US: Israel Must Do Whatever Necessary to Protect Itself

[ECH1969]

The Bush administration said Wednesday afternoon that “Israel must do whatever necessary to protect itself.”

The terse response came in the wake of an IDF incursion into south Lebanon following multiple attacks by Hizbullah terrorists on northern Israeli communities and soldiers.

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=107103

[sui generis]

1. including changing its public policies

There is this mindset that a war for one man that will result in the deaths of thousands is the only path to recovering this kidnapping victim. The political and military leadership of Israel is fucked in the head.

They could definitely do better than what they've been doing so far.

[megatherium]

11. Perhaps they could do nothing for 444 days.

Or else give into extortion?

[sui generis]

12. invading your neighbors house because some kid crapped on your lawn

is not "doing something".

Israel is clearly wrong. Our media likes to confuse Hezbollah with the state of Lebanon and any terrorist with the name "Hamas" in its title as the state of Palestine.

Israel is just a little hopped up on crack, and we, most stupid Americans, just buy the bullshit. It's always blameless innocent underdog Israel against the evil forces that wish to see it exterminated, when Israel is the proverbial bully who is also the first to go play lame-ass and pathetic to the playground monitor after stirring up the sandbox.

Sorry, zero pity here. I know there are marvelous people who are Israeli who are horrified by their government, just the same as here. It is the government and their boneheaded shortsighted decisions I'm criticizing. You can't EVER say collateral damage is acceptable and get the collateral to buy into it.

[megatherium]

15. The problem is that Hezbollah has bases in Lebanon.

And the fact that Hezbollah is not a conventional state does not change the fact that it has initiated acts of war (armed incursions, taking of prisoners) against Israel. Hezbollah is, in fact, closely aligned with Iran and Syria. A correct understanding of the present situation is that these and other states in the region are fighting a low-grade war against Israel through proxies such as Hezbollah. (They of course cannot fight a direct war against Israel because Israel is a thermonuclear power.) With that in mind, Israel's response does not seem quite so disproportionate. Understandable, if not justified.

[sui generis]

17. and that's why Israel is in such deep shit

"A correct understanding"

spin does nothing for your dead relatives even if you want nothing but to keep the peace. Take that speech to the people most likely to join an illegal organization out of revenge or nothing left to lose. Israel has become the thing it despised most when it was seeking statehood.

Whatever Israel deludedly believes about the lack of sovereign status of other nations, those nations and their passport carrying citizens do not agree. There are other solutions that are perhaps less satisfying, but more productive.

Israel is doomed to extinction with this method. Clearly, Hamas and Hezbollah are doomed as well because you can't gain credibiilty through violence, but you can give credibility to the people who oppose you, just the same way suicide bombers give erstwhile credibility to "raids" and "surgical strikes" by the Israelis. But Israel is not acting with any more "morality" than they are. They are all repugnant. Nuclear power or not it must learn and practice the arts of statesmenship, compromise and negotiation in order to have a future.

Where the willow tree will bend in a wind, the oak tree breaks, and Israel believes its strength lies in inflexibility.

[megatherium]

34. Isreal is doomed to extinction, period, if your logic is correct.

The problem is that Isreal has never been recognized by certain of its neighbors. Israel can act "diplomatically" or "bend like a willow," but this will not end the war against them; their enemies are not interested in compromise. If Isreal were to act with restraint, would that solve the problem? Perhaps it would with a less ideological enemy. But Hezbollah is dedicated to a fundamentalist Islamic world-view that believes that compromise with infidels is unacceptable and that martyrs go straight to heaven. I do see the realistic possibility of peace with the more secular Palestinian factions, there has been progress towards building a two state solution--but not with Hezbollah or Hamas.

[sui generis]

37. I'll meet you halfway there

there are interests in the Israeli government who would love nothing better than to get rid of every north african to arab peninsula arab and stamp out islam the world over. Similarly there are local political interests who believe that Israel should not exist.

Nobody has an ace in their hand in this game, not even nukes, so it becomes a game of skill rather than force. There are always going to be people who will manipulate Israel's defensiveness and willingness to lash out to destabilize peace, and to take advantage of discord.

