I agree that "There is extreme international pressure now that would prevent annexation"; I'm just saying that's a damn shame.
I agree with you that in '67 or '73 Israel could have "bit the bullet" and Annexed Judea and Samaria and ended this problem; my own research tells me that up until the 1987 intifada, most Arabs living in Israel considered themselves "Israeli Arabs", not this imaginary "Palestinian" ethnicity. Israel could have dealt with the problem then, and incorporated the people of the so-called "West Bank" as "Israeli Arabs".
Unfortunately, she did not. Ergo (and sadly), I think that the best option for Israel now is to ANNEX the major Jewish settlements of the West Bank (which are mostly adjacent to Israel anyway), and then leave the rest of the "Palestinian" Arab areas to "sink or swim" on their own.
Israel should CUT OFF the "West Bank" (aside from the major Jewish settlements, which I think she should Formally Annex), and leave the Palestinians that choice -- Peace, or Starving to Death. Hey, Moslems -- make your choice!!
The same goes for Gaza, of course; while my Essay establishes that the Israelis have a precendent Legal Right to the Gaza Strip due to the Paris Peace Conference, I personally believe that on pragmatic grounds Israel should cut them off to "sink or swim" also. A few (a very few) American Christian Fundamentalists like Pastor John Hagee believe that Israel should not relinquish the Gaza Strip (since it was tributary to King Solomon or whatever), but I personally think that Israel needs 1.3 million recalcitrant Gaza-Strip Arabs like the USA needs another 100 million or so Illegal Aliens (proportionately). Hey, why don't we just all shoot ourselves in the head, and save our enemies the trouble? No. Cut 'em off, Sink or Swim.
I believe they still control Golan (formerly Syrian?),
Israel controls most of the Golan Heights, except for a UN demilitarized zone between Israeli troop depolyments and Syrian troop deployments.
The Golan is an entirely different case from Judea and Samaria (Legally speaking), because the Golan was ceded from the Palestine Mandate to French Syria in 1923 without much objection from the Zionists. I suppose that one could make, for the Israelis, a weak claim to the Golan based upon the (questionable) Biblical territory of East Manasseh and the 1917 Balfour declaration; however, since the Zionists of 1923 and every Israeli government since then has never entertained any claims to the area, I think it's safe to say that Israel legally acknowledges the Golan Heights to be Syrian Sovereign Territory.
Thus, the possession of the Golan Heights falls under Canonical Rules for Just War: since Israel has not laid claim to the Golan as "Defender's Spoils", it is only appropriate for Israel to immediately return to Syria territory which is rightfully Syrian -- just as soon as Syria formally terminates its State of War against Israel, a State of War which has existed since 1948.
Of course, as long as Syria formally continues to be in a Legal State of War against Israel (as she has been for almost 60 years), then she has no cause to object to continued Israeli occupation of the (Legally-Syrian) Golan Heights.
You have to be at Peace with your Neighbor before you've got any rights to bitch about the fence-posts.
and they were wrong to leave their strip in Southern Lebanon on the promises of the UN. The UN is a failed organization and an effort at world socialism, which I hope will be seen for the utter failure that it is, and that socialism has always been shown to be.
Lebanon is a more tragic situation by far. Unlike almost every other state in the region, as far as I know Lebanon has NEVER declared War against Israel. Lebanon is perhaps the only country in the region with a Christian population large enough to matter in their internal politics (well, there was Iraq... oops... sorry, our "nation-building" in Iraq has worked so well that the Christians are now mostly dead or gone), and has unfortunately been a much-abused Pawn of Arab-Israeli warfare for the last 30 years.
In other words, the People of Lebanon (many of them Christians, many of them who don't "Hate Israel" but who have an understandably-Patriotic objection to any Foreign Occupation) are caught between a Hezbollah which is so violent and incompetent that it fires over 1,500 missiles at Israel causing less than 100 deaths, (only half of them military); AND... an Israeli War Machine which is so ruthlessly powerful it kills hundreds in its path every time it does anything, 90% of the deaths being civilians.
It's not a good situation, period. Israel is defending itself against the Hezbollah terrorist army, and Lebanese civilians are getting caught right in the war-zone and getting butchered like cattle -- women, children, babies.
It's an ugly situation on all sides. That's all there is to it.
Oops. Faux Pas.
What I meant to say was, "Respectfully" (indicating a respectful disagreement), not "respectively" (indicating a logical progression of types).
Mea Culpa.
Incidentally, on the subject of Respect, Xzins -- you have mine, as always, and I am deeply sorry if any prior discussion on Dispensationalism of mine on another Thread turned into some "Godwin's Law" Nazi-flame-war competition. I don't know exactly what happened, as the Religion Thread in question was Pulled before I got back to it a couple days later, so I am just going on what "GOOGLE Caches" I could find.
It seems that accusations of Nazism started getting thrown around, Godwin's Law was invoked, and the Thread got Pulled. At least that's what I can tell from any GOOGLE Caches.
If so, that's never what I intended. In my experience, most Dispensationalists tend to be some of the most earnestly kind-hearted (if misguided, IMO) folks I'd ever hope to meet; hardly candidates for the SS or Gestapo, by any imagination! (Good grief... that's not what I said!) My objection is purely theological; I don't believe that it is Theologically-Right for Christians to ever elevate any one Ethnic Group above any other within the Body of Christ, whether "British-Israelism" or "Identity" or any other theology.
Since the Thread apparently turned into a "Nazi-Godwin" flame war and was Pulled before I had a chance to explain my objections more fully, I'll try to explain them another time, on another thread.
But not here. Thread-Hijacking is bad ju-ju. Some other place, some other time.
Best, OP
I wouldn't exactly call it "butchered like cattle."
With cattle it is the slaughterer who herds them into the slaughter house. Apparently, in Lebanon it is their supposed friend, Hezbollah, who is setting them up to be killed.
In any case, counter-battery fire is an issue. It can be immediately launched against an identified round via reverse trajectory mathematics. It is part of the issue, because I've seen some self-propelled howitzers on TV, and these are nearly always mistakenly called "tanks" by idiot reporters.
There are, of course, other targets that get identified by human intelligence or other varieties of signal/electronic intelligence. These can be taken out when necessary by the IDF or IAF. When this is done, any combatant hiding among civilians, dressing like civilians, fighting from the midst of civilians is the REASON why various laws of war were written. It is recognized as an horrific crime against those civilians. It is cowardly.
And it causes consider collateral civilian deaths when the IDF MUST attack. In war, there can be no "free shots" against the enemy just because you happen to be shooting from a hospital, school, or throng of civilians. If any foe forbids firing against targets in those instances, then a ruthless enemy will logically ALWAYS fire with civilian shields, and their foe will ALWAYS be defeated.