Will Hezbollah — Backed By Iran — Open a Second Front Against Israel?
Rockets fall on a retirement home in northern Israel. Who was responsible? (Also read Richard Fernandez: Calling UNIFIL)
At about 7:30 Thursday morning Israel time, while Israeli warplanes, tanks, and artillery were pounding the smuggling tunnels at the Gaza-Sinai border, at least two rockets fired from Lebanon hit the area of Nahariya near the northern end of the Israeli coast.
The Jerusalem Post reported that “one of the rockets went through the roof of a Nahariya retirement home and exploded in the kitchen where about 25 elderly residents were eating breakfast in the adjacent dining hall. One resident suffered a broken leg, another bruises.” The two were rushed to a local hospital and five others were treated for shock.
The Israeli army responded with artillery fire at the launching sites in southern Lebanon. The automatic suspect for the attack was, of course, Hezbollah. Later in the morning Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri announced that Hezbollah had denied any connection to the rockets. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora condemned the attack — as well as Israel’s retaliation, showing that he was well schooled in the moral-equivalency tenets that now bedevil almost all public verbiage about Israel.
Israel’s Northern Command said the attack was indeed “carried out by Palestinian elements in Lebanon” rather than Hezbollah. But that hardly absolve the Iranian-backed terror group, with one defense official pointing out that “Nothing happens in Lebanon without a green light from Hezbollah. Even if it was a Palestinian group … Hezbollah would at least have had to turn a blind eye.”
In keeping with its policy since Hezbollah gained veto power in the Lebanese cabinet last May and became a central — arguably the dominant — component of its government, Israel cast blame for the attack on Lebanon itself and said it “holds the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese armed forces responsible for preventing rocket fire into Israel.” The Israeli cabinet had formally announced last August that it would hold Lebanon, as a state, answerable for any further attacks on Israel — meaning that, if it came to it, Israeli forces would have a free hand to hit Lebanese targets and not just Hezbollah itself.
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P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/
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44 Comments
1. howard:I think Iran is showing that it is in trouble and they are concerned that Hamas is taking to much damage in many ways from the Israelis. They also detect that the Israelis are going to continue with the war on Hamas to significantly weaken even finish them rather than go for a ceasefire without having finished of Hamas.
As an aside the 3hr humanitarian break is a great idea as it means the war against Hamas can be prolonged for much longer.
Iran have 2 Jokers cards to play in this game of their making. The first Joker is Hamas. They have played their first joker and expected the Israeli response and are relying upon the bad PC press this war will bring upon Israel. Now they are playing their 2nd Joker, Hezbollah. They probably weren’t expecting to have to play this joker card at this stage. They need the Hezbollah joker card for the big push for going nuclear.
But time perhaps is against the Mullahs both economically and by the way the war in Gaza is progressing. They will be unhappy at the way the Sunni Arab governments are not falling into the PC press civilian casualty trap. They are unhappy that people are recognizing that Hamas is a terrorist evil and uses the palestinian civilians for cover.
I think this has pushed them to play the 2nd joker card, Hezbollah. This is a sign that they are worried.
Sadly the Palestinian people are being used again by Iran. Iran could not care less about the Palestinians, just like the Mumbai attackers and their controllers on the phone conversations could not care less about civilians in India. This is the Islamist trait.
The West is being de-sensitized to the nature and horror of war. This is something that is bad for the Iranians and their jokers, Hezbollah and Hamas as they bank upon the west’s horror of war to make military and political advances.
Just my thoughts for what the’re worth!
Jan 8, 2009 - 6:12 am 2. Craig:Not a question of if..but when.
Jan 8, 2009 - 6:39 am 3. drjohn:Christiane Amanpour spoke with Hezbollah and they assure her that no rockets were actually fired.
And everyone knows she wouldn’t lie.
Jan 8, 2009 - 6:49 am 4. love america:Howard I think you are right. Iran’s strategy is to encircle Israel with Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria. Then when they get the bomb, well you know what was to happen. I think they made a strategic mistake, not expecting Israel to go at Hamas so hard. Israel keep fighting the fight, hopefully you not listen to the likes of Amanpour.
Jan 8, 2009 - 7:34 am 5. Peter the Sub Guy:This is exactly as predicted within a day of the IDF actions against Hamas started. It is all a plan by the Islamists (particularly Iran) to divide Israel’s forces and turn world opinion against them.
I say, with htis new front opening, Israel should do what the rest of the world commands. Practice proportionality. For every rocket Hezbolla shoots at Israel, Israel should indescriminantly fire one back. If it hits innocent Lebonese, so be it. If it hits schools or hospitals, so be it. If it just happens to land on a cell of Hezbolla terrorists hiding amidst dozens of civilians, so be it.
