www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall George Galloway

Gearge galloway speaks the truth about the israeli invasion of lebanon.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9071731896689197790&q=george+galloway

Whether one likes Israel or not one must acknowledge the facts.

Hezbollah invaded Israel with rockets aimed at civilians. Our media does not report it but over 50 Israeli civilians � Jews, Christians and Moslems, adults, children � were killed by Hezbollah before Israel defended itself. It was not Israel that invaded innocent little Lebanon without just provocation. From the point of self defense Israel�s action was certainly justified. [Imagine what we would do to Cuba if Castro started firing bombs on Miami and killing innocents.]

One needs to realize that terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hammas are not interested in land. Their common goal is to destroy the nation of Israel and kill every Jew. Keep in mind that while Hezbollah is a fairly independent terrorist organization it is funded from Tehran (via Damascus). Some of those Hezbollah non-uniformed soldiers killed by Israel were Iranians (and they were carrying the documentation to prove it).

The issue is complicated.

Galloway rightly said that Israel was losing that war and he was right. So, when the Jews are murdered and Israel no longer exists and when the forces of Islam are knocking at your door and at the doors of Vienna will another Galloway come along to renounce the evil people who resist them?

CDL

The issue is very complicated indeed - one can look at the repeated foreign assasinations conducted by the Mosad (often resorting to car bombs which have also killed innocents), the King David Hotel incident and many others to realize that historically terrorism has been perpetrated by both sides in this conflict.

Only the peace of Christ will heal these wounds.
FDD

Diak,

I certainly agree with your conclusion. Politics amounts to endless debate over shifting sands. Christ is the only solution.

CDL

Admnistrator,

If someone enters your house and kills your family, aren't you going to kill that intruder?
So you're morning the death of 50 israeli civilians or militants, what about the thousands of children, women and men killed in lebanon? yes galloway made a good point when he said "why are israeli people more valuable than palestinians and lebanese." Again when you say "Hezbollah invaded Israel with rockets aimed at civilians" hezbollah invaded the lebanese land that is illegaly conquered by israel...wink wink
You just ignore this fact ( i really dont know why)
You would ask why we keep on whinning and whinning, it is because we need our freedom back. we need our prisoners back from the israeli dungeons.
by the way, i was in lebanon yesterday. i actally stayed there for 3 days. i saw more destruction in muslim places although many many christian areas were destroyed. However, muslims are not less valuable than any christian in lebanon because they are also humans. Even the innocent israeli civilians. i will post some pics of what israel did which you usually cant find any on american/israeli media. Please compare the pics with the destruction that hezbollah caused to israel

Shlomo,
Charbel Touma

Charbel,

As I mentioned the issue is complicated.

Yes, if someone entered my house and killed my family I would respond.

But it is not so simple as that. Terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hammas purposely mingle in close with innocent civilians, so that no one could respond to their rockets without also attacking innocents. If terrorists moved into my neighborhood and were using me and my family as a shield I�d be acting to expel them. Look at the example I gave. If I lived in Cuba and my government was lobbing bombs to kill innocent Americans in Miami and American retaliated and took out the bomb launching sites but also killed innocent family and friends I would be angry. But the majority of my anger would be reserved for the Cuban government, not the American government that was defending itself. The Lebanese need to expel the terrorists among them who only want to destroy all the Jews. Then they can create a real democracy for Lebanon. That�s the only way to end the suffering.

Are you suggesting that Hezbollah invaded Israel with bombs because they want land back (that lost in 1948 & 49)? That�s not what Hezbollah says. The Hezbollah leadership says that they want to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. They don�t seem interested in land. I�m not an expert in Middle Eastern history but it appears that the majority of Hezbollah militants are the sons of those expelled from Jordan into southern Lebanon in the early 1970s (the border was peaceful from 1949-1970). Certainly the UNIFIL peacekeeping forced deployed there was ineffective.

Are you suggesting that groups like Hezbollah have the right to target innocents to the south of Lebanon? It seems to me that if there were still a territorial dispute it should be addressed by the government of Lebanon.

