Your view on recent Middle East crisis

[David In Indy]

If I'm so young and complacent, why do I know so much about the history of the wars that occurred between Israel and other middle eastern powers? Age is not the measure of wisdom or intelligence in my opinion.

Most young people I know are often very upbeat and optimistic about the world and the future. That's all I meant by it Giancarlo.

Actually I was paying you a compliment.

[Giancarlo]

Trust me, I'm not overly optimistic about this world. I know that war is never going to end. I'm not a peace activist either. I know that wanting peace in this world is unrealistic.

[vkm91941]

Enemies of Israel's Enemies: Israel's New Friends?

For the first time, Arab leaders are speaking out against Hamas and Hezbollah for attacking Israel. What's going on? 
-By Jamal Dajani 

Far more surprising than U.S. statements of support for Israel's assault on Gaza and Lebanon are similar proclamations from Arab governments. Just before the Israeli cabinet gave Prime Minister Olmert the green light for more attacks, a spokesperson for the Saudi government called for Israeli restraint, but blamed the current conflict on Hezbollah's seizure of two Israeli soldiers. "There is a difference between legitimate resistance and miscalculated adventures," he stated.

The official for the Saudi Ministry of Information hit hard on Islamic resistance groups in Lebanon and Gaza. Those groups, he said, should "bear the consequences of the crisis they have created."
Meanwhile, both King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt warned that Hezbollah is dragging the Arab world into conflict through its misguided gambles and adventures. The majority of Arab regimes has been silent about Israel's new two-front war. Their foreign ministers to the Arab League will not meet to discuss the crisis until July 15, three days after the start of Israeli air attacks and time enough for Israel to completely destroy Lebanon's infrastructure.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon or Gaza are not something new; nor are prisoner exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel. To date, there have been three prisoner exchange deals between Israel and Hezbollah (July 1996, June 1998 and January 2004) and several prisoner swaps between Israel and the PLO. The most famous swap was in May 1985, when in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Israel released 1,150 Palestinian political prisoners. So why the overblown Israeli reaction to the capture of several Israeli soldiers, and the Arab silence this time?

In a new strategy shift, the dependence of Palestinians and Lebanese on Arab regimes to confront and contain Israel politically and militarily has ended. Militant groups from Palestine to Iraq -- groups known in the Arab world as the Islamic Resistance and as "terrorists organizations" by Israel and many Western countries -- have been taking matters into their own hands. Arab masses have long realized the powerlessness of their leaders to end the conflict in Iraq or alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians. People throughout the Middle East remember the failed mediation attempts by King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt to lift the September 2002 siege on Yasir Arafat. Arafat remained a prisoner in his compound until few days before his death on November 11, 2004, when he was air-lifted to a military hospital in France only after French President Jacques Chirac intervened.

At the same time, as Arab regimes' influence over organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah has waned, Israel has lost a kind of buffer zone. Unlike the PLO in the past, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah is dependent on Arab state support. Syria's influence over Hezbollah takes second place to that of Iran.

Hence, the Israeli government is very concerned that any success achieved by Hamas or Hezbollah will open the way for more groups -- perhaps even Al Qaeda -- to fight Israel or terrorize Israelis.

Arab regimes are very concerned as well. The aftershocks left by the elections in Gaza are still felt beneath the seats of monarchs and leaders stretching from Riyadh to Rabat. Many Arab rulers are threatened by democracy and the rise of Islamism in the region. In Gaza, they are challenged by a democratically elected Islamist government, Hamas. In Egypt, the challenge comes from the Islamic Brotherhood, and in Lebanon, from Hezbollah, commonly referred to as a "state within a state."

Away from the sectarian violence that has plagued Iraq, Hamas (a Sunni organization) and Hezbollah (Shiite) have found themselves on the same front, fighting a battle for their survival. The survival of each is dependant on the other. Similarly, Arab regimes and Israel have forged an undeclared alliance to rid themselves of the growing menace in the region, "popular Islamist movements." Israel is doing the bombing and destruction, while Arab regimes quietly cheer on the sidelines.

Today, on Al-Manar Television in Beirut, Hassan Nassrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, answered the Saudis and others and said, "As for the Arab rulers, I will not ask you about your history. Just a brief word, we are adventurers...We never bet on you, we always bet on God."

Did the Arab rulers bet on Israel? Did Hezbollah and Hamas miscalculate? The coming days should tell.

[Giancarlo]

It turns out many arabs don't actually support Hezbollah, especially not in this crisis. What happened was quite simple... Hezbollah launched the first attack against Israel, and Israel simply defended itself. Apparently, Israel was effective in getting its message out that it was defending itself. Saudi Arabia usually NEVER sides with Israel, which is a bit of a shock to me. In addition the Iranian people want their government to stay out of this crisis. The regime in Iran might be vocally supporting Hezbollah, but its people are getting frustrated and want the government to focus on domestic issues instead.

The Iranian people actually want their government to stop supporting Hezbollah.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1218020,00.html

 Parvin Heydari, an Iranian mother of two, was flipping back and forth between the nightly news and Oprah when a bulletin on an Iranian state channel caught her attention. It urged Iranians to boycott what it called "Zionist products," including those made by Pepsi, Nestle and Calvin Klein, and warned that profits from such products "are converted into bullets piercing the chests of Lebanese and Palestinian children." As evidence, the voice-over intoned, "Pepsi stands for 'pay each penny to save Israel.'" Heydari says she changed the channel, as she has no intention of crossing Nestle's Nesquik off her shopping list. "Lebanon has nothing to do with us," she says. "We should mind our own business and concentrate on policies that are good for our economy, and our kids."

