Israel launches airstrikes on Lebanon in response to rockets

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By LAURIE KELLMAN and ZEINA KARAM

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel on Thursday escalated its response to rocket attacks the previous day from Lebanon by launching rare airstrikes on its northern neighbor, the army and Lebanese officials said.

A statement from the Israeli military said jets struck the launch sites from which the rockets were fired, as well as an additional target used to attack Israel in the past. The military blamed the state of Lebanon for the shelling and warned “against further attempts to harm Israeli civilians and Israel’s sovereignty.”

The overnight airstrikes in southern Lebanon were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time. Israel’s new eight-party governing coalition is trying to keep peace under a fragile cease-fire that ended an 11-day war with Hamas’ militant rulers in Gaza in May. Several incidents leading up to this week’s rocket fire from Lebanon have focused attention on Israel’s northern border. The United States swiftly condemned the attacks on Israel.

Lebanon is mired in multiple crises, including a devastating economic and financial meltdown and a political deadlock that has left the country without a functional government for a full year.



A Lebanese army soldier displays part of an Israeli missile from an airstrike in Dimashqiya farmlands, southern Lebanon, Thursday, Aug 5, 2021. Israel on Thursday escalated its response to rocket attacks this week by launching rare airstrikes on Lebanon, the army and Lebanese officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-lebanon-4381a75d5291df6b844b09f4c4fb4761

[Beastly Boy]

1. An expected and predictable distraction. This has more to do with internal conflicts within Lebanon

than it does with Israel. Just as the 11-day Hamas war with Israel had more to do with internal power struggle between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority than it did with the Shah Jarra evictions.

What would all these militants do without Israel to blame for their troubles?

[ripcord]

2. The difference is that rockets launched from Lebanon can be considered an act of war.

[Beastly Boy]

3. Rockets launched from Gaza was also an act of war.

And it was universally deemed as such. No difference.

[oldsoftie]

4. Exactly. Always looking for the scapegoat

[Socialism Now]

6. Agreed

How many must it be said

[MarineCombatEngineer]

8. Ha,

apparently, just once.
Welcome to DU.....

[Beastly Boy]

7. Really? Lebanon is ocupied by Israel?

Hamas is trying to liberate the palestinian people from zionist oppressors in the west bank by attacking civilians in Israel from Gaza? Iraq shooting rockets into Israel as a consequence of their invasion of Kuwait? Iran threatening Israel and financing Hamas and Hezbollah because of the Palestinian people? How is this fairing for the Palestinian people?

Get real. Historically, the Palestinian people have been used by various muslim powers for one of two reasons: to destabilize Israel or to use them as pawns in their own strategic and political interests. In some cases, both. No one in the Arab world is interested in the well being of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have been consistently sold out by their professed Muslim allies, starting with the war of 1948 and continuing to this day. And in an overwhelming number of instances, this happened for one of two reasons: either to destabilize and undermine Israel or in the struggle for strategic interests among themselves. Never in the interest of the Palestinian people.

And the bullshit propaganda meme of "zionist oppressors" is as meaningless as it is useful in deflecting from and obfuscating the wider and far more complex picture. Just as attacking Israel is useful for deflecting attention from the power struggle between regional Muslim powers.

[Socialism Now]

9. Israel still occupies

Israel still occupies Shebaa, and their air forces regularly buzz Lebanon.
Israel being a foreign power, Shebaa being a part of Lebanon that has been occupied since Israel's invasion of 1982

[Beastly Boy]

10. Is this all you got? Only Hezbollah claims Shebaa, an abandoned farm, to be Lebanese territory.

No one else, including the UN, does. And even Hezbollah, which you seem to consider the ultimate and unquestionable authority on the region's borders, hasn't claimed Shebaa to be Lebanese until 1981. (On edit: the Shebaa territorial dispute is between Syria and Lebanon, and never did Hezbollah claim the farm to Be Lebanese when it was under Syrian control).

A piss poor excuse to call Israel an occupier of Lebanon.

[Beastly Boy]

12. Wrong again. Kfarshouba is not occupied by Israel.

And what you call invasions is called the right of self defense by the Geneva Conventions.Too bad Lebanon cannot control the terrorists attacking Israel from its territories.

[Beastly Boy]

14. The first time you were wrong when you called Sebaa farms Lebanese territory.

The second time you were wrong when you called Kfarchouba hills Lebanese territory.

