Thursday, July 20, 2006

Will Israel Open a 3rd or 4th Front?

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution today "condemning the recent attacks against the State of Israel, holding terrorists and their state-sponsors accountable for such attacks, supporting Israel's right to defend itself."

No surprises here. Yet while the House bill echoed most of the language of Senate Resolution 534, passed Tuesday, the House measure was more robust. One Congressman who voted against the bill, Jim McDermott (D-Washington), objected to a particular clause not included in the Senate's resolution.

The House bill supports "Israel's right to take appropriate action to defend itself, including to conduct operations both in Israel and in the territory of nations which pose a threat to it."

I think McDermott is right to conclude that this amounts to the House endorsing an expansion of the Israeli campaign onto other fronts. How much one should read into that is anyone's guess.

Only 8 members of the House opposed the bill. The only Republican was a wacky libertarian type from Texas. Michigan Democrats came out strong against the measure. Detroit Reps. John Conyers Jr. and Carolyn Kilpatrick and the Dearborn area's John Dingell represent the largest Arab-American and Lebanese-American populations in the country, and they have all issued public statements on the crisis.

Here in the East Bay (CA) Pete Stark voted no, while Berkeley and Oakland's Barbara Lee abstained. We didn't get any statements.

4 comments:

:-) said...

Hello Noah,

my opinion is that Israel should not belief in any resolution at all - they will get disappointed (at least in the long run). I also think, that there will be no peace without the prince of peace - Jesus. Only god can change bitter and hardened hearts on both sides and I`m praying for the holy spirit to lead all polititians to wise decisions. Don`t trust in resolutions - trust in god - he is not sleeping as it is written in Psalm 121 vers 4: "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."

Baruch haba baShem, ADONAI

Anonymous said...

I'd like to note that in the beginning of the war because it started so fast the world was with Israel but within a few days when the international media started reporting and sending in the reporters, Israel is now shown to be the aggressor.

Anonymous said...

"I don´t have any doubts about USA and Israel guilt"

Marxists never do. Look in the mirror though and you will see what you pretend to hate!

Anonymous said...

"the world was with Israel but within a few days when the international media started reporting"

No, the world was not with Israel. The world could not deny Hezbollah’s aggression and it, knowing that Israel was going to respond, had to act like it was even handed. But the "even handed" nature of the world tends to be an even handedness between good and evil, not seeking for justice, as it should be.

The "world was" supposedly "with" America when 2000 of its people died in the World Trade Center but when it responded by taking it back to the terrorists and their sponsors the world turned against America. That was predictable -- even as there have always been people who sympathized with the worst dictators of history.

Some of the initial "sympathy" expressed is not a unity of mind against the terrorist aggressors but more that of a gawking onlooker who secretly enjoys America or Israel taking a hit.

As to the "international media", we were not born yesterday. It would be an understatement to say that it was predictable that the world media would portray Israel's attempt to take the trash out of southern Lebanon as wrong.

That's right... "trash"... Any group of people who are openly sworn to genocide and/or who relentlessly target and attack innocent civilians are trash ala Pol Pot/Stalin/Lenin/Mao et al. There can never be peace or justice where such people exist.

Yes, innocent civilians have been killed, wounded and harmed. Any one who has a conscience feels very bad when this happens whether the victims are Arab or Israeli. But the difference is this: Israel's enemies target civilians. They are openly sworn to taking Israel off the map. Israel targets terrorist aggressors and Israel has gone to great lengths to have peace with it neighbors. In both cases innocents die. But Israel has the high moral ground. (Some people, atheists and fanatics, don't know what morality is once they leave the stem of their spinal cord.)

If you'd like to get a better understanding of the nature of man read The Motivations of Political Leftists.

I also think you will find Dissecting Leftism very educational.