While this thread continues to grow longer with abundant personal attacks unrelated to the issue, the prisoner exchange on the occasion
(who knows if more will take place) is in reality a fait accompli.

mdma, I have no way of knowing exactly what the overall response was to the prisoner exchange, but because I typically choose to read from a variety of locations including the following opinion from a Lebanese publication, prior to the exchange, suggests to me not all Lebanese in the end would react in the same manner in a nation that appears to remain divided?  Maybe CedarPride will choose to comment about this column as I'm unfamiliar with the publication, but felt it was worth while to add to this discussion. Only a single opinion, but it suggests not all Lebanese remain in total support of Hezbollah. 

CedarPride, please educate me.  We may share a possible description by mdma, if nothing else as a "female dog" not an atypical name for
a woman who may be in disagreement with his misogynist attitudes. 

Counting the cost
NOW Staff , June 30, 2008

So the rumors are true, and Lebanon will soon be welcoming back, among others, Samir Kantar, held in an Israeli prison these past 29 years. Hezbollah is already trumpeting the deal as another major victory for the Resistance and, no doubt, a vindication of the kidnapping operation that precipitated the July War of 2006.

On paper, Hezbollah appears to have the better deal. Assuming they are dead, Hezbollah will give Israel two bodies in exchange for five “live” Lebanese and an unspecified number of Palestinians detainees. So, two years later, the abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser has done exactly what it was intended to. Mission, as they say, accomplished.

At least, that is the picture being painted by Hezbollah officials today. But viewed in proper perspective, this is creative accounting at its most tasteless. The prisoner swap is not the whole deal, just the final clause. Conveniently forgotten are the reams of gory appendices in a much larger and bloodier contract written out almost exactly two years ago, with all of Lebanon as collateral. Indeed, the full audit is still ongoing.

How much is the Resistance’s pledge worth? Add to the two Israeli bodies the bodies of 1,200 Lebanese civilians, nearly 400 of them children under the age of 13, sacrificed by Hezbollah to secure Kantar’s return. Add to that the 4,400 wounded civilians, of whom almost 700 are permanently disabled. Add to that those killed and wounded, most of them children, by the cluster bombs still littering large swaths of South Lebanon. Add to that the billions of dollars in destroyed homes, infrastructure and livelihoods.

In the final tally, Kantar – whose alleged taste for violence far exceeds the remit of the typical heroic freedom fighter – is a very expensive man. For make no mistake, his release is the sole profit weighed against the thousands of Lebanese dead and wounded. The four other Lebanese prisoners to be released were themselves captured on his account during the July War, and the number and names of the Palestinians to be freed are entirely at Israel’s discretion.

So Kantar will be freed, and Hezbollah’s word is once again proven to be Lebanon’s bond. We hope and pray that any Lebanese prisoners still held in Israeli jails come at a cheaper price in the future. If each is as expensive as Mr. Kantar has been, they may find themselves heroically repatriated to a desolate wasteland. "

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=49254

But, mdma, in the end shouldn't your concerns be more appropriately addressed to your government as you have suggested mine should be to mine? 

Abraxas, though like your post, an older article but in this case from the BBC, though also IMHO, OT for this thread, a factor those who choose to suggest an attack by Israel and the U.S. on Iran because of the refusal of Iran to end the enrichment of uranium, is typically one that is avoided or ignored. It's way past time IMHO to demand that Israel come clean about their own nuclear arsenal instead of demanding
other nations in the ME allow them to remain the only ME nation armed with nukes.

One nation of the Bush described "axis of evil" has been invaded and occupied. Another has been dealt with through diplomacy. The third
may continue to be threatened at least by Israel and very possibly by the U.S. as well, while the reality of the Israeli nukes is not considered a dangerous one by those who often support any and all actions by Israel. 

Israel's nuclear programme
While Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, few international experts question the Jewish state's presence on the world's list of nuclear powers.
Its nuclear capability is arguably the most secretive weapons of mass destruction programme in the world.

Unlike Iran and North Korea - two countries whose alleged nuclear ambitions have recently come to the fore - Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.

As a result, it is not subject to inspections and the threat of sanctions by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The extent of Israel's nuclear capability has been the subject of often wildly inaccurate intelligence estimates since the 1960s, when the country's nuclear reactor, at Dimona in the Negev desert, came online.

