Israeli air strikes target Palestinian group in eastern Lebanon

It appears that some people don't understand the difference between exploiting an existing opportunity, on one hand, and creating the opportunity, on the other hand. Yes, pitting one's enemies against each other is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but that still doesn't mean that the one doing the pitting created one's own enemies.

Israeli politicians surely try to exploit the Fatah-Hamas divide, but claiming that Israel created and funded Hamas for this purpose is to stretch imagination beyond any reasonable boundaries.

There are many things not written in articles such as Sale's, leaving no room for other interpretations than what the journalists had in mind. For instance, readers are not being told that the Muslim Brotherhood's mainstream ideology is one of peaceful takeover by democratic means, not by violent jihad. Israeli politicians couldn't possibly know that a Muslim Brotherhood charity would turn into a fundamentalist terror group like Hamas. Yet the so-called journalist hints that Hamas' aims were clear even almost a decade before it was founded and claims that Israel knowingly and purposefully aided and abetted a terrorist organization that wasn't. Twisted and sick.

 

[QUOTE="alexa, post: 1070913105, member: 9227"
seems Lebanon has had enough.[/QUOTE]

Poor Lebanon (sorry, Hezbollah) they have "had enough."
Had enough what? Had enough missiles? They have about 150,000 of them now.
Had enough inaccurate missiles? They are developing precision ones now.
Had enough quietness on the border? They just fired a few anti-tank missiles at Israel.
Poor Lebanon.

 

One opinion is that Israel exploited the honor/shame culture so ingrained in the Middle Eastern culture. The IDF, however, didn't issue an official statement about soldiers being injured in the attack. My guess is that a preplanned exercise for evacuation of soldiers wounded in such attacks took place (it would also explain the dummies in the vehicles), and somebody mistook it for an intentional prank.

As for Israel trying to avoid escalation, well...someone did beg for a ceasefire, but it wasn't who you'd wish to have begged....

https://www.timesofisrael.com/senio...asefire-as-idf-responded-to-hezbollah-strike/

Has Nasrallah left the bunker he's hiding in since 2006 yet?

 

The facts are very clear and no ridiculous theory will change it. It also not worth my time since ultimately it doesn't change anything that matters. What matters was for Israel to realize that, despite thinking that they have Hezbollah's hands strapped by Lebanese political parties worried about damage to Lebanon in case of a war, if Israel does cross the line into Lebanon, those parties will not be standing in the way of Hezbollah retaliating. As long as that is clear, we will find something like the status quo ante which prevailed after the 2006 war. Of course, I am the first to admit: to make sure Israel doesn't test the waters again, it would have been better for Hezbollah to have not limited its retaliation the way it said it would. Netanyahu, in the middle of an election campaign, should have been given no room to weasel out of this: his bluff should have been called, and if he had decided to double down on it, he would have been campaigning in the middle of missiles and rockets hit all over Israel. Including wherever he was going to give his speeches.

 

Do you also believe in a global flood or that God mandated the slaughter of the Canaanites?

 

Israel should stay out of Lebanon.. They are still cleaning out the last batch of land mines Israel planted.

 

Do you seriously think Israel would have an election campaign during war?

While I appreciate, in an intellectual detached-even-though-smirking-all-the-way-through kind of way, your efforts to turn reality upside down by pretending Israel is the aggressor, I have no choice but to kindly inform you that I'm not impressed. Nasrallah is just trying to stay relevant from the depths of his bunker.

 

Huh?

Sure, as long as Nasrallah sits quietly in his bunker.

 

Instead of cartoons and propaganda, I prefer to watch the actual footage which tells you what you need to know.

On the attack by Hezbollah:


And as far as Nasrollah, I think this video is what you should listen to instead of the cartoons you are interested in posting:

 

Pisa is always there to argue the pro Israel's case, usually with some passion and not devoid of some intellect, even when there is no argument to be made! I can see him, even after a Gibraltar court ruled that there was no legitimate legal ground for Gibraltar to hold the Iranian tanker which had been pirated by the British, argue that in fact that was a perfectly legal act on their part And with regard to Hezbollah's attack on the Israeli base and there attack on the Israeli APC, he will figure a way to explain the twists and turns in Israel's side of the story! I have faith in him. But in the meantime, just consider:

1- Before Hezbollah struck Israel, Netanyahu had promised a "disproportionate" reaction and threatened Lebanon if such an attack would come to pass.
2- After Hezbollah struck Israel, Netanyahu and the Israelis claimed: no Israeli soldier had even suffered a scratch and that Hezbollah had only managed to hit an empty "ambulance".
3- After pictures and video emerged of injured Israeli soldiers being evacuated, they claimed that was just a ruse to fool Hezbollah to think it had caused injury (even as they were insisting publicly no Israeli was injured and supposedly unveiling their ruse).
4- When evidence emerged showing the damage was to an Israeli APC, not an ambulance, the Israelis shifted their story: they said that it was an APC after all, but one which had been in the past used to drive injured soldiers! But they insisted the APC was sitting idly at the time of the attack and had no soldiers in it.
5- When Hezbollah then released video showing the APC that was hit, they said: well, it wasn't empty after all, but you know what: Hezbollah missed! It was a near miss, but Hezbollah had not hit the APC but had only come close to doing so. They even pretended that is what the video released by Hezbollah (which I posted above) showed!

