The only reason India does not attack Pakistan is because of it nuclear weapons. In the last war Pakistan did not fare very well against India. Pakistan uses this nuclear umbrella to protect itself while supporting it’s proxies in Kashmir. Pakistan is mess with the present government being the best of the worst, it can not control the forces within it’s own borders and the military and Intelligence services seem to be sworn enemies of each other.

Does the Liu Centre now exert a monopoly on international news commentary at the Tyee--? First Byers, now Sasikumar.

Wrong. What negated those chances from the get-go is the chronic refusal of the Arab powers to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, and there ongoing support for terrorist elements whose sole avowed aim is the destruction of Israel and the murder of its Jewish citizens.

That's a mouthful. As if those "international efforts" were actually going to lead anywhere but to a nuclear-armed Iran. And how does Israel's action pre-empt "democratic regime change" in Iran and Syria...was that possibility even on the horizon? Where is the rational support for this blind assertion?

Karthika Sasikumar,

Your words:

could and very much should be applied to all coming confrontations involving cross-bordered terrorists.

Nation-states are falling apart at the seams, those with less experience in controlling the situation from the center will fall apart first. As their outer edges fray, others (read the non-state sponsored terrorist) will move in.

By responding with lethal force against these nations, you will only cause the disintigration to happen faster, thus opening more 'frayed edges' for more terrorists to use to hide, act, and grow from.

India's response is not only better than Israel, it is better than the US to 9/11.

The contexts of all three are so radically disparate that I question attempts to draw facile comparisons and equally facile attempts to rank good & bad approaches to dissimilar scenarios. The goal of Hezbollah, its record of activity in southern Lebanon, its financing by the Arab powers (Syria, Iran), and the state of claim if both it and its state supporters to annihilate Israel....these are not inconsequential facts lending context to the Israeli response.

Nightbloom, sure they refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist but why should they? What has Israel ever done for them? There are valid reasons for them not to recognize Israel. The only Arab countries that do are American client states.

On the other side I don't see Israel recognizing Palestine as an actual country with control of its own economy and foreign policy.

tit for tat

What you're essentially saying, Frank, is that Israel has nothing to gain by moderating its response to challenges to its national sovereignty such as the soldier-abductions and other Hezbollah incursions represent. Nothing Israel does will pacify or win over those elements intent on its destruction.

Nothing? Israel could grant the right of return, give property back, give Arabs the full slate of priveleges afforded to all citizens of Israel etc meaning Israel would no longer be a "Jewish" state. The end of the Palestinian problem would I bet go a long way towards acceptance of Jews living in Palestine. Admittedly it would take some time for memories to fade, especially by those who lost family members. Might take awhile.

But the alternative is war without end.

Nightbloom wrote:

Wrong. What negated those chances from the get-go are the constant tit-for-tat atrocities of both sides. This is also exacerbated by the vastly greater scale of the atrocities committed by the Israelis, because they are armed with exceptionaly powerful weapons provided by the US.

The failure by the west, particularly the US, and much western media, to acknowledge both the fact that Israel is murdering muslim civilians, and doing it on a much greater scale than muslim extremists are murdering Israelis, brings to light the true nature of western racism toward muslims.

Both sides must be condemned for their atrocities. Both sides have to be pressured to deal peacably. Israel has no incentive to do so if it continues to receive massive amounts of military and financial aid from the US no matter how many atrocities it commits.

Whay Ireal is doing is genocide and ethnic cleansing, but because of Nazi atrocities against the Jews it has become politically incorrect to accuse them of the same.

Isreal is a country that was created by European politics, just like the many countries in Africa, where civil war, genocide and ethic cleansing is the norm.

The only difference is ireal recieves vast amounts of arms from the USA, which they put to good use against the arabs.

The sad fact is, Western counties, with decades of racism and religious dogma has turned the Arab states into seething cauldrons of hate. It will continue until the oil runs out, then watch out, it will be C.O.D. for arms delivered to Isreal!

Hasn't the West learned anything, the pustulant poor in the region will support Hezbola and Hamas as their only saviors. The more people killed for the cause, will result in more support.

The Israeli response is not lost on portions of the Indian public. Early in the invasion, the Globe & Mail printed a letter to the editor from an Indian national advocating that the government of Indian follow the Israeli example and launch military strikes against Pakistan. That would have interesting consequences,but won't happen because (1) Pakistan is a U.S. client state and (2) Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The doctrine of "pre-emptive invasion" is a strong encouragement to go nuclear, and is certainly not lost on Iran or North Korea.

Grumpy wrote:

This is where the 'frayed edges' of the wobbling nation-states come in...

This article is disengenuous: Comparing Israel to India is like comparing apples to oranges. India has the second largest population on earth while Israel is one of the smallest countries in the Middle East. India’s right to exist is not being questioned, while many Muslims reject the existence of Israel. Then there are the differences in history and culture.

