2bob, in India, Muslims use the term "insh'Allah" (i.e. God-willing) in 2 sense. One sense is in its proper religious connotation - that everything that happens in the future is the will of God.

But the 2nd sense is as if to say that one is bullsh#tting and then blaming it on God.

Which I suspect is appropriate to your posts on this subject.

Any argument that unequivocally dismisses a people as 'evil' deserves to be dismissed. Remember the simple adage 'there's two sides to every story'? it's a shame that world leaders in the middle east appear to have forgotten that one entirely.

Israelis are doing their utmost to paint themselves as guilt free, eminently reasonable sorts, and hezbollah as evil terrorists.

These comments have some truth to them... though they also have a hell of a lot of lies.

For instance... hezbollah is not merely some fanatical puppet of Iran - yes they've indulged in violent practices, but they also perform community services and provide and succour to the poor - if you've got a problem with that comment, take it up with TIME magazine.

This article also conveniently ignores the decades Israelis occupied areas of lebanon.

Here's a fanciful thought for you - say Australia was mortal enemies with New Zealand, and the Kiwis had been occupying Tasmania for 18 years. If one of our rather radical political parties, lets say, the greens, rallied an army and managed to kick them out, a task that our defence force had been unable to do... wouldn't you have at least some fondness for the greens at the next election?
Here's your reason why Hezbollah has a presence in the Lebanese parliament.
What would really piss you off, would be the western world telling you you shouldn't have greens parliamentarians, merely because the western world favours the kiwis.

This is of course a stupid comparison. But this is a stupid war, that has been going on for years.

Don't ever assume one side is totally in the right.
That is never the case. One side can have more of a moral high ground - sure, it's a great thing the nazis were defeated in WW2 - but we know better than to pretend the allies were all heroes.
That would ignore the horrific bombing of Dresden, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Irfan,

wouldn't you agree that to blame any of this cr*p on god is bullsh*t?

But to address your post, it is such a wonderful saying, if god is responsible for everything, why then would anyone else be able to be blamed?

And Irfan, given the recent events in Bint Jbail, I do honestly believe that strongly defended locales should be avoided like the plague. If they are the source of rockets, post warning, they should be shelled into rubble, as they are defended locales. Neither infantry nor tanks should be sent into them.

This would leave the IDF to roam the countryside at will, Hizbollah would have to alter its tactics to attack them in the open, which would put the shoe fairly on the other foot, as in the open is where Israel wants them.

Inshallah

2bob

Why can´t Muslims admit that there is a terrible fanatic movement amongst them. This is in no way a criticism of Islam but of the abuse a particular group have made. After the defeat of the Taliban there was rejoicing in the streets, in Iran there is a strong anti government movement that is being supressed by terror.

The same happened when fanatics took over in the West. In Germany, in USSR, in Spain. This was not amongst Muslims.

There are fanatics on all three sides , yes three much of Us support comes not from the Jewish lobby but from the Christian right many of who a "rapture ready" have a little troll of the web if you don't know what I mean. the first step in any peaceful resolution is to admit your mistake. The current Israeli gov does think it's made any.
Just think where we might have been if a Jewish fanatic had not kill the peace making PM.

plerdsus I’ll give you a hint carpet bombing cities is terrorism no matter you is doing it. 30,000 Londoner's are just as bad as 30,000 Berliners.

To have peace you have to lay down your arms.

The Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, pleading for a ceasefire, asked: “Is the value of human rights in Lebanon less than elsewhere? Are we the children of a lesser God?”

In 1950, Gustave Gilbert, the US prison psychologist at the Nuremberg Trials wrote:

“One may react to injury or persecution of one’s own identification group with the same pain or hostility as if the injury had been inflicted on him and yet feel no concern for the same injuries inflicted on members of other groups. Thus sentiment could be aroused among Germans over the “persecution” of their Volksgenossen in Czechoslovakia and Austria, with impassioned humanitarian appeals, while many calmly witnessed the beating up of German Jews on the streets of their own cities. In a like manner, “white, American-born Protestants” can patriotically defend the humane “American way” in defiance of dictatorship, while feeling no concern over the mistreatment of racial minorities at their own back door.”

Israel and the US are able to accept the heavy civilian casualties in Lebanon because the Lebanese are not part of the Judae-Christian “identification group” – the Lebanese are indeed “children of a lesser God”!

Gilbert continued: “Many Germans and many Americans, when confronted with these inconsistencies in their professed behavior as decent citizens, recognise the inconsistency intellectually, but still find it difficult to modify their behavior. Insight is not sufficient to overcome the deeply rooted social conditioning of feelings.”
“As a general principle …. the normal social process of group identification and hostility-reaction brings about a selective constriction of empathy, which, in addition to the semi-conscious suppression of insight, enables normal people to condone or participate in the most sadistic social aggression without feeling of realising it.”