreement with Jordan. As many as 200,000 others have emigrated into Israel from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, receiving citizenship under family-unification provisions. Israeli Arabs include 120,000 Druze and 180,000 Christian Arabs."

Very complicated isn't it? Not as simple as just telling the Israeli Jews to get out ..... what about the Israeli Arabs to they have to go as well?

For fear of Iran, the entire Arab world is to be destroyed.

In fear of Islam, the entire Muslim world is to be destroyed.

Apply legal means to resolve any conflict.

We can only punish the person who actually commit the crimes. If we cannot find them, too bad.
WE just have to live with gangsters within our midst instead of killing entire neighbourhood.

We cannot take action just based on accusations. The murder must take place first, before any action can be done to kill the suspected murderer.

The Arab worlds had tried to kill Israel for ages but still they have not succeeded. Do we allow Israel to kill all Arabs just because some Arabs have threatened Israel?

Just because some gangsters kidnap our children, should we punish everybody in the entire village for supporting and protecting the gangsters?
If our children cannot be found and in the end they were killed, should we start eliminating the entire village or should we just accept it as fate?

If the gangsters kidnap other children, should we have justification to wipe out the village again?

Everybody just have to shelter their children and protect them in the best way possible, instead of committing murder against something that has not happened to our children. Our failure to find the kidnappers is not an excuse to kill innocent supporters.

These are just simple common sense that we apply in our daily lives in our neighbourhodd. Why is this simple common sense missing in the international scene?

Why should governments support the unilateral killing of innocents in the name of punishing people that they cannot even identify exactly?

Muslim nations are weak and have no control over every body, even terrorists. Should the entire Malaysian nation be punished with attacks on nuclear plants, roads, and airports just because many Muslims want Isreal to be wiped from the face of the earth, and there are a few terrorists in Malaysia that we c

Well...... Let's now hope that Kim Howells now gets a new job. Perhaps Minister for Traffic Wardens would suit him. I hope he is sorted out good and proper. It's ok for people like us to get on the net and let rip at the World and other peoples actions and opinions....he should know better. We, as civilians, can express our opinions and feelings but if you're a Minister, i'm afraid you loose the right to express private opinions and should maintain the Government line. Time for him to leave and perhaps get a job where he is free to express his feelings.

Agree with you Ken, he should have kept his personal opinions to himself and vented them in private. All he has done is muddy the waters even more.

Israel was founded by fighting what in today's terms would be called a terrorist war. Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes, without any form of compensation or apology, to found a new Israel. Since then Israel has fought with nearly every middle eastern country at some point.

They have been supported by the U.S. in terms of money and weapons which enable them to play the bully boys of the middle east.

I remember watching the attrocities carried out by the gestapo during the second world war. If a soldier was shot, they killed all the men in the village. There appears to be little difference between Israeli tacktics and those of the Gestapo.

George Bush is just plain wrong when he says that this started when 2 Israeli soldiers were kidnapped. Israel has been raiding palestian land and kidnapping palestinians for the last three years and literally getting away with murder. Apart from France, no one has had the courage to speak out at what is essentially an operation of 'Ethnic Cleansing'.

It was said simply by an Israeli minister a few years back 'We need the land'. If Israel was serious about peace, then there would be peace. They would mend fences. They would work together with their neighbours. They would find a way.

The atrocities committed by Israel over the past week has certainly made more enemies than friends. The people of Israel are supposed to be intelligent. Please understand that to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result is the definition of insanity. The Israeli strategy is not working.

Please understand, ALL Violence has to be condemned, and that includes the violence committed by our friends.

The USA and Israel? What about Britain? The situation in Lebanon is tragic, but I find Scottish and "British" reactions to it a bit bizarre. First for decades you complain about Irish Nationalists and the Provisional IRA, and thousands of Scots join the British Army, invade and occupy Ireland, and kill hundreds of women, children and male non-combatants; now you're whining and protesting in the streets when Israel does exactly the same thing you did?! Why? Because it's on a more massive scale and has happened more quickly? Where were you when your troops were gunning down peaceful protestors in Derry? Or when the British Army was giving guns, bombs, training and intelligence to Ulster's version of Hezbollah - Loyalist terrorists? You were nowhere to be found. A British historian has investigated the deaths of everyone killed in the (most recent) Troubles in Ulster and found that the vast majority of people killed were innocent Irish Catholics killed by the "security forces" of the British government. You have as much blood on your hands as Israel. So take a good, long, hard look at Israel oh Scotland the brave, because when you do you're looking in a mirror at your own reflection. And shame on both of you.

Israels actions cannot be justified by harking on about terrorists, currently the death toll reads approx 10/1 in Israles favour, that means 10 Lebanese die for each Israeli, hardly proportionate. I don't condone the missile attacks on northern Israel, but i don't see the world condemning the mines Israel left in Southern Lebanon, the daily violations of Lebanese air space or the continued Israeli incursions into Lebanese territorial waters. Supporters of Israel brook no criticism and immediately accuse critics of being anti semitic.
A strong and meaningful UN might help matters, however the USA's and Britains continual and unconditional support for Israel along with its misguided foreign policy make the UN superfluous.
One day the penny will drop and the Arabs will realise this really is a war on Islam driven by the wests need to continually expand and seek new markets whilst it bleeds the Arab nations dry of an ever dwindling oil supply.
This is without doubt a holy war, however it is being driven by christian evangelists, not Islam!
Islamic states and their people ultimately lead a much more sustainable and simpler way of life than the greedy west, Israel is but a puppet prostituting it's statehood for American global interests.

TO ONTARIO:
It is a little bit difficult to give credit to all your "facts" when you do not even know one very basic fact. SHARON IS ALIVE. Yes he is in a coma but he is alive. I hope you researched all you other little titbits of information better than you researched that one. Or did you bother with research at all?

Re Scottish hypocracy!

I think you will find it was the paramiltary organisations which targeted civilians in the Irish conflict and that the British army was extremely restrained in the face of incredible provocation.

I think the real hypocracy was that American citizens happily bankrolled a terrorist organisation(the IRA) which bombed and maimed innocent British people. Yet as soon as you experienced terrorism in your backyard you turn the world upside down with a ridiculous and disproportionate so called war on terror. America by it's greed and political naivety has made the world a less safe place and to that end it is little wonder that America finds Israels slaughter of the innocent acceptable.

Syria could if it wished dismantle Hezbollah. It is clear that at this time it does not wish to exercise its power voluntarily.

Syria could prevent the terrorising of Israeli towns and villages with 100's (or is it now 1000's?) of what the BBC consistently describes (no doubt with a view to suggesting that they are ipso facto less than effective) as "crudely made rockets".

Syria shows us as good an example of fighting a proxy war as one could imagine.

And one can only wonder at the profound concern of Hezbollah for its Arab civilian brothers and sisters. It cares so much that it places its military machinery amongest them. So that they can feel part of the war against Israel no doubt.

May I respectfully suggest to Mr Howells that he address himself to Mr Nasrallah with the request to return our soldiers and stop lobbing katyushas at our civilians (if he would like to know how destructive and terrifying they are, let him ask someone who lived through the V2 blitz on London). If both these requests are met he'll be surprised at how quickly eveything will return to peace and tranquility

May I respectfully suggest to Mr Howells that he address himself to Mr Nasrallah with the request to return our soldiers and stop lobbing katyushas at our civilians (if he would like to know how destructive and terrifying they are, let him ask someone who lived through the V2 blitz on London). If both these requests are met he'll be surprised at how quickly eveything will return to peace and tranquility

Well Said Ross (95)

The Uk Government is condemning Israel for waging war on the people who kidnapped their soldiers in just their latest act of deliberate provacation??

This would be the same UK government which had no problem with yipping alonside President Bush's heels when he proposed decimating huge portions of Iraq??

And the same UK government currently sending its soldiers to Afghanistan?

So it's ok to kill civilians when there might be a threat to your oil supplies, but NOT ok to send terrorists the message that your peace keeping force will be backed up with all your might?

I know which Government I feel cares more about its own people .. and it's NOT my own.

War is always a tragedy. But sitting back and allowing evil to walk all over you is even more tragic.

What a pity that all this condemnation is falling on Israel - they may not be saints but compared to Hezbollah they smell strongly of roses.

FOR NO 92 - USA

You know, you think we are killers!.....I think you are wrong! At least we have the freedom to discuss, critisise, discredit and even loose out tempers when expressing ourselves.

Many poor Lebonese people tried to do that with Hizbollah and were never seen again. On the Political front, the Lebonese Prime Minister spoke out against Hizbollah....and was assasinated a couple of years ago.

Lets just be thankful we have the freedom to do what we do and say what we want. Everyone has opinions and whatever Religion, Nationality and background you come from, forms the way you think... nothing is ever 100% true, nothing is ever 100% wrong and there are always 2 sides to evrything.

We will pay for this. What are we doing. Why on earth are we standing by while Jews slaughter Christians on the pretext that they only want to kill Muslims. Bush is an evil man and has the blood of so many Christians and Muslim's on his hands for the sake of his beloved Isralis. Didn't he say he is a Christian? If he is God help him and us too, during his office he has made our World such a dangerous place.

I find it rather strange that the British "Polies" now attack the Israelis for defending themslves whilst the condemnation against Hamas and Hesbolar was not forthcomming in fact the silence was deafening.
I still remember the school busses filled with children
Blown apart in Jerusalem by hamas and the like.
Where is the condemnation now?

I support Blair-Prescott 's condemnation of Israel's overdoing it in Lebanon. Israel , Jordan ,Lebanon, and Palestine should have their own common market. As FDR knew , trade interests help make for peace.

Israel is to blame, Hisbollah is to blame the USA is to blame and the UK are to blame.

Colateral damage is when innocents or civilians are harmed or killed. Colateral damage is evil repugnant and no act of agression should be committed if there is to be any colateral damage. Colateral damage and bombings of villages, towns, cities, even wedding parties is state sanctioned terrorism.

The USA and UK have decided at that 150000 Iraqi deaths are justified in avoiding terror in their home countries. We hear i'd rather fight them (terrorists or insurgents) over there than here. Ofcourse, that is it in a bag right there. One of 'our' lives is more important than any amount of theres. It isnt even 'an eye for an eye' any more. It is war, but all out war on civilians. Nations' boundries arent recognised anymore any reason is now justified for any nation to invade another.

Saddam who is evil, was wrong to invade Kuwait. Kuwait hardly a democratic nation but a capitalist outpost created by Britain. Kuwait was acting outside of OPEC and Saddam decided that Kuwait was economically sabotaging his nation. He tried to annex Kuwait which was perhaps part of Iraq at one time. The US and allies fought the first GUlf war, for good reason no nation should invade and occupy another wantonly.
Saddam is evil to his people to his neighbours.

Now the USA and UK have commited the same offence. Israelis think OK this is the new norm, we can do this too. Hisbollah is evil, do we fight it with more evil? Not when colateral damage is an entire soveriegn state. Lebanon, didnt arm against Israel, they just got rid of their occupier now a new one is moving in. Poor Lebanon.
Violence begets further violence. Might is not often right, but the victors get to right the history books.
When will all of GOD"S children learn that agression or violence against others is violence against one's self and God.

If the west is so evolved so great so ri

If Hezobollah and other terrorist organizations did not hide amongst innocent civilians, we would not be hearing these comments. Hezbollah actually has a seat in the parliament of Lebanon.

If you were a sovereign nation surrounded by sworn enemies who support terrorist organizations who fire missiles on an unprovoked basis into major cities, blow themselves up on city buses, streets and such on a regular basis, what would you do as a country?

Israel has every right to defend itself and knock out all terrorist targets. It's a shame that the Lebonese people actually elect terrorists to political office and support terror, murder and destruction of not only Israel, but of their own people -- all in the name of Jihad and the thought of being rewarded with 70 virgins in the afterlife. My question is: When do they get their virgins -- all at once, spanning eternity (doesn't seem like much of a number), how much do they weigh (500 pounds?) and how ugly could they possibly be to "reward" those losers. To me, they couldn't be fat enough, ugly enough or spread across eternity long enough.

Bravo Colin #91
One of the few intelligent and enlightenned comment I could find in the whole column.
History did not start 2 weeks ago. Israel is resorting to the same tactic that the Gestapo used, but please don't said it because then you are antisemite.
Hezebolah is not a terrorist organisation but a resistance organisation with social and religious branch, It is well establish into the Lebanese community and no amount of bombing is going to make is disapear, quite the contrary. Shame on Israel & shame shame shame to the US who bankroll the Jewish adventure.

Please, please, let us not condone the indiscriminate and merciless bullying by one sovereign nation of another on the "War on Terror" ticket. Israels' response in both Gaza and Lebanon is wholly disproportionate and amounts to nothing more than an act of aggression rather than of defence, and should be declared illegal by the UN and all peace loving nations and religions of the world.

The capture of the two Israeli soldiers happened in Lebanon. Hezbollah captured rather than killed the invaders to have some chips in a prisoner exchange.

The Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel did not start until Israel started bombing Lebanon.

The soldiers' capture was a pretext for the invasion of Lebanon. Israel wants a weak puppet government in Lebanon.

Israel is bombing what Bush joyfully called the Cedar Revolution for democracy in Lebanon after the Syrians were forced out last year. Of course, in Bush's mind, there is no democracy if someone Bush doesn't like is elected. The Palestinians elected Hamas and Bush's response was to cut off the aid and tax receipts that rightfully belonged to Palestine and Israel embargoed, blockaded, invaded and bombed Gaza intensifying the humanitarian crisis that Israel has already created. The pretext: the capture of one Israeli soldier.

Israel has indiscriminately bombed Lebanon, not Hezbolah. Israel has bombed food and milk facilities, the power plants, the sewage disposal plants, power plants, the Beirut airport, the potable water viaducts, bridges and roads, hospitals, ambulances, civilian homes and cars and of course civilians. Almost all of the dead Lebanese were civilians, one third of them being children. On a proportional basis, Lebanon has suffered more than the US suffered on 911 in terms of civilian deaths. Half a million Lebanese are internal refugees and Israel has created a humanitarian crisis which it is only worsening by placing an embargo against Lebannon and effectively stopping any humanitarian relief. Israel has announced it's intention to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon.

Israel's lost 25, the majority of them being soldiers.

Bush has increased the amount of US taxpayer money he has given to Israel every year he has been in power; Israel is now getting more than $3 billion of US taxpayer money each year. Israel has bought $6.3 billion in war

James John

You are talking rubbish.

The two soldiers were captured south of the blue line, in Israel, unless you are one of those who believe that Israel, like Lebanon, is really part of Greater Syria.