Jan 8, 2009 - 8:19 am 6. dave742:Strngely enough, last month the Lebanese army found 7 rockets in Lebanon with timers on them aimed at Israel:
“Two senior officers said that the rockets’ timers were activated, and one of the officers said the rockets were to have been fired overnight Thursday.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050127.html
These rockets were found on Dec. 25, 2 days BEFORE Israel started bombing Gaza. Isn’t that weird?!? What a coincidence that Hezbollah was about to fire rockets into Israel just 2 days before Israel starting bombing Gaza. No matter, the rockets arrived today instead, and now poor Israel has their excuse to start bombing Lebanon as well. Life is full of coincidences, isn’t it.
Jan 8, 2009 - 8:19 am 7. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: It Has Begun
According to a news item at Fox, there are rockets flying from Lebanon and impacting in Israel.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Jan 8, 2009 - 9:00 am 8. starkey:P.S. I was wondering when they’d get into the act. And I’m wondering how Israel will respond THIS time.
Odd how you don’t mention what everyone in the outside world knows, viz. that Israel has been violating Lebanon’s airspace repeatedly and with impunity, the last reports were on 6th January. This is widely known and recognized for exactly what it is – a deliberate provocation to Lebanon, cynically calculated to drag them back into conflict as well. So please spare us the usual whining about the poor, innocent, peace-loving Israelis having to suffer another unprovoked attack. It’s wearing thin, Israel provokes everyone as much and as often as it can and then cries foul, secure in the knowledge that Americans will never hear about Israel’s part in the proceedings. It is fully expected that they will violate Syria’s airspace soon too, for the same reason.
If Americans would get their heads out of the sand for a while and read something other than their Zionist-controlled press they would not be so easily frightened by the likes of George W. Bush and his lies and nonsense about Islam being the bogey man. Can’t America function without a string of enemies to frighten its populace with?
Jan 8, 2009 - 9:45 am 9. SAF:When I was a kid growing up in NYC there was a TV repair place down the block which I had to pass to go to the subway. This was in the days of “My Fair Lady” on Broadway and it was advertised everywhere. In the TV shop they had an ad in the window. It showed Eliza as a puppet being manipulated by the professor and the professor as a puppet being manipulated by God.
Here we have the same thing: Hamas manipulated by Hezbollah, manipulated by, Iran who are ultimately manipulated by the Russians. The Russians need their mid east oil producing competitors to have a production catastrophe untraceable to Russia that hobbles their oil output thus driving world oil much higher.
At $40/barrel the Russians are a basket case and at $100+/barrel they are a superpower. I wonder which one they will choose?
This war will escalate to much higher levels and will coincide with terror attacks around the world and Washington DC to mark the inauguration of Obama.
Stay tuned.
Jan 8, 2009 - 10:20 am 10. JP49:Starkey: Our main stream media is not Zionist-controlled, quite the opposite. Some stock owners in CNN happens to Arabs. Israel has every right to defend itself against these terrorists in Gaza called Hamas. Hamas kills Palestinians more often than Israeli gunfire, go to youtube and view the video for yourself (http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/). Look at Muslims January 7, 2009 all over the world celebrating their holy day Ashura (http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/). It doesn’t look like such a peaceful religion now does it. In order to take over Gaza, Hamas tortured 200 Fatah policemen and Israel took them in and gave this health care and provided them with artificial legs because their legs had been so brutallized they had to be amputated. Now I know you think Islam is a great religion but you need to get your head out of your ass and start researching for the truth instead of believing whatever the Arab mediaw puts out.
Jan 8, 2009 - 10:51 am 11. Macgawd:Starkey writes,
“If Americans would get their heads out of the sand for a while and read something other than their Zionist-controlled press they would not be so easily frightened by the likes of George W. Bush and his lies and nonsense about Islam being the bogey man. Can’t America function without a string of enemies to frighten its populace with?”
You can’t have it both ways, Starkey–either the press is “Zionist-controlled”, or it isn’t. Since the MSM has been doing nothing but denouncing Israel’s response as “disproportionate”, all the while putting up image after image of Palestinian civilian casualties, your criticism here rings rather hollow.
I’ve no doubt that Israel does its fair share of thumbing its nose to their neighbors, but is firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian populations the appropriate an moral response to violating one’s airspace? I think not.
BTW–Bush will soon be out of office, so I do hope you liberal-types have concocted a new excuse.