I agree that Lebanon needs to be free. Groups like Hezbollah are not interested in freedom. Hezbollah openly states it wants three things: 1) the transformation of Lebanon into an Islamic republic with Sharia, 2) the destruction of the state of Israel and 3) the eradication of all Western influence in Lebanon.

I am not a Christian Zionist. Israel has indeed done some nasty things. Yet Israel is a democracy, accountable to the electorate. One can push for reform in Israel through the democratic process. Hezbollah is not a democracy and does not seek freedom. It is not accountable to the government of Lebanon and receives its funding from Tehran (via Damascus). Is it acceptable to you that Hezbollah has these goals and wants to simply kill every Jew? Do you really want to see Lebanon transformed into an Islamic republic?

My thanks to Charbel - a chance to watch and listen to George Galloway make mince-meat of Sky is most welcome.

Would anyone care to explain to my befuddled mind what is wrong with the idea of a state in all of Palestinian territory, with citizenship and one's relationship to the government not determined or affected by one's religion? I don't know what the basic documents of Hizbullah are calling for - but I know very well that Palestinians basically want a secular state without people able to claim a privileged status because of their particular religion. Suggesting that a "Jewish State" (and that's precisely what the World Zionist Organization calls it, so don't get angry at me for using that expression) is, to put it mildly, an anachronism which continues to keep the Middle East in turmoil at terrible human cost and, not incidentally, feeds Muslim fanaticism, has done no particular good since it happened. Perhaps it's time to try the alternative. No, that does not mean killing Jews. It does mean allowing the refugees to come home (finally) and negotiating a civil government for all of Palestine, with the electorate to consist of all those of voting age who live there.

Fr. Serge

First of all, the hezbollah militants are the civilians of the south hezbollah is not using anybody. Not only the south but most of the beqaa valley in eastern lebanon as well.

LOL once i was watching CNN and there was some arabic guy speaking in arabic, however, the translation was all wrong i laughed for like an hour. Nasrallah said that he is going to live with the christians peacefully(unless if they translated it wrong on CNN or whatever baised news you r watching). NO NO NO, hezbollah doesnt want to kill all the jews, but they want to evacuate the jews from lebanese land only and help the palestinian refugees get back to their homeland "palestine".
I dont get this, why do anti-semites call us terrorists when we defend oursleves while they would call israel or america a democratic country whenever they invade country after country. Hamas is the biggest example, hammas need to live in their land again. israeli people are mostly europeans and caucasian"not semites" they just forced themselves in by bulldozing palestinian houses and buying land from poor people.
I have to go now sorry..
i will continue later,

Glory be to christ our only saviour and king

Charbel,

The reason there were so many civilians injured and killed in Lebanon was because Hezbollah was using them as shields to protect themselves. They, not the Israelis, are to blame for the death and distruction you site. If the civilians did not leave, they were most likely the families of Hezbollah fighters who had no choice but to stay.

The Israelis warned the people living in the proposed bomb sites that they would be aiming for the areas containing Hezbollah's fighters. For Hezbollah's part they shot missles containing ball bearings to maximize the damage to CIVILIAN targets. The only reason more Israelis were not hurt or killed was because they lived in bunkers for weeks.

Israel left Lebanon as they said they would. They have no wish to annex Lebanon as part of Israel. They simply want to live in peace. Hezbollah, however, and all Islamic terrorists, want complete and total religious domination regardless of the cost in life, limb or property. We Christians are all at risk since, next to Jews, we are the biggest threat to an Islamic dominated world.

Pope Benedict could not have been more right when he made his now famous quote. As he has said, a peaceful Islam can live in harmony in the world. However, the riots and intolerance shown by non-peaceful Muslims only highlight that what was true 600 years ago, is true today and we would do well to fight against this evil that threatens us all.

PS George Galloway wouldn't recognize the truth if it hit him in the face....

George Galloway????

George Galloway is in the back pocket of radical extremist Islam. Wasn't Galloway friends with the Hussein family? Saddam and his oh so nice sons, who made life miserable for Shiites, Kurds, and Christians alike?

