From: bh437292@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Basil Hamdan)
Subject: RE: was:Go Hezbollah!
Reply-To: bh437292@lance.colostate.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: parry.lance.colostate.edu
Organization: Engineering College, Colorado State University
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I will try to answer some of Dorin's questions, even though they were
not addressed to me specifically, but I feel that I am a bit concerned
by the thread since I am a Southern Lebanese from a village that is 
often on the receiving end of Israel's bombs.
In the first place the death of three soldiers on a patrol in occupied
Lebanese terrritory is NOT an act of terrorism or murder.  It is 
disingeneous to compare their death to that of athletes in Munich
or any other act of terrorism or mrder.  This exercise is aimed 
solely at diverting the issue and is far from the truth.
It seems to me, Dorin, that, you are so remote and ignorant of the problem
on the ground that your comments can only be charactrized as irrelevant,
and heavily colored by the preconceptions and misinformation.
I will try to paint the most accurate picture I can of
what the situation really is in South Lebanon.

In article <1993Apr15.152455.14555@unocal.com>, stssdxb@st.unocal.com (Dorin Baru) writes:

|> Is there any Israeli a civilian, in your opinion ?
|> 
|> Now, I do not condone myself bombing villages, any kind of villages.
|> But you claim these are villages with civilians, and Iraelis claim they are 
|> camps filled with terrorists. You claim that israelis shell the villages with the
|> 'hope' of finding a terrorist or so. If they kill one, fine, if not, too bad, 
|> civilians die, right ? I am not so sure. 

I am.  I was back in my home village this last summer.  For your information
we are PEOPLE, not a bunch of indiscriminate terrorists.  Most of the 
people in my village are regular inhabitants that go about their daily
business, some work in the fields, some own small shops, others are
older men that go to the coffe shop and drink coffee.  Is that so hard to
imagine ????  It is NOT a "terrorist camp" as you and the Israelis like 
to view the villages they are small communities with kids playing soccer
in the streets, women preparing lunch, men playing cards, etc.....
SOME young men, usually aged between 17 to 30 years are members of
the Lebanese resistance.  Even the inhabitants of the village do not 
know who these are, they are secretive about it, but most people often
suspect who they are and what they are up to.  These young men are
supported financially by Iran most of the time.  They sneak arms and
ammunitions into the occupied zone where they set up booby traps
for Israeli patrols.  Every time an Israeli soldier is killed or injured
by these traps, Israel retalliates by indiscriminately bombing villages
of their own choosing often killing only innocent civilians.  Once they
are back they announce that they bombed a "terrorist  hideout" where
an 8 year old girl just happened to be.
We are now accustomed to Israeli tactics, and we figure that this is 
the Israeli way of telling us that "if you're gonna hurt our soldiers
you're gonna pay the price".  We accept this as a price we have to pay
to free our land, Israel knows very well that it is not really hurting
the resistance that much militarily with these strikes, but rather
just keeping the pressure on the villagers to demand from their young 
men to stop attacking Israeli soldiers since these attacks are
taking a heavy toll on the lives of the civilian villagers.
Israel's retalliation policy is cold hearted, but a reality that
we have come to accept and deal with, the Lebanese Resistance
on the other hand is not going to stop its attacks on OCCUPYING 
ISRAELI SOLDIERS until they withdraw, this is the only real 
leverage that they have to force Israel to withdraw.
The people of South Lebanon are occupied, or shelled by Israel on a 
regular basis.  We do not want to be occupied.  If Israel insists that
the so called "Security Zone" is necessary for the protection of 
Northern Israel, than it will have to pay the price of its occupation
with the blood of its soldiers.  If Israel is interested in peace,
than it should withdraw from OUR land.  We are not asking for the 
establishment of a Lebanese occupied zone in northern Israel to protect
our villages that are attacked on a regular basis by Israel, so the
best policy seems to be the removal of Israeli occupation and the
establishment of peace keeping troops along the border.

I have written before on this very newsgroup, that the only
real solution will come as a result of a comprehensive peace
settlement whereby Israel withdraws to its own borders and
peace keeping troops are stationed along the border to insure
no one on either side of the border is shelled.
This is the only realistic solution, it is time for Israel to
realize that the concept of a "buffer zone" aimed at protecting
its northern cities has failed.  In fact it has caused much more
Israeli deaths than the occasional shelling of Northern Israel
would have resulted in.  
If Israel really wants to save some Israeli lives it would withdraw 
unilaterally from the so-called "Security Zone" before the conclusion
of the peace talks.  Such a move would save Israeli lives,
advance peace efforts, give Israel a great moral lift, better Israel's 
public image abroad and give it an edge in the peace negociations 
since Israel can rightly claim that it is genuinely interested in 
peace and has already offered some important concessions.
Along with such a withdrawal Israel could demand that Hizbollah
be disarmed by the Lebanese government and warn that it will not 
accept any attacks against its northern cities and that if such a
shelling occurs than it will consider re-taking the buffer zone
and will hold the Lebanese and Syrian government responsible for it.
There seems to be very little incentive for the Syrian and Lebanese
goovernment to allow Hizbollah to bomb Israel proper under such 
circumstances, and now the Lebanese government has proven that it is
capable of controlling and disarming all militias as they did
in all other parts of Lebanon.
  
|> If you ask me those questions, I will have no problem answering (not with a 
|> question, as you did) : No, NOBODY is qualified candidate for murder, nothing
|> justifies murder.

I agree, only in the case of the Isareli soldiers their killing
CANNOT be qualified as murder, no matter what you say.

 I have the feeling that you may be able yourself to make
|> similar statements, maybe after eliminating all Israelis, jews, ? Am I wrong ?

Yes, we have no quarrel with Jews, or Israeli civilians.
The real problem is with OCCUPYING Israeli soldiers and those brave
Israeli pilots that bomb our civilian villages every time an 
occupying soldier is attacked.
 

|> Dorin

Basil