I guess this is as good a place as any for raw speculation on the recent activity in the Middle East.
As well as rolling in tanks, to work to retrieve their kidnapped solider, CNN just reported that Israel also did a flyby of the home of the Syrian president.
Thoughts?
The shit is hitting the fan. Seems like they are escalating up in force to get a response. The hoped for response is the return of the soldier.
Unfortunately I think the Palestinians will kill him. At that point Israel will turn the raid into a punitive action and punish the Palestinians collectively. That seems more likely to happen then a peaceful solution. I would also imagine they wills set up some sort of exclusion or “no mans land” near the border.
What a disturbing coincidence that today is the 102nd anniversary of the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (June 28, 1914).
[quote]hedo wrote:
At that point Israel will turn the raid into a punitive action and punish the Palestinians collectively.[/quote]
What would you call bombing bridges and a power station and cutting off water if not collective punishment?
Preemptive collective punishment?
[quote]tme wrote:
hedo wrote:
At that point Israel will turn the raid into a punitive action and punish the Palestinians collectively.
What would you call bombing bridges and a power station and cutting off water if not collective punishment?
Preemptive collective punishment?
[/quote]
Bombing the bridges is too cut off escape routes.
Cutting off power and water is used to exert pressure on them. It can be restored.
Killing people or permanently destroying water and electrical infrastructure is collective punishment.
That’s what happens next.
You probably already knew that I bet.
Hamas has found themselves in a pickle. How do they bow to israel and return the soldier? They’re trying to get out of it by offering a prisoner exchange! What nerve i say. It is sad that innocent people will most likely die from this, but Hamas made a big mistake.
[quote]Diomede wrote:
Hamas has found themselves in a pickle. How do they bow to israel and return the soldier? They’re trying to get out of it by offering a prisoner exchange! What nerve i say. It is sad that innocent people will most likely die from this, but Hamas made a big mistake. [/quote]
All this trouble over a dip made from chick peas and tahini… Just don’t understand…
[quote]Diomede wrote:
Hamas has found themselves in a pickle. How do they bow to israel and return the soldier? They’re trying to get out of it by offering a prisoner exchange! What nerve i say. It is sad that innocent people will most likely die from this, but Hamas made a big mistake. [/quote]
The Palestinians made a huge mistake electing Hamas. T
I guess, since we’re still in the inconvenience stage, people need to understand what they are asking for when they reject finding a peaceful solution.
However, if things go south, I can’t help but wonder about jihadists getting in the middle of this and prompting a reaction… well, you know how it goes.
Where are the conspiracy theorists, anyway?
I’m kind of anxious to see how other Muslim countries will respond. Check out this site to get some intel and a break down of military resources for countries in the region.
Me Solomon Grundy
[quote]vroom wrote:
I guess, since we’re still in the inconvenience stage, people need to understand what they are asking for when they reject finding a peaceful solution.
However, if things go south, I can’t help but wonder about jihadists getting in the middle of this and prompting a reaction… well, you know how it goes.
Where are the conspiracy theorists, anyway?[/quote]
Armageddon?
[quote]Solomon Grundy wrote:
Armageddon?[/quote]
Well, the region could suffer greatly, but other than disrupting oil supplies I don’t think the rest of the world would have to do much but quarantine the region off.
I guess I’m saying the worst case scenario could be very bad for that region, but I don’t see enough animosity outside the region to see it spread.
It’s not very hard to force a reaction in that region of the world…
In today’s Times online edition.
Shy boy whose fate could change history
By Richard Beeston and Ian MacKinnon - Times online.
UNTIL he was captured by Palestinian militants last Sunday there was little to distinguish Gilad Shalit from the thousands of other teenagers doing military service in the Israeli army.
He was raised, the middle of three siblings in a small community in the rolling hills of northern Galilee, near Israel?s border with Lebanon. His father, Noam, is a manager at the Iscar machine tools company; his mother, Aviva, works at the Society for the Protection of Nature. His brother is a college student and his sister is at high school.
Friends describe Gilad as studious, good at physics and a little shy. But they say he is quite determined in his own quiet way, and that when he was called up a year ago he volunteered to join a combat unit. His elder brother, Yoel, 21, is a student at a polytechnic in the northern Israeli port of Haifa. He has a younger sister at high school.
Today the future of the Middle East could hang on the fate of this otherwise unremarkable 19-year-old.
What happens to Corporal Shalit will almost certainly determine whether the region is plunged into a new cycle of violence, or whether the Middle East peace process can somehow be revived.
If Corporal Shalit is killed while in the hands of militants linked to Hamas, any prospect of a rapprochement between Israel and a Hamas-led Palestinian Government will vanish for years to come, perhaps for ever.
