Our blog, our rules. If you can’t abide by them you shouldn’t comment here.

-Jonathan

The problem in having a discussion with you is that 1) you are rude and 2) you are so obviously ignorant about the topic at hand, and so arrogant/overconfident in your own assertions (and that is the nicest interpretation of your behavior that I can think of), that few reasonable people are going to put any effort into responding to you. There is just no return in it. Yehudit is a very tolerant and knowledgeable person, as you would know if you read her blog, and was kind enough to spend some time courteously rebutting your jejune arguments, and you responded with snarky insults and another cascade of simpleminded assertions. I suggest that you save this kind of behavior for your own blog. If you want to comment here in future you must be polite and restrict your comments to a few concise points — no more assertion cascades.

BTW, given that you have a Tokyo IP address and think Yehudit is a man, you might consider acquiring some actual knowledge about Jews, Israel and the Middle East before you start giving lectures.

But my most heartfelt gratitude goes to your demonstration of a key point in this debate.

While Israel seeks to portray itself as willing to negotiate the return of occupied terrorities, it has no intention of actually doing so. Instead, its current rulers, whose views Yehudit gives here, consider the West Bank part of Israel.

Some of these Israelis and their supporters claim the fact that Jews lived in parts of the West Bank historically entitles them to annex it as part of a Jewish state. Others simply claim that the territory was won in military battle, and therefore rightfully belongs to the victor.

If Israel itself would present these claims forthrightly, the world would reject them or not and Israel could perhaps move on and try other approaches.

The problem is that Israel and many of its supporters are not honest about the gap between what Israel says about the occupied territories (we offered to give them back, and/or we are giving them back) and what it does (build walls through occupied land and expand U.S.-financed suburbs for Russian immigrants on top of bulldozed Palestinian homes.)

I’d like to give Yehudit credit for at least being honest about Israel’s true intentions in conquering the West Bank. But he seems to want to have it both ways too.

After arguing that the removal of Palestinians from their ancestral lands is justified as a means of forming a “Greater” Israel that once existed, he touts claims that Israel has demonstrated a willingness to return conquered Arab lands.

Likewise, Israeli propagandists and their many dupes in the U.S. media endlessly repeat that Palestinians reject Israel’s existence, which is partly true. Yet, as Yehudit shows, Israel rejects Palestine’s existence. The very big difference is that Israel’s rejection of Palestinian existence (Yehudit even goes as far as to reject the existence of Palestinians. He calls them a “made up” ethnic group, a revealing claim because it suggests that he thinks ethnicity is a uniquely essential component of national identity.)

The entire international community, including even Britain and the United States, rejects Israel’s claim to the West Bank.

That is why Israel pursues a public relations campaign–warmly welcomed by the mainstream U.S. media, though rarely elsewhere–of asserting an intention to negotiate land for peace. But at the same time, Israel continues building exclusively Jewish suburbs on top of bulldozed Palestinian homes in the West Bank.

If, as Yehudit asserts, the West Bank rightfully belongs to the Jewish State, why doesn’t it simply annex it? That would certainly simplify things, giving Israel’s allies and enemies with clearer options for a response. But Israel refuses to annex the West Bank because it is home to far too many of the people Yehudit says don’t really exist, Palestinians.

The concern is that annexation would require Israel to start respecting Palestinian human rights, since they would then be Israeli citizens.

Palestinians would be likely to then elect Arabs to Israel’s Knesset and may likely at some point in the future, chafe at the idea that they are required to respect Judaism as superior in a country where Jews are a minority.

Given that dilemma, Israel has chosen a highly militarized version of apartheid as a response. Like apartheid, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank requires a vast screen of propaganda, torture, secret executions and the like.

This is why the Israel’s insistence that Lebanon comply with UN resolutions is so laughable. It doesn’t even give lip service to its own compliance any more.

I will respond to more of Yehudit’s misrepresentations later.

“In addition to self-defense, it has used military aggression to fulfill a theocratic vision of Greater Israel and the expense of Arab sovereignty and international law. ”

This is much more a behavior of Islam worldwide than of Israel. Sudan, China, Turkey, Russia, Nigeria, Thailand, the Philipines… bloody borders.

After winning the 67 war, Israel offered to give the West Bank back to Jordan in exchange for a peace agreement with the Arab bloc. They said no. They left the Palestinians under Israeli occupation to keep them an Israeli problem, then used their influence at the UN to make them an international problem precisely to delegitimize Israel.

