The middle east

Here’s a brief history of the current event. This doesn’t try to be sensitive to feelings, but instead looks at common sense;

6 Years ago, Israel left Lebanon, after the last series of attacks by Hezbollah had them occupy the area to create a “demilitarized” zone (or safe zone) between them and the fanatics that keep attacking them. Because Hezbollah never stopped attacking, they called the leaving as some victory. The U.N. passed resolution 1559 promising that they’d come in, and separate the two sides, and make sure these attacks didn’t happen again. (Which is why Israel went in, in the first place). Of course the U.N. never did what they promised; as usual, only the U.S. is expected to enforce everything for the U.N., and since weren’t going to get more involved, nothing happened. We were of course bombed for being too involved in the middle east later, as was Israel for pulling out or just existing.

July 12th, Hezbollah, fires rockets into Israel, invades Israel, kills a few innocent people, and kidnaps two others, drags them across the border and says it has them hidden in a safe-house across the border, and wants to use these two to ransom many other criminals/terrorists (and get them set free from Israeli prisons). Lebanon says “there’s nothing they can do”, while there are parties and demonstrations in the street over the greatness that is this terrorist organization. Israel has a choice, tolerate these incursions, which in the past have been declared victories and encouraged more attacks, or respond to this provocation. They chose not to tolerate the rape of their country, the murder of their people and the terrorist attacks against their civilians; imagine that?

When Israel goes on raids into the area, to try to find their kidnapped people, Hezbollah responds by launching a series of terrorist attacks (rockets against Israeli civilians). Nearly 1,000 rockets against civilian targets since the start. While the Israeli’s have targeted only the terrorists, Hezbollah has targeted only Israeli innocents, and uses their “friends” and family as human shields while shooting at the Israeli’s, then blame the Israeli’s for shooting back and killing their shields (as well as the Hezbollah fighters). The idiots in the media blame the Israeli’s for killing innocent Lebonese and ignored Hezbollah’s actions in all this.

July 13th, for trying to get their people back, and for selectively targeting missile launchers, infrastructure (not people) and only the people shooting at them, the U.N., France, Iranians and Israel calls Israel “disproportionate” use of force. They ignore the terrorist attacks against the Israeli’s, and using human shields, violating the Geneva convention and rules of war, hiding in civilian areas, the demonstrations supporting Hezbollah, holding and encouraging civilians to stay in a war-zone and using them as shields, and so on. I’d like to know what is “proportionate” use of force in trying to find your kidnapped people and stop those attacking you; obviously the bigots have something in mind. But then in their minds, only the dirty Jews are to blame for the fighting. The French, U.N. and Russia somehow miss the irony that they are like-minded with bigots and anti-Semites the world over. The Iranians say the problem is Israels existance and the stinking Jews. France, the U.N. and Russia tacitly agree with them (in principal, just not quite in words). The sane suspect that if rockets were raining on Paris or Moscow by THEIR neighbors, that they might sing a different tune.

July 14th Israel is already blamed, so in retaliation they bomb the Hezbollah offices in Beruit. The terrorist Hassan Nasrallah declares “open war” on Israel — as if kidnapping and invasion and firing rockets at them aren’t acts of war. Bigots throughout the middle east start supporting Hezbollah and Hassan, and bigots in the west start blaming Israel more for the rising tension; why couldn’t they just ignore terrorist acts against their people they ask?

July 14th, the Americans, England and Israel offer loose terms early on. If Hezbollah stops firing missiles and returns the people they kidnapped, and the U.N. comes in, disarms Hezbollah, and builds a safe zone where they can’t fire their missiles and rockets at Israeli’s (like they promised in resolution 1559 in the first place), then Israel will stop trying to stop them themselves. The French think this is unreasonable, and propose a more “fair” agreement, where the Israeli’s agree to stop defending themselves, and they should just ignore the rockets killing their civilians and the kidnapped people, and that MAYBE later, they’ll pass another toothless resolution or do something to stop Hezbollah…. or not. The sane aren’t very fond of that resolution, the terrorists, French and their supporters, think it sounds fair.

July 16th, Hezbollah rockets kill eight Israelis in the coastal city of Haifa in the worst attack on Israel since the fighting started. They claim this is in retaliation for what Israel is doing in defending itself and trying to get it’s people back and stop the rocket attacks. Iran warns all kinds of silly things like any attack against Syria or Iran will incur “unimaginable losses”.

The EU and world ignores that Iran has been the biggest sponsor or the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Heck, the U.N. and EU won’t even call Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The #2 Man in the U.N. (U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brow) explains in a press conference that while Hezbollah is an organization that has committed dozens of terrorist acts, and while their leader is a terrorist, and they train in terrorist tactics and fight using those methods, and their politics/policies are those of terrorists, that they aren’t actually a terrorist organization; making those with a clue ponder what would the qualifications have to be. The French of course think that sounds reasonable. To demonstrate his diplomatic skills this same guy has attacked the U.S. as being “ignorant” because we don’t agree with everything the U.N. has done, or that we have problems with some of their policies or corruption.

July 20th, Kofi Annan calls for a ceasefire. Hezbollah fires 30 more rockets. The U.S. helps many people evacuate from Lebanon, and gets blamed for doing anything.

July 21st, after doing nothing to stop Hezbollah since it he was elected, the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora says the offensive is now no longer against Hezbollah, but against Lebanon. This means they’ll do nothing to stop the Israeli’s either.

July 24th, the U.N. appeals for $150M in world aid. the U.S. responds by immediately pledging to pay for 20% of the entire worlds contributions on that ($30M), not counting direct aid we’ve already given and will give in the future. The world will criticize the U.S. for doing more than anyone else.

