U.S. vetoes biased resolution

[Ducimus]

Oh, as if the Islamic world didnt hate us enough as it is, this is the icing on the cake.

I firmly beleive they're will never be peace in the middle east until one civlization or the other ceases to exist. Nothing less will ever resolve that conflict, and we (the US) will never be able to seperate ourselves from it.

Since were obviously supporting military action we may as well go full bore with it and be done with it.

[Onkel Neal]

Aside from saying I belive this or that, I wonder how widely this will escalate this time around. It seems to be spreading fast. Will Egypt and Jordan keep quiet? Is this going to be another major conflict?

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Aside from saying I belive this or that, I wonder how widely this will escalate this time around. It seems to be spreading fast. Will Egypt and Jordan keep quiet? Is this going to be another major conflict?

I believe not. :p

[Ducimus]

Who knows. Personnaly im a little tired of it all, and i often wonder how we got dragged into it. Near as i can figure out, they started cursing the US sometime after israel kicked their asses during the 7day war. If documentaries ive seen on it are to beleived, it was such a stunning victory, the arabs needed a scape goat. (Heavy sarchasm here, from a supposed arab point of reference) "So the great big satin, MUST have been helping israel because there's just no way those dirty jews could have beaten an Arab nation on their own"! (end sarchasm)

I figure im probably misinformed, but thats as near as i can figure out how we first got dragged into this. The thing is, the whole conflict there seems to be the wellspring from which everything else follows. From what i can understand, it all starts there and then snowballs into other things.

edit:
Just wanted to add, i hope Isreal kicks their asses again. But real good this time.

[aaken]

Damn, I had planned to visit Jerusalem this summer! Crap, couldn't these people let me take my vacation and then start to kill each other?

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by aaken

Damn, I had planned to visit Jerusalem this summer! Crap, couldn't these people let me take my vacation and then start to kill each other?

Next time, fill in the "special requests" box on your reservation form.

:p

Actually, only the Upper Gallilee is affected. Everything below that is fine. The hotels here are doing business as usual.

[P_Funk]

I love this. The whole "war will show those Islamics whats what". I mean how naiive are you guys? War begets war. I'm sure that all the Lords in England at one point around 1914 or 1915 were sitting together sipping brandy saying "Those damned Teutons don't understand anything except strength. What will create eternal peace is pushing them back into their own nation, decimating it and then humiliating them. Yes certainly that will end this whole European war thingy."

Occupation and collateral civilian casualties has never made anyone fall in line. Look at Ireland. Did Bloody Sunday make the Irish calm down? No! It made them more angry and gave the IRA more recruits. This is personal to the Lebanese and the Palestinians. Their families are dying and their cities are being decimated. They are being told by the Israelis that diplomacy isn't an option. So what can they do? They do what most young people being attacked do. They join a militant group.

Now I know we could go on forever talking about who started what. Whether Israel has the right to be occupying Gaza or Lebanon. The fact is that from a strategic standpoint an all out invasion is a stupid thing to do. It only bolsters hatred. It cancels the peace process. Shedding blood only coulds things and makes it impossible to be reasonable.

Now that said Israel is out of control. Invasion? As I recall this incident started with the capture of one Israeli soldier. How does that lead to full scale war? This is a ridiculous over-reaction. The US vetoed the UN resolution because they always support Israel. Plus the US isn't in a position to be running interference in that corner of the Middle-East because it's drowning in Iraq.

The US is crazy just like Israel is crazy. War doesn't end hate. War doesn't create peace. How can the inverse of peace create peace? This skirmish is just an extention of all the emotion and hate and history between Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon and everyone else that's been festering since the end of the Second World War. And this won't end anything. It will make things less secure. Diplomacy creates security. War creates insecurity. Yeah okay. Occupy southern Lebanon and Gaza and you might stop missiles from being fired into Israeli cities. That just ends the use of missiles. That won't get rid of the people shooting the weapons, it won't get rid of the Palestinians or the Lebanese. It won't make fathers forget that their families were killed by Israeli Helicopter strikes. It won't make young people not feel violated and angry. All it will do is stretch Israel thinner accross the region, breed more hate, and give terrorists (on both sides) more power and cause the deaths of more innocent people.

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Who knows. Personnaly im a little tired of it all, and i often wonder how we got dragged into it. Near as i can figure out, they started cursing the US sometime after israel kicked their asses during the 7day war. If documentaries ive seen on it are to beleived, it was such a stunning victory, the arabs needed a scape goat. (Heavy sarchasm here, from a supposed arab point of reference) "So the great big satin, MUST have been helping israel because there's just no way those dirty jews could have beaten an Arab nation on their own"! (end sarchasm)

I figure im probably misinformed, but thats as near as i can figure out how we first got dragged into this. The thing is, the whole conflict there seems to be the wellspring from which everything else follows. From what i can understand, it all starts there and then snowballs into other things.

You are misinformed, and you were never "dragged into it". The US became a willing participant in the conflict (which began long before the Six Day war by the way) beginning with Truman, and continuing to this day with its annual $5 billion/year Israeli subsidy and preferrential arms sales (note that this is merely stating a fact, and not an opinion on the "rightness" or "wrongness" of it).

But back to Truman:

"Secondly, [the holocaust] evoked a world-wide feeling of sympathy with the Jewish people, mingled with guilt that more had not been done to deter Hitler's aggressions before the war, or to help Jews escape from Europe during its course. This was particularly the case in the United States, whose federal government had halted Jewish immigration during the war. Among those who became strong supporters of the Zionist ideal was President Harry S. Truman, who overrode considerable opposition in his State Department and used the great power of his position to mobilise support at the United Nations for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, although he expressed very negative views of Jews in his diaries, and had, in a letter written years before he entered the White House, referred to New York City as "kike town".[10][11] Since Britain was desperate to withdraw from Palestine, Truman's efforts were the crucial factor in the creation of Israel."

That's an exerpt from a very intersting article about the long history of the political movement to create a Jewish homeland ("Zionism") in what is now modern Israel. Its a good read, with a lot of links to other Wiki entries that detail other related events during Isreal's evolution from idea to established fact.

Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in this conflict and its roots (at least as a starting point; it is not the definitive account of the entire history surrounding this):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism