There is no doubt that for many TV is raising the children, I strongly suggest you watch some TV from those countries... A few prime examples are mickey the mouse who wants to kill all the jews, the suicide bomber guy, and even adult TV like a soap opera where in one episode jewish doctors steal the eyes of a beutiful yong palastinian woman to transplant to a rich jew (yes, Israel is so medically advanced it can now do eye transplants). Those are just a few of the worst examples, but there are many many more.

When you live in an unstable region and you are bombarded with the same indocranation, it is a simple matter to repeat it later.

How many southerners back in the day would say "but the african americans NEED us, they are not capable of self governing so we are doing them a favor by keeping them as slaves"... do you think they did not beleive it?

Also you are talking to the ones who ran away from there... not the ones who stayed... not the ones who immigrated into israel... not the ones who jumped the border because they prefer to be illigal immigrants in israel to living in the darkness outside of it (I am talking democracy and human rights here), not the ones who became israeli citizens and even serve in the israeli military to help defend the ONLY democracy in the middle east.

Anyways your position is "there are some bad things happening... I think it is the fault of group A (and you are wrong)... those things are not bad enough to get most people up in arms, so lets tell complete fabricans to show people exactly how evil group A is (with our fabricatins)". It is wrong and amoral, but people keep on doing it. No, make that YOU keep on doing that...

You even use it as justification "they told me of bad things like so and so... so it is ok to say something completely different cause Israel is still evil" And you should seriously consider the difference between cause and effect. You mentioned CHECKPOINTS. Checkpoints are not inherantly evil (and I welcome you to try to pass between the US, canada, mexico or any other country without going througn one), and they are there for a reason.. specifically mass murderers on the loss going around blowing up school bussess and malls in israel, and murdering any palastinian who speaks of peace (palastinian sympethizer... according to the PLO in the first intifada 1150 palastinians were killed by "brutal occupation forces" and 1000 were executed for being "suspected israeli sympethisers"... of which only 50% were even suspected, and none were formally investigated, and even if they WERE... preaching peace should not be a crime, definitely not one punishable by death.).

Actually, how did you drag us to the palastinians? see those are completely different things then bombing LEBANON. But for you it is apperantly ok to say "group A did this to group B, it makes them evil, so it is ok to lie about what they did to group C"

If the lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the new truth.

Taltamir, email me at ajbrehm@gmail.com.

The lies, the lies, oh the lies!!!! Oh the humanity, please make the bad man stop with the lying already!!!

As I said before, I'm not fabricating or idly passing on what I believe to be lies. What I am doing, again, is presenting a side of the discussion which apparently can not be allowed to exist in your opinion. That side of the discussion cannot be allowed to exist because it contradicts the basic narrative that has been used to justify unecessary force and brutality. And this doesn't just apply to Israel by the way, but to everyone, which is kind of the whole point.

The basic narrative in western media is thus:

1) Israel are the good guys. All the people shooting at them are bad guys, in fact they're all terrorists. Israel only wants peace and are absolutely justified in whatever force they use to get rid of the bad guys threatening them. The bad guys, being bad, routinely use civillians as human shields and so any civillians killed by the IDF is the fault of the bad guys, even more so because Israel is the good guy and would never, ever do that intentionally. Occasionally, once in a blue moon mistakes are made but that is an unfortunate necessary byproduct of the conflict which the bad guys are forcing Israel to fight.

The counter-narrative which can not be allowed to exist as it contradicts the above is this:

2) Israel is fighting for it's life, yes. However their military has used tactics which have only strengthened their enemies and will continue to do so as they have utilized practices long ago perfected by other imperial powers. Those practices involve the routine punishing of civillian populations and a double standard toward life and casualties;

one of "us" getting killed is an unforgivable terrorist attack that must and will be avenged tenfold

one of "them" getting killed is at best the removal of a terrorist, at worst it is an unfortunate case of collateral dammage that is 100% the fault of the bad guys anyway (ties into reasoning used in narrative #1)

Using this reasoning, life on our side is precious and still qualifies as human, and life on their side is of very little value so any loss is simply unfortunate.

This is nothing new. In order to justify atrocities your enemy cannot qualify as a fellow human being. The enemy must be demonized into pure evil in order to maintain the mythic "good guy vs bad guy" narrative.

Once this narrative has been created, all sorts of abuse of power can be carried out and then justified, rationalized, or even ignored and downplayed.

