Raise your hand if you believe in Peace

as the only answer. Immediate cease fire. Ongoing cease fire. Peace.

Raise your hand if you believe that talking to one another can solve problems, whether with your spouse or neighbor, or with someone of a different color or ethnic group or religion.

Raise you hand if you believe that no matter who "started it" (really mom! he started it!) it is time for this killing to end. END.

Raise your hand if you believe that nothing will be gained from death and dying, and that everything can be gained from a respect for others. All others.

Peace is the only answer, and it is not a simplistic, idealistic answer.

Peace is the only answer.

:hi: (forgot the hand smiley)

this is the process.

Is Hizbullah and Hamas going to go along with it.

What is your plan if they don't??

And since you can't control someone else's actions anyway, would you rather they were responding to you when you've (1) done them no harm and will do them no harm, or (2) after you've blown away a few hundred and made refugees of a hundred times more?

Until you prove to them you want peace, is that your plan??

But the Myth of Redemptive Violence doesn't seem to be working too well, does it? In their madness over the capture of two of their soldiers, Israel has lost another 36. In their madness to blow up as much of Israel as they can, Hezbollah has lost uncounted numbers of its people. Neither side seems to be persuading the other of very much, as far as I can tell.

What is Israel's plan? To exterminate Hezbollah by killing Lebanese civilians? That doesn't appear to be much of a plan. What is Hezbollah's plan? To push Israel into the sea? That doesn't appear to be much of a plan, either, especially when Israel has the backing of the most powerful nuclear arsenal on the planet.

So what is either side hoping to accomplish by further violence? Violence cannot drive out violence. Darkness doesn't drive out darkness.

At this point, things are incredibly fucked up, and they've been made that way solely due to the use of violence. More shit is not going to un-shit the bed (as the saying goes). Neither Israel nor Hezbollah has any credibility to appeal to peace at this point. And it will take extraordinary courage for one side or the other to take the path of peace. But courage and integrity seem in pretty short supply right now.

You can write volumes dissecting and deconstructing a problem, it will never make it a solution. What's the plan if Hezbollah and Hamas reject peace?

It doesn't matter what Hezbollah and Hamas do; it doesn't matter what Israel does. If one side or the other believes in peace, then it will practice peace. There's nothing Israel can do that will guarantee a particular response from Hezbollah or Hamas. There's nothing Hezbollah or Hamas can do that will guarantee a particular response from Israel. Neither side has any credibility whatsoever to claim to be in favor of peace.

But if they are to practice peace, they have to take that step. Put down the arms. But I don't think anyone in this situation has the courage required, sad to say. Laying down the tools of violence will mean that some people will die; but people are dying by the dozens now. Will more die? In the long term, I think not. In the short term, probably. But that's the price that must be paid if either Israel or Hezbollah or Hamas is serious about peace, and it's a price that has been incurred through their current use of violence. The price will only go up as the violence continues.

But none of these participants (or the parties for whom they are proxies) has much interest in peace. Because if they were invested in peace, they'd put forth the same time, money, effort, and social discipline that they're currently expending for war. All of the resources currently being expended in furtherance of war and hatred, turned toward peace, would bring peace about surprisingly quickly. But neither side trusts in peace, neither side believes in peace. And so the violence and the killing will go on and on, and people will continue to die on both sides.

Like I said in my first post, I recognize there are complete pacifists who simply do not believe in violence against another human under any condition. I accept that, it sounds like your belief. Fine. I disagree, but you're entitled. You believe you should die rather than harm someone else, that Israel should give up all their weapons and just accept whatever comes.

Oh wait, I think they tried that once... hmmm..

That would require first that Israel quit shelling Lebanon. A tough first step, I know, as it's so satisfying to blast a bunch of people who can't fight back and can't get away.

The other steps would involve sharing the resources and the aid that Israel controls with its Arab inhabitants and neighbors. Rather than bulldozing homes on the West Bank and providing services like water, electricity and policy protection only to heavily fortified settlement enclaves, Israel might be better served to extend those services to everyone on the West Bank.

