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Israeli raid south of Beirut, 23 dead in Gaza

Started by Ete, July 14, 2006, 02:45:03 AM

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Ete

By MISNA    
srael and Lebanon seem to be once again on the brink of war after an Israeli air raid over Lebanon, 30 km. south of Beirut ? not to mention those that targeted bridges and roads in Nabatyeh, Tyre and Zahrani, further south earlier in the day.

The government in Tel Aviv, at the end of an emergency meeting, approved the military operations against Lebanon.

There is no news yet about the number of victims caused by the aerial bombing, which apparently targeted a bridge on the road that connects the South with Beirut.

Meanwhile, the Isreali army (IDF) killed 23 Palestinians in Gaza, the highest number since September 2004.

The IDF also suffered casualties as two soldiers died in a Tank that entered Lebanon and exploded over a mine.

Any international appeal for moderation or a peaceful solution to the crisis between Israel, the Territories and Lebanon after the capture of an Israeli soldier last June 25 and yesterday?s capture of two other Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah at the Israeli ? Lebanese border.
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Issue 1: Has recent rantings by the eccentic Iranian President about annahilitating Isreal changed the mentality of Isreali leaders from prior passiveness to the no nonsense aggressive position it has taken against its Arab neighbors that habor terrorist?

Issue2: Does it make a political sense for Arab nations to continue instigating conflict with Isreal especially now that Isreal is sending a clear message that it will defend itself at all cost and raid any nation that is a threat to her?

Issue3: Are the palestinians not better off now accepting the camp David accord, taking whatever they can get and living peacefully side by side with Israel rather than carrying on terror campaigns and provocations  that they clearly cannot win?

Issue 4: Is it really in any country's interest to harbor terrorist Organizations. It is obvious that terrorist are no longer invincible like they once were.  These days, they are tracked, hunted down and killed.  By extension, governments that provide them safe havens are being held to account. Libya learned this lesson the hard way.

_Waziri_

Thanx Ete for bringing up this topic again! What is unfortunate is my opinion regarding  the issues in Middle East, over the years have not change especially with the aggressive tendencies Israel is assuming every passing day.

I could see that, in your own way, you raised about four questions which I intend to briefly look at.

1. The recent attacks cannot be viewed in the light of the statements made by the Iranian president, because Israel has always been attacking the Palestian intermittently as it desires. Remember, the famous Sabra and Shatilla massacre conducted by Ariel Sharon way back, 1983, which killed more than 2000 innocent souls including women and children? Could you remember that then there was no Ahmadinejad to have said Isreal should be wiped out from the earth since it is not seen in the world atlas?

2. It may not make sense for Arabs to continue instigating conflict inspite of their knowledge of the plan of Israel to defend itself at all cost. But I prefer you put the statement  this wise. Does it make sense  for Israel to be always trying to expand its borders, thereby massacring innocent souls in the Middle East, inspite of the demonstrated commitment of the Arabs to defend their land at all cost?

3. Is Israeli not better off respecting that same accord and start granting Arabs who happen to be living in the conqured territory full citizenship with the right to contest elections and win all political offices deemed for the Israelites.

4. Is it really in any country's interest to be seen by the outside as a full pledeged terrorist nation with no sense of higher values and etiquettes characterizing other civilised nations in the 21st centuary? It is a lesson of life as aptly caught by another poet of among my forebears:

If you kill people you are ruining your self
The more you harm others, the more you harm yourself
It is a reflecting mirror and the reflection is yourself
The boomerang is boomeranging and the target is yourself
---Alhassan Babajo(late)

_Waziri_

Suffice it to add here as I have said elsewhere that I, in particular, am not suprised by the atrocities the Jews are commiting in that region everyday, which does not exclude the Arab Christians that are there. Why, because violence against other races is an ordained activity that draws reward in the sight of God, according Jewish religion. A cursary reading at The Torah and the Talmud confirms this truth. Read with me the following passage from the Deuteromy and you see what I am saying:

"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."

Deuteronomy.
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lionger

Waziri!

No, no, no. Dis ur latest excursion into the Jewish Scriptures get serious K-leg. This is not how to quote the Bible, Torah or any book for that matter my friend. You can't slap together sentences from the entire spectrum of Deuteronomy and treat it as a 'passage' from Deuteronomy and expect to derive the same meaning! Isn't this what you have done here? Would you reference the Quran in this lazy manner?? In any case no response was given to this in the previous thread, so its a good thing you brought it up again. I will make a detailed response soon, and I trust that Ete and mallamt will also have something for you as well. Oh yes btw, we might have to continue the discussion on the Islamic forum, for I believe the admin may well lock this thread in the future.

Peace to you,
lionger

Ete

Gentlemen, it is indeed obvious that these issues between the Arabs and Jews are deep. I do not understand it all.  The conflict has been raging before I came into existence, and reading a few text books on the Arab-Isreali conflict will still not provide the core facts as even historians, commentators and observers of the situation have their own seperate takes.

But let me say this waziri, you have gone and quoted a portion of the old testament completely out of context. Apart from that, you seem to be injecting religion into this issue, and this is not necessarily about religion. The Jews are quite clear that the actions they have taken border around their security as a people and as a nation. They have not claimed to be carrying out the wil of God or anything along those lines. They've stated that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and they hold Lebanon responsible for housing them.  So how if I may ask, how do you reconcile your out of context quote to this position which is clearly political?

The other thing, and this is in reaction to Lionger's submission that Isreal has been attacking Palestinians and so on.  In my view, there has been hostility on both sides. One side attacks and the other retaliates after a while, and this has been the pattern for decades. However, more recently in the months prior to the stroke of Ariel sharon,  you may recall that Isreal gave several concession to the Palestinian authority especially in the area of evacuating the west bank areas and demolishing jewish settlements. As a matter of fact, Israeli troops were the once displacing Israeli resident from those lands.  This was a concession that the Ariel Sharon government made which mad his administration very unpopular. However,  he did surrender those settlements to the Palestinian authority and the arrangement was that there would be a cessation of violence beacause prior to that arrangement, suicide bombers were often carrying out attacks in Israel which was leaving scores of people dead.

As I recall, despite the cease fire agreement and Isreali withdrawal, palestinian suicide bombers still carried out attacks in Israel and the Isreali govt did show restraint on several occassions just so they could work with the palestinian authority to achieve something.  Ultimately, it became clear to the Jewish government that the palestinians do not care about any peaceful dialogue to resolve disputes. It became clear that the more they gave in to demands, the more palestinian thumped their chest and wanted more.  It became obvious to the Jews that their restraint was being taken as weakness by the palestinians, and as such the palestinians despite a cease fire and withdrawal from the disputed territories, were carrying out terror attacks and promoting the idea that their actions was what was pressuring Isreal to pull back and give in.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians and the other Arabs countries, new leadership in Israel saw things differently, and here we are with Israel launching a no holds bar offensive against palestinians, hezbollah, Lebanese, etc.  It is true that Arabs are very fanatical and head strong people.  The unfortunate thing is, they have met their exact match with the jews who are twice as head strong and twice as crazy as the Arabs.  Now we have an impasse!

HUSNAA

Any one who terrorizes any one else is a terrorist. As such, both America and Israel are terrorist regimes, but they dont  view themselves as such because as we Hausawa say in Hausa,
'Laifi tudu ne, sai ka taka naka ka hango na wani'.

By the way Waziri, are u quoting the bible or the talmud?
And ETE do u ever have a positive view of anyone? I would like to know bcos from most of yr posts, u are always angry at one thing or another.  Oh dont blow my head off, i'm only curious!!
Ghafurallahi lana wa lakum

lionger

Quote from: "Ete"
The other thing, and this is in reaction to Lionger's submission that Isreal has been attacking Palestinians and so on.  

:P Me? When did I say that? I think you mean Waziri, not me. In any case you are correct when you say that this particulr subject isn't really about religion as Waziri tries to show it. Israel is not quite a theocratic nation. As such I won't make the responses I promised in this thread, but in the previous one about Ahmadenijad's letter.

alhaji_aminu

Salam

I wonder when this draining war in the middle east will end. Some have argued that succor will come only with the arrival of the anti christ (masihu dajjal???) and what follows after.

