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Originally Posted by newanalog
They themselves take it literally. As a devout Muslim if the Koran is just a story, or if they believe it is true. If it isn't literal...what's the point.
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extremist muslims are the same as fundementalist christians... and just as rare - persecution of the whole muslim community for the contradictions the koran throws at them isn't a solution to anything and can easily be thrown back at christians in a similar manner.
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Originally Posted by newanalog
I agree with you to some extent. There are better ways to go about this and peace should be the first attempt to solve problems, but how many times has Israel held back from doing this?
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so you are saying an eye for an eye is right? Israelis aren't bad people, nor are the muslim states surrounding them though. they have all just been conditioned over time to hate eachother - a human weakness we all share (just look back to 1938) and so no group of people should be persecuted... there is a long complicated history in the middle east which will never be solved with more bloodshed but with the only thing neither side have really ever tried before - talking it out. Hezbollah and Israel have talked before actually but neither have listened - Hezbollah are not attacking Israel because they are jews but for more complicated political reasons - but I get the feeling that Israel are targetting muslims for their values.
grouping al qaeda etc with hezbollah is easy because they are both groups of muslims targetting countries with western values but if there was a stronger understanding between the differences then peace would be easier - it's all a matter of tolerance. but everytime a missile is fired tolerance on each side is made that little bit harder. don't get me wrong - i don't support hezbollah at all - and i'll be damned if i support the atrocities that al qaeda have partaken in - but neither do i support any western government that delays a ceasefire or worse - joins the battle.
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. They outright declare their own holy war on us
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this just highlights you're complete ignorance surrounding Hezbollah... and this is why being an American has something to do with this - like i said before, conditioning is a human weakness and so many americans, and europeans too have been conditioned to assume muslim groups in the middle east are evil people killing christians and jews because they are not muslims - sure, in some cases this is true but it's far from always true.
as i was saying - actually check the facts, hezbollah wanted - stil wants - to introduce an Islamic government in Lebanon through peaceful means. it is the financial associateions that Hezbollah has with Iran and Syria which has classified it as a fully terrorist organisation in America, Israel (and canada too) but it is still in fact totally unrecognised as a terrorist group by the EU - VERY contrasting views you might agree?
A few more facts about hezbollah:
The have participated in fair elections in lebanon for the past decade and over the years have fairly won a good majority of seats in government - very democratic... no?
Hezbollah have been a very large player in rebuilding the educational and health system in lebanon in the past decade.
They have denied any of their soldiers to partake in the war in Iraq amongst organisations such as Hamas (although their are rumours that hezbollah may have intended to form chapters in Iraq (peacefully they claim)- but nothing has been confirmed.
Although Syria and Iran admit to supporting Hezbollah they totally deny supplying weapons (nobody knows how believable this is but there is no PROOF from Israel or America opposing it)
Again, I don't mean to only show the positive points of Hezbollah because there are many recognised negative points such as genocidal ideology against Israel etc but I chose not to include them as they all tend to relate identically to Israel's views of Hezbollah.
Maybe it's too late but there should be an attempt at a peaceful resolution... which is always possible short term - only tolerance between both sides would constitute long term peace. And only understanding between the two will lead to tolerance - but as we both know, both sides have done so much to hurt the other that perhaps it has gone too far for long term peace now.
I'm definetely not going to take sides though.