And I regret to inform you that you are wrong again: Hezbollah, according to Hezbollah, intends to stay in Lebanon no matter what. Has nothing to do with Shebaa farms or Kfarchouba. The aforementioned tiny slivers of formerly Syrian territories are just an excuse for Hezbollah, who in no way represent Syrian interests, to attack Israel. And as long as they attack, Israel will retaliate.

[Beastly Boy]

16. You are deflecting. And it's not just my opinion, man.

It's the opinion of the UN too. Only the Iran-funded Hezbollah (and, apparently, a single DU poster) has a different opinion.

[Beastly Boy]

18. I appreciate the compliment, but I suspect

you have no clue what a "zionist" means.

[Beastly Boy]

20. In the context of your posts it makes no difference whatsoever.

The point is, you are clear in using the term as a slur rather than a description of the movement. It reminds me of the old Soviet propaganda trick, where the government-controlled media used "zionist" indiscriminately to brand anyone showing the slightest sympathy for Israel, regardless of whether their sympathy relates to Zionism or any other aspect. Never mind that such indiscriminate and far from accurate use of the term as a slur renders that slur absolutely meaningless.

BTW, accurate representation of facts and events, even when they favor Israel, is not zionism.

[Hortensis]

21. Yes. There's also a term applicable to most people who

Last edited Sun Aug 8, 2021, 11:09 AM - Edit history (2)

fixate on the Jewish State of of Israel while ignoring the many other conflicts and religious persecutions in almost every other Middle Eastern nation that do not involve Jews.

Sadly, IMO far too much of the concern professed about Muslim Palestinians is not real. The very word "Zionism" -- referring to the Jewish state, not Jesus's second coming -- deflects discussion of real ways to help these people to the unsolvable centuries-old battles for political, religious, and racial domination.

Sure, most of us feel sympathy for the plight of stateless Muslim Palestinians; but to many of those noisiest in their claimed concern, it's about "Zionism." Erase the State of Israel, and I believe concern about Palestinians living in poverty amid the turmoil of the Middle East would shrink to the level of concern about the persecution, and even genocide, of many minority sects in the ME. Mostly crickets.

Strange crickets also about the many pro-Palestinian Israeli Jews. You'd think deep concern for the Palestinians might lead them to support those groups, their political parties, and their efforts. They are a very large minority and could conceivably take majority power away from Israel's "trumpists". Not in the slightest that I've noticed on these recurring anti-"Zionism" threads. As I said, sad.

[Beastly Boy]

22. Bingo!

There is a fashionable trend among the so-called defenders of the Palestinian cause to concentrate their wrath exclusively on Israel (not necessarily specific policies and actions of any given Israeli government) and completely ignore the blunders, exploitation and outright atrocities being committed towards the Palestinians (and, incidentally, Israelis) by other Arabs, including the Palestinian leadership who claim to be the protectors of the Palestinian people. It's as if they are expected to be malicious, and only Israel is exempt from these expectations. Of course, the real victims of this trend are first and foremost the Palestinian people themselves.

These self-professed defenders use the term "zionism" as an insult that carries no other meaning, but nevertheless assumes guilt by association. They claim the term is not antisemitic, blissfully unaware of (or consciously ignoring) its history of covert antisemitism. They do not appear to be aware of the fact that zionism originated in Central and Eastern Europe, a region with deep populist tradition of antisemitism. They do not appear to be aware that "zionism" as a slur has been used extensively by the propaganda organs of the Eastern Block in the second half of the last century as a reference to the Eastern Bloc Jews who are suspected to harbor the minutest of sympathies towards Israel. They do not appear to be aware that this use of the term found its way to the propaganda organs of the Arab world, which at the time was part of the Soviet sphere of influence.

Actually, given their evident ignorance of the multitude of regional geo-political forces exploiting the Palestinians, I am not shocked by their ignorance of anything having to do with Zionism.

[Hortensis]

24. Interestingly, zionism's second meaning as a slur began with the

movement to create a Jewish state.

For millennia before that, Zionism was highly honored as it referred to the teachings, from the Christian Bible, that Jesus would only return to earth after Jews who'd been driven out returned to the Holy Lands. Many of our founding fathers believed in Zionism. (Of course that kind of Zionism also isn't actually intended to benefit Jews, but Christians, since the plan is for the Jews to mostly perish with the Muslims.)

Since the second coming is a godly event, non-slur Zionism is believed in and largely supported by Christians and Christian-affiliated groups -- very much including the Republican Party, probably our nation's single most powerful pro-Zionist organization.

In any case, this is one of those words whose meaning varies dramatically depending on who's using it and why.