It was Israeli bombs dropped to stop Hizbullah from fighting. There is no double standard. It is Hizbullah's fault as they started the war. You are again lying and pretend that Israel simply dropped bombs on people and that Israel's supporters claim that it is the people's fault for staying in their homes. How is that not anti-Semitism? Not even the Arab governments (outside Syria) accused Israel of doing that or Israel's supporters of supporting such a thing (in the case of the Lebanon war anyway). EVERYONE, including the people who want to murder Jews and keep attacking Israel, seems to be more civilised in their statements about Israel than you. Do you even notice that?

It is a difference whether you drop bombs to try to kill civilians (like Hizbullah does) or whether you drop bombs in response to shelling (like the IDF did). There was no other way to stop Hizbullah. The Lebanese could have stopped them, but they chose not to.

YOU are employing a double standard in that you refuse to acknowledge that difference.

There is no hypocrisy. I told you I would have wanted the Lebanese to flee before the bombs dropped. They did not afford me the same luxury, of course.

If you don't bear resentment towards Israel, why do you repeat lies about Israel and pretend that defense is the same as attack? I just don't get it. What has Israel done to you? Do you see other people repeat lies about other random countries while claiming that they bear no resentments towards those countries???

You cannot even talk about war crimes without making jokes. And you don't realise how disgusting that is.

I hope for your sake that you are never mistaken for a Jew by someone who believes the same shit you believe but who has the guts to act!

Taking up "defensive positions" inside the city and using the citizens as a human shield (and forcing them to stay) is a war crime. If you do it, the civilians in the city lose the protected status afforded to them by the Geneva convention and are fair game to an invading army. And unless that army is Jewish, nobody will be on your side and defend your cowardly behaviour.

Hizbullah didn't make an effort to evacuate southern Lebanon. It was reported from Lebanese Christians that Hizbullah forced them to stay while the terrorists dug in and shot rockets from the Christian homes.

Honestly, your attitude towards war crimes is disgusting. The jokes are one thing but this new thing where you pretend that committing war crimes is the only logical strategy is just another level still. And you have the guts of accusing others of hypocrisy?

Oddly enough Israel could do it. Israel even has existing plans to evacuate universities and continue with classes a few days later in another university. Of course, in contrast to non-hating people like you who believe they know so much about war, Israel actually does know about war and how to survive.

Instead it illustrated your own hypocrisy. Well done.

Hmmm. That's interesting. Because I was told that after most of the Shiite sections of Beirut were levelled, the christian sections of the city (which were not bombed) and fell under the purview of general Ayoun who had signed a treaty with Hezbollah, gladly opened their doors and let the Shia stay there (not Hezbollah, families that had lost their homes in the bombing)

Look, again with the lying. My friend, who's from Lebanon, has family who live in the southern part of the country. And you know what? They evacuated. But lo and behold, several times they had to pull over to the side of the road and run away from their vehicle, because the IDF was bombing the road. It's a proven fact that even marked ambulances got hit, and the IDF said that it was because hezbollah was using them. How could they have known that? They couldn't. They declared open field on Lebanon when it turned out that all their intel on where the enemy was was wrong.

Why would my friends family lie about this?

Again, Hezbollah is only about five thousand fighters, and they were not hiding in civillian areas. they were out in the countryside, and this was supported by the fact that the IDF was unable to get any further than 2 kilometers into Lebanon on any single day! If they were all hiding in the Shiite sections of Beirut which got flattened, then who engaged the IDF when they sent 30,000 troops across the border???

The truth is that Hezbollah had multiple lines of defence, mostly in the countryside, consisting of small groups of fighters who didn't talk to the other small groups in their line. This meant that they used almost no radio comms, which drove the IDF nuts because they were counting on using radio chatter to locate them.

These small groups, quite often no larger than squad size, had their little area they were responsible for and once overrun then behind them there was another line with another squad size group dug in, again not using very much comms.

Using this model drove the IDF nuts because

1) Their enemy was hard to locate- no radio chatter, mostly underground positions

2) Very dispersed target- because they were so spread out in such small groups, taking out one squad took a long time but accomplished very little strategically as there was another squad not too far behind. This is also bad in the media war- during any campaign the military loves to be able to claim big victories, like "look, we wiped out the enemie's headquarters! Look, we wiped out an enemy division! Look, we captured this city!" When instead, lives have been lost and all they can say is "look, we took out a few squads!!"

