By Manila Ryce
Published Saturday, July 19th, 2008, 3:18 am
Filed under: Videos: Political, World: Asia, Videos: News, Human Rights, Society/Culture: Civil Unrest, Society/Culture, World Issues, Videos

8 Responses to “Link TV - Hezbollah’s Swap Signifies Victory Over Israel”

1. I know a little about resistance in that being of Tamil-Sri Lankan origin I have had the experiences of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka passed down to me, I have had cousins who have fought for the resistance or terrorist group LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).
   You say “It is a victory for all resistance. It is a victory for us.”
   While I believe that resistance to oppression is a fundamental right of all people, I will always believe that conflicts on this planet are promoted and propogated by those who possess power as a way of holding sway over the people they claim to represent. For me, the killing of the two Israeli soldiers, the 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters will always be the responsibility of both Nasrallah and Olmert equally, the Knesset and Hezbollah’s leaders equally.
   Samir Kantar is a human being just like all, and though resistance is his right, and a result, almost a predetermined consequence of facing the conditions and the life he has lived, I will never believe in his actions in violent resistance against the Israelis…. just as I will not believe in the Knesset’s military action against the Lebanese and Palestinians. This is a victory for none of us, this is us being led to the precipice of anihilation by men who would not commit to fight themselves, whose lives would be spared as ours would be wasted and all to maintain their power.
   The more I travel, the more I see of our planet and its people, the less I believe in good and bad people, and I start to see that we all are equally capable of acts of great good and great evil all propogated by our own nature driven by greed and lust for power as much as it is driven by empathy and compassion.

   Vay Nadarajah
   07/19/08 at 4:35 pm
   
2. 

   @Vay Nadarajah

   “For me, the killing of the two Israeli soldiers, the 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters will always be the responsibility of both Nasrallah and Olmert equally, the Knesset and Hezbollah’s leaders equally.”

   Equal blame? Really? Despite Israel being the invading aggressor which waved aside a ceasefire in order to drop cluster bombs on populated civilian areas? Nasrallah is a human being with faults, but to give him equal blame with Olmert is like giving Saddam equal blame with Bush for the Iraq War.

   “I will never believe in his actions in violent resistance against the Israelis”

   Whether you agree with violent resistance or not, you can’t deny that it gets results.

   “This is a victory for none of us, this is us being led to the precipice of anihilation by men who would not commit to fight themselves, whose lives would be spared as ours would be wasted and all to maintain their power.”

   Again, the war came to Hezbollah. You can pretend that this war was avoidable by Nasrallah, but reality tells a different story. Israel has made peaceful resistance impossible. Lebanon has had only two options with Israel - complete submission or violent resistance. There is a clear offensive and defensive side to imperial wars. To simplify blame as being equally shared by both sides may be an exercise in political correctness, but that simplicity disregards all facts pertaining to the conflict.

   Manila Ryce
   07/19/08 at 5:13 pm
   

3. Did you really have to delete my comment?

   I was just asking why the Hezbollah killed the two prisoners whilst Israel fed their captives well. Hezbollah crossed borders and kidnapped 2 Israeli reservists. Israel invaded. israel miserably fails to rescue the 2. Israel is forced to bargain. israel gets humiliated and frees a convicted bomber and hezbollah soldiers in exchange for the 2. Hezbollah turns over the 2 soldiers– very dead.

   that for me is understandable because freedom fighters in Asia do not kill prisoners. in fact, in my country, the rebels feed captured soldiers very well.

   ACHTUNG!
   07/19/08 at 5:52 pm
   
4. 

   @ACHTUNG!

   First off, no one deleted your comment. You posted it under the wrong story. It’s still at the “Become a Road Tripper” post where you left it.

   Secondly, I suggest you get your facts straight on what actually happened. On July 12th, 2006, 10 Israeli soldiers crossed into Lebanon. Hezbollah killed 8 and captured 2. The following Israeli invasion was not the result of the soldiers being kidnapped. Anyone with common sense knows it takes a bit longer than a few hours to plan for the invasion of a country. Olmert himself testified to the Winograd Commission that the invasion was planned four months in advance, and Seymour Hersh has reported that it was a joint effort by Israel and the US as a prototype for an upcoming war with Iran. So again, the war was pre-planned and unavoidable by Hezbollah. As for the deaths of the two Israeli soldiers, those details are still unknown but I’m sure the full-scale bombing of civilian homes and infrastructure didn’t convince their captors to keep them alive.