Hizbollah has been shelling northern Israel regularly since Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, as Hamas/Isalmic Jihad/Fatah have done from Gaza since the withdrawal in 2005, and did not start in response to Israeli's bombing of Lebanon.

Re Scottish Hipocracy. How many of New York's police and firemen who died on 911 were happy to fund the IRA's terror campaign a few years earlier against the UK? Don't make me laugh by claiming the funds they gave were used to alleviate the financial worries of families of H block prisoners. The donations were used to buy guns and bomb making equipment. As you citizens of the USA are fond of saying, "What goes around comes around". Well, it came around to you in two big appalling bangs that shocked civilised people but now that it has come around you want to bomb any one who holds a different view from that of the USA's. Ask yourselves why the USA is so unpopular. Bullies are never popular! And just for the record I am a Protestant Republican who served in the British army who believes all of Ireland should be united. Its just that some people hold the mistaken belief that murder and mutilation is the best way to get what they want. It is not the way for ANYONE to win friends.

Re Scottish Hipocracy. How many of New York's police and firemen who died on 911 were happy to fund the IRA's terror campaign a few years earlier against the UK? Don't make me laugh by claiming the funds they gave were used to alleviate the financial worries of families of H block prisoners. The donations were used to buy guns and bomb making equipment. As you citizens of the USA are fond of saying, "What goes around comes around". Well, it came around to you in two big appalling bangs that shocked civilised people but now that it has come around you want to bomb any one who holds a different view from that of the USA's. Ask yourselves why the USA is so unpopular. Bullies are never popular! And just for the record I am a Protestant Republican who served in the British army who believes all of Ireland should be united. Its just that some people hold the mistaken belief that murder and mutilation is the best way to get what they want. It is not the way for ANYONE to win friends.

I don't believe anyone can support a military attack / retaliation on this scale!

I can only follow the thought that Isreal are punishing The Lebanese as a whole, for the lack of govermental control over the actions of militants acting under the Hezebolah banner.

(The hate is perpetuated from the children who grow up with death on a daily basis & a military national service in peacetime is questionable)

If these nations cannot survive without resorting to mass murder on religious and territory bickering, it is only a question of time before a worldwide police state becomes the only option.

STOP THE KILLING NOW!

John James, its true. It's terrible that it has come to this.

By the way CNN has been pretending it's a war of images, but people are not stupid. They've been sold everything through advertising for so long they can make up their own minds.

If one truly wants democracy and freedom to wave through the world, they certainly wouldn't be doing it by acting like the Imperialists their democracies once overthrew, and by the way, what Bush is doing is nothing compared to the subtle colonialization Britain undertook of the Americas.

In Canada, for example, we never fought the British, we like those redcoats, and the Commonwealth is strong to this day.

This is terrible, and a dark day, and shortly CNN will actually air evangelicals who talk about the coming rapture and armegeddon.

I would suggest the the apathy and the disgust with politics itself let the dogs of war into the Whitehouse. I have hope that American sentiment is stronger than what we're being spoonfed.

CNN is doing at least some of the reportage that never occurred during the Iraq war; even the American Military Industrial Complex cannot keep up the charade for much longer.

But in one breath I saw Anderson Cooper state Hezbollah had renounced suicide bombing and in the next that they had suicide bombers.

Take a stand before it's too late. No one's pretending anything good will be accomplished by this disgrace in Lebanon.

The sloppy grammar in these posts is making me crazy. It's "the Israelis who... or "the Muslims who..." or "the Christians who..."

Please, for God's sake (of any and all religious denominations) and mine, will you people use "who/whose" and NOT "that" in reference to animate objects (ex. a person singularly/people collectively)? Thank you. :-)

That issue aside, two of the founding principles of Jesus' preaching is love and forgiveness:

Matt: 6:43-48:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."

Matt. 18:21-22:
"Then Peter came to Him and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."

The RAPTURE will not occur until everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is on the same page....and based on appearances that isn't happening now, is it? No matter how hard GWB works to manufacture it. Every century has a crisis point when Christians get excited thinking the Rapture is about to occur, this one is ours, and like the others in the past, I suspect it will pass without the Second Coming being visited upon the world.

Personally, I do not agree with US foreign policy in the Middle East, nor do I condone

Alistair, Invergordon

It was not the UN that established "the Jews back into Palestine". The Jews had never left, and more came to join them from the late 19th century onwards, until the Jewish national homeland was fully re-established well before the formal foundation of Israel.

Many of the Arabs arrived only once the Jews started to cultivate the land and make it prosperous.

Yes, you know the problem with talking historically about the whole "conflict" is that that has led us nowhere.
It's a modern world ? Does this slaughter belong in it? No.
Stop the war now.

-This is Khal signing off. Say a prayer (no really say it) and love your neighbours.

Israel, has the right to defend its borders, because of the more than useless, hopeless, pathetic, United Nations, who is kidding who?
This UN is going the same way as the league of Nations, no one in charge is fully aware of how great a system it could be, if it was operated correctly . It is so blighted by in fighting, it does not act as a unit, so what is the point of it?
A new system should be put into place as soon as possible.
Hezbollah started this fight, because it wants all people to follow it, with it's stone age ideas.
Is Hezbollah illegally in Lebanon? where are the rightfull rullers of this country, what are they doing to stop this? Why did they allow them in, in the first place?

All of the posters who do not agree with Israel's stance or existance in the Middle East should have a look at Post 10 on this Scotsman board:

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=13&id=1068812006

Perhaps, now you might have some clue as to what the Israeli's are dealing with. It is the Jews today and if they succeed there ......... we're next!!

If you don't believe that then you are as foolish as the appeasers before WW2. Don't expect any finer feelings from an Islamic radical ........ they only want power by whatever means they can get it. Get your heads out of the sand..... ostriches!! Time to wake up.

Katherine 117; you can stick the new testament, the old testament and any testament you like right where it hurts. Its religion and religious nutters like you that cause wars. Hope that my grammar is correct.

And what a pair of religious nutters Bush and Blair are; apparently, Bush has a direct line to God and often has cosy chats with him. As I say, nutters.

Brian

There is no more fanatic than s/he who has no religion in their soul.

Brian @ 123

Agreed, Katherine's intellectual and religious argument leaves me cold as well. Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists and any other religious fundamentalists that you care to name should be blasted into outer space to find their own planet and they can all fight each other to death about their religion and leave the rest of us out of it.

The irony of it is that Jesus was a Jew and that all 3 major world religions derive from the same source. All these people have done for centuries is fight about who is right and make everyone else's life a misery in the process. So just cut it with the preaching please.... some of us don't believe in the first coming never mind the second one!!

Donald (121) you have it right. I am sick of the people who say don't blame it on any one.
They are powerful interests behind this chaos. Oil of course is a big part of it, the armament industry is right behind, the banks. The western civilization does not look so wonderful when you look at the underside They finance their puppets in order to control the agenda.
Religions have been use to manipulate people from the beginning of time, is in it sad that in the 21 century the large majority of people cannot see beyond this smoke screen.

No solution can be found if you don't lay the blame were it belong. We had Nuremberg, It is time for a new court.

Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot - all religiously driven fanatics.

We should blast all the aetheist nutters into outer space and the world would be a safer place.

Lebanon, must act with Israel to clear the Islamic rabble from their country, if this country wants to get back to the present age, this is 2006 not 600, so come on help Israel to rid your lovely country of these obnoxious individuals once and for all

The unfavorable judgment emerging from the free speech exchange about this subject has brought the supporters of Israel to their knees in argument as they now abandon even the anti-Semitism and Holocaust-remembrance themes in favor of a pure appeal to cowardice, telling us that their waging war against the infrastructure and civilians of Lebanon is done on our behalf in order to prevent "the destruction of the free world, and the creation of an Islamic new order of the world."

If Israel wishes to claim to be the knight in shining armor in service of the whole world in some religious campaign on our behalf it needs ponder with us what history will name the effort. The killing and maiming of children with American F-16s, and the destruction yesterday of Lebanese media who reported the same is a new Israeli obscenity built upon Israeli barbarism which is unfortunately consistent with Israel's unique method of waging war.

Israel needs to consider whether at some point the rest of the world might be more willing to confront terrorism on our own streets than continue to have the Israelis as our self-appointed representative.

And when that happens, the reliable Israeli “right-to-exist” rhetorical counterpunch will take on a new meaning and might be more clearly revealed as fallacious than it ever has before. The sovereign right to exist depends ultimately on the sovereign's maintenance of, and conformance with, international standards of civility. Israel is hearing the initial debate in world judgment of that question the last few days.

God bless you Iain you misguided fool.

Pierre

You are partly right. There are powerful interests behind this chaos - they are called godless communists and fascists. They seek to destroy the wealth creators in society, and reduce the world to rubble. They use a massive network of useful idiots to finance their work and control the agenda, and the stupidity of gullible people like them has been used since the beginning of time to advance their destructive agenda.

it is good that you have spotted this, even though you have got some the details slightly wrong.

However, the idea of a new court before which all communists, Marxists and their fellow travellers be tried for crimes against humanity is a good one.

Hitler harnessed the already existing anti-semitism in Europe caused by the Catholic Church's determination to portray the Jews as Christ killers. This wasn't even repealed until 1965:

"Although the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ, still, what happened in his Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews without distinction then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should take pains then, that in catechetical work or in preaching the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.......etc etc.

Source:

Papal Declaration - Nostra Aetate 1965

Tell me, where did the Pope speak out against the Holocaust while it was happening? The Nazis only did what the Holy Catholic Church had commanded during the last 14 centuries.

What about the Inquistion and all the religious wars in Europe which lasted for centuries.

Intolerance of others can become some people's God.

Iain; I think that you have completely lost the plot. The powerful interests behind the chaos are the bully-boy capitalists of this world who will take, at whatever cost to others, the natural resources of the world solely to satisfy their own greed. Thats what the great US of A is doing; world domination in order that they can make scarce resources theirs.

I really needed to make comment on this issue after reading the sheer nonsense written by Moran Mohan. Firstly i would like to point out that she criticises Hezbollah and calls all those who oppose her belief's anti-semitic. Now i am not Jewish but i am also not a racist and just because of the fact that i think it is wrong for Israel to kill innocent civilians, including women and children, does not make me a racist. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Israeli's have no concerns about killing hundreds of innocent civilians as they have bombed busy streets and houses along with raiding cities and shooting at will. Israel is yet again trying to weild its power over the Middle East and not suprisingly still being backed by the Bush administration who supply Israel with the missiles it has used so far. It is an outrage that in this day and age innocent people are being murdered by countries hiding behind the fact that they could be terrorists.

What is a terrorist?
In 1314, Robert the Bruce - or William Wallace before him?
In 1640, was he a Roundhead.
In 1745/6 a Jacobite? Or a Redcoat?
In 1776 in Concorde Massachusetts, was he a Minuteman (the British thought so)
In 1920, was he a Black and Tan, or an IRA man?
In 1948 Palestine, was he Menachim Begin?
In 1958 Kenya, was he Jomo Kenyatta?
Or similar timesacale Cyprus, was he Archbishop Makarios?
Move on to Ireland again 1978 on, was he Martin McGuiness (we now sit down in discussions with him)? The majority of the Irish population probably view him as a freedom fighter, and so does the US!
New York 2001 - the 9/11 bombers - are they terrorists?
Washington and London today - George Bush and Tony Blair - are they terrorists?
Lebanon today - Hizbollah and the IDF - are they terrorists?

Strange how history tends to shift perspectives, so I don't view any of them as terrorists. But some of them should probably stand before a war crimes trial. Interesting how it has mainly been British screwups that have generated most of these situations.

Alison

Intolerance of religion is the god of aetheists.

Brian

Of course that is what they want you to think, so you can be diverted from struggling against the real communist/fascist enemy, which desires to reduce us all back to absolute poverty and to lay waste the planet in pursuit of their godless creed and their lust for absolute power.

Iain said:

"We should blast all the aetheist nutters into outer space and the world would be a safer place."

How interesting, that in reply to my post you should assume that I am an aetheist because I do not believe in the first or second coming of Jesus. There are other religions in the world, not just Christianity, I may belong to one of them.

I have no problem with people who quietly go about their religious practice. What I do object to are those who hang their hat on one religion or another and try and force it onto others. I believe in tolerance and letting others live and let live, I do not like fundamentalism in whatever guise it comes in.

Brian 123. Your grammar appears to be fine. It also appears you are so lodged behind your screen of hate that you have misunderstood my point. It is partly my fault for not putting the word ours in quotation marks:

"Every century has a crisis point when Christians get excited thinking the Rapture is about to occur, this one is ours, and like the others in the past, I suspect it will pass without the Second Coming being visited upon the world."

I meant "this one is 'ours'" in the collective sense of the portion of this century in which we are all living now, not ours in the sense that places me personally in with Christians. I thought I was being clear. Gauging by your hostile reaction, I wasn't. I apologize and humbly ask for your forgiveness. If I come across to you as a "religious nutter," then I guess that cannot be helped because the interpretation of my words is up to you. You know, this is one of the debates I had with my professors during my thesis defense? Question: How much of the impact of words is due to the author, and how much is due to the personal experience and cultural baggage a reader brings to the text?

Goodnight Brian and have a hug. :-)

Alison; ignore Iain; he's ranting. Probably had too many special brews this afternoon.

James

Hizbollah store their rockets and other weapons in homes, hopsitals, mosques, nurseries and schools. They physically prevent civilian from leaving theior weapon store homes. They use children as shields. They site their military headquarters and infrastructure in the midst of civilian areas. They glory in the slaughter of children as it assists their Goebbelesque propanganda war, and they murder their own children for this purpose.

The legal and moral responsibilty for all the deaths of civilians lies with Hizbollah .

Hug, hug Katherine.

Alison

Where have I said that you were an aetheist? The only way that can apply is if you catergorise yourself as a nutter, and therefore object to being termed an aetheist nutter.

Brian

Ah, the old tactic of personal abuse, when you can't rebut the argument. Says more about the perpetrator than the victim.

Someone send Iain to Lebanon.

Iain,

I am neither, may I assume that you are a Christian but not a fundamentalist?

I did actually agree with some your post at 142 by the way, although I might not have put it in such strong terms.

Alison

I will shut up, and apologise for any offence inadvertently caused to you.

Iain; I have rebutted your arguement but you have seemed to have missed my rebuttal.

Thank you Iain.

I have just had a look at the Scotsman board on this website "The innocent pay as war returns to Beirut".

