Mideast Dispatches

Too many words are used to explain Israel's war on its neighbours. These words confuse the primary issue. The International courts and the United Nations do NOT recognize Israel's incursions beyond their 1948 borders.

1) Israel MUST BE put back inside its borders.

This could be achieved, if the West stopped providing 'foreign aid' to Israel. With less money to spend on military adventures it would be forced to work with its neighbours.

2) Just say No, to foreign aid, donations, and bonds to Israel.

The middle east would be in better position today, if Israel had been spending its military budgets on schools, hospitals, community infrastructure and business alliances with its neighbours.

3. Unhappy people (Arab citizens) will eventually unite in their collective grief and outrage.

The West/Israel can not win on the ground against a guerilla army. As Israel, not the West is committed to this ground, it is in Israel's interest build neighbourhood alliances. The West will go home when the 'body bag' count becomes intolerable. Israel is already at home.

4. Israel must make peace with its neighbours. The common person must vote the right wing out of office.

If/when the US currency/economy crashes, Israel will cease to receive the support it now gets from the West.

This is really bad news.

Fifty odd years (since 1948) is not a long time for a country to exist. With a shrinking population rate, I would think that making peace with its neighbours would be a very high priority.

Reasonable minded people must organize and vote.

Peace now.

Sat Nandlall: It is people like you that have presented us with a picture of world events through words. It takes alot of courage to be at these sites and I'm sure many people appreciate what you are doing. God bless.
I just can't understand the Israeli's idea of setting up a buffer zone and disarming the Hizbullah. Is the world so blind not to see how pathetic that sounds?
First and foremost Israel cannot and will not disarm Hizbullah. I mean come on, they killed more civillian than they did Hizbullah even with their so called guided missil attacks. After 19 days of war the best accomplishment they can achieve is hitting a civillian building in Qana with seniors , women and children.
As for a buffer zone...it won't stop attacks on Israel. This whole war will never stop.
All these young kids that are witnesses to this war and seeing the dead bodies of their family and friends just makes Hizbullah stronger. They will live a life of revenge and a life full of hate and anger towards Israel. God help humanity. Thus far this war on Hizbullah is turning more and more like a war on lebanese civillians for more civillian killed than Hizbullah. STOP THIS WAR!

MIDDLE EAST CRISIS...

This crisis is self created by their own people. Nothing is new as this conflict has been going on since Jesus was a child.

The only thing the rest of the world can do it to keep this war within the borders of the countries whom are in conflict with each other.

If the rest of the world intervenes, then these conflicts will be brought into their own countries.

It is best for the rest of the world to keep out.

You are all right, and you are all wrong. The world is a complex place and truth is a matter of interpretation. I have read your comments and tried to look with open eyes at your interpretations and add them to mine. I am a Canadian living in China for the summer. I have seen a type of life I have never witnessed before. But, what I do know is that we are all people. I do not know why we,the people of the world allow war as a method of resolution to continue. I know that people, be they Chinese, Canadian, Israli, Lebannese -suffer, feel pain and grieve. This is insanity and it has to stop.

I would just like to say that Israel and the United States can go on as many massacring rampages against the Arab world as they wish, and they still won't eliminate terrorism (mostly because they themselves have honed it down to an art). Hezbolla is only growing stronger, (it was created as a response to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in 2000). Hamas, Islamic Jihad and any other militant organization that dares to resist against the powers that be (and is therefore, defined as terrorist) were all a reaction to the greater injustice and suffering that the apartheid state of Israel has visited upon the Palestinian people for more than five decades. Israel, along with the support of the terrorist and morally bankrupt Bush administration will probably destroy Hezbolla and ruin Lebanon in the process (as it is doing), but this will only spawn more hatred in the Arab and Muslim world, and the most moderate of Muslims will be radicalized and a generation of Nasrallas will be born. As the entire world has witnessed since 9-11, the insane crusade of the United States government (and, indeed, the entire Western World) against Islam that was manifested in the unnecessarily violent, exceptionally cruel bombings of Afghanistan, the shameful occupation of Iraq and the tightening of Israel's criminal oppressive regime in the occupied territories and now the senseless, disproportionate war being waged against civilians in Lebanon have not made militant resistance organizations unpopular. In fact, the opposite has happened. Hamas have won the elections, the Americans are taking a beating every day at the hands of the courageous Iraqi resistance, Hezbolla is becoming the symbol of hope amongst the previously moderate Lebanese. In the end, a few suicie bombers and the capturing of 2 soldiers cannot even begin to be compared against the state terrorism of the United States and Israel whose history is full of bloodshed and violence against the Third World.