I tend to blame arabs MORE in this respect because they,honestly, haven't being very realistic in their demands. When one views the crisis from a military point of view, it is apparent that Israel is exercising tremendous amount of restraint even if this comes with devastating results- Ie the killings in Gaza and lately in Lebanon.

What possible bargaining chip do they(arabs) control to dictate to Israel. Here is a nation (Israel) that can Nuke all of Middle east to pieces being told by nations without rifle manufacturing capacity that we will destroy you.

In this new chapter, it is clear who provoked the confrontation. Hizbullah rebels kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers in Israeli territory. If this isn't aggression, I wonder what is. How then can people start grumbling when the IDF start retatiliating? My only grouse with the IDF is in its attack of civil infrastructure This contravenes international law and even the UN has said as much.

So you may ask, what should be done? The simplest solution will be through some kind of mutual prisoner exchange and for the US (Israel's god father)to foot the bill of the repairs to the damaged facilities.

PS: I wonder why the conflict in Darfur- where arab racists are killing Africans for no other reason than their skin color- isn't commanding the same kind of attention and scrutiny.
Allah dai shi sawwake

Ete

Huanna, yes now!  :wink:  Is that piece up there positive enough? Haba, where is the anger I expressed? I just analyze the situation to the best of my knowledge.  I'm sure some people will disagree, and that's fine.  
In anycase, to answer your question, yes, I have very positive views about so many people its not even funny. I think palestinians should have a right to statehood.  I think they have a right to peace as every else does. Sometimes, the way people choose to go about attaining these things affects the outcome of that desire.

Nuruddeen

o try and fail is atleast to learn. That will save one the inestimable loss of what might have been (positive or negative).

Dave_McEwan_Hill

I agree, Alhaji Aminu. I tried to get some serious discussion about Darfur on this site last year but the major reponses were other forumites denying anything serious was happening even though the UN and the US have described what is happening in Darfur as genocide.

What is happening is that the  mostly Arab Government of Sudan is masterminding the killing of thousands of black Sudanese.

I doesn't suit many people to acknowledge this because the Sudan government is Islamic and many Nigerians have an idea that the Arabs are the black persons friends.

I may say that there are Nigerian troops sent by Obasanjo to Darfur doing their best to put a stop to the killings but there are far too few of them.

Dave McEwan Hill
maigemu

HUSNAA

Quote from: "alhaji_aminu"Salam


I tend to blame arabs MORE in this respect because they,honestly, haven't being very realistic in their demands. When one views the crisis from a military point of view, it is apparent that Israel is exercising tremendous amount of restraint even if this comes with devastating results- Ie the killings in Gaza and lately in Lebanon.

What possible bargaining chip do they(arabs) control to dictate to Israel. Here is a nation (Israel) that can Nuke all of Middle east to pieces being told by nations without rifle manufacturing capacity that we will destroy you.


PS: I wonder why the conflict in Darfur- where arab racists are killing Africans for no other reason than their skin color- isn't commanding the same kind of attention and scrutiny.
Allah dai shi sawwake


If Israel was exercising 'tremendous amount of restraint', then it shouldnt  kill over 80 ppl in the Gaza strip including a family of nine (mother, father, seven children) just to retrieve a single soldier. It shouldnt bomb Lebanese infrastructure, cut off sea and air transportation, bomb Lebanese hospitals, in order to secure the release of two additional soldiers. Most countries resort to behind the door negotiations in this kind of situation. Is it because the retaliatory power of the Palestinians is miniscule, that Israel can exact such devastation with impunity? Israel's response is the reaction of a bully and a coward. A bully usually preys on helpless victims that cant retaliate in equal measure, and a coward only strikes when one is most vulnerable.  
As for their ability to nuke the middle east, its a great irony that even if they want to they cant, and I am sure they are itching to release the bombs. The irony of it is that their being part of the middle east, means they also wont escape the radiation fall out,and that probably is the factor making them exercise the 'tremendous restraint'

As for Darfur, I wonder that no black leader has come out and publicly condemned the Sudanese Government as a racist government conducting racially motivated genocide. No one who dislikes me bcos of my skin color is a friend of mine even if we have the same religious beliefs.
Ghafurallahi lana wa lakum

Ete

But Husnaa, if you call Isreali actions bullish and cowardly because according to you,  the folks suffering the brunt of these attacks are "helpless victims that cant retaliate in equal measure, and a coward only strikes when one is most vulnerable.", does that characterization not apply to terrorists that bombed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of innocent people going about their business? Does that Characterization not apply to all terror groups that bomb commuter trains, planes, churches, mosques, synagogues, etc? Would you caracterize the 1967 arab Isreali war as bullish and cowardly when Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria began an offensive against one nation, Israel, and then lost in a most undignified manner?