As I said, many occupied popualtions are subject to much worse treatment by people who have no intention of returning them to their previous nations, or to their own sovereignty, and the UN doesn’t give a shit about them. Like the Sudan. Or the Tibetans. This is the Arab bloc using the UN to treat the rest of the world like shit, and the other nations complying out of white guilt and a need for oil. And that’s all international “law” is – a struggle for power under a different name.

Israle also gave back Sinai, again in return for a peace agreement. Such military aggression!

“I noted that Israel invaded Lebanon, BEFORE Hezbollah even existed merely to correct your claim that Hezbollah has attacked Israel “without provocation.”"

Israel invaded Lebanon in pursuit of the PLO, which was clearly a terrorist organization. They had already committed the Munich massacre and the Entebbe kidnapping and numerous plane hijackings. Hizbollah is not the first terrorist group feckless Lebanon has hosted.

rom wikipedia: “When Egypt sent UN officials away from the Egyptian-Israeli border and increased its military activity near the border, and blocked access of the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt’s airforce fearing an imminent attack by Egypt.”

This proves the opposite of what you want it to. Egypt and the other Arab nations engaged in provocations, statements of intent to destroy Israel as well as troop movements, which justified pre-emptive action. Certainly sending away UN troops who were put there to enforce a peace and then blocking access to a port constitutes a prelude to starting a war?

“To construe Israel’s invasion of Lebanon as a “defense of the Lebanese people” is by good measure the most Orwellian claim I’ve run across yet in any discussion, online or elsewhere. This “defense” Jonathan asserts has somehow turned Hezbollah’s leader into a national hero and boosted his organizations popularity in and out of Lebanon.”

Earth to bunkerbuster: Except for some poor villages in the south, Lebanon has never considered Hizballah anything but thuggish partial occupiers. Lebanese know that Hizballah is owned by Syria and Iran and Syria is their occupier, and several hundred thousand of them demonstrated their hatred of Syrian occupation last year.

And Nasrallah isn’t considered a hero by anybody but those villagers, and even they are pissed at him for drawing down Israeli fire on them. Hezbollah owned a squalid slum in south Beirut which most Beirutans avoided. Which is what Israel bombed, doing the rest of Beirut a favor. And that “destroyed” airport? It’s already reopened and has commercial traffic.

This is what I mean by mirror-land. Or maybe Spock-with-a-beard-world.

Half of all Palestinians killed violently are killed by each other, or in “work accidents.” Lots of extrajudicial executions. Or in propaganda efforts (Gaza beach, Mohammed al-Dura).

When you compare Israeli and Palestinian deaths at the height of the Intifada, there is a larger proportion of Palestinian combatants killed than Israeli (young men), and among Israelis a much larger proportion of non-combatants: children, mothers, old people.

That’s history, and theology is one expression of it. Nobody questions the Japanese visceral connection to the Japanese landscape, or the Irish or the Navajo. The only difference with Israel is that we were ethnically cleansed more often than any other group in history and although we kept coming back, it was easy with that history for people to erase our history.

Yes, it’s “Arab land” to people who think Spain is also Arab land. The Arabs are just going to have to get used to a part of the Middle East the size of New Jersey belonging to its rightful owners.

If the Palestinians – a made-up ethnic group about 40 years old, which never agitated for a state when they lived in Egypt and Jordan (also a made-up country) – want a state of their own, fine, but it has no historical legitimacy, and has been given special status in international venues because that suits the agendas of the people promoting them. The Basques have a much firmer claim, more similar to the Jews, and have even used terrorism to pursue their goals, but the UN doesn’t care about them. Or the Tibetans, or the Kurds, or any other indigenous national group.

Everything else you claim is completely topsy-turvy – it’s like you are living in mirror-land – and I might come back and refute them one by one, but this is the one that really chaps my hide. But it’s a standard rhetorical device of the anti-Israel left, along with everything else you’ve said.

I would like a list of all the “terrorism” committed by Israel, deliberately to hurt and kill civilians, as the Palestinians do. No, you can’t claim the King David Hotel – it was a military HQ and they warned the residents to leave before they blew it up. Got any other examples? Links to Stormfront and Zmag don’t count.

Your claim that Israel is moral because it behaves morally is tautological but also misleading. All along in this discussion, I have sought to focus on behavior, e.g. military aggression, whereas you have insisted on focusing on motive, in your view “self-defense.”

