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Nasrallah didn't mean to
By Amira Hass

During the past month, Hezbollah's Katyushas killed 18 Israeli Arabs among the 41 Israeli civilians who died in the war. Clearly, Hassan Nasrallah didn't mean to kill them. But as someone who knows that many Arabs live in northern Israel, and as someone who knows that the launchers for his inaccurate Katyushas cannot choose the target they will hit - the fact that it was unintended is meaningless.

More than anyone, Israelis should understand Nasrallah's claims that this was "unintended," identify with the primacy he attaches to the "unintendedness" relative to the fatal results, and identify with the disjunction he creates between the rationale that is inherent in the war machine he has built and his subjective will. "We didn't mean to" is a mantra that is frequently recited in Israel when there is a discussion of the number of civilians - among them many children - who are killed by the Israel Defense Forces. To this, the claim that "they" (Hezbollah and the Palestinians) cynically exploit civilians by locating themselves among them and firing from their midst is automatically added.

This claim is made by citizens of a state who know very well where to turn off Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv to get to the security-military complex that is located in the heart of their civilian city; this claim is repeated by the parents of armed soldiers who bring their weapons home on weekends, and is recited by soldiers whose bases are adjacent to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and who have shelled civilian Palestinian neighborhoods from positions and tanks that have been stationed inside civilian settlements.

"We didn't mean to" is the cousin of "I didn't know," and both of them are close neighbors of the double standard. What is permitted to us is forbidden to others. What hurts us does not hurt others (because they are "other").

IDF soldiers have killed 44 children in Gaza since June 28, when the failed campaign to release abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit began. That is 44 children out of the 188 people the IDF has killed in Gaza - civilians and armed men, most of whom had embarked on a doomed fight against the invading tanks. The last three who were killed, on Monday, were three farmers from Beit Hanoun who were hit by an IDF shell - about as precise as a Hezbollah Katyusha - instead of the rocket launcher it had been intended to hit.

The road to killing children by a military and civilian occupation machine is paved with many non-intentions to cause other damage to civilians; these are not fatal immediately, but day by day, they take away the taste of life from 3.5 million people. These are damages that in ordinary times earn, at best, a mention the size of a postage stamp in the newspapers.

But these are the essential building stones of a regime of dispossession, the aim of which is to thwart the Palestinian people's aspirations for independence and sovereignty in its country. The callousness and cruelty that are required for carrying this out have become second nature for hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Unintentionally. Here are a number of typical examples: the identity card that a soldier confiscated in the middle of the night, which then gets lost, and its bearer cannot move on the roads and travel to work and has to pay a fortune, in his terms, for a new one; endless delays in the hot sun at roadblocks and at Civil Administration counters (and more loss of workdays); land confiscation orders; new blockages of village entrances; preventing the exit of all those between the ages of 16 and 53 from Tul Karm and Nablus; paving a new road to a Jewish settlement; preventing a Palestinian family's return to its West Bank home; cutting off another home from its village and lands via the advanced separation barrier; preventing family visits to prisoners. There is no end to these damages; one book could not contain them all.

When it suits him, the Israeli is part of the collective. Therefore, every terror attack and Katyusha are aimed "against the Jewish people" - which, of course, always authorizes Israel to embark on punishment campaigns that are defined as existential war. And when it suits him, the Israeli denies his partnership in the collective, in the occupation machinery to which he is a partner. He ignores the inevitable implications of the machinery that controls, in an authoritarian way, the lives of 3.5 million people who did not elect it (the Palestinian Authority was from the outset a fiction of government, with no authority).

On the one hand, the Israeli who "doesn't intend" cuts himself off from the Israeli occupation and colonialism machine, and exempts himself from the responsibility for the intention to harm Palestinian civilians, an intention that is inherent in the very existence of an occupation machinery. And on the other hand, he cuts the Palestinian response off from the existence of the occupation machine: After all, they as individuals and as a collective "intended to harm civilians," and this because of their eternal essence as Muslims, as Arabs - which is independent of us.

Some years ago Joseph Sisco, former Assistant Secretary of State, told Israeli author Shmuel Katz, "I want to assure you, Mr. Katz, that if we were not getting full value for our money, you would not get a cent from us." American foreign policy-makers are pragmatists, not moralists. U.S. aid to Israel is animated by national self-interest -- pious platitudes to the contrary notwithstanding. Israel is and has been America's biggest strategic bargain.

1) First of all, about 85% of the money Israel receives in military aid must be spent in the U.S., where it provides jobs for an estimated 50,000 American workingmen.

2) Conversely, total exports from the 50 United States to Israel between 1991and 2005 was $95.4 billion -- more than twice the $45 billion Israel received in U.S. aid during this period. The annual average of U.S. exports to Israel was $6.4 billion, more than twice the average American aid package. In 2005 the total exports to Israel from the 50 states was $18.5 billion -- more than six times the U.S. military-economic aid package!

By the way: the $2.6 billion Israel received from the U.S last year amounts to less than 2% of Israel's Gross Domestic Product -- currently more than $135 billion. Israel could easily dispense with this aid if massive tax evasion were curtailed along with the notorious corruption and inefficiency of Israel's government. But this is only the tip of iceberg of U.S. dependence on Israel.

