Palestinian Pundit

Whatever Israel does now, it is seriously diminished. In military terms it has been confronted successfully for a second time by the guerillas of Hizbollah. Again and again, its heavily-armoured Merkava tanks have been rocketed to a standstill. All its technology and its large army have been shown lacking the deftness and determination of a vastly smaller force lacking armoured vehicles, bombers and aircraft. Most seriously, its vulnerability to missile attack has been amply demonstrated to any enemy, despite its possession of US anti-missile batteries. Israel has lost one of its most powerful weapons - the psychological sense of its military invulnerability. Continued.

To view a video of the initial violence of the Israeli military and shooting of Lymar click here. Higher quality for broadcast is also available from the ISM media office.

Today, August 11, the Israeli army and Border Police brutally prevented Bil’in’s weekly non-violent demonstration, by firing rubber bullets and sound grenades on protestors as they marched through the village on their way to the Apartheid wall. Fourteen people from Bil’in, Israelis and internationals, have been injured, including an Israeli, Lymar, in critical condition who was shot on neck and just above his right ear with 3 rubber bullets at close range. He has had surgery at Tel Hashomer hospital to remove a rubber bullet that was lodged in his skull. Currently he is in a medical induced coma in moderate but stable condition, but has sustained brain damaged of unknown severity. Continued.

As Israel's military bravely fires away shells and missiles to lay waste the fragile human and physical infrastructure of Lebanon, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, waging battle on a second front to legitimize Israel's criminal aggression, bravely fires away op-eds from his foxhole at Martha's Vineyard to lay waste the fragile infrastructure of international law. These are but the latest salvoes in Dershowitz's long and distinguished career of apologetics on behalf of his Holy State.

Since becoming a born-again Zionist after the June 1967 war Dershowitz has justified each and all of Israel's egregious violations of international law. In recent years he has used the "war on terrorism" as a springboard for a full frontal assault on this body of law. Appearing shortly after the outbreak of the second intifada, his book Why Terrorism Works (2002) served to rationalize Israel's brutal repression of the uprising. In 2006 Dershowitz published a companion volume, Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways, to justify Israel's preventive use of force against Iran. It is painfully clear from their content that Dershowitz possesses little knowledge or for that matter interest in the timely political topics that purport to be the stimuli for his interventions. In reality each book is keyed to a current Israeli political crisis and seeks to rationalize the most extreme measures for resolving it. If Why Terrorism Works used the war on terrorism as a juggernaut to set back the clock on protection of civilians from occupying armies, Preemption uses the war on terrorism to set back the clock on the protection of states from wars of aggression. Dershowitz's current missives from Martha's Vineyard take aim at the protection of civilians in times of war. Continued.

By Mike Whitney

08/13/06

Ideas have consequences, and the effects of a racist ideology are suffering and destruction. The growing similarity between the debris-strewn Levant and the Gaza Strip are not accidental; they are the predictable results of a world-view which places the value of one people above another. In Israel, there is a two-tiered system of justice; one for Jews and another for non Jews; full-citizenship for Israeli-Jews and “Jim Crow” for Arabs.

Is that acceptable?

Property rights, marriage, citizenship and nearly every other area of legal protection are corrupted by the effects of institutionalized racism.

We believe that there are no “second class” citizens, that every man deserves equal protection under the law. That is the fundamental principle of democracy.

Israel calls itself a democracy, but its prevailing ethos of Zionism precludes an evenhanded application of the law. This explains why Zionism was denounced in United Nations Resolution 3379 (vote 72 to 35) in 1975 which stated:

“Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

The resolution has since been repealed due to the persistent efforts of the US, but the effects are not so easily erased.

There cannot be a second set of laws for minorities; that is racism pure and simple.

The abhorrent treatment of Palestinians is the most striking example of Israeli chauvinism, but the current aggression in Lebanon is equally revealing. The massive ethnic cleansing of 750,000 mostly poor Shia Muslims in the south of Lebanon carries the same racist overtones as Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories.

When the heart of government is poisoned by prejudice, it expresses itself in erratic convulsions of violence. So it is with Israel. Zionism is not simply repressive for its victims in the territories, but also, for those who stand in the way of its territorial ambitions. Currently, Lebanon is in the crosshairs, but next year it will be Syria or Iran. Racism is a disease which radiates outwards always seeking new objects of abuse. It allows governments’ to rationalize their perverse addiction to power by demonizing the imaginary enemies of the state.

The term “Zionism” confuses many Americans and obscures the deeper issues.

Are we against discrimination and bigotry in all its forms or are we not?

Are we against territorial expansion that violates internationally accepted borders or are we not?

If we are, (and the vast majority of Jews are as well) then we are anti-Zionist. This means that we are committed to universally accepted standards of human rights and national sovereignty.

How can we watch the relentless humiliation of the Palestinians day after day and fail to identify the root cause? This is not a relationship between equals, but the cruel and disdainful behavior of people who believe they are inherently superior to their victims.

Jews would never treat other Jews in the manner they have treated the Palestinians.

Occupation breeds contempt; it is a spawning ground for racism.

How could Israel plunge 1 million Palestinians into darkness, cut off medical and food supplies, block all financial aid, and kill nearly 200 people in their scattershot military operations if they had the slightest regard for them as human beings.

Bigotry strips men of their dignity and humanity; leaving them at the mercy of the wealthy and powerful.

Isn’t that what we’re seeing in Palestine?

The Palestinians have become prisoners of a twisted dogma that is as real as the walls and checkpoints that encircle their Bantustans.

The West Bank and Gaza have become a farrago of gulags stitched together by “Jewish-only” roads where generation after generation languishes in unemployable misery.

These are the inescapable effects of endemic racism.

In America, the same cancer has infected all parts of the body-politic creating a vast network of Muslim-only concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Force Base, and countless other spots across the globe. The war on terror has become the flimsy curtain that barely conceals the monster of xenophobia and racial hatred.

The real measure of a nation’s commitment to principle is seen in the way it treats the most vulnerable people. What does this say about Israel, where fully one-half of the population are locked behind a monolithic wall which protects the racial purity of the powerful.

Those who live beyond the wall are not people at all, but a “demographic threat” posing a numeric challenge to the untainted pedigree of the overlords.

Even the biological exigencies of procreation are seen as a threat to the Jewish state.

How much crazier can it get?

What used to be disparaged as “apartheid” is now revered as “democracy”, a bizarre Orwellian interpretation of discriminatory practices which justify the ongoing subjugation of 4 million people.

When prejudice is enshrined in the law, the results are invariably disastrous. The same rule applies to Israel as it did to South Africa and the United States.

The world provided a loophole for Israel because of the genocidal persecution the Jews faced during the WW2. But, how has that worked out? 60 years of nonstop conflict with no hope of peace in the near future and the looming prospect of a region-wide conflagration.

Is that a sign of success?

Perhaps, there’s a better way. Israel should consider the same path that every other democratic, pluralistic society has taken; tear down the walls, amend the laws so that everyone’s rights are respected equally, and move towards an integrated, multi-ethnic society.

As a practical matter, the model of the Jewish state has failed. It has become a paranoid, war-mongering menace to itself and its neighbors. Israel’s abortive offensive in Lebanon only accentuates this point.

Israelis are less safe today than anytime in their history; their dogma-driven aggression has brought the entire Middle East to the brink of Armageddon.

The expansionist adventurism of their Prime Minister and the ideologues that surround him, are placing Israel at greater and greater risk all the time. Non-state actors, guerilla militias and terrorists are proliferating at a rate that was unimaginable just 6 years ago. Their means of lashing out grows more sophisticated and lethal all the time. Neither Israel nor the US is prepared for the generational war they are inciting by their reckless belligerence.

