Palestine accorded State status by UN

[Cyrano Johnson]

As for why Israel withdrew, it never wanted nor does it want to occupy any country other then the one that they claim. Why wouldn't they back out?

I'm not talking about occupation. If everything you claim is true, why would they back out without destroying Hezbollah? That was their most important victory condition. Why would they be satisfied with abject failure in their victory condition? (Their other aim was to terrorize southern Lebanon with indiscriminate airstrikes, and that worked, but leaving Hezbollah in place and intact was not part of the plan.) It did no wonders for Olmert's career, it damaged the IDF's image... what would be the point?

As for your claims about having read "the statistical facts," it sort of depends on which ones, since there are no readily-accessible statistical facts about Hezbollah casualties: guerillas don't wear uniforms and the IDF have a habit of counting slain civilians as "combatants" anyway. Israel's own high estimate of Hezbollah casualties, BTW, does not claim the 10:1 kill ratio that you claimed. The high IDF estimate, probably inflated, is 600 Hezbollah killed -- less than five for one, which is a shocking statistic for the IDF to actually admit to. If one assumes the Hezbollah estimate to be lowballing, the likeliest real ratio is three or two to one, which is singularly unimpressive for a supposedly elite conventional force against guerillas and makes nonsense of the rosy propaganda claims about how the IDF had achieved "victory." (All that info is at the Wiki link I provided earlier.)

Your claims about "statistical facts" don't seem to have a way of holding together very well or explaining observable reality. Propaganda may go both ways, but as far as I can see here (on the July War tangent at a minimum), only one of us has been taken in by propaganda going only one way.

(One of the best analyses of the July War, incidentally -- informal and stand-up-comic-ish, but it still holds up years later -- came from the infamous War Nerd Gary Brecher. I recommend it.)

[Callie Del Noire]

Increased settlement.

This will not end well. Someone needs to tell the Ultra-Orthodox faction to get bent.

[Chris Brady]

I'm not talking about occupation. If everything you claim is true, why would they back out without destroying Hezbollah?

International pressure.  If their 'allies' decide that enough is enough and stop trading with them, or worse side with their enemies, then they have a problem.  The reason for their ceasing attacks on the Hezbollah is more complex than what you're assuming, and it's got many layers.

[Moraline]

<snip>
As for your claims about having read "the statistical facts," it sort of depends on which ones, since there are no readily-accessible statistical facts about Hezbollah casualties: guerillas don't wear uniforms and the IDF have a habit of counting slain civilians as "combatants" anyway. Israel's own high estimate of Hezbollah casualties, BTW, does not claim the 10:1 kill ratio that you claimed. The high IDF estimate, probably inflated, is 600 Hezbollah killed -- less than five for one, which is a shocking statistic for the IDF to actually admit to. If one assumes the Hezbollah estimate to be lowballing, the likeliest real ratio is three or two to one, which is singularly unimpressive for a supposedly elite conventional force against guerillas and makes nonsense of the rosy propaganda claims about how the IDF had achieved "victory." (All that info is at the Wiki link I provided earlier.)

Your claims about "statistical facts" don't seem to have a way of holding together very well or explaining observable reality. Propaganda may go both ways, but as far as I can see here (on the July War tangent at a minimum), only one of us has been taken in by propaganda going only one way.
<snip>

I guess I'm going to have to assume your hostility is passion for the topic. It doesn't feel particularly polite though.

It boils down to this:  I read the link you gave me, that's where I got the stats from and I read the article.

I see it one way and you see it another. I see the Hezbollah as deceitful terrorists - so to me anything that comes from them is most likely propaganda. It occurs to me that perhaps you believe what they say more then what the Israelis say (maybe).

It's just a difference of who we think the propaganda is coming from. I don't actually beleive either of them but considering the nature of Hezbollah and Hamas, I'm more inclined to believe Israel.

Don't mistake that for Israeli support though - I believe they are on occupied land and that they should not be on it in the first place - so I don't actually support them per se.

I think that's a good enough place to leave it.

"So long and thanks for all the fish."

[elone]

Increased settlement.

This will not end well. Someone needs to tell the Ultra-Orthodox faction to get bent.

As usual, the US and European union condemn the new settlement plans but stand by and do nothing. The article you cited even says that the Israeli's know that no one has the balls to do anything but offer lip service, so they go on about the business of wrecking any chance for a two state solution with a viable Palestinian state. Since the UN bid by Abbas, Israel has decided to punish the Palestinian Authority through threats and actions. I would think they are trying to push Abbas to negotiate some type of settlement. Unfortunately, there is no Palestine left to negotiate for, Israel has swallowed it up.

The only real hope for Palestine as a viable nation will come when the rest of the world, US included says "enough" and gets tough on Israel with sanctions, withdrawal of aid, or something equally punitive. Good luck with that!

[Cyrano Johnson]

I guess I'm going to have to assume your hostility is passion for the topic. It doesn't feel particularly polite though.

Oh. Uh, sorry about that. See below.

It boils down to this:  I read the link you gave me, that's where I got the stats from and I read the article.

It occurs to me maybe you misread the section about Lebanese civilian casualties as meaning Hezbollah casualties. There's a lot to assimilate there.

I see it one way and you see it another. I see the Hezbollah as deceitful terrorists - so to me anything that comes from them is most likely propaganda. It occurs to me that perhaps you believe what they say more then what the Israelis say (maybe).

I generally expect both sides to lie in ways that flatter them -- I most certainly do not expect the Israelis to be less guilty of that, that would be very far from their historical pattern * -- and who's a "terrorist" is meaningless to me as a factor in that. (To whatever extent Israel ever did hold the moral high ground, that position has deteriorated by now to nonexistence; there is very little that's done by Hamas or Hezbollah in terms of war crimes that isn't by now mirrored or exceeded in cruelty by the IDF, as note the July War wiki page's section on war crimes. The term "terrorist" has in that context functioned for the IDF as basically a meaningless weasel word that justifies a wide swathe of atrocity.)

* Again as I've said earlier, what has really begun to drag on the Israelis is the sheer amount of bald-faced deception that's become necessary to justify their occupation and war-related policies. If I seem to grow irritable at times, it's not meant personally; it's just that someone who's been having debates like this for years has seen certain tropes and claims and rhetorical habits so many times that they become hard to treat seriously. But I don't mean to be needlessly hostile and I appreciate your willingness to debate seriously. So again, sorry about that.

[Cyrano Johnson]

International pressure.  If their 'allies' decide that enough is enough and stop trading with them, or worse side with their enemies, then they have a problem.  The reason for their ceasing attacks on the Hezbollah is more complex than what you're assuming, and it's got many layers.

I don't think international pressure would explain it. The main ally they generally need to keep the international community off their backs -- and the only ally to whose pressure they respond, and that in a resistant and limited fashion -- is the Americans, who were extremely enthusiastically in their pockets for the July War and even now (though having retrenched to a somewhat saner posture) are a long way from being willing to threaten Israel with any real consequences for misbehaviour*. In the post-war recriminations, there was little reference that I'm aware of to having somehow knuckled under to international pressure as a reason for having let Hezbollah go; the recriminations were about having been beaten by Hezbollah in an operational sense (or at least about a "lacklustre" performance by the IDF), which indeed is what the numbers seem to reflect. They appear to have been tentative basically because they were losing too many men to inflict too little damage.

(* Though at least they can now be relied upon to exert some pressure against smaller operations like the recent bizarre escalation in Gaza, which the IDF kicked off by assassinating their own ally who was supposedly brokering a ceasefire with Hamas. I wonder what the real story is there...)