Jan 8, 2009 - 11:11 am 12. Carl Gordon:It’s really difficult, given the plethora of real and suspect facts that just keep getting flung in from various pro and con sources, to get an tangible and dispassionate grasp on who/what/why this is all happening. For every reasoned plea for civility based on one or the other country’s right to exist, there’s at least dozens of rabid rants and disengaged diatribes flung with equal fervor, clouding the already muddled issues. It’s a lot like having bees run loose in your head.
As part of my hopefully not-pointless attempts at community integration, and in the hopes of both sides returning to the austere table of reason and justice, I’m further continuing with my exploitation of the different faiths available 24 hour in my village in the hopes of gaining erudition and perhaps chasing the spooks of bedlam away. Because I care!
Today I attended seasonal bung service at the Zion Christian Church (ZCC). From what I’ve gleaned from the disinformation of their web site so far, the ZCC pastor has the largest member of all the churches in my village. I believe the ZCC has grey and roan foal origins, related to Gum Legs, which I bet the entire family fortune on in the 5th at Santa Anita, only to end in disappointment whence he slipped on the errant stool left from the previous $10,000 claimer. It’s easy to know who ZCC members are in the community because they all wear a miniature commode tool over a small piece of green felt, cut in the shape of their favorite cookie. Both of the General Duty Bottoms (short for assistants) in my surgical Johnson clinic are ZCC members. Non-ZCC members are sworn to a vow of silence, uncovered and forced to engage in the ZCC and their odd rituals, I was warned. Today as the clinic driver was transporting me home, I mentioned ZCC and he laughed. He said that the ZCC do indeed have some odd rituals, among them drinking lots of instant coffee, sticking a metal pipe in their “output” to induce free flow, listening to “Bob and Ray Show” reruns, and jumping while simultaneously venting and singing. Well, at the service I attended I observed none of these odd rituals except the coffee and the jumping/venting/singing thing. I was especially happy about being left out of the metal pipe to the “output” ritual!
Jan 8, 2009 - 11:37 am 13. Leatherneck:I want to see Israel destroy Hamas, and Hizbolla. Hizbolla up until 9-11 has murdered more Americans than any other terrorist group.
Go Israel!
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:08 pm 14. Kevin:Hey Starkey ole’commie ole’ pal, I wish to extend an invitation to you to join our secret society, the Elder Sons of Zion (we wrote the “Protocols,” if you must know). We control the utility companies, the banks, the airplane check-in counters, the software companies, the media, (not Hollywood, contrary to popular opinion – that is controlled by the People’s Front of Zion), the industrial/military complex, Halliburton, global climate change, and who will win the Super Bowl every “even” year (we picked the Giants last year – next year will be the Colts, so plan accordingly). Our next meeting will be in YOUR town near the old warehouse district downtown – you know the alleyway between that old bank and the government center – there is a green/brown dumpster located most days – we meet this Friday behind it. Hope to see you there. Bring your own Old Testament.
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:23 pm 15. fred:It would make sense that Iran may want to get Hizb’allah into the fray. The Iranians are hoping that Israel will have too much to handle at once, and that the steady pressure being put upon Israel by Europe and the mainstream media propaganda beat down will have the effect of demoralizing Israel.
It looks to me as if Israel intends to go the distance with Hamas and thoroughly crush them. I certainly hope that the Israelis keep up the pressure on Hamas and break them. It can then turn its attention to Hizb’allah in Lebanon. And this time, do it right. Once it degrades Hizb’allah in Lebanon, it can then face down Syria from the Golan Heights. Israel does not need to do a thing there. Just remain vigilant.
Once Iran gets the bomb, which is shortly, the only other card it has to play is to set its Hizb’allah goons loose in Europe and the United States. But I fear that the chance to destroy the Iranian nukes is long past. Now they are stacking their air defenses with Russian equipment and missiles, especially in defense of their nuclear weapons sites. Mind you, some of them may be decoys, but all the same when we let Europe have the position to negotiate with Iran for the past five years Europe was hoodwinked into letting Iran buy time.
The Obama administration probably thinks it can negotiate with the Mullahs, if in fact they even understand the fact that the Mullahs have a theological reason for nuking Israel and the West.
Clearly, the next four years are not going to be good ones. I’m hoping for an optimistic outcome: that the kiddies and ladies who voted for Obonga get a severe case of buyers’ remorse.
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:47 pm 16. Maverick:If there’s one thing we have come to know about the chain of command in terrorist organizations is that it stinks. Everyone goes their own way and everyone one wants to be in charge. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if there were rogue Hezbollah who sees this as an opportunity to plunge Lebanon into another war with Israel. One hand never knows whats the other hand is doing in terrorist organizations. Hamas never quite got the hang of politics the way Hezbollah did when Lebanon offered them seats in government. Hezbollah is becoming more political with nothing but elections on their minds and Hamas never changes. All they have on their minds is the death and destruction of Israel. There is clearly a difference in Hezbollah and Hamas. If sending missiles into Israel is a political ploy just to get Israel condemned by the United Nation and the world for retaliating, then Hamas will keep on with their own form of politics.