3) Contradicts the IDF style- they are built to wipe out conventional armies, which they can do very, very well- ie; wiping out tank regiments and organized infantry divisions of other armies. But in order to do this, they need a stand up fight which is not what they got by any means.

So, since they couldn't effectively counter Hezbollah's tactics without getting into a much longer conflict than anticipated (eventually the IDF would have indeed won- no one disputes this but they would have had to spend a lot longer than 33 days and be willing to lose a lot more soldiers) they switched tactics and tried to inflict as much misery on the people of Lebanon with the line of thinking that the people would see the bombing as Hezbollahs' fault and rise up against them.

This did not work as it turned people against the IDF and towards Hezbollah, having the opposite intended effect.

The worst war crimes were perpetrated by Israel, my friend.

Even two years after the fact, just about every week someone in Lebanon is getting maimed or killed by landmines or unexploded cluster bomblets (much of the cluster bombs have been cleaned up but the landmines are still out there)

Interestingly enough, when the U.N went in to start removing all of this ordnance, Israel refused to provide the precise locations for where much of this ordnance was dropped.

Why was that I wonder?

Artysim,

Hizbullah WERE hiding among civilians. I have seen IDF videos showing Hizbullah positions in and behind apartment blocks. You are telling lies.

You accuse Israel of war crimes? Just a few days ago you told us that you find war crimes perfectly acceptable if committed by others. (Of course you didn't refer to them as "war crimes" and you even made fun of them.)

I am sick and tired of you telling those lies.

Actually no, that is one of the many PROVEN frauds and lies.

http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Red_Cross_Ambulance_Libel_Exposed.asp

Being hit by a missle does not leave a neat RUSTY hole in the top of an amublance, it reduces it into black charred scrap.

And stitches take longer then 3 days to heal without a scar...

And the hole just HAPPENED to be where the lebanese red cross ambulances have a ventillation vent (which was removed some time ago and left to rust in this particular incident).

Ok, here we go, for the sake of other readers, since this won't have any effect on Arty:

Video showing Hizbullah deploying rockets in the middle of a town:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/video/HizbullahKatyushas.wmv

Video showing rockets being fired from apartment buildings:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/video/QanaZidkin682006.wmv

Note that nobody said that they were all hiding in Beirut. Anyway, here is a video showing rockets being launched from behind an apartment building. I believe it is the building in Qana that Israel destroyed (a "war crime", obviously):

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/video/FiringBehindBuilding.wmv

Video showing Hizbullah fighters firing from a village and then hiding the launcher in a nearby house:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/video/HizbullahBarashitLaunch.wmv

Another video showing rockets being fired from a house, an example of how precise Israel's intel is:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/video/MissilesfromHouse.wmv

Another video of Hizbullah hiding among houses:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/video/AAGunamongHouses.wmv

About the ambulance incident:

http://zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

"Proven facts" is what will get all the Jews killed eventually. But there is a difference between "proven facts" and reality. It doesn't matter any more though, now that Jews shoot back.

Arty, I don't know where you get your information from or whether you make up lies as you go along. But I doubt that you knew of the IDF videos when you referred to Israel's wrong intel and I doubt that you cared to verify what you were told about how Hizbullah were fighting.

It was also very apparent that you had no problem with the idea of fighters hiding among civilians, you even made fun of the idea of finding it repulsive. Only after you were told that hiding among civilians is a war crime, you suddenly "knew" that Hizbullah didn't do that. (In your example you had American soldiers do it, you apparently didn't know that hiding in cities is indeed not an accepted strategy in civilised warfare.)

I know being shown videos of Hizbullah firing from residential areas or even from within houses won't change your view that Hizbullah didn't hide among civilians. But for the sake of other readers, I thought the videos were useful.

And as a bonus:

Picture of a southern Lebanese town (almost) totally destroyed by the IDF:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/Maroun%20Al%20Ras%20Mosque.jpg

You can see that the IDF hit everything except the mosque which is unaffected. There was no "open field". The IDF did in fact know what they bombarded and SPECIFICALLY didn't bombard a house of prayer. The "open field" story is another anti-Semitic lie told to keep people hating Israel.

That was one of the towns used to fire at Israel. I am sure Hizbullah were also firing from the mosque. But Israel doesn't bomb indiscriminately.

