Thread: Middle Eastern Conflict

I just can't stand the fact that innocent Lebanese civilians are being killed while the countries that are truly at fault go unpunished.

The real war here is between Israel and Hezbollah, a puppet organization funded by Syria and Iran. Yet, even Israel has not faced the daily hardships that plague the Lebanese people from day to day.

As I can see it, there are three ways this conflict can end.

1. Either the UN or some other international organization works towards a ceasefire (unlikely to happen, given the fact that the Security Council just indefinitely suspended ceasefire talks).

2. Israel wins through exercising their military might (very likely, given the casualty discrepancy between the two sides).

3. Iran or Syria step in to aid Hezbollah, making the conflict consume the Middle East (extremely unlikely, given that both countries don't want that kind of international dispute).

And no matter what happens, the damage caused to the country of Lebanon will be irreparable. Not only have lives been lost, much of the infrastructure of Lebanon will be damaged. Bridges gone and airstrips damaged. That is their future.

Originally Posted by seenoevil

I am in no way trying to provoke the sensibilities of the people on this board, but I believe when we start talking about war abstractly and not deal with the actual truth of the matter we are minimalizing our own humanism and turning this conflict into a game-situation. I believe pictures speak louder than words and I will warn you that they're very graphic. Here are some photos of the aftermath of Israel attacks:
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle14180.htm
http://www.daraghmcg.org/2006/07/30/whats-going-on/
http://www.whyweworry.com/content/?p=249
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...;articleId=2787
http://journals.aol.com/rodericklor4/MURDE...ry-graphic./351


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I am a humanist too and every innocent human death is a tragedy. However you cannot have the one without the other.

Those pictures show only 1 side of the Truth: My family's Northern Israëli Hometown is burning and reduced to rubble....I haven't seen pictures of that? But my family told me what had happened. My aunt, uncle and cousin had to pack their stuff and they moved to my Cousin (Their oldest Daughter) who lives in Tel Aviv.
My family and 100s of other innocent Israëli Inhabitants of Northern Israël with them.

How come these atrocities are CENCORED? The Western Media is VERY VERY Subjective. Example:

I saw a Dutch Lebanese girl on the News yersterday saying she was WITH Hizbollah and that Hizbollah doesn't shoot at Children and woman....Well What I just told you about what happened to my family Indenieably contradicts these lies.

Hizbollah do not only use their own people as a ''PR-Shield'' but also UN: They fired Missiles from behind a UNbuilding. The Resulting Israëli Returned Fire led to further Anti-Israël Sentiment: Hizbollah delibertely does this.

And theb attrocity in Qana was also appointed to ''The Jews'' I know the Israëli airforce targetted a Hizbollah building in Qana round 24:00 / 1:00.

The Reported Bloodbath took place round 8 o'clock next Morning and survivors said it was raining mortars and missiles: Mortars and Missiles? They are Hizbollah Weaponry. Just SUPPOSE the targetted building was known to Israëli intelligence to be a Hizbollah Weapons Depot: They bombed it...It caught fire, and that fire Ignited The 1000s of Hizbollah Katchusha Mortars and Missiles some hours later, Killing many many Civilians of Qana.


No instead people believe Israël is just randomly destroying and killing in South-Lebanon. Try and look further into the Truth if you REALLY want to know hat happened there.

Originally Posted by seenoevil

I am in no way trying to provoke the sensibilities of the people on this board, but I believe when we start talking about war abstractly and not deal with the actual truth of the matter we are minimalizing our own humanism and turning this conflict into a game-situation. I believe pictures speak louder than words and I will warn you that they're very graphic. Here are some photos of the aftermath of Israel attacks:
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle14180.htm
http://www.daraghmcg.org/2006/07/30/whats-going-on/
http://www.whyweworry.com/content/?p=249
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...;articleId=2787
http://journals.aol.com/rodericklor4/MURDE...ry-graphic./351


[/b]

You show the pictures of Lebanon, and while I will admit these are terrible pictures, I could easily find pictures of devastation in Israel too, and have seen plenty of tapes of destruction. Now I'll admit there is less devastation in Israel, but like SKA, I too have relatives near Qiriat Shemonah, the target of most rockets. Kaytyushas are innacurate, and have hit Kibbutzim rather close to where my family is. They are living almost constantly in the bomb shelter or the safety room, as the rockets fall mere kilometers away. I also have relatives in Haifa, one of which was working when 250 meters away, a Kassam rocket crashed into the harbor. Lebanon may get damaged more, but Israel isn't coming out unharmed either. There are two sides to everything.