Hezbollah has no business being in Lebanon. Hezbollah is an international terrorist organization funded by the Iranian madmen with assistance from the Syrian Assad dictatorship. Hezbollah attacked Israel at the urging of the Iranian madmen who want to kill every Jew.

This attitude is not going to win many friends in the United States.

I do not like the way Eretz Israel has treated the Christian Arabs within its borders through its history.

It is worth mentioning that Israel would not have killed anybody in Lebanon if the Lebanese people would have thrown out Hezbollah beforehand.

The allegation that Hizbullah - this time - has put its military installations into schools, hospitals, and civilian dwellings is not new - the Zionists have been saying this for decades about every Arab organization and nation that dares to challenge them.

Democratic and responsible to the electorate? Try telling that to the rather significant number of people who've been living under occupation for the past four decades. Try telling that to the villagers of Northern Galilee who obediently evacuated their villages on the promise that they could return in less than a week - and have never been allowed to return, despite decisions of the Supreme Court in their favor.

You might also attempt to tell that to the villagers of Deir Yassin - but as it happens they were all killed, so they don't get to vote.

I remember very well when the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Galilee announced his intentions of voting for the Communist Party, because nobody else who would defend the Arabs was allowed to run for public office. His Eminence was no Communist, nor fellow traveller, nor naive fool - but he was telling the truth.

I wonder just how many of the Christian defenders of Zionism know the meaning of the amazing expression "present-absent".

Fr. Serge

That is essentially my position. The problem is that many of the terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hammas aren�t interested in it (even though that�s what most ordinary people want). Terrorist groups like these will not be satisfied until every Jew is dead. Turmoil existed in the Middle East long before the advent of Israel. It will continue to exist even if Israel is wiped from the map.

The allegation is true. Anyone who watched the news could see the videos of how the Hezbollah terrorists set up their rocket launchers next to schools and hospitals and � yes � even next to UNIFIL buildings. In an extended interview a few months back with the BBC (which is very anti-Israel) Fouad Siniora (the Lebanese PM) defended the practice as very necessary while at the same time refusing to acknowledge that Hezbollah was firing rockets intended to kill civilians who lived in Israel. Pretending that it is merely an allegation when the tactic is admitted and done openly and captured on video is a bit head-in-the-sand.

I agree that a whole host of people are left out of the democracy. Don�t forget that American democracy is always a work in progress. It took almost a hundred years to free the slaves and another 50 years to give the vote to women.

Look at the alternative � Hezbollah wants to enact an Islamic government with Sharia as the basis of their law. Yes, they do very good public relations and claim they want peace but look at their actions and not at their propaganda.

Luckily no one really takes Mr. Galloway seriously. It is a matter of public record that he took at leat $500,000 from Hussein's Iraq in the infamous UN "Oil for Food" money laundering scandal.

Whatever george galloway said was very clear and straight to the point. i can add a lot to it but im not going to waste my time trying to educated ignorant people.

in conclusion,
israel is the terrorist organization, i dont even consider it a nation. if they want to live peacefully then let them accept the palestinians as part of their country, and get the hell out of lebanese land. i dont know why you call jews semites anyway. as i said before they r not even from palestine "israel" they r immigrants from europe and asia, and they think that they r the only semites loool. semites by definition are the people who r from phoenecia(the lebanese) and mesopotamia"syrian, palestinias, jordanians.."

I don't think anyone in this discussion would say the Israelis have not done things they or we would regret. However, never have I heard an Israeli say 'death to America' and they ARE the people who invented airport screening techniques. This implies a country very much like our own (unless you hate it, too) that wants peace and prosperity for the world. As a country, we have realized that that is the only way to live.

Also, if it is true that a Greek Catholic Bishop actually encouraged voters to elect a communist for political reasons, it tends to make one wonder about his motives. I do not find the use of this example as support for the discussion but, rather, again if it is true (and we only have your word for it) the Bishop really needed to be reminded that he should involve himself with the spiritual not the political.

if i live in china then am i chinese? lol
But if a jew were to live in china(were china would be just like lebanon and palestine) he would call himself chinese although it is obvious that he doesnt look chinese!
That is what they r doing in palestine when they call themselves semites.haha funny eh?