Indeed. But that doesn't matter. It's about what can be said about and against Israel, not whether it actually happened.

It is remarkable that the IDF have to prove Israel's innocence in videos. For some reason, when it comes to Israel, the accusations are proof and every story told about the IDF is true and Israel is guilty unless proven innocent (in which case Israel becomes less guilty).

People like Arty, who don't "hate" Israel but mechanically and without any emotions repeat lies, certainly contribute to the problem. I wonder if he really does have friends in Lebanon.

You meant to say "in which case the story changes and Israel remains as guilty as before or even more guilty"

For example, the "hiding in cities" went from "its ok to do so" to "well they didn't do it"

No, there is actually such a thing as an assumption that Israel is not the only bad guy among liberals. You can even get a liberal to admit that Saddam Hussein was a fascist dictator if it is taken as read that the US are equally evil.

Yes, that was a bit odd. In his example of a hypothetical invasion (in which the side corresponding to Israel was the aggressor, obviously) the "defending" army hid in cities to avoid being eliminated. That was OK with him. He even laughed at the idea that the situation should be handled differently.

And after being told that that was a war crime, it suddenly became something Hizbullah never did.

I never changed my tune. I was trying to illustrate that, God forbid the U.S is ever invaded, soldiers DEFENDING a city would be portrayed as cowards hiding behind civillians by the invaders. This is the double standard I was talking about.

And by the way, "hiding in cities is indeed not an accepted strateget in civilised warfare" seems to have been forgotten by every single frickin army on the planet as they all put massive emphasis on training for urban warfare... why is that hmmm????

Heard the quote - YOu dont go into battle with the army you want, but rather the army you have?

Same thing.  You cannot fight a war when they are shooting at you from urban areas and not have to fight that way.

oh ho! The ambulance incident, singular? There were several documented cases in which marked ambulances were fired upon. I will provide sources to back that up!

Furthermore, I never stated that Hezbollah never went in cities. They themselves have released videos showing their members firing rockets from houses and apartment buildings.

However, once the fighting started in earnest the vast majority of Hezbollah, including it's non-military components left populated areas so as to not bring airstrikes down on the populace, airstrikes which occurred anyway.

Again, if even a tiny fraction of the ordnance dropped had hit Hezbollah targets then that organization and their ability to launch rockets would have been wiped out, no?

But it wasn't... why?

Because the IDF's strikes for the most part didn't hit Hezbollah. All they succeeded in doing was turn people's homes into rubble!

In case you attack a city and fighters hidden in it? Hmmmm?

You actually thought that urban warfare training is about teaching soldiers to use human shields?

Oh, give it up, Arty. You are just changing your tune again. But the lyrics are still the same.

Right. I have heard that before. And there are several "documented cases" of Jews trying to take over the world. Less "documented cases" and more facts, please!

Incidentally, I saw a video of terrorists using an ambulance for attacks.

I knew that the videos wouldn't make a difference.

Arty, is this one of the ambulances Israel targeted?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRmYYSp0-B8

Also, I would like to know. Is using human shields a war crime if Jews do it?

Anybody using human shields is a crime. Anyone. However, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the U.N all investigated the allegations that Hezbollah used 'human shields' and came to the conclusion that they didn't.

First, you have to define what the term means, which is forcing a non-combatant to stay in between you and your enemy. All of these different groups that looked into it came to the conclusion that "human shields" weren't used.

Hezbollah themselves don't do this because they depend on the support of the civillian populace, which is why they do things like garbage collection and other civil infrastructure that the corrupt lebanese governmnet has neglected in certain areas of the country. If they didn't have the support of the civillian populace, they simply wouldn't be able to operate. Remember, 5,000 people out of more than 4 million isn't a whole heckuva lot!

Furthermore, again, they were too busy fighting the IDF to go around forcing people to stay in their homes at gunpoint. The numbers bear this out-

With only about 5,000 fighters and the IDF invaded with more than 30,000 troops. Yet the IDF continually got bogged down and was unable to advance very far in Lebanon. Considering the fact that Hezbollah was outnumbered in the field more than 6 to 1 by an enemy that had virtually unlimited fire support and tanks (the tanks ended up being more of a liability however) it stands to reason that they would be busy enough fighting the IDF than running around terrorizing their own people.

