As i stated earlier, hezbollah is a dirty terrorist entity. they'll use anyone as a sheild. woman, children and it seems here, the UN workers.
If the israelies shoot a UN post just to be sure, what makes anybody believe they will not target civilian buildings "just to be sure". I Hope this will open the eye's of UN countries. I do not understand how anybody can still feel sympathy for Israel. They just destroyed a country(who is not able to do anything about it), because a organisation kidnapped 2 soldiers.
No sympathy for the Isrealis, they kill innocent people on the capture of two soldiers. They are cold blooded murderers.
After Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah and IDF have continued to skirmish at a low level. Despite the withdrawal, Hezbollah considered the outstanding issues of Lebanese prisoners and Sheebaa Farms unsettled. Israel continued to fly planes inside Lebanon which drew Hezbollah attacks. During Oct 2000, Hezbollah conducted a similar operation to what happened now and captured some Israeli soldiers to exchange for prisoners. Israel did not respond with any kind of huge retaliatory attack and in fact on Jan 2004 the prisoner exchange did take place thru German intermediaries. On July 2004, a senior Hezbollah official, Ghaleb Awwali, was assassinated in a car bombing in Beirut. Hezbollah blamed Israel; credit was claimed, and then retracted, by a previously unheard of Sunni group called Jund Ash Sham, while Israel denied involvement. According to Al-Arabiya, unidentified Lebanese police also identified the group as a cover for Israel. After Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hezbollah attacked the IDF along the Blue Line. In January 2005, Hezbollah planted five camouflaged “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs), inches on the Israeli side of the border near Zarit, 15 mountainous miles inland from the Mediterranean coast. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) detected these IEDs and, following procedure, notified UNIFIL. A French UNIFIL engineer duly certified that the devices were indeed IEDs, then “requested” that Hezbollah remove them. Hezbollah, not denying it had planted them, flatly refused, stating that since the mines were (just barely) inside the “Zionist” border, it was up to the “Zionists” to remove them. So the IDF sent in a large armored bulldozer to carry the mines off for disposal. This task required making a sharp 90-degree right turn from an Israeli road onto the narrow border trail where the IEDs were located. Making this sharp right turn, the left front corner of the bulldozer inevitably occupied, for a couple of seconds, about a meter of land on the Lebanese side. During those seconds a Hezbollah fighter directed an anti-tank missile at the narrow, unguarded windshield of the bulldozer. The pinpoint strike killed the bulldozer’s driver. .... Anyway the point of all this is that the kidnapping of soldiers has happened before and low level fighting has been happening for several years since the withdrawal. As far as Hezbollah was concerned it was no different than what had been happening for the last few years so no I don't think they had reason to expect that Israel was going to decide to wage full scale war against Hezbollah in response.
...to conclude my analysis, I don't think that Hezbollah did something so outrageous and out of line that there was reason to expect a full scale war to occur. The seizure seemed to fall within the unspoken rules of limited engagements. Similar operations had prompted prisoner exchanges in the past, the current demand by Hezbollah for ending the fighting. What I believed happened was that with Iraq now no longer a threat and with the Syrian army now out of Lebanon, Israel saw an opportunity and took the first pretext that came along to try to eliminate Hezbollah. However, it seems Hezbollah, although surprised by the response, was itself also ready and waiting for "open war" with Israel...And here we are.
I guess the Lebanese now know why the US and Israel were so keen on encouraging the Syrians to get out of Lebanon. The Lebanese left themselves 'exposed' for Israeli aggression, and they're now paying a hefty price for it.
Not 'stupidity', but they clearly miscalculated (they've admitted as much) based on prior instances in which they pretty much conducted the same raids and captured Israeli soldiers to exchange for their own prisoners in Israel; Hezbollah had no reason to believe that the Israelis would wreck havoc on all of Lebanon for two soldiers, losing 20 more in the course of conflict. So, they did miscalculate based on prior experience, but the 'wild card' in the past might have been the Syrian presence in Lebanon, which probably deterred this overwhelming and disproportionate response from Israel.
There is at least one instance where UNIFIL and Hezbollah shared the same outpost, or at least both the UN flag and the Hezbollah flag were flying over the same building. And UN soldiers allowed Hezbollah to capture and kill 3 iDF soldiers back in 2000, and then they tried to cover up the whole thing.
Back to the 4 UN workers that were killed at the UN outpost. I don't actually think that it was done on purpose, but that shouldn't absolve ISrael of some type of responsibility and restitution. The outpost was clearly marked, and Olmert did personally promise Kofi Anan that the UN outposts would be spared. I hope that Israel's investigation of the incident will get to the bottom of that and prevent it from happening again. I just wish Hezbollah would never have existed.
Or maybe the Israelis decided they need to end this low-level fighting once for all. Syrian presence certainly is a factor, but Israelis aren't exactly afraid of the Syrian army. Hezbollah itself is proven to be a much tougher fight than any regular Syrian army Isreal has faced before.
Hezbollah was going nowhere, but they had the 30,000+ Syrian troops present as a 'backup' plan, and logic would follow that had Lebanon been this heavily bombed or Syrian troops targeted, the entire Syrian military would have been pulled into the war against the Israelis; the Israelis did not want an all-out war with the Syrians, despite the fact that they do have the superior military (having the superior military force doesn't mean that the Israelis were willing to absorb the massive casualties they would no doubt suffer in such a conflict; remember, the Israelis are unwilling to invade southern Lebanon to avoid those heavy casualties in fighting Hezbollah, instead settling for smaller incursions/battles around small border towns). So the Syrian presence combined with the Hezbollah presence did act as a deterrant. Moreover, this is precisely why Hezbollah is going nowhere, the Lebanese understand that they're the only thing standing between them and the Israelis completely running them over, despite the fact that the Lebanese government needs to establish more control over Hezbollah's actions, but they're a useful tool for the Lebanese.
I definitely agree with this part...Lebanon and Israel would be in better positions without terrorism... Poor Lebanon is an admitted state within a state...Hezbollah is like Venom, a symbiote who has taken over a host to maximize abilities at the willing expense of innocent women and children...How truly disgusting that w**** of Hezbollah IS!
That 'w**** of Hezbollah' (I see Hayes still hasn't taken you to task for using a 'sexist' term) came into existence thanks to the Israelis...the CIA have a term for this, it's called "blowback".
Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, the BBC, AFP, Reuters, and 98% of the UN would disagree with you about Hezbollah.
I see you haven't read my reference on the choice of wording...It doesn't matter...O well, The "w****", Hezbollah came into being from a response of a terroristic attack against Israel... I pray to God that the w**** of Babylon (hezbollah) is eliminated and I pray for strength to Israel...
So the response Israel used to the initial attack was not only failure it created a larger problem. Too bad some people don't learn from past mistakes.
Agreed, however that is also the same feeling i have about Israel , So far most civilian deaths are caused by Israel. gwayneco that was a brilliant statement, i'm amazed what a wisdom . The fact that they do not agree with israel what ever they do(like the US seems to do) like destroying a country, doesn't mean they approve of what Hezbollah has been doing.
I am happy that Israel exists and has existed. I believe it is a great thing. I am upset at the course of action they have taken.
That is about the same thing saying, you do not mind that Bin laden(or hezbollah) exist just the course of action he has taken is bad. Maybe a country like Israel could be a good thing. however the things they have been doing are terrible. the thing i do not like is the fact that they are able to do whatever they want, and the US seems to support them. Maybe a jewish country could be a good thing, however not the way it has been going so far. So far Israel has not been able to stop the ridiculous thing they have been doing, so in that case i'm not happy they exist.
