trq,
While I applaud your apparant need to interpret, you seemed to have forgotten the crux of my arguement; the fact that alonzo tries to justify the terrorist activities of Hezbollah by bemoaning the fact that they have no formal fighting force, as if to insinuate that, were the Israelis somehow forced to use a comparable amount of soldiers to that of Hezbollah, Hezbollah would simply stop the suicide bombings and intentional targeting of civilians and fight like a normal military.
That being said, allow me to rebut some points of your post, thq.
If they don't want to be the only stable democracy in the region, they should consider not bombing the hell out of the infrastructure of other fledgeling democracies next door. Just a thought.
You said this in response to my assertion that Israel maintains a superior military because of the threat posed by most all countries in the middle east. You retort by stating they would need that army had they not began bombing Southern Lebanon.
Really? Even if I was willing to grant you that they are unnecessarily bombing Lebanon, (which I have neutral feelings about, but will omit for the sake of time), are you really so obtuse that you believe EVERY COUNTRY in the middle east would simply pack their guns and walk away if Israel had just not retaliated?
You do realize, don't you thq that, except for Israel, EVERY COUNTRY surrounding them is markedly anti-semitic. Even taking Lebanon out of the situation, Israel still faces overwhelming odds at survival without their military.
So, unless you were trying to insinuate that an overwhelming number of the rest of the muslim countries surrounding Israel were suddingly turning democratic, this makes your arguement defunct.
Sure. Nobody is allowed to defend themselves in ANY and ALL ways possible. You don't shoot someone who gives you the finger. You don't blow up a cafe because someone took your land. And you don't kill hundreds of civilians over two kidnapped soldiers.
For someone who so pompously accused me of not understanding alonzo's previous post, you certainly do not learn from my alleged mistake. As I stated earlier in this post, alonzo was justifying terroristic activities, citing that they have no choice but to resort to said activities in defense of their country.
You, knowing EXACTLY what alonzo was saying when he wrote this, (after all, it was I who didn't get it, right?), are asserting that Israel is in the wrong for choosing this paticular path for retribution, and cite that it is too excessive.
Well, which is it, guys? If you allow Hezbollah to commit atrocities against innocents because it is their only line of defense, shouldn't you then allow Israel the same unrational, unhinged response, if nothing more for integrity's sake?
Or, if Hezbollah is simply a misunderstood group of freedom fighters with bad aim (I mean come on, they kill more of their own people than Jews anyday), shouldn't you at least hold them to the same levels of civility that you are imposing on Israel (by limiting what they can and cannot do?). In short, you can't hold Israel to higher standards of behavior than Hezbollah unless you are willing to admit that one is more civilized and righteous than the other.
Unless you like being a hypocrite, which I wouldn't know because I've never met you.
Ah, here's the pay off: the first resort of the truly self-righteous; the money shot on the face of genuine discourse; the abuser's whine that he, in fact, is the one being abused: charges of anti-semitism when the criticism is leveled at the behavior of a government.
First, I waited until about page 3 of these posts, mostly made by alonzo and ayatola, to surmise a pattern of anti-semitism in what they said. If you don't agree, fine; but for you to dismiss my entire commentary as being specious because you don't like the wording is both ridiculous and childish. I am not the first reader on this thread to point out the blatant partisanhood of both the aforementioned commenters, and am pretty sure that anyone with above a third grade level of reading comprehension could see patterns of inflating Israeli atrocities and explaining away all others. I call it anti-semitism, you may call it something else entirely.
Or, maybe you don't see anything wrong with taking Israel to task on bombing known terrorist rocket positions and strategic points, while justifying intentional targeting of civilians and suicide bombings and other actions on behalf of their enemies. Everyone has their opinion.
Mine just happens to be that qualifying activities that, if committed on any other nation under any other circumstances those of terrorists as somehow understandable because the people being terrorized are Israelis sounds a little anti-semitic to me. So how about we drop the self-aggrandizing "he thinks he is righteous" canard and agree to disagree, shall we?
V