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:52 pm 17. thegr8 1:Iran is dying with $40 oil. Obama is inbound and Feb has Israeli elections. The Middle East is being stirred up by Russia and Iran because they know Bush is leaving. Israel needs to carpetbomb Gaza and Lebanon and say Iran you are next if you don’t cut the crap out. I have faith in Netenyahu to do this but not the current Israeli government or the incoming US government. Obama and Hillary Clinton to try to clean up this mess, what did 52% of you vote for?
Jan 8, 2009 - 5:07 pm 18. paul_unalaska:The Trilateral Commission is behind our mess key members of the administrations of the last 30 years are members. Oil to $147, Paulson played with the price of gold, the surviving big banks and brokers had big short positions in gold and Paulson had the price drop $150/ounce. Government cannot spend their way out of this mess we are in another depression. We need tax cuts for the rich and 0 tax on capital gains and dividends so they can be encouraged to start spending, this will revive the economy that is on life support.
They want a world government, one currency, and a Socialist/Marxist agenda. They want to wipe out the middle class. Our manufacturing base is gone we make nothing the rest of the world wants and at the prices we want to sell our goods at. Wake up you drones who watch MSNBC, CNN, other letters of the alphabet and realize this and pressure your local, state and federal government.
Kevin, re: comment #14, I’m there. I’ll be wearing a neon pink shirt, white slacks and jacket with white slip-on shoes. My ‘incognito’ get-up. I remember Don Johnson’s character in, Miami Vice, Crockett, be indoctrinated into every high and low-life club imaginable. It HAS to work for me. See you then.. Oh yeah – you too Starkey.
Jan 8, 2009 - 5:32 pm 19. Judy, NYC:it has been quite some time since i have given a crap what the UN says, or CNN, MSNBC or any of the other idiot alphabet soups.i don’t care at all. just that israel not only survives but flourishes and it will.
because if israel doesn’t, we’re all dead. we’re dead as the doornails the psycho islamos have planned for our eagerly sought crucifixions.
most people on this site get that. the rest i don’t care about, almost as much as i don’t care what the ridiculous amanpour has to say about anything. i have heard her fancy shmancy self-obsessed voice and good luck to her in her ambitions and concomitant bucks. given that any jackass can make it in “news” these days, that one is certainly no surprise.
Jan 8, 2009 - 7:26 pm 20. DoubleTapper:Due to the latest barrage of fire from the North, I have been called up for our war in Gaza.
Jan 8, 2009 - 11:27 pm 21. starkey:Please say a prayer for all of our Servicemen and Women.
I’ll try an keep posting updates here.
DoubleTapper
DoubleTapper@gmail.com
DoubleTapper, blogging on
Guns Politics Defense from Israel
SAF, JP49, Macgawd, Kevin, paul_unalaska, et al:
Nothing to say about the content of my post, I notice, i.e. the Israeli violation of Lebanon’s airspace. Well, if you ignore it and don’t report it I suppose it doesn’t exist, never happened, etc., etc.
It’s such a relief to hear that CNN is controlled by Arabs, that makes so much more sense now when people try to figure out why George W. Bush was telling the world that he had to invade Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction there, only it turned out the WMD didn’t exist, and what he really went in for was to effect regime change and get his hands on the oil, of course the Arabs would be behind that all the way. BTW, what happened to the anthrax? We were all frightened to death when Colin Powell waved that little phial filled with Cremora at us, that was the clincher – the world really bought that one! What clever bastards these Arabs are, hey?
Such a pity I can’t accept your invitation, Kevin, unfortunately I belong to that other group of conspirators that your mother warned you about, we are responsible for all the ills in the world, have too much wealth and are trying to suck out your soul to boot. Glad to know you exist and aren’t just a foul Christian fraud, though, maybe we’ll send an Arab to video the proceedings.
Macgawd – Damn. We had been looking at Rahm Israel Emanuel. (Emanuel’s 81-year old father was quoted as saying, “Obviously, he will influence the President to be pro-Israel. Why shouldn’t he do it? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floor of the White House.”) But now we know that the US press is owned by Arabs, this description must be a pack of lies, mustn’t it, I suppose darling Rahm is a WASP.
Carl Gordon – Eish, baas, you too clevah for us darkies. But we also taking over the world soon.