It is a shame that the Lebanese and Palestinian people are being held hostage by the so-called diplomatic efforts of America and Britain. Instead of uniting with the rest of the world in calls for an immediate cease fire, they are gambling with innocent Lebanese and Palestinian lives in the effort of weakening the infrastructure of yet another Arab country in order to create one more American/Israeli outpost in the region.
Our governments should be demanding a cease fire now. Israeli must not be allowed to murder any more people in their acts of state sponsored terrorism.

The situation of Middle east in today, mostly created by the so called liberal social idea in the Europe. The European countries, espeically the western Europe countries, they think all mankind should be the same, but they never think or consider the theory of difference for every region's culture and believe. Plus one of the most corrupted and burecatic organsation called UN, just know how to talk and never truly act in evey resolution. There will never have a peace in middle ease, unless either muslim or jewish people were removed fromthat area. Unfortunately , no one would admit this is the real truth.

We owe a debt of gratitude to these men and women who go into the war zones to bring us the news of what the reality of war is. The terrible price that innocent people have to pay for political decisions.

After reading " Israel: the terrorist state, the rogue state, the failed state " posted on July 17th 2006,in Political Gateway by Andy Martin ,I mostly agree with his opinion expressed in the article ,but the Idea of abandoning Israel by United states is ,I think, impossible .
United States Foreign Policy is influenced by " Israel Lobby "from within the Nation by special interest groups.
I am too,no anti-Israel nor pro-Israel or anti-Arab nor pro- Arab
But I'm surely Pro-earth and Pro-peace and I also believe that Israel has the right to exist ,and Arabs to be treated fairly.
But what I see is that United states government in this decade is considerably controlled by nothing but selfish,shortsighted,ignorant wealthy and religious special groups.
I always admired the American History ,the founders of the American revolution, the American dream and the guardians of the individual rights and actually I still have hope that one day these values will revive back,
But if ,and ONLY IF ,when all the Americans ,collectively,will start judging things by seeing through in and out of them and not just by
looking at them.

Matyos

It seems that Israel is under attack from the P.L.O,Hamas,Hezbollah.WHY?.Some say it is because Palestine owns the land,others hate the Jewish state and have vowed to eliminate it.So is it wrong to say that Israel has had enough and is stepping up to defend itself.When Al-Quada attacked was it wrong to send troops to Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban and Al-Quada?.Peace in Israel?.Look what happened when Israel gave up Gaza,rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel after the land was settled by Hamas,P.L.O.So is it fair to say Israel has had enough

This entire tragedy is the end product of a nation willingly selling its soul to the devil, and refusing to learn anything from the lessons of history. Lebanese leaders in 1969 sold the South of Lebanon to the PLO in a deal brokered by Egypt and known as "The Cairo Agreement". The PLO used the newly acquired territory of Southern Lebanon to launch raids on Israel, motivated by the grandiose dream that a campaign of terror will liberate Palestinians under Israeli occupation, and will dump the state of Israel in the sea. After several invasions of Lebanon by the Israeli army, The PLO was forced out of the South and 8000 Palestinian fighters were shipped to Tunisia. When Israel pulled out of Lebanon, and the Syrian Army returned to its barracks in Syria under International pressure, the Lebanese State had an excellent opportunity to extend its authority to every single inch of Lebanon. The agents of the Lebanese State (government) refused to exercise sovereignty, and one more time sold the South of the country to religious fanatics, who with blood and fire, imposed their political agenda on the entire country, and thus triggered the latest tragedy in the bloody history of Lebanon. When you sell your country to the devil, nothing but death and destruciton follow.

That is an amazing story! It's easy to forget that amid all the drama on a large scale -- bombs falling, armies invading, etc. -- these small-scale life-and-death dramas keep happening too. Stay safe and keep up the good work!