July 25th, the U.N. put a “peace keeping observation post” right next to a Hezbollah strong hold. and when they get shelled, they blame the Israeli’s for it. Later retracting their stupidity, and apologizing to Israel for their tantrum. When Israel hits power plants, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official Jan Egeland blames Israel for violating the law, as she considers power plants as civilian targets (even if the world’s military considers them military targets). Again, the U.N. calls Israel’s response to kidnapping and terror “disproportionate”, and again fails to define what is the proper response to kidnapping, murder and terror — nor will they admit their own incompetence in NOT following through with 1559 in the first place, which is what lead to this whole mess.

July 27th and 28th, since a Roman conference (EU, Arab States, U.S. and Russia) couldn’t decide on what should be done to stop Hezbollah from attacking Israel in the future, the Israeli’s keep fighting the war themselves. Everyone wants the fighting to stop, but no one wants to get involved and risk their own lives to do it. The sane admit that there’s no plans to stop Hezbollah, so the fighting can’t stop until they are neutralized. The U.N. calls for an immediate ceasefire (by Israel — it would of course only be a break and time to reload for Hezbollah). Hezbollah responds by firing 100 more rockets at Izrael, and the U.N. blames Israel for not stopping the fighting.

July 30th, Hezbollah has been launching rockets from behind a building where they house their friends and families, in a town that has many Hezbollah positions and supporters — when Israel hits that position and kills 28 people (some of them Women and Children), the world reacts. They blame Israel, they misreport the death total as 56 (off by a factor of two), claim it was a peaceful area and they’re targeting civilians, and so on. Israel shows video of rockets leaving from immediately behind that building, but the world does care about the facts or the manipulation of the media.

July 31’s, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel apologises to the Lebanese people “for the pain caused”, and says Israel’s fight is against Hezbollah, not Lebanon. The world doesn’t care and blames Israel for not dying like Hezbollah wants. The EU calls for more cease-fires, meaning the Israeli’s and not Hezbollah. The Israeli’s are asking for what they asked for in 2000, and ever day since the conflict started; for an international peace-keeping force to go in, disarm Hezbollah, and get them to stop attacking Israeli’s.

Aug 5th, the French finally agree that maybe what the U.S., U.K., and Israeli’s have been asking for all along, was not so unreasonable, and that maybe Hezbollah attacking Israel had something to do with the conflict; thus the solution might be get THEM to stop. Thousands of morons marched in London, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, proving that not only the French can be idiots/racists. This is inspiring peace-morons world-wide to once again ignore the cause of war, and beg for the immediate cessation of firing, instead of working towards long term solutions. They figure Chamberlain’s and Frances policies of appeasement, and the effectiveness of the U.N. of the time (the League of Nations) worked so well to stop WWII that it should be repeated as often as possible. Stalin’s Russia, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Ruwanda, N. Korea, Iraq, and with terrorists in the middle east; let freedom ring! Let’s put down our arms and welcome our terrorist brethren in our midst, they don’t want to hurt us. Just ask the people who lost friends and family in 9/11.

Conclusion

Look, the history of the middle-east is long and convoluted. And there are a lot of legitimate complaints on all sides. But in the end, just because you’ve fought before, or you don’t like the terms of something 6 years ago, is not an excuse to start a new fight and blame it on the other side. The facts are the aggressor is the one who starts it; and Israel was sitting around minding it’s own business, and had given up tons to the other side in the name of peace. They’d given up land, made all sorts of concessions, and so on. Arguably, that is the problem.
Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers in 2000. They died during the operation, but four years later, the group was able to exchange their bodies for 430 Palestinians and Lebanese held in Israeli jails. The Israeli’s by making that concession set the stage for future raids on Israel. The problem is not that Israel doesn’t give enough time/patience, but way way way too much.

Say 10-25% of the middle-easterners are uneducated bigot racists who see no problem with what their side does, and have issues with anything the Israeli’s do in response. The media and often the U.N. and France, support these bigoted idiots. The middle eastern governments are scared of that fanatical fringe, so instead of standing up to them, and saying what is right, they make noise that supports them and promotes the ignorance. We, the rational, should not. I might not like war, but I like a peace that consists of raids, murder and acts of terror, even less. The trick is not to give into the terrorists and make them think they’re winning, or the weak-minded bigots that twist these things into victories — but to shame and humiliate them. They understand power and ego. They’re little puffy ego maniacs who need to be bent over someone’s knee and spanked, and not have their ego’s assuaged afterwards and supported when they blame their humiliation on the Israeli’s or American’s. That can only happen if the world unites and agrees NOT to support terrorists.

If the world would unite behind freedom and against terrorism, if the French would borrow a clue, and we all said to the middle east, “we’ll tolerate murdering the murderers/terrorists until the terrorists stop”, then eventually, even the most racist of the Arabs would learn the real choices; tolerate others or die fighting people as determined and far more capable than yourselves. Frankly, I’d much rather they learned the former, but the world is not losing much with the latter either.

The opposite of this is continuing the failed policies of the last 100 years. Which is making excuses for why they did what they did — instead of just condemning the actions. I know why — it is long and far more complex than this article can explain. But I might have a dozen of reasons to want to murder my next door neighbor (ask Tim about that one), that still won’t excuse me actually trying.

We need to remember that it is the minority that are fanatics, but still show no tolerance for the fanatical behaviors or the excuses others make. We sympathize with the plight of the muslims and arabs who just want to live their lives, and will help them in times of peace. We have no empathy for supporters of Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations, or moronic diplomats that try to pretend that those that kidnap and terrorize aren’t terrorists.

All, IMHO of course. Here’s some interactives of the current event.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/interactives/mideastattacks/israelmap.html

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/world/0607/timeline.lebanon.israel/frameset.exclude.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5239142.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/07/19/world/middleeast/20060719_MIDEAST_GRAPHIC.html