There is a comment on there by a poster called Mohammed from Beirut who quite frankly has further convinced me that Israel are doing the right thing. If Israel falls then Iran will assume control in the Middle East and then we will all know about it.

Heavens to Murgatroyd............it's Lucifer ....... is that the one from Ayrshire or another one?

Thought you'd been taken back to the loony bin, Lucifer, haven't seen you on these boards for ages... not since all the kerfuffle about the World Cup and your chaps not supporting our chaps.

Nice to see you're still as much of a fruitcake as ever!!

Is that Brian from Lisburn who has been posting on here ......... making friends and influencing people again Brian!! Old Lucifer's escaped from the nuthouse .....its just like old times!!

AYE WEE NIGEL

Brian

If that is a "rebuttal", no wonder you are losing in the battle that is history.

Alison @ 133

"Tell me, where did the Pope speak out against the Holocaust while it was happening? The Nazis only did what the Holy Catholic Church had commanded during the last 14 centuries."

He did speak out -- even before it happened. In 1937 Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical entitled "Mit Brennender Sorge" (see below) warning Germans against Hitler's attempt to replace Christianity with neopaganism in order to facilitate a "war of extermination" (meaning the extermination not only of Jews but of several other nations as well).

During the war the Catholic Church in Germany may have done very little to help the Jews but in other countries the story was very different. Many Jewish lives were saved by Polish priests, some of whom were caught and executed by the Germans, who simply couldn't understand why Poles often ignored warnings not to help the Jews, despite the mandatory death sentence for the helper and his entire family. Fr Kolbe, for example, was sent to Auschwitz for giving shelter to hundreds of Jews in his monastery.

As for the Pope, well ... he put his money where his mouth was and gave sanctuary to hundreds if not thousands of Jews in the Vatican. These included the Chief Rabbi of Rome, who -- having survived the war -- converted to Christianity. You didn't know that, did you?

You forget that the Nazis were vehemently anti-Christian and above all anti-Catholic. Jews just happened to be at the top of Hiler's exterminaton list. Poles and Russians were second. Then came Gypsies, homosexuals and the handicapped.

Actually, the Jews shouldn't have been on the list at all, since most of them were traditionally pro-German and anti-Polish (even anti-British), which just goes to show how possessed Hitler was. Certainly some Jews had invented communism, which Hitler sincerely detested, but then it had been with the help of the Germans that Lenin and his Jewish friends were sent to Russia to do the

for Alison @ 133:

"If, then, the tree of peace, which we planted on German soil with the purest intention, has not brought forth the fruit, which in the interest of your people, We had fondly hoped, no one in the world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to lay the blame on the Church and on her Head. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the "enemy" of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies. [ ... ]

Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God. [ ... ]

None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15). [ ...]

In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders

Good God Rob!

Hey Rob cut the crap and come back to hearth.
What you do when you are dead is of no interest to us the "Normal" people

PIERRE. HEARTH? WIND AND FIRE. GLEE.

Yes Luci It's coming to Earth too, Thank Bush Wildfire for it

Are the Israeli's Stupid...

They have killed a few millitants,

MURDERED HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT CIVILIANS

Driven over half a million civilians from their homes

Destroyed thousands of people's homes, their lives

And they have only just started! When will they stop... Look at what they did and are still doing to Palestine!

The actions the Israelis have taken will have probably recruited a few hundred thousand new Resistance Fighters for Hesbollah and Hammas.

The actions the Israelis have taken will have generated a few hundred million $ in donations to fund Hesbollah and hammas for the next 10 years.

The actions the Israelis have taken will generate enough donations from around the world to buy more Katushas, more explosives.

It's about time the Jews, Israelis and the rest of the world is honest about it and stop the MURDER, GENOCIDE and ETNIC CLEANSING Being Committed by the ISRAELIS.

Rob,

I do not wish to cause you any offence or your religion however, during the war representations were made to the Vatican by Jewish organisations, by a few bishops and by President Roosevelt they all received ambiguous replies. The Pope condemned race hatred, he cared for all God's children irrespective of denomination, he begged for protagonists in the war to conduct themselves with magnanimity. Never did he speak out against the Final Solution nor did he once call out to the leaders in all countries to make particular efforts to save the Jews.

This is not to say that lesser Catholics did not speak out ......... the Provost of St Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin prayed publicly for the Jews and went to prison for it. Further examples of Catholic compassion occurred in Belgium, France and Poland and saved thousands of lives. The Pope did not make a public utterance even when the deportation to Auschwitz started from Rome in October 1943, although as you so rightly say many found refuge within the religious orders in the vicinity of the Vatican with the knowledge of the Pope.

The Vatican did not intercede directly until 1944 on behalf of the Hungarian Jews but by then it was too little too late.

If the Pope had spoken out before it is likely that more would have been saved.

Pope John Paul II made a gesture of reconciliation in April 1986 when he recited Psalm 113 within the precincts of a synagogue in the old Jewish ghetto in Rome and the congregation responded with Psalm 150.

Just remember it was US, the Brits, who started this whole mess at the end of the last war. If it hadn't been for British "know-best" there wouldn't have been a Palestinian issue in the first place. That was then and it doesn't help the current situation. The way forward is for the common-sense world to stand up to Cowboy George and follow a course of decent diplomacy to solve this kind of problem, otherwise nothing will change and polarisation will just get worse.

Dear Israelis

The Next Time a Suicide Bomber Kills a Bus load of people,

the next time a Katusha lands on one of your cities..

Don't blame Hammas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran....

IRAELIS have just MURDERED over 300 INNOCENT CIVILIANS

It is the Israeli Government that are INTENTIONALLY creating unrest in Palestine and Lebanon,

Your Governments' actions fuel the hatred and provide funding for the guns and Missiles being used against you.

Blame yourself and all the other Israelis for letting it happen, Blame the THIEVES in the Israeli Settlemets in Palestine!

Crikey Lucifer,

They all take life a bit seriously......... I think Sarah is trying to get your job, she sounds a bit angry although probably not quite as barmy as you ...... old chap!!

Brian I am back on your "send them to another planet" remark. Blanket condemnation of "Fundamentalism," of any religion is naive at best. All it means is, the faithful under that label believe what the religion in its purest, most literal, form teaches according to their written tenents. Islam has at least three "Fundamentalist" sects, of which two are dangerous in that they teach "Jihad" as a must do among four others, and killing "Infadels" as well as lying and cheating them (for the cause of Islamic ascendency) is part and parcel of Jihad! This makes it extremely hard for a person outside of Islam to negotiate in good faith with a Muslim fundamentalist. I am not sure the Sufis are dangerous, but the militant Shiites (like Hizbullah, etc.) and the militant Sunnis (like Hamas, etc.) are more dangerous than the atomic bomb. Sunnis are the largest sect and they are not all dangerous unless they get religious. They have the full spectrum of adherrants from folk Muslim believers who don't even keep diet laws and rarely attend the Mosque, to militant Sunnis, like Hamas, who are entirely bound up in Islamic world ascendency, and see Israel as an embarrassing historical block in what for them has to be established Arab territory (since Saladim took out the so-called Christians in the Crusades) For them Israel is a hiccup on the road to world domination! In short there is not any reason for taking Muslims at their word. For them Allah smiles and forgives all other sins when they kill us, lie to us, cheat us! Why is it then that the preponderance of you in this blog from all over the world, believe the news feeds that Islamic fundamentalists constantly supply the media, owing to their very extensive media Jihad? The BBC for one eats it up like cornflakes! I am getting a few internet-based posts that paint a horrible picture of destruction in Israel communities where rockets have been falling for weeks now. Where was th

Upon the tragic loss of my own family, my Great Aunt (who had experienced considerable hardship herself) once told me: "Lucy - you have two options before you: you can take what's happened to you and allow it to make you better, or bitter".

Whilst it's true that much of human history is littered with wars and the slaughter of innocents, in truth, the saddest fact is simply this: that after thousands of years, humankind hasn't learnt to respect life enough to set down their weapons and negotiate differences in a civilised fashion. We continue to breed and to enable aggressors. Innocent people die by the masses, and still, their lives are worth nothing to those who remain the driving force behind all war. But what's the root of this? Why do we continue to enable this behaviour?

Well, keeping the masses under-educated is not only a tax saving in most countries, but it leaves vulnerable to propaganda those who cannot afford the costs of better education, whether that propaganda be religious or secular. It's remarkable how no one thinks of the long-term consequences when education budgets are cut, or curricula are "revised" and "dumbed-down" and focused to produce a specific bias. Nobody says a word. Many justify such decisions with comments such as, "for what do they need all that education?"

Intellectually, we can argue ad infinitum over the rights of Israel to attack Lebanon, the rights of Lebanon to attack Israel, and so forth; however, the basic tenets remain: all such actions are reprehensible; human carnage of every sort is reprehensible; and yet, never does humankind learn the lesson. Barbarism is not exclusive to any single race.

It's been said oft that "only a fool makes the same mistake twice"; given the many times humankind has marched to war, what label might one apply to those who make the same mistake, thousands upon thousands of times? Surely, "fool" would

Of course Israel has the right to defend itself against Hesbollah and Hamas. The first question is whether its response has been 'proportionate' (What a terrible word to use about warfare and killing people). What we have seen so far is that the most significant victims have been innocent Lebanese. The second question is whether its response has been wise. This action creates more recruits for Hesbollah and may persuade fair-minded people who might otherwise be willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, that both sides carry blame, so wish a plague on both their houses.

Hitler was theistic. That is true. The others' atheism had nothing to do with their having millions killed.It was their irrationality of their faiths- they did not use reason and real facts. Their world views were outlandish . Communism had no way of making the many prosperous, only the few.Comminusts found scapegoats to justify their murders. And do not forget that Luther would have gassed Jews if he had the chance and he harmed the peasants. Calvin was a psyschopath as far as I am concerned . Thankfully non-theists like Buffett,Gates, Soros and Turner give bountifully to charity and love to pay their taxes. Whom we favor must expand earthwide and is happening . People eschew the evil morals of the Tanakh for humanist morals when they rationally look at what is good for humans , other animals and the enviornment. It is not to please a Sky Pappy, but to do the good for its own sake that is moral . Logic is the bane of theists.[Dawkins knows philosophy of religion while McGrath has only the I just say so of faith!]

That is communist. Sorry for the typo.

Lyall says that Israel has the right to defend itself.
I would suggest that as an invader of Palestine it has no rights whatsoever, and has outstayed what little welcome it received.

For Generations to come, people will associate the words

ISRAELI & JEW

With

Bombing and Killing Civilians,
Occupation,
Oppression,
Genocide,
Ethnic Clensing,
Bulldozing Houses
Land Grabbing,
Terrorist,
Thief,
Concentration Camp.. (the ones they created)
War Crimes
Crimes Against Humanity

I do not say all Israelis & Jews are guilty of these things.....Most Jews and many Israellis are far from this.

It is just they will all be tarred with the same brush for what is happening in Palestine and now Lebanon.

Watch the Video, decide for yourself;
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-78281237143849...

Sarah @ 173

Who is the video made by? Is it a totally unbiased report?

The unfortunate thing with the Middle East conflict is that people's views tend to be polarised. There are native Palestinian Jews and the Jews have been in the Holy Island since antiquity. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi have not yet condemned the Israeli action against Hezbollah ...... why do you think that is? Most likely because they are Sunni majorities who do not want to see Iran rise to power and establish a Shia crescent in the region.

The Lebanese and the Palestinian Arabs are being used by Hezbollah and Hamas and ultimately Iran and Syria. These 4 are gaining maximum propoganda from this and sympathy for their cause thoroughout the world.

The world will rue the day if Israel fails to destroy Hezbollah.

Sorry correct my post I meant Holy Land not Holy Island that's in Northumberland!!!

I side with Israel against Hezbollah's love of killing ,but cannot condone everything she does. Jews as individuals have given much to civilzation ;but the Tanakh is not a gift,but a millstone . As the Englishman at the Guadian says: religion is mythinformation. Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism/rationalism.

It's great to see so many people being so emotional about the situation in the Middle East. Everyone believing that their opinion or theory is the correct one. Also seeing people talk about it and puting forward ideas, proposals and comments. It's actually better than watching Prime Ministers question time on TV.

JAMES...YOUR COMMENT AT 129 is so true. I'm sure the Lebonese Government don't want this on their land and Israel could definately do without it.

Isn't it a pity they can't talk like all of us and get it sorted.....I suppose if we had Hizbollah threatening us we'd be a bit quieter as well.

When the war aganst Sadam HUSSIAN 2as on The Forces could put a Missile through a Hotel window cos we had good intelligance, WHY hasent Israel got the same intelligance service, going insted of bombing all over the place, surly it would be better if they had some sort of intellegance showing where the Hamas & Helballah TERRORISTES are fireing there Missiles from so they could have a direct hit every time this would save Savillian lives and cut down the terrorists sending them back to say Iran, or Syria THEY MUST BE STOPPED,

All decent people are disgusted by Israel's gross abuse of the Lebanese people under the excuse of self defense.
It's interesting to see that the age old cry of "anti semite" is being used once again to try and quash free speech and any criticism of Israel. It's always a good tactic.
Israel illegally occupies the West Bank, east Jerusalem, the Shebaa farms area, the Golan Heights, and sends its tanks and fighter planes into any of its neighbour's countries at will, and with the complete unswerving blind blessing of the US.
Israel has taken charge of subsoil water resources in the West Bank and pumps the water off to Israel proper.
Israel has been holding Lebanese people in jail for over 20 years (a life sentence in any civilized country is 14 years). Then can you be surprized that Hezbollah is angry and wants the release of these people.
As usual Israel, the vicious thug, tries to blame its neighbours. When a kid at school says everyone else is to blame for starting the reoccuring continuous fights, any reasonable person comes to the conclusion that the kid is the cause of the fighting.
It is high time to re evaluate The Israel Experiment and perhaps pull the plug on this ill conceived project that has brought death and destruction to the Middle East.

Soreofhing! What an interesting pseudonym! What is it really? Hussein? So you want to pull the plug on the Israel, Experiment? What then? Just pack up all the Jews, Christians, Arabs and Druze + others in Israel and send them to....Mexico!

Alison @ 163

"Never did he [the Pope] speak out against the Final Solution nor did he once call out to the leaders in all countries to make particular efforts to save the Jews."

Speak to whom? To the German Nazis who were in control of most of Europe? They knew perfectly well that the Pope was on the side of the Jews -- which is exactly why they even planned to have him kidnapped in 1942 (cf. the newly discovered notes of SS General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff : according to the plan the Vatican was also to have been demolished).

