Collective punishment and Israel’s wars of aggression.

How long can you claim to be the victim? Germany claimed this right up until the collage of Berlin in 1945, Japan used it as the reasons for the attack on Perl harbour and Israel is using to this day. It is true on same levels that their claims were true, but from the kernel of truth has grown the ugly monster of vengeance. I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, but everyone is taking these attacks in isolation, and that is how Israel wants it portrayed because in isolation, she can claim to be the victim, and yet the truth is both muddier and contrary to that.
From 1947 to 1967 Israel had the high ground; had the right to claim that it was the victim of Arab aggression. This changed though when Israel began to settle the West Bank and Gaza. It was at this point it lost the high ground and became the oppressor. It was at this point that the Palestinian movement, and its supporters, could claim the mantel of victim. Israel, by necessity and by American strategic design, has become the most militaristic nation of the Middle East (Lebanon spent 500 million on it military last year compared with Israel’s 9 billion) and as such its reaction to the “arrest and detainment” (to put it in term the Israeli government would had it happened by Israel on a Palestinian) by a small number of individuals of a couple of Israeli solders (one from the Gaza border and 2, after the Israel attack on Gaza, from Lebanese one.) has the entire world (with the exception of the Bush and his northern puppet, Harper) aghast.
It should be noted that the “rockets” that are being fired at Israel from Lebanon, that has promoted the Israel incursion into that nation (having recently recovered from the last shit-kicking it received in the 1980’s, by...wait for it…Israel) have been described by experts, not as hi-tech Iranian imports but as makeshift home-made munitions. If the Israel were true interested in recapturing its missing soldiers, it would negotiate and let is secrete police loose, and either the soldiers would be found or an negotiated agreement would be found, regardless the soldiers would be released. But, like 9-11 for Bush, the powers of Israel saw an opportunity and took it.
Israel is punishing the people of Gaza and Lebanon, it is powerful and a playing the role of the bully, one that seem to all too conveniently fit it. It is punishing the people of Gaza for exercising their democratic right; for not behaving like an obedient dog and quietly accept the over-lordship of the Israel. Instead of lying down in subjugation, the Palestinians choose to thumb its nose at the occupiers of its historic land (and I mean those of the West Bank, granted that most Palestinians accept the 2 state solution, it is sad that Israel only favours the 1.5 state solution) and elected Humas (and yes, I am not a fan of any group what is theocratic, but democracy is democracy). So, to punish the Palestinians (starving them did not seem to have an effect, but it is hard to steel from a man who has nothing to start with and nothing to loose) Israel has intimidated, terrorised, bombed and killed (over 50 since this current chapter started) the people of Gaza. Then, in response to this excessive use of power, Hezbollah, in Southern Lebanon, offered its own resistance (detaining 2 solders and killing 6, and yes, they have launched some home made rockets into Israel that kill only 8 people in the last 5 years, not really a credible threat). To this Israel has decided to increase the level of violence and punish the people of Lebanon. If Israel wanted to stop the rockets, recapture its soldiers, it could have used the restraint of a mature nation and focus its attack on those who perpetrated the offence. But that is not what Israel wants; it wants to punish the Lebanese for daring to defy Israel, to support the just claims of the 2-state Palestinians and for its offence against Zionism over 200, mainly innocent civilians, have paid the price for the impudence.
Israel has a write to defend it self, as Germany had the right to rise from the ashes of WWI, but do we really want to see another aggressive and domineering state appear out of those rights. It was wrong then, it is wrong now. If Israel truly wanted peace, it would abandon the fundamentalist and hawkish claims to the West Bank, it would share Jerusalem, and it would, in cooperation, help fulfill the promise of the 2 state solution first sought for these lands almost a century ago.