ABSURD STAR TRIBUNE CARTOON ABOUT ISRAELI ATTACK ON LEBANON

OFF THE WALL STAR TRIBUNE CARTOON DEFENDING ISRAELI ATTACK ON LEBANON

The STAR TRIBUNE'S July 26, 2006 cartoon suggesting that Israeli has not reacted disproportionately in Lebanon goes beyond the bounds of absurdity. Imagine that there was a criminal organization in the U.S. that the government had not been able to suppress. This gang had conducted raids into Canada and even kidnapped two Canadian soldiers.In response, Canada conducted massive bombing runs over the United States, causing the death of many Americans, reducing our cities to rubble and destroying our roads, bridges, power plants and all other infrastructure. Millions of Americans had fled south in panic while Canadian planes carried out a turkey shoot on our fleeing civilians. The Mexican government found itself facing a major humanitarian crisis as millions of destitute Americans flooded into an impoverished third world country.And then some newspaper published a cartoon of the armed gangsters under the caption -- And Speaking Of Disproportionate Attacks!

The above was a letter I sent to the STAR TRIBUNE. Meanwhile I have been listening to some sanctimonious Israeli hypocrite on National Pentagon Radio (NPR) esplaining away Israel's bombing of an U.N. observation post. The U.N. observers had contacted the Israeli military twenty times the day of the bombing, including several times during the bombing, to inform them of their presence. At least three U.N. observers were killed. A fourth observer is missing and probably also dead.The sanctimonious hypocrite assured us that the attack was a mistake and that no army could be perfect. I suppose it was just like the more than 400 dead Lebanese! I also heard someone else on National Pentagon Radio saying the U.N. Secretary General had "gone out of his way" to condemn Israel. And our thankfully soon to be retired Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton joined the group of other Democratic Congresspersons in making a show of boycotting the Congressional appearance of the United State's puppet head of the Iraqi state because he said Israel was the aggressor in Lebanon! Oh sure, can you even comprehend the degree of evil that would motivate anyone to say THAT about Israel!The sanctimonious Israeli hypocrite then took a leaf from Bush's use of 9/11, saying that if Hezbollah were given enough time, they would have missiles that could hit Europe.If Europe and the United State continue on like this, Hezbollah or its successors will eventually have nuclear tipped missiles that cannot only hit Europe but the United States as well. We will not deserve the conflagration that ensues but we will have brought it upon ourselves.In the beginning, after the holocaust, the Jewish people felt rightly that they had no alternative but to establish an independent country of their own. The establishment of Israel has been described as a conflict of two rights; the Palestinians living in Palestine had the right to the continued possession of their country and to be free of outside invasion. But the Jews felt rightly that they MUST establish a country of their own and there were no unoccupied land areas on the planet.In the ensuing battles between the Israelis and the Palestinians, many Palestinians were forced to flee into nearby countries. The neighboring Arab countries did not accept the refugees as immigrants so many Palestinians have been relegated to U.N. refugee camps for three generations. If the U.S. and the European countries had made room for the refugees, the bitter emotions engendered by the war would by now have been relegated to history. But the bitterness festered in the refugee camps and by the 70's the desperate Palestinians were hijacking airplanes and holding the passengers hostage.Is seemed for awhile after the Oslo accords were signed on September 13, 1993 and and President Clinton pulled Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, into a handshake on the White House lawn that the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to divide Palestine between them, which was the only feasible solution in the circumstances. But several years later, it turned out that Israel had been establishing settlements in the territory that was supposed to be eventually turned over to a Palestinian state and was now demanding that the settled territory be incorporated into Israel.It should be a no brainer that you cannot reach a peace settlement if you keep encroaching on the other side's territory afterwards. Meanwhile, the U.S.'s support of Israel despite its treatment of the Palestinians has led to the earth's nearly one billion Muslims becoming inflamed with three generations of pent up hatred towards us. This hatred reached its climax with 9/11. While the victims of 9/11 did not deserve their fate, the policies of the U.S. government had brought it upon them and the rest of us.After the holocaust, especially after America had refused to admit Jewish refugees or bomb the death camp ovens and the railroad tracks leading to them, the United States had a moral obligation to help the Jews establish a state of their own. But we did not have a moral obligation to help Israel seize all the territory between Gaza and the Euphrates River. Furthermore Israel is almost totally dependent on U.S. military aid so we are paying for Israel's attempt to expand through all of the former empire of David and Solomon. If the United States cut off the flow of aid until Israel engaged in genuine peace negotiations, Israel would not be overrun by Arabs inflamed by nearly sixty years of built up hatred since Israel would have no choice but to negotiate peace if we demanded it.