Thousands protest Lebanon bombing - Dearborn, MI

[DoYouEverWonder]

July 19, 2006



They came, some wearing traditional head scarves and long garb, some in jeans and business attire -- thousands of mostly Arab-Americans, some toting children, others waving placards. All were gathered Tuesday for a common cause: to protest Israel's bombing of Lebanon and to beseech the United States to intervene in the weeklong strikes.

Emotions ran high as they flooded onto Dearborn streets carrying signs that read "Stop killing innocent children," "Stop the terror" and "Bring home our people."

The protesters, many with family in Lebanon, marched from Warren Avenue to Hemlock Park on Schaefer to hear speakers who condemned the bombings.

Organizers put the number of protesters at 7,000; police did not release an estimate.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060719/METRO/607190347/1020

[LiberalPartisan]

1. I wonderr

If there were any 'Down with Hezbollah!' or 'Down with Hamas!' signs.

[Imperialism Inc.]

9. May I ask.

Why do you have a slogan of the far right as your signature line?

[LiberalPartisan]

11. You think my sig. is 'the far right'?

I have it because

• It makes fun of the fundies with an in your face sort of irony
  
• It makes me laugh
  
• I hope it peeves the fundies
  

But lately I've been thinking of switching to this one:

[uppityperson]

18. you forgot the unborn part (unborn gay whale)

If you are going to do it, do it right

[TheModernTerrorist]

21. I have that as my icon

I stole it from someone's profile. I should give credit at some point :shrug:

[IndianaGreen]

16. These are Americans, in case you haven't noticed!

And America should not be held hostage to Israel's misguided and brutal foreign policy!

America and Israel do not share the same values and interests, despite the best efforts of the neocon/neoliberal cabals that have hijacked both countries.

Published on Monday, July 17, 2006 by the Guardian / UK

The West Must Recognize That Israel's Agenda is in Conflict With its Own

The Olmert government, Hezbollah, and Hamas are tacitly united in rejection of any moves towards a peace compromise

by David Clark

Whatever else can be said for or against Israel's escalation of military action against Lebanon, there is little prospect that it will achieve its stated objectives. If Israel couldn't defeat Hezbollah after 18 years in which its army occupied large swaths of Lebanese territory, it is not going to succeed with air strikes and blockades, or even another occupation. The same point applies even more forcefully in the case of Gaza. Every time Israel applies the iron fist in an effort to beat the Palestinians into submission, their resistance simply re-emerges in a more extreme and rejectionist form. Far from fearing Israel's wrath, Hezbollah and Hamas must be rather pleased at their success in provoking it into the sort of over-reaction from which they have always benefited.

Nor does it seem plausible that military action will enable Israel to secure the release of its captured soldiers. The civilian victims of Israel's indiscriminate retaliation have no real influence over the militias that hold them, while the militias themselves are untroubled by the spectacle of public suffering. On the contrary, they thrive on it. In the case of Lebanon, it is possible that acts of collective punishment, such as the destruction of Beirut airport and yesterday's killing of yet more civilians, might divide Hezbollah and its supporters from the rest of the country, but only at the risk of triggering another civil war and creating a vacuum that Israel's enemies in Syria and Iran will find easier to exploit.

In view of all this, it is valid to ask what Israel thinks it is doing. Indeed, this question is implicit in the statements of world leaders at the G8 and elsewhere who have called on Israel to use force proportionately, avoid civilian casualties and refrain from acts that might strengthen Hamas or destabilize Lebanon's fragile political settlement. No one quibbles with Israel's right to defend itself, but doesn't it understand how irresponsible and immoral it is to deliberately escalate the conflict in this way?

The problem is that the premise of the question is false. It assumes that Israel shares our view that a de-escalation followed by negotiation is the best route to a settlement. It assumes, therefore, that when Israeli ministers complain of having "no partner for peace," they actually want one. A much more sensible approach would be to credit them with having the intelligence to know exactly what they are doing and to work backwards from there.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0717-26.htm

[jrd200x]

22. On no they're NOT. Most are Iraqis. Most are NOT American citizens

and the same people protested when we went into Iraq in '91 and MANY celebrated after 9/11. How do I know? I live in Dearborn.

I can tell you that our American "VALUES" are a lot closer to Israel's than these people's values.

[daleo]

23. Did you check everyone's identification or something?

Maybe you read their minds? Were you observing these particular several thousand people constantly since 1991? Do you know all their names, too? Your powers must be awesome.

[Selatius]

2. I wonder if the NSA was listening in on the protest organizers

After all, we don't want anti-American, terrorist-loving A-rabs on American soil.

:sarcasm:

[zippy890]

4. you can be sure many of them ARE undercover

operatives. probably FBI. and the arab-american community knows they are amongst them.

[JackNewtown]

3. pro-Arab lobby

The pro-Arab lobby gave a grand total of $109,000 to candidates in 2004 (In contrast, AIPAC gave Bush alone over a quarter million dollars). If they really want to change policy they need to shell out the $$$$ to support their words.

[Laotra]

8. LOL

Most accurate description of US "democracy" of the highest bidder... fuck you if you don't have enough dough for the bribes... :D

[NaturalHigh]

5. If they had been in Haifa...

with rockets coming down in their neighborhoods, I doubt that they would have been quite so outraged about the air strikes against Lebanon.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Of course

that would imply they would be Jewish.

I guess only Jewish lives count?

[Igel]

10. A fifth of Israel is Arab.

There are zones where they're a larger percentage of the population, and zones where they're a smaller percentage.

But there are ethnic Arabs in Haifa.

There used to be a sizeable number of Jews in Lebanon. A few left in the '50s, more after the '67 but. But apparently most left after the Israeli occupation in the south that started in '82 ... communal threats from people claiming to be extreme practioners of the religion of love and tolerance (or were they claiming to be practitioners of the religion of extreme love and tolerance?) managed to entice most to leave. 5-6k Jews in '46-7, and 60 years later down to a hundred or so.

But remember ... communal threats and punishment are completely different from collective threats and punishment. The former are much more acceptable ... they're tribe- and ethnicity-based.

[NaturalHigh]

12. Not at all...

but Jewish people still have the right to defend themselves the last time I checked.

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. Yet the Lebanese people

don't?

[NaturalHigh]

14. Didn't I read somewhere...

that Israel didn't bomb Lebanon until Hezbollah started lobbing rockets? I'm almost sure that I did.

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. Which was after Israel retaliated

and Hezbollah lobbed some more rockets, and Israel retaliated, and Hezbollah lobbed some more rockets, and Israel retailiated....

That is no excuse to target civilian populations on a nightly basis with fighter jets dropping high powered bombs.

[NaturalHigh]

24. Hasn't Israel dropped a few million leaflets...

telling people of their intended targets and warning them to get out of the way? That hardly sounds like "targeting civilians."

[IndianaGreen]

17. Israel holds a 20-1 ratio advantage on killing civilians over Hezbollah

I am sure that's a war statistic to be proud of!

:sarcasm:

[jonnyblitz]

19. "omg , IG, it's not about keeping score!"

:eyes: :sarcasm: :hi:

[IndianaGreen]

20. I just love that equal sign avatar of yours

We just love math, don't we?

;)

Peace

Shalom

[NaturalHigh]

25. Hezbollah holds the distinction...

of starting this war with terrorist tactics. Is that something to be proud of?

[Name removed]

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