Irfan,

Over the past months I have been impressed by many of your posts, representing as you do the peaceful, responsible part of the muslim community.

Rather than just attacks on Israel, what I would love to hear from you is your suggestions as to how we resolve this intractable problem and provide for a peaceful prosperous life for all the people of the middle east.

Excellent post Jeff.

I fully support Israel, and identify Hezbollah as past of 'the enemy'. But what Israel is doing is surely wrong. Hundreds of dead civilians for what?

But no matter the evidence before my eyes I support Israel 100% because they are like me, and muslim arabs are not.

Sad World eh?

gw

Kenny

Neville Chamberlain tried that. It didn´t work.

England had no intention of bombing Germany but eventually it was the only way to stop the Germans bombing them.

Ideals are fine but experience is a hard teacher.

Kenny, I think you are right in pointing out the influence of dangerous Christian theology on American foreign policy. Dispensationalists see Israel as an essential pivot for a coming Apocalypse. "Almost all dispensationalists reject the idea that a lasting peace can be attained by human effort in the Middle East." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism Thus, some in the US actually don't want peace, reading events in the ME through the prism of apocalyptic thought.

Logic, I find your comparison to Chamberlain's appeasement a little simplistic. Chamberlain desperately hoped to avoid another war, grimly aware of the slaughter it would unleash and Britain's unpreparedness. Britain used the time gained to massively re-arm and (just barely) held the Germans at bay in 1940-41.

Many of the causes of WWII can be traced back to WWI, that titanic clash of empires. Much of the current chaotic mess in the Middle East can likewise be traced back to the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of WWI and the reshaping of boundaries by Britain and France.

If war is the answer, then the question must have been pretty stupid.

JohnJ
amen indeed... "WWII can be traced back to WWI" etc.. I agree and disagree. You are right..but don't go far enough.

ALLLLLL of our present circumstances can be traced back to pivotal events, machiavellian intrigue, conflict over resources, hidden agendas, unconcienable persuasion of the masses, etc etc.. in short, we're part of a huge mess. But guess what.. the mud is on EVERY side of EVERY Dispute. Some sides have more going for them (morally)at some times such as now with Israel. "They were attacked"
But you say.. "What about occupation and prisoners and blah blah"
Each issue has 2 sides.

The most repulsive and despicable noises being made in all this are from the Left who seem to think there IS such a thing as a human way out of all this and from the Right who don't really care.

The Bible describes is as follows: "All...have sinned and fall short of the glory of God".

-The British, with their theft of Irish lands, Opium wars in China, Exploitation of Indian labor.
-The Americans with their Commodore Perry and gunboat diplomacy forcing Japan into opening its markets in 1850s (which of course led to Pearl Harbour) and territorial colonization of Phillipines.
-The Ottomans trying to take over all Europe being stopped at Vienna in 1683
-The Spanish Muslims trying the same from the other direction, being stopped at Tours in 722
-The Crimean war, Spanish Civil war.. Marxism with its failed 'theology' of mechanistic determinism and revolutions etc etc etc...
-Chairman Mao's 'cultural revolution/genocide'
-Stalins purges.
-Australias treatment of Aboriginals.
-Malaysia and Indonesia's treatment of Indigenous people.

Forgive me for saying so bluntly, but.. JESUS..IS.. THE WAY. (To a renewed society, through renewed people) but the kingdom of God is not 'of this world' so don't look for an ideal 'Christian State' it aint gonna happen.

On Israel, LOGIC pointed out in another thread that it has PEACE and GOOD relations with Jordan and Egypt...why ? simple, they have no 'Israel must be destroyed' agenda, in contrast to Hezbollah and Hamas.

My friends in the deli and fish shop, in the streets of my suburb and in the suburbs of my city are often from Lebanon. Some are Italian, some are Greeks, some Chinese and they all have one thing in common - none of them have murdered any Jews to my knowledge.

Should the family of my friends in the deli have their parents bombed to bits with cluster bombs, possibly phosphorous and DU dipped weapons by Israel because they were born on a particular piece of dirt.

It will always come as a shock to many who think that land is an excuse for bombing people that when they are dead the land is still there. What are they wanting to do? Continue fighting for the same piece of dirt for 3 generations, 4, 10, 50? What is the point if they poison the land and make it unfit to live on as most of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo now are? How about Vietnam due to agent orange?

Will Lebanon be worth living in when Israel is finished spilling blood, oil and bombs?

The Jewish people are not in threat of extinction. They cannot be murdered by the million anymore as the US would protect them all and what I see now is over reactive paranoia.

As for all those Islamists killing "us" everywhere - over 100,000 dead in Iraq and we caused it. That makes one soldier from Australia who killed himself worth more than 100,000 Iraq civilians to many. Is that right?