Begin treating the Palestinians in their midsts as fellow citizens and human beings, rather than administering the West Bank and Gaza as open air prisons, and Israel might not find its "security" in quite such a precarious position. But there are powerful interests both inside and outside Israel that derive a lot of money from the balance of terror between Israel and the Palestinians.

You say you disagree with pacifism. Should the Israelis be blowing up more Lebanese civilians? Fewer civilians? More buildings or fewer buildings? The idea that Israel is some fragile damsel susceptible to "whatever comes" is ludicrous. As the only nuclear power in the region, they hold the ace of trumps against all comers.

If there is to be peace in the region, and I think it will come, why not start today? Why shouldn't the Israeli Army quit baiting Palestinian boys in Gaza before blasting them into eternity? What purpose is served by such atrocities (see Chris Hedges' book "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning at 92-94): Is it a macho display of "never again"? Why do the dirt poor Palestinians and Lebanese civilians have to bear the brunt of Israel's rage of its past impotence? What good does it do Israel to massacre people who've never done them any harm? What's your solution?

then I have confidence they will. They feel that others have not been honest with them in the past.

Tomorrow is another day.

What is your plan if you're WRONG and they don't want the peace you think they do??

Maybe you'd like to sit down and negotiate with people like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer too.

if nothing but death and destruction continues to occur?

Bringing in serial murderers into this discussion only solidifies my thoughts that I have already put into words.

To think that an entire population of people are the same as a group is not to grasp the fundamental aspects of the meanings of peace.

Would you consider that Jeffrey Dahmer spoke for everyone in his community and would you believe that everyone there must die because of his actions?

I'll anticipate your next response and say only that

there are those who have not wished for a false peace, AND THEY HAD A REASON.

Peace gives them a reason. Discussion gives them a reason. Understanding gives them a reason. Time gives them a reason. Community gives them a reason. Families give them a reason.

They will listen when peace is offered with truth.

there are those who wish for, and will work towards, peace, and they will ultimately win out.

The alternative is to join the rapture club nearest you.

edited to add to a sentence

You are the one who proposed the idea that all that needs to be done is offer peace. You are the one who chooses to ignore 60 years of reality, of who has continuously broken the peace, and the REASON the peace has been broken. Everyone in Israel has been attacked because of the belief of an entire community, the belief that Jews should be shoved into the sea. So what is your plan if that community doesn't choose peace the way you believe they would if they were only offered your version of "truth"?

Look, sand, I'm with you in believing that for all of Israel's problems, they're fundamentally more trustworthy participants in the peace process than Hezbollah or Hamas. I'm down with that. The problem is, Hezbollah and Hamas are objective facts; to ignore them is to be as blind as Rummie going into Iraq. Israel will deal with them eventually; it's only a question of how and when. And the sooner, the better. Engagement will eventually make Hamas and Hezbollah responsible. It happened with the PLO. It happened with the IRA. It happened with the Tamil Tigers. It will happen here. Eventually, the Hamas and Hezbollah supporters will realize that their destinies are in their own hands, not in Israel's, Syria's, Iran's, or the US's. It will be painful, and there will be setbacks, but they will realize it, and they will start working for peace. But we have to start it, and we have to be willing to accept the setbacks.

Do you really think Israel has begun an endless war?? No. At some point some sort of peace will be negotiated, hopefully it will not be the kind that was negotiated in 2000. Hopefully it will also be the kind of peace that will be a signal to Palestinians that there is a path forward if they want to get on it.

"Blessed are the peacemakers..."

Peace is the certainly the only answer.

price before they learn that the price isn't worth it. Look at our relations with Vietnam. We could have had that before the war, but we did not realize it. The war taught us a lesson. The other problem is that those in power profit from the war. The people may want to live in peace but their leaders see them as cannon fodder.

We have to work globally with each other out from under our religions, nationalities, prejudices and see all people as having worth and dignity. Sort of like the ping pong games with China many years ago.

Sometimes I think that we all are not enlightened enough to live in peace.

why should we tolerate it from politicians in our halls of government?

PEACE NOW.

But if the people of Lebanon stop fighting Israel won't. Israel will keep rolling right over them.
And if the people of Israel stop Lebanon won't trust that Israel isn't getting ready to start again.

Israel has no intention and Lebanon has no trust. So where do we start?

:rofl:

:hi: