As I said on my blog, I think Israel was wrong to hold the government of Lebanon responsible for what has transpired; it was a golden opportunity to reach out and work with its neighbors to eradicate a common enemy. <br /><br />On the other hand, every time Israel withdraws from a tract of land — Southern Lebanon in 2000 or, more recently, Gaza, that land is immediately utilized to conduct attacks on Israeli civilians. <br /><br />I think it is wrong to frame this, as you seem to, as a question of Israel versus "Arabs" or "Muslims", for I don’t believe that the Israelis view it in that way. Indeed, for all of the tragic loss of life in Lebanon, it could be much, much worse if Israel wanted it to be so. Instead of, say, putting craters in the runway at the airport, they could just as easily have left craters in the middle of the terminals.<br /><br />So what is to be done? Let’s hear some moderate voices, none of this "does the word ‘peace’ exist in Hebrew" stuff, eh?<br />

Tololy,<br /><br />actually, and I only read this today, Israeli newspapers stopped using the term "Peace Process" a very long time ago, probably in 2000 when the Aqsa Intifada began.<br /><br />Israelies use the term "International Political Process".<br /><br />The peace process is dead, it has to be reworked from scratch. I actually don’t know if Arabs really want to pursue something called a peace process any more. It might be better to call it what Israel has been calling it; an international political process.<br /><br />One thing that Arabs should realize is that Israel is not interested in peace. Israelies always claim that Israel has been subjected to fighting and killing for 60 years, while Israel has inflected more than 10 times the killing that has ever reached it on others, especially the Palestinians. The fact is Israelies are living in a relative heave to even the calmnest Arab countries. Israeli citizens enjoy more than $3 billion in US aid every year. Their country is pretty much a 1st world country with a super military that is ranked 4 or 5 in the world, and which is nuclear capable.<br /><br />Compared to Arabs, Israel has no motivation to pursue peace. It might as well launch war tomorrow and win and be done with it, but they know they can’t just do that. Apparently there’s still a limit to what the international community is willing to accept from Israel.<br />

A second question — and one which I think is really at the heart of the whole debate:<br /><br />Does Israel have a right to exist?<br />

&lt;I&gt;<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-2668">Why
should the Palestinians abandon their armed struggle against an
oppressive state that is occupying their lands and not offering them a
real and solid alternative for violence?&lt;/I&gt;<br /><br />I hear this argument a lot, but I cannot fathom why it is supposed to be convincing. If the Palestinians were, in fact, carrying on an armed struggle against the Israeli military, one might be more inclined to sympathise with them. As it stands, I see an awful lot of neo-Hitlerian rhetoric about "the Jews" followed by violence directed <span style="font-style: italic;">specifically</span> against civilians, for which there is no excuse whatsoever.<br /><br />On the Israeli side, there is no rhetoric about exterminating Palestinians — indeed, the Israelis certainly would be capable of such horrifying violence if they so chose (and the examples of Rwanda and the Sudan indicate that there would be little in the way of concrete efforts to stop them should they choose to do so). Furthermore, while it is true that the IDF is responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, I think that it requires quite a logical leap to determine that the bulk of these casualties are <span style="font-style: italic;">intentional</span>. After all, as I have stated, the Israeli military is capable of inflicting <span style="font-style: italic;">far</span> more civilian casualties than it does, and the nature of its enemy — un-uniformed guerrilas who purposely put themselves in situations where there are many civilians around in the event of a retaliatory attack — makes civilian casualties inevitable. <br /><br />As for the question of oppression, I must once again refer to the armed struggle: would measures such as checkpoints, barrier walls, and the like even be necessary if the Palestinians would renounce violence?<br /><br />I think not.<br /></span></span>