You probably heard about the 3 story building that was bombed by Israel, which collapsed killing over 50 people in the basement, causing world-wide anger. What you probably didn't here was that before that, Hezballah fired Kaytyushas at Israel from that location, and Israel retaliated with an airstrike. They didn't know they would kill all those people in the basement, most of which didn't deserve in the least bit to die like that, they were just trying to kill the terrorists there. Now Hezbollah says they never fired kaytyushas from that location, making the world angrier, but the truth is that they DID. I saw on Israeli news, the surveillance tapes released by the Israeli army, which, using infrared cameras, caught Hezbollah in the action of firing the Kaytyushas from right next to that building. Hezbollah knew about those people in there, and they fired from that location anyways, so that when Israel retaliated, innocent civilians would die, causing a humanitarian crisis. There are two sides to everything.

I am not saying everything Israel does is right, or everything Hezbollah does is wrong. Before the fighting began, Hezbollah built schools and homes, and hospitals, which is great, and if they just did that, I would be a fan. But no, at the same time they stocked up, with help from syria and iran, over 13,000 rockets, tons of ammunition, weapons, everything needed to do damage, which they are now using against Israel, using innocent civilians, including young children, as shields, so that the world gets mad at Israel, and that, in my opinion outweighs the good they have done. There are two sides to everything.

I read in PenguinLord's post you are one of those denying the Holocaust?[/b]

A little off topic. I have not read the entire thread, because, frankly, I haven't got anything worth saying about the current conflict (as I do not read the media a whole lot), but if anyone actually denies the Holocaust then I am concerned. I have seen a few people like that before and fail to see how they can manage to just pretend millions of deaths never happened, so some whacko conspiracy theory or another makes sense to themselves.

History is there to learn from our mistakes, and the Holocaust was one of the biggest mistakes I can think of. The Holocaust was a big reason for fighting in the World War. The Holocaust, frankly, can stand in history as a testament to how overwhelmingly stupid the human race is able to be when a figure like Hitler and the Nazi party comes along and gets us all riled up. It's not something you compare actions to lightly and it's not something you dismiss like a piece of flimsy news either.

I don't know about anyone else here, but I just really hope this that isn't a sentiment the general public holds. I wouldn't like the world to need another Holocaust just so people can learn their lesson again.

Maybe nobody in here believes the Holocaust never happened, but I still feel it's an imporant enough subject to be defended vehlemently when need be.

Try as I could, I could not find any pictures of the Israel devastation on the internet. Israel isn't allowing photos of their casualties to circulate out of "respect" for the dead...(since when is being dead respectful). I'm not trying to say Israel hasn't been affected by this conflict, but that Israel will be able to pull through at the end of all this fighting whereas Lebanon will be set back twenty years with no help from Israel in terms of reconstruction.

PenguinLord, I understand the feelings you must be having since you have family in Israel, but I can't accept the fact that Israel should be allowed to protect herself at other people's expense. The method so far targeting Hezbollah areas has been erroneous and with too many innocent Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire. Some may say "well, that's just the cost of war" but looking through the vast amounts of photos of the carnage I don't see how we can continue thinking in a frame of mind which allows Israel to continue these mindless retaliations.

SKA, I don't think Israel are getting pleasure from all the innocent civilians that are being killed. I just assume that the way they are trying to kill Hezbollah fighters is a campaign of blind bombing in the hopes that some of them will die. Hezbollah is ridiculous and barbaric as well, but the carnage inflicted upon Lebanon is not in proportion to the actions of a group that doesn't speak for the average Lebanese citizen.

There needs to be a ceasefire and a progression towards a mindframe of a truce on both sides. Unrealistic, for sure, but I choose to believe that we can live in a world where differences can be solved without violence (in fact, it saddens me that this last sentence feels naive even typing it).

Originally Posted by SKA

Hizbollah do not only use their own people as a ''PR-Shield'' but also UN: They fired Missiles from behind a UNbuilding. The Resulting Israëli Returned Fire led to further Anti-Israël Sentiment: Hizbollah delibertely does this.
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So your one of the people who actually believes that stroy? I mean sure it makes sense at first untill you realize that it doesn't matter if they where "behind" a UN buildings or not because theres no such thing as "behind". The story is total bull.

They can fly a gunship over the building and hit hizbollah without hitting the buildings. They can be very careful with their mortar fire and shoot over the building and hit hizbollah and not the building. Instead they took out the buildings and who knows if they got hizbollah or not, infact they may not have even been there. How do we know? All we can tell is from their own mouth hizbollah was using the UN building as a shield while all of their weapons could have shot over the building. They would have to actually be inside, or leaning up against the wall both which are very unlikely.