Jan 9, 2009 - 4:39 am 22. Peter the Sub Guy:21. starkey wrote:
Nothing to say about the content of my post, I notice, i.e. the Israeli violation of Lebanon’s airspace. Well, if you ignore it and don’t report it I suppose it doesn’t exist, never happened, etc., etc.
Peter responds: Okay, I’ll bite. I’ll comment on your post. Please post objective proof (in the form of a link from a widely accepted, objective source) that Israel has been violating Lebonese airspace for week like you claim.
Jan 9, 2009 - 5:55 am 23. Mary B:Go Israel!
Jan 9, 2009 - 7:15 am 24. starkey:Peter the Sub Guy – Israel has been doing this since the end of their last war on Lebanon.
Check it out for yourself, do a search like everyone else does, but here are two reports to be getting on with. I hope you won’t balk at Haaretz, they are also Jewish, believe it or not, I don’t suppose you knew that there are decent, rational Jews in Israel who are not foaming at the mouth with hatred, hysteria and Zionist-induced bloodlust.
l.ll.2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1033263.html
6.1.2009
Jan 9, 2009 - 8:26 am 25. Peter the Sub Guy:http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=98869
Okay, Starkey, what part of “accepted and objective” did you not understand?
I want REAL information, not Arab propaganda.
Jan 9, 2009 - 8:44 am 26. starkey:Peter the Sub Guy:
So when you don’t like the news it’s unacceptable, non-objective Arab propaganda.
When you do like the news, it’s fine to link Haaretz, as in post no. 6 by dave742 above, no problem with acceptability and objectivity there.
The Daily Star is a well-respected English language newspaper in the Middle East, only a bigot would dismiss it as you have, and the other report was syndicated from Associated Press, check out their board of directors, no Arabs there.
What does Sub stand for – subnormal intelligence?
Jan 9, 2009 - 9:57 am 27. Peter the Sub Guy:Gee, starkey, maybe you haven’t been folowing the majority of the threads on this site in recent days, but one of the most outstanding facts has been how in the back pockets of the Palistinians (and especially Hamas) the so-called main-stream media (MSM) is. Reports by the BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSN, etc all crying for the poor Palistinian victims after ignoring the rocket attacks on Israel for the past three years. So let’s just say I’m not a big believer in what has been posted by the so-called respectable news organizations. That’s why I said ACCEPTED AND OBJECTIVE. And no, I did not look at Post #6’s link either.
And having served a decade aboard some of the most technologically advanced warships on and under the sea in the world, I would put my SUPERIOR intelligence against your any day of the week.
Find me some OBJECTIVE evidence of what you claim, then come back and we’ll talk.
Jan 9, 2009 - 2:33 pm 28. starkey:Peter the SUPERIOR Guy – When BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSN, Ha’aretz, AP or anyone else reported something negative against Islam/Iran, I’ll bet you believed it in a heartbeat and were falling over yourself to quote it. Tell me you didn’t believe Colin Powell and the anthrax phial on CNN, and tell me you didn’t believe old George W. and that fantastic rigmarole about WMD in Iraq, then we’ll talk about objectivity and acceptability.
Jan 9, 2009 - 4:47 pm 29. Peter the Sub Guy:Starkey the INFERIOR guy – I don’t watch any of the MSM. I find all my OBJECTIVE information from other sources on the net and other resources.
Jan 9, 2009 - 5:34 pm 30. Peter the Sub Guy:…I don’t believe what the lefty media tell me without question like SOME (inferior) people.
Jan 9, 2009 - 5:35 pm 31. Peter the Sub Guy:Note to every one else: You notice that starkey can’t refute me. The only evidence he has that Israel (supposedly) has violated Lebonese airspace for weeks on end is his propaganda piece. I’m STILL waiting for OBJECTIVE evidence.
Jan 9, 2009 - 5:37 pm 32. starkey:Peter the Sub Guy –
Okay, you win – I’m not clairvoyant so I don’t know what you consider to be “acceptable”.
From your writing and from what you are prepared to answer or not answer I think I’m beginning to understand you better.
You believe what any media tells you when it is anti-Islamic and pro-Zionist.
You believe you are looking at a phial of anthrax when CNN shows Colin Powell with a tube of powdered milk or whatever, because in your opinion the dastardly Muslim world is coming to get you with biological warfare.
You believe George W. Bush when he gets on CNN and tells you that your country must attack Iraq because there are weapons of mass destruction there, and the Iraqis are also Muslims so it must be true. (That was the point where I stopped watching CNN, by the way.)
You believe Tony Blair and his various Labour Govt. Ministers when they get on BBC and Sky explaining why Britain has to go to war with Iraq, because they agree with your President.
