User:GHcool/Opinions on the 2006 Lebanon War

My opinions on the 2006 Lebanon War were formed through my experience of being in Israel during the entire duration of the war, speaking to the people affected by it, and reading/watching the Israeli and international media covering it.

The war started on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah terrorists on Lebanese soil launched Katyusha rockets at Israeli civilian border towns, killing eight Israeli soldiers and wounding five Israeli civilians. At the same time, individual terrorists crossed the internationally recognized border and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Hezbollah did not have a single casualty in the July 12 operation. Hezbollah's plan was brilliantly executed, all taking place in about 20 minutes.

This was the immediate casus belli of the war, but other factors, such as Hezbollah's, Lebanon's, Syria's, Iran's, and the United Nations' complete failure to abide by their part of the UN resolution that states that Hezbollah must be disarmed, while the U.N. confirmed that Israel has completely fulfilled its obligations of ending its military presence within in Lebanon following the earlier conflict in the 1980s.

Accusations

 * "Is there any explanation as to how Hezbollah can target civilians when in fact the vast majority of those killed Israeli colonists in July-August 2006 were military thugs?" - User:Jacob Peters
 * "Hezbollah does not have the capability to deliberately target civilian areas. They have no air force.  Their WWII-era Russian rockets are hopelessly primitive. Due to the extremely low civilian death toll inflicted by bombs fired by Hezbollah, it is dishonest to claim that Hezbollah deliberately targets civilian areas." - User:Jacob Peters
 * "Israeli soldiers defaced and destroyed private property just to spite the Lebanese people." - User:Carbonate
 * "[T]here hasn't been a single terror attack that has been proven to be perpetrated by Hezbollah." - User:Count Iblis

Reality
Israeli Vice Prime Minister Eli Yishai stated the Israeli objective in the war as clearly as anybody has: "If one has to choose between hurting the Israeli home front or the Lebanese home front, I prefer that the Lebanese get hurt. It hurts me to see civilians hurt by our air force, but there is no choice.  We cannot be bleeding hearts while our citizens are being hurt.  If Lebanese citizens pay the price, they will rise up against Hezbollah." To be sure, Lebanese bystanders were the greatest victims of this war, but the fact that they did not rise up against Hezbollah is not necessarily Israel's fault. Unfortunately, it seems like the world has not learned much from that conflict: a new resolution saying more or less the same thing (and adding the unconditional delivery of the two captured Israeli soldiers) was passed by the U.N., but as of this writing the U.N. have done virtually nothing to stop Hezbollah from rearming and the kidnapped Israeli soliders have not yet been released, while Israel has again been confirmed that they performed their duties of the resolution.

Fellow Wikipedian Isarig was correct when he said of Jacob Peters's argument, "Your conclusion does not follow from your premise, even if your premise was true." To expand upon Isarig's response, I'd like to rephrase Jacob Peters's argument in logical form: (1) Hezbollah has "no air force." (2) Hezbollah's "rockets are hopelessly primative." (3) The Israeli "civilian death toll inflicted by bombs" was "extremely low." Therefore, (4), Hezbollah does not and/or cannot target civilian areas within Israel. Now, let's look at each claim. Claim #1 and #2 are both true. Claim #3 is poorly defined. Do the "bombs" refer to katyusha rockets? What civilian death toll would be considered "extremely low?" And, as Isarig already stated, even if all three claims are true (and one can argue that they are), why would #4, the conclusion, necessarily follow? If anything, the opposite conclusion would follow from Claim #3 alone: Hezbollah does and can target civilian areas within Israel. Furthermore, Jacob Peters's conclusion contradicts his earlier statement that "If Hizballah wants to, they can fire rockets on what is rightful Palestinian territory under Zionist occupation." A more detailed analysis of that statement can be found further down this page. Sadly, Hezbollah terrorism is not the only undisputable fact that Jacob Peters denies. Jacob Peters has spent signficant energy on Talk:Joseph Stalin trying to prove that the brutal leader of the USSR was not such a bad guy after all: "Calling an immensely popular government leader like Stalin a dictator is a blatant violation of NPOV policy. There is no basis to the claim that Stalin was a dictator." In short, because of the fact that Jacob Peter has a very limited knowledge of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and because his arguments and moral distinctions are limited when it comes to world history, it is my opinion that he should no longer be taken seriously on topics pertaining to Hezbollah (that is, if he ever was taken seriously to begin with). Thankfully, the rest of the Wikipedia community rightly feels the same way and it appears that Jacob Peters has been blocked by an admin indefinately for repeated sockpuppets, for previous block evasions, and for not playing "by the rules" in the words of the admin that blocked him.

Recommended links

 * The ADL's response to a similar false accusation as the ones I've debunked above
 * BBC News's summary of the 2006 Lebanon War
 * "Civil war / Not only Lebanon's problem" - Haaretz article on how Hezbollah continues to threaten the security of both Israel and Lebanese civilians
 * "Lebanon War of 2006" - The Anti-Defamation League's description of the war
 * "Second Lebanon War: Hizbullah attacks northern Israel and Israel's response" - report by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs with lots of links and pictures
 * "Hizbullah's exploitation of Lebanese population centers and civilians" - photographic and video evidence showing Hezbollah's human shield tactics