Hezbollah and Isreal are in conflict, civilians are going to die. It is that simple. Some of those civilians are going to be children. Some are going to be babies. Some may even be pemature babies in incubators. Some may be children playing games. Whatever; civilians will die. SO WHAT. That is just a fact of war. It does not make it a warcrime if this happens. It only makes it a tragedy. Just a bloody awful tragedy. It is that simple.
To say Isreal is commiting warcrimes because civilians in Lebanon have died is a gross attempt at redefining the term warcrime. Isreal gave Hezbollah an oppurtunity to return the two kidnapped soldiers. Isreal responded to a very clear military breach of its borders by Hezbollah. Isreal in the first month of this interrupted war never targetted all Lebanese civilians. Isreal was very careful to target areas that support Hezbollah, the putative state of the shi'ite muslems in lebanon. Think about this: Isreal primarily targeted infrastructure, gave lots of warnings, and if they had actually wanted to target civilians tens of thousands would be dead.
Your notion that any warcrimes have been committed by Isreal flies in the face of reality. If you accept that Hezbollah's method for inflicting harm on Isreal through primarily targeting civilian areas for rocket/missile attacks then there must be an equivalent acceptance of Isreal's measured response on your part. Obviously while not accepting Isreal response you think it is fine for Hezbollah to intentionally target civilian areas with surprise missile attacks. There is something wrong about this position. Please elaborate what your talking about.
Lebonan has had several years to tackle the issue of Hezbollah. Lebanon while crying victim in this war may be the one that has committed any moral crime. Yes Lebanon the victim may be the moral criminal here. Not Isreal. Not Hezbollah (which is only the local bully run amok). Lebonan has had years to do something about Hezbollah and they have failed.
Since Hezbollah first gained noteriety through the slaughter of more than two hundred US marines about 22 years ago by a suicide bomber their methods have always been criminal. That is right, always criminal, most people know this, including muslims. However they are a force to be reckoned with in Lebanon with an easy enemy to use when whiping their support base into cohesion.
Isreal has never launched a war. They have never been found to have fixed up an excuse to launch a war. Every war they have been in has been when they have been violated by an aggressor.
Take a look at the crap that is going on in other places in the world. Darfur, Iraq, Afganistan, on and on, in all sorts of places. The world ain't a pleasant place for a lot of people. Why you would even consider the almost nonsensical notion that there are war crimes by Isreal in light of some of the real war crimes that go on every day is almost unbelievable. Except there is a lot of OIL in Persia/Arabia which causes a great imbalance in the way news is reported, and the oil importing countries respond to the feeling of OPEC countries, which generally abhor Isreals non muslim nature.
It is tragic that a thousand Lebanese died because of this conflict. It is far more tragic that the Arab/Persian world can't get its anti-semetic head around the full acceptance of Isreal's existance. Because a lot more people are going to die because of this intolerance. So if you really want to protest something protest against intolerance.
None of those bloody minded middle-eastern countries existed before the first world war. Like Isreal they have all have been created in the aftermath of the huge wars that took place last century. I honestly can't think of one that pre-existed the first world war. Even Egypt was made up. Any claim made about the rightness of Isreal to exist has to bear in mind that most of the anti-Isreal countries - who are the most ardent promoters of the position that Isreal has no right to exist - were themselves all created by fiat just like Isreal.
I hope you state what you mean by warcrime and child death. While sad and tragic, child death in war is not a war crime; it may be in the future, but now, it is not. Unless you have evidence that Isreal is premptively killing the next generation of terrorists through intentionally targeting children ( this is very poor joke). And what do you mean by children. Do you mean those who could not possibly be helpful to Hezbollah because they are too young, or an arbritary designation of younger than 13, 16, or 18, etc.
I am ranting. In the month of the conflict how many Lebanese children died? How many American children died of preventable causes in this period? How many children around the whole world died? Put things in perspective. If you want to do something there are more helpful ways than protestig Isreal's neccessary response to a terrorist organization (that may become the legitamate government of Lebanon).
Edit: made a big mistake hopefully I cleaned up arguement.
Glad I changed your mind Evolved. Maybe I went on for too long.
D
[This message has been edited by genuineD (edited 08-25-2006 @ 03:26 PM).]