Lebanon

Preface:

I usually try to avoid talking about Israel, because I have no wish to be accused of anti-semitism. The idea that Israel is a Jewish state established on “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State” (Declaration of the Establishment of Israel) is a big problem for the original inhabitants. However, most of those are without guilt today, and throwing them out of places where they predominate would merely to be perpetuating the same evil. A two – or three – state solution with Gaza and the West Bank gaining independence seems the only reasonable option, especially as Israeli paranoia (however justified by events) has led to the peoples of these regions living under military rule and effectively forbidden to trade with other nations, leading to a spiral of poverty and decay. I am no anti-semite, any more than I am anti-American: it is not the people of Israel who are in the wrong, but the government of Israel, and that is quite clear.

Current situation (via):

Lebanese Flag

Israel invades Lebanon (an illegal “cross-border raid”), and one of Lebanon’s governing parties (like Hamas, a terrorist group turned political party) holds two soldiers as prisoners of war. Israel calls this an act of war and invades Lebanon even more viciously – and the media’s reaction?

“Israeli troops enter Lebanon after Hizbollah seizes two soldiers” – Daily Mail
“Israeli troops enter Lebanon amid kidnap reports” – CNN
“Israel calls Hizbollah capture of soldiers act of war” – Reuters
“Lebanese Rebels Seize 2 Israeli Soldiers at Border” – New York Times
“Hezbollah seizes Israel soldiers” – BBC

Why are Hezbollah a terrorist group?

“For us Lebanese, and I can tell you the majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national resistance movement. If it wasn’t for them, we couldn’t have liberated our land. And because of that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement” – Emile Lahoud, President of Lebanon

Because of Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon, which required strong resistance to overcome. You can’t justify what the group has done, at least without recourse to religion, but the reason the group is so popular and powerful is because they helped to liberate their country. It is worth noting that many of the targets of the group were US military forces enforcing Israeli occupation. Hezbollah succeeded, and in May 2000, Israel finally withdrew from Southern Lebanon. Lebanon gained its independence from Syria, who controlled the state with their own armies and secret police forces, in 2005, following popular uprisings.

Why was Israel occupying Southern Lebanon in the first place? Because Lebanon was allowing Palestinian “terrorists” (members of the PLO) who had had their own country stolen from them to hide there.

Why does Iran feel such hostility to Israel and America? Because Lebanon is the one other country in the region which might be considered Shi’a, and it has felt Israeli and American dominance at first hand.

Beirut, capital of Lebanon and byword for anarchy before today’s democratic government came in

Hezbollah now control about a quarter of the seats in the Lebanese government. Since the Lebanese have gained independence, democracy has flourished. It is now much more safe, and religious minorities like Christians get better protection and play a bigger political role than practically anywhere else in the region.

Two kidnappings of invading soldiers today – worldwide condemnation
“The crisis for the Israelis was compounded by the airforce killing a family of nine people by dropping a 550-pound bomb on a house in a residential area of Gaza City early today. The bomb killed Nabil Abu Salmiah, a lecturer at the Islamic University described by Israel as a Hamas activist, his wife and their five daughters and two sons. Five of the dead children were aged between four and 11. The other two were in their teens.” – The Guardian today – nothing

An Israeli tank fires shells into Lebanon. The American-backed War on Democracy continues

You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me

"There is a small but growing community of Christian and family-friendly video game developers," – Scott Scholler, Christian Game Developers Foundation

"There is warfare, [but] the Bible is full of warfare, [and] so are all the other great games that are on the market"; "as you pray, your soldiers are more prepared for battle." – Troy Lyndon, Left Behind Games

As the BBC has just noticed, Christianity has just taken on video game form. "No gore, no cursing" is the promise – just good, wholesome killing and maiming with guns. The new "Left Behind" game, based on the Christian book series of the same name, uses the impending apocalypse of Revelation as its starting point, and allows you, as a member of the "Tribulation Team", to personally destroy unbelievers and Satan's minions (practically indistinguishable, of course).

Religious music now makes up 7% of music sales in the United States, although many despise "Contemporary Christian Music" for taking on a secular form.

"They were certainly controlled by demons as they captured the affection of an entire generation with their “magical mystery” music and carried millions of young people along on their journey to eastern religion, atheism, drug abuse, and rebellion against established order."

"Bridges to the world are exceedingly dangerous…(i.e., 1 John 2:15-17; James 4:4)" – News Notes, Way of Life Ministry.

"Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4) – translation of the latter.