Israel will seek revenge against those it holds responsible ? not only on the Hamas leadership in Gaza but also against the group?s more militant exiled leaders in Beirut and Damascus. But should Israel?s military pressure ? or a deal to swap Palestinian prisoners for the soldier ? persuade Hamas to release Corporal Shalit, surprising possibilities could open up.
Largely obscured by the kidnap drama, Hamas made a potentially historic concession on Tuesday by implicitly recognising Israel in a deal with the mainstream Fatah movement that could lead to a government of national unity.
Even as it was publicly squaring up to Israel over the captured soldier, Hamas was opening a back door to peace talks with Israel.
Last night the omens were not good. Somewhere in Gaza?s refugee camps, probably in a makeshift underground cell, the missing soldier was being held under tight guard.
Ehud Olmert ? a Prime Minister without the distinguished military past of his predecessors Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak, Binyamin Netanyahu and Yitzhak Rabin ? cannot afford to show even the slightest sign of weakness in his dealings with people his Government regards as terrorists.
Corporal Shalit may be an unremarkable young man, but as a soldier his wellbeing matters hugely to his countrymen. The military plays a huge role in every Israeli life, for a small country with a large conscript army. Everyone has a close relative or friend serving in the armed forces. That is why no Israeli can fail to be moved by the smiling face on the front pages of their newspapers, and by the ordeal of his family.
It is also why it is axiomatic that every Israeli Government must do all in its power to secure the safe release of captured soldiers and repatriate the bodies of the dead.
?Bring Gilad Back,? said the headline in the Yediot Ahronot daily, echoing the prayers of his family, whose modest home in northern Israel has been besieged by television crews.
The magnitude of the crisis is being felt at the highest levels. Corporal Shalit?s kidnapping was raised yesterday by the White House and European Union.
Since the second intifada erupted almost six years ago, nearly 4,000 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed in a vicious cycle of suicide bombs and military retaliation.
The identities of most of the dead have long been forgotten by the outside world, but Corporal Shalit ? whatever his fate ? is destined to be remembered for a long time to come.
Returning Gaza to the terrorists control has proved to be the mistake many thought it would.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Returning Gaza to the terrorists control has proved to be the mistake many thought it would.
[/quote]
Perhaps, but if you are on a road to peace, some of your steps will be risks that you will have to take.
If nobody will take a risk, then you can’t move towards peace.
It’s not like you can’t change your mind and return to a war stance if necessary anyway.
Peace can not exist in that region.
Israel was not established to foster peace.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Returning Gaza to the terrorists control has proved to be the mistake many thought it would.
Perhaps, but if you are on a road to peace, some of your steps will be risks that you will have to take.
If nobody will take a risk, then you can’t move towards peace.
It’s not like you can’t change your mind and return to a war stance if necessary anyway.[/quote]
Risk is fine. Being stupid is not.
This move has damaged the long term prospects for peace.
It is a big “I told you so” for many.
Unfortunately being right does not help in situation like this.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Returning Gaza to the terrorists control has proved to be the mistake many thought it would.
Perhaps, but if you are on a road to peace, some of your steps will be risks that you will have to take.
If nobody will take a risk, then you can’t move towards peace.
It’s not like you can’t change your mind and return to a war stance if necessary anyway.
Risk is fine. Being stupid is not.
This move has damaged the long term prospects for peace.
It is a big “I told you so” for many.
Unfortunately being right does not help in situation like this.
[/quote]
Bush wanted to bring democracy to the middle east.
His little experiment has not gone well.
I am glad you can admit that even though you would have his children if you could.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Returning Gaza to the terrorists control has proved to be the mistake many thought it would.
Perhaps, but if you are on a road to peace, some of your steps will be risks that you will have to take.
If nobody will take a risk, then you can’t move towards peace.
It’s not like you can’t change your mind and return to a war stance if necessary anyway.
Risk is fine. Being stupid is not.
This move has damaged the long term prospects for peace.
It is a big “I told you so” for many.
Unfortunately being right does not help in situation like this.
Bush wanted to bring democracy to the middle east.
His little experiment has not gone well.
I am glad you can admit that even though you would have his children if you could.[/quote]
WTF are you talking about? Democracy is the only solution to the problems. They just elected the wrong group. It happens.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
WTF are you talking about? Democracy is the only solution to the problems. They just elected the wrong group. It happens.[/quote]
You get the ‘Understatement of the Year Award’.
Democracy will not work in the middle east and we will not see a stable democracy thrive there inside of our lifetimes.
Remember how long it took democracy to stablize in the U.S. and every other instance throughout history.