Originally Posted by Kaniaz

A little off topic. I have not read the entire thread, because, frankly, I haven't got anything worth saying about the current conflict (as I do not read the media a whole lot), but if anyone actually denies the Holocaust then I am concerned. I have seen a few people like that before and fail to see how they can manage to just pretend millions of deaths never happened, so some whacko conspiracy theory or another makes sense to themselves.

History is there to learn from our mistakes, and the Holocaust was one of the biggest mistakes I can think of. The Holocaust was a big reason for fighting in the World War. The Holocaust, frankly, can stand in history as a testament to how overwhelmingly stupid the human race is able to be when a figure like Hitler and the Nazi party comes along and gets us all riled up. It's not something you compare actions to lightly and it's not something you dismiss like a piece of flimsy news either.

I don't know about anyone else here, but I just really hope this that isn't a sentiment the general public holds. I wouldn't like the world to need another Holocaust just so people can learn their lesson again.

Maybe nobody in here believes the Holocaust never happened, but I still feel it's an imporant enough subject to be defended vehlemently when need be.
[/b]

Still, however, I don't think that the Holocaust should be any kind of badge of pity for the Israelis. We're a new generation now. There is no denying that the Holocaust did happen, or that it was the worst atrocity of the 20th century, but times have changed. It's time to shake off the past and face the future.

Originally Posted by Alric

Of course the holocaust happened

[/b]

But where is the History?

German Law forbids any research.

What passes for History is legal assertion from the Nuremburg Trials. And Lawyers are liars.

Yes, 20 million people probably did die. But whether or not there was a "Holocaust" depends upon why they died. Was there a deliberate plan to murder these people? Or did they starve because the English Fleet embargoed all of Continental Europe and restricted the delivery of any foodstuff, when Europe, for decades had depended upon food imports to feed itself. And America had supported that Embargo.

Were 20 million killed or did 20 million people starve? There is a difference.

Now, if there was an intentional Holocaust perpetrated by Germany who was in total control of Europe for 6 years, then why were the deaths so scattered, and why so many survivors. If the Holocaust had been a systematic program, then everyone would have been killed.

In Camps where there was planned killing, one can argue that there was notification that Food Deliveries were being suspended... not out of cruelty or malicious intent, but only because there was no longer any food to deliver -- that Churchill and Roosevelt had been successful in their 'Sanctions'. To forestall Food Riots and needless suffering, death was imposed as a kind of euthanasia.

So, until we can get any real History, the Holocaust as an intentional program to specifically target the Jews seems like just an exercise in Public Relations that helps to justify modern Zionist Aggressions. And in that regard, the Holocaust now brought down upon the Palestinian People DOES pass Historical Review.

Ok Leo, if so many people "starved to death", then why the hell were so many of them jews and other minorities, and so few of them the Nazis who were also at those camps. You are being ridiculous, and people who believe this kind of crap are what cause history to repeat itself by making people forget what really happened. There were survivors because some were lucky and didn't die upon getting shot, or managed to escape, or instead of being killed were forced to work as slaves, or just got pure lucky, and got rescued by the russians or other countries fighting germany before the germans had a chance to turn on the gas. Yes, this happened to a relative of mine. She was in the chamber about to be gassed when the russians came and liberated the camp she was at.

Just something to think of, they had a good 3 or 4 years of total control, more than enough time to kill anyone you want to. All the examples you just gave wouldn't explain more than like 100 combined and are very unlikely. Except for them being sent to a work camp, which is plausible but then that would also help Leos argument as well. Because if they sent most people to work camps and then people died from hunger thats pretty close to what he was saying.

Also to put it into perspective, 60 million people died in ww2, and well over half of them were civilians.

Thought this article was interesting so I just decided to throw it in here. No particular reason, really.

(Time) Why the Middle East Crisis Isn't Really About Terrorism

Thank you PenguinLord13 for complimenting my reply I did put a lot of thought into it and I didn't want to sound abhorrent. This subject is very sensitive to the point where arousing strong feelings of repugnance or disapproval toward one another could take this entire thread from a debate to an all out argument in the blink of an eye. So I decided to give more of an unbiased approach thanks a lot guys.
You guys have also displayed some very thought provoking and extremely deep responses and I see an abundance of sheer intelligence from you two. Keep it rocking and I look forward to checking out more of you guys comments throughout the forum.