Your argument has been that Israel is morally superior because its motives are morally superior, not its behavior. I have pointed out, for example, that Israel kills many, many times more civilians than the terrorists upon which you heap so much scorn do. Israel’s behavior is clear and it results in the deaths of far more Palestinians than vice versa. Your exceedingly thin rationalization of Israeli aggression lies solely on its motives, not its behaviors. Your confusion there is another reason you misunderstand the situation, whether deliberately or not.

No. Israel’s motives have always been mixed. In addition to self-defense, it has used military aggression to fulfill a theocratic vision of Greater Israel and the expense of Arab sovereignty and international law. This is why the problem is so difficult, it’s not the simple murderer versus victim situation you would like to believe it is.

More broadly, the Cold War and now the widening conflict between the West and Islamic extremism have helped push Israel into the role as U.S. client state, spurring militarism.

I’m not a partisan in this conflict. Rather, I have attempted to correct falsehoods and misrepresentations you have made about it. True, I do not agree with many of the mainstream media myths about Israel–that it always defends, never attacks, for example–but my disagreement has no ideological basis.

Nor have I “ignored provocations by Israel’s enemies (e.g., the PLO’s bombardment of northern Israel prior to Israel’s 1980 invasion).”

I noted that Israel invaded Lebanon, BEFORE Hezbollah even existed merely to correct your claim that Hezbollah has attacked Israel “without provocation.”

You call Hezbollah “avowedly genocidal.”

There is no evidence for this claim. Hezbollah, like ALL Arab states, considers the Zionist entity that occupies Arab land to be illegitmate. So does the UN and virtually every country on the planet. This is by no means “genocidal.” Does your use of that word reflect your own extremist partisanship?

I have no need to either minimize Arab transgressions nor to exaggerate Israel’s. I have focused on pointing out Israeli militarism not because I think its enemies are without blame, but because I think any solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is in Israel’s hands, not its enemies.

Israel, with mixed motives, has destroyed the political infrastructure of the Palestinian entity and, to some extent, southern Lebanon. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, along with targetted assassinations, kidnapping, torture and civlian murders that outnumber those committed by Palestinians by several times have decimated the meager political capital of Palestinian moderates.

Isreal is economically and nmilitarily many, many times stronger than the Palestinian entity. It is also politically stronger, though does have a weaker geopolitical standing in terms of international support. It is in a position to compromise on its theological goal of a “Greater Israel.” This is the real issue, not any fantastic “moral superiority” or license to kill Palestinians.

By contrast, the Palestinian Authority is in no position to surrender its claim to territories occupied by Israel. Arafat’s embrace of a two-state solution and attempts to negotiate a political settlement were rejected by Israel, which continued to insist on theological claims to a Greater Israel. As a result, Palestinian extremism gained ground on moderates, leading to the takeover of the government by Hamas.

The pattern is clear: Israeli aggression and insistence on territorial expansion enables Palestinian extremism. This is why the solution to the conflict is in Israel’s hands, not the Palestinians.

This assertion (emphasis added) is false, as anyone who reads what I actually wrote can easily see for himself. I argued that Israel is morally superior to its enemies because it behaves morally and they don’t, not that Israel possesses some inherent moral superiority that makes anything it does moral. Your (perhaps willful) misunderstanding of this distinction is telling.

You perceive in Israeli actions only the worst motives, ignore provocations by Israel’s enemies (e.g., the PLO’s bombardment of northern Israel prior to Israel’s 1980 invasion) and insist on imputing a false moral equivalence between democratic Israel and the avowedly genocidal Hezbollah. Readers with more patience than I have are welcome to compare your assertions to the historical record and decide for themselves whether your partisan “facts” are in fact valid.

Jonathan claim:
1. “Hezbollah has been murdering Israeli civilians and soldiers without provocation for years.”
But the fact is that Hezbollah was formed as a response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, which surely counts as a provocation. Moreover, even after Israel withdrew from most, though not all, of Lebanon, it continued to kidnap and murder Lebanese, again, obvious provocations. More broadly, Israel occupies Arab land; tortures Arab prisoners, collects taxes it spends on Israelis to the exclusion of Arabs in occupied lands, assassinates political leaders and so on. These are clearly provocations and your assertion is obviously false.