   Manila Ryce
   07/19/08 at 6:34 pm
   

5. Nice work Manila. You’ve got it spot on.

   cine
   07/19/08 at 7:31 pm
   

6. Manilla,
   “Whether you agree with violent resistance or not, you can’t deny that it gets results.”
   Lebanon is still a mess, and while Nasrallah may have beaten back Israel twice, for over half a century now the Palestinians have been stateless and dispossessed. Similarly so, with the Tamil people of northern Sri Lanka, 26 years of conflict has not seen them any closer to achieving independence or even equality in the state.

   “To simplify blame as being equally shared by both sides may be an exercise in political correctness.”
   Drawing from the example of Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran has claimed sole representation over the Tamil people for 26 years and while in many sectors he is considered a hero, his actions signify a desire to hold a stronger grasp on control than to relinquish it for even the chance of creating peace. A few years ago when there were elections on the island, the Tamil Tigers enforced a boycott of those elections for the Tamil people, even though the absence of their vote would deny the chances of parties with a softer stance leaving the way open for hardliner Rajapakse to be elected. This has led to the situation we see now, where the ceasefire has been withdrawn from by both sides, and in which the north of the country is constantly under shelling and retailiatory bombings occur in Columbo and elsewhere around the country, killing neither the men who promote the wars but plently of people who have nothing to do with the war.

   Similarly, you say, “You can pretend that this war was avoidable by Nasrallah”. But where was the necessity in killing and abducting soldiers, regardless of their crossing into Lebanon? This was not a random act of resistance to Israeli soldiers being in a place where they should not have been, taken by men on the ground. This was calculated by Nasrallah to provoke a wider conflict. Hezbollah was well prepared to take the fight to Israel and to gain victory and to strengthen their political position within the country, something which they did regardless of the cost. To believe that Nasrallah didn’t want the chance to achieve this, to believe that he wasn’t willing to spill both Israeli and Lebanese blood, well, you would have to be quite idealistic to think leaders are so innocent in their calculations.

   Vay Nadarajah
   07/20/08 at 1:07 am
   

7. On an additional note, you say that this deal is a victory for all of us. How are Samir Kantar’s actions or his release a victory?
   If 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudi’s is this not a victory for resistance also, standing up to the imperialism of America across the Middle East and in Saudi Arabia?

   Vay Nadarajah
   07/20/08 at 1:21 am
   
8. 

   @Vay Nadarajah

   “Lebanon is still a mess, and while Nasrallah may have beaten back Israel twice…”

   Yes, Lebanon is a mess, but it is not occupied. Submitting to aggression does make life easier. No one is arguing that. It’s much easier to be a slave than a freedom fighter.

   “Prabhakaran has claimed sole representation over the Tamil people for 26 years and while in many sectors he is considered a hero, his actions signify a desire to hold a stronger grasp on control than to relinquish it for even the chance of creating peace.”

   Um, we’re talking about Hezbollah and Lebanon. If Nasrallah wanted more power he could’ve held onto it when Hezbollah recently took over Beirut to fight the government’s move to outlaw their communications network. He didn’t. He gave control back voluntarily. Being the only real militarily-armed organization in the country, Lord knows he didn’t have to.

   “This was calculated by Nasrallah to provoke a wider conflict.”

   Nonsense. Israeli soldiers constantly cross into Lebanon, and Hezbollah regularly seizes a few. The abduction of Israeli soldiers is something Hezbollah has been doing for years to negotiate hostage exchanges. As Nasrallah stated at the beginning of the conflict, the Israeli reaction to this abduction was rather unexpected and out fo the norm. His goal was a hostage exchange, not a war. Israel’s uncharacteristic reaction to what would have been a standard hostage negotiation shows that they were simply waiting for an excuse to invade.

   “well, you would have to be quite idealistic to think leaders are so innocent in their calculations.”

   I don’t think leaders are innocent, but I also don’t demonize them. I think they’re human, and I make my assessments based on ALL the facts.

   “On an additional note, you say that this deal is a victory for all of us. How are Samir Kantar’s actions or his release a victory?”

   I don’t know if Kantar received a fair trial, or if he is indeed guilty of such brutality. What I do know is that we should evaluate the entire exchange, rather than declare it a travesty because of one person. Would you celebrate the release of all Gitmo prisoners even if 20% were actually guilty? From my perspective, I’d rather see 100 guilty men set free than 1 innocent man imprisoned.

   “If 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudi’s is this not a victory for resistance also, standing up to the imperialism of America across the Middle East and in Saudi Arabia?”

   No, because innocent people were specifically targeted. The victims in this story are soldiers. The victims on 9/11 were civilians.

   Manila Ryce
   07/20/08 at 3:58 pm
   

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