I think we would all be happy (especially the Israelis) if BOTH Hezbollah and Israel got out of Lebanon. Only then would there be peace.

Charbel,

Do you support the Hezbollah�s intentional attempts to kill innocent Jews, Christians and Muslims who live in the state of Israel?

If no, what are you doing to stop Hezbollah from attacking the innocent? If they had not bombed Israel there would have been no war this summer. Israel would not have been forced to destroy southern Lebanon just to keep their own citizens safe.

CJ

Quote: Charbel,

Do you support the Hezbollah�s intentional attempts to kill innocent Jews, Christians and Muslims who live in the state of Israel?

If no, what are you doing to stop Hezbollah from attacking the innocent? If they had not bombed Israel there would have been no war this summer. Israel would not have been forced to destroy southern Lebanon just to keep their own citizens safe.

CJ

I don't support hezbollah, but i do know that what israel is doing is much worse than what hezbollah did. hezbollah would send one rocket then israel would send douzens instead with the sgniatures of israeli children on the rockets...yes pretty shocking.
so when u said that israel was forced to destroy southern lebanon..hmmmm it destroyed most of lebanon not only the south i was in lebanon yesterday...my god they even bombed in my village in the north which is totally christian. thousands have died in lebanon while tens have only died in israel....u can know what is justice and what isnt!

PGH Rusyn puts this to me:

There's a lot more than just my word for it. This happened in the late nine-teen sixties, and was widely covered in the Catholic press in the USA - it's not hard to grasp that the news that a Catholic Archbishop was voting Communist made sensational news in that period.

It could also easily have been confirmed by asking Archbishop Joseph himself; unfortunately he fell asleep in the Lord on 10 June 2005. But I feel safe in predicting that an eventual biography of His Eminence will include the episode.

As for the comment that "The Bishop really needed to be reminded that he should involve himself with the spiritual not the political", there were, of course, people who tried to suggest that to His Eminence. The Archbishop responded that, first of all, what provoked his electioneering was the Zionist government which asked him to urge his faithful not to vote Communist, at a time when the Communist Party was the only organized political voice supporting the Arabs. Evidently it makes a difference which political party the Archbishop might choose.

His Eminence continued with the point that through no fault of his own, or of the Church, the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Galilee was the ethnarch and would have been quite irresponsible had he failed to provde leadership to his people in such a situation. Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky made a similar point in the nineteen-twenties.

I might well add that "spiritual" and "political" are not mutually exclusive words - the Bible is full of politics - and in a state where one's standing before the goverenment and the law is determined by one's adherence to a particular religion, it is absurd to claim that a Catholic Archbishop should confine himself to "spiritual" matters - this is reminiscent of "pie in the sky by and by".

Fr. Serge

Go raibh maith agat, Father Serge. I'm happy to find you posting thoughts here on the matter. Thank you for the much-appreciated input.

`Afi `aleik, Sharbel, bi taree'it hakyo wa usloobo, maa bi'as'sir بقصّر hal Galloway.

I would like to contribute to the thread with this report from Amnesty International revealing the extent of cruelty in the crimes that were committed in this latest homicidal military operation by the I.D.F.:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE180072006

Israeli government spokespeople have insisted that they were targeting Hizbullah positions and support facilities, and that damage to civilian infrastructure was incidental or resulted from Hizbullah using the civilian population as a "human shield". However, the pattern and scope of the attacks, as well as the number of civilian casualties and the amount of damage sustained, makes the justification ring hollow. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than "collateral damage" � incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.

Being here in Lebanon now and during the events in question (not that it poses as a necessary requirement for the following for anyone anywhere else keeping up with the news), I hardly need the contents of this report to convince me not even to ponder how such actions as what were realised in Lebanon could be regarded as anything in concord with the most basic standards of ethics, let alone compatible with Christian moral law. These acts were plainly evil, born of the same spirit of murder that possessed Cain of old. He might well be the I.D.F.'s patron saint.

