Israel's attack on Lebanon

[Pervert]

If the IRA were lobbing hundreds of missiles over the border, or over the Irish Sea, at the UK, I'm pretty sure we'd hit back if the Irish government wouldn't take action.

The real shame of this is that Lebanon had in the last year managed to cut its ties with Syria, and now it's been driven right back into Assad's arms.

But whether it's Hezbollah shooting at residential areas of Haifa, or the Israelis bombing civilians in Beirut, the crime is the same. Bloody murder. It's the way it's done, whether in Israel, Lebanon, or London; never mind the military or political enemy, just try to kill as many innocent non-coms as possible.


Oh, by the way, in spite of Scud missiles being fired into Israel during the first Gulf war, Israel took no action against Iraq. The government there, and in the US, knew that the uneasy position of neutrality taken by Syria and Iran would change if the "Zionists" attacked an Arab nation. It's also worth bearing in mind that the Lockerbie accusations were being made about that time and, despite Syria, Iran and the Palestinians having their fingerprints all over the operation, Libya was conventiently blamed for that. Whatever political decisions the western nations make with regard the Middle East always come back to haunt them.

[c.j.jaxxon]

Looks like you and jim mentioned a few things that would hit the nail on the head. The "Zionist Jews would like nothing more than to get rid of the Arabs so they can have "their" land back. The kidnapping of those Isreali soldiers was an excuse to bomb Lebanon. The people they're bombing ain't got no army, no tanks, no helicopter gun ships, no technology. Plain and simple, no hardware! The US is cowtowing to the jews and been doing it for upteenth years. Meanwhile if you speak to racist people they don't care anything about the jews or the arabs and everyday people side with the jews in a heartbeat and the christians just want to hurry it along to so call "convert" jews to christianity. They must don't realize that there's other faiths out here.

[IdolDroog]

Is there a site or explanation anywhere that will explain to me what the problems and history of these people are because I quite literally know nothing about it. Never took any interest in this kind of thing and there was nothign at school so....literally no idea lol

[mart]

Try this one

but its such a controversial subject its hard to get a completely objective view.

Mart

[Bob Singleton]

I was lecturing in International Relations at Grenoble University in the early eighties when the Lebanese crisis was at its height... remember the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla?

Briefly, Lebanon was a protectorate of the French but gained independence in 1943 when France, under Nazi occupation, was hardly in a position to "protect".

The political system set up after independence was based on the then demographics of the country. About half the population were Christians and about half Muslims, so a system was set up whereby the President would be from one faith and the Prime Minister from the other, with a 50/50 split in parliament representing the two faiths.

Over the years, however, the Christian population decreased and the Muslim population increased, though the balance of power remained the same. This led to tensions between the two communities as the majority Muslim population felt the Christians had too much power.

Things were exacerbated in the mid 1970s when the PLO were kicked out of Palestine. Most made their way to Lebanon (though the PLO leadership also chose Morocco and Tunisia as bases). The influx of tens of thousands of armed Palestinians frightened the Christian population, some of whom, led by Bashir Jemayel, formed what we now know as the Christiam Militia (then known as the Phalangists). Against them were the remnants of the PLO and a Muslim sect called the Druze (whose leader at the time was Walid Jumlat)... and so started the civil war in about 1974/75 which, with a few sporadic interludes, has continued ever since.

Israel has always been involved in the civil war in one way or another, backing the Christian milita and supplying it with arms, money, training and intelligence.

In 1982 two large refugee camps (Sabra and Shatilla) containing tens of thousands of Muslim men (mostly very old), women and children were notionaly under the control of the Israeli army. The Israeli army turned a blind eye when the Christian militia entered the camps to "search for members of the PLO" and slaughtered anything between a thousand and three thousand people.

An internal Israeli government inquiry concluded several senior Israeli political and military people bore "personal responsability" for the massacre, but that didn't stop one of that number, Ariel Sharron, from later becoming Prime Minister of the State of Israel.

Later that year (1982) a UN backed force entered Beirut to oversee the withdrawl of the PLO. Also in 1982 Bashir Jemayel (now President) was murdered and replaced by his brother Amine.

Throughout this time Israel had troops stationed in southern Lebanon, but these were eventually withdrawn in mid 2000. As soon as the Israeli troops moved out at one end of the country, so Syrian troops moved in at the other.

Lebanon has long been in the middle of a tug-of-war between the two countries... Israel has always wanted to protect its borders from firstly the PLO and in more recent years Hezbollah (an ultra violent off-shoot of the PLO, similar to Hamas), whilst Syria has always harked back to the notion of a "greater Syria" which includes the lands that are now Lebanon and Israel.



The above is a very simplified explanation, but I hope it helps.

[Pervert]

That explains Lebanon-----Israel, the Gaza strip, and the various Arab nations will take hours to explain. Assuming we can find anyone to do the job.

[Bob Singleton]

I could talk on the subject of the Middle East, especially the (illegal) formation of the State of Israel, the terrorist background of many of its Prime Ministers, the various Arab-Israeli conflicts and the difference between the various Muslim factions (Hamas, Hezbollah, Takfir wal-Hijra, PIJ, Islamic Jihad, etc) for hours... makes a change from working with strippers all day long !wink!

[c.j.jaxxon]

Thanx for the brief (Ha Ha) history lesson. Some of it I knew about, but it kinda makes my point about that state of Is-it-real. Me and my father are Black Hebrew Israelites and we have disagreements about Israel all the time. He comes from a somewhat biblical standpoint and me from a political one.

[c.j.jaxxon]

Alright Warren! Point taken but if you're going to be a nattering naybob of negativism do your nattering elsewhere. Don't do it with me buddy!