Israel must learn that this technique is feeding those interests. Any time it looks like there might be peace, some group of people, possibly even Israeli extremists themselves, will kidnap an Israeli soldier. The formula appears to work dependably.

It wasn't a Palestinian that shot Rabin, you know.

[megatherium]

38. You are right about the Rabin assassination.

And of course the Israelis (especially under Sharon) would reliably do one of their "targeted assassinations" every time things seemed to be settling down. So I'll meet you half way there, as well. And the Israelis really have gone out of control in Lebanon. I thought they had only attacked Hezbollah bases but now they're destroying bridges.

[The Magistrate]

19. The Matter, Sir, Is Not What You Wish It Were

The Lebanese government has a duty to move against Hezbollah in this matter, and if it does not, by all custom and usage it is responsible for this act by an armed force quartered on its sovereign soil, and it is an act of war. Israel would be wholly within its rights to proceed with the demolition of the Lebanese military and all installations and facilities whose operations would benefit and support Lebanese military activities, and to pursue operations aimed at the neutralization and destruction of Hezbollah on Lebanese soil. This is a very different matter from Gaza; it is between recognized states. Spokesmen for the Lebanese government have, at least public, taken a very foolish and irresponsible attitude, that bodes poorly for the future of their country and their people.

The matter, of course, is further complicated by Hezbollah's participation in the Lebanese government, which fixes the responsibility even more firmly on the country's official organs. This not some trifling dispute on a syndicated court-room entertainment; it is a deadly serious business. Nations have gone to war over such matters more times than can be counted. The scale of the initial violation is not meaningful in the context of hostile action from one state's territory against another's.

[sui generis]

21. I remain unconvinced

"all custom and usage" seems to be quite relative.

Make no mistake I am not anti-Israeli; but this problem has more than one solution. I have to stand firm behind my comment - Israel is doomed if it can't figure out a better dynamic.

I wonder why we did not do a surgical tactical strike on the "dwelling" of David Koresh; why we did not send tanks into Oklahoma looking for Timothy McVeigh. We used a different dynamic, but had we been Israel I believe there would be two smoking craters in the midwest according to their "custom and usage". Iran during the hostage crisis would have been a smoking crater according to a different "custom and usage", as would China with our downed AWACS.

Thinking as a sovereign country responsible for my people I can honestly say that I would have to weigh the cost of future lives against one kidnapped soldier, , however unpopular that decision would be. The case is not at all made that there will be any strategic gains earned to offset the future anger over their "collateral" damage, regardless of whether they recover this lone soldier or not.

There are more effective methods than this assault mentality.

[The Magistrate]

28. Those Were Criminal Matters Within A Single State, Sir

They gave no relevance: no border between sovereign states was involved.

It is certainly true that states on occassion restrain their action to something less than they are entitled to do, from various calculations of their best interests, but they are not required to do so. The question of whether a right to do something exists is different from the question of whether something si the right or wisest thing to do.

[sui generis]

35. I just want to know in all this lofty discussion of "rights"

what "rights" exist for anything outside of written convention? Israel is a rogue state, operating on a daily-written convention. It can expect no better than the example it sets. Entitlement in the world of America and Israel seems only to follow might. I would seriously hesitate to go so far as to claim that it makes "right". To the countries of Palestine and Lebanon, Israel has been provoking war at every opportunity. Isn't that the real issue? Who slapped whom first? Won't that always be the issue if we westerners insist on assigning some tribal entitlement of "rights" to every possible conflict?

You clearly presume the innocence of Israel and the guilt of everyone else. That's not very magisterial, in my opinion. Do you believe violence is the only solution in this case? I note you have not responded to my argument on the cost in trade of lives and strategic gains.

[The Magistrate]

40. You May Hold What Opinion You Wish, Sir

Regarding me, or anything else.

My comment in the matter is aimed solely at clarification of the actual standards applying to violence committed across a border between sovereign states. They are quite clear, and place the onus for this on the Lebanese government, and constitute a causus belli for Israel.