To the Americans and the British? Since when have they listened to any pope?

The sad truth is that although the Polish Resistance sent emissaries to Britain and America in 1942 to alert the world about the Final Solution (a news story which then simply didn't exist) Churchill and Roosevelt refused to do anything about it.

http://remember.org/karski/kexcrpt3.html

Worse still, even the big Jewish organisations refused to do anything, which is why Szmul Zygielbojm committed suicide on May 12, 1943.

And why didn't they want to help? Because the colonisation of Palestine was more important! "One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland". That's how the Jews of the West reacted to the requests for help from Nazi-occupied Poland.

Initially the Nazis even considered asking for a ransom but that too was deemed unacceptable by the Jewish organisations who were approached via Switzerland.

more for Alison @ 163:

http://www.tcrnews2.com/piusjews.html

--It is well documented by Jewish scholars like Joseph Lichten of B'nai B"rith that Pius used the assets of the Vatican to ransom Jews from the Nazis and that the Vatican under Pius ran an extensive network of hide-outs. Even the Pope's summer residence, Castel Gondolfo, was used to hide fugitive Jews. The Pope, moreover, took personal repsonsibility for the children of deported Jews;

--Largely as a result of the Church's efforts, the Jews in Italy had a far higher survival rate under Nazi occupation than was the case in other countries; estimates of the number of Jews saved by the Vatican's efforts range up to several hundred thousand; this was one reason why the chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism at the end of the war;

--In appreciation of what Pius did for the Jews, the World Jewish Congress made a large cash gift to the Vatican in 1945; in the same year, Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem sent a "special blessing" to the Pope "for his lifesaving efforts on behalf of the Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy"; and when Pius died in 1958, Israel's Foreign Minister Golda Meir gave a him moving eulogy at the United Nations for the same reason;

--What was to be gained by Pius's getting up on a soap box and lashing out at the Nazis? Both the International Red Cross and the World Council of Churches came to the same conclusion as the Vatican: relief efforts for the Jews would be more effective if the agencies remained relatively quiet; yet, you never hear anybody attacking the Red Cross for its "silence" about the Holocaust;

--In 1942, the Catholic hierarchy of Amsterdam spoke out vigorously against the Nazi treatment of the Jews; the Nazi response was a redoubling of round-ups and deportations; by the end of the war, 90 percent of the Jews in Amsterdam w

Rob

I know well that most of the free world did nothing to save the Jews, however, the point is that Hitler although totally irreligious himself used the already exisiting anti-semitism in Europe to his advantage in carrying out the Final Solution. This could not have happened without, in some cases, the assistance of the occupied countries and in many the total indifference to the plight of the Jews.

The Pope could have appealed to the occupied Catholic countries of Europe and maybe more would have been saved.

You may already have visited this link http://www.yadvashem.org/ which is the website of the commemoration of the Holocaust in Jerusalem. There is a lot on there about those who are revered as "The Righteous Among the Nations" they are the countries and people, that they know of, who saved Jews.

Regards

Rob,

You could also try this website if you want:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism...

Please know that I have nothing against any religion in this world and do not want to antagonise anyone. Your comments are very interesting and knowledgeable ........ I have long been interested in this particular aspect of world history.

Alison @ 183

"The Pope could have appealed to the occupied Catholic countries of Europe and maybe more would have been saved."

Perhaps this will convince you:

ROME, FEB. 22, 2001 (Zenit.org).- New York Rabbi David Dalin has proposed that Pope Pius XII be proclaimed "Righteous Among the Nations," the highest award given by the state of Israel to persons who were outstanding in assisting persecuted Jews during World War II. [ ... ] No other Pope had been so widely praised by Jews, and they were not mistaken. Their gratitude, as well as that of the entire generation of Holocaust survivors, testifies that Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile." [ ... ]

Rabbi Dalin maintains that many recently published books have not understood the way in which Pius XII opposed Nazism and all that he did to save Jews from the Holocaust.

In this connection, the rabbi refers to a great number of events, documents, declarations and books. "Any fair and thorough reading of the evidence demonstrates that Pius XII was a persistent critic of Nazism. Consider just a few highlights of his opposition before the war. Of the 44 speeches Pacelli gave in Germany as Papal Nuncio between 1917 and 1929, 40 denounced some aspect of the emerging Nazi ideology. In March 1935, he wrote an open letter to the Bishop of Cologne, calling the Nazis 'false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.' That same year, he assailed ideologies 'possessed by the superstition of race and blood' to an enormous crowd of pilgrims at Lourdes."

"His first encyclical," the article states, "'Summi Pontificatus,' rushed out in 1939 to beg for peace, was in part a declaration that the proper role of the papacy was to pleas to both warring sides rather than to blame one. But it very pointedly quoted St. Paul, 'there is neither Gentile nor Jew', using the word 'Jew' specifically in the context of rejecting racial ideology. The N

Pius XII certainly used the reason, that he was protecting Catholics for not speaking out and I can see why he would do that.

I have searched the Yad Vashem site for him but he does not, yet appear to be numbered among "The Righteous" perhaps he will be as more and more vatican records are opened to the researchers.

It is easy to apportion blame to others but in the end the only ones who should be accused are the Nazis.

Nice debating with you ........ thanks for your information.

Another Video about what's happening;
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-81822049927931...

A.j. @ 174

Probably the Video is too kind to the Israelis...

It does not interview the Dead Lebanese Children, Their Parents, Brothers and Sisters. It does not really comprehend the immense sadness and tragedy caused.

Watch the Video, decide for yourself;
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-78281237143849...

David, my pseudonym "Soreofhing" is of some meaning to a select few--nothing to do with Hussein, Jews, arabs or anything in the Middle East as you would believe. Maybe one day I will let you into my secret, but rest assured it's nothing sinister.
No, I have no desire to give home to the Israelis in this wonderful country called Mexico.
I had in mind the US of A.
The US squanders over $3 billion annually on foreign aid to Israel and a similar figure on military aid. This scandalous situation had been going on for nearly 40 years. Do your math and calculate the dead Africans who could have used this money to eat--but I suppose the US can give away its cash to whomever it pleases-rich agressive Israelis or starving Africans. We can see where their priorities lie. Just that in this case it seems the US has been highjacked by the Jewish lobby starting with AIPAC.
Now what better place than the US to give home to the Israelis. They would be happy there, the US would save over $6 billion yearly, the arab and Muslim world would be happy. Everyone's happy.
This ill conceived experiment called the state of Israel was a mistake from the word go. It just doesn't fit in with the ethnic, religious or cultural background of the area. Its like establishing Sing Sing in the grounds of the White House--it just doesn't fit.
For great evils, great solutions.
We should be practical.
Let's shut up shop in Israel and start again in an appropriate place.

Hello 174,
There is no more blind than the one who does not want to see No more deaf than the one who does not want to hear etc, etc.....
The video below is a must see for anyone who even contemplate to support the Israelie occupation but be careful it could change your whole thought process and see your television in a whole new different way, take off your pink sunglass!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-78281237143849...

Sorry try this lnk instead http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-78281237143849...

get real. the Jews are doing the job the Brits and Yanks should have already done...Do you not realize that Lebanon had 23 members of that group in their government? What kind of people are they?

The plain facts are this: If Israel loses this war,we
will loose the next.
So the morning after Israel does lose: File quietly,
proceed to the nearest Mosque,and change religion.

Where were all you bleeding hearts when Suicide
bombers walk inot o bus station,bus,restaurant,or
the street,and blew themselves up.

What I suggest is this. the next comments, on this
subjects be confined to those people,neither Jew,or
muslim,who have spent time in Israel,Lebanon.

I do qualify.

Alison @ 183 yet again

"the point is that Hitler although totally irreligious himself used the already exisiting anti-semitism in Europe to his advantage in carrying out the Final Solution. This could not have happened without, in some cases, the assistance of the occupied countries and in many the total indifference to the plight of the Jews"

As far as I know the only glaring case of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers with regard to the elimination of Jews was in France under the Vichy regime, which in fact was a holiday camp compared with Poland. In fact Poland, which then had the largest concentration of Jews in the world, together with all the serious economic and political tensions that that brought (given recent history and plain poverty) adamantly refused to cooperate with the Germans in any way. Any Pole who thought otherwise was promptly executed for treason by the Resistance Movement. You'd have to have been pretty thick to collaborate with your worst enemy anyway, after seeing what they were doing to your country.

Personally I think that the whole truth -- however unpalatable -- should be known. The trouble with the Jews is that they've often been misled and indeed abused by their own leaders, who too often have turned out to be wolves in sheep's clothing. They're often just as rascist as the Nazis were.

By opting for the rascist version of Israel (as opposed to the Jewish-Palestinian commonwealth advocated by people like the late Yehudi Menuhin) the big Jewish organisations have condemned themselves to running a huge propaganda or disinformation machine to encourage the ghetto mentality they want to preserve. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, there are thousands of Jewish actvists out there concocting articles about the antisemitism of Pius XII, for example, or making films (like Spielberg's Schindler's List) which show Polish soldiers *in uniform* sending Jews to Auschwitz (as if this was possible under th

Believe your own eyes instead of listening to their propaganda. All we ask is to exchange jewish hostages for Samir Quntar - our hero freedom fighter and honorary Palestinian. He is locked in a jewish jail for 542 years, imagine! But instead of swapping prisoners of war, these criminals attacked us! Trust your eyes, look at the map - how can a bunch of european immigrants in a tiny country with no history in the Middle East stop Jihad?

Pierre @ 190

Sorry, but I do not believe everything I see on the internet or on the television. Casualties make more emotive viewing than bald details about what is actually going on and they increase the ratings for the TV station. People want to be entertained when they turn on their TV they do not want to be frightened into the realisation that as David has said if Israel lose this we will all suffer.

Iran does not care about the Palestinians or the Lebanese or the Israelis, they do not care about anyone who is not like them. I think you need to take off your rose coloured spectacles and start using your brain and not your heart.

I know David has probably gone to bed furious with me, but rest assured he will find something to say tomorrow after maybe another 100 or 200 Lebanese civilians have been slaughtered.

I would like to open the subject of the media and its coverage of this conflict.

Fox News is a good example of what I would like to discuss.
They have been covering this conflict in their usual polished way. They have reporters on Israel's northern border and also in Lebanon, however that is where the fair coverage ends.
On the Israeli side they have regular in depth interviews with the ex Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and others, Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev, Israeli army brigadiers, Israeli F-16 fighter pilots, the family members of the captured Israeli soldiers, together with shots of injured Israeli citizens. All very complete and professional and who can complain about this coverage?

On the other hand they give the occasional timebite to a Hezbollah spokesman or a Lebanese government spokesperson and some brief views of the damaged areas of Lebanon. The Hezbollah person's words are barely comprehensible due to his bad English but no translator is provided. No shots of injured Lebanese civilians. No shots of the stinking piles of human bodies in Lebanon.
Just warm cosy shots of US and other foreign nationals being rescued and smiling happily as they board a ship.

And now back to Israel with words like "Now let's hear from the "Israeli boys in the tanks" or perhaps "Just take a look at the wounded in Haifa" or "Here we have a drawing of the inside of a Hezbollah rocket showing the copper plate with ball bearings behind it, designed to mulilate people".
On and on it goes, until Fox News becomes a mouthpiece for the Israeli Government spewing out their constant propaganda. We all know that if something is repeated time and time again many will become convinced or at the very least sysmpa

Thoroughly recommend the link at 191. It lasts about 80 minutes but you will see that not all Israelis are hawks but those who are are pretty vicious people. A lot of support exists in Israel for the rights of the Palestinians who are fighting against a military occupying army. We still watch black and white films of the French resistance doing the same thing and regard them as brave heroes. The fact that the USA public are ignorant of the facts is down to their gutless reporters who ingratiate themselves with the White House. God, John Wayne must be turning in his grave at the way the his country is being manipulated by the Viet Nam draft dodgers who profit at the misfortunes of others. Thanks Pierre.

Mohammad 195

Your comment is disgusting. For those who do not know who Samir Quntar is, he is serving a life sentence for having travelled into Israel in 1979, entered a house, murdered its owner and his four-year-old daughter solely for being Jewish, and then killed a policeman before being captured. There is a legitimate debate as to how long someone serving a life sentence for three murders should actually serve in prison, but Quntar is not a "hero freedom fighter", but a gutless cowardly baby-killing murderer.

Mohammad 199

You demonstrate by your racist Nazi rant glorifying in the slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Jews exactly why Israel is fighting for the future of the world. It also demonstrates clearly the mindset of many who fight Israerl, not because of occupation or oppression or any of the other fictitious reasons apologists for terror use, but the fact that you hate Jews merely because they exist.

I today reviewed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted in 1989 and ratified by my country Canada in Dec.1991. Among them,
Article # 6 "the right to survival and development"and
Article # 19,the right to Protection from abuse and neglect. Well over 100 Lebanese children are now dead. More will die as a direct result of the deprivation they will experience.Are Lebanese children ,not children? Where is the UN ?

I am deeply saddened by the vision of wanton destruction of Lebanon, after more than twenty years of rebuilding. I am angered by the meddling of Iran in the fragile politics of the Middle East at the cost of any future peace. I am disgusted at the desire of terrorists to initiate wars at the cost of the constituents they claim to support. I am angered by the United States’ new view of the world which generated one of the most adolescent one eyed and destructive US foreign policies since the Kissinger-Nixon’s era. I am concerned by the silencing of all legitimate critique of the Israeli government as either anti-Semitic or, if by Jews as, ‘self-loathing’, and am intrigued by the fact that Arabs are not seen as Semitic. I am less than human if I can not feel grief at the sight of children, mothers, fathers, young men, old men and women, torn to shreds by rockets, missiles or bombs be, they Jews, Christian, or Muslim. Worse I am betrayed by my own government, Australia, which has no capacity to engineer independent foreign policy.

Marg Macdonald 202

The UN is controlled by the despots and tyrants who use children as soldiers, as suicide bombers, as civilian shields, and as tools in the propaganda war.

Hence the UN will do nothing to combat the child abuse being perpetrated daily by Hizbollah and Hamas.

The oppressed have become the oppressors!

Notwithstanding the racism that Jews were subject to in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the millions of lives lost under the Nazis, the Israeli government is mirroring the same sort of despicable mindset and behavior of their former persecutors.