Nations, like people, can change their behavior if they see it is in their own best interests. No one wants their children to grow up in fear of random violence. There’s a path away from the two-tiered, discriminating legal system to equal protection, due process, and social justice. But the walls will have to come down, the dialogue will have to begin, the grievances will have to be addressed, and the state will have to de-militarize. Israel’s 200 nuclear missile-arsenal and high-tech war machine haven’t produced a day of peace since the inception of the state.

It’s time to abandon the demographic warfare, the discriminatory laws, and the expansionistic dream of Greater Israel. The road to peace and security must be built on a foundation of evenhandedness and fair play. There has to one law for everyone, Christian, Muslim, and Jew.

By UriAvnery
08/13/06

SO WHAT has happened to the Israeli army?

This question is now being raised not only around the world, but also in Israel itself. Clearly, there is a huge gap between the army's boastful arrogance, on which generations of Israelis have grown up, and the picture presented by this war.

Before the choir of generals utters their expected cries of being stabbed in the back - "The government has shackled our hands! The politicians did not allow the army to win!

The political leadership is to blame for everything!" - it is worthwhile to examine this war from a professional military point of view. Continued.

Also see:Hezbollah shoots down Israeli helicopter

24 troops killed in day of battles

Nasrallah's Speech On August 12 (Arabic)

How London's Terror Scare Looks From Beirut

By Robert Fisk

"I'm sure our readers will join me in watching how many of the suspects--or "British-born Muslims" as the BBC defined them in its special form of "soft" racism (they are surely Muslim Britons or British Muslims, are they not?)--are still in custody in a couple of weeks' time.

I was amused to see that Bush--just before my electricity was cut off again--still mendaciously tells us that the "terrorists" hate us because of "our freedoms". Not because we support the Israelis who have massacred refugee columns, fired into Red Cross ambulances and slaughtered more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians.

Take yesterday morning. On day 31of the Israeli version of the "war on terror"--a conflict to which Paul and the lads in blue apparently subscribe by proxy--an Israeli aircraft blew up the only remaining bridge to the Syrian frontier in northern Lebanon, in the mountainous and beautiful Akka district above the Mediterranean. With their usual sensitivity, the pilots who bombed the bridge--no terrorists they, mark you--chose to destroy the bridge when ordinary cars were crossing. So they massacred the 12 civilians who happened to be on the bridge. In the real world, we call that a war crime. Indeed, it's a crime worthy of the attention of Paul and his lads. But alas, Stephenson's job is to frighten the British people, not to stop the crimes that are the real reason for the British to be frightened.

Personally, I'm all for arresting criminals, be they of the "Islamic fascist" variety or the Bin Laden variety or the Israeli variety--their warriors of the air really should be arrested next time they drop into Heathrow--or the American variety (Abu Ghraib cum laude) and indeed of the kind that blow out the brains of Tube train passengers. But I don't think Paul Stephenson is. I think he huffs and he puffs but I do not think he stands for law and order. He works for the Ministry of Fear which, by its very nature, is not interested in motives or injustice. And I have to say, watching his performance before the next power cut last night, I thought he was doing a pretty good job for his masters."

US Troops Killed So Far 2,601

"Coalition" Troops Killed 2,831

US Troops Injured 19,387


As the "Decider" said, "bring it on!"

A SMART BOMB LIKE ME!

By Tony Sayegh

As of this writing, neither the Lebanese government nor Hizbullah has announced its position on this resolution. These observations are therefore being made without the benefit of knowing the official Lebanese position.

To start with, it is rather surprising how very little of substance was actually changed from the earliest drafts. One was led to believe, after all the meetings and wrangling of the mighty and powerful, the supposed split between France and the US, the sending of the Arab delegation to New York to support the Lebanese position, the visits of David Welsh to Beirut and his meetings with the Lebanese PM and indications of Russian impatience that Usrael was actually forced to see the light and make substantial changes to produce a balanced resolution. Far from it. It is clear that all the maneuvering was to create the illusion of balance and that the US was "taking into account" the Lebanese objections, while in reality insisting on and ramming through a resolution that was basically written in Tel Aviv.

Contrary to the view often expressed that Israel and the US were looking for a way out, since Israel was defeated militarily, and that this resolution is only to save face for both of them, I am of the opinion that far from it, this resolution is a win-win for Usrael and that is why it was adopted unanimously and accepted almost instantly by Olmert (hard to reject something you authored yourself). Let me explain.

From the Lebanese side it is a trap, either way. If Hizbullah accepts it (which I doubt), it would be political suicide. It would make no sense after the strong military performance of Hizbullah to accept disarming and the presence of a large international occupation force on Lebanese soil. This would make Hizbullah no better than one of the Iraqi political parties under the wings of the US occupation and Hasan Nasrallah would not even have the stature and the power of Muqtada As-Sadr. On the other hand if the Lebanese government accepts it (and it probably will based on the last meetings of Welsh and Saniora) and Hizbullah rejects it, then this would be the first major crack on the way to a full civil war.

From the Usraeli viewpoint, if Lebanon rejects it then it would "legitimize" the continuation and expansion of the invasion (which I still think is the plan and objective) and would get the US off the hook by showing (to Arab puppet leaders) that the US is "interested in peace" but it is the "Islamic Fascists" of Hizbullah who reject peace. On the other hand, if Lebanon accepts it (with or without the approval of Hizbullah) then this resolution establishes the "legitimacy" of a de facto occupation of Lebanon, the strengthening of a puppet Lebanese government and ceding control of the south of Lebanon (or a part of it) to Israel.

Regardless of the political decisions, I see no end to fighting. The Usraeli goal remains the same: subjugation of Lebanon and the rest of the Arab and Muslim worlds by force. One way or another, Hizbullah will go on fighting either in the current form with the backing of most Lebanese and the Lebanese government, or as an underground resistance movement (as in Iraq) fighting a puppet government supported by foreign military occupation.

Financial Times

"Washington’s foreign policy elite is engaged in a bitter tussle between “neoconservatives” and “realists” seeking to influence George W. Bush’s stance on the Israel-Lebanon crisis. The neocons increasingly have the upper hand.

Former and current administration officials say that George W. Bush feels more strongly and is more engaged in support of Israel’s military assault on Hizbollah than on any other question. They say Mr Bush feels passionately that the US should support Israel in what he sees as the frontline in the global battle between democracy and terrorism.