Using this narrative, for example, all casualties, on both sides, can be blamed on "the bad guys" with no fault or responsibility ascribed to one's own side. It's quite handy really for abstaining oneself of any responsibility!

Furthermore, using these tactics ensures that there will always be bad guys to fight, therefore giving the appearance of legitimizing the tactics- in short, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Punish the civillian population of an area enough and there will always be civillians ready to join the side you are fighting against as they see you as the one who killed their friend or family member.

And the real beauty of what I just stated above? This narrative of us vs them can be turned around and used by both sides!!! And it has, and is!!!

According to both sides, both state they are "good" guys who only want peace but have been forced into it by "bad" guys who kill civillians (and on whom the responsibility for all those casualties lie)

This means, lo and behold, that both sides are operating on a double standard! Who'da thunk it???

A side of the discussion? This is as much a "side of the discussion" as when a KKK member says "the holocaust didn't happen" and "the jews rule the world via secret societies".

I have listentened to and debated with such people with an open mind, but as long as they are basing it off of false "evidence" their argument can't hold water. You are also discussing what you BELEIVE to be the PERSONAL BELEIFS of others... You seem to claim to be able to read the minds of "Israel" (I'd assume you mean israeli leaders) and know exactly what values the place on things.

The hamas charter is "destroy israel and drive all the jews into the sea". So they are not even working on the PRETENSE of wanting peaceful COEXISTANCE (sure they want peace... peace by eradication of the other side though, not peace by coexistance)

Aside from 1 and 2 not even being mutally exclusive... this is not what we are arguing and you know it. #2 is always a possibility and IS allowed to exist, it is simply NOT the case because every evidence brought forward to support it is a lie, fabrication, or a personal opinion (which is not based on any evidence, and heavily influenced by local propaganda). This is the problem. We are talking about SPECIFIC INCIDENTS here.

Well, first of all, the basic narrative in western media is quite different.

But nevertheless, I would be curious to learn why you think that Israel are not the good guys, that the people shooting at them are  not bad guys, that Israel doesn't want peace, and that Israel are not justified in getting rid of the bad guys threatening them.

That's not true. In fact Israel's enemies are considerably weaker now than in 1948 or even in 1866.

The PLO, once the military arm of the Arab franchise of the German Nazis is not reduced to a bunch of weak politicians trying to remain in power with Israel's help.

The Muslim Brotherhood, a somewhat new enemy, is reduced to ruling Gaza; with all the sympathy of the world for their plan to kill the Jews, but nevertheless reduced to ruling Gaza.

Egypt was once a formidable military power capable of destroying Israel. Today Egypt is reduced to trying to kill a few Darfurian refugees before they cross the border to Israel.

Syria was once a cornerstone of Arab nationalism. Today Syria is disliked even by the other Arabs.

Israeli tourists visit Egypt on a regular basis. The border to the Kingdom of Jordan is open. There is no longer a blockade around Israel, Israel's enemies are no longer capable of it (and no longer willing).

These days it counts as a "victory" over Israel if one manages to get the Jews to destroy half of Lebanon.

Since the border fence is up the terrorists do not even manage to kill a few school children any more. They are trying. And they fail.

Israel has trade connections with Gulf states and even Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia even criticised Hizbullah for attacking Israel.

The truth is that Israel made it expensive to kill Jews. And the strategy worked. Israel's enemies are ridiculously weak now. And ever since America openly supported Israel there have been no major wars in Israel any more.

Israel's military has not used any particular tactics that could be considered weird or abnormal. Israel's military just used those tactics better than others, while refraining from attacking civilians.

The reason the terrorists use human shields and surround themselves with children is because THEY, in contrast do you, do NOT think the Israeli army is evil. They believe that human shields work against Jews. That is the reputation the IDF has among Israel's enemies.

Israeli solders never use their own population as human shields. Israel's enemies do it all the time. That alone should make you wonder whether your world view works or not.

If Israel didn't want peace, why would Israel have offered peace in 1948, in 1967 (in exchange for the occupied territories!), in the 1980s, in 1994, and in 2000?

Do we _know_ that Jews lie or why don't we trust Israel?

Ok, I'll take this.

What exactly is "unnecessary force and brutality" when fighting people who want to kill you, your family, and your entire people?

And why didn't a single media outlet refer to Hizbullah's attacks as "excessive violence" or "unnecessary force" or "unproportional"?

In fact, I don't think I have ever seen CNN or the BBC refer to ANY act of violence not committed by Israelis as "excessive", "unproportional" or "unnecessary".