Israel is well within its right to recreate the safety zone in the south of Lebanon and to root out Hezbollah from that area but to attack innocent civilians in the northern and central areas of Lebanon ranks along with the cowardice of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is really not a war between Christianity and Islam: it is a war of ideologues insistent on their own selfish political aims. Fundamentalism among the Jews and Arabs has made for a dangerous witches’ brew that takes the lives on the innocents and eliminates any normalcy for the millions that only seek to make a way through life.

I would like to see President Bush and the US Congress take a firm stand with Israel demanding that they cease engagement in the central and northern areas of Lebanon. That won't happen because of the huge Jewish lobby and political payoffs here in the States.

I'd also like to see the Congress authorize millions more in financial aid to the Palestinians in the form of commercial and industrial development funding. Israel has a right to exist but the Palestinians also have a right to a decent standard of living. For the present unrest in the Middle East, there is certainly enough blame to go around for Britain and its WWII allies. Nothing was learned from the repercussions of the Ulster Plantation!

Lebanon was just beginning to emerge from the darkness of years of conflict and the end of Syrian occupation. Tourism and commerce were just beginning to thrive and now the Israeli invasion occurs.

The world needs a world police organization but it should be in the form of a reconstituted United Nations! When the sorts of atrocities th

When is Israel going to get out of land that it occupies illegally?
The West Bank, east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Shebaa farms area, Gaza and now Lebanon.
Land gained by conquest does not give the winner legal title to that land.
How come no nobody wants to defend Fox News and its untenable position of being a Quisling?

Soreofhing

Israel does not occupy any land illegally. Israel has complied with UN Securty Council resolution 242 by its withdrawal from Sinai and Gaza. When are the PA, Syria and Lebanon also going to comply with the terms of 242? Jordan occupied Judaea and Samria illegally after the 1948 war and ethnically cleansed it of all its Jews.

Only Hizbollah and its stooges believe that the Shebaa Farms area is Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. The UN certainly does not.

Israel vacated Gaza completely last year and was met with a daily barrage of rockets from the resident Nazis the day Israel left.

Gerald,

Last year, we left Gazan arabs our greenhouses that generated $60 million per year. Instead of keeping and growing the business, they plundered and pillaged them until nothing was left. What did they do with the freedom and independence they gained in tyhe last 12 months in Gaza? Did they open new shops? Schools? Built houses?

Think, Gerald, where is all the aid they receive goes, if they do not build anything.

Then you want to give them more? Why?

Soreofhing 207...is that slang for "sort of thing?" Clever.

Perhaps no one is willing to debate the Fox News coverage issue with you because people don't watch it? Before I get harrassed, let me say I'm only speaking for myself. I do not watch any tv news, and I hardly ever spend time watching tv at all because unless it's something on PBS, it's generally not worth the time and energy to watch. Even PBS isn't commercial free like it used to be when I was kid. Everything is underwritten with grants from major corporations now, so there goes the trust factor, as far as I'm concerned. I get my news via the internet newspapers and BBC Radio Scotland, Orkney, and Radio 4, so I'm not in a position to criticize or defend Fox News.

Hitler was religious and said that he way obeying his god.He never renounced Catholocism. It is ,thus ,a lie to say otherwise! Dawkins knows the fruits of religion;McGrath just emits platitudes . How the religious find excuses for their nonsense! Religion, at best, is just a placebo.And Albert Ellis alleges a neurosis.

It seems the USA consensus wins again thanks to the Aussie mogul Murdoch's media outlets. It seems what George Orwell said is resonating more every day and that is "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."

Reply to Yoram

Keep in mind that the Palestinians have not had leaders that had the best interest of the people in mind. Arafat was self ingratiating pseudo-leader. I'm not suggesting that the US throw vast amounts of money to be spent indiscriminately to supply weapons to Hamas.

My position is that with proper leadership and sufficient investment, the Palestinians can become a self-sufficient and self-directed people. It is unreasonable to expect any people to change courses 180 degrees overnight. Remember the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa and the bloodletting that occurred immediately thereafter? Many whites that had worked for freedom for blacks were summarily executed for being white. The abuses there haven't abated yet.

Israel has risen from the dust over a 40 year period. Thousands of expatriates returned to Israel to work on the kibbutzim and endured much hardship for the dream of nationhood they saw for Israel. Many native Israelis did likewise. In good conscious, how can one expect the Palestinians to become overnight wonders?

Aside from the sweat equity, Israel would not be what it is today without the massive influx of money from the US. The Jewish lobby has been very successful in the States in securing ongoing financial and military support from Congress and every president.

Give the Palestinians, Lebanese and peace a chance.

Terrorists one day, politicians the next, just look at Gerry Adams.

To many of the above comments have been made on an emotional basis and tabloid reporting vis-vis my countrymen
Ronnie and Wayne who have obviously never set foot in the region of question.
I have been involved in business dealings in Israel and other near eastern countries for over forty years and can state that Israel is an armed camp and contains the most paranoid security personnel' that I have encountered since I visited East Berlin in the '60's. The Israeli armed forces show the same arrogance as those who hanged the British soldiers in the Orange Groves and they have no empathy for the Palestinians. They have been training for war, they have been praying for war and they have set themselves up in the Middle East as superpower. Israel is not defending itself against aggression they are the aggressors. I recently met with leaders of Histadrut to discuss a plant opening and I was politely informed that it will only employ Jews. Not the Histadrut I have come to know and respect in the past. They are ready to cry anti-semite at any opportunity but fail to recognise that they practice racism every day. Take a trip and see for yourselves.

as a super-power

Does the following mean that Israel with be bombing hospitals,schools etc next because they're ran/funded by Hezbollah?????.
Source Wikipedia.
Hezbollah not only has armed and political wings but also boasts an extensive social development programme. The civilian wing also runs hospitals, news services, and educational facilities. Its Reconstruction Campaign (Jihad al-Bina) is responsible for numerous economic and infrastructural development projects in Lebanon.[7][8] The group currently operates at least four hospitals, 12 clinics, 12 schools and two agricultural centres that provide farmers with technical assistance and training. It also has an environmental department and an extensive social assistance programme. Medical care is also cheaper than in most of the country's private hospitals and free for Hezbollah members.[9] Most experts believe that Hezbollah's social and health programmes are worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.[9] Hezbollah mainly gets its money from donations. It is no secret that Hezbollah receives financial help from Iran, but not from Syria.[9]

On a last note I see the online version of the Jerusalem post gives scant coverage of the suffering ongoing in Beirut.. As was shown on the BBC1 news this morning scenes of hysterical Israeli women reacting to the sound of air-raid sirens, I wonder if they give any thought to their opposite numbers in Beirut who are living in a city decimated & shattered by US funded Israeli bombs.

As :61. James, Australia / 5:49am 23 Jul 2006

Highlighted, it is odd that in this comments page of a Scottish newspaper so many comments originate from the US. One wonders if US based newspapers would exhibit the range of opinions across the board that this page does.
I'm trying to imagine the American version of the BBC Question Time prog that we get on a Thursday night,politicians from across the board, except the Yanks don't have that do they?.

Could I possibly have the last word? Kim Howells should be applauded for taking such a proper stance, better late than never. As for Alison (87) Any inhabitant of the region who lived there previous to the Baldwin agreement belongs there. The trouble is with the "invaders" who came from all over the world afterwords. With these gone there would only be palestinians of various religious persuasion!

Reply to Alison.126 Some of us dont believe in the first coming never mind the second one!!. in reference to "Jesus Christ "Speak for yourself and dont speak for me. I am not a Christian fundamentalist. I am a CATHOLIC!! And whether you believe it or not .HE Jesus is on His Way--PS You will beieve it when you get to the other side but sadly for you, with your attitude it will be to late.

Let's see WHOM started ALL of this. Hezbollah! A very large group of terroists, who Lebenon has let run and ruin that country. The US and UK are in Iraq fighting a senseless war and who do you think gave Hezbollah the weapons to destroy Israel? It does not take a genius to figure this one out. What I cannot understand is why Israel has not flattened Lebonon? In the US we see TOOOOOOOOOOO much money going to ALL of these countries so they can continue the fighting that's been going on for over 2,000 years. These people love war and misery, and giving them the money and means to fight constantly is THE REAL CRIME! Every country who feeds into to this horrible virus is as guilty as the next. So face the facts, there are not ANY innocent people in any of these wars. And who are the US and UK to impose their beliefs, rather it be religion, culture, etc., on other people in other countries. Both the US and UK are spread too thin and it's time to start taking inventory of what and whom our countries are getting into and impeach ALL that have anything to do with ANY war. Fighting wars for politicians is the WORST crime known to mankind and it is time to stop all of this! Every country has decided they want to be "the bully" and it is sickening! People in the US are going WITHOUT food, shelter, clothing, and most importantly j-o-b-s! because our government has decided it is just fine to outsource jobs that Americans need so badly! Not one country has given us one dime to help support the people who live in poverty and on the streets every day! These people are dying just like in other countries! Healthcare is impossible to get in the US because it is more important that illegals and other countires receive THAT moneyand healthcare!!!! But the "leaders" of the US cannot stop giving what belongs to its (American) citizens to every other country in the world! We are tired of this in the US and the election of 2008 will reflect the difference IF we have a

Hmmmmmm. . . .Who went to Germany for WHAT?
The timeline does not look good for any country who had representation in Germany, recently. Sure, to give a sweater to who. . . now that's lame!

I can't believe the comments about Israel being in the right to bomb innocent people - what crazy ideas some people have. Stupid, crazy ideas that it's okay to bomb and kill people - since when?

I personally am ashamed that Britain has not taken a more dramatic stand on this issue. America I can understand since sadly a lot of their politics is wound around Jewish contributions etc.

It is never justified to bomb a nation for a few terrorists - it makes me mad and very very sad for humanity and for the Lebanese people and visitors to Lebanon that have been caught up in this atrocity.

Only one person finds Mohammed's comments unacceptable? Is he right counting on so many of you??

N o second coming.He is dead period! H is talk of hell is pernicious.He was no profoud moral leader.She who turns the other cheek ,wakes up in the hospital and she who gives the robber double what he robbed her of is a nut. He advocated blind faith,thus was against reason and facts. No god will ever confront me ,so I will have nothing to say and will stay dead for ever. Faith is for the gullible like McGrath. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean!

MOHAMMED 195 / 199 / 205

I can now see why Hizbollah find it so easy to walk all over the Lebonese people and why Israel find it a requirement to do something about it.

You my friend are an extremist, probably one of these chest beating, head hitting nutters the world see on TV. I have seen them in real life....I have lived with them and it's dangerous.

If Israel , over the past 6 years had become friends with Lebanon and helped and gave aid to build the Country, you are a prize example of the type of person who would have still been demanding their extermination because they are Jews.

As long as people like you think the way you do, there will never be peace, and lets face it, you don't want peace. Your type will cause the death of thousands of Lebonese....Israel will from the bombs...but people like you have killed them

FOR JOE 192

Totally agree with you Joe....but as long as you have, what we call "DO GOODERS" "LEFTIES" I think the collective term for them is "University graduates whom are never wrong and we're all thick" then this situation will continue. If USA & UK do nothing about things, we are cowards. If we do, we're bullies. I have lived on both sides in the Middle East, Israel and for a much longer period in Arab States. The majority of the people passing judgement on the situation have only been as far as their Student Union Bars.

interesting we finally get a british official to critisize israel. what many people seem to ignore is that hizbollah is not a democratically elected government, they are terrorists, israel does have a right to attack them. israel does not have the right to murder innocent men women and children, nor destroy the infrastructure of another country.i am glad to see some of the american comments agree with this. israel has depended to for to long on the antisemitic argument and the holocaust guilt to get away with doing what it likes,it is now time for the world to say enough stop. today israel is acting as a terrorist state., yet britain and the usa keep supporting them . if israel wants to ever see peace this is nit the way

Fellow atheists, any more comments? Lance Armstrong, Angelina Jolie and Dawkins do not need the placebo of faith.

Nancy @ 219

"I am a CATHOLIC!! And whether you believe it or not. HE Jesus is on His Way--PS You will beieve it when you get to the other side"

Are you talking about the "Judgment of Nations"? It's certainly beginning to look that way. Perhaps it's already started and what we're witnessing is the beginning of the end for ... Islam? Zionism? Western Capitalism? Russia? China? The Third World? Catholicism? Protestantism? Communism?

I do wonder what Jesus is going to say (i.e. DO) to each country as he carries out His official inspection of the world. Where would YOU then prefer to be?

It's a shame that all of the UK who once were the leaders in the world when it came to the things found and believed in the Bible. Now I understand that there are more Muslim Mosques in all of the UK than there are christian churches and more Muslims than real Christians. What a fall from Grace that is and now they have no real knowledge of why Israel is doing what it's doing in Lebanon to get rid of those who would see all the Jews killed once and for all. Don't be to quick to tell Israel to stop the war and how about telling and making the Muslim Arabs stop shelling and sending in suicide bombers to kill as many Jews as possible. The UK thinking is rather mixed up in my opinion and they have forgotten what happened not to many years ago when Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews and take control of all of England and Scotland. Wake up England before it's to late. The EU will take you over and then what? All you fought for in WW2 was for nothing.

@ Lawrence 231

Yes, it is sad that most of the people in Britain (apart from the Muslims and some Blacks) have consigned God to oblivion. So much for the Reformation!

But what have we got in the States? So-called Christians who've allowed themselves to be brainwashed by Zionists and who sincerely believe that to support Israeli State terrorism is to do the will of God!

Kraut

Looking forward to the day when you have the choice of forcible conversion to islam or being beheaded?

Oddly enough, Judaism is not a proslyetising religion.

re Lawrence 231

I think you are guilty of making a number of statements about the UK which have absolutely no basis in fact.

Christian churches outnumber Mosques by a magnitude of hundreds to every one mosque.

I think you will find that the Jews were victims of wholesale extermination at the hands of Europeans and not Arabs, further the Arab. muslim or otherwise was saddled with an issue which the western world dealt very poorly with and uncerimoniously dumped in their backyard.

I don think we had so much of a fall from grace as the less developed world became wiser to their right to self determination. Thereafter we became a more civilised and less imperialistic nation, oh and you Americans bankrupted us during the WW2, rendering us impotent as a world power. Now we have weak, snivelling politicians who tend to do exactly as your leader bids.

Finally ask yourself why the Muslim Arab feels disposed to the futility of suicide bombing or attacking one of the most heavily armed technologically sound armies in the world with slingshot?

Israel exits at the expense of the Palestinians and their right to live on the land that they had owned for 2000 years. As a previous correspondant suggested if you think the Jews had a reasonable claim for land which legend suggests they may have owned 2000 years ago then the descendants of Sitting Bull etc have a dousy of a claim!