Israel is outnumbered by its enemies, thus it doesn’t have the luxury of a passive response. If Hezbollah or Hamas want peace with Israel, they shouldn’t try and start a war...this tactic has failed for the past 58 years. Rather, if they truly want peace they need to accept the existence of Israel.

But the alternative is war without end.

Frank normally your posts are grounded in reality even if I disagree with your logic, but this one is in way off the mark. The various Arabs organizations have made it quite clear that they intend to wipe Israel off the map and drive the Jews out of the region, if not kill them all. Mass Jewish suicide is the only option that would satisfy Hamas and Hezbollah.

You can argue that Hamas and PLA have a legitimate cause, but Hezbollah has zero reasons to attack Israel except for the fact that the destruction of Israel is their prime mission.

Funny how Jordon and Egypt who both took the brunt of fighting and lost most of the territory are far more interested in peace with Israel than the more distant nations who find it useful to use Israel as a distraction to their own problems. If Hezbollah had disbanded their Militia Lebanon would be enjoying a rebirth right now instead of being dragged into a war. Iran is more interested in creating another Shia state in order to further it’s aims of creating a “Shiite Crescent” to counter Sunni influence. Syria seems to be living in a dysfunctional dreamland. They currently depend on remittances from workers in Lebanon to keep their economy going, unless they hope to be able to cash in on potential gas reserves. They can’t afford to go up against Israel, luckily for them Israel no desire to destroy them completely as the current government is likely better than what would come out of the ashes.

Colin,

I'm not arguing what various "Arab organizations" believe. Obviously Hezbollah should cease to exist if Israel disappeared and as we know from history (especially the Thirty Years War where we learned that organizations who live off destruction don't just easily turn back into good citizens) they won't. They'll just turn on a new enemy within.

However, Hezbollah enjoys the support it does because of Israel. Once Israel is gone Hezbollah may want to keep its feeling of power and geting paid to launch rockets but I believe they would quickly lose support within the Arab world.

I disagree with you here, I think Hezbollah's primary mission is to live well off the fantasy they can destroy Israel. Fox News and others like to pump Hezbollah up for their own purposes and Iran likes to give them whatever they need and Israel just keeps getting stronger in spite of their existence. Hezbollah's prime mission is to take care of Hezbollah, Israel is their raison d'etre on paper.

Neither are real democracies and both are US clients. The Moslem Brotherhood would be a lot more powerful, perhaps even in control, if the Egyptian gov't was weak like Lebanon's.

Again Colin, how is that good for Hezbollah? What do they gain from that?

Yup, and I could say the same about Egypt and Arabia.

I didn't finish my thought, I had left that post sitting there while I was gone for an hour and came back and just hit send.

Colin, so the point is my logic is very well grounded in reality. I'm looking at the root of the problem and what are the reasons for the actions by nations and organizations.

For example, nightbloom's point about Israel is an established fact and the Arabs have to accept that and move on etc is all well and good but again, who does that serve? It serves Israel and the dictatorships. It doesn't serve the Palestinian people. As long as there is a huge and growing Arab population that feels disconnented and helpless it is going to turn to those offering a solution.

The average unemployed Arab in Palestine doesn't want all the dictatorships to sign agreements with Israel leaving them to twist in the wind. They know very well that even if every Arab state recognizes Israel they, the Palestinians, will be no better off.

You see the end of Hamas and Hezbollah as the solution. I don't, I see their existence as a mere sympton of a much deeper problem which is not going to be solved by air attacks on Beirut and shiny new weapons from the US. It won't even be solved by Israeli kids writing messages to Lebanese kids on bombs. In my opinion that shows Israel is pretty much at the point that there will never be any will to solve the problems of the Middle East beyond killing as many Arabs as possible. If you guys think Iran and Syria recognizing Israel will solve the problems of the Middle East in general and the Palestinians in particular you're going to be disappointed.

Nightbloom said " they fail to recognise Israel's right to exist".

When Israel invaded Lebanon two weeks ago, they justified it by the criminal acts of Hezbolah, but never gave the Lebanese government the option (or incentive/ultimatim) to deal with the criminals.

So Israel hardly recognizes the rights of it's neighbor States either.

That logic would allow the US to invade Columbia if Medelin cartel members killed a few DEA agents.

Therefore, their invasion should be considered a crime against peace.

Worse still, is the Euphemism that "Israel has a right to defend itself."

Does this imply that foreign invasions, bombing urban and sub-urban neighborhoods, targeting UN personnel, or any acts Israel deems neccessary are appropriate behaviour ?

The unspoken truth is that it's ok to cause regime change using any means if the US interests are threatened.

Too bad our prime minister is a flunky to these nutjobs.

I think the US administration is pissing it's pants with glee, they see an opportunuty to escalate this fiasco so that Israel can attack Iran and eliminate their potential nuclear aspirations, thereby prolonging US hegemony in the region, at low political cost to the US.

