Show of Hands: How Many Think the REAL Crisis is Lebanons Destruction?

[McCamy Taylor]

Now, be honest. Israel's supporters are being honest when they tell you that anyone who focuses attention on the suffering of Lebanon is aiding Palestinian terrorists as the first and only person to respond to this thread does.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2732805

At least, I assume that is what he is trying to say. It could be a random post, but one tries to attach meaning to things that seem random, and the above seems to be the most likely meaning.

So, no fair for Israel's detractors, the ones who think that Israel can do no right to raise their hands and chime in "I care! I care! I feel SO sorry for the Lebanese!" If you are doing nothing but posting bad stuff about Israel and are reveling in the bombing in Lebanon as proof of Israel's utter lack of humanity but you are not saying a constructive thing about how to stop the bloodshed in Lebanon, then your "I care" rings hollow.

I became concerned about the lack of compassion towards the people of Lebanon today, but the story starts yesterday when I posted this thread in the Politics section.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x136995

Since I never take part in Israeli-Palestinian discussions, I had no idea how heated the two sides of the debate can get, even at DU. I was hoping to start a nice discussion of how the press can shape a story. However, from the response, you would have thought that I had spit upon, shredded and then burned an American flag. Even I got sucked into the debate. Finally, I stepped back from this no-win, endless cycle of word warfare and posted a hint about what I was hoping would happen naturally. But it was too late. Once a flame war stops, you cant stop it. Someone moved the story here to this thread, where it got killed because the Gaza Beach tragedy happened more than three weeks ago and because there isnt enough room to fit "What If" in the thread header.

If you review my journal, you will see that I am interested in analyzing how the press shapes stories and how readers can learn to read the news for themselves. This was supposed to be an exercise in how DUers could use Google and the International Press to learn more than it does from our MSM with its penchant for writing Black and White news in the form of comic books for 10 year old boys.

Since that exercise failed, I tried it today in a much more direct and simple form, the one I linked above. You can not get any more straight forward than that. And to my surprise, no one seems to care much about Lebanon. Put the words Israel or Palestine or Gaza in a thread header and the screen lights up. However, Lebanon just does not attract interest at DU. This is hard for me to understand, since this is where people are dying, and trembling, and watching their homes crumble. To be quite honest, the Middle East is not high on my list of priorities most of the time, but when I watch Lebanon right now I feel the same ache in my chest that I feel watching Tibet being over run by China or Iraq being invaded by the US. Does the UN exist only so that we can pretend that we give a damn?

So, anyway, I know I am not going to change any minds, but maybe some people could think about what it is like to be a member of a new Democracy in Lebanon where Hezbollah got some votes and won the hearts and minds of a lot of people building schools and hospitals and mosques that the US and Israel did not want to build and think about what it is like when Israeli missiles start raining out of the sky and your parent country, the USA says "You only have to endure this for one more week, then we will tell Israel to stop. You can put up with one more week, for the good of Israel, can't you?" You would feel pretty lost and frightened and hopeless and scared right about now.

[bloom]

1. What I find to be mind-boggling

are the Lebanese- Americans in Congress who are voting for the resolution to back Israel.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060720/ap_on_go_co/us_mideast

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1686102


Though as someone mentioned, "My Lebanese neighbors wants to crush the living shit out of Hizb'Allah" - so there are obviously different ideas within Lebanon.

Still - I can't imagine anyone with ties to Lebanon and who have friends and relatives who could support this.

I guess it goes to show you :shrug: there always different ideas - that may not seem to make sense.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. This is more a political move to get Congress on the record before fall.

So the GOP can use this as a campaign tool should the Bush administration get a war going. They can point to this and say "Dem Rep. So and So did not object to Israel bombing the hell out of Lebanon in the early days of the conflict so he cant complain now that we are at war with Iran" or some bs like that. It has nothing to do with either Israel or Lebanon. It is all about election politics.