Over the past four weeks, Mr Bush’s language has toughened from talking about the “war on terror” to stronger terminology in which he refers to the war against “Islamic fascists” and “Islamofascism” – terms long in currency among neoconservatives. "

UNITED NATIONS - Following is the text of the operative provisions of a draft resolution circulated to members of the U.N. Security Council Friday. The preambular provisions have been omitted for reasons of length.
THE SECURITY COUNCIL, ...
Determining that the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security;
1. Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations;
2. Upon full cessation of hostilities, calls upon the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL (The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon) as authorized by paragraph 11 to deploy their forces together throughout the south and calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment begins, to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel;
3. Emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon;
4. Reiterates its strong support for full respect for the Blue Line (separating Israel and Lebanon);
5. Also reiterates its strong support, as recalled in all its previous relevant resolutions, for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders, as contemplated by the Israeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949; 6. Calls on the international community to take immediate steps to extend its financial and humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, including through facilitating the safe return of displaced persons and, under the authority of the government of Lebanon, reopening airports and harbors, consistent with paragraphs 14 and 15, and calls on it also to consider further assistance in the future to contribute to the reconstruction and development of Lebanon; 7. Affirms that all parties are responsible for ensuring that no action is taken contrary to paragraph 1 that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, including safe passage for humanitarian convoys, or the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons, and calls on all parties to comply with this responsibility and to cooperate with the Security Council;
8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent cease-fire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
— full respect for the Blue Line by both parties,
— security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani River of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area,
— full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state,
— no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government,
— no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government,
— provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession;
9. Invites the Secretary-General (Kofi Annan) to support efforts to secure as soon as possible agreements in principle from the government of Lebanon and the government of Israel to the principles and elements for a long-term solution as set forth in paragraph 8, and expresses its intention to be actively involved;
10. Requests the secretary-general to develop, in liaison with relevant international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), including disarmament, and for delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms area, and to present to the Security Council those proposals within thirty days;
11. Decides, in order to supplement and enhance the force in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operations, to authorize an increase in the force strength of UNIFIL to a maximum of 15,000 troops, and that the force shall, in addition to carrying out its mandate under resolutions 425 and 426 (1978):
a. Monitor the cessation of hostilities;
b. Accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the south, including along the Blue Line, as Israel withdraws its armed forces from Lebanon as provided in paragraph 2;
c. Coordinate its activities related to paragraph 11 (b) with the government of Lebanon and the government of Israel;
d. Extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons;
e. Assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area as referred to in paragraph 8;
f. Assist the government of Lebanon, at its request, to implement paragraph 14;
12. Acting in support of a request from the government of Lebanon to deploy an international force to assist it to exercise its authority throughout the territory, authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers, and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence;
13. Requests the secretary general urgently to put in place measures to ensure UNIFIL is able to carry out the functions envisaged in this resolution, urges member states to consider making appropriate contributions to UNIFIL and to respond positively to requests for assistance from the force, and expresses its strong appreciation to those who have contributed to UNIFIL in the past;
14. Calls upon the government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel and requests UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11 to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;
15. Decides further that all states shall take the necessary measures to prevent, by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft,
(b) the provision to any entity or individual in Lebanon of any technical training or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of the items listed in subparagraph (a) above,
except that these prohibitions shall not apply to arms, related material, training or assistance authorized by the government of Lebanon or by UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11;
16. Decides to extend the mandate of UNIFIL until 31 August 2007, and expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements to the mandate and other steps to contribute to the implementation of a permanent cease-fire and a long-term solution;
17. Requests the secretary-general to report to the council within one week on the implementation of this resolution and subsequently on a regular basis;
18. Stresses the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973;
19. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.

ISRAEL'S SECURITY COUNCIL

JERUSALEM, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Rising Israeli casualties and constant Hizbollah rocket attacks have sharply eroded public support in Israel for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his defence minister, an opinion poll showed on Friday.

The survey in the Haaretz newspaper found only 48 percent of Israelis were satisfied with Olmert's performance compared with popularity ratings of more than 75 percent in polls taken in the early stages of fighting against the Lebanese group.

Public support for Defence Minister Amir Peretz fell from 65 percent to 37 percent, the survey showed.

Continued.

QASMIYA, Lebanon

Israeli bombing has knocked out irrigation canals supplying Litani River water to more than 10,000 acres of farmland and 23 villages in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, raising accusations here that Israel is using its war on Hezbollah to lay claim to Lebanon's prime watersheds.

Heavy fighting and a series of targeted strikes on open water channels and underground water diversion pipes has effectively suspended much of Lebanon's agricultural use of the Litani River along the coastal plain and in parts of the Bekaa Valley near Qaraon dam, according to water engineers who have surveyed the south.

The damaged or broken facilities include a pump station on the Wazzani River, whose inauguration by Lebanon in 2002 prompted Israel to threaten military action because it diverted waters only a few hundred meters from the Israeli border, in a watershed that feeds the Jordan River, officials here said. At the time, Hezbollah vowed to defend the facility.

The strikes went largely unnoticed by the outside world in the nearly monthlong air assault on Hezbollah guerrilla strongholds in southern Lebanon. But Lebanese point to the extensive damage to their irrigation and drinking-water system as evidence that border security and water issues remain intertwined in a region short on both.

"Whenever Israel throughout history has thought of its northern border, they don't talk, for example, of the mountains as a border. They always think of the valley of the Litani," said Mohammed Shaya, dean of the college of social sciences at Lebanese University.

Continued.

BEIRUT, Lebanon-- Hezbollah TV reported Friday that guerrillas destroyed an Israeli gunboat with a crew of 12 off the coast of Tyre.

THE CRYING LEBANESE PM HAS ENOUGH TISSUE PAPER, THANK YOU

By Ghayth Armanazi

The Independent
(The writer is a former Ambassador of the Arab League to London )

"In the past, every foreign force that has come in to Lebanon to "keep the peace" has left with its tail between its legs - and there is no reason to believe that the putative "multinational force" will fare any better. Beyond Lebanon, however, is the feeling that is spreading like wildfire across the entire Arab and Muslim worlds. It is the feeling of empowerment created by the legend of Bint Jbeil and other battlegrounds that have already entered popular folklore.

It is an empowerment that eventually could seal the fate not only of Israel but of those governments of Arab countries who are seen by their people as having, for too long, "sold" them the false idea of Arab impotence in order to hide their own inadequacies and corruption.

Those in Washington dreaming of a new Middle East will indeed be witnessing the birth pangs of such an offspring. They will be well-advised, however, to consider the shape and nature of this new creation. If they truly believe that it will fit the image of their fantasy agenda, they are indeed inhabiting a wonderland. From today on, it will be difficult - and lonely - to be a moderate voice in the Middle East!"

جوزف سماحه

يستند هذا التقدير «العربي» إلى «تحليل» يعتبر أن المنطقة مهددة بمشروع إيراني لا بمشروع ترعاه واشنطن وتشاركها تل أبيب في تنفيذه. وليس سرّاً أن هذا هو «التحليل» الأميركي ــ الإسرائيلي. كما ليس سراً أن هناك، في لبنان، من يتبنّاه.في ذلك الوقت، أي قبل حوالى شهر، خرج من يتحدث عن «المغامرة» و«المحاسبة». وكان في الظنّ أن الجيش الإسرائيلي هو الأداة التنفيذية لصدّ «الهجوم» القادم من الشرق. وبما أن التنفيذ إسرائيلي فإنه، بالضرورة، تنفيذ سريع.كانت المفاجأة أن صموداً حصل وأن قتالاً أفسد الحسابات. ثم كان ما كان من انفلات الوحش الإسرائيلي من عقاله، وانقضاضه على المدنيين، وتهديده بالقضاء على لبنان كله وصولاً إلى مقاومته.شهدنا تدريجاً، وبفعل الصمود، انزياح الموقف العربي المشار إليه نحو نقطة وسطية، وهو انزياح لم يحصل إلا تحت غطاء تلعثم في الخطاب الفضائحي ومداراة لغضب ملموس عبّر عنه الرأي العام. انتقل الموقف العربي نحو تبنّي سياسة الحكومة اللبنانية وهي سياسة «أرقى» من سياسات بعض العواصم نتيجة الحسابات الداخلية الدقيقة.

By Tony Sayegh

There we go again; yet another story of alleged plot by British Muslims to blow up a total of 10 commercial jets en route between the UK and the US. No one has been charged, mind you, all those arrested will be questioned. If the past is any guide, they will probably be released, without any charges or trial. However, the intended effects are produced regardless of whether this was a real terror plot or not.