In the media Hizbullah is the resistance and Israel is using excessive brutality. That's the story when some group tries to kill Jews.

Just saw it on the news:

Syria is shocked, _SHOCKED_, about an apparent American attack on Syrian soil.

Syria apparently CANNOT BELIEVE that anybody would do such a thing; attack another country over the border.

Syria was similarly shocked when Israel destroyed what appears to be a nuclear reactor in the making.

Let's see how the media report it. Will they blame America for an unprovoked attack on Syria (despite the fact that the US have not said anything about the event) or will they point out that what the US have apparently done just now is what Syria has been doing to Israel, Lebanon, and Iraq for years?

END THE SYRIAN OCCUPATION OF KURDISH LANDS! STOP THE OCCUPATION!

Oh, I don't know. Maybe dropping cluster bombs all over the country, many of which didn't explode on initial contact, many of which fell in towns and cities. Funny, quite often they are these little yellow disks that children mistake for toys and decide to play with.... hmmm.....

We've been through this already. I believe that there are very few cases in which it is good guy vs bad guy, and most often it is bad guy vs bad guy with innocents caught in-between, and most often the bad guys on both sides are claiming they're doing it for the sake of the innocents although those are the ones who get harmed most!

This is interesting, let's examine it with an example.

Let's say that China invades the U.S. Or let's pretend that all of south and central america has consolidated into some kind of EU block and invaded, whatever. Some kind of foreign power.

Let's say that you live in, I don't know, Dallas. And this army is moving in on Dallas and dropping leaflets stating that they're gonna bomb the bejeezus out of the area and you should leave.

Now, Dallas is your home. You know, the place that you live and have all your stuff and family? So leaving means you're going to be a refugee, same as all those folks that had to leave new orleans for Katrina only there's no way of knowing if you'll ever get to return and there's a pretty good chance that home will be destroyed.

So, assuming that you're fit to travel.

Assuming your family is fit to travel (no sick aunts or uncles etc)

Assuming you have the means to travel (a vehicle with sufficient gas, friend with room in his car)

Assuming you and your family are willing to leave your home and all your possessions

Then you have to face the wonders of a mass exodus at a time when roads, bridges and airports are being shelled.

So, the airport is shut down due to shelling, that's one option that's gone. You can take the highway, but several vehicles, both military and civillian have been hit in the last few hours and many bridges have been destroyed. Throw in the fact that any semblance of order has pretty much disapeared which means there will also be opportunists looking to rob any easy pickings (those easy pickings being a family of mostly women and children with only one man among them) and suddenly things don't look so rosy.

Also consider that once you leave your home and familiar surroundings you're pretty much at the mercy of others. Meaning that unless you've got a months supply of food, water medicine and fuel with you that you will have to depend on someone else to be charitable and share in a time of war, which is sketchy considering the civil authority has broken down or is too busy dealing with the war itself.

And to top it off, let's say your plan is to go to Ohio as that's north of Texas. But lo and behold, the enemy is also going to be bombing the crap out of Ohio too. So, even if you leave there's no guarantee of safety as the entire country is a target.

So for any number of valid reasons you stay behind, because you can't travel, it isn't safe to travel, or even, *gasp* because this is your home damnit and you decide you're not going to go.

So this foreign army bombs the crap out of the city (that cowardly U.S army division had the GALL to hide themselves in the city, instead of doing the honorable thing and going out in the open in a big group where one airstrike could wipe out most of them)

Now as to the details of the bombing, the army units in the city were mostly untouched, because they did not hide amongst large groups of civillians in easily collapsible big buildings but were rather spread out and dug into to underground positions, not hiding in apartment buildings and the like. The foreign army, of course, picks the easiest to identify targets which are big buildings and reduces those to rubble, with the thinking that by taking out these easy targets they will punish the civillian populace for daring to side with their own armed forces and it will be a bonus if they actually get any soldiers too. Just about anything is fair game- taking out a phone exchange can be justified as denying the enemy use of civillian communications infrastructure. Taking out a water treatment plant is denying enemy troops a vital need (too bad for the civies, LOL!)

In the aftermath, the foreign army comes out and says that it's the U.S army's fault that Dallas was bombed, and any casualties from the bombing is also the U.S army's fault because they used you as a human shield.

Would you buy that and turn against the army that was defending you???

The Lebanese sure didn't. The summer war of 2006 succeeded in making Hezbollah stronger, not weaker.