Does that Characterization of cowardly and bullish nature not apply to those communities in the middle east where suicide bombers are recruited, prepared and sent on missions to destroy innocent people?  What's going on in Lebanon is really unfortunate, and I hope the UN and its security council will halt these bombings to avoid any further casualties.
The fact is Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks against Isreal from southern Lebanon for years. The fact is, terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al quaeda, etc  find safe havens in what are supposed to be civil societies and carry out attacks on other nations and consider themselves immune from any form of accountability. Unfortunately, the host country gets punished for housing terror groups. Syria is about to learn a bitter lesson.  Perhaps President Assad should learn a lesson for Libyan Ghaddaffi who is now a born again citizen of the World following years of sanction and isolation.

I tend to agree with Mallam Aminu when he opined that Israel showed restraint.  I expressed the same view earlier in regards to the era of Ariel Sharon. Sharon reached out to the palestinian authority on several occasions. He kept his own part of the bargain which was to withdraw from the occupied territories in that famous land for peace deal. Palestinian leadership failed to keep its own part of the deal because they could not maintian the ceasefire and prevent further attacks in Isreal. Despite repeat attacks by palestinian suicide bombers and gun men which left scores of Israelis dead, Ariel Sharon's govt kept the truce and did not retaliate.  This is a fact!

Given this scenario, we can view the palestinian authority's inability to keep its own part of the agreement in two folds. It is either they had no intention of keeping the pact, or they clearly had no power and control over the militant organizations in their community. If this is the case, then Israel will have no choice in taking actions against the militant forces thats being waging series of attacks against her.

I think we should put things in perspective here sometimes. It is ingeneous to point out the Isreali attack that killed nine palestinian family members on a beach, but simply ignore the several attacks against Israel by hamas and other palestinian militants. This type of one sided observation is exactly what undermines any effort at reaching any degree of compromise.

And yes, why aren't we so vexed over the deplorable and inhumane treatment of black Africans in Dafur by the Arab sudanese government in Khartoum? They enslave, kidnap, rape, and dislodge black Africans, yet many of Africans on this site are not outraged.

They call Israel occupiers. Occupiers of what? Lebanon was occupied by Syria for decades and that seemed to be fine. Lebanon should have the sense to expel Hezbollah from its society especially after Syrian forces were sent packing so they could begin afresh as a civil society.
I respect Isreal's right to defend itself. It is more than I can say for African governments with lameduck leaders who sit and do nothing if their security were threatened.  I recall the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya  and Tanzania were over 200 innocent Africans were massacred by Arab terrorists.  Even if they claim American interests were their target, did they care that they carried out these attacks on African soil? Did they care that innocent Africans were in arms way? Did they care about any consequence? No!  What was the reaction of the so called African leaders?  You guessed it, nothing.

lionger

Preach on, Ete and Aminu.

I continue to have tremendous sympathy for the Lebanese people who will no doubt suffer rather unjustly from this onslaught after several years of peace. The Lebanese government has little control over Hezbollah which is sustained from the outside. And as usual Israel is doing a bit of 'overkill' in their aggression. I have friends in Lebanon right now and I worry for them. While I'd like to see the Hezbollah taught a serious lesson, I'd rather see cooler heads prevail and all fighting brought to a stop. As for the Palestinians, they can only have themselves to blame. I try not to lose sleep over the Israel issue because it is a conflict fueled by bitter, deep-seated hatred.

As for the Darfur issue, when you have the time Ete you can read the farce of a discussion we had on the Sudan a while ago on this forum:
http://www.hausafulani.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1460

We have a very serious problem with miseducation. But in any case that is not the point of this thread.