In Reply to: Re: No thanks posted by X on August 28, 2006 at 03:50:08:

Israel's enemies have indeed killed thousands of Israelis but Israel has consistently killed many times more - 17,000 of its enemies in one short period alone were killed by Israel. In Lebanon this year over 1100 killed by Israel in a pre-planned attack on civilians versus 145 killed by Hezbullah in the same war - Israel are much more efficient at killing their enemies.

There's absolutely no way the Israeli manner of waging war against civilians is legitimate. Lat time I looked it is not allowed by the Geneva convention to attack clearly marked red-cross ambulances taking wounded from a bombed apartment block for example. That's pretty cowardly and despicable in my book and nothing excuses it. It is not legitimate warfare to bomb hospitals and schools and civilian apartment blocks. That is just as cowardly as getting on a bus and blowing yourself up. In fact more cowardly in that the person pressing the button in a fighter jet is not even in danger because the enemy do not even have an airforce to fight back.

If they had done an Entebbe style raid and recovered their two prisoners everyone would have cheered and said good for them. If they had traded a few of their many thousands of prisoners snatched and held in Israeli prisons and gotten their boys back that way, people would have said that's civilised behaviour.

But a pre-planned assault on a whole country killing thousands of innocent civilians is not civilised and it is not the way to counter a guerilla war. And for what? All thy have done is legitimise Hezbullah even further - wait for the next election in Lebanon and see how many more Hezbullah members of parliament are added and how many more ministers they have in their democratically elected parliament. Just like Hamas all Israel succeeds in doing is making them more popular. Israeli tactics are cowardly uncivilised and they are merely throw petrol on an already blazing fire.

The IRA waged a war from their own homes for years killing thousands also. What if the British government had taken the Israeli line and decided to raze the Republic of Ireland or a zone stretching from Dundalk to Cavan, Monaghan and Sligo right along the border as a buffer zone flying Royal Airforce jets and bombers daily to flatten hospitals, schools, villages, ambulances on roads, dropping cluster bombs for children to step on in their playgrounds? Would that have been be legitimate warfare? That is precisely what the Israelis have done.