3) According to Gen. George Keegan, a former chief of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, between 1974 and 1990, Israeli aid to America was worth between $50-80 billion in intelligence, research and development savings, Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the Pentagon, and testing Soviet military doctrines up to 1990, when the USSR collapsed. Senator Daniel Inouye recently put it this way: "The contribution made by Israeli intelligence to America is greater than that provided by all NATO countries combined."

It's ironic that Israel wouldn't need U.S. military aid were it not for huge American arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. U.S. aid to Israel creates a demand for, and the purchase of, tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry by these and other Arab states. U.S. grants to Israel - far from imposing a burden on the American tax-payer -- actually enriches the American economy!

American Congressmen and corporations know this. They have a vested interest in opposing any sanctions against Israel if its government were to take a more independent and vigorous stand against its enemies. I attribute Israel's failure to do so primarily to the intellectual poverty and timidity of Israeli prime ministers, whose policy of self-restraint and territorial retreat encourages the enemy, prolongs the bloodshed, and endangers Israel's existence.

- Israel Insider (Daily magazine)

Wake up people! USA and British empire are infidels according to Islam and need to die.

They fought a much more "civilised" war than what Hezbollah is fighting now.

It is sooo not fair that so many don't see that there is a huge problem pinning it all of it on the israeli military when in this case particularly hezbollah were the ones who jumped the gun.

Israeli sources went almost unnoticed. Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) of July 12 said: "The abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah militants in southern Lebanon was not a terrorist attack but an act of war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday."

he just wants a cease fire not a real solution to the problems that are in that area of the world a kind of pat on the back look what we did aren't we just doing dandy in this crisis good for us sort of thing.

On Iran and Hizbollah, there is, of course, much more to say, and I can only mention a few central points here.

Let us begin with Iran. In 2003, Iran offered to negotiate all outstanding issues with the US, including nuclear issues and a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The offer was made by the moderate Khatami government, with the support of the hard-line "supreme leader" Ayatollah Khamenei. The Bush administration response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer.

In June 2006, Khamenei issued an official declaration stating that Iran agrees with the Arab countries on the issue of Palestine, meaning that it accepts the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization of relations with Israel in a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus. The timing suggests that this might have been a reprimand to his subordinate Ahmadenijad, whose inflammatory statements are given wide publicity in the West, unlike the far more important declaration by his superior Khamenei. Just a few days ago, former Iranian diplomat Saddagh Kharazzi "reaffirmed that Iran would back a two-state solution if the Palestinians accepted" (Financial Times, July 26, 2006). Of course, the PLO has officially backed a two-state solution for many years, and backed the 2002 Arab League proposal. Hamas has also indicated its willingness to negotiate a two-state settlement, as is surely well-known in Israel. Kharazzi is reported to be the author of the 2003 proposal of Khatami and Khamanei.

The US and Israel do not want to hear any of this. They prefer to hear that Iran "is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state" (Jerusalem correspondent Charles Radin, Boston Globe, 2 August), the standard and more convenient story.

above post was very right they are an extreamist group and do not deserve the time of day from anyone.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242
(November 22, 1967)

The Security Council,

Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East,

Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,

Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter.

1. Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:

(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

2. Affirms further the necessity:

(a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;

(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

(c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;

3. Requests the Secretary­General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;

4. Requests the Secretary­General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible

What people need to do is stop the war-mongering and find ways to live in peace. Terrorism is defined as the deliberate targetting of innocent civilians to invoke terror on a population. That defines Hezbollah, not Israel.

Position on Israel
There is a deep enmity between Hezbollah and Israel. One of the reasons for the founding of Hezbollah was resistance against the occupation of Lebanon by Israel (1978-2000). It became the main politico-military force among the Shi'a community in Lebanon and the main arm of what became known later as the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.
Despite the strident rhetoric, in recent interviews Nasrallah has answered questions concerning the establishment of a Palestinian state established alongside an Israeli state in a way which suggested that the organization no longer has the intent to destroy the state of Israel. Hezbollah’s present leadership disclaims any interest in contesting Israel’s right to exist outside of disputed territories.
In a 2003 interview, Nasrallah stated "Of course, it would bother us that Jerusalem goes to Israel... [but] let it happen. I would not say O.K. I would say nothing." Hezbollah's website, however, marks a distinction between "Zionist ideology" and Judaism. It sees the rejection of Zionism as an attitude hold across "races, religions, and nationalities". It likens Zionism to "the concept of creating 'Israel' by the use of force and violence, by stealing the Arabs’ lands and killing Palestinians". "Opposing the Zionists ideology is not opposing setting a home for Jews".

Most Pacifists have the same difficulty believing they can negotiate their way out of situations with terrorist.

You are currently occupying conquered land here in North America. Is it okay if Native Americans bomb you and kill your children to get you out?

Someone who wants to wipe your country off the map may not be easy to negotiate with.

Radical muslims don't deserve respect. I will say it one more time. Israel is the only middleeastern country that does not want to wipe us off the face of the earth. Wake up people! USA and British empire are infidels according to Islam and need to die.

You are currently occupying conquered land here in North America. Is it okay if Native Americans bomb you and kill your children to get you out?

I don't see a thing about how the israelis are taking food out of the mouths of the lebanese peoples mouths though. I do see how the hezbollah "freedom fighters" are killing people on both ends by begining such a narrow minded conflict. Did israel not give the gaza strip back? Oh how mean that was of them what a cruel bunch of people they truely are. I think what get people so p.oed is hezbollah bit off more than it could chew and israel let them know it.