To answer some portion, at least, of the questions you have addressed me. It is hard to see any way the situation can be resolved without a violent response from Israel. Negotiation with the Hezbollah body cannot reasonably be expected to bear fruit, and any major concession offered will only provide incentive to repetion of similar actions in the future. The proper course would be for the government of Lebanon to execute its responsibilities, but it is doubtful it is capable of doing so even if it had the will to try. One of the great problems with recourse to violence from any direction is that the consequences in future violence invariably outstrip the scale of the initial igniting action: this is one of the chief reasons for being extremely circumspect about adopting a policy of violence, and having recourse to violence, in the first place.

[sui generis]

42. sorry Mag

sometimes I'm being wry in the midst of the verbosity (in my own mind at least), and when I forget to stick a smilie on it I come across as much more severe, which as you know leads to no end of acrimony even when I don't know it. "Magisterial" ;)

The glass is half full then; using the threat of disproportionate violence as a deterrant against future action is a natural human response . . . until it becomes a cycle of escalation. That's essentially how feuds escalate into war. I agree that no tool should be tossed from the arsenal, and aggression is the end of the diplomatic road when all else has failed at protecting one's sovereign interests. I just wonder, sincerely, if in the fullness of knowledge perhaps some steps were missed here that could have averted some bloodshed and still had the effect of having the soldier returned alive.

As one is walking down the street and a stranger suddenly slaps you silly, you have to wonder what their intention was in doing such a thing. Similarly, you see intentional provocation here all the time designed to get emotion to override reason; I'm certainly no blushing virgin in this regard myself. At what point is Israel being manipulated into a dependable reaction? It would seem quite regularly. Certainly at the end of the day, neither Hezbollah nor Hamas is really paying the full price for their actions - it's everyone around them on the street who is paying, and neither Israel nor its detractors seem to care much who gets in the way.

What is the plan for inevitable future kidnappings? How will they ever break this cycle? There is nothing that Israel has ever done in terms of retaliation that has ever stopped an extremist group from extreme violence. For extremists, no sacrifice is too great. For a suicide bomber on a mission of perceived glory or vengeance, certainly the death of innocents of any cultural extraction is beneath notice, and for Israel operating as a sovereign entity, extreme retaliation inevitably results in the deaths of civilians and the uninvolved, and is likely indistinguishable to those who survive and who live with resentment and even the desire for vengeance themselves.

We can't fix it for them. In my world at least, I have to draw the line on giving unqualified support to Israel OR to any extremist, however put upon, who look to violence and tit for tat as the best world in which to raise their children.

[The Magistrate]

44. No Apology Necessary, Sir

And no offense taken, I assure you.

Your comments above would seem to show that our disagreements are less than meets the eye in any case....

"An optimist thinks this is the best possible world. A pessemist knows it is."

[wuushew]

22. please explore the logic of this more fully

terrorism in my opinion is nothing more than an advanced form of organized crime. We are free to combat the mafia here in the United through domestic law enforcement. Like wise we seek extradition of criminals from countries we have good relationships with.

When is crime worthy of waging war on? Neither suicide bombers nor primitive rockets can "destroy" the nation of Israel so the idea that war needs to be waged in the name of national preservation is farcical.

If Israel needs additional security it can always hermetically entomb itself with its own version of a Berlin wall and only worry about the crimes that occur on the inside.

[The Magistrate]

30. Your Premis Is Faulty, Sir

The mafia operates for money gain, and exercises violence to that end. It has no political component, and does not seek to damage a state and its people as a whole.

Organizations like Hezbollah operate towards political ends, and employ violence in order to compell a state to act in a manner it prefers, rather than the course that state prefers. It is, in essence, a sort of private state, hosted necessarily within an actual state since there is scarcely a squre inch of ground not part fo the sovereign ground of some state of other on this earth.

All states are responsible for the operations of such organizations on their territory: they have a duty to prevent their operation and quash their attempts at operation, and should they fail to do so, are responsible to the state attacked by the organization for the failure. It is up to the offended state to chose the degree of remedy it pursues in the matter, should the state hosting the violent body fail in its duty and take no effective steps to rectify the failure.

[wuushew]

33. Was not Lockerbie the classic example of terrorism as a crime?

We did not invade Libya as a result of Pam Am 103, yet sanctions and diplomatic pressure won out in the cause of justice.

The Israeli method has never impressed me either from a pragmatic viewpoint nor legal standpoint. Israel would be guaranteed American and European support in the application of such pressure against states harboring violent groups but has again acted in extremely predictable pattern.