2. Jonathan asserts: “Hezbollah started a war against Israel.”
Hezbollah formed to defend Lebanese Shia during Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon. How can it be, then, that Hezbollah “started” the war? Israel indeed withdrew from most of the Lebanese territory it occupied, but it continued to occupy the Sheba farms area and continued to routinely engage in kidnappings and assassinations on Lebanese territory.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has a very long history. In this sense, to assert that Hezbollah “started it” won’t lead to any meaningful understanding of the nature and history of the conflict, let alone to a solution.
The same applies to Jonathan’s assertion that: “Israel’s actions against Hezbollah have been in response to Hezbollah’s murders of Israelis and are thus morally justified while Hezbollah’s are not.”

Israel attacked and occupied Lebanon. Hezbollah formed a militia to repel the invasion. Hez outlasted Israel, which partially withdrew. Israel continued to kidnap and assassinate Lebanese. Clearly, the situation involves numerous, continuous provocations from both sides.

Jonathan asserts: “Israel’s occupation of territory has always been in response to aggression.”

from wikipedia: “When Egypt sent UN officials away from the Egyptian-Israeli border and increased its military activity near the border, and blocked access of the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt’s airforce fearing an imminent attack by Egypt.”

This, historians agree, is how the part of the war that led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights began. I recommend you read the entire Wiki entry on it, Jonathan. It points out numerous cases where Israel attacked first. In one case, Israel attacked Arab territory on concern water was being diverted away from Israel. That concern is legitimate, but the resort to military action that resulted in many deaths is telling.

Jonathan also asks some simple, if disingenous questions:
“Why is Israel’s self-defense unjustified?”

No one is questioning self-defense. The argument here is that bombing Lebanese airports, highways, hospitals and civilian vehicles cannot reasonably be construed as self-defense. Nor can the building of Jewish-only suburbs in the occupied West Bank be described as self-defense. (It’s worth noting that Israel, de facto, claims the West Bank as its territory by religious tradition, not as any kind of necessary self-defense measure.)

Jonathan also asks: “Why is Israel’s defense of the Lebanese people against Hezbollah unjustified?”

To construe Israel’s invasion of Lebanon as a “defense of the Lebanese people” is by good measure the most Orwellian claim I’ve run across yet in any discussion, online or elsewhere. This “defense” Jonathan asserts has somehow turned Hezbollah’s leader into a national hero and boosted his organizations popularity in and out of Lebanon.

Finally, a reasonable question: “What should Israel do in response to rocket attacks on Israeli towns (which have been ongoing for years)?”

Declare that it will withdraw from all occupied territories and renounce all claims to land outside its pre-1967 borders.

Jonathan asserts: “In your world the police officer and the murderer are both equally culpable, since both of them have guns and get into fights.”

No, that has not been my claim at all. I recognize the legitimacy of limiting violence to the state, with important exceptions, namely self-defense. I have never sought to diminish the responsibility of Arab terrorists in any way. I have merely pointed to facts showing that Israel has historically provoked its neighbors and sought to eliminate them from territory it has no legitimate claim to.
There will be no solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that does not include a willingness of Israel to abide by international law and recognize the right of Palestine to exist.
You, on the other hand, claim that the police can do anything, including kill civilians without trial, simply because he has a badge.

“Most of Israel’s founding fathers were not terrorists, rejected terrorism and on noteworthy occasions collaborated with the British in capturing Jewish terrorists.”

Most Arab leaders reject terrorism and have routinely collaborated with the U.S. in capturing Arab terrorists.

“The few surviving Jewish terrorists either renounced terrorism after Israeli independence or were marginalized in Israeli society.”

Indeed, once Israel was independent, it could form a military and, therefore, pursue violent solutions without any rationale for resorting to terrorism. You can be sure Palestine will happily follow the same course.

“There is thus no reasonable comparison between Arab and Jewish terrorism, and your assertion of moral equivalence is reckless and dishonest.”

The differences in size and scope between Arab and Israeli populations and, instances of terrorism, are irrelevant to their moral equivalence.

It is immoral to murder, period. As terrorism includes murder, it too is immoral. Israel was founded via violence that included terrorism. That terror was immoral, just as Arab terror is immoral. Your denial of that simple measure of reciprocity lies at the center of your misunderstanding of this issue.

Actually, the Pentagon *is* a legitimate target of war. Blowing it up does not, in itself, violate any particular moral precept that I recognize.