The suspicion and fog surrounding this question are constructive, because they strengthen our deterrent
Shimon Peres
Former Israeli Prime Minister
The shrouds of secrecy have lifted only once, in the mid-1980s, when a former worker at the plant, Mordechai Vanunu, gave a British newspaper descriptions and photographs of Israeli nuclear warheads.
Vanunu's evidence led to a sharp upwards revision of the number of nuclear warheads Israel was believed to possess - to at least 100 - and possibly as many as 200.

By way of comparison, India and Pakistan - the most recent members of the "nuclear club" - are widely believed to have about 20 warheads each. They successfully carried out nuclear weapons tests in 1998, leading to fears of an escalated conflict between the two rival South Asian powers.

There is no evidence that Israel has ever carried out a nuclear test, but there is speculation that a suspected nuclear explosion in the southern Indian Ocean in 1979 was a joint Israeli-South African test. Post-apartheid South Africa has dismantled its nuclear weapons programme.

Origins

Shortly after its creation as a Jewish homeland in 1948 and following the horrors of the Holocaust, in which six million European Jews were murdered, Israel began showing an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons - the "ultimate deterrent".

In 1952, the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission was formed and began working closely with the Israeli military.

By 1953, a process for extracting uranium found in the Negev desert was perfected and a new method of producing heavy water was developed - providing Israel with its own capability to produce some of the most important nuclear materials.

For reactor design and construction, Israel sought and received the assistance of France.
According to Washington-based website GlobalSecurity.org, a secret agreement between the two nations saw construction of the Dimona plant begin in the late 1950s.

The complex was variously described as a textile plant, an agricultural station and a metallurgical research facility until 1960, when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stated that it was a nuclear research centre built for "peaceful purposes".

From its early suspicions that Israel had nuclear ambitions - overflights by U-2 spy planes revealed Dimona's construction in 1958 - the United States expressed concern.

During the 1960s, US inspectors visited Dimona several times but were unable to obtain an accurate picture of the activities carried out there.

GlobalSecurity.org says the Israelis went so far as to install false control room panels and to brick over elevators and hallways that accessed certain areas of the facility.

The inspectors were able to report that there was no clear scientific research or civilian nuclear power programme justifying such a large reactor - seen as circumstantial evidence of the Israeli bomb programme - but found no evidence of "weapons-related activities".

In 1968, a US Central Intelligence Agency report concluded that Israel had begun to produce nuclear weapons.

Years of speculation about the size of Israel's nuclear arsenal followed.

The Vanunu affair

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked as a technician at the Dimona complex, gave London's Sunday Times newspaper detailed information about Israel's nuclear programme that led observers to declare Israel the world's sixth largest nuclear power.

Before he could reveal more to the media, Vanunu became the victim of a classic "honey trap".

He was lured out of hiding in London by a female Israeli secret agent who persuaded him that she wanted to meet him in Rome. Once there, he was drugged by other Israeli agents and brought home.

Later that year, he was jailed for 18 years after a trial for treason that was held in secret. Viewed as a traitor and a spy by most Israelis, Vanunu remains in prison to this day and has spent most of his sentence in solitary confinement.

Israel's former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, widely regarded as the architect of Israel's nuclear weapons programme, testified at the trial that Vanunu had done serious damage to Israel's security.

Mr Peres subsequently said: "A certain amount of secrecy must be maintained in some fields. The suspicion and fog surrounding this question are constructive, because they strengthen our deterrent."

Arab anger

Other states in the Middle East, many of them strong supporters of the Palestinian cause, have expressed deep concern about the existence of an Israeli nuclear weapons programme.

They also accuse the US of operating a regional policy of double-standards, ignoring Israel's weapons programmes while insisting that others - notably pre-war Iraq, Iran and Syria - are a threat to peace because of their alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency recently urged Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and surrender its nuclear weapons in order to further peace in the Middle East.
Mohamed ElBaradei told an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that the IAEA operated under the assumption that Israel had nuclear weapons despite the fact that it had never officially confirmed this.

He warned that Israel's belief that it was safer because it possessed such weapons was false, as other Middle Eastern countries felt threatened by their presence.

And he urged Israel and its neighbours to begin talks on halting the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

"My fear is that, without such a dialogue, there will be continued incentive for the region's countries to develop weapons of mass destruction to match the Israeli arsenal," he said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3340639.stm

Published: 2003/12/22 17:30:34 GMT

Oh, stop flattering me. I'm sorry for previous j-off. I thought it is normal to use that phrase in your country.