It's not the first time I've said it, but with so many children being killed by the Israelis then, the occurrence of St. Elias' feast day during that violent episode made it appear as if this was another Baal that was taking Lebanese lives. I still find the metaphor strangely apt.

Samer

I read this profile on George Galloway...truthfully, I had never heard of him before today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway

one of my favorite books was one I read many years back by Father (now Archbishop) Elias Chacour entitled "Blood Brothers". The book opened my eyes to the issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflcit, and caused me to question many previous assumptions. Apart from my theological position, which utterly rejects the notion that the secular state of Israel is a prophetic fulfillment of the Biblical Israel, I still cannot stand anything that smacks of anti-semitism. To be sure there are evils on both sides of this war and no easy solutions.

Gordo

Elias Chacour is thoughtful and well worth listening to - but sometimes his optimism leads him away from realism.

By the way, the Arabs are themselves Semites. that's not just a wisecrack; the similarities are there and can be observed.

Fr. Serge

Ahlen ya Samer,

You just reminded me of what happened in my village on the saint Elias feast day. People in my village (kobayat, north of lebanon)were celebrating next to a church. Unfortunately, the israeli planes saw them and started throwing flare bombs and targetted twice the road the is right in front of them, however, they were surounded with pine trees, so those flare bombs lit the forest on fire keeping the people trapped not know what to do. hmmm yes very very evil. So the saint elias day was not as happy as it use to be.

Cheers
Charbel Touma

There was an Archbishop on EWTN who stated Hezbollah never, ever gave the Christian villages a bit of trouble. He also stated that the first step to peace was for both sides to adhere to a prescribed set of rules. One was that Israel be required to maintain a fixed borders; something every other nation on the planet is required to do.

If American foreign policy continues to maintain double standards in relation to this volatile region, the situation will never improve. It's ridiculous to point out and go after one side for its violations of UN resolutions while turning a blind eye to the other side's violations.

But, American foreign policy is skewed by the interest of big business and when you have a wreckless and totally unobjective approach to the world you'll end up with many bad days, bad guys, bad relationships, wars, death, destruction and the list goes on.

It's not about Republicans or Democrats. Both sides have their good and bad people and points. The problem is fundamentally spiritual in nature. The deadliest sin: Greed powers this machine. That god mammon.

We've bought into the greed game. We as a people are enslaved by unnecessary consumption. We consume too much food, oil, etc. This powers big business to meet the demand. Big business has shareholders who, motivated by greed want their profits and divedends now. So, they export the jobs overseas and engage in what is essentially slave labor in undemocratic places such as China where Christians are persecuted, women are forced to abort babies, etc. Saddam murdered people and we had to invade. China carries out much worse and gets favored trade status. It's okay, they make all that cool stuff "we need."

It's okay; we're not the ones running the sweat shops. We just keep them going by buying more stuff. More stuff, keep up with the Jones', get an SUV, look cool...

But wait, we can't afford all that cool stuff. Mom has to go to work now too. Ah, we have the SUV and cool stuff and the children are relegated to a babysitter, watching garbage on TV or getting into trouble because the parents are busy working to pay for all the cool stuff.

We're encouraged to vote for guys and gals who say they oppose abortion but after they're elected they don't say another word or remain active for the cause. They become shills for big business and the cycle continues. Bigger, more important things must have come up.

Our illustrious President walks around like a cowboy and bullies world leaders. He refuses to engage people in an intelligent manner; he's the "decider" and lacks the ability to debate a simple toad. His policies and those of his predecessors are utter failures. Could it be because they've left behind the fundamental values that made America great? Have they sold our birthright to big business and their "American interests?"

The media is owned by just a few corporations. Only offering the most villifying sound bites of foreign leaders; you get, not news but a slanted, skewed perspective. It's crafty and witty. Just enough information to keep you angry at those other guys all the while advertising more stuff that you don't really need.

So, it all boils down to the people's spiritual condition. All of the legislation in the world can't fix the illnesses of the heart we suffer from. It is up to us to stop buying into the lies. Only we can return to the core values of our Faith and begin teaching our children and others there is a better way to live. This is the real grass roots movement; the one that turned the world upside down.