When BBC and Sky show hours of Parliamentary coverage, Prime Minister’s Question Time, etc., you believe Tony Blair’s story of WMD in Iraq and all the other justifications he gave for going to war.
Did you question the genuineness of the BBC coverage of Saddam Hussein’s capture, trial and execution, or did you find that unacceptable and non-objective?
When your MSM tells you that Gazans have been lobbing rockets into Israel, you believe them, don’t you?
When your MSM tells you that rockets have been discovered in Lebanon, trained on Israel, you believe them, don’t you?
BUT NOW … your MSM is telling you what the worldwide reaction is to Israel’s latest exploits, and you don’t accept it.
Nor do you believe any reports of Israel doing what it shouldn’t be doing, like violating Lebanon’s airspace.
Naturally the right-wing pro-Zionist media will not admit that their precious Israel has ever done anything wrong, nor will your rightist “independents” bother to check it out. Even if they did and found it to be true they would never let it be known, not wanting to upset their consumers, whose monumentally superior intellects can’t stand to be jolted out of their complacency.
You are clearly still blissfullly unaware of how your country’s foreign policies have harmed America’s image outside of America, nor do you seem to appreciate the depth of hatred that Bush has managed to whip up against you all over the world. Perhaps you are too arrogant to care, we’ll see.
Greetings from the outside, we are all watching you and your mates in Israel.
Jan 10, 2009 - 4:51 am 33. Peter the Sub Guy:32. starkey wrote:
Okay, you win – I’m not clairvoyant so I don’t know what you consider to be “acceptable”.
Peter (in exasperation) replies: I TOLD you in plain ENGLISH what is acceptable. OBJECTIVE, UNBIASED evidence. That means the same story coming from multiple, verifiable sources. Not from propaganda sheets working for the terrorists. If you can find me the same article talking about Israeli incursions over Lebonese airspace that come from at LEAST 3 to 4 unconnected sources, then we can talk. Until then, stop your snarking.
Go look up the definition of journalist, at least back as far as prior to the year 2000. Because you will find what we have now are NOT journalists, they are propoganda ministers who, for the most part, are on the payroll of the terrorists.
Jan 10, 2009 - 6:50 am 34. Peter the Sub Guy:Real journalism caught cancer in 2000, right around the time of the 2000 presidential campaign. It has only gotten sicker in the following seven years. Real journalism died in 2008.
Jan 10, 2009 - 6:54 am 35. DonJoe:Similarities between the God of the Quran and the God of the Bible
* Both are One
* Both are transcendent Creators of the universe
* Both are sovereign
* Both are omnipotent
* Both have spoken to humanity through messengers or prophets, through angels, and through the written word
* Both know in intimate detail the thoughts and deeds of men
* Both will judge the wicked
Differences between the God of the Quran and the God of the Bible
* The God of the Quran is a singular unity; but the God of the Bible is a compound unity who is one in essence and three in persons (Matthew 28:19; John 10:30; Acts 5:3-4)
* The God of the Quran is not a father, and he has begotten no sons (Surahs 19:88-92; 112:3); but the God of the Bible is a tri-unity who has eternally existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; Luke 3:21-22; John 5:18).
* Through the Quran, God broke into history through a word that is written; but, through Jesus Christ, God broke into history through the Word who is a Person (John 1:1, 14; Colossians 1:15-20; Hebrews 1:2-3; 1 John 1:1-3; 4:9-10)
* The God of the Quran “loves not the prodigals”(Surahs 6:142′7:31, Ali; ‘Ali has “wasters”); but Jesus tells the story of a father, a metaphor for God the Father, who longs for the return of his prodigal son (Luke 15:11-24)
* “Allah loves not those who do wrong” (Surah 3:140, Ali), and neither does He love “him who is treacherous, sinful” (Surah 4:107, Ali); but “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)
* “Allah desires to afflict them for their sins” (Surah 5:49, Ali; also see Surahs 4:168-169; 7:179; 9:2; 40:10); but the God of the Bible does not “take any pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 18:23) and is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9)
* The standard for judgment for the God of the Quran is that our good deeds must outweigh our bad deeds (Surah 7:8-9; 21:47); but the standard of the God of the Bible is nothing less than perfection as measured by the holy character of God (Matthew 5:48; Romans 3:23)
* The God of the Quran provided a messenger, Muhammad, who warned of Allah’s impending judgment (Surahs 2:119; 5:19; 7:184, 188; 15:89-90) and who declared that “No bearer of a burden can bear the burden of another” (Surahs 17:15; 35:18, Ali); but the God of the Bible provided a sinless Savior, Jesus, who took our sins upon himself and bore God’s wrath in our stead (Matthew 20:28; 26:28; Luke 22:37; John 3:16; 10:9-11; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13, 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10)
– Source: Dean C. Halverson, The Compact Guide to World Religions. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1996, pages 110-111
Jan 10, 2009 - 2:24 pm 36. starkey:DonJoe – That’s all well and good, but Zionists don’t believe in Jesus Christ, so I can’t see the relevance of pointing to anything in the New Testament.
What does Dean C. Halverson have to say about the God of the Talmud? Anything? It would be more useful to produce a Compact Guide to Zionist Writings and Aspirations, that might throw a spanner in the works once and for all.
Jan 11, 2009 - 5:29 am 37. starkey:This link will put it all into perspective – it shows the consistent land-grabbing by the poor peace-loving Israelis. If your land was grabbed like this while the grabbers told the world you were fighting them for no good reason, I’d like to see your reaction.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/01/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine.html
Jan 12, 2009 - 8:17 am 38. Peter the Sub Guy:37. starkey wrote:
This link will put it all into perspective – it shows the consistent land-grabbing by the poor peace-loving Israelis.
Peter responds: Please explain, starkey, how someone can grab what was already theirs? The jews were in what is now Israel 3500 years before the Arabs.
Jan 12, 2009 - 11:20 am 39. starkey:Hi Peter – In that case, why did anyone bother with Balfour Declaration, UNR181, etc., etc.? Why didn’t they just bravely stay where they were?
Jan 12, 2009 - 2:20 pm 40. Peter the Sub Guy:39. starkey wrote:
Why didn’t they just bravely stay where they were?
Peter writes: Well, gee, if you had a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians invading your land and threatening to behead everyone who doesn’t convert, then I think you might run too.
Jan 12, 2009 - 4:53 pm 41. starkey:Peter the Sub Guy – Oh, I understand now. It’s a case of “we were here first, it’s not our fault if someone stronger came along and forced us to run for our lives, but now we want it all back because we’ve bought ourselves some mighty powerful friends.”
Who owned America 3500 years ago? And Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland? Better hope none of them ever get any powerful friends, eh?
Jan 13, 2009 - 9:07 am 42. Peter the Sub Guy:41. starkey wrote:
It’s a case of “we were here first, it’s not our fault if someone stronger came along and forced us to run for our lives
Peter responds: You missed the point entirely. Just like a lot of the lefty leaners, you seem to believe the Arabs walked into this strech of land and it was barren of people and they said “Hey, this looks like a great place to settle down.”
Not quite. While the Arabs forced their way into the region, the jews never entirely left.
What gives them any less right to it than the poor Arabs that now cry “Boo hoo, they drove us off the land we shouldn’t have had in the first place”?
Jan 13, 2009 - 11:34 am 43. Peter the Sub Guy:Here starkey, is the perfect explaination for what happened in history.
Many thanks to cmsent:
The “myth” of a Palestinian people or indigenous Palestine:
In an article entitled, “The Lesson of Palestine,” printed in the Middle East Journal, October 1949, Arab activist, Musa Alami, wrote, “how can people struggle for their nation, when most of them do not know the meaning of the word? … The people are in great need of a “myth” of imagination. The myth of nationality would create “identity” and “self-respect.”
The Arab world has certainly demonstrated great skill in the “myth” of imagination. They have done such a good job that they have convinced much of the world that their “myths” are facts. Perhaps their biggest myth is the myth of Palestine. The Arab world would have us believe that the Palestinians have been in “Palestine” from “time immemorial” but were displaced by the Jews when Israel became a state in 1948. But what are the facts?
While we are not certain of the exact dates, Joshua conquered the Land God promised the Jews in the 13th century BCE. King David established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel around 1000 BCE. King Solomon built the Jewish Temple about 960 BCE. This was almost 1000 years before the beginning of Christianity and 1600 years before the rise of Islam. As Prime Minister Barak has noted, “When Jesus came to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts, he didn’t come to a church or a mosque, he came to the Temple.” It is not the Church Mount or the Mosque Mount that is fought over, it is the Temple Mount. It was the Temple Mount centuries before Christianity tried to make it the Church Mount and Islam tried to make it the Mosque Mount.
However, not to be confused with facts, in a personal audience I had several years ago with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was appointed by Arafat, he boldly declared that the Arabs had been living in the Land for 10,000 years. Based on conservative Bible chronology, that means the Arabs have been living in the Land before the Almighty created Adam and Eve.
How did Israel become Palestine and who are the Palestinians? The second Jewish war with the Romans took place in 132-135 CE. Led by Rabbi Akiva and Simon bar Kochba, the Jewish uprising was crushed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian who sought to de-Judaize Jerusalem and make it a pagan city. Hadrian renamed Jerusalem “Aelia Capitolina” in honor of Jupiter. He changed the name of Judea and gave it the name of the Jews ancient enemy, the Philistines. He called it — Palestine.
Over time, Palestine was ruled by the Roman Byzantines (312-637) [Persian interrupt 614-629], Omayyad Arabs (638-750), Islamic Abbassid’s (750-1099), Crusaders (1099-1291) [Saladin the Kurd interrupt 1187-93], Mamluks (1291-1516), Ottoman Turks (1517-1917), and the British Mandate (1917-1948). None of these rulers established a sovereign state in the Land and Jerusalem was never the capital of any empire since the time of King David. Palestine was a forgotten desolate, wasteland, but historical records show there was always a Jewish presence in the Land.
The revival of modern Jewish life in the Land began in the 1880’s with the arrival of Russian refugees from the Russian pogroms. A second wave of immigration, also from Russia, was in 1905. This was followed by later immigrations resulting in a growing Jewish population in the Land. When the Jews came to the Land, they found a malaria infested swamp in the north and an uninhabitable desert in the south. It was as if the God of the Bible had kept the Land hidden away in obscurity until the rightful owners — the Jews returned to claim it.
The Jewish pioneers did not steal the Land from the Arabs. They purchased the Land at highly inflated prices from absentee landlords living outside the Land. As the Jews worked the Land, it began to prosper. While there were Jews and Arabs living in the Land, there were many poor migrant Arab farm workers in the surrounding Arab countries who needed work. When they heard that the Land was prospering under the hand of the Jews, they migrated to Palestine to get work from the Jews. Furthermore, the British allowed many thousands of Arabs into Palestine illegally while barring the Jews from entering the Land. For the most part, the Arab Palestinians are these peasant farm workers and illegal aliens.
“Palestinians” have never been a distinct people, they have never had a sovereign land called Palestine, Jerusalem has never been their capital, there is no Palestinian language or culture, and there is no Palestinian people. It is a myth created after the Jews liberated Jerusalem in 1967.
Before the birth of the State of Israel, Arab leaders themselves denied the existence of an Arab country called Palestine. In 1937, Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi said, “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. ‘Palestine” is alien to us; it is the Zionists who introduced it.” In 1946, a distinguished Princeton professor and Arab historian said, “There is no such thing as Palestine in Arab history, absolutely not.”
Jan 13, 2009 - 7:03 pm 44. starkey:Peter the Sub Guy – The above post is unworthy of you, Sub Guy. It is simply cut and pasted,
word for word, from one of scores of pro-Zionist, pro-Israel websites on the internet. Hardly the ACCEPTABLE, OBJECTIVE stuff you insist on elsewhere.
It’s interesting to see that you chose to leave out the last two paragraphs, i.e., the one that says that all the people who lived in the land, Jews, Arabs and Christians, were called Palestinians, and the other one that talks about the 600,000 Arabs who fled after 1948.
It’s also interesting that the article ends there, and doesn’t go into the orgy of bloodshed entered into by the Israelis after they got their State, going from Arab village to Arab village slaughtering everyone they found, which was the reason why the other Arabs fled. Not a word about Irgun, Lehi, Haganah, Palmach.
I notice that the killing of Arabs before 1948 by these same Zionist terrorist groups is ignored altogether. Incidentally, the number of Palestinians displaced was 750,000, not the 600,000 erroneously(??) stated in the article.
On 4th December 1948 The New York Times published a letter dated 2nd December 1948 which was signed by Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook, Rabbi Jessurun Cardozo and other prominent Jews, in which they detail their objections to the visit by Menachem Begin to the US “to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.”
The letter goes on to describe the massacre at Deir Yassin thus:
“A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants – 240 men, women, and children – and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.”
This was only one of many, many similar massacres at other Arab villages.
It is worth reading the letter in its entirety here:
http://antiisgood.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/albert-einstein-letter-new-york-times-december-4-1948/
It is ridiculous to keep maintaining that there were no Arabs on the land and that when the Zionists came there was nothing and nobody there, etc. There is ample proof to the contrary. Even Alan Dershowitz says in The Case for Israel that removal of Arabs “certainly seems to have been the policy of the Irgun”.
The clue to your posted article lies here:
“… the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem … boldly declared that the Arabs had been living in the Land for 10,000 years. Based on conservative Bible chronology, that means the Arabs have been living in the Land before the Almighty created Adam and Eve.”
So now we know, Peter the Sub Guy, you are a Young Earth Creationist, who believes the earth is only 6000 years old.
Jan 15, 2009 - 5:14 pm