[Virginia Dare]

2. World War III here we come....

Who plays Hitler, Moussolini and Hirohito this time?

[Mir]

4. They will be played by

Bush, Blair and Olmert. This is the new axis power in the world and it is no less vicious than its predecessor.

[megatherium]

9. So who will Churchill or Roosevelt be?

Ahmedinijad?

Give me a break.

[Virginia Dare]

14. That's the sad part...

we don't have a Churchill or Roosevelt. Not on the immediate horizon anyway.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[malaise]

5. Of course not

They are no different than the indigenous peoples of the planet be they Native Americans, Aborigines, Africans etc. Why should they matter when they are preventing the looting of resources by those with the most weapons:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[MrPrax]

6. Good point...

You find an 'indigeounous people' angle to most conflicts...Darfur comes to mind.

The problem of course is that a slight shift in media perception can cast anyone into this category (soon followed by the terrorist 'tag') and thus stripped of any meaningful legitimacy because any relationship with the 'land' is trumped by it's ownership and the 'men with guns'.

So relationships between people and their land become criminalized when ownership comes into dispute.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Bushes seem really good at giving the 'green light' to countries invading

other countries in the Middle East. Poppy told Saddam it was OK to invade Kuwait and Jr. thinks it's 'peachy keen' for Israel to invade Lebanon.

[bdamomma]

47. bush has started this whole pre emptive shit

more death and destruction, this regime must be stopped, I can see Cheney just loving this all, and Rumsfeld. I never had hate in my heart until these jerks came along. I hope they get their justice, ICC where are you???

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

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[LSK]

10. HUH???? who is attacking who????

:wtf:

[bloom]

13. "Israel approves wave of Lebanon air strikes"

Israel approves wave of Lebanon air strikes - TV
12 Jul 2006 14:46:08 GMT
Source: Reuters

JERUSALEM, July 12 (Reuters) - Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz on Wednesday authorised a campaign of air strikes in Lebanon that would target both Hizbollah guerrilla installations and Lebanese civilian infrastructure, Israel's Channel 10 said.

The television station described the planned blitz as part of Israel's response to the capture of two of its soldiers and killing of several others in a Hizbollah border raid earlier in the day. Israel's military had no immediate comment. Channel 10 said Peretz also ordered Israel's homefront command to prepare northern communities, including the port city of Haifa, for possible Hizbollah rocket strikes. Residents of Israeli border towns had already received orders to take shelter.

--
Smoke rises from Beith Hanoun area in the north of Gaza Strip JUly 12, 2006. Israeli tanks swept into the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday and an air raid targeting top Hamas commanders killed six Palestinians as Israel broadened a two-week-old offensive.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12770861.htm

[Name removed]

16. Deleted sub-thread

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[spanone]

18. That's a green light for Israel to start another mid-east war.

[The Magistrate]

20. Any War Which Ensues, Sir, Will Have Been Commenced By Hezbollah

The crossing of a state's border to assail its military forces is an act of war.

[sui generis]

23. what passport has Hezbollah citizenship?

just curious.

[The Magistrate]

25. As Pointed Out Above, Sir

A government is reponsible for acts against another state by an armed body quartered on its sovereign soil. It does not matter if that body is an illegal one or, as in this instance, a legal organization with a stake in the government itself. A government has a responsibility and duty to maintain a monopoly on the exercise of violence for political ends within its jurisdiction, and if it fails to do this, is responsible to the state assailed for the failure, which has a pefect right to take any steps required, including invasion of the territory, to end the attacks against it. This is all quite cut and dried, "black-letter" law.

[JCMach1]

26. the Lebanese Gov. will not cry if Hezbollah gets wiped out...

in fact they may be secretly hoping the Israelis do the full-job...

[The Magistrate]

31. That Is Quite Possible, Sir

It is a cut-throat business.

[JCMach1]

32. Was there just before the last Israeli incursion about a month ago-

visited the Bekaa valley... things were definitely looking-up after the Syrian withdrawal. However, Hezbollah has proven to be a partisan thorn in the side of the Lebanese Gov.

Some discontent had already settled on the new status-quo after the martyrdom of St. Harriri... The Lebanese gov can play both sides in this...