OTOH, having civilian ( un-uniformed ) terrorists do it, by hijacking a plane full of innocent bystanders and crashing it into the building, *those* are violations of the various rules of war.

The World Trade Center, OTOH, is not a legitimate target by any logic I can comprehend. Its not a military base, nor is it an industrial site connected to the defense industry. Its destruction would cause economic harm, true, but if you did target it as a military objective for that reason, you’d be guilty of criminal stupidity, unless it cost little to do so. Even then, you’d get most of the same damage at least cost in life blowing it up at night.

In the system of nation-states it is preferable to live and let live but here Israel sees a threat within its neighbor state. Hezbolah is not a nation state. It is more closely related to pirate organizations of an earlier era (one could argue that it’s ascendancey as a political force begins to legitimize it – but as this happens Lebanon bears more resposiblity). It and its members simply aren’t due the considerations due a nation-state. Lebanon, unable to control Hez. has failed in it’s duties as a responsible nation-state and has sufferred the collateral damage.

“Last time I checked the Israelis were targeting terrorists, their hideouts, their assets, and those that openly aided the terrorists.”

That’s debatable, but irrelevant to my point, which was clearly that: IF kidnapping and assassination are causes of war, Israel had committed them on numerous occassions BEFORE the Hezbollah attacks that allegedly precipitated Israel’s latest invasion of Lebanon.

Hezbollah has been murdering Israeli civilians and soldiers without provocation for years. Its recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers was merely a final provocation. Israel’s kidnappings and assassinations have been of terrorist leaders who had been directing such murder attacks. The difference between the actions of Hezbollah and of Israel are the differences between murder and self-defense.

And, James, please stop making strawmen like this one: “It seems pretty clear that you are trying to claim that Hezbollah and Palestinian terror organizations are justified in attacking Israel because Israel acts to protect itself from their attacks.”

It is neither pretty nor clear that that is what I have said. I have stated the fact that Israel routinely commits acts that are identical to those it says caused it to invade Lebanon.

As I pointed out above, Israel’s actions against Hezbollah have been in response to Hezbollah’s murders of Israelis and are thus morally justified while Hezbollah’s are not. That you ignore the moral distinction between murder and self-defense is telling.

You assert that Israel’s acts are justified because they are defending themselves, but you fail to explain why the people of Lebanon lack the same right of self-defense.

This is like saying that the police must not attack bank robbers if the robbers have taken hostages. The people of Lebanon are either complicit with Hezbollah or are its hostages. Hezbollah started a war against Israel. The people of Lebanon were unwilling or unable to stop Hezbollah. Why is Israel’s self-defense unjustified? Why is Israel’s defense of the Lebanese people against Hezbollah unjustified? What should Israel do in response to rocket attacks on Israeli towns (which have been ongoing for years)?

Israel, like Hezbollah, has a history of violating the rules of war. Surely you are familiar with the many examples of torture, kidnapping, “collective punishment,” assassination, etc. committed by Israel, not to mention its illegal occupation of neighbors land, including parts of Lebanon.

You are evenhanded between the murderer and the victim. Surely you are familiar with the many examples of “torture, kidnapping, ‘collective punishment,’ assassination, etc.” committed by Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, Syria, etc. against Israelis and Jews. Surely you are aware that Israel’s occupation of territory has always been in response to aggression. Surely you are aware that Israel withdrew from Gaza, Lebanon, the Sinai (three times) and effectively from most of the West Bank. As usual, you ignore the political and moral context of Israel’s wars, in which it responded to attack or imminent attack, and focus solely on tactics. In your world the police officer and the murderer are both equally culpable, since both of them have guns and get into fights.

Are you not aware that Israel’s founding fathers were terrorists who, like the Palestinian extremists of today, bombed hotels and other civilian targets? Does that history, in your mind, disqualify Israel from the protections of international law? If not, why do assert that it does, apparently, for the people of Palestine and Lebanon?

Most of Israel’s founding fathers were not terrorists, rejected terrorism and on noteworthy occasions collaborated with the British in capturing Jewish terrorists. The few surviving Jewish terrorists either renounced terrorism after Israeli independence or were marginalized in Israeli society. Instances of Jewish terrorism in Israel since then have been few and far between, and the Israeli government has always condemned Jewish terrorism and has punished Jewish terrorists when possible. By contrast, terrorism by Arabs has been a widespread tactic since the 1920s, continues to this day, is applauded by Arab governments, is an instrument of Arab governments, is wildly popular among Arab populations, and is committed on a vastly wider scale than any Jewish terrorism ever was. There is thus no reasonable comparison between Arab and Jewish terrorism, and your assertion of moral equivalence is reckless and dishonest.