Frank
Thank you for explaining your thoughts behind your post, I agree with some of the things you say, Hezbollah will continue to act the way it does even if Israel was overrun and destroyed. The spokesperson for Hezbollah is quoted as saying: We did not expect such an all out response from Israel, we expected their normal “weak response”

This is a telling statement, any soft response by Israel is interpreted as a weakness to be exploited. Israel pullback from Lebanon mostly due to internal public pressure was portrayed as a victory by Hezbollah by themselves and the withdrawal and dismantling of the settlements from Gaza only encouraged the radicals to continue to attack with rockets. Israel can’t win, if they fight they are considered bad and if they give something away they are attacked.

To an extent Jordan and Egypt are being bought off, but their leadership also knows just how badly mauled they had been in the past wars and suffered large losses in the wars. They are tired of fighting and want peace and stability and are willing to deal to get it. You are exactly right that Hezbollah does not want peace in Lebanon, unfortunately they are also the strongest military force there since the Syrians left and the Lebanese have had to live with them whether they liked it or not.

Your solution is to dissolve Israel, where will they go? The past 100 years show them that Jews can not trust the Europe to protect them and not persecute them, they know that without a country of their own, they are doomed, that is why they will fight to the bitter end, because they don’t have a choice. Besides what is so different about the creation of Israel and the creation of the US, Canada, both were created by displacing other people, who likely displaced people themselves. In fact most countries around the world have a history of displacing one people for another.

Although I know that you are not promoting genocide, but your solution will eventually lead to the achievement of the final solution.

The problem in the ME is not Israel-Palestine, it is culturally oppression of the people by their religious leaders and dogma.

Jwest

Lebanon had years to deal with Hezbollah as did the UN and the world, but no one did anything about them, nobody wanted to get involved and get blood on their hands, so they looked the other way and pretended not to see anything.

And.. others bought into Hezbollah's line that it was their constant resistance to Israel that made them pull back. That's what gives Hezbollah such a strong power base in the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular and got them on the gravy train. To keep those dollars flowing, the Israel-Palestine issue has to exist.

Well... many in Egypt and Jordan would fall into that category but my point about the strength of the Brotherhood etc is that I'm not even sure if half of Egyptians would describe themselves that way. I'd like to see some polling here rather than extrapolating from their rigged election results but I think its safe to say many Egyptians would be happy if Mubarek got hit by a bus and a new leader settled the Palestine-Israel problem once and for all. Agree?

Not a lot. But I admit that if the natives here made up 60% of the population and were lobbing rockets at Vancouver I'd be inclined to see their point of view.

As you know from past discussions I'm from Saskatchewan and pro-native. The natives have a high birth-rate and will eventually outnumber non-natives in Saskatchewan. Its conceivable they could separate. I'd let them go. However, I'd prefer if we used the time we have to build a society that includes french-english-natives and others and not to simply overwhelm them with new immigrants.

The post you disagreed with me on comes from the same point of view. That Israel should use the time it has to try and undo the damage it has done in the past and reach out to every Arab moderate there is, and based on what you said about Jordan and Egypt I know you agree there are lots of them. In the past Israel has put so many conditions on their support/friendship that any Arab who accepted could forget about any future political life because he got nothing in return and was simply dismissed as an idiot on the level of Petain. Making your new friends grovel in the dirt while you publically lecture them is not the path to peace.

No it isn't. My solution is for Israel to try harder to make peace. I don't want to see Israel destroyed, I'd like to see it become a secular state where it would be jsut as likely to have an Islamic or atheist PM as a Jewish one.

My "final solution" as you put it is not what I want, I'm saying it will happen, no doubt, 100% sure, if Israel doesn't find a way to make peace with the Palestinians.

Once the Palestinian issue is resolved the Hamas, Jihad and Hezbollah's of the world will turn on "collaborators" but as long as Israel sticks by their "friends" and helps them instead of telling them to control these groups or lose their friendship and support, they will eventually wither and die because they will have no financial support from the outside and no new recruits from inside.

Gee, I don't want Israel to become a secular state. If you think they are blood thirsty now, imagine them killing as many as those popular secularists as Stalin, 100 million, Mao, 100 million. Pal Pot, 100 Million, Hitler, 6 TO 8 million, whatever.
Secularism doesn't save lives.
Blaming religion for everything bad is dumb.

Not that it will make any difference, but it is interesting to read that there is now serious speculation about whether or not the skirmish which Olmert used to justify the IDF attack on Lebanon may actually have taken place inside Lebanon and not in Israel. Is it possible this was an Israeli provocation a al Gulf of Tonkin, perhaps?

Given the collateral damage inflicted on Lebanese civilians (children) in the last 24 hours, it may be a question some - even in the US - will now start to ask in a serious way. One can only hope.

War is always more costly than non-war, however unsatisfactory.