But, the assertion the Hezbollah did not use human shields unwinds the mythic narrative of good guy vs. evil terrorist, so therefore it must not be true and cannot exist as part of the discussion. So, taking off the rose coloured glasses, here's what really happened-

IDF drops leaflets telling people they're going to drop bombs and they should leave.

Many people leave but others don't because they either are unable, or don't want to (every bridge across the Litani got wiped out, civillian vehicles were targeted without discerning whether they had combatants in them)

So, there are civillians left behind, noncombatants in their homes. Just because the IDF told people ahead of time they're going to bomb an area, doesn't give them the right to kill anyone in that area indiscriminately.

So, they invent the excuse that Hezbollah is forcing these people to stay in their homes at gunpoint, and hiding behind these people as human shields. Therefore it's now okay to drop the bombs.

But it really doesn't matter what I say, I can provide any amount of supporting material and recommend books and the like and you will come back screaming

"lies, all of it lies!!!"

Apparently all of which I've made up because I'm a liberal??? (nevermind the fact that I've been a conservative most of my life and was pro-George Bush when he first got elected. I even believed the LIES they told about the need to invade Iraq because of the threat they posed with their automated drones that were going to fly over the atlantic and drop chemical and biological weapons on us)

No, according to your narrative a liberal is a liberal who hates (or doesn't but mechanically repeats lies) but I assure you the things I say don't come from me. I'm just an idiot gasbag know it all, but Canada does have many people living in it who come from Lebanon and Palestine and so have a bit of a different perspective on how things are across the border from Israel. I am simply trying to present a different side of the discussion, which according to you must all be lies because it contradicts the official narrative of blameless israel vs. rabid evil hordes who want to destroy it.

And now Hizbullah didn't do it again.

First they did and you didn't understand why it was wrong.

Once you were told that it was wrong, you claimed Hizbullah didn't do it.

When I showed you videos of Hizbullah doing it, you said they did it but not a lot.

And then I ask you if using human shields is wrong, you claim that it is and that the UN investigated those claims and found out that Hizbullah didn't do it.

Can we perhaps to a conclusion here?

Anyway, I was in northern Israel at the time and we were being evacuated. The silly claim that such evacuations are not possible and that Israel is hence to blame for civilian deaths it tried to avoid is another lie.

It seems to me like you are looking for a way to make Israel the bad guy and you have picked a war where that was exceedingly difficult to do.

I don't know why you make up lies or why you repeat them. Whether you are for against George Bush doesn't concern me.

Incidentally, I didn't only believe the "lies" George Bush (and Al Gore and Bill Clinton and everybody else) told about Iraq, but I even went there assuming the stories were true and then saw it with my own eyes. I took pictures of the torture chambers, I saw (nearly touched) a rope from Abu Ghraib, I spoke to people who fled to the mountains when Saddam came with the non-existing poison has George Bush lied about, and I saw a gallery of pictures of poison gas attacks.

I never heard the stories about automated drones. We must be reading different newspapers again.

I know many liberals. I even know Arabs that support the PLO. But I haven't heard that many vicious lies about Israel even from people who hate the country and want it destroyed.

I am close to assuming that even Hizbullah themselves would be embarrassed by you.

They actually regard using human shields as a noble strategy and openly advocate doing it.

I am sure you can tell your stories to other people who will eagerly believe everything you say. But I have been there during the war, I have seen the videos the IDF drones shot, and I have seen both Hizbullah's rockets (which were shot into cities, NOT at the army, and which were designed to KILL, NOT to destroy) and the leaflets the IDF dropped to warn people.

We know that Jews (or Israel) lie. But do Christians lie too?

Are Hizbullah and "human rights" organisations allied with them the only honest people left?

"This is what's happening, but no one wants to say it"

There are people who live in fear of contradicting people like Artysim.

Updated dictionary:

Added "Zionist", removed "Zionist agent".

here is a new definition:

bailout: taking money from people and business that know how to make money, and giving it to business and people that have proven that they only know how to waste it

It's not exactly a liberal term. It's also a cynical term already.

I would clarify - it is not a democrat term, but it is liberal.

Yes, but it is used in a cynical sense to describe the money given to enterprises that liberals feel failed because they were capitalist.

This is despite the fact that banks failed because of giving loans to poor minorities and despite the fact that auto companies failed due to union power.

which, btw, letting those auto companies file chapter 11 will void their union contracts.

Updated a bit...