All of these lies for one overriding reason: to then claim that Hezbollah is lucky there was no serious damage or any injury or casualties to Israel, or else Israel would really show Hezbollah...This, of course, not meant to frighten Hezbollah (who knows what happened and has basically ridiculed Israel's threats) but to make Netanyahu not look a fool in front of the Israeli electorate.

Which brings me to this point: the pro Israel propaganda, of course, hurts the other side but its greatest harm is often in undermining every institution of a supposedly "free government" who have to cater to these lies, protect them, and perpetuate them. Whether on a larger scale as it relates to the whole set of issues regarding Israel from its founding to the present, to even ultimately minor issues such as the one I am mentioning, these lies beget more lies and require more and more liars in government and media to tell them. The whole thing, to sustain itself, then ends up being the corrupt system that has become America's government and the media outlets that report their lies. That is in fact the greatest price support for Israel exacts from America, much greater than the aid and money that is paid to Israel.

 

A friendly advice: don't call Pisa "him" again. Ever. Seriously

It's glaringly obvious that you don't know anything at all about Israel. It's a small country. We couldn't hide injured soldiers if our lives depended on it. Everybody knows someone who knows relatives of neighbors of a second degree cousin of the babysitter of the soldier's little sister. Everybody's sons and daughters are in the army, you know. And Muslim volunteers, more and more of them every year. Even Ismail Haniyeh's sister's son volunteered to serve in the IDF (she's married to an Israeli Bedouin). Some of his uncle's rockets fell very close to his town, by the way.

I'll never forget the day - a few years ago - when I walked into the local hospital to be greeted by a post-apocalyptic sight: some 15-20 young men, all wrapped in blood stained bandages, calmly stood in small groups in the lobby chatting and drinking coffee. "Zombies!" was my first thought, but then somebody explained they're participating in a drill - evacuation and treatment of wounded civilians. Yes, such drills are taking place here, along with other drills for emergency situations. As messed up as our governments sometimes are in other aspects, they all care for civilians' and soldiers' lives. We take individuals seriously, as opposed to dictatorships and their "greater good" argument. Now you know why I immediately thought that the injured soldiers that weren't might have been, in fact, participants in a drill.

Occam's razor is your friend in seemingly weird circumstances such as this. No need for convoluted conspiracy theories sending the reader on a crazy slalom through wishful thinking, fantasies, half-truths, and of course poison dripping irrational hatred.

I don't have time now for a detailed answer to all your points.

 

Sorry for the confusion regarding your gender.

Occam's razor is indeed a friend. Now, using your Occam's razor, was it a parked ambulance, later a parked APC, that was hit, as initially claimed by Israel? Or as later retracted and clarified, an APC doubling as an ambulance, moving with 5 soldier in it, but the missiles by Hezbollah narrowly missed?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/repor...nned-armored-car-driving-in-breach-of-orders/
Reports: Hezbollah missiles narrowly missed armored car with 5 soldiers inside

The reason Israel, which actually first claimed an "ambulance" had been hit, was trying to claim the targets weren't moving, is because if it admitted a moving target had been destroyed, it would be hard to pretend there would be no injuries. So now, instead of saying it was an empty parked vehicle, the story is that the missiles didn't hit the vehicle after all (even though Israel itself initially said the ambulance/later APC had been hit).

If that was the purpose of the "ploy", why would Israel be jumping up and down to emphasize that there were no injuries as soon as Hezbollah had conducted its attack? How come they would publicize this ploy if that was the intention?

Now, apply Occum's razor and read this story:
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east...is-lying-had-casualties-in-flare-up-1.7777134
Hezbollah Officials Say Israel Is Lying, Suffered Casualties in Flare-up

p.s.
3+2=5

 

My Occam's razor tells me this: when Hezbollah retaliated, and called Netanyahu's bluff that any attack (even a limited one) would receive a disproportionate response, Israel needed to find a way to justify the fact that it wasn't willing to see a war with Hezbollah ensue as a result. So the many claims and retractions we have seen since. Of course, I wasn't there and can be wrong, but I can't be wrong about one thing: the Israeli story has been shifting and moving faster than the APC Hezbollah showed being hit!

