Posts Tagged ‘Israel’

The unintended consequences of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon

Posted: June 7, 2022 by chrisharper in middle east
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By Christopher Harper

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which began 40 years ago this week, created a variety of unintended consequences from the rise of militant Islam to a Shia swath from Lebanon to the Arab Gulf. 

I traveled as a reporter throughout the Arab World for many years, covering some of the worst episodes of human despair and devastation of the 20th century. But the Israeli invasion, which began with Tel Aviv’s goal of removing the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon, had a devastating effect on the world.

On June 6, 1982, Israeli forces launched an invasion of Lebanon called “Operation Peace for Galilee.” About 60,000 troops and more than 800 tanks, heavily supported by aircraft, attack helicopters, artillery, and missile boats, crossed the Israel–Lebanon border. A few days later, the Israelis and their Christian allies had encircled Beirut, where my colleagues and I reported on a siege that would end nearly three months later when the PLO evacuated Lebanon for other Arab countries.

Accurate casualty figures are difficult to find, but the independent Beirut newspaper An Nahar published an estimate of deaths from hospital and police records that claimed that more than 17,000 people died, roughly half civilians.

After the PLO’s departure, Christian forces murdered between 700 and 2,000 people in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in South Beirut. Israeli forces stood by as the massacre happened in September. I worked on an excellent documentary about the tragedy, “Oh, Tell the World What Happened,” for ABC News.

Although the PLO had many flaws, it was distinctly nonreligious. After the Israelis drove the PLO from Lebanon, Shia Muslims took control of the Lebanese government, creating an even more hostile force with Syria and Iran’s military and religious backing. That resulted in an attack on October 23, 1983, when 241 Marines and seamen died in a truck bombing in Beirut. The attack used Iranian funds, Syrian know-how, and Shia bombers. 

Here is the ABC 20/20 investigation I produced:

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfhAAhQ4FBg&t=2s

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgAFQYIYGpY&t=11s

The cross-border confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shia group in Lebanon, led to a war in 2006, which emboldened the Islamists. Furthermore, Hezbollah joined forces with Hamas, a Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip that continues to harass Israel today.

The Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon became a critical training ground for guerrillas and terrorists worldwide under the control of both Sunni and Shia extremists. Many foreign soldiers who fought U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s got some of their training in the Bekaa Valley. 

It’s rare that a decision from 40 years ago continues to create havoc, but that’s precisely what occurred when Israel decided to invade Lebanon in 1982. 

Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora Mostly Olympics Edition

Posted: August 3, 2021 by datechguy in culture, Sports, Vive L'Empereur
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It really amazes me that the same people in the media who take no offense with American Olympic Athletes running down our country that they supposedly represent taking great offense at me choosing not to support them for that reason.

The people who are rushing to say the failure of the “transgender woman” weightlifter to place proves there is no advantage for men claiming to be ladies might have a better argument if the weightlifter in question was not in his mid 40’s.

The fact that a mid forty’s guy was able to beat out any women from his country to represent it in the Olympics speaks volumes concerning this reality.

If you really want to understand how crazy this all is go to a venue that requires masks and tell them you are in fact masked and define yourself as masked while at the same time insisting that you in fact the opposite sex of what you are.

Watching them slobber to call you by the sex you desire while insisting that the evidence of their own eyes is enough to determine if you’re wearing a mask will speak volumes.

I’m really torn on the Simone Biles business, particularly after she came back to compete in a singles event. A player who knows they are a drag on the team should not jeopardize their position on the other had at this level does a person owe it to their team to go forward if at all possible.

Can you imagine how the person who was the last cut from the squad must have felt knowing that they were bumped for someone who backed out of the competition?

It’s unfortunate that Biles will likely be remembered more for this moment then her previous successes, I wonder if she considered that before making the call?

Finally we once again had an Arab athlete in judo pull out because they drew an Israeli opponent in the competition.

This is constantly spun as being done in support of the Palestinians but in my eyes he is simply terrified at being beaten by a Jew on an international stage.

Given the record of Arab nation in warfare against Israel this fear is a lot less irrational than it sounds.

Finally China seems to be hypersensitive as to how their athletes are being portrayed, particularly in losses to Japan.

As I’ve written before I believe China as a nation still hasn’t gotten over what Japan did to them in WW 2 and I suspect defeat at their hands, really rubs them the wrong way.

My gut tells me that China is doing what it’s doing these days because they know the demographic clock is against them and figure their time to flex their international muscle is now.

