Someone mentioned stability in the Middle East yesterday. I just read this article and thought some of you may be interested (if anything because it isn't in anyway anti-American). The Israel situation is unsettling for me. I can see things going in a dark direction if they are allowed to continue in their current vein. It seems a simple solution to pull out of the West Bank, stop building in Palestinian territories, and move towards peace. Hell, if they want to continue with their "fence" then so be it. They wouldn't be the only country to have a physical barrier along their boundary. But, they HAVE to pull out of the West Bank. They are illegally occupying somebody elses territory, and people will inevitably react. And the bombing of Syria recently was a dangerous step backward. In my view, you cannot simply start targeting any country you think may hold terrorists. Every bloody country in the world would become a target!
Anyway, here's the article:
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria has the right to exercise self-defence if Israel strikes its territory again as its warplanes did last weekend, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman says.
Israel responded immediately, saying states harbouring terrorists were "legitimate targets".
"In case of a repetition (of an Israeli attack) Syria has the right to exercise self-defence," spokeswoman Bushra Kanafani told a press briefing in Damascus.
Israel carried out an airstrike last Sunday against what it said was a training camp for "terror groups" after a suicide bombing in Haifa in northern Israel that killed 20 people. The Islamic Jihad movement said it was behind the attack.
"Israel views every state which is harbouring terrorist organisations and the leaders of those terrorist organisations who are attacking innocent citizens of the state of Israel as legitimate targets out of self defence," Gideon Meir, a top Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Saturday in response to the Syrian comments.
"A state harbouring terrorist organisations who are attacking innocent civilians, which does not belong to the civilised family of nations, has no right to make comments about issues of self-defence."
He said such states were legitimate targets "to protect its citizens from horrifying terrorist attacks like the Israeli people experienced in a Haifa restaurant last Saturday."
Syria said the air raid was on a civilian area and that the offices of Palestinian factions in Syria only have media functions.
It denies links to "terrorist groups" but says there is a difference between terrorism and legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.
It has demanded the U.N. Security Council condemn Israel for the attack, the deepest air raid into Syria by the Jewish state in 30 years.
Washington has said Syria must stop "harbouring terrorists", but urged both Israel and Syria to avoid actions that could enflame tensions in the region.