I am very skeptical for many reasons. First and foremost is the timing. It just so happened right when Tony Blair is facing a revolt among the British public, the Parliament and his own party over his criminal support of Israeli and American attacks on Lebanon and the war crimes committed there daily. I have also noticed that the announcement (even though US officials were briefed about the case about a week earlier) was made only one day after the defeat of Joseph Lieberman in the Democratic primary and Cheney's statement that this showed the Democrats were weak on fighting "terror."

There is a good chance that the UK government itself is continually fabricating such plots, since the case was "uncovered" by a government undercover agent who plotted with this group of British Pakistanis for about 6 months. Apparently the "plot" was only in the talking stage. Is it not conceivable that the whole "plot" was initiated by the government agent?

This "plot" was "discovered" just four weeks before the 9/11 anniversary; how convenient! The US and the British public have to be frightened periodically to keep them quiescent and to reduce opposition to the US-UK occupation of Iraq. The most recent surveys show up to 60% of the US public favor an end to that occupation and withdrawal of US troops within a year.

Equally important is that this "plot" comes at a time when Usrael is attacking and destroying yet another Arab country, Lebanon, and is preparing to attack two other countries, Iran and Syria. The US and UK propagandists need to keep linking all these endless wars and their frightening war crimes of terror to 9/11 and the "continuing terror threat." The announcement of the "plot" has allowed the Decider and the War President to strut around and to link it to what he called his war on "Islamic fascists." Big words Mr. Decider! He always likes to portray himself as the modern Churchill saving Western civilization and defeating the powers of the Axis.

This will not be the last "plot" to be "discovered." As the preparations for the attacks on Iran and Syria get into high gear, expect the propaganda machine to get equally feverish.

Israel has called on the services of the Christian militia it once sponsored in Lebanon to help its current fight against Hizbollah, the militia's former leader has disclosed.

Gen Anton Lahad assumed control of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) in 1984 - two years after it was implicated in the massacre of up to several thousand Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.

Now he says that Israel is tapping into his expertise in secret meetings.

Now the fascinating part to me is not that one fascist likes to consult with another fascist... no, no the absolutely fascinating part to me is the fact that the Christian fascists have absolutely no dignity or pride. Who can forget the images of the SLA standing at the border between "Israel" and Lebanon begging--yes, literally begging and pleading to be let into Israel when Israel was run out of Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah? I certainly won't forget it:

"Oh please let us in Israeli masters, we are more like you than we are like them. We won't cause any problems, we'll just lick your boots clean and we'll wash dishes at your restaurants, pleaseeeeee!"

The Israelis gave them a swift kick in the ass and sent back to Lebanon.

So you can understand why I am so fascinated by the "consultations" between one set of fascists with the other.

This administration is as sick and morally repulsive as the Israelis. Hope to see the day when the Americans and Israelis are all on trial at the Hague.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.

The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

But some State Department officials have sought to delay the approval because of concerns over the likelihood of civilian casualties, and the diplomatic repercussions. The rockets, while they would be very effective against hidden missile launchers, officials say, are fired by the dozen and could be expected to cause civilian casualties if used against targets in populated areas.

By Jim Lobe

"It's more the sense that the growing number of crises in the "new Middle East," proudly midwifed by the administration of President George W. Bush, is rapidly spinning out of control with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire region and beyond.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah—not to imminent expansion of Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon if it does not get a United Nations Security Council resolution to its liking—has, by virtually all accounts, inflamed and radicalized the Islamic world and rendered a larger regional conflagration much more likely.

That Rice may now find herself in a similar position, having to contend with a resurgent Cheney-led coalition of hawks who are not so much complacent about the course of current events in the Middle East as convinced that their strategy of regional "transformation" by military means will be vindicated, is what is perhaps particularly alarming about the present moment.

"This whole business is nuts -- unless, of course, you believe what the rumor-mongers are beginning to pass around," wrote Wilkerson in reference to the Lebanon war in an email exchange with IPS. "(T)hat this entire affair was ginned up by Bush/Cheney and certain political leaders in Tel Aviv to give cover for the eventual attack by the U.S. on Iran. At first, I refused to believe what seemed to be such insanity. But I am not so certain any longer.""

A chorus of apologists among Jewish intellectuals matches Israel's erasure of all distinctions between humanity and barbarism in war, writes Haim Bresheeth.

One of the most determined, courageous and influential opposition groups in Israel, now and in the past, is called Yesh Gvul; it represents and assists those bold Israelis who are taking a stand against their country's and government's war crimes: they refuse to serve in the Israeli army, preferring instead to go to prison in support of their refusal to kill and destroy. About 2000 Israelis have already taken this position, despite the almost hysterical support the Israeli public gives its leadership in most military adventures, and especially during the latest and worst atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon. Between them, small group that they are, those Israelis represent what little is left of the Israeli moral and principled stance. Continued.

Seven weeks into Israel's offensive on Gaza finds the civilian population desperate, isolated, and defenceless before Israeli massacres, Erica Silverman reports.

"There was no resistance, only open fields, and we weretold via loud speaker to evacuate our home," said Salan makeshift tent along his family of seven with no access to food or water. The Red Cross was trying to make its wayinto Rafah Saturday with emergency supplies for refugees. Continued

By JONATHAN COOK
Counter Punch

"As we approach the fifth official anniversary of the "war on terror", the foiled UK "terror plot" has neatly provided George W Bush, the "leader of the free world", with a chance to remind us of our fight against the "Islamic fascists". But what if the war on terror is not really about separating the good guys from the bad guys, but about deciding what a good guy can be allowed to say and think?

What if the "Islamic fascism" President Bush warns us of is not just the terrorism associated with Osama bin Laden and his elusive al-Qaeda network but a set of views that many Arabs, Muslims and Pakistanis -- even the odd humanist -- consider normal, even enlightened? What if the war on "Islamic fascism" is less about fighting terrorism and more about silencing those who dissent from the West's endless wars against the Middle East?

Sitting in London or New York, the news that Gaza lost 151 souls, most of them civilians, last month to Israeli bombs and bullets passes us by. It is after all just a number, even if a high one. At best, a number like that from a place we don't know, suffered by a people whose names we can't pronounce, makes us pause, even sigh with regret. But it cannot move us to anger.

The horror stories sound so much less significant, the need for action so less pressing, when each is unrelated to the next. Were we to watch the Arab channels, where all the blood and suffering blends into a single terrible Middle Eastern epic, we might start to make connections, and maybe suspect that none of this happens by accident.

This is something President Bush and his obedient serf in Britain, Tony Blair, need to learn. But of course, they do not want to understand because they, and their predecessors, are responsible for creating those patterns and for writing that epic tale in blood. Bush and Blair and their advisers know that the plan is far more important than the rage, the "red" alert levels at airports, or even planes crashing into buildings and plunging out of the sky.
And to protect that plan -- to preserve the Middle East as a giant oil pump, cheaply feeding our industries and our privileged lifestyles -- those who care about the suffering, the deaths and the wars must be silenced. Their voices must not be heard, their loyalty must be questioned, their reason must be put in doubt. They must be dismissed as "Islamic fascists"."

The Guardian

"The truth behind the diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting in Lebanon, a truth which also lies behind Israel's threat to expand the war if it is not satisfied with the outcome, is that everything now revolves around an attempt to save Israel's face. The Olmert government has to be given a chance to climb down without looking too much like a loser and allowing Israeli forces to stay in Lebanon for a while may, at least in Israel's estimation, meet that requirement. That is why the powers are working hard at the United Nations and elsewhere to persuade the Arab countries to soften their position on a continued Israeli presence. It is not so much that the Israeli Defence Forces want to stay so they can continue hammering Hizbullah, they are being told, but that the Israeli government wants them to stay on to give the Israeli public the feeling that "we showed them". Those are the words of the liberal writer Meron Benvenisti, one of numerous commentators in the Israeli press underlining the many faceted foolishness of the Lebanon operation.