I hear the sound of lawyers rubbing hands in the land of litigation.

Extremism on both sides is the problem. Islamic extremists think that Israel should't exist and on the other side more extreme Israelis believe that all people of Arab origin want them dead. These people are the real problem. I think you may find that every day, normal civilians would rather live in harmony and get on with their lives. When you see young children from either side dying, it just makes you sick and the problem just gets worse. Israel should just remove Hezbollah and not attack the whole nation of Lebanon, are they really abiding to the rules of engagement? And the Islamic extremists think that "martyring" themselves will take them to paradise, who are they kidding? Since when was killing innocent people a ticket to heaven? It seems to me to problem always occurs from the people in charge, isn't it time the people who suffer every day of their lives because of a few idiots, deserve some peace? But unfortunately it seems to me this will never happen.

"Oddly enough, Judaism is not a proselytising religion"

No? We've got crypto-Judaism everywhere nowadays. I see little practical difference between a Jew (who openly rejects the divinity of Jesus) and a protestant (who merely pretends to believe in that divinity). There are even some (e.g. Jehova's Witnesses) who've taken the next logical step and have openly come out against the divinity of Christ. Once you've done away with the Gospel what have you got? The Old Testament, i.e. Judaism.

No wonder the Muslims make no distinction any more!

Ross

Jews suffered pogroms and massacres at the hands of Muslims from the time that the Arabs first conquered Israel in 638. Maybe not to the extent of the Holocaust, but still very real to the victims.

Further, the leader of the Arabs in Palestine, the Mufti of Jerusalem, spent WWII either raising legions for the SS or in Berlin castigating Hitler and Himmler for the slow progress in exterminating the Jews, and securing a pledge that once Germany had conquered Palestine, extermination camps for Jews would be built there. The Palestinian Arabs do have dirty hands when it comes to the Holocaust, which is why some any of them e.g. Mahmoud Abbas, try to deny that the Holocaust ever happened.

Palestinian Arabs have not existed in Eretz Israel for 2000 years. Palestinians were founded as a concept only in the 1960s. The Arabs arrived in Israel in 638 with their looting, rape and pillage, and there have been Jewish communities in Israel since that point. Most of the Arabs in Palestine arrived in the first part of the 20th century, attracted by the way in which the Jews were improving the land and the prosperity they were bringing.

Only two people responded to Mohammed.

Lacking your support, the editors removed his terrible comments on this page (199 and 205).

But two of Mohammed's points were well taken:
1. A list of Judenrein countries in the Middle East
2. A list of his comrades among you

Fact remains that none of those friends had any problem with his comments.

Reading through some of these comments I find it unbelievable that we are actually talking about Tiny Israel, surrounded by Millions of Cowards in a death cult, nearly all of whom call for the death and destruction of Israel on a regular basis. For months after Israel made huge overtures to peace we see this cult of death reign down rockets and suicide bombers on innocent civilians and NO BODY condemns them. The Death Cult fighters and their promoters are the biggest cowards in history. They go out to inflict casualties on women and children, then they run to hide with the women and children.

If Lebanon, or any other country does not want to suffer the consequences for harboring terrorist, they should be very careful not to let them build their bunkers under their cities, homes and businesses. Since the Lebanese government has incorporated the terrorist Hezbula into their program I say they have given Israel no choice but to Blow their sorry existence to smithereens.

Israel is doing exactly what should be done, only not severely enough. Iran and Syria should be made to understand what happens to those who supply the coward terrorist organization.

As for Britain? I can understand why they are selling what's left of their soul to the terrorist, they have already found themselves rapidly approaching the same status as Lebanon.

Kraut, really now, Israeli State Terrorism? Obviously you pay little or no attention to world news.

Brain washed by Zionist? You're not serious? If anything, America is brainwashed against Israel by the very same caliber of Jews who built and worshiped a golden calf. The Liberal Jews who dominate America's media empire so hate their own heritage, and despise America that they never miss the opportunity to downgrade Israel. It is the Church of Jesus Christ that see's the significance in the reestablishment of Israel. It is the Messianic believers who are really the only support in the world for Israels existence.

I truly pity every nation who stands against Israel.

James, 228. By what thread of logic have you determined that Hezbula is not part of Lebonese government? I mean, come on man, If the whole southern region of your country was dedicated to building bunkers, and military systems exclusively for the purpose of attacking Israel wouldn't you share culpability in the program?

Hezbula in entrenched not only in the real estate but also in the government itself. Israels attack on the infrastructure is more than warranted.

Iain

I was trying to frame my reference in the time frame of modernity. Religious wars pitted the many against the many during the time you define.

The Jewish people are a wonderfully inventful, creative and commercially astute people and to that end I admire them.

Israel was forced on the Arabs against their will and the subsequent injustice and misery which has been heaped upon the Palastinians, squatter camps, economic ruin and wholesale murder cannot be swept under the carpet of history.

The Israeli has become his nemesis, the ethnic cleanser, the slaughterer of the innocent, the purveyor of the ultimate expedient solution, genocide.

The Muslim extreme is fed by that injustice, it is equally abhorent and barbaric, targeting the weak and innocent, but let's remember wherein lies it's cause. Remember the word terrorist was first used to describe the so called Israeli fighters who ethnically cleansed the Palestine and blew up the St Davids Hotel. Ironic, no?

It seems most of our US posters have fallen hook line and sinker for the pro Israel propaganda constantly peddled on the US media.
AIPAC (America Israel Public Affairs Committee) has almost full control of Congress and the Senate as well as the Administration and such neocom beauties as John Bolton.
AIPAC coordinates huge cash payments to pro Israeli candidates, and whenever some innocent political candidate in let's say North Dakota, makes a comment such as "It seems we are giving a lot of money to Israel", that is the start of a well oiled mechanism. AIPAC immediately coordinates all the PACs (Political Action Committees) in the US to send money to the opposing candidate. But that's just the start. AIPAC virtually informs all its cash donors to donate money to the opposing candidate, and letter writing and email campaigns are started together with media campaigns organised by the many jewish controlled media outlets.
Are we to be surprised when the poor fool in North Dakota loses the election?
In a similar way we can see that the pro jewish lobby has been successful in convincing the American public that "supporting Israel is the smart thing".
Another of the AIPAC bribes--eh sorry, the PC term is "lobbying procedures"--is the paying of free round trip "fact finding tours" to Israel for US and British politicians and their wives. A not too subtle way of engaratiating yourself and making someone feel beholden to Israel forever after.
In addition the jewish lobby has been quite effective in duping most Americans into believing that any country which criticies Israel is "An arab loving, terrorist supporter" and anti semitic to boot.
Thankfully the UK has a fair unbiased media outlet called the BBC.

The supporters of Israel's latest war crimes and acts are easily duped.
The United Nations top official Jan Egeland has declared that Israel has committed acts against Interna

Ross

"Israel was forced on the Arabs against their will". Those Arabs (few in number) who were actually there at the time of the first and second Jewish aliya, welcomed the arrival of the incoming Jews, due to the improvements that they would bring to the land. even as late as the time of Balfour, that was still the case.

By the time of the actual re-establishment of Israel in 1948, a Jewish national homeland had been re-created, and these Jews had every bit as much a right to a state on that land as anyone else. Both the Peel Commission in 1937 and the UN in 1947 offered a two state solution, but on both occasions, the Jews accepted it and the Arabs rejected it and pledged to drive all the Jews into the sea.

The squatter camps and economic misery are solely the creation of the arab states who house them.. In virutally every other refugee crisis in history, the refugees have been resettled in their host country, and that is their new homeland. 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands were resettled immediately after the founding of Israel, but the Arabs have used theor refugees as pawns in the campaign to destroy Israel.

Israel did not ethnically cleanse Palestine, most of them left volutarily at the request of their Arab leaders. The King David's Hotel was a legitimate military target, housing the British Military HQ, so it was not a terrorist attack.

Terrorism was started by the ethnic cleansing and terrorist attacks by Arabs on Jews in Hebron in 1929.

Israel is not the ethnic cleanser - 1.3 million Arabs live in Israel with full civil rights. It is the Arab side who demand a state that is Judenrein, and who ethnically cleansed Judaea and Samaria under Jordan's illegal occupation.

To Katherine #210
You are a little warmer but still have many many many miles to go before you get the real meaning of my psuedonym.
I'll give you a clue, but I'm sure it won't help:
"Ipswich"

You are right, none of the US media outlets come anywhere close to the fair reporting of the BBC.

Surprisingly , the Jerusalem Post is a little bit less biased than Fox News. Ain't life strange?

soreofhing

Why don't you condemn the war crimes of the Arab terrorists (Hamas/Hizbollah/PFLP/Fatah/Islamic Jihad)?

Sheltering behind civilians is a war crime
Placing military bases in civivlain areas is a war crime
Using children as combatants is a war crime
Sending suicide bombers is a war crime
Deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime
Storing weaponry in homes, hospitals, nurseries, schools, and ambulances is a war crime.
Holding soldiers captive without allowing them access to the Red Cross is a war crime.
Fighting a war without wearing the uniform of a combatant is a war crime
Sending pregnant women as suicide bombers is a war crime
Sending children as suicide bombers is a war crime
Deliberately destroying religious sites is a war crime
Executing so called collaborators without the benfit of a trial or hearing is a war crime

These war criminals shoudl be brought to justice and tried at Nuremberg 2 if possible, but if not should be exterminated.

There is only one occupation, and that started in 638 when the Arab hordes started their genocidal campaign of racist ethnic cleansing.

Oh Iain, you know some things but are ignorant of many others.

What about the Golan Heights, Shebaa farms, east Jerusalem, not to mention the West Bank which you choose to believe was unoccupied.
Just look up an Internet map of Israel's 1948 borders and compare them with the 2006 borders.
Israel is much much much larger now.

Israel was granted land by the UN but has grabbed, stolen and conquered much more. Remember that land conquered in war does not grant legal title; this land remains occupied territory under international law and must be returned.

How come you can justify to yourself the King David Hotel bombing and murder of many British soldiers but somehow the capture of a couple of Israeli soldiiers by the Hezbollah makes you think that Israel has the right to slaughter many Lebanese civilians and destroy much of their infrastructure?

Finally, perhaps you would care to whitewash the Stern Gang and Irgun, both terrorist organisations that Israel would now prefer not to talk about.
Israel was born by terrorism and has a bloody past (other people's blood).

Those who attack and lose in war are not entitled to whine afterwards that they have lost territory.

Israel has withdrawn from Gaza and Lebanon. When will Iran's stooges withdraw from ilegally occupied territory?

What international law says about the disputed territories is that UN Security Council resolution 242 must be implemented. Israel has complied with its requirements under it; when will Syria, Lebanon, the PA and the other belligerent Arab entities comply?

Israel has been at war continuously with Syria since 1967 when Syria attacked - there has been no armistice or ceasefire agreement, and in law there is no requirement for the Golan Heights or Shebaa farms to be given to anyone. Anyway, they have been an integral part of Israel fror years.

Israel took Judaea and Samria form Jordan, after Jordan had ethnically cleansed it - more war crimes - Jordan does not want it back. There is no occupation. If Israel chooses to allocate any part of that territory in the future to anyone else, that is up to Israel.

That is international law for you.

Jerusalem is the eternal undivided capital of Israel, and will never ever be divided. When part of it was illegally occupied by Jordan, Jews were banned from visiting their holiest sites. Jerusalem has always had a Jewish majority and is the Jewish capital. Mentioned over 800 in times in the Torah, and not mentioned by name once in the Quran.

Richard @ 240:

"I truly pity every nation who stands against Israel"

Well, if there's one thing that comes out of the Old Testament it's that God prefers to speak to people using actions rather than words (because very few people ever believe Him).

I have a nasty feeling that we're about to see some action, after which it'll be plain for all to see what God thinks of (among other things) the modern state of Israel which so many Americans and Britons have so unfailingly supported.

Iain

On July 5, 1950, the Israeli Knesset passed the Law of Return, fulfilling the dream of Theodor Herzl, Zionism's founder. Herzl experienced anti-Semitism in Europe and saw its effects in many countries. He saw that there was only one solution: the mass immigration of Jews to a land that they could call their own.

The main criticism raised against the Law of Return is that is discriminates against Arabs and especially against Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their former homes in Israel. This argument has no basis; obviously there is no sense in inviting any Arab who so desires to immigrate at will into Israel, the Jewish State which was established for the Jewish People in accordance with the UN Resolution 181, and by virtue of the right of the Jewish People to self determination. The bestowal of the "right of return" to Israel to non-Jews or to persons without a Jewish relative is illogical and contradicts the principal purpose of setting up a Jewish State as prescribed by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the League of Nations Mandate of 1922, and the UN Resolution of November 1947. The Law of Return is central to what the State of Israel stands for. Proposing to open Israel to immigration by any Arab is a disguised way of proposing the extinction of Israel.

This would suggest that Arabs were indeed displaced and in real terms Israel had no intention of of returning the land which they stole. Further Israel cannot under present circumstance accommodate those foreign Jews who wish to live in Israel, the answer land grab.

What has happened each time Israeli Hawk has turned dove and offered some hope for peace or conceded some of the occupied territories, he is murdered or rendered comatose rather conveniently.

Iain

The above completely flew in the face of UN resolution 194 (1948) Which stated that the Palestinians had both the right of return to their lands and the right to compensation for the destruction of their property etc.

You can quote all the propoganda you wish it does not hide the fact that Israel is and has been the aggressor and has not always acted in an honourable and equitable manner.

I am fair minded and concede that in 1967 Israel was given no choice but to launch a pre-emptive strike against Egypt and contrary to Arab propoganda, the neighbouring Arab states were harbouring a plan to wipe israel off the map. The UN and the International community in general hung Israel out to dry.

Israel is wrong today and nothing will convince me otherwise.

So what I say is propaganda, while you can't even get basic facts right?

UN General Assembly resolution 194 does not talk about Palestinian refugees, or give a right of return. if you had actually bothered to read it rather than swallowing Arab lies, you would see that what it actually says is:

"Resolves that the refugees wishing to return home and live at peace with their neighbours should be entitled to do so...."

This applies to the 850,000 Jewish refugess who have been banned from returning to their homes in the various Arab countries they were expelled from. It also means that ONLY those who are willing to live at peace are permitted to return. Haven't seen many of them around.

Finally, GA resolutions, have no standing in law, and can be ignored.

In any event, most of the Arab refugees had only arrived in recent years, as the definition of "refugee" by UNWRA demonstrates. Arabs attracted to the Jewish homeland due to Jewish-created properity is the history of the land.