-too weak militarily to fight back much, they can sit on the sidelines and scream about the horrible 'Israelis' and at the same time rejoice as Hezbollah gets decapitated

No one underestimate the complexities of Lebanese politics... it's games within games...

Makes me sick though because the country is absolutely beautiful... one of my favorite places I have ever visited...

[sui generis]

36. I'm sorry, that's the first time I've heard of "black letter" law

I understand charters, constitutions, treaties, accords, alliances and conventions, and that there is a body of academic (court TV, if you will) theory about normative government, unassailable sovereign rights and as you put it, "responsibilities and duties", however, no convention can ever be unilateral.

I believe your earlier definition of enforcing a political ideal with violence seems quite clearly to be practiced with impunity by Israel. There has always been a double standard. Anyone with a clear sense propriety would understand that you cannot exercise a double standard that only benefits one side and expect a reasonable outcome.

I am not saying that suicide bombings are any more acceptable than than firing munitions into a residential area or "accidentally" shelling the wrong beach - I find fault with all of it. I cannot make an exception for Israel. They've made their own bed and find they've shortsheeted themselves, and so they remake it, shortsheeted again.

Whatever it is Israel is doing now is exactly enough to give them what they have. If they want want something besides violence and destruction, they will have to do something besides violence and destruction, and the same goes for anyone who believes those are the best tools for long term peace.

[The Magistrate]

41. The Term, Sir

Refers to areas in which there is a great deal of established practice and precedent establishing what is meant by the words of a statute. There is a sense in which the words of a statute mean very little, because what they actually mean is determined by the decisions of judges applying them to particular cases, and it is the record of how they have been previously applied and interperted in decisions that serves to establish what they actually mean in practrice. There is a magical period between the writing of a statute and its first actual use in a particular case in which in which it can be argued that it really means practically anything. Large portions of recently enacted international law are still in this state of flux, no actual case having ever been brought to which they might apply, and this is one reason why there is such debate about what is or is not illegal under various portions of such codes.

States employ violence for political ends with impunity, regulated only by fear of the reaction of other states and the possibility of the enforcement of international law relevant to the use of violence by states, because that is what states exist to do. What "double standard" you are attempting to appeal to escapes me. Any body, whether a state or a private organization, that levies violence against a state, is subject to violence from that state, to the limit of its capability and desire to inflict it, within the bounds of the laws of war. Any private body or state has a perfect right to do this, again within the bounds of the laws of war, but it has no right, or even any reason, to expect the result will not be violence in return. Hezbollah has every right to levy violence against Israel; Israel has every right to levy violence against Hezbollah. Lebanon has a duty to prevent any body other than itself from levying violence against any state from its sovereign territory, and if it fails in this duty, the state assailed has every right to hold it responsible for the act, as if it had been carried out by Lebanese state organs.

[sui generis]

45. great response

Thanks for the explanation - appreciated.

I believe the missing puzzle piece for me though is that "magical period" in which a state has a chance to react. For instance, if China were to state that America harbored Falun Gong fugitives responsible for alleged violence and kidnappings in Beijing and then promptly invaded a week after informing us that we were not preventing such a body from levying violence against their nation, on the pretext that we were harboring or at least not producing said offenders, I suppose they would be within their "rights" as well.

At some point I think that the ponderous machinery of diplomacy must be exercised or at least attempted over a meaningful period o time to justify exercising one's sovereign prerogatives.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted sub-thread

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[Norquist Nemesis]

27. So, Bush condones Israeli spies in the U.S. government, too!

They're just protecting their own interests, after all. *holding head in hands*

[sendero]

29. The only thing sadder than..

... Israels long-term slide into the abyss is that we are following in their footstep. The same logic that Israel applies now justifies America killing 50,000 Iraqi civilians because someone thinks they might commit a terrorist act someday.

A pox on the whole damn lot of them.

[cantstandbush]

39. And we too, are now OCCUPIERS. We have lost our soul. nt

[Deja Q]

43. Well, let them nuke their enemies. Then this squabbling over land will end

Mind you, the land will be useless too - but the fighting will be over.

Can't these toddlers, on both sides, grow up and work together? Or do they prefer to wade in blood?

It's been that way for centuries.

[Ian David]

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