To many observers in the Western world, Hizballah, the Lebanese guerrilla group battling Israel, is a mere puppet of Iran. Some are convinced that Hizballah triggered the crisis on Tehran's orders to divert world attention away from Iran's controversial nuclear plans. But client states are not necessarily as docile as one might think. Just as Israel sometimes takes actions that surprise (and even displease) the U.S., Hizballah does things Iran has neither ordered up nor necessarily approves of.

It's impossible to know the precise origins of the current crisis in Lebanon, but since it erupted two weeks ago, the mood in Tehran has swung between indifference—the fighting rarely makes the headlines—and resentment over Iran's longstanding sponsorship of Hizballah. True, there have been officially sponsored rallies declaring support for Hizballah, whose leaders pledge religious allegiance to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. But the emotional support for Hizballah common throughout the Arab world is largely absent here.

[starboardlight]

There will be peace in the mid East only when parents learn to love their children more than they hate their enemies.

or peace anywhere for that matter. but well said David.

[Giancarlo]

This is getting very interesting indeed...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060724/pl_nm/mideast_france_dc_1;_ylt=Am04UjkXVt7_6iSnfK4bEW4UvioA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

PARIS (Reuters) - France and the United States worked together to oust
Syria from Lebanon and, despite tactical differences due to divergent agendas in the region, they agree who is to blame for the current crisis -- Hizbollah.

The born-again allies, their rift over Iraq a thing of the past, want to isolate and disarm the Shi'ite Muslim group, whose backers Iran and Syria underscore the wider strategic issues at play in the latest round of Middle East conflict.

Israel began its assault on Lebanon after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Some 373 people have since died in Lebanon. At least 37 Israelis have been killed in Hizbollah rocket attacks and clashes.

Both Washington and Paris have accused Hizbollah of provoking the Jewish state and leaving Lebanon -- a French-speaking Middle East state with historical ties to France -- to bear the brunt of Israel's riposte.

"The Americans have never been interested in Lebanon as such, (they) have always reacted regarding Syria and regarding Israel," said Olivier Roy, head of research at the France-based CNRS institute.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060724/ap_on_re_mi_ea/rice_24;_ylt=Ao3SMyLHSdVg52Mhfcrijc0UvioA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

BEIRUT, Lebanon - In a surprise visit to a battered Beirut, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice praised the beleaguered prime minister of Lebanon on Monday for his courage in struggling to contain the fighting between the Hezbollah militia and Israel.

[ekeby]

Some years back I saw an interesting little story--just a paragraph, really--in the NY Times. It said that a United Nations statistical study had found that the one constant in all military conflicts was that the participating countries had a large population of unmarried males.

Trust me, they weren't talking about a lot of gay men. The statistics referred to populations that were too economically depressed to support new marriages and thereby more children.

I think military conflicts are always about what population number one has and about what population number two wants that population number one has. The rationale for conflict is always embellished with religion and moral righteousness, and that makes figuring out what is true and what is not true very difficult to determine.

I know that might sound off topic, but that's the bottom line of what I think about the current Israel slash Lebanon slash Palestine situation.

I'm glad to see the question raised here. Just goes to show that BetterMost people are a little better; they're at least thinking and talking about the situation. The average American has very little understanding of their country's foreign policy, particularly in the middle east and specifically in Israel and Palestine. This is why our government-in-power can do pretty much whatever it wants wherever it wants to. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't know this.

The only thing that will get the average American to turn their attention to the middle east is the rising price of gas. That's why I'd like to see it go sky high--the sooner the better. Clearly, people getting killed by the hundreds every day means next to nothing.

Back to the unmarried male situation. Brace yourselves. China's birthrate has been 2 to 1 male to female for the last 20 years, and they will soon have about a billion unmarried males.

[delalluvia]

Back to the unmarried male situation. Brace yourselves. China's birthrate has been 2 to 1 male to female for the last 20 years, and they will soon have about a billion unmarried males.

Yep, and they're all going hungry for food and women.  For patriarchal societies to get hold of modern technology, then be limited in birth rates to 1 child, they will always choose boys because the men will grow up to 'take care of the parents when they are old'.  Unfortunately, their short-sightedness didn't take into account that almost EVERYone because of their culture thinks the same way, so no one chooses to give birth - and allow to live - any daughters for their sons to marry, so the grown men will have to leave their parents to go find a wife and probably never come back, so they've pretty much screwed themselves.

[Giancarlo]

Holy... someone really went through this whole thread and wiped out a lot of posts, including many posts I have made. That was totally unjustified. I think I'm just going to leave this forum because of that. I'm almost thinking of deleting my account and not coming back. That was such a waste of my time just to see them all deleted like that. There were like three or four pages in this thread. What a waste of my god damn time... Don't think I didn't spend time writing some of my insights, which are now GONE.

[JennyC]

Holy... someone really went through this whole thread and wiped out a lot of posts, including many posts I have made. That was totally unjustified. I think I'm just going to leave this forum because of that. I'm almost thinking of deleting my account and not coming back. That was such a waste of my time just to see them all deleted like that. There were like three or four pages in this thread. What a waste of my god damn time... Don't think I didn't spend time writing some of my insights, which are now GONE.

Giancarlo,

I am surprised to hear that your posts have been deleted.  I read this thread frequently (for obvious reasons. )  I didn't notice any posts from anyone (including yours) have been deleted.  Can you please raise this issue to the moderator?  We don't want to see any posts (as long as it's not personal attack) being deleted, regardless whether or not we agree with each other's opinion.  Is it possible that you were thinking another thread (e.g. Energy/Resource Saving Tips thread, which has 3 to 4 pages posts)? Let's research what is going on a little bit more.