Time for Israel to Move Back into the Gaza Strip and Stay

Posted: May 18, 2021 by datechguy in Israel, middle east
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The real danger is that we who support the war will reach the point that we say “we might as well be taken as wolves then as sheep”.

Me at Instapundit May 31st 2006

OK Israel let’s face facts.

It’s been 16 years since you pulled out of Gaza leaving greenhouses and infrastructure intact as a good will gesture toward peace and to some degree Israel reaped rewards from this to wit:

  1. It shrunk the area that needed to be defended
  2. It demonstrated the bad faith of the Palestinians
  3. It demonstrated Hamas’ inability to take care of the basic needs of a population
  4. It opened wide the conflict between Hamas & Fatah
  5. It demonstrated that the Palestinians are less interested in a state and more interested in a launching ground for attacks.

But in the end all of these demonstrations to the world lose their meaning in a world were actual reality doesn’t matter. When you have a press that doesn’t see the difference between people who fire rockets at a population from within civilian structure and people who defend their countries from it. For example there is a lot of talk about Iron Dome and its excellent success rate but it’s a system that no other country wants to buy, why? Because any other country faced with such attacks would have gone in and crushed those attacking it.

It’s time for Israel to do the same.

Israel should roll back into Gaza, take the territory and either annex it or give it a status as a non-voting province.

What will the world and the press do? Attack and condemn Israel? They do than anyways.

What will Hamas and the PA do, try to kill Jews? They do that anyways.

As for the left in the west what are they going to do , hate Israel more then they do now? Hate Jews more than they do now? As I said many years ago on Instapundit concerning Haditha:

Our press and the anti-American left both in this country and outside of it has been reporting “Hadithas” over and over again over the last three years.

Time and time again our friends have accused us of every possible atrocity that there is to the point that internationally people are already able to believe this or the 9/11 stuff or all the rest.

Because of this, internationally it is totally irrelevant if the Marines actually violated the rules of war. Our foes are going to say that we’ve done things if we do them or not, so the only people that it really matters to will be; the people killed (and family) and the people in our own country who support the military.

The real danger is that we who support the war will reach the point that we say “we might as well be taken as wolves then as sheep”.

How the left in the west reacts is the least important question to answer.

The important question is: What will the Arab states do? There is one simple answer, likely nothing.

The states that made peace with Israel didn’t do so because they loved Israel or didn’t hate Jews. They did so because they are threatened by Iran and will be no less threatened if Israel is in Gaza. The question is will they decide they’re less threatened if Iran though Hamas no longer controls Gaza or more threatened as Iran’s ability to hit the Jewish state is curtailed? I think it’s the former.

It’s time for Israel to stop being sheep and given the a taste of General Sherman’s war so that Generations will pass before they again appeal to it.

Now if they prefer to have their citizens duck rockets every few years when a Democrat or a weak republican is in office it’s their country.

But if they take my advice the rockets will be over.

Update: Apparently Israel’s PM reads this blog:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is pursuing “forceful deterrence” against Gaza’s Hamas rulers and does not rule out a further escalation.

Meeting with foreign ambassadors on Wednesday, he said “you can either conquer them, and that’s always an open possibility, or you can deter them.”

“We are engaged right now in forceful deterrence, but I have to say, we don’t rule out anything.”

Jews Protecting Arabs Visiting Mosque from Palestinians

Posted: October 24, 2020 by datechguy in Israel, middle east
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File this under stories that you never thought you would see.

We have lived to see Arabs enter Al-Aqsa Mosque under Israeli protection. It is shameful.

Elder of Ziyon notes the irony here:

The only reason any Arabs need Israeli protection to visit the site is to save their lives from the hateful Palestinians who would lynch them if they could.


In fact, an Emirati tweeted the video I published yesterday of Palestinians harassing Gulf visitors to the site with the caption, “Thank God that Jerusalem is in the hands of the State of Israel.”

In fairness when the Arab paper called it “disgraceful” it was not because Arabs are being attacked:

Is there any real difference between an Arab delegation visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque under Israeli protection and hordes of extremist Israeli settlers whose incursions and practice of Talmudic rituals there take place under the protection of the same security forces? The crime of these Arabs is arguably greater.

Mind you the fact that Palestinians are threatening and beating Arabs isn’t the disgrace to the writer, but that Israeli security stops the beatings.

No wonder ANTIFA & BLM like these guys so much, they’re birds of a feather.

In normal times this is a story that might be all over the place.

But now that the Democrats are in full BDS Anti-Israel mode this is the invisible story as it’s the type of thing that disturbs the narrative.

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