Yes, Israel sure is doing great right now. It's government is incredibly stable too!

You can thank your friends in Europe who boycotted arms deliveries to Israel during and before the war. Israel uses what it has.

The analogy is flawed. The attacker didn't drop leaflets to warn people. The defender did. If China were to invade the US and the US defended itself and started bombing China after dropping leaflets to warn to local population, I'd have no doubt as to who the good guys are.

It is a lot more stable than the Lebanese government and you will find that everything in Israel will continue to work until and after a new prime minister is elected. What you are seeing is not instability but the normal operating procedure for that type of government. The same thing goes on in Germany all the time.

I doubt that the US army would do that. It's a war crime to hide among civilians.

You can stick your sarcastic remark about it being "GALL" where the sun doesn't shine. I find it extremely offensive that you make fun of war crimes.

Well, Israel built tent cities in the south and we had busses evacuating us from the north.

I don't see why the Lebanese cannot do the same and I don't see why Israel is to blame for the fact that they didn't.

In contrast to Hizbullah we were HOPING that the civilians would run away.

You are a lot more hostile towards Israel than most Arabs and Muslims I have met. Yet you claim it has nothing to do with hatred or anti-Semitism. You will happily repeat lies that get people killed (because they are believed), yet you make sure that everybody knows that you don't hate.

You feel all sorts of sympathy for the attackers and the fact that their houses were being bombed, yet you don't seem to recognise at all that the SAME THING happened in Israel.

You can ask Hizbullah. They will tell you that they want to fight Israel. But I can tell you that Israel doesn't want to fight anybody.

In order to keep up the pretense of your world view you have to believe that both Hizbullah and Israel are lying about that. I don't know where you take the gall to assume that Israel obviously lies, but I got used to that. What I find odd is that you don't even pay attention to what Hizbullah actually says.

This is the key, you have the cynical beleif that everyone is evil, so you FIND things to blame even good people of.

No, for your analogy to work you should say that a terrorist organization based in the USA and with seats in the USA government but no actual government approval or direct ties to the military started bombing civilian targets in europe... five years later it invaded europe without local opposition from a weak USA government, and at that point europe finally counter attacks, in that counter attack europe drops leaflets to warn people to evacuate before they begin fighting in an area (and NOT fighting the government official military, but fighting the terrorist organization)... if that was to happen the US would indeed be the bad guy... but I seriously doubt the USA is going to do that anytime soon.

There was a mass exodus from new orleans before the hurricane hit... But many people chose to stay because "dammit it is their home"... Some people just don't place the safety of themselves and their families first.

That is a war crime, the US army never does that, the USA defenses are in protected army bases spread around the country outside of civilian populace.

The only ARMY that I know of that used civilians as shields is the Iraqi one... and when the USA actually invaded they all surrendered. Who didn't surrender is private militia groups not affiliated with the army. The hezbolla is at best a private millitia group (one whose business is terrorism and destabalizing the local country per the wishes of iran). It is NOT the lebanese army, and the lebanese army WAS NOT hiding in cities and WAS NOT hiding behind civilians in the latest conflict.

The thing is, Israel was not even TRYING To destroy the lebanese army. The hezbola is NOT a branch of the lebaneze army, in fact there was a bloody civil war not too long ago in which they tried to take them out. In talks right before israel retaliated against hezbolla, the lebanese government said their hands are tied, that if they tried to take out hizbolla, even with or especially with israeli support, then they would spark a civil war that they are not willing to fight.

What SHOULD have happened was that the lebanese, with israeli support, regained control of their own country from hezbolla, a terrorist organization funded by iran and meant to destabalize lebanon as much as attack israel.

But it did not happen, lebanon was too weak to do so. So israel acted by itself, fighting hezbolla while the lebanese army cowered and tried to avoid the cross fighting between two hostile forces on their territory.

Tough one to say, but potentially true. Most of hezbolla's assets are destroyed, they lost literally the majority of it. But the got a lot of new support due to wrongful media coverage and could potentially rebuild stronger then before.