The growing realisation that the Lebanon operation was a mistake and that it has ended in failure is putting the government under increasing strain. Wednesday's six-hour cabinet meeting was punctuated by angry arguments and personal abuse. The veteran Israeli radical Uri Avnery predicted a few days ago that "the politicians will blame each other. The generals will blame each other. And, most of all, the generals will blame the politicians"."

By William S. Lind

"In Iraq and Afghanistan, the "Coalition's" defeats continue slowly to unroll. In Lebanon, it appears Hezbollah may win not only at the moral and mental, strategic and operational levels, but, astonishingly, at the physical and tactical levels as well. That outcome remains uncertain, but the fact that it is possible portends a revolutionary reassessment of what Fourth Generation forces can accomplish. If it actually happens, the walls of the temple that is the state system will be shaken worldwide.

Israel can hit anything it can target, but against a Fourth Generation enemy, it can target very little. The result not only points to a battlefield change of some significance, it also raises the question of who is the real "terrorist." Terror bombing by aircraft is still terror.

Washington, which in its hubris ignores both its friends and its enemies, refusing to talk to the latter or listen to the former, does not grasp that if the flanks collapse, it is the end of our adventures in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also, in a slightly longer time frame, the end of Israel. No Crusader state survives forever, and in the long term Israel's existence depends on arriving at some sort of modus vivendi with the region."

All of Hezbollah's field units are autonomous and act by themselves. They don't need communications, they don't report everything and they don't ask for orders. That's why they are so hard to pin down, explains a former official of the UN monitoring force in south Lebanon. Continued.

A reader recently emailed to ask if anyone else was suggesting, as I have done, that Hizbullah’s rocket fire may not be quite as indiscriminate or maliciously targeted at Israeli civilians as is commonly assumed. I had to admit that I have been ploughing a lonely furrow on this one. Still, that is no reason in itself to join everyone else, even if the consensus includes every mainstream commentator as well as groups such as Human Rights Watch. Continued.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - While its fighters battle Israeli forces in the hills of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's relief workers in the capital are fighting on a different front: in sweltering kitchens, on soccer fields and in makeshift clinics.

Known in the West mostly for suicide bombings and kidnappings, Hezbollah has emerged as the largest relief provider in war-ravaged Lebanon. Its efforts dwarf those of the government and international aid agencies, and they're cementing its role as Lebanon's leading social-welfare organization. Continued.

Amnesty International is greatly concerned about the continuing killings of civilians in Iraq, and the continuing failure of the Iraqi authorities to end the killings and bring the perpetrators to justice. In recent months hundreds of people were reportedly killed every week, as a result of bomb and suicide attacks and in the ever increasing sectarian violence, in Baghdad as well as in other towns and cities.

According to a recent UN report, 5818 civilians were killed and at least 5762 wounded in May and June 2006. Today 35 people were reportedly killed in a suicide bomb attack in the southern city of Najaf. Further, scores of people, mostly young or adult men, have been abducted and murdered; often, their hands had been tied and they appear to have been tortured before death. Continued.

It's the new language that's sweeping the globe. Let's gather around and tune in. Click Here.

Ehud Olmert may decide to accept the French proposal for a cease-fire and unconditional surrender to Hezbollah. That is his privilege. Olmert is a prime minister whom journalists invented, journalists protected, and whose rule journalists preserved. Now the journalists are saying run away. That's legitimate. Unwise, but legitimate.

However, one thing should be clear: If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day. Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say - oops, I made a mistake. That was not the intention. Pass me a cigar, please.

There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month. He went to war hastily, without properly gauging the outcome. He blindly followed the military without asking the necessary questions. He mistakenly gambled on air operations, was strangely late with the ground operation, and failed to implement the army's original plan, much more daring and sophisticated than that which was implemented. And after arrogantly and hastily bursting into war, Olmert managed it hesitantly, unfocused and limp. He neglected the home front and abandoned the residents of the north. He also failed shamefully on the diplomatic front.

Still, if Olmert had come to his senses as Golda Meir did during the Yom Kippur War, if he had become a leader, established a war cabinet and called the nation to a supreme effort that would change the face of the battle, a penetrating discussion of his failures could be postponed. But in blinking first over the past 24 hours, he has become an incorrigible political personality. Therefore, the day Nasrallah comes out of his bunker and declares victory to the whole world, Olmert must not be in the prime minister's office. Post-war battered and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a real prime minister.

By Robert Fisk

"And it should be said that the Israeli army are not winning their war in southern Lebanon. Within two kilometres of their own border, they lost their 15 soldiers on Wednesday. Many others were wounded. The furthest the Israelis could reach in an armoured column yesterday was the edge of Khiam, the site of their own notorious torture prison from 1978 to 2000. It is still only two miles from the border and they are fighting a far more determined and disciplined enemy than in 1982, when their "incursion" took them as far as Beirut.

Hizbollah is a different enemy, one which turns the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's, claims that he is pursuing the same "war on terror" as George Bush into dust. The Hizbollah is officered by men who spent 18 years fighting Israeli occupiers, and who learned the hard way that improved weaponry and iron discipline are more important than nationalist rhetoric. Since the Israeli retreat in 2000, they have had six years to bury their arms caches underground amid extraordinary secrecy."

It is to be hoped that the United Nations Security Council will quickly pass the resolution ending the war in Lebanon in the spirit of the agreement revealed on Thursday. Ehud Olmert must be encouraged to lead the cabinet firmly to adopt it. This war broke out in no small way because of the Israeli leadership's lack of diplomatic-military experience and failure to predict the future. Olmert will have to be magnanimous in accepting the compromise taking shape internationally, because it will be an admission of Israel's inability to achieve its declared goals. There is reason to believe he has this quality. He is not a cynic who, for reasons of prestige or other extraneous considerations, would take tens of thousands of soldiers into battle to risk their lives. Continued.

Gallup: Many Americans Harbor Strong Bias Against U.S. Muslims

NEW YORK A new Gallup poll finds that many Americans -- what it calls "substantial minorities" -- harbor "negative feelings or prejudices against people of the Muslim faith" in this country. Nearly one in four Americans, 22%, say they would not like to have a Muslim as a neighbor.

While Americans tend to disagree with the notion that Muslims living in the United States are sympathetic to al-Qaeda, a significant 34% believe they do back al-Qaeda. And fewer than half -- 49% -- believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States.

Almost four in ten, 39%, advocate that Muslims here should carry special I.D.

That same number admit that they do hold some "prejudice" against Muslims. Forty-four percent say their religious views are too "extreme."

In every case, Americans who actually know any Muslims are more sympathethic.The poll was taken at the end of July and surveyed 1,007 adult Americans.

By Zafarul-Islam Khan
08/10/06

The Israeli-American adventure in Lebanon has badly backfired. Condi’s “birthpangs” have led to a still birth. Israel has been exposed as a giant with feet of clay. A serious and concerted effort will eliminate this cancer from the Muslim body. Even Americans will now realise that their pampered gangster is unable to deliver the job it is pampered for and showered with highest per capita military and civil American aid: to ensure the submission of the Arab countries and to facilitate the plunder of their resources. America will soon realise that it is always better to deal with the people of the region in a humane and equitable manner. By supporting the illegitimate Zionist project in Palestine America and west have forfeited the support and respect of Muslims and peace- and justice-loving people all over the world.

