Leigh and 2 bob are like blind broken records, just like Howard, Bush and Blair.

Hezbollah did not start this mess, Israel planned it all two years ago after 6 years of daily flights and attacks on south Lebanon since 2000 when they supposedly withdrew. Get a grip on reality boys.

They are fighting less than 3,000 people with a vast army, tanks, cluster bombs, war planes and apache gunships all supplied by the US. Then they whine about a few little rockets.

Sure the people of northern Israel are scared but most of it fear created by the moron Olmert who hits the panic button at the first noise.

The thing though is that almost every Israeli still has their own home intact while 1 million Lebanese who did nothing at all to anyone have nothing left at all.

Even eminent Jews find this repulsive and want it stopped.

The Israeli's have no right to impose curfews on the citizens of another country, no right to deny medical and food aid, no right to blow up roads and bridges, towns and cities because they can.

The christians have not all left Lebanon, they have not been touched to date except for one attack yesterday in a mixed area.

Australia has about 200,000 Lebanese and 100,000 Jews. We have to stop being captive to the Jews and listen to the Lebanese as well. To do otherwise is madness as Tony says.

Cont'd

If you're going to be pragmatic, then you have to say that this isn't our problem. The world of fundamentalist Islam has no real beef with the western world, aside from fiery comments from imams to satisfy their constituents, but they do have a beef with Israel and the US. If we weigh in, it becomes our problem too.

If you're going to be idealistic, then you need to help out the impoverished muslim nations. It's a wacky thought, but perhaps if fewer of them were living in either poverty or warzones, perhaps they'd be less aggressive?

Neither of these solutions means giving aid to Israel - I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm just saying that if we do we need to accept what we're getting into, and decide from there - not deciding out of fear of terrorism, but making the decision based on what it really has to do with us.

TurnRightThenLeft,

Read the Koran and then tell us you are truly confident in your belief that “The world of fundamentalist Islam has no real beef with the Western world.”

Too many people in the secular/Christian world assume that Islam, like Christianity, just has a few hot heads prone to violence but that like all religions, is basically peaceful in nature. Please don’t just accept that as true. Islam has violent clashes with every ideology and culture it encounters around the world and if you read the Koran you may see why.

Read the Koran, and tell us how much love and good will you find in it.

Read the Koran and think about where Australia’s national interest lies.

Inshallah 2bob

You're discredited.

'Israel will pound Lebanon until someone realises that Lebanon is alone, and that Lebanon is beat.'

Inshallah

2bob

Posted by 2bob, Wednesday, 9 August 2006 1:01:44 AM

Is this your truth now?

Originally you claimed you went to war to beat Hezbollah. Now you are claiming to be at war with Lebanon, not Hezbollah nor the Lebanese Army.

Whay are you at war with Lebanon? Is it because you cannot beat Hezbollah?

Why did the impotent IDF bomb that Lebanese civilian funeral today?

How do I get an easy academic job writing articles for Forum?

As an engineer I have to support my customers, can be sued for negligence and generally have to do a professional job

"All Lebanese, both Muslim and Christian, are now fiercely angry with Israel for the destruction and misery its invasion is wreaking."

All? Has he not read of Lebanese supporting Israel on various websites?

"The now famous Mearsheimer and Walt article, The Israel Lobby".

Famous with whom? The ldea that Jews control the media as this article claims ignores the reality that Murdoch and others are hardly Jewish.

"Any criticism of the work of these lobbies is likely to be met with personal attacks. One would either be labelled as anti-Semitic, or as a self-hating Jew."

Which will you now classify me as? I am neither.

"Australia, with our large Jewish and Lebanese origin populations". Jews amount to about 100 000 in a population of 20 million.

Hardly very large.

"Israeli conduct in Lebanon, which is unacceptably opportunistic and grossly disproportionate to the provocation."

Pardon me but Hezbollah were storing thousands missiles and shouting the destruction of Israel. What sort of response would be proportionate?

Perhaps the Australian government were influenced by the possibility of a fanatic group in the middle east trying to battle the world. A not unreasonable concern given several famous bombings.

And Marilyn Shephard.

Which broken record are you playing? I can express great sympathy for the Lebanese. Can't you show some understanding of Israel's problem? Give us a good solution which will allow the whole of the population to live there in a guaranteed peace and I will support you.

It is the water. It must be when Logic and co are so illogical and without thought.

1. If Israel had actually left Lebanon instead of repeatedly invading her would the Lebanese hate her or like her? In fact they had been allies but the Israeli's breached the borders almost every day since 2000.

2. The Israeli's are not at risk of extinction and the deranged claims that they are are driving me nuts. 42% of all the Jewish people on the planet live in the US and only 39% live in Israel.

3. There was no such thing as fundamentalist muslim "terr'ism" until the west used them - against Russia in Afghanistan and other places. Will you please give this story a rest now. There is no way they are capable of murdering and slaughtering on the scale we can.

Should our foreign policy be dictated by the US because they want help blowing up Iraq? Dictated by Indonesia because of a few refugees? Come on - which part of "we are a sovereign nation" don't you guys understand with your whining fairy tales?