Butters,,,
We don't have nukes in desert. There is a nuclear research facility near Dimona which used as research facility only. These are facts.
Scientist believe aliens exists, have you seen any of those? Do you know any alien besides one smiling to you in the mirror ?


So this is Tomas, he is a simple woodcutter from planet Xex. Look into his eyes! Do you see his shocked mug? This is what happens when you tell an alien from planet Xex about Israeli nuclear warhead hidden in desert. Fockin o'rly, isn't it?



My husband is Jewish pilot,,,
I've never user "female dog" to describe Cedar. This was Terry and his jow body' Zenter.
This is how you usually do you Arab propaganda, damn terrorist.
first you falsificate documents and then shift the blame for the same crime on West. Imho i should buy you 'I<3Gitmo' t-shirt for that.

but you're right i'm a misogynist because i'm ugly inside and outside thus women dislike me. So this is kinda mutual

Sometimes me wonders do you use abbreviation CIA or ASIS as much as you use Mossad? You sound like member of those African tribes that still live inside the jungle and got Nike t-shirt remaining after eating the tourist  so they use the word 'Nike' as synonym to anything related to outside's world ...

I will take 3 hats, a helmet and 2 bandannas.

Any more offers?

Zenter,

     Cedar has a problem with Westerners in relation to the whole Mid-East thing. She thinks that we know little about it. Kind of sad, actually and she blames the problems with Lebanon on the West also.
Lebanon was once known as the pearl of the Mid-East, tourism from all over the world. Now, nothing but an empty shell. But Zenter, Lebanon will return to its glory days sooner than you might think... even with the meddling of Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran. 

Ok. I will tell you the reason for my posts. I haven't visited this forum for ages. So I am sitting home, sick, and I decide to see what has been going on there. And imagine my surprise!

2 years! 2 years I explain to you that Hizbullah took these soldiers not because they woke up one day and decided to kill Israelis, that this operation was not aimed to declare war to Israel, nor was it related to Israel's right to exist. It was to get back their people in an exchange of prisoners. And what is your first post, in none other than the very thread that shows that they wanted an exchange of prisoners, in the thread discussing, in detail, the exchange that took place:



2 years I explain to you (plural) that the exchange is a norm and it has happened for ever, that even Hassan Nasrallah's own son Hadi was delivered in a coffin many months after he was killed in none other than such a prisoner excahnge and what do I see?

Not only a bad precedent, but


2 years, and post in, post out, ever since the war was over and you need to remind yourself and others of the fact that:



As if your only consolation to come to terms with the outcome of the war was to keep reminding yourself of the fact that the people of Lebanon has lost too. It seems that it is your comfort zone. Not only that, but in a thread that is talking about human casualties, you conveniently forget the human casualties of that war and concentrate on the economic aspect. And IF you had been right about the economic impact of that war, it would have been ok. Even though a simple google search would have told that not 1 dollar was spent from the Lebanese treasury, and that millions came to Lebanon from Qatar, Iran, KSA and other Arab countries that we did not even feel the economic impact, not to mention that those millions were more than we would have expected from a full touristic season, you would have realized that this comment was only for your peace of mind.

Since that war, we have had the longest sit-in in the history of the country, spanning almost 18 months that closed Down Town Beirut, we have had assassinations, a war in a palestinian camp, presidential election deadlines, no president for over 4 months, a mini-war in Beirut, the Doha accord, the election of a president, a 97.3 % rise in tourism between June last year and this year, and you are stuck in a war that is no more than a dot in history for us because you do NOT update your information except when something happens that concerns Israel, so you miss major events and try to link dots while missing years at a time.

Many posts you and Crypto go on about how disgusting the people who are welcoming Kuntar are for welcoming a child killer, a convicted murderer, many posts Crypto claiming to be objective, BUT, in all objectivity, and before taking this as proof that all these people are disgusting, did it occur to you that these people, unlike you, do NOT believe in the Israeli legal system, and do NOT blindly believe in a ruling that was made in a court whereby the judge, jury, prosecution, witnessess AND defense were ALL Israeli, and they chose to believe Kuntar's version instead?

Noooo, it was easier to consider an entire population disgusting, many of whom have lost not one, but hundreds of children to the Israelis btw?

