Now, about those rocket attacks that supposedly provoked the invasion-

[eridani]

Footnotes up the yinyang. Check 'em out.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10721]

This table makes a number of points clear. First, Not a single Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket from Lebanon from May 2000 to July 12, 2006. And second, until May 28, 2006, there was not a single confirmed rocket fired at civilians by Hezbollah. (True, in some of the cases where the responsible party was unidentified, it might have been Hezbollah, but that's inconsistent with the group's usual policy of proudly taking responsibility for its attacks.) Often the perpetrators were Palestinians, responding to events in Palestine (for example, the bloody Israeli offensive on the West Bank in Spring 2002).

On May 28, 2006, during the exchange of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah in which two Lebanese but no Israeli civilians were injured, Israeli civilians in the north were ordered by the IDF "to take to the safety of bomb shelters -- some so out of use that it was difficult to locate the keys."<8>

So this war can hardly be justified as a war to stop Hezbollah from launching Katyushas against Israeli civilians. Moreover, the simplest way for Israel to stop the rockets that are now hitting its population is to accept a ceasefire. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has declared that his organization would stop firing its rockets if Israel stopped its air-raids.<9>


Are you saying that the Israeli-Lebanese border was quiet for the past six years?

No, it wasn't. There were several different border problems.

Israeli warplanes routinely violated Lebanese airspace, often intentionally flying low over cities so as to create sonic booms that terrified the population. In some of his bi-annual reports, the Secretary General referred to almost daily incursions by the Israeli Air Force, in others he noted that "overflights by jets, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles or drones were numerous and particularly intrusive and provocative."

Sometimes Hezbullah responded to these Israeli overflights with anti-aircraft fire, sometimes after a delay, and the shells landed across the border. The UN repeatedly called for Israel to stop its flights and for Hezbollah to stop its anti-aircraft fire, noting that violations by one side did not justify violations by the other. Both sides continued. In June 2002 Hezbollah anti-aircraft fire wounded two Israeli civilians, and on August 10, 2003, killed a teenage boy and injured four other civilians. Hezbollah stopped anti-aircraft fire in mid-2004, but the Israeli overflights, often with their sonic booms over populated areas, continued, despite UN protests.

Meanwhile, back in Gaza--

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/080806.html

Three days after the May 23 summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. President George W. Bush, a car bomb killed two officials of Islamic Jihad in the Lebanese city of Sidon.

Immediately, Lebanese officials, including Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, denounced the murder of brothers Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub and pointed the finger at Israel as the prime suspect. On June 10, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh was arrested for the car bombing and, according to the Lebanese army, confessed that he was a Mossad agent.

Rafeh, a 59-year-old retired police officer, belonged to a “terror network working for the Israeli Mossad,” which had smuggled a booby-trapped door into Lebanon from Israel for use in the assassination, the Lebanese army said.

In retrospect, the Majzoub assassination looks to have been part of a larger U.S.-Israeli strategy – following the Olmert-Bush summit – to encourage a tit-for-tat escalation of violence that would ratchet up pressure on Palestinian and Lebanese militants – and through them their allies in Syria and Iran.

That violence also set the stage for the current Israeli-Lebanese war, which now has raged for almost one month and has claimed the lives of nearly 1,000 Lebanese and 100 Israelis.

According to Israeli sources, Olmert and Bush agreed at the May 23 summit to make 2006 the year for neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while deferring a border settlement with the Palestinians until 2007.

<snip>

On June 27, as these tensions mounted, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was still working to advance a possible peace settlement with Israel. Abbas coaxed the more radical Hamas, which controls the Palestinian parliament, into endorsing a document proposing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Abbas’s success represented a potential breakthrough in a border settlement with Israel, since Hamas implicitly was accepting Israel as a neighbor next to an independent Palestinian state.

But the next day, June 28, Olmert sent the Israeli army crashing into Gaza to avenge the “kidnapping” of Shalit, a phrasing that the U.S. news media immediately adopted in blaming Hamas for instigating the crisis.

[evox]

1. According to Lebanese intelligence...

Israel had been planning to invade Lebanon since the beginning of this year. However, the invasion was to take place in November. After the Israeli soldiers have been captured, Israel decided to launch its plan before it was due while they were only semi-prepared as they were underestimating Hezbollah fighters.

[leveymg]

2. SF Chronicle - Israel planned Lebanon invasion w/US for more than a year

See, http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/21/MIDEAST.TMP

Also, the Anti-Defamation League's "Major Terrorist Attacks in Israel" similarly shows that Hezbollah launched no fatal terrorist attacks or rocket attacks that killed Israeli civilians during the period following the withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 and the July 12 start of the current war. http://www.adl.org/Israel/israel_attacks.asp

[malaise]

3. Good post

Rational people know what's going on. History will not absolve Israel, the the US and Britain.

[Perky]

4. Here we go

No civilians deaths. Ok How many missile and mortars did they launch? How many military dead? how many kidnappings? How many deaths from suicide bombers have the admitted to?
z
Your purported fact would seems to absolve Hezbollah of all guilt and responsibility. That is not only disingenuous it it utterly asinine.

[Kailassa]

5. Yes, the facts do absolve Hezbollah, don't they.

But, in lieu of facts, you can always insult people.

It helps those quickly scanning threads when you do that.
One can quickly see which position has no facts to support it.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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

[jpkenny]

7. I disagree. One could claim that Israel is a "terrorist state" but that

would not make it one. No rockets were launched by Hizbollah into Israel UNTIL Israel bombed Lebanon. Until then is was all about the captured soldiers and Hizbollah's attempt to negotiate prisoner exchanges. It was Israel that launched the first attacks. Hizbollah has a right to defend themselves and their nation, as they are Lebanese. Israel was planning for this attack against Lebanon ever since Syria withdrew. And while everyone talks about how great it was for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon (after 20 years of occupation of Lebanon) no one seems to remember that Syria was asked in to protect against further aggression againt Lebanon and they ALSO withdrew. No amout of trying to shout down the opposition is going to change the facts. Israel went way over the line and has been and is guilty of crimes against humanity. Hizbollah has lost its leverage in this battle by lobbing missiles into civilian areas of Israel, I agree. But Israel spilled the blood and oil and massive destruction in Lebanon.

[Howardx]

8. see ya

n/t