The thing is... could you have done better... for five years they rain fire on you from across the border, the local government does nothing. Then they get brazen enough to cross the border, and attack your military, killing and capturing your units in your own country. (while traveling in a UN ambulance... which the UN forces in the area FILMED them taking, but did nothing to stop them or warn israel)... I know that if I was in charge I would have acted much sooner then when they finally invaded... say... in the 5 years of shelling leading up to that (more like in the first month). But israel is used to it now, and so fearful of world public opinion that they have been neutered... israel GAVE BACK the oil fields that they captured from egypt for peace (every other country would have flattened cairo and been done with it). Israel sent israeli soldiers that used tear gas and tasers to forcibly evict israeli settlers from the "arab territories" at their demand. (those wh did not want to leave their home... isarel also paid each twice their home value in reperations, but some still did not want to leave, so they were made to leave to make "peace" with the enemy). Israel has gone above and beyond again and again.

Let me tell you right now, any other country would have used their superior power to eliminate the enemy and all the civilians they hide behind long ago... I think the most telling thing about you is this though.

This can not be stressed enough, not only is this a heinouss war crime. It is the anti thesis of an army. The US army is made of brave and patriotic men and women that put their lives on the line to protect the american people. They would never, and have never, used civilians as shields (they have NEVER fought an enemy that would CARE and spare the civilians even if it means enemy soldiers getting away). In fact, they shield the civilians with their lives.

The US army would hide in the mountains, would hide in forts, would hide in many place from air raids... and that is assuming that you magically destroyed the US air force and every single anti air gun turret and hiding was needed. But if they did come to hiding, it would not be among the populace.

Again, this is the hypocrisy I am addressing. As I've said before, I bear no resentment towards Israel, so you have responded by saying I am hostile. I assure you there is no hostility either. What I am getting at is there is a definite double standard-

Never mind that it was Israeli bombs dropped by Israeli aircraft, the line of thinking goes that it's the fault of the other guys for staying in their homes.

Again, Hezbollah is only a few thousand people, most of whom were outside of the major cities and along the border regions in the south. So to argue that there were legions of Hezbollah soldiers using all of these civillians as shields is utter nonsense. The truth is, again, the IDF had no frickin clue whatsoever where Hezbollah was, so they picked targets that were easy and abundant!

This is not supposition or conjecture- the IDF dropped a massive amount of guided ordnance in Lebanon, so much so that if even 1 in 5 bombs had hit a target with Hezbollah present they would have completely wiped out their organization wholesale.

But, what happened?

They leveled half of south beirut in the attempt to knock al-manar off the air (it didn't work)

They dropped even more bombs on any area they thought contained command and control for Hezbollah (it didn't work- Nasrallah revealed after the fact that they had buried fiber optic cable which was untouched and allowed the bulk of C3 to work unimpeded)

They stated that the bulk of many civillian targets were launch sites for Hezbollah rockets, yet Hezbollah continued firing rockets and engaging more than 30,000 IDF troops when they crossed the border.

So, in summary-

Israel and Hezbollah go to war. Israel thinks it knows where Hezbollah is but within a couple of days their airstrikes are having no effect on impeding Hezbollah. They panick. Things are not going according to the glorious plan of shock and awe through aerial bombardment.

So, since current airstrikes have had no effect they expand the scope of valid targets to include pretty much all of Lebanon. They go after lots and lots of civillian areas, purely on guesswork as it has no effect on hezbollah other than creating lots of nice piles of rubble.

And to top it off, although they targeted entire neighbourhoods purely on guesswork without any hard evidence that it was any kind of enemy base, they claim it's the enemy's responsibility for those neighbourhoods being destroyed..... hmmmm.....

Taltamir-

I haven't responded to you yet because most of what you're saying is in line with Leauki, hence only one response is needed (and I don't have the time to be quite honest) but I will respond on this-

I agree with you 100 % But clearly you do not understand my analogy- if Dallas were to be threatened with being overrun by a foreign army, would not the U.S army take up defensive positions around and inside the city? Or would they allow a foreign army to march in freely and take over? And yes, every effort would be made to evacuate the civillian populace no doubt.

But history has proven time and again that it is a virtual impossibility to completely evacuate a major city, especially during a time of war. You can get most of the people out, if you have enough time, preparation and the circumstances are in order. But there are always, always some remnant left over in a big city.

The whole purpose of the analogy was to try and illustrate the hypocrisy of Israel when it waged it's 2006 summer war.

Repeating it does not make it less of a lie. The leaders of hezbolla said they lost over half their assets, that it was a mistake, but they will come out stronger and rebuild and win.

Israel said it destroyed over half their assets and that it is a decisive blow...

You seem to be under the opinion that both hezbolla and israel are lying about it... you are making up stories that even the hezbolla would not bother with since they are so outlandish.