So yes, what I saw was people butchering facts to fit their opinion of the situation, instead of using facts to form or alter an opinion. I saw people who have convinced themselves they were objective whereas every post they made showed how subjective they were. Notice I did NOT attack Patton, because unlike you and Crypto, I did not have any lengthy conversations with him, I did NOT attack md or rub it in because I KNOW what he was feeling. But you and Crypto? Pathetic posts really.

You want to hate for the sake of hating, you want to delete facts and historical events because they do not fit your opinion and agenda, you want to convince yourself that someone actually has higher morals in this conflict, that's fine. You want to take sides is also fine. It is not a prerequisite to like Lebanon or Hizbullah, I do not even mind that you like Israel and take its side. BUT, in THIS particular thread, and on THIS particular subject, you willingly chose to dismiss facts and you refuse to admit that THIS particular incident, as proven by evidence and facts, was NOT unprovoked, was NOT a declaration of war, was NOT about Israel's right to exist and was ONLY about bringing people home.

Would Hizbullah launch an unecessary attack on Israel someday? Maybe, who knows. Would there be instances where such attacks would be unprovoked and related to Israel's right to exist? Maybe. And then, your current opinion would have some value and I may even agree with you

BUT THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE IS NOT, AS SHOWED BY EVIDENCE, AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE EVIDENCE BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE IT, THEN YOU CHOOSE TO BE WILLINGLY IGNORANT. ALL I DID WAS TELL IT AS I SAW IT.

Oh please.  What a bunch of nonsense.  The guy is a kidnapper and a murderer.  You want to take him at his word that he didn't kill the girl or her father.  Right, and you claim we are willfully ignorant?

What would you have the Israeli's do?  Let the judge, jury, prosecution, witnesses, and defense all be from Hezbollah?  They would have given the guy a medal.  My personal opinion is that murderers aren't to be believed.  Once you start down the road of kidnapping and murder, the whole, "I'm innocent" thing doesn't quite hold the same weight.  Add to that the fact that this animal wants to keep fighting the Israelis - a real class act I'm sure.

If those are the people you chose to hold in high esteem in Lebanon, no wonder things aren't going so great..........


And your heros keep wanting to pick fights with Israel.  You boo-hoo cry every time Israel fights back and you suffer, and then your heros want to keep rattling the lion's cage.  Maybe I was wrong.  It isn't disgusting, it is moronic.


No, you attacked us because you had no counter-argument.  That is why people make personal attacks.  When their position is so weak, the best strategy is to accuse posters you disagree with of being bloodthirsty, brainwashed, ignorant, or stupid.  You managed to do all of the above which speaks volumes about your "facts".



You are the one who made it clear that we don't hate enough to understand..........Now you are talking in circles.


This does not take place in a vacuum.  Evidence and facts have not shown anything of the sort.  The evidence points to the likelihood that Hezbollah will do the same thing again as they see this as a great victory. 


Oh great, here we go again.  Our opinions have no value because they have not been proven?  Cedar, once something has been proven, it moves into the realm of fact and opinions are no longer possible.


You've given no evidence at all.  Not a shred of it.  If you can prove that Kuntar was innocent, that he won't fight with Israel again, that the 4 others released with him were innocent and will not fight Israel, and that Hezbollah was not politically strengthened by this prisoner exchange then you will have voided my argument.

You have yet to do this.  The closest you've come is to tell me that I am bloodthirsty, brainwashed, and ignorant.  So far, you are losing.

Crypto


Haha. You have known me for two years and you think I have no counter-argument? I can come up with them in my sleep because they are out there for everyone to see except for the willingly blind.

I attacked you because you made a very ignorant comment and based an entire argumentation on it. And because by reading your posts after your self-proclaimaing as an objective person, you reminded me of those preachers who spend their days preaching and then at night, become everything they preached against. You know, I even prepared a long post that could prove my points, but I decided against posting it. I can't be bothered with this conversation any longer.

Here are just a couple of links about the Israeli justice system you seem to blindly believe in.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/01/22/korman.court/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_Darweesh_Al_Hams

You can also google IDF and culture of impunity and see what you can get.

I am sure that if an American had been tried in Cuba, or an Israeli in Lebanon, you would take the judgment just as "objectively" as you did with the Israeli judgement of Kuntar.

Anyway, I have my own opinion of the Kuntar case that does not fall in any category mentioned so far. Just to prove that there is more than one, and even 2 ways of looking at this thing. For the really objective, that is.

It's easy to convince yourself to be objective and knowledgeable. The real challenge is to convince others.