I have been clear and consistent. My argument is that BOTH Israeli and Arab terrorists are unworthy of honorable treatment. Your argument, a strawman with pyromania, is that Israeli terrorists do indeed deserve honorable treatment.

Your argument consists of glossing over the moral depravity of widespread and unprovoked Arab terror attacks against Israelis and Jews, while asserting that Israel’s defensive actions are just as bad. That’s clearly false.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, and its reward has been years of terrorism including numerous rocket attacks on northern (and since the withdrawal from Gaza, southern) Israeli towns. Yet your moral sensitivities are activated only when Israel defends itself.

“b. Binding on States and Individuals. The law of war is binding not only upon States as such but also upon individuals and, in particular, the members of their armed forces….

498. Crimes Under International Law

Any person, whether a member of the armed forces or a civilian. who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible thereof and liable to punishment….

499. War Crimes

The term “war crime” is a technical expression for violation of the law of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. Every violation of the law of war is a war crime…. ”

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/mylai/fieldman.html

That’s debatable, but irrelevant to my point, which was clearly that: IF kidnapping and assassination are causes of war, Israel had committed them on numerous occassions BEFORE the Hezbollah attacks that allegedly precipitated Israel’s latest invasion of Lebanon.

And, James, please stop making strawmen like this one: “It seems pretty clear that you are trying to claim that Hezbollah and Palestinian terror organizations are justified in attacking Israel because Israel acts to protect itself from their attacks.”

It is neither pretty nor clear that that is what I have said. I have stated the fact that Israel routinely commits acts that are identical to those it says caused it to invade Lebanon.

You assert that Israel’s acts are justified because they are defending themselves, but you fail to explain why the people of Lebanon lack the same right of self-defense.

Israel, like Hezbollah, has a history of violating the rules of war. Surely you are familiar with the many examples of torture, kidnapping, “collective punishment,” assassination, etc. committed by Israel, not to mention its illegal occupation of neighbors land, including parts of Lebanon.

Are you not aware that Israel’s founding fathers were terrorists who, like the Palestinian extremists of today, bombed hotels and other civilian targets? Does that history, in your mind, disqualify Israel from the protections of international law? If not, why do assert that it does, apparently, for the people of Palestine and Lebanon?

I have been clear and consistent. My argument is that BOTH Israeli and Arab terrorists are unworthy of honorable treatment. Your argument, a strawman with pyromania, is that Israeli terrorists do indeed deserve honorable treatment.

Let us just back up and take a look at one of your previous statements….

Moreover, Israel routinely kidnapped and killed Arabs in both southern Lebanon and Gaza. If that is a cause of war, then it’s safe to say Israel started it.

Last time I checked the Israelis were targeting terrorists, their hideouts, their assets, and those that openly aided the terrorists.

It seems pretty clear that you are trying to claim that Hezbollah and Palestinian terror organizations are justified in attacking Israel because Israel acts to protect itself from their attacks, a point of view which is as breathtaking in lack of reality as it is in lack of morality.

Moreover, your assertion that violations of rules by one side nullify the rules for its enemy is without substance. The rules exist to limit escalation and lethality, not to make war “fair” as some here have argued recently and as your silly syllogism implies.

Another straw man since I never said that the rules exist to make war fair. Instead I said that any claim that terrorists deserve honorable treatement is madness.

You are also making false statements when you say that the rules exist no matter what. Just read the Geneva Conventions and you will readily see that it specifically excludes nationals of a state which is not bound by the convention. I hardly think that members of Hezbollah qualify since they are bearing arms for an organization that isn’t recognized as a state.

But even if Hezbollah was a signatory, the Convention specifically excludes “acts of terrorism”. Considering their past history, it is reasonable to say that Hezbollah has long since destroyed any chance they once had to claim protected status.

James

But no one is claiming that. Your assertion, then, is a flagrant strawman that you so grandiloquently set in flames. Congratulations.

Moreover, your assertion that violations of rules by one side nullify the rules for its enemy is without substance. The rules exist to limit escalation and lethality, not to make war “fair” as some here have argued recently and as your silly syllogism implies.