Not really. First Intifada was very violent from the first day. They threw heavy stones, molotov cocktails, stabbed. Later they started firing too. Nevertheless, overall there were about 1000 killed in 6 years.
You think people are automatically going to believe what you wrote only because you wrote it. I have to say, I admire your faith in yourself.
It's not good enough to write some two or three evidence-free sentences saying that I'm wrong -- instead, you have to
prove it. If I'm saying that the First Intifada started out peacefully, that it grew violent only in response to Israel's crackdown, it's not because I have just invented that; it's because there's a whole body of work on the First Intifada's origins and development that supports the argument. The radicalization of Palestinian protesters followed the violent crackdown that Israel ordered -- the infamous policy of broken bones that Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli "dove", commanded.
This has been admitted by, for example, Uri Avnery, who's done more for Israel's foundation than you could ever do.
He
wrote:
"One of the scenarios the [Israeli] army is preparing for, it was stated, is for Palestinians shooting at soldiers and settlers “from inside the mass demonstrations”. That is an ominous statement.
I have been at hundreds of demonstrations and never witnessed anyone shooting “from inside the demonstration”. Such a person would have to be insanely irresponsible, since he would expose all the people around him to deadly retaliation. But it is a handy pretext for shooting at non-violent protesters.
"It sounds so ominous, because it has happened already in the past. After the first intifada, which was considered a Palestinian success story (and brought about the Oslo agreement), our army diligently prepared for the second one. The chosen instruments were sharpshooters.
"The second (“al-Aqsa”
intifada started after the breakdown of the 2000 Camp David conference and Ariel Sharon’s deliberately provocative “visit” to the Temple Mount.
The Palestinians held non-violent mass demonstrations. The army responded with selective killings."
In effect, whole books (
one example) have been written on the subject of the First Intifada's peaceful origins.
And Israelis crackdown on peaceful Palestinian protests all the time -- the intention is clearly to provoke Palestinians into responding violently, so Israel can have an excuse to employ even more brutality against them. And when Palestinians fail to take the bait -- no problem, the Israeli army infiltrates the protests with stone-throwing
agents provocateurs . This, some Israeli soldiers have already admitted to courts.
An example:
"Undercover soldiers hurled stones in the "general direction" of IDF soldiers as part of their activity to counter weekly demonstrations in the Palestinian village of Bil'in, the commander of the Israeli Prison Service's elite "Masada" unit revealed during his recent testimony in the trial of MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash).
(...)
"Several "Masada" fighters testified two weeks ago in Barakeh's trial in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's court. The fighters testified from behind a curtain and their identity is to remain secret. The central witness was 'Fighter 102,' an officer in 'Masada,' who told the court that 'we were sent to counter the disruptions at the separation barrier in Bil'in. It was the first time I was undercover. Two men were arrested, they were Palestinians.'
"When quizzed by defense attorney Orna Kohn if the undercover soldiers hurled stones, '102' answered that they did. When asked if he hurled stones toward IDF soldiers, he answered 'in the general direction.'"
My *** that Arab peaceful protesters are left untouched.
They overwhelming majority of fighters in Syria are Syrians. Little percent of foreign jihadists does not change that fact.
Again, prove it. It doesn't suffice to simply say that this is so -- you have to show me. And since you spoke of percentages, I want the exact percentage of Syrian vs. foreign fighters among anti-Assad rebels. And I also want the source, of course.
This number is exaggerated
Prove it was exaggerated. As I said before, just saying it isn't enough.
As for me, this is my source for the above number -- an excerpt of
Israel: Current Issues and Historical Background" by Edgar S. Marshall (p. 33):
The excerpt above is available on Google Books.
As you see, whilst you speak of the Syrians displaced from the Golan Heights as being mainly from one town, the author speaks of 139 bulldozed villages; whilst you speak of Syrians who left with the army, the author speaks of them being forced to become refugees. From other sources, I know there were also, apart from the villages, two destroyed towns (one of which you already named) and 61 farms.
Hezbollah has huge number of most modern anti tank missiles, MANPADS, Grad, Fajar-3, Fajar5 MLRS systems, Fateh-110 ballistic missiles, anti ship missiles, they have super complex optical communication network and huge bunker network.
Hezbollah doesn't use them in most of its operations -- they're rather recent acquisitions. It didn't use them when it ousted Israel from southern Lebanon in 2000 or when it made Israel withdraw to a narrow Strip in the south in 1985. Hezbollah's main asset is the ingeniousness with which it employs its military resources, as when they disguised their bombs as rocks and placed them on the roadside for when IDF troops drove through them.
Hezbollah members were carefully selected and trained in Iran.
Many anti-Assad Jihadis are far from inexpierenced themselves.
Syrian rebels have AK-47, RPG-7, home made rockets and mortars. They are forced to use large slingshots to fire bombs at Assad's forces:
Am I supposed to feel sorry for them? Do you feel sorry for Hamas for being so ill-equipped itself?
Nevertheless Israel kicked *** of Hezbollah just on 1 month.
Whatever makes you sleep better at night, buddy -- but again, I'm not convinced. As I see it, Hezbollah has a perfect record against Israel; it won in 1985, 2000 and 2006.
Yep, 2006 was a Hezbollah victory. Israel invaded the country with the purpose of rooting out Hezbollah. Did it work? No. Therefore it lost. The Lebanese suffered far more casualties, it's true, but these were mainly civilian, whilst Israel's were mainly military. And that Israel had to target civilians to such a degree, just proves that it was failing to take on Hezbollah itself, that it needed to attack civilians in order to establish its "deterrent" (just read about Israel's Dahiya doctrine).
One way to assess who won is by looking at the domestic mood. It's known, for example, that Hezbollah's popularity skyrocketed throughout all of Lebanon, that is, even beyond the Shia community, following the war. And whilst the "moderate" Sunni regimes of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Mubrak's Egypt denounced the war as adventurism on Hezbollah's part, among the peoples in those countries Hezbollah's, Nasrallah's and Iran's stature rose to unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, in Israel, in the fallout of the war there were mass resignations from Israel's cabinet, including that of the "Defense" Minister; a scathing 2008 report denouncing the PM for mismanaging the war; and calls that he resign over the report's findings. Some few months after the war, this IDF general, Gui Zur -- who commanded the clumsy, utterly defeated ground invasion of southern Lebanon with Israel's elite troops and "invincible Merkava tanks, which Hezbollah destroyed like one shoots bunnies -- sucked up to Hezbollah, saying that it is "by far the greatest guerrilla group in the world". And even before the war was over, reports talked of IDF troops as indisciplined, with a low morale, and overall not living up to the legendary bravery and efficiency ascribed to them in the West. Sorry, but I don't see much evidence of confidence and sense of triumph on the Israeli side following the war -- which would be odd, had the war been deemed a success on your corner. And if you had won, Israel would have praised its own troops, not the enemies. And its reports wouldn't bring about the collapse of the government's cabinet.
Feel free to respond or not. But from my debates with you, I know what to expect: a bunch of slogans, clichés, and unsupported, arbitrary one-liners ("no, we won"; "no, we never target civilians"; "no, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are entirely free"). I have no intention to debate
ad infinitum with someone so attached to his little worldview that he is unable to assess evidence and respond to it.