With the defeat of the Israeli Goliath at the hands of the present-day David, the Israeli-American project of a “New Middle East” is buried deep in the sands of Arabia. It is exactly the same project of subjugation, Balkanisation and plunder for which a similar invasion was launched by the war criminal Sharon in 1982. That adventure, which soon brought many western forces to support the Israeli project, led to the emergence of Hizbullah in order to resist foreign occupation. Hizbullah slowly forced the umpteen occupation forces to withdraw from Lebanon. The Israelis, who had colluded in such historical crimes as murder of hapless Palestinian men, women and children in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, too had to withdraw to south Lebanon until they were finally driven away unconditionally in May 2000 - the first such achievement by any Arab force since the emergence of Israel in Palestine. Popular and committed resistance succeeded where a plethora of Arab armies had failed since 1948.

Hizbullah is a genuine and legitimate resistance movement. It is well-respected in its own country. It has representatives, including a Christian, in the Lebanese parliament and two members in the Lebanese council of ministers. It takes part positively in the Lebanese politics as a serious and responsible force. The Lebanese government and people are thankful that Hizbullah has been able to drive the foreign occupation forces out and is now fighting to keep Lebanon free. To call it “terrorist” is a travesty of the truth. It is like our own Azad Hind Fauj and the European resistance forces during the Nazi occupation.

Now that the myth of Israeli invicibility built on unlimited American support even during the present war just as during the Ramadan war of 1973, has been exposed, it is time to call Israel’s bluff. Israel must be made to pay for the damages it has inflicted on Lebanon and elsewhere and made to exist in the Middle East not as a gangster but as an ordinary state subject to approval by the Palestinian victims of the Zionist project. The Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their homes in realisation of the solemn pledges made by Israel when it was accepted as a member of the UN in 1949. Israel must be demilitarised as its continuation in its present shape as a military base threatnes all countries in the Middle East and North Africa. There is no solution to the Arab-Israeli problem other than forcing Israel to exist as an ordinary state, not as a mafiosi and street gangster.

"We know who our first enemy is: America," he shouted before tearful mourners at a funeral Wednesday for 30 civilians killed by an Israeli airstrike on Monday. The white-turbaned sheikh led the crowd in a militant chant: "Death to America! Death to America!"

Even as Israel continues to pound Beirut's southern suburbs, and agreed Wednesday on plans to expand its four-week-old offensive as far as 18 miles into southern Lebanon, many here increasingly blame the US for its extensive military and political support for the Jewish state.

"Israel wants to stop the war, but America orders them to continue," the sheikh asserted later in an interview. "This is the American freedom?" Continued.

Well gee, it sure seems like it would be hard to argue with them when you have lunatics like Pat Robertson praying for more dead Lebanese.

"I am here to say I love Israel and that Christian Evangelicals in America stand with Israel in its struggle for freedom against Islamo-fascism, which is directed against Israel and all civilized nations of the world" Robertson said at a Jerusalem press conference during his 96-hour lightning solidarity trip.

Also see: Hungry For World War III

Part Five: Hizbullah’s Anti-Merkava Missiles

"Field reports from the AP and Jane’s Defense Weekly suggest that, most of the estimated 75 Israeli soldiers, including the elite troops from the Golani brigade were killed in their Merkava tanks by Hizbullah’s sophisticated missiles. Hizbullah’s tactics in utilizing the Metis and Milan anti-tank missiles, has answered the query as to why Israel had to delay its ground offensive. "

ISRAELI TANKS IN LEBANON, TODAY.

By Azmi Bishara

"Journalist: How will the deaths of Israeli soldiers today affect your plans?

Israeli Army Spokesman: You saw that massacre of 12 Israelis .. it will ...

Journalist: Massacre you said? But those were soldiers and this is war.

Spokesman: No, it was a massacre because the people who fired the missiles weren't targeting soldiers. They were targeting Israeli civilians but killed the soldiers by accident.

Journalist: But you also committed massacres in Qana and elsewhere.

Spokesman: No, there was no massacre in Qana. Hizbullah fighters were the targets of the bombardment but civilians were hit by accident.

This nightmarish gibberish, which would make any journalist quit his job, a spectator smash his TV screen and a dialogue participant abandon his faith in dialogue, is not from Alice in Wonderland. It is an excerpt taken verbatim from an interview on an Arab satellite station with a young spokesman for the Israeli Defence Forces.

Now, when Israeli soldiers die it's a massacre, whereas the wiping out of entire families in the course of the aerial bombardment of their homes and villages doesn't rate the term. That's not a massacre but an "accident" or, in the euphemistic jargon of the science of the war against terrorism, collateral damage."

" Hizbullah isn't looking for peace with Israel. Nor is it interested in receiving brownie points for being "enlightened" or "moderate". It sees its own enlightenment, as Israel sees hers, in its rationalisation and organisational strength. Ideologically, morally and in its origins, Hizbullah is founded within the Palestinian historical narrative, related by Palestinian refugees to the farmers and poets of Lebanon ever since catastrophe brought the poor of the Lebanese south and Palestinian refugees together in the same saga. Hizbullah will not lend itself as fodder to the "dialogue and coexistence industry". It is too deep for that. It is too busy writing a hands-on theology for the wretched of the Arab earth. This leaves very little opening for opportunist intellectuals to sell Hizbullah to the West. Hizbullah is not concerned with "the recognition of Israel" and, unlike the PLO and others, it refuses to engage in a discourse that involves using basic principles as bargaining chips. Hizbullah thrives on fighting as an equal, not on being compensated for its absence in the field by a false equality around the negotiating table. Hizbullah is not in the business of selling souvenir pictures of Nasrallah or in the business of courting the admiration of others. Hizbullah simply doesn't act like racists think a Muslim or Arab should act. The Muslim or Arab, according to the common racist assumption, will either sell out his principles and identity, toe the moderate line, live in peace as an inferior and ingratiate himself to his superiors or he will recoil into a nihilistic hatred and rejection of the other and of the West, thereby confirming his backwardness and the racist assumptions."

---
A great article by Azmi!

By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN

(Jennifer Loewenstein is a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University's Refugee Studies Centre. She has lived and worked in Gaza City, Beirut and Jerusalem and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, where she has worked as a free-lance journalist and a human rights activist)

"They tell you that a Jewish state is democratic but a Muslim state is evil; that Palestinians living in Palestine have no rights and no state but Jews living in the rest of the world can ‘return’ and live there as rights’-bearing citizens; that Jesus wants you in Palestine unless you are a Palestinian or a Muslim; that Washington, London and Tel Aviv can produce nuclear warheads but that Tehran is a global threat for daring to enrich uranium; that legitimate resistance is terrorism but state terrorism is “self-defense”; that the desert state of Syria is Nasrallah’s courier and puppeteer but that Washington is an honest broker and a partner for peace; that Iran is a rogue state for arming Hizbullah but that America is freedom-loving for arming Tel Aviv; that we cannot talk to Damascus or Tehran unless they ! renounce themselves out of existence first; that expansionism and regime change are necessary for American and Israeli national security but that the Arab and Muslim winners of free and fair democratic elections should be arrested in the middle of the night and imprisoned in secret police detention centers for attempting to rule.

