OK, but I don't see any reason to conclude that European leaders support Israel in this particular situation due to their personal beliefs.

Then again I don't read minds. :p

I think they issued "support" in the current circumstance, because they are blaming Hamas for kicking it off with the rocket attacks recently.

And why shouldn't they. It is pretty much the text book example of justified military force by international law standards.

Also, the strategic goals are very much in line with just about everybody, even large parts of the Palestinian people itself (Not that they would ever admit it). Israel is primarily targeting a radical part of the Hamas which has gotten a lot of power recently. From the way the operation is handled and how precisely they have taken out targets, it looks very much like an inside source is feeding them intel (Either parts of Hamas themselves or the PLO. Probably both).

The time couldn't be better. The influence of Iran in the region hasn't been this weak since the US made them the local powerhouse by eliminating Iraq. Syria and Egypt as a Opfor have been effectively neutred for the time being. The Hamas has little to no support even within the Arab world (Mainly due to pandering to Iran).

The PLO is hoping to regain the Gaza Strip after the Hamas has been effectively crippled. This could very well be the end of the Shizm of the Palestinian People.

Also, Netanyahu wants early elections in January 2013, which indicates that the ground invasion is more a show of force than anything else. You don't get elected in Israel over the corpses of soldiers from a botched invasion.

All that said, I am very interested on how this turns out. As there is always a wild card down there you only know once it has been played....

"wild card" you know how to end a phrase with cliffhanger

"Anonymous" declared a cyberwar against Israel:

http://rt.com/news/anonymous-gaza-israel-website-938/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6t9Kr2wWzE

Edit: Fixed the links...

"Anonymous" might be a bit in over their heads, then..

I'm not really disagreeing, and if even one rocket was fired into Philadelphia you can bet your ass I would be for invading the country (or rather political power controlling a country or area) responsible.

It's just a shame it has to come down to these tactics.

I'm really hoping for Israel to triumph. The militants the Israeli military usually fights do so with the blessing or command of authoritarian regimes kind of like when Hezbollah, an Iranian regime-backed paramilitary, fought Israel not too long ago. The region would be better managed under the Israeli flag.

I am not saying that Israel hasn't made any mistakes and there have been times when the Israeli government went too far but I'd much rather back Israel, a parliamentary republic, than those who support the deliberate bombings of busy marketplaces, totalitarian governments like that of Iran, militant Islamism, and terrorist attacks against my country.

Before anyone comments, many of these anti-Israeli militants would support terrorist attacks against the United States even if the United States wasn't an official ally of Israel.

While dealing specifically with the West Bank - These videos go a long way to explain the Israel / Palestinian Situation which is playing out currently in Gaza.

The West Bank

The Peace Process

The Refugees

Funny enough, Israel has absolutely no interest in managing the area. They, quite literally, just want to be left in peace. Their problem is that they take those "we are going to exterminate you" threads rather seriously (I wonder who is to blame for this one .... ).

The current situation isn't exactly beneficial for either the Palestinian people or Israel. People tend to forget this, but before the Second Intifada (which, imo, was somewhat "orchestrated" by Sharon to get him and his hardliners in power) turned the whole clusterfuck up to eleven, Palestine was pretty much Israel's Mexico. A source of cheap labour which helped to fuel the own economy and in turn funnelled money back into Palestine. Ever since suicide bombings became the new Coke (courtesy of the Hamas) the situtation has deteriorated for both sides (especially for the Palestinians). Now the new cheap labour force in Israel are Indonesians (Biggest Muslim nation on Earth, so much for religion as the source for the conflict).

You can imagine what would happen to the economy of the southern US if Mexicans would become highly combustible.

Long story short, you have a select few people on both sides, which (for different reasons) don't really have any interest in peace. Especially those that are currently targeted by Israel are those on the Hamas side, that need the conflict as a powerbase.

Oceania needs to be at war with Eurasia ...
You pretty much disqualified yourself with this. Just saying.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/Sep/16/Army-launches-mine-cluster-bomb-awareness-efforts.ashx#axzz2CVfKae19

I didn't post french newspapers because didn't know if you would understand.

If you still don't believe me, here is an article from the Time world magazine :

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1585565,00.html


Furthermore I have friends whom have participated in the "Demining" of the southern region, and are christian anti-hezbollah, but benevolant good souls.
They have confirmed the existence of such bombs.

I did not go to south lebanon so I can't confirm it for myself.

Did I mention that cluster bombs are prohibited by most developed countries because of their effect on civilians and the difficulty of locating and removing them ?

Read again

including some that had the shape of children’s toys and were dropped by Israel over south Lebanon during the 2006 summer war.

They did not mask bombs as children toys. They had the shape of children toys.

The problems are cluster bombs themselves, due to the way they are designed they are often mistaken for toys. (Or to be more precise, the bomblets)

Look at this

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BLU-3_Pineapple_Cluster_bomblet.jpg]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BLU-3_Pineapple_Cluster_bomblet.jpg[/url]

And this

[url=http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:ShuttlecockPhoto.jpg&filetimestamp=20081217213804]http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:ShuttlecockPhoto.jpg&filetimestamp=20081217213804[/url]

Now, the fact that clusterbombs are rather nasty is well known. But they are also extremely effective. Which is also why just about every nation either stockpiles them or has used them. Including NATO, Russia, Arabic states and whatnot.

By propagating the idea that Israel was targeting civilians when they assaulted the Hizbollah, you are clearly falling victim to their propaganda. Even if you thing that the Jews are evil and see everybody as subhuman, you have to admit that there is simply no military value in civilians, especially children.

And for any alleged warcrimes by the IDF there are enough proven warcrimes of the Opfor especially by the Hizbollah.

Now, I'm not coating the Israeli involvement in the Lebanese civil war, but that conflict in general didn't really have any white knights. But the Israeli crimes were usually more along the line of "looking away at the right time", not that this makes it any better.

The thought that Israelis see everybody else as subhuman can easily disproved by a simple demographics check of their country. Their citizens are literally of all shapes and colours, including Arabs (eg, Majalli Wahabi former President of Israel).
"To 17-year-old Rasha Zayoun, the small metal canister with a ribbon attached to the top looked like a toy."

It shows the train of thought of a person if he thinks that is done on purpose.

Again, I'm not sugarcoating clusterbombs. And in recent years, more and more countries have signed this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions

But, if you look at the countries that signed it, you can see that it is hardly worth the paper it was written on.

"One evening four weeks ago, Rasha picked up the strange object and played with the ribbon, wondering what it was."

Do many cluster bombs come in ribbon (like presents) ?
If so sorry, I didn't know...

Clusterbombs are a real bitch. Because either you paint them in camo colours, so kids don't think they are toys and leave them alone. But then they don't see them, which makes them hard to clear.

Or you paint in bright colours, as a warning. Unfortunately, funny shaped object in bright colours attract kids ...

So what to do. Best is not to use them. While the problems with cluster munitions were well known at least after the NATO bombing of Serbia in '99. Weapon manufacturers always proclaim "all problems are solved". And the military is always happy to believe them, as those are really freaking useful ammunitions.

But the uncontrolled usage of cluster ammunitions was just one of many, many, MANY problems the Israeli operations in south Lebanon back then had. (Which is not without reason known as "the only war Israel lost").

Eg. Israeli tanks who went into Lebanon had for some reason no freaking smoke grenades armed. And smoke grenades are an essential protection if you, well, fight a force mainly compromised of light infantry, as you know, the Hizbollah.

A lot of heads rolled in the IDF after this war.