Mohammed

The Crusaders are coming to get you, and soon you will be returned to Arabia in your barbarous desert where you belong with the rest of your godless Nazis.

Tremble before the majesty of the one true God on the Day of Judgment.

Iain,

Ran out of arguments? Attacking my style? Trying to intimidate me?

Why can't you convince anybody with all of your facts and intellectual presentation while I built a complete consensus in one comment?

Note that nobody except for you and Ken responded to yoram's begging.

Are we all cowards, are we all stupid, or perhaps you are all alone completely wrong?

Read Koran. You will gain new friends and recognize your enemies. You will be richly rewarded.

Iain

The Israeli interpretation is that Palestinians should be excluded, who do you think the displaced refugees defined by the UN in 194 were? They were Palestinians!

Israel did not want the 'Enemy within' so to speak and like Mohammed you are propogandist, two extremes at different ends of the same conflict.

I sincerely hope you do not succeed in wiping each other and every one else out in the fall out from your hatred.

And why do you slaughter the doves? on both sides? do you really want to live in peace or pieces?

Mohammed,

With all that venom spouting from your lips, I am amazed that you can't do the job on your own.
Can't you understand,most of us do not wish to share your religion, but we are not non believers.
Why do you brush aside every other persons view .
Yes I did look at the map, and what I see I do not like

In a few days it will be my wife's birthday so today my children and I took my wife to the local shopping mall to buy her her present. I knew she wanted a piece of jewelery so we visited various jewelery shops and were shown the goods by the assistant whilst the security guard kept a wary eye out.
There were some lovely solid gold bracelets but when we saw the label "Made in Israel" I immediately told the shopgirl we wouldn't buy anything made in that country because of the crimes they are committing in Lebanon. The shopgirl looked surprised and I think she doesn't keep up with international news much, but another customer overheard me and chimed in "Well done, people need to take firm action against Israel".
We bought another lovely bracelet and I feel I did my small bit.
A firm boycott of Israeli goods is required.
The EU imports much fruit, vegetables and wine from Israel.
I trust more people will question the origin of goods in the supermarkets and tell the store managers "Nothing from Israel, thank you".

Mr. Howells:

Where have you and all the other critics of Israel been for the last 6 years while Hezbollah made incursion after incursion into Israel and continually shelled the country wih rockets killing countless civilians.

Even now Hezbollah is landing hundred of rockets daily into Israel cities. These rockets have no guidance system and strike random targets - always civilians. I guess, Mr Howells, that this is okay because these rockets are only killing and maiming Jews. Why don't I hear you imploring the Hezbollah or the Lebanese to stop the killing of civilian Israelis?

Where have you been, Mr. Howells, for the last six years when the Hezbollah were to have been disarmed and the Lebanese Army was to have moved into the south of the country? Where were you, Mr. Howells?

Mr. Howells, we all see the pictures of the dreadful carnage that is happening in Lebanon and only a heartless fool would want this to continue except that the alternative ,if the Hezbollah is not destroyed, is the continued shelling of Israel and slaughter of Israeli civilians. The Lebanese Gov't has allowed the Hezbollah to infuse itself into the general population in such a way that they can only be routed by means that ensures the death of these civilians who they hide amongst. The Lebanese Gov't has also allowed these terrorists to effectively gain control of a large portion of its social and medical services in the Shaite areas ensuring that the Hezbollah has the popular support of a substantial portion of Lebanese society ignored by the Government.

So, Mr. Howells, who is it going to be that survives this: Israel or the Hezbollah? Who, Mr. Howells, should kill who? This really is what this all comes down to. There really is no issue of right or wrong in this situation any longer - it is now a question of who survives. You make the choice Mr. Howells because someone has to and it may as well be you as anyone else. But once having made that choice do you th

Ross 256

Neither the debates re 194 nor the wording of the resolution restricts its terms only to Arab refugees, no matter how you try to twist the historical record.

if Israel did not want Arabs, how come there are now 1.3 million Arabs in Israel with full civic rights. How come Jewish Mayors were begging them to stay in 1948?

Soreofhing

Many people actively encourage shops to stock Israeli produce, and look to support the only true democracy in the Middle East in its fight against terror.

Soreofhing in Mexico:

I can empathize with your feelings about boycotting things from certain countries.
I have wanted to boycott mexican products but the products they send us are, for the most part, illegal immigrants, and we've not yet reached a consensus on how to handle the problem.
Perhaps your country could accept some hezbollan immigrants, or a few Iranian or Syrian boomers. I know that wouldn't be much, but perhaps you would get that feeling of doing your "small bit."

Hats off to james! You are the 3rd.

It's not easy to join the minority. My grandmother (still alive) was saved during Nazi occupation by a young doctor and priest, while her entire family of 48 people was murdered. That doctor and priest joined a minority.

As for Soreofhing and Ross, I wish to continue the list of reading assignments, started by Mohammed: you seem to be ready for Main Kampf and The Protocols of Zionists. Those were very popular books 70 years ago. You can still get them on Amazon.

While you read, make a list of points that you repeat in your arguments.

I read in Share International Magazine a month ago 'The crisis in Lebanon is both complex and manipulated. The “cedar revolution” is indeed another example of ‘people power’ making its impact on events. But the Syrian-Lebanese reality should not be oversimplified.
It is the current US policy to put maximum pressure on Syria and my information is that the CIA murdered Rafiq Hariri, thus triggering the call for Syrian troop-withdrawal from Lebanon, implying and sowing the rumour that he was killed by Syria despite the fact that it would not have been in Syria’s interest to do such a thing.
There is a long-standing interdependence between these two neighbours: Lebanon needs Syria to protect her from further Israeli invasion, and as a huge open market for her exports, Syria needs Lebanon’s modern financial facilities to trade abroad. There is a genuine mutual interdependence which is, of course, now threatened by these recent events. Syria, it should be understood, has no weapons of mass destruction. They do support Hezbollah and see it as a legitimate Arab force fighting to aid its poor, oppressed, Palestinian brothers against an aggressive Israeli regime.

Q. Was Israel involved in any way with the assassination of Rafik Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon?
A. They were not involved in the deed but they knew about it in advance. My information is that the assassination was the work of the CIA.'
These statements were made by Benjamin Creme, co editor of Share Interntional Magazine = www.share-international.org
It seems that America had achieved its aims and created a situation where Lebanon is wide open to attack by Israel who are able to do what the US cannot do without attracting worldwide censure - attack what it sees are the breeding ground of terrorists...I also see that the US is speeding up its latest shipment of arms, missiles etc to Israel...this hardly looks

Nancy @ 219

"Jesus Christ "Speak for yourself and dont speak for me."

Why on earth would I want to speak for you .... I avoid all bigots as a matter of principal. Especially mad sounding ones like you

Soreofhing and Ross,

Please read 264 - a great example of how you can come up with truly amazing stories AFTER you complete the reading assignments by Mohammed and me.

Leo @ 264 has obviously completed it with flying colors and now he is busy writing his own variations of Hitler's key argument: the Jews bear the responsibility for starting WWII.

Leo 264

You probably don 't realise it but Benjamoin Creme was there at Wannsee. He was also the mystery 2nd gun at Dallas in 1963, and he was abducted by aliens in 1989. Of course he is going to blame it on the CIA - that is what he has been programmed to say by the Iranian ayatollah with whom he has had a relationship since 1994.

You are clearly not privy to the secrets of the Inner Ring, or you would know all this. Pray for enlightenment to arrive.

Yoram

You firstly attach far too much importance to your opinion whilst delivering a rather patronising and arrogant verdict in regard to the knowledge/views of others.

As for Mohammed I chose to ignore his hateful rantings, I wish death or destruction on no one.

I may disagree with Israel's response and aggression towards Lebanon, but I do not hate Jews, I refuse to hate on the basis of religion, colour or creed. The anti semite card is always played when ordinary citizens such as my self disagree with Israeli policies in the Middle East.

Ross,

First read the books we recommeded, then make up your opinion, then write. If you first write then it comes out like it always has. (No respect here for your "knowledge/views," as I you correctly noticed.)

But I do appreciate your candor about your choice to ignore Mohammed.

How noble! You wish no death on no one. That's easy when nobody wishes death on you. Or on your family. For as many generations as you can count.

But Mohammed does not ignore me and so I do not have this choice to ignore him like you do. And my family has not had this choice for many many generations.

My only choice is to die or kill him first.

That's a major difference between you and me, wouldn't you agree?

Mohammed glorifies convicted murderers of little children in their homes. He calls murderers national heroes. He glorifies Hitler and takes special pride in the long list of Judenrein states, but you Ross, CHOOSE to ignore him.

That might be bad enough for you, disappointing for me, and I would perhaps too choose to ignore you, if you wouldn't go the next step: you too, just like Mohammed, CHOOSE NOT to ignore me.

Instead of helping me out or at least ignoring me, you choose to lecture me about how to defend myself against fanatics.

I wish you tought me how to fight them without inflicting collateral damage. But all you tell me is to give up and get along with the fanatics.

Wouldn't you agree that by choosing to ignore Mohammed and trying to tie my hands from defending myself you are in fact HELPING Mohammed to complete the cleansing of the Middle East from Jewish presence?

That's why I am calling you antisemite. And from your note it sounds like other Jews already called you so too.

Perhaps you are a proud antisemite Ross. In that case, skip my homework, don't read Main Kampf and the Protocols and move straight to Koran.

Because if we fail this time, then Mohammed,

This is really a chore,reading two hundred and sixty-nine comments from people with their own axe to grind and who know little of the countries in question. Like Hector #215 I am also a frequent traveller to the Midddle East and I endorse his comment, the only one incidentally in this whole page of diatribe that is worth printing. Editor: please take note!

Harry and Hector,

Look at the map and compare numbers:
Israel has 18% arab population.

On the other hand, every muslim country in the entire region (keep your eye on the map) has ZERO Jews.

BY LAW, a Jew cannot buy property in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Sudan, Yemen, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, etc.

Judenrein area is a precondition for the creation of Palestinian state.

But in your PERSONAL opinion and travel exprience, Israel is the racist country.

How would you call such a perspective? Even?

OK, I can live with #215 and #270; they have first hand knowledge.
I think I will give this blog a rest for a while.
I think for the majority of us Israel stands Guilty as Charged.

Soreofhing

How arrogant of you to assume that no-one else has first hand knowledge! Others on this blog no doubt, including myself, have first hand knowledge, but choose not to broadcast it. Just being there does not automatically give you genuine understanding.

Let's face it: Israel's a failed colony. Without support from the Motherland (i.e. America) it can't survive. The Arabs have no intention of sharing the fate of the American Indians. The Israelis (who racially aren't Jews anyway as almost all the ruling class are descended from Caucasian Khazars!) can either go the way of South Africa and ask for forgiveness (don't worry: the Palestinians will be the first to forgive you!) -- i.e. cut their losses now -- or wait until the Motherland (thanks to George Bush) really does go under.

Yoram

First read the books we recommeded, then make up your opinion, then write. If you first write then it comes out like it always has. (No respect here for your "knowledge/views," as I you correctly noticed.)

I wish I had the time to read the books, career, 3 young kids etc, though I do not believe that my view of Israels present actions will be altered.

But I do appreciate your candor about your choice to ignore Mohammed.

Anyone who glories in the actions of the Hitler and the regime which exterminated 6m Jews cannot be taken seriously.

How noble! You wish no death on no one. That's easy when nobody wishes death on you. Or on your family. For as many generations as you can count.

No. Generations of my family fought tyranny in Europe and lived with the threat of nuclear proliferation thereafter. We also had the IRA targeting our cities and civillian populations, I did not want to kill all Irish people and cetainly did not hate all Irish people for the actions of a few fanatics.

But Mohammed does not ignore me and so I do not have this choice to ignore him like you do. And my family has not had this choice for many many generations.

Ask yourself why Mohammed exists in all his technicolour hate and bile?

My only choice is to die or kill him first.

That's one solution, but ultimately not the only one. Remember both sides assasinate their doves and glory in their hawks.

That's a major difference between you and me, wouldn't you agree?

The difference is that you and Mohammed are intractable and polarised in your views. It's all war, war not Jaw, Jaw. Each side say's they cannot deal with the other which precipitates the cycle of hatred and violence.

That might be bad enough for you, disappointing for me, and I would perhaps too choose to ignore you, if you wouldn't go the next step: you too, just like Mohammed, CHOOSE NOT to ignore me.

You are not glorying in the the actions of a genocidal maniac, I believe that your belief system is very real to you and that you, living where you do feel genuinely threatened. I am sure Mohammed feels threatened also, but his glorying in mass murder depresses me and does not compel communication.

Instead of helping me out or at least ignoring me, you choose to lecture me about how to defend myself against fanatics.

There is defence, legitimate defence and there is wanton destruction of life, economies and infrastructure, ask yourself why only the U.S. stands by your action. It is not because the rest of us are cowards that we disagree with Israels actions, it is because they are disproportionate!

I wish you tought me how to fight them without inflicting collateral damage. But all you tell me is to give up and get along with the fanatics.

You are both fanatics, therein lies the problem!

Wouldn't you agree that by choosing to ignore Mohammed and trying to tie my hands from defending myself you are in fact HELPING Mohammed to complete the cleansing of the Middle East from Jewish presence?

Tie your hands?

Stop slaughtering the innocents!

That's why I am calling you antisemite. And from your note it sounds like other Jews already called you so too.

Actually I have never been called an antisemite and you are indeed the first. I shed tears as a child watching the 'world at war' watching the plight of Jewish men, women and children imagining what great potential had been destroyed, the blackness, the abject terror and the torturous pain of their deaths. May all of those involved including those who stood by and let this abomination take place, rot in hell for eternity!

Perhaps you are a proud antisemite Ross. In t

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last."
Sir Winston Churchill, British politician (1874 - 1965)

We just discovered two things you and I agree:

1. They are fanatics.
2. They use fear and draconian punishment to rule a huge area and many countries.

And they hide behind civilians.

Look at the map.

Listen to Mohammed, Nasralla, Hanya, and Ahmedinejan.

Appreciate population changes in Europe. Think of what they did to you for a few pictures last year.

Think of what they did to the Christians in Lebanon and in Palestine in the past 5 years. There are no more Chirstians in South Lebanon. There are very few left in Palestine. Think of what they did to Jews in Egypt in 1948 and what they are doing to Kopts today.

They are winning. If we do not fight, we WILL die like cattle.