Don’t count the blackened bodies of the peach farmers of Qaa laid out in the afternoon sun along the roadside. Don’t weep for the petrified, death-stolen children under the concrete rubble of Qana. Don’t suffer the incinerated of Marwaheen, the blasted of Srifa and Khiam and Tibnine. Don’t list the villages lost or the homes destroyed; don’t number the dead of Beirut and Tyre. Don’t listen to the wailing on the beaches of Gaza. Don’t mourn the lost lives of Khan Yunis or Beit Hanoun, people of the sand and the dust; of corrugated iron and uprooted orange groves. Don’t number the fallen in Nablus or Jenin: the old shepherds, the young rebels, the pregnant wives and weary husbands, the somber schoolgirls and the angry boys in the lost alleys of the camps. We will hear all of their voices again; see their likenesses in the shattered streets of the Levant. They will gather beneath the cedar and the minaret; carry with them the kuffiyeh and the Qur’an; they will speak the language of the resistance that we have breathed into them like fire."

GET USED TO IT, IOF.

AMERICA'S TWO STOOGES

By Robert Parry

"According to Israeli sources, Olmert and Bush agreed at the May 23 summit to make 2006 the year for neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while deferring a border settlement with the Palestinians until 2007.

Provoking a wider regional conflict also revived hopes among Bush’s neoconservative advisers that they might yet create a “new Middle East” that would be amenable to U.S. and Israeli desires and interests.

Israeli sources indicate that Bush gave Olmert a green light for the conflict at the May 23 summit. The sources said Bush has even encouraged Israel to expand the war by attacking Syria, although Israeli leaders balked at that recommendation because they lacked an immediate justification.

One Israeli source said some Israeli officials considered Bush’s interest in an attack on Syria “nuts” since it would have been viewed by much of the world as an act of overt aggression. Bush, however, is said to still hold out hope that reactions by Syria or Iran – such as coming to the aid of Hezbollah – could open the door to a broader conflict.

Many American observers believed that the disaster in Iraq would tamp down Bush’s ambition to remake the region. However, with Olmert’s ascension to power in Israel in 2006, Bush saw a kindred spirit who believed that military force was the only way to get Islamic adversaries to make necessary concessions."

Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is "a biblical imperative." CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah.CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee. Hagee is a fire-and-brimstone preacher from San Antonio who commands the nearly 18,000-member Cornerstone Church and hosts a major TV ministry where he explains to millions of viewers how the end times will unfold. "The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote this year in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide."

Arab reaction? Yawn!














Hell broke loose, a clash of civilizations was threatened.
Trade, tourism, cultural and economic relations with Israel and the US were not affected.




Furious protests in the streets, attacks on some westerners.




















Even though killed by American missiles, not one US ambassador was expelled.







Apology was demanded from the Danish government.

Not a single Israeli ambassador was expelled from an Arab capital.
Danish and American products were boycotted.











After months of this in Gaza the Arabs can't even open the crossing from Gaza into Egypt.
Danish embassies were attacked, diplomatic envoys recalled, apologies demanded.


After a month of this, Arab foreign ministers asked Israel for permission to fly to Beirut for a meeting.


A billion people were outraged; from Indonesia to Morocco hundreds of thousands were in the streets.

While it is certainly true that Hezbollah's leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, has long called for Israel's "disappearance," it is important to remember, especially now as the wheels of international diplomacy finally seem to turn, that Nasrallah and leading Hizbullah figures at one point accepted that a regional peace agreement involving Syria, Lebanon and Israel would end Hezbollah's state of belligerency in the region.

Indeed, several months prior to Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in May 2000, Nasrallah publicly announced, in a leading Arab magazine, that if Syria struck a deal with Israel which ensured a full Israeli withdrawal from all Lebanese territory, "Hizbullah would relocate in the South, but [would] not have any form of security force, since it is a resistance movement whose goal is the liberation of land and not an alternative to the government." In a subsequent interview, Nasrallah added, "We are convinced that the signing of a peace agreement will be a victory for the resistance and the rationale of resistance."

WASHINGTON, Aug 8 (IPS) - Israel has argued that the war against Hezbollah's rocket arsenal was a defensive response to the Shiite organisation's threat to Israeli security, but the evidence points to a much more ambitious objective -- the weakening of Iran's deterrent to an attack on its nuclear sites.

In planning for the destruction of most of Hezbollah's arsenal and prevention of any resupply from Iran, Israel appears to have hoped to eliminate a major reason the George W. Bush administration had shelved the military option for dealing with Iran's nuclear programme -- the fear that Israel would suffer massive casualties from Hezbollah's rockets in retaliation for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

One leading expert on Israeli national defence policy issues believes the aim of the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah was to change the Bush administration's mind about attacking Iran. Edward Luttwak, senior adviser to the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says Bush administration officials have privately dismissed the option of air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in the past, citing estimates that a Hezbollah rocket attack in retaliation would kill thousands of people in northern Israel.

But Israeli officials saw a war in Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah's arsenal and prevent further resupply in the future as a way to eliminate that objection to the military option, says Luttwak.

The Christian Science Monitor

"The White House, and in particular White House advisors who belong to the neoconservative movement, allegedly encouraged Israel to attack Syria as an expansion of its action against Hizbullah, in Lebanon. The progressive opinion and news site ConsortiumNews.com reported Monday that Israeli sources say Israel's "leadership balked at the scheme."

One Israeli source said [US President George] Bush's interest in spreading the war to Syria was considered "nuts" by some senior Israeli officials, although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has generally shared Bush's hard-line strategy against Islamic militants.

In a July 30 story about Israel being prepared for a possible attack by Syria in response to its attacks in Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post noted the White House interest.
The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] was also concerned about a possible Syrian attack in response to the ongoing IDF operations in Lebanon. It was also known that Syria had increased its alert out of fear in Damascus that Israel might attack.
Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria."

How “Indiscriminate” is Hezbollah’s Shelling?

By JONATHAN COOK
(Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel)

"What I have argued instead is twofold. First, we cannot easily know what Hizbullah is trying to hit because Israel has located most of its army camps, weapons factories and military installations near or inside civilian communities. If a Hizbullah rocket slams into an Israeli town with a weapons factory, should we count that as an attack on civilians or on a military site?

The claim being made against Hizbullah in Lebanon -- that it is “cowardly blending” with civilians, according to the UN’s Jan Egeland -- can, in truth, be made far more convincingly of the Israeli army. While there has been little convincing evidence that Hizbullah is firing its rocket from towns and villages in south Lebanon, or that its fighters are hiding there among civilians, it can be known beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israeli army camps and military installations are based in northern Israeli communities.

At the very least, we should concede to Hizbullah that it is not always targeting civilians, and very possibly is not mainly targeting civilians, which might in part explain the comparatively low Israeli civilian casualty figures.

Like every army in a war, Hizbullah may not acting in a humane manner. But it is demonstrably acting according to the same standards as the Israeli army -- and possibly, given Israel’s siting of military targets in civilian areas, higher ones. The fact that the contrary view is almost universally held betrays our prejudices rather than anything about Hizbullah’s acts. "

SAYYED NASRALLAH'S SPEECH ON AUGUST 9 (ARABIC)

ISRAEL UBER ALLES!

USRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.

