Israel is totally surrounded with sworn enemies that if THEY had the means would have killed every Jew in Israel 40 years ago. Israel can't sit there and keep giving land while taking homicide bombings and rocket fire. They have got to stop the attacks on their citizens. As long as the world keeps making Israel stop every time they start kicking Hamas' rears, the sniping will never stop. We know the Arabs don't value life, so only if Israel wins will there ever be peace.
Has anyone encapsulated the dynamics of the current conflict better that alavol??
While we focus on Gaza it would be wise to consider what is going on in other areas.
During Christmas of '07 I met a Christian arab who resides in Bethlehem, he said things are growing steadily worse for Palistinian Christians. It isn't wise at all, if you care to live long, to show any outward signs of Christianity there, for instance to display a cross in a shop window or at the entrance of a home is like asking to be killed.
Here is what happened about twenty years ago in Lebanon:
13th October 1990
In October 1990, the Syrian military supported by a few Lebanese troops loyal to Hrawi launched an attack against General Aoun. The attack came just after 7:00 a.m. on the 13th October and started with an air raid by Syrian Soukhoi fighter bombers against the Palace and the Ministry of Defence.
For many years a no fly zone over the whole of Lebanon had been enforced by the Israelis preventing the Syrians from using their airforce, on this day however, the Syrians were allowed to fly by the United States as reward for their joining the NATO coalition against Iraq in the Gulf crisis.
Immediately before the assault, Syrian aircraft overflew the Matn to test the efficacy of American intervention with Israel.
The air attacks lasted 13 minutes after which Syrian special forces troops advance under massive artillery cover, LF artillery joined Syrian artillery and fired on the Lebanese Army.
The French considered intervention through their fleet positioned off the Lebanese coast, but after this did not materialize due to American pressure, General Aoun realizes that he cannot win and at 8:45 a.m. announces his surrender from the near by French embassy in order "to avoid even more bloodshed, limit the damage and to save what remains."
The surrender is broadcast on all radio stations throughout the day as General Aoun personally contacts his field commanders to orders that they "obey the orders of the commander in chief of the Army, General Emile Lahoud."
At 10:00 a.m. the Syrians enter the Palace but despite this, many units of the Lebanese Army initially refuse to surrender and heavy fighting continues, a Lebanese Army unit counter attacks Deir al-Qalaa, at Beit-Mery, and manages to oustSyrians special forces that had occupied the monastery by force at the very start of the day. The Lebanese unit finds that some of the monks in the monastery had been killed by the Syrian troops.
At Douar, on the Bikfaya front, the elite commandos engaged Syrians tanks and caused heavy damage. On the hill of the Prince, at Souk al-Gharb, the cadets of the military Academy, assisted by regulars of the 10th Brigade put up a very hard fight.
In Suq al-Gharb itself, Aouns Lebanese army units, with only a fraction of their pre-February 1990 hardware, killed about 400 Syrians before the front was overrun.
The Lebanese Army headquarters at Yarze despite the radio broadcasts refused to give the ceasefire order as they had not been able to speak with Aoun and verify the order, finally announcing it 12:30 p.m after establishing communications with the general. It was fortunate that Aoun had managed to directly speak to many of his units and so prevent much bloodshed.
Disaster did strike however at Dahr el-Wahesh, village between Aley and Kahaleh, where the 102nd unit of the Lebanese 10th Brigade had been positioned. The 10th Brigade had been rather thinly deployed throughout the front line and during the battle some of its units had been unable to communicate with their headquarters and those soldiers at Dahr el-Wahesh, numbering less than one hundred had not heard the radio broadcasts.
Details of the events that followed are rather vague due to the lack of survivors. It seems that heavy fighting had occurred from the outset around the village with Syrians taking heavy losses. After the ceasefire was announced, around one thousand Syrian soldiers along with a handful of troops from the Lebanese 6th Brigade which was traditionally loyal to Amal, approached the village from Aley during what they believed was a ceasefire.
The Lebanese soldiers unaware of the ceasefire fired upon the Syrian column with light artillery. The Syrians were caught in the open and in panic some Syrians ran straight towards the Lebanese positions and some ran into a mine field. A Lebanese officer of the 6th Brigade informed the defenders of Dahr el-Wahesh that the fighting was over and that they should surrender.
The officer commanding the 102nd and his men would only surrender to a Lebanese Army unit and not to the Syrian Army. The Syrians however would not pull back and a fight to the death followed.
Estimates of Syrian losses ranged from 160 to 450 in the battle that followed and it seems that the 102nd fought on until their ammunition ran out refusing to let Dahr el-Wahesh, which overlooks the Palace, fall into Syrian hands.
Later that afternoon some 80 bodies of soldiers of the 102nd would be brought to a Baabda mortuary, most had their hands tied behind their backs and had been shot in the back of the head, some had been stripped down to their underpants before being executed.
The Syrians executed one of the officers, Emile Boutros, by forcing him to lay down on the road and then driving a tank over him. At least 15 civilians were executed by Syrian soldiers in Bsous after having been rounded up from their homes, and another 19 people, including three women, were reported to have been killed in cold blood in al-Hadath. Around the Presidential Palace another 51 Lebanese Army soldiers were stripped and excecuted.
It was also reported that at least 200 supporters of General Aoun, most of them military personnel, were arrested by the Syrian forces in east Beirut and its suburbs, these men simply disapeared. Many of them are believed to be still held in Syrian prisons.
Father Suleiman Abu Khalil and Father Albert Sherfan, two priests, also ''disappeared'' during the events of 13 October 1990. Father Albert Sherfan was the head of the Deir al-Qalaa Monastery in Beit Meri and Father Suleiman was the treasurer.
On 13 October 1990 it was reported that the Syrian forces took up a position near the monastery, after a long battle which claimed the lives of 25 Syrian soldiers, because of its strategic position overlooking the Metn districts and other areas.
These two priests, who had not been killed in the battle, ''disappeared'' on the same day together with some soldiers of the Lebanese army who had apparently taken refuge in the monastery.
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Over the next few days after the surrender of General Aoun, Syrian agents moved into East Beirut and many Aoun supporters were arrested. Opposition was put down.
On 21st October 1990, Dany Chamoun, the leader of the National Liberal party, who was against Syrian presence in Lebanon and had been a strong supporter of General Aoun's policies was killed in cold blood by uniformed gunmen who broke into his apartment in the early hours.
His wife and his two young boys, aged 5 and 7, were also killed in the most disgraceful of ways. The scale of the horror and the savagery of the killings were barbaric even by Syrian standards. The housekeeper took Dany's baby daughter and hid in the attic, they were the only survivors. What is not surprising is that nothing has been done to find the assassins.
