VOA Panel Discussion
Pedro Rodriguez Diario ABC de Espanol: To me it looks like an amplified version of what happened in Gaza with Hamas last month (June) with the capture of a soldier. We’re talking about the use of force, destruction, detentions, incursions, but with absolutely no results. In other words, Israel is applying the same response techniques that got it no results in Gaza to Lebanon.
Grant Smith, IRmep: I think there are very important events that everyone is overlooking. There is a movie called “Saving Private Ryan”. This is NOT “Saving Private Ryan”.
The conflict in Gaza started on June 8 when the Israelis assassinated a Hamas military officer. Then on June 9, there was the terrible Israeli attack on a family picnicking on the Gaza beach in which eight people died. The entire Arab world watched video of a little girl running along the beach looking at the bodies of her family.
Hamas started launching rockets in response, with their home-made rockets against Israel in reaction to this violence. Never the less there were thirty more deaths on the Gaza side due to Israeli artillery. Then on the 24th of June we have Israel crossing into Gaza and taking two Palestinian prisoners, names unknown, who have never been heard from again. Finally on June 25 we have the Hamas attack and capture corporal Shalit who everyone knows from the extensive news coverage.
So there were many events, much more complex than the simple capture of prisoners, on both sides. There is also a much larger story in Lebanon. In June, in the south of Lebanon the Lebanese Army captured a Mossad operative group of Abu Rafeh who had assassinated various people in Hezbollah in 2004 and 1999. So if one is only focusing on isolated events, you might think this is all about kidnapping. But really the conflict has been building on both borders.
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