THE HOUSE NIGGER AND THE HOUSE ARABS

Fadi Dahaineh embraces the wrapped body of his 20 month-old son Mohammed who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building late Monday, as he walks into the funeral house of the Shaheedein cemetery in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006. The death toll in an Israeli airstrike on a Shiite neighborhood in south Beirut three days ago has risen to at least 41, with 61 wounded, Lebanese security officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo)









A man carries the body of a baby ,killed during an Israeli raid on Monday, during the funeral held in Beirut August 9, 2006. REUTERS
Lebanese civilians chant slogans during a funeral held for victims killed when their building was hit by an Israeli raid on Monday, in Beirut August 9, 2006. REUTERS
A Lebanese boy salvages a blanket from the rubble of a building wrecked by an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's southern suburbs August 9, 2006. (Sharif Karim/Reuters)
Relatives of victims, who were killed when their building was hit during an Israeli raid on Monday, mourn during their funeral in Beirut August 9, 2006. REUTERS


A young Lebanese mourns over the bodies of his relatives, draped in Lebanese flags, at a funeral house of the Shaheedein cemetery in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006

By Ramzy Baroud
Palestine Chronicle

"The second claim, that Israel strives to obtain high-tech (American) weapon technology to minimize civilian casualties, is also fraudulent. Once again, the numbers indicate the precise antithesis; denoting that either the "fifth strongest army in the world" is so horribly inept, that most of its military strikes result in blunders, or that the killing of civilians is in reality part and parcel of Israel’s military strategy. This latter assertion, in my opinion, is the true objective; but why?

Israeli officials may parrot to the media that Hezbollah (like Hamas) is an outsider force that holds no legal legitimacy, and that its true strength arises from its terrorist links to Iran and Syria. Conversely, Israeli conduct on the ground gives evidence to a different conviction: punishing the true party — ordinary Lebanese — that provide Hezbollah with the needed support to sustain such costly military confrontations with Israel, or ordinary Palestinians who elected Hamas to power.

The Israeli tactics, however, are reaping a conflicting outcome, as both Hezbollah and Hamas are emerging more powerful than ever before, widely viewed as the only defenders of Lebanon and Palestine, as conventional Arab governments have finally declared, and without reservation, their military impotence and political bankruptcy.

Regardless of its media utterances, Israel has committed yet another colossal strategic error, comparable in magnitude and consequence to the American debacle in Iraq. Indeed, both governments are fighting two impossible wars, where civilians are killed with extraordinary "precision." "

Hasan Abu Nimah, Electronic Lebanon, 9 August 2006

"Israel may have the most on its post-war menu. The war has shaken the foundations of matters once taken for granted. It has underlined that Israel's security cannot be guaranteed by military superiority alone, even with unlimited support from a superpower. Even the growing trend, over recent decades, of Arab recognition of the Jewish state and the formal agreements with a few Arab states may now have to be gradually downgraded. Israel cannot expect the so-called peace process to move any further with so much more innocent Arab blood spilled by its new massacres in Palestine and Lebanon. The Israeli apartheid system has totally and finally disqualified itself from ever becoming part of this region.

Time is also running out for the Arab regimes who have for so long ignored the feelings of their people, building up layers of humiliation, anger and disgust as a result of defeatism, corruption, incompetence, hypocrisy and oppression. If they have managed so far to dismiss the rising forces of resistance and rejection as extremist trends of terrorism, this may not be possible any more. The victory of the resistance in Lebanon is going to change the equation drastically and it will gradually weaken Arab officialdom as outdated and defeated.

And for the so-called "international community," which trailed blindly behind the forces led by US and Israeli thinking, justifying all their injustices and rationalisations of lawlessness, it is time to realise that the victims of the prevailing chaos will not for long remain restricted to Arabs and Muslims, so easily demonised as "terrorists." The precedents tested on Arab and Muslim peoples and countries will soon be used elsewhere, and no one will be spared the consequences of America and Israel's, with European collaboration, undoing of all the achievements in international law and human rights since World War II. All of us must stand up to the horrors being committed in the name of this "war on terror," a war of the rich against the poor, of the privileged against the disenfranchised, of the white North against people of colour in the global south, if we are to stop the flames from leaping higher and engulfing us all."

JOINT US-FRENCH UN PROPOSAL

By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"WASHINGTON - Israel has argued that the war against Hezbollah's rocket arsenal was a defensive response to the Shi'ite organization's threat to Israeli security, but the evidence points to a much more ambitious objective - the weakening of Iran's deterrent to an attack on its nuclear sites.

In planning for the destruction of most of Hezbollah's arsenal and prevention of any resupply from Iran, Israel appears to have hoped to eliminate a major reason the US administration had shelved the military option for dealing with Iran's nuclear program - the fear that Israel would suffer massive casualties from Hezbollah's rockets in retaliation for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

It seems likely that Olmert discussed Israel's plans for degrading Hezbollah's missile capabilities as a way of dramatically reducing the risks involved in an air campaign against Iran's nuclear sites, and that Bush gave his approval. That would account for Olmert's comment to Israeli reporters after the meeting, reported by ynetnews but not by US news media: "I am very, very, very satisfied."

Bush's refusal to do anything to curb Israel's freedom to cause havoc on Lebanon further suggests that he encouraged the Israelis to take advantage of any pretext to launch the offensive. The Israeli plan may have given US Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld new ammunition for advocating a strike on Iran's nuclear sites. "

By Dahr Jamail

"When you are in Syria or, I suspect, in most Arab states today and utter the words "terrorist organization", it doesn't even occur to people that Hezbollah might be the topic of conversation. They take it for granted that you're referring either to Israel or the United States.

When this war finally ends, the societal, economic and environmental destruction will undoubtedly be staggering - it already is - as well as long-lasting; but it will pale in comparison to the psychological damage that has already been done. Rather than sowing the seeds of a future peace, it's painfully clear to an observer that the seeds of everlasting bloodshed, resentment and resistance are now sprouting amid the ruins.

Arab leaders continue to earn the scorn of their populations for not putting their all into stopping the Israeli campaign against Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah appears committed to doing so until the very end - and, based on what I saw in my days in Lebanon, that "end" of mutual destruction seems all that is left on the minds of those involved.

The Israelis, overvaluing the technology of war and, in particular, of air power (as so many have done before them), began their campaign against Lebanon by using perfectly real bombs and missiles to achieve largely psychological ends - the humiliation of Hezbollah in the eyes of the Lebanese population. As it turns out, they have indeed changed the psychology of Lebanon - and possibly of the region. Just not in ways they ever imagined. As Tarad Hamade, the Lebanese minister of labor and official representative of Hezbollah, told me in Beirut recently, "We might not be as powerful as the Israeli army, but we will fight until we die." "

The Guardian

"Lebanon's Shias have borne the brunt of the Israeli onslaught and many of those driven out of the south are eager to return to defend their villages. But it is not just the poor, dispossessed Shias who are eager to fight: the new militancy now cuts across the class divide.

"We are all students in university, some of us have businesses, but we will give our lives to defend our country," says Mohammed, a 23-year-old political science student.
Firas, 22, nods. "You only have one thought in your head - how you are going to defend your country, how you are going to defeat Israel." Since the war began, the friends say, their perception of their lives has changed. "We are not thinking about material things any more. We are all willing to give up everything," Mohammed says.

Despite ideological differences, many young leftists are also now backing the fight against Israel. They see Hizbullah as filling the vacuum left by the largely ineffective Lebanese government and respect what they see as the dedication and competence of the fighters."

A salute to Hugo Chavez: Bahraini demonstrators lifting flags of Hizbullah and Venezuela during a protest against the Israeli terrorist massacres in Lebanon yesterday. Venezuela is the only country in the world which recalled its ambassador from Israel in protest against Israeli massacres in Lebanon (Assafir, 8/8/06).

By Ran HaCohen

"The UN Security Council resolution draft on Lebanon reflects a new stage of Western colonialism in the Middle East, and perhaps a historic precedent: for the first time, the UN Security Council – should the resolution draft be endorsed – breaches the fundamental principle of the right of people under occupation to resist, and in fact legitimizes the violent partition of the sovereign state of Lebanon.
The American-French draft reflects the interests of three central colonial powers in