<p>" I hear this argument a lot, but I cannot fathom why it is supposed to be convincing. If the Palestinians were, in fact, carrying on an armed struggle against the Israeli military, one might be more inclined to sympathise with them. As it stands, I see an awful lot of neo-Hitlerian rhetoric about "the Jews" followed by violence directed <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">specifically</span> against civilians, for which there is no excuse whatsoever."</p>
<p>No excuse but a reason. When you do not have an army I think you will avoid facing one. I beg to differ with you on the not-convincing bit, I find the argument very convincing. If there is no alternative, violence will thrive and it’s not just I who says that. Talks mean nothing without action, there have been peace talks but very few peace actions.</p>
<p>" After all, as I have stated, the Israeli military is capable of inflicting <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">far</span> more civilian casualties than it does, and the nature of its enemy — un-uniformed guerrilas who purposely put themselves in situations where there are many civilians around in the event of a retaliatory attack — makes civilian casualties inevitable."</p>
<p>As I said, be patient and observe. And as for the "purposely put themselves in situations where there are many civilians around in the event of a retaliatory attack", I think their timing must be perfect and also their physical abilities; to be with all those women and children at the same time is super-human. If I can make a guess, I’d say 99% of those dead were civilians and not Hizbollah fighters. And you said it best: "violence directed <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">specifically</span> against civilians, for which there is no excuse whatsoever."</p>
<p>To answer a question of yours and to reply to your last comment, Palestine has an equal right to exist as does Israel. That’s my opinion.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>

<p class="MsoNormal">This war is really affecting my trends and orientations. I
believe I am moving right again, maybe to the extreme right. <span style="">&nbsp;</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined="">&nbsp;</o:p><br />History has proved that if you want to set your people free.
You need to be extreme. Throughout ages, the vast majority of the librarian
movements have prevailed. And it looks like we are stuck because of our compromise
with an extreme enemy. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal">I’m going to make it simple and plain:</p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined="" />The majority of Muslims believe that <st1:country-region _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on"><st1:place _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> destruction
is a historical inevitability. So <st1:place _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on"><st1:country-region _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place> has to remove Islam in order
to live peacefully. So taking this fact, I believe <st1:country-region _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on"><st1:place _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and Arabs
will continue to suffer, because non of the above is easy to achieve. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &quot;Book Antiqua&quot;">There is no such thing called <country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region>, I know of <city w:st="on">Palestine</city> but I don’t know <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>….they have abducted our land and now they are inflecting violence on everybody to accept their existence which will never ever happen. You can not negotiate that we have <country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region> at the 48 borders and <city w:st="on">Palestine</city> at the 67 borders…it is <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Palestine</city></place> and that is my grounded belief.
<p></p></span></p>

Mon chapeau&nbsp; ya nabulsi!&nbsp; Sur ma tête!

This is 101 war, extremism always wins over moderation.<br /><br />People are emotional and who leads them to their extent emotionally wins their leader ship, unfortunatly, people are apparently idiots too.<br /><br />and moderate people will be attacked from&nbsp; both sides until they decide to shut up.&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />

"<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-2684">and moderate people will be attacked from&nbsp; both sides until they decide to shut up. </span></span>"<br /><br />Yazan, here are some philosiphical questions for you:<br /><br />Can moderation exist without human dignity?<br /><br />Is a slave who refuses to fight for his freedom a moderate?<br /><br />Are nations who accept the loss of their territory to a military occupation moderates?<br /><br />is the absence of concern, in the form of not caring for the misery of the thousands of arab hostages rotting in jewish prisons and the torure chambers of arab dicators, called moderation?<br /><br />is the act of indeffernece towards the pain of those who paid the price to liberate our land moderation?<br /><br />is being on the side of the strong an act of moderation?<br /><br />is the act of not caring about those who cared too much and ended up losing their life and their liberty moderation?<br /><br />I have answers that may differ from others. I call the above high acts of selfeshness and opportunism disguised as pragmatism and moderation.<br /><br />To me, a man without dignity is worthless. Dignity, in the modern sense, not the tribal sense, means that my self-worth is linked to the value of an Arab life anywhere on earth. In the same sense a French or an American or a militant Jew feels that his dignity is linked to the dignity of his countrymen. There are thousands of Arabs rotting in jewish jails simply because refused to be treated as subhumans. They are the moderates and those who brutalized them and those who stood idle and did not show concern are not.<br />

<p>Reg: Thank you for your comments.</p>
<p>Vincent asks: "Does Israel have a right to exist?"</p>
<p>I unequivocally state that Israel does not have a "right" to exist as a Jews preferred state, which has resorted&nbsp;to institutionalized bigotry in order to maintain that status.&nbsp; Israel is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13, Section 2, which states: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."&nbsp; This is an inalienable&nbsp;and sacred right which means that it may not be negotiated away.&nbsp;&nbsp;Palestinian rights are not relative to Jewish rights.&nbsp;Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, the Palestinian expert on refugees writes: </p>
<p>"Why do Israelis deny the Right of Return in spite of the fact that the UN confirmed this right over a hundred times and that Israel’s admission to UN membership was conditional upon it?<br /><br />"The answer seems to be “realism”: you cannot undo what was done 58 years ago. <strong>This is like saying you will be punished if you intend to kill someone, but you will be forgiven if you successfully do it</strong>."</p>
<p>This articulate and tireless champion of the refugees has also written:</p>
<p>"To speak of a Palestinian ‘demographic threat’ is pure racism."</p>
<p>I strongly advise all young Palestinians to read Dr. Abu Sitta:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.plands.org">http://www.plands.org</a></p>
<p><a href="http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2006/06/drsalman-abu-sitta-reversing-ethnic.html">http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2006/06/drsalman-abu-sitta-reversing-ethnic.html</a></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>

