I was listening to the news on the radio the other day the story was something like "Israel successfully dismantled the operation of a Hezbollah controlled hospital..."

It took me a minute to translate this to "Israel just bombed a hospital" Then I have heard next to nothing about the alleged 20,000 non-Israelis who are being held in prisons in Israel, without charge or trial.

The ability of the media in portraying these events properly is questionable.

“As events over the last few days have shown, it (Israel) is a unprincipled basket case that will kill, maim, whatever it takes, to protect its borders”, says another Israel-hater who doesn’t seem to realise that killing and maiming are part and parcel of the conflict. It’s the nature of war, stupid.

Anyone would think that Israelis should sit back and continue to be threatened and attacked by any old Arab Islamist who wants to take a pop at them.

As for the Coalition of the Willing sitting back to ‘allow Israel (to) kill innocent civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure in Lebanon..’, what rubbish. Israel is now required to turn the other cheek after being attacked, it seems. So, more Lebanese civilians have been killed that Israeli civilians, and the terrorists have only ‘little’ rockets. Big deal! This is not a game where one side is handicapped to make it more interesting. Of course the stronger side is going to inflict more damage.

The instigators of the conflict should have thought more about the consequences before the started firing rockets into Israel.

The comments of Alan Dershowitz quoted by James McConvill are chilling and awful, but they are the truth and Israel has no choice but to bombard the terrorists who, in their usual cowardly manner expect, with good cause, the likes of McConvill and other anti-Israelites to criticise Israel from the safety of the West.

While, as the author claims, some may have ‘ been blinded by the bright light of adherents to Israel’ many, including the author, seem blinded to the fact that countries sworn to wipe it out surround Israel. Israel is constantly under threat from Islam and Arabs. Where does McConvill find ‘logic and compassion’ in that?

McConvill’s reference to a supposed ‘Israel lobby’ is another cheap tool used to drum up the idea of aggression and evil. Perhaps this ‘lobby’ is merely a group of people who want to see a democratic country survive amidst a sea of undemocratic, vicious and hate-filled Islamists

The quest for peace is bound to fail if we continue to believe that it can be achieved by force of arms. The Americans with their coalition partners are learning this lesson in Iraq with Iranians agents now having all but taken over the port of Basra and without a shot being fired.

Israelis should heed this. They are daily losing any semblence of security and instead only gaining the insecurity that is spawned by mistrust and fueled by escalating conflict and the arms race. Sure, Israel is vulnerable by its small size and geographic location, but while two men and a truck can continue to fire missiles at them they need to end the violence now.

Surrounded by hostile neighbours let us not forget she has previously fought strategic wars with the limited objective of gaining more and more real estate. Many of the disposessed continue to endure hopeless lives in refugee camps and detention centres.

It would be misleading to draw any comparison with a South Australia hypothetically surrounded by hostile tribes. Israel has the capacity to defend herself with Popeye Turbo missiles having a range of 1500 kilometres. They can be launched from her Dolphin class submarines, probably carry nuclear warheads and would be launched even if Israel, itself were to be totally destroyed. MAD indeed!

Tassiedevil

James McConvill is spot on for the most part, except in thinking of something called "the global community" (which "appeases" Israel etc.) Is anyone else sick to death of hearing mealy-mouthed references to the "global community" or "the international community" when this really means a couple of big-time arms merchants - USA and UK - and their cringing allies, like Australia, pursuing their own interests which tally nicely with Israeli military aggression.

As for "plerdus's" statement about the nice peace on the Egyptian border - the Mubarak regime in Egypt is sitting on an Islamic time bomb and the regime is entirely dependent for its shaky existence on billions of dollars of US aid - almost as much in US $$ as Israel gets every year, courtesy of the US taxpayer, money which then goes into buying US armaments and bunker-busting bombs etc. What a deadly carousel !

Boaz David

Defeat
Deport
Disperse
Absorb.

Hasn't worked in South Lebanon...again

I don't often agree with James but he is spot on this time.