Bridges to the world include much of latter-day culture. Extremist evangelical sites attack Christian musicians who cite The Beatles or The Red Hot Chili Peppers amongst their influences. One site even goes so far as to name the Fab Four as one of the three biggest evils today, alongside pornography and feminism. My point is that this is classic cult behaviour – a few extremist churches are beginning to set themselves up as the only purveyors of truth in the world, and attempting to mind-control their membership by preventing them seeing any possible opinion which conflicts with this, Christian or not. Which is why Christian video games are needed however much of a commercial failure they might be. In the US, there are extremist Christian television and radio stations, movies, places of worship, schools, newspapers, internet portals, workplaces, towns… but it is not possible to be completely cut off from at least a few dissenting opinions.

In contemporary America, despite Wal-Mart's self-censorship – pornography and albums with rude words or anti-Biblical opinions are kept out of extreme Christian enclaves – there are still some ways, video games and The Simpsons, for example, in which mild attacks on religion are still tolerated. Not for long.

Carnival 3

Just thought I'd better alert you that the Third edition of the Carnival of Socialism is up!

Cheers!

The Sun does its bit for Human Rights

Thanks to Bloggerheads for dishing the dirt.

Continuing to want Human Rights, I am saddened at the media’s assault upon them.

According to the Sun, 35,000 people voted against retaining them, whilst 223 voted for.

Unfortunately, internet voting was down when I tried to vote

However, this was how their online poll looked before they took it down:

So maybe that was why.

Edit: have succeeded in casting my vote. However, there is no longer a poll available to the public. Wonder why?

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” – Stalin, who has just been offered a job at The Sun.

Out-Right Disaster

It looks as though there will be another New Labour victory in 2009/10. My prediction is that the kings of spin haven't shot themselves in the foot enough yet. Take this happy headline as an example of how much worse Conservative government might be:
"Cameron calls for repeal of Human Rights Act" – Guardian

The Conservatives have been looking to scrap this irritating piece of legislation since it was passed by Blair's government in 1998, when human rights were still 'Cool Britannia'.

Of course, it wasn't bold enough to include all of those contained in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but did sign up to the 16 which the European Union decided were most reasonable.

Cameron's claim is that the Human Rights Act "fl[ies] in the face of common sense" and is using the example of the aeroplane which desperate Afghans hijacked in order to escape the Taliban government in 2000. The ones fingered with the hijacking have already served prison time in Britain. A British judge ruled that it would be dangerous for them to return to their home country, but the government wants to deport them anyway. The Sun greeted the verdict with the headline "Evil Triumphs".

First, this black-and-white logic is nasty and prejudical, as Matthew Parris in the Times empathetically argued: "And what if some Jews had escaped from Auschwitz and hijacked a plane and flown to England?" Secondly, the honourable leader of the opposition does not want to abolish the Human Rights Act because of one British judgement about it, but is merely using this populist semi-racist issue to re-launch one of Michael Howard's policies.

So why do the Conservatives hate human rights so much? Judge for yourself! These are the rights protected by the Human Rights Act:

* the right to life
* the prohibition of torture
* the prohibition of slavery and forced labour
* the right to liberty and security
* the right to a fair trial
* no punishment without violation of a law
* the right to respect for private and family life
* the freedom of thought, conscience and religion
* the freedom of expression
* the freedom of assembly and association
* the right to marry
* the prohibition of discrimination
* the protection of property
* the right to education
* the right to free elections
* the abolition of the death penalty
- DirectGov

Outlawing the death penalty in Britain for good in 1998 and the ruling that the military could no longer torture at will were two sticking points for some Conservatives. Another right despised by the party is "the prohibition of discrimination", because the party is split between 'paleoconservatives' who consider it a threat to their own prejudices and 'libertarians' who feel that it limits their freedom. But there is another angle. Its sanction that there should be "the right to free elections" is the only thing in UK law preventing the banning of the BNP. The BNP who, as the local council elections showed, are still taking more Tory votes than those of any other party, putting them as a disadvantage in the 2009/10 elections. The BNP whose influence is also being so grossly exaggerated that the Conservatives are beginning to re-consider their exodus to the political centre.

Update, 15/05/06:

Tony Blair hints that he might do the same thing after right-wing papers from The Daily Mail to The Sun tell him to. Another coup for Britain's "reasonable" media: The Telegraph's "Scrap Human Rights Act" article followed by their "Scrap Universal Education" article. Apparently state schools are "academies of crime", but I noticed that scrapping prisons, which have a worse reputation for this, wasn't on their agenda. How odd.