<p>It would be interesting to hear the story as told from the other side, if there are any Israeli readers monitoring this debate, please hop in and make your voices heard. </p>

<p>Question for readers: If you were head of the IDF, how would you have responded to Hezbullah’s initial attack?</p>

If the moderates give up, guess who wins? - Violence and nihilism.&nbsp;

<p>Consider the institutionalized bigotry that is implemented in order to maintain the demographic majority status of Jews in historic Palestine.&nbsp; The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that Palestinians who fall in love with someone from the West Bank or Gaza may not be joined in Israel with his/her spouse.&nbsp;More recently,&nbsp;Palestinian holders of foreign passports are being refused entry to the West Bank and Gaza to join their families there.</p>
<p>Consider that seventy-four percent of the Palestinian population are refugees within a one hundred KM radius of their personal property.&nbsp; It is a violation of international law that Israel refuses to implement their right of return.&nbsp; Consider that any Jew, many with comfortable lifestyles in othe countries, may immigrate to Israel and attain citizenship.</p>
<p>Consider why Palestinian rights are relative to Jewish rights?</p>
<p>Again, consider the words of Dr. Salman Abu Sitta:</p>
<p>"Israel wants to maintain its racist and Apartheid policies under the rubric of “Jewish state” and the threat of the Palestinian demographic bomb.<br /><br />"What is the meaning of the “Jewish state”? There is no legal meaning for a Jewish state, neither in the Partition Plan, which protected its 50% Arab population and which was “overwhelming accepted” by the Jewish immigrants, nor any where in international law which does not tolerate ethnic, religious, or racist states."</p>

Quite frankly, what do you expect?<br /><br />If even on a blog like this, where disucssion is more progressive than average, the unanimous opinion is that Israel has no right to exist, why do you expect Israel to take your viewpoints into consideration at all?<br /><br />The picture you paint is a picture of a nation whose neighbours - even the advanced ones, and even those who live in countries that formally have a peace agreement with it - want to destroy it. <br /><br />If you were Israeli, would reading the above comments motivate you to pressure your government to seek peace with your neighbours? Or would it motivate you to pressure it to strengthen the army even more?<br />

I did not speak of Israel when I said "progressive" (although Israel is indeed much more progressive than any Arab country, and you know that just as well as I do), I actually referred to this blog. But what I say is simple: writers here all agree Israel should not exist at all. If so, what is the chance for peace?<br /><br />You let yourselves be fooled with the "European colony" or "crusader" comparisons, but these are misleading and false. I was born in Israel, my parents were born in Israel and my children will soon be born in Israel. I am not European or American, I do not have any other country I can live in, even if I wanted to. If you believe Hizbollah or Hamas that its just a matter of waiting till Israel collapses, you are putting your future in the hands of fanatics and sentencing everyone to live in war: your children and mine. Is that the future you want to make?

Hi Tololy,<br /><br />You know my opinions, and you know how much I love your blog (I’ve just been really busy during the last month or so, and haven’t had a chance to comment here, but I’ve made sure to more or less keep up with your posts), but given the tone of most of the comments, I think my sanity will be better preserved if I keep my thoughts to myself here. Unfortunately, I don’t believe there’s anything I can contribute that will be even remotely respected. <br /><br />One thing I will say is that your post and subsequent comments made me sad, and made me wonder whether or not I’m still welcome in Tololy’s Box. <br />

Tololy, I appologize - my words were not directed at you personally but at the comments above, and at other bloggers I’ve been reading for some time, like Haitham Sabbah and Perpetual Refugee. Suddenly it seems all modern, open minded voices of the Arab web have adopted the Hizbollah party line. <br /><br />I’d like to remind people where this line have taken us in the past, and in the present, and that it will not take anyone into better places in the future as well.

