Israel Can Swap Prisoners for Soldiers

August 15, 2006, 5:41 AM EDT

JERUSALEM -- Israel has 13 Hezbollah prisoners and the bodies of dozens of guerrillas that it could offer in exchange for two captive soldiers, military officials said Tuesday.

Israel has publicly insisted that Hezbollah unconditionally release the captured soldiers. The U.N. Security Council resolution that led to the cessation of hostilities also demands that Hezbollah hand over the Israeli prisoners.

But the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media, indicated that Israel was ready for an arrangement though a mediator that could ultimately lead to the release of the prisoners it holds.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has appointed Ofer Dekel, formerly the deputy head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, to oversee efforts to bring back the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah July 12 in a cross-border raid that sparked 34 days of war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-mideast-israel-prisoner-swap,0,4947812.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

army and a terrorist.

The pro has better equipment?

orders to fight or stand down from a nation.

At worst a terrorist just does what his small band wants him to do. At best, what his warlord wants him to do.

It is an overused and abused word at this point.

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Their cause may be wrong but they are still fighting for a cause.

essay, "Politics and the English Language." Members of JFK and LBJ's administrations called the National Liberation Front "terrorsits." Members of Reagan's administration called the African National Congress "terrorists." And, ironically, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon belonged to an Israeli organization (Irgun) that the British called "terrorist."

Language is a virus.

I have no right to fight them because I have no uniform?

sons in an unprovoked attack first?

legitimate responses talking points. Sign of a weak argument on your part.

so save your BS arguments for the uninformed.

Did I miss the facts that back this idea up?

The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them.

The forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli military would not confirm the report.

<more>

http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/07/12/ap2873051.html

...by the AP itself, placing the attack outside Lebanon.


Interesting 'facts' you got there.

It was pretty big news.

"In short, there seems to be no real evidence for the so-called alternative story, especially not in view of the very extensive account and pictures released in Israel for the original version, i.e. that the two soldiers were abducted across the border just inside Israel."
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2006/07/29/kidnapped-in-lebanon-i-think-not/



""Hezbollah militants crossed into Israel on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded in southern Lebanon with warplanes, tanks and gunboats, and said eight of its soldiers had been killed in the violence."
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1107.shtml

I couldn't find anything definitive, one way or the other, in either one of the links provided. They all state that the IDF personnel were either captured in southern Lebanon, or along the Lebanese/Israeli border.

videos can be doctored, testimony tampered with, etc...


So you have:

Media outlets, after reviewing evidence, claiming they were kidnapped from Israel
Israel claims they were kidnapped from Israel
Hezbollah not even claiming they were captured in Lebanon



So honestly, you're back to having no evidence on your side. Even antiwar.com, which would love your version to be true, agrees they were in Israel.

I just look at the lopsided body counts and shake my head. It just sucks for everyone. In any case, peace.

But I thought Hezbullah is Lebanese. The UN sees Shabaa as territory that belonds to Syria?

So by your logic Hezbullah is an agent acting on behalf of Syria and Israel probably should have bombed Syria then?

But, I guess since you are so well informed you know all of this and will come back with an clear and concise explanation of exactly what you meant.

whereas the international community (including the UN) states otherwise. What could be said with some amount of certainty is that Shabaa is NOT Israeli territory, therefore it was occupied land.

Lebanese in the years following their retreat from Lebanon in 2000. Not to mention the 10,000 Palestinians they hold in the dubiously-named "administrative detention."

these captured Lebanese back? They are not prisoners of war, they were criminals accused of crimes against Israel. A Lebanese soldier would be a different story. Legally, these people are simply criminals and Israel has every right to detain them according to their laws.

how many 1000's of Lebanese people have been held in prisons in Israel for years? Most of them were taken off the street, never charged with a crime and their families are never told. That is a form of kidnapping too.

claim.

there is no such thing has 'unprovoked'.

should just go ahead and try and wipe out the other before the balance shifts. Isn't that the consequence of your logic?

After doing search, I recall you, ERF, from ealier discussions here.

or did it get deleted?

:crazy: :eyes: :rofl:

...equally dead?

if the cause is wrong then it is wrong.

The Germany Army was not held to be a criminal organization at the end of the war, unlike the SS, Gestapo and others.

Indeed, individual German soldiers committed crimes and many were punished, but the war fought primarily by the German army, while wrong and criminal on the part of the politicians who fought it, did not implicate the soldiers are criminals.

This is why if you would like to attack Olmert's decisions, you will get less of an argument from me than attacking the soldiers who fulfill their duty to their country. Thus my disgust at another poster for falsely claiming Israeli soldiers were looting bodies. Other have called them baby killers.

Hezbullah fighters, on the other hand, volunteer for what they are doing and they serve no country. The fighters are just as complicit in the crimes as the leaders they voluntarily choose to follow.

If you want to discuss the underlying problems that would lead a young man to join Hezbullah, that it also something different. . .

...and better health care insurance.;)

oh, and they don't mind hiding behind their women and children.

out of uniform behind enemy lines they are terrorists?

By the way Hezbollah soldiers do have uniforms. You can google pictures of them marching in parade. They just can't be standing around in parade formation wearing uniforms while fighting a guerrilla war against an enemy force that has total air superiority.

government will publicly deny involvement. Legally, they are terrorists - yes.

According to the Geneva convention, those Hezbullah "soldiers" who remove their uniforms are committing war crimes. If captured they can be summarily executed.

They should be tried for their crimes.

Which law is that?

But we digress. Then you agree that the US, which routinely uses its special forces in just this way, is a terrorist state.