Yoram

I am not asking the Israeli people to lay down and die, I am asking you to respect the right to life of the innocents which are being taken in the so called collateral damage element of supposed surgical strikes.

I am not and will never be an appeaser, what happened on the London taught me one thing, there is an enemy and that enemy is ruthles and within.
I do not believe that all Muslims are bent on the destruction of the West or Irael for that matter, though clearly there is an extreme element who have no respect for me or my belief system as it is poles apart from the one which they subscribe to.

I am sure there are many things on which we would agree, and others where we would not find concensus, that my friend is the way of the world.

The West has triumphed over selfless martyrdom in the past, the Japanese ethos of dying in the wreck of their Zero fighters, it was not sustainable as a tactic. Neither is suicide bombing, misguided youth driven by sinister ruthless cowards, at some point the penny will drop.

Yoram

You choose to address some of my points yet ignore others, such as, why only the U.S. is the only nation offering tacit support for your country's action against Lebanon?

Israel cannot by definition be morally right in every element of her policy decisions any more than the U.S./U.K were with Iraq. Why do you assasinate the doves?

To disagree with a country's foriegn policy is not to hate the people of that country. I taught summer camp in the U.S and have worked for U.S. companies and travelled extensively meeting lots of great people. Politically my American friends and I are poles apart, that's the great thing about freedom.

Ross,

Golda Meir said "The peace with Arabs will come when they will love their children more than they hate Jews."

Of course not all Muslims are bent on destruction.

But the "extreme element" is tied into Muslim society, it is a member, or in the case of Palestinians and Iranians, the majority of a democratically elected governement.

All of our neighbors have instituted a LEGAL system against Jews. It starts with passport, which you must always carry and which tells everybody who you are. Then they have regulations limiting social, legal, and property rights of those that have written Jew in their ID. Then they have laws, penalties, and enforcement means for those regulations.

You might think I am talking about Germany or Lithuania in 1941 but I am talking about all the countries Mohammed listed in his list (he forgot Somalia) today, in the 21st century.

We are a regional superpower. If we wanted innocent Beirut people to die, many more would be dead.

But when they plant a rocket launcher in their living room, what in your opinion are we supposed to do? Wait until it will fire?

Or do you think they planted all of those rocket launchers in their civilian houses in the past 12 days?

Who in your opinion shoud take responsibility for this crime? Have you heard of Israelis hiding rocket launchers in their kitchens?

As for your question, why America is the only country to support Israel, you should ask yourself when you look in the mirror. Why do you choose to help the Muslim extremists in the middle of the war and against your own survival interests, is beyond me.

Yoram

Where do I say that I wish to help Muslim extremists? You are being selective once more!

I do not believe that every dead Lebonese had a rocket launcher secreted around their property, anymore than I believed that every Chinese person distributed around the globe had a rifle under their bed. Preposterous!

i have never sent a message before but I hated to see those jews attacking the ambulence with the red cross painted on it. i thought they had pinpoint accuracey, so why did they kill innocent lebanese.

Apparently the arms we have are not accurate enough, which we all sincerely regret.

We wish the britts gave us more accurate arms for the next time. So that we can match the British accuracy in Iraq.

More importantly, Foad Seniora, Lebanese PM, had 6 years to prevent this war and 12 days to stop it. Why do you think he has not stopped it yet?

Yoram,
Israel is a country where racism is widely practiced and officially tolerated that is not just my opinion, it is a fact and I will be leaving for Tel Aviv (again) this Sunday knowing that and I can handle it. Laws do not define raciism, they impose segregation and I can handle that too in my business dealings in the Midddle East. I state again that Israel, and it's economy is grow on militarism and I respect their laws. Follow me around annd be prepared to spend up to an hour to complete what should be a ten minute walk while I stop to identify myself at numerous checkpoints or share my embarrassment when "frisked" entering my hotel. Before you rush to say that this is in a "state of emergency" I can tell you that my experience has been the same for over thirty years. I am Caucasian and have no distinguishing features, the Arabs are treated like vermin by armed, arrogant punks somethng that travelling westerners use as a term to define the Israeli army, I am sorry to state! I am not saying one way or another who started the "war" but I am basing my "opinion" on empirical experiience when I say again that Israel provokes it and welcomes it.
Go see for yourself!

Believe your own eyes instead of listening to their propaganda.

All we ask is to exchange jewish hostages for Samir Quntar - Lebanese national hero and honorary Palestinian citizen.

But instead they attacked us. And in 14 days of fighting they killed fewer of the brave Hizbollah fighters than innocent civilians!

Harry,

I do not have to go there, I am in Israel already. If you go that often to Israel, you should know that

1. Hadera is a major town in Israel
2. There are no checkpoints except in Palestinian areas or upon receiving intelligence about impending suicide attack. In both cases you should be frisked along with everybody else.
3. Unfortunately, that's the threat we have to deal with since 1929 when we had the first wave of Muslim pogroms.
4. Every citizen serves in the army and so we behave the same way all the time. How can you have both positive and negative experience from the same people during the same trip?
5. If you do have so much negative experience going there, why do you keep coming back for so many years?
6. BTW, we also have muslims and other minorities serving in volunteer military (combat) and police units, including officers. Have you met a Jewish officer in any Arab country during your trips?

Dr Rantissi

If a "Lebanese national hero" is someone who grabbed a four year old girl by her legs and repeatedly swung her so that her head was bashed again and again against a rock until her head exploded, then Lebanon deserves everything it is now getting.

Mrs Bruce

Hizbollah and Hamas and the other terrorist groups use ambulances for transporting weapons, combatants, suicide bombers and missiles.

Any ambulance being used as such is no longer an ambulance, and is a legitimate a military target.

I think you should all read a post by Mohammed @ 10 on another thread:

"While you count UN resolutions, our brave mujahadeen have beat british and french in Afganistan and in the North Africa. We beat the soviets in Afganistan again and we will beat the few remaining crusaders again in Iraq. We keep beating them in Chechnia and we beat them in Bosnia. We have no jews left in Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. We beat them in Lebanon in 1990 and in Gaza last year. No more jews in Gaza. We taught the christians respect, first in Lebanon, then in Palestine, and last year - in entire Europe! Now they are afraid even to mention our Great Prophet by name! We have democratically elected Hamas in Palestine and we will have democratically elected Party of God in Lebanon! Soon Sharya will rule the Middle East!"

This is brilliant. A clear example of just how spiteful some people can be. They don't wan't peace, they don't want goodwill on Earth, they don't even want the world to live in happiness; they want everyone to bow down and do what THEY want, when THEY want, and how THEY want. I was never renowned for my love of religion, but I suppose in Mohammed's eyes I would be considered christian. Does that mean I'm next?

If they have their way in destroying the israeli nation (Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Tuesday. “We shall soon witness the elimination of the Zionist stain of shame.”), will it end there? will they be happy with the whole of the Middle East conforming to their ideals? Or will they try to take it further?

I can only admire the Israeli restraint in the face of such naked racism over the years, and yes while war is never pretty, I fully support them in there stance now.

Long live Israel. May you be a shining light in the face of terrorism. If only my own dear country had the balls to stand up to terrorism rather than giving them political recognition.

Davo:
"Some people", based on the text you quoted, is in fact just one person in this particular case. I can quote similar material by, say, Meir Kahane, to reach a similar (but unjustified) conclusion as to the purported racism of all Israelis.
There are almost 1 billion Islamic people on the face of the planet. It's hard for me to imagine, if they were ALL quite as fanatical as you would like to believe, that Israel would still be around at this point. But I agree that although the percentage of genuine fanatics may be small, the absolute (and growing) number should be concerning to Israel, especially as these individuals become increasingly sophisticated. At this point they have rockets that can penetrate miles into Israel; access to nuclear weapons is a nightmare to contemplate, but might occur eventually via some radical regime like Iran's. Israel and the US may think they can prevent the latter from developing a nuclear device, but so far the US hasn't even succeeded in preventing North Korea from making the bomb, and I doubt anything short of direct occupation or nuking the entire country will do much more than delay the Iranians in their very obvious quest to become a nuclear power.
All that being said, I don't understand why Israel resorts so preferentially to violence as a means of resolving its security issues. I don't deny that a nation has the right to defend itself, but clearly the Hezbollah build-up in southern Lebanon was taking place over a matter of months, if not years, prior to this confrontation. Everyone is now talking about a multi-national peacekeeping force; why wasn't this pushed as a possible solution by the Israeli government during the months/years BEFORE the most recent Hezbollah provocation? I read newspapers carefully, and would surely have noticed had it been. Perhaps Israel doesn't fully trust the international community to act on its behalf vis a vis security issues, perhaps not even its closest

Michael
I'm not as well-read as some the writers are who post on this forum but I'm not exactly ignorant of at least some of the facts, either.

You mention in your post, #290, that perhaps Israel doesn't trust the international community insofar as security matters are concerned. Michael, read the comments made, 1 thru 289. It is very clear that those who support Israel, at least on this page, are a very small minority. And the governments that represent these folks, by and large, hold the same viewpoint.

Look at France. France won't even protect its own self, much less another country. A member of Parliament in England is calling for an arms boycott against Israel. The Pope has, for all practical purposes, blamed Israel for the current situation.

The number is Islamic people that you mention as being on the face of the planet is significant. What is even more significant is the growth of Islam in every European country and on the North American continent. In the United States there are large cities whose Islamic population is becoming very close to being the majority.

What do you think will happen 25 or 30 years down the road when Islam becomes the dominant religion and political force in countries on the European continent? If Hamas is now in the majority of the Palestinians and Hizbullah have seats in the Lebanese government, what do you think will happen when they gain the majority in other places?

Do you think they will suddenly become a peaceful, more tolerant and warm, fuzzy group of people? Once a particular group or political party becomes the majority, they can do pretty much as they please.

Do a little research and see for yourself how they have grown in numbers worldwide. I think this thread is probably about played out, but I would like to read your reaction to the things I have mentioned. Preferably without any anti-American, anti-administration BS that we see so much of on this forum.

Thank you
W

Michael,

Let me try to address some of the points in your letter:

1. Israel underestimated the severity of Hizbollah's build up (which shows in our recent losses and very slow progress in the past 2 weeks)

2. Israel underestimated the power of Islamic idiology and was surprised by overwhelming Hamas victory

3. Israel wrongly assumed that Syria will prevent Hizbollah from provocations

4. Israel wrongly assumed that Egypt will prevent a similar build up and provocations in Gaza.

5. Israel tried to implement the Oslo accords alone, ignoring continuous sabotage and provocations by numerous terrorist organizations within Palestinian autority and Hizbollah.

Israel is now forced into a much tougher war than expected, especially because of the concern for civilians, while Hizbollah uses civilian houses, schools, and hospitals for hiding rocket launchers and amunition.

Here are 3 major lessons so far:

1. Islamic idiology breeds fanatics in much higher numbers than we all thought. Even Israelis underestimated it.

2. Appeasing fanatics is useless. Churchill knew it.

3. We must learn more about Islam. Here are a few questions to start:

a. Does Islam mandate Jihad? For instance, can a Muslim call himself Muslim and oppose Jihad at the same time?

b. Is apostasy in Islam punishable by death?

c. Does the preference of the US (British) Constitution over Sharya constitute apostasy in Islam?

d. Would the imam of your local mosque agree to sign a letter that if there was ever a danger to the US Constitution being replaced with Sharya, this imam will lead his congregation in defense of the Constitution and against Sharya?

Yoram,
Not only do I know where Hadera is located, I have been there many times.
Why do I return? I make money for my company and provide engineering services to your country since Israel offered our US company the contract many years ago and has never revoked it. I have no negative views of Israel! I call them as I see them and I reiterate that it is not a pleasant place to visit. I have expressed this to your governments trade minister on more than one occasion and also stated that it takes three times longer to do business in Israel than it does in Jordan or Kuwait where we also have contracts. As a British counterpart once told me speedy communication is not a Jewish forte and his advice was to eat a full meal before a meeting, for it takes a long time. Checkpoints for all western visitors should have a deli attached. I still maintain that militarism and paranoia drive the Israeli psyche.

Harry,

Good, I can see some of these points, so we are making progress.

Here are 3 homeworks for you, since you are such a world traveller:

1. Next time you pass Haifa, stop by at Rambam hospital (the largest hospital North of Tel Aviv) and check how many Arab doctors we have. Meet, for instance, Dr. Nasralla (unrelated to the chief of Party of God).

2. Similarly, when you go to Kuwait or to Jordan, stop by at ANY hospital and ask to meet a Jewish doctor. Or Jewish anybody.

3. During the long flight to Kuwait or Jordan, ask your fellow Muslim traveler these simple, not offensive questions:

a. Does Islam mandate Jihad? For instance, can a Muslim call himself Muslim and oppose Jihad at the same time?

b. Is apostasy in Islam punishable by death?

c. Does the preference of the US Constitution over Sharya constitute apostasy in Islam?

I have always supported israel, even in the face of 'news' contrary to the israeli position with regards to the west bank. But, and a very big but, is this madness in Lebanon. I support israel's right to exist, but not this bloody minded murder in Lebanon. What are thie goals? Do they want to kill or displace every man woman and child in Lebanon? Do they seek the destruction of the Lebanese civilisation? If not, then what the hell are they doing? They sure as hell are not targetting Hezbollar, unless they are known to drive red cross ambulances. What is really behind this madness? Israel denying deliberately targeting the UN holds no more credibility that the 'innocent' attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. I support israel, but not an israel that acts more nazi thann the nazi party did in 1939. This is not the israel I support. I am sorry I ever heard of them. They reap what they sow, this madness will never end. God help us all.

Yoram;
The purpose of my visits to the Middle East is not to check out the number of Jewish medical staff employed in hospitals in Kuwait and Jordan or how many of the staff in Israeli facilities are followers of Islam or for that matter why we still openly practice anti-semitism right here in the US or why only WASP is still the pre-requisite for admission to many (and I would venture most) country clubs in this land of the free. I am not a crusader, I am an engineer and a business person whose services and expertise help to provide your country with products that keep your water pure and your citizens healthy and I often say

" if I chose to write a dissertation on militarism and paranoi I would dump myself in Israel and complete it in record time.

Iain #288

You say to Mrs Bruce "Hizbollah and Hamas and the other terrorist groups use ambulances for transporting weapons, combatants, suicide bombers and missiles.
Any ambulance being used as such is no longer an ambulance, and is a legitimate a military target."

How do you know this?

Hezbollah could say that bombs come from Israel, and make it a legitimate military target.

It is this kind of sweeping accusation that makes things worse - talk about truth being the fisrst casuality in any war!