<p>I do not know why Hamas and Hizbollah enter into the discussion about the right of the refugees to return home.&nbsp; I pointed out that Israel is in violation of Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and also in violation of UN Resolution 194.&nbsp; Both deal with the inalienable right of the Palestinian refugees to return home.&nbsp; I&nbsp;wrote that Dr. Abu Sitta, a Palestinian researcher, has shown that return is feasible, and that no Israelis would be displaced.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are no compelling reasons for refusal to implement this inalienable right.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Here is the link for his paper:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.plands.org/articles/6.htm">http://www.plands.org/articles/6.htm</a></p>
<p></p>

<p>Lawrence of Cyberia has an excellent and easy to understand post on Right of Return today: "Now Do You Understand the Right of Return?"</p>
<p><a href="http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2006/07/now_do_you_unde_1.html">http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2006/07/now_do_you_unde_1.html</a></p>
<p>and Devil’s Mind, exactly.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>

<p>Sometimes i get this crazy but not far fetched idea…..</p>
<p></p>
<p>forces that have the power of pulling the hidden strings of world economy are using israel as an excuse or more appropriately putting israel infront of the fire to try to get as much benefits as possible of what this part of the world has to offer.</p>
<p></p>
<p>if you sometimes get the idea that all arabs want to annhiliate israel then you partly (not totally) wrong. after the war of 1948, the arab world tried to get the israelis to be under a one state along with the palestinians, keeping the arab jews each in his country and limiting immigration from europe. israel didn’t accept.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; After that came abdel nasser in egypt who fueld the area for a long time, but in a major shift, it turned out that the israeli society has shifted from a communist or let’s say socialist society to a liberal pro-usa one. this shift turned out to be good for usa to benefit as much as it can by getting the ussr out of this region, this was crowned by saddat biasinf towards USA. but have you ever thought that the ONLY country that always gains of this war is USA…selling arms, keeping both sides intimidated, getting oil at cheaper prices (79 $ a barrel today is still cheap considering the prices in the 80’s and similar cases of war in the middle east).</p>
<p>at the conference of 2003 (actuall arab summit in beirut) all and i mean all arab countries agreed on accepting israel as a part of this land if it gave back the land of 1967 and let the refugees go back to it. why did israel refuse? and the arabs where really sincere in this? because the hawks in USA realized that this would end the undeclared state of war here.???</p>
<p></p>
<p>many many questions but no answers…….</p>
<p></p>
<p>think this PETER:</p>
<p>if israel gave back Shebaa farms and the lebanese prisoners from the first imes …then hizbollah would loose his legitimacy in fighting for occupied lands because their are none…if you tell me they’re fighting for israel, i’ll tell you yes, but they already accepted the 2003 decrees in beirut!!!!!!</p>

<p>and by the way peter, even the corrupted arabic goverment..who as edward saed&nbsp; said in his book are the appointments of a previous occupying forces, don’t want peace with israel cause this would make them naked and face to face with the people with commitments along the economy and other social things that they can’t make becuase they don’t know how because they are not elected but appointed,,,which brings us back to the issue that they are not elected …why…previous occupying forces….well it’s our issue now to deal with them….how…you tell me how…</p>
<p></p>
<p>i give it to israel that they have a well built state, elected one but this doesn’t even start a democracy..why ? read what um khalil said in her last post and read the link of lawrence of cyberia…….
<table class="commentsDiv" id="table14" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="left"><span class="commentTitle"><strong><font size="2"></font></strong></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p>

<p>Vincent,</p>
<p>You can’t possibly "simply point out" that the picture was "staged" and not back that up with evidence, something credible, please, and expect people to nod at what you claim.</p>
<p>This picture does not concern many people. It is ugly, I’ll give you that. What concerns everyone, however, is the amount of destruction inflected on Lebanon (which, in case this slipped by, is much much more than what has happened in Israel. The latter is unfortunate as well). Please tell me <em>that</em> is staged, too, so I can sleep better at night. I would be delighted if that turned out to be a fantasy and not as real as it is. </p>
<p></p>

No, Tololy. You are right. The destruction in Lebanon is all too real. I wish I could make it stop. I, however, cannot.<br /><br />All I can do is offer my opinion on the causes and future solutions to the events currently playing out. Unfortunately, those solutions don’t seem to be as in vogue as "destroy Israel and drive out the unbelievers". But I do what I can.<br />