I suppose W. would call them "enemy combatants". What I should have written is that they would not of POW status under the Geneva conventions.

Is the US a "terrorist state"?

First define it and then ask me again.

So, there goes the logical argument. Good try, though...

the original.

Of course, you are always perfect so . . .

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last 300 years would qualify as "terrorist." No better sign that the word has out-lived its usefulness among people who think.

I think, therefore I dissent.

were fair game and proceeded to target them.

Generally this is because most liberation struggles over the past 300 years were against occupying colonial powers in which only the troops were around. When families were available, occassionaly they got killed too as happened in India and China.

Those liberation struggles over the past 300 years in which groups actively targeted the civilians in the homelands of the countries from whom they were seeking liberation were, in fact, labelled terrorists.

So your logic just plain doesn't work out this time.

as long as you have a fancy uniform it's okay to commit atrocities.

The one with the biggest bombs, gets to assign the labels.

A professional usually has a much bigger bomb and kills alot more innocent women and children. But in a good way of course!

Those who protest and are of insufficient size to have an army resort to what is nowadays termed terrorism.

Hezbullah is a terrorist organization. Hamas before it was in govt. were arguably freedom fighters. Once in govt., their armed wng became a militia of a political party.

not an opinion.

misconstrued. Some nation's have no armies at all. Some are much smaller than the terrorist militia that is Hezbullah.

Another FYI: Some terrorist organizations ultimately BECOME the goverment, like Irgun:

<snip>
Irgun, shorthand for Irgun Tsvai Leumi, (also spelled Irgun Zvai Leumi), Hebrew for "National Military Organization", was a clandestine militant Zionist group that operated in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1931 to 1948. In Israel, this group is commonly referred to as Etzel, an acronym of the Hebrew initials. The Irgun was called a terrorist organization by the British authorities as well as several Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Agency, Haganah and Histadrut. Its political association with Revisionist Zionism rendered it a predecessor movement to Israel's right-wing Herut party.
</snip>

indepently of it and is therefore at best an armed militia of a political party. Perhaps akin to the SA.

Is it the same as an internationally recognized state, or is it something else?

nation
n 1: a politically organized body of people under a single
government; "the state has elected a new president";
"African nations"; "students who had come to the
nation's capitol"; "the country's largest manufacturer";
"an industrialized land" commonwealth, res publica, body politic]
2: the people who live in a nation or country;

http://dict.die.net/nation/

this is what always happens and always will happen. if only we had pulled our hand out of our puppet Israel before this conflict then we could have avoided it altogether. but some people just like the taste of blood

Yes, they are supposed to be different than terrorists, but when a state military aims to "capture" (but oh not kidnap!) enemy combattants - and their corpses - and exchange them for your own people, isn't that pretty low behavior for a professional armed force? Especially one that calls the capture of two uniformed soldiers "terrorism"?

on it?

Ha'aretz did report about the retention of corpses, and presumably they raided that hospital near the Syrian border with Hezbollah people in it (in what capacity remains unclear) for bargaining chips. But I regret there's no way I'd find a link.

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to be sceptical of unsubstantiated claims -which this one was and when challenged remained so. Even you didn't seem capable of copying and pasting a link.

Moreover, defending Israel and being sceptical of unsubstantiated claims is not troll-like behaviour.

If you want to believe everything you read, however, I do have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.

PS I do appreciate the lesson on DU etiquette in terms of properly referring to our idiot-in-chief.

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and I'll leave it at that. When we discover more facts, then we'll talk, I guess.

that Hezb forces looted bodies?

Not in the sense of removing loot from bodies, but removing body bits as loot?

So much superior.

As noted in the article that began this thread? You likewise find that creepy, barbaric and savage, right? I mean, you're not one given to double-standards, I assume?

off pieces of those they killed as trophies. Which is what the comment was about to which I responded and not the OP.

The 2004 prisoner exchange sent hundreds of Palestinians and the remains of 59 Lebanese militants in exchange for one Israel and the remains of three IDF soldiers. Remains seem pretty important to each side.

I guess they could always leave the corpse lying around.


BTW, when did the killing of the eight Israel soldiers, 100s of rockets fired on civilians and two kidnapped soldiers become 'captured'?

...became "self-defense".

This was Hezbollah's original offer for prisoner exchange. Israel just spent a whole lot of its own money to indiscriminately bomb civilian targets and infrastructure, only to fight to essentially a draw with an inferior military force in both arms and troops, only to go back to the original offer.

And thousands, if not millions, had to suffer for this arrogant stupidity. In the meantime, Israel has just exposed to Iran and Syria that its army isn't the formidable war machine that many claim.

One month of death and destruction only to be back where it started, having to do a prisoner exchange.

If Israel had simply started bargaining, what would have protected any soldier or civilian? There had to be a response.

The hard part about Hezbullah is that they were hiding behind their wives' skirts and hoilding babies in their arms while firing their missiles.

Israel pulled punches. Otherwise it would have annhilated everyone there.

Since its existence was not immediately threatened, they were able to fight a limited war. If Syria and Iran dared to threaten Israel with missiles, planes or tanks, they would soon find themselves with tens of thousands of dead soldiers in a conventional war.

Of course, neither Iran nor Syria could threaten Israel existentially, because of the nuclear deterrent.

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It has absolutely zero legitimacy. For all I know Nasrallah himself wrote it. Words on a page (or computer screen) do not reality make.

All those dead innocent civilians for nothing. :mad: :argh: :spank: :grr: :banghead:

This could have been done right at the start.

I guess we now know how effective the new anti-tank weapons are, though. Governments, militaries, and corporations will be glad to use the results of this field testing.