In the meantime, Israel is trying to "expose" Hezbollah lying about not having "missile factories" in Lebanon. I don't know the truth about that either: Hezbollah has reason not to want to put the other political parties in Lebanon in a bind and would have good reason not to admit to what Israel is claiming. But what I do know is this: contrary to what Israel is pretending, the real issue isn't these factories since even Israel recognizes and admits Hezbollah's arsenal already includes precision guided missiles delivered to Hezbollah by Iran. And while I read Israeli estimates of such precision guided missiles to be around 200-300 from the 130,000+ rockets and missiles in Hezbollah's arsenal, I have reason to believe the actual number is over 1,000. Regardless, however, whether 200-300 or more, that is enough already to pose the kind of danger Israel is claiming it wants to avoid. But what Israel is really intending is something else: it wants to bring Hezbollah in conflict with Lebanese political parties, since that is Israel's best bet in constraining Hezbollah's abilities. The rest of the arguments from Israel are usually more propaganda and myth than based on reality. Indeed, Israel's greatest asset has never been its military might so much as its ability to force reluctant parties to do its bidding by saying that if they don't, it will cause havoc and turmoil which others will have to then clean up. (Just read the feature in the NYT Magazine story about the history of Israel's attempts to lure the US to war with Iran, which I posted elsewhere).

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-p...-to-show-hezbollah-precision-missile-factory/
IDF publishes photos purporting to expose Hezbollah precision missile factory

 

I'll attack your points now.

1. Netanyahu always promises and threatens, nobody here believes him anymore, but many are willing to vote for him because our enemies are quite scared of him. We'd rather have a leader our enemies don't like but fear - this is what keeps Bibi's behind glued on the Prime Minister's chair.

2. Never heard the "empty ambulance" story, the news here reported an armored vehicle was hit.

3. Which proves it wasn't a ploy. Maybe it was just a last minute idea of some decision makers to pull a prank on Hezbollah. For an elaborate conspiracy, advanced knowledge of when, how, and where was Hezbollah going to attack was necessary, and reports from all bodies involved would've been identical.

4. See 2.

5. I don't trust anything coming from Hezbollah, a terrorist and criminal organization, their videos included.

Regarding the shame/honor culture, here's an opinion piece written for Ha'aretz by an anti-Israel Arab from Gaza that drives the point home better than any pro-Israel blogger out there:

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east...-netanyahu-its-most-powerful-weapon-1.7797402

Normalization with Israel is framed as humiliation for Arabs, reality be damned. Honor demands war, whether the humiliation is real or not. Nice confirmation of the honor/shame games in the Middle East, straight from the Middle Eastern horse's mouth.

 

While I understand the need to divert the issue to something else, and you guys (and gals) are pretty good at it, lets just stick to the facts. Facts that aren't really in dispute anymore, whether you trust them or not.

1- The first report by the Israeli military claimed it was an "ambulance" that had been hit.
2- When pictures of the charred APC surfaced, the story changed to: It was an APC that in the past had been used to carry injured soldiers and was driven by a doctor.
3- The Israeli military first claimed the APC didn't have soldiers and was parked and not moving. Whether you "trust" the video from Hezbollah, the new story now is that it was a moving APC but Hezbollah's missile hit close to the APC but not close enough to destroy or damage it to cause injury.

All of that is something you can see reviewed, but through an obvious propaganda lens trying to fit each story to the new facts, in the report I posted before in message 312 from the Times of Israel. The "ambulance" part you can find in the report from the Times of Israel in my message 282, but now that same report (if you click on it) has changed the title to "military vehicle" instead of ambulance as quoted in my message at the time!

 

You have no clue what you are talking about and are living in some myopic partisan delusion land. The Jews had it way better in the Muslim world than in Europe during the middle ages. Its not even remotely comparable. Get some education.

 

Yes, just as I believe in the history of the Roman conquest, exile, slavery, pogrom, crusades and holocaust.
How many Jews died in all this? Maybe more than ten million.

 

The bit joke here is that you have not the faintest clue what life is like in Iran - yet you pretend otherwise.

Your analogy is dumb and dumber on steroids - Many people want to come here from many places - Eastern Europe for example for better economic opportunity. That does not mean these nations are ungodly cradles of horror.

Your words and arguments are as petty and dumb as it gets.

 

You are absolutely correct, although obviously, in the case of Iran, we also have issues that are specific to our case. Unlike the propaganda, and while admitting some of the issues for certain classes of our people are also homemade, the overwhelming force behind many Iranians seeking to immigrate is ultimately tied to the economic war that is being waged against Iran by the very folks who pretend to care the least for how things are in Iran!

Incidentally, this young Iranian woman, who immigrated to the US only a few years ago and still has an accent that is noticeable, nonetheless speaks rather eloquently about how these attempts to paint her country in this false image actually affected her in ultimately making her more determined to insist on her identity. She is one of millions of Iranians who are simply fed up with the propaganda against Iran, even though they themselves might not have much love for the regime in Iran either and actually represent the "westernized classes" that many in the West pretend to want to speak for. (Of course, there is a reason the only groups that actually work with them are folks like the discredited terrorist cult, the MEK, and others which have no real support base in Iran. None of the discourse in the West about Iran is ultimately meant to help any substantial group or class of people within Iran. Rather, it is simply a discourse aimed at weakening and ultimately causing an 'implosion' in Iran in accordance with the script that the neocons and the Israelis have been carrying for some time).

 

My neighbor is a Prof at a a large university - Electrical Engineering - They are from Iran. He tells me all kinds things about the place over beers in my garage - which is kind of the local hotspot - complete with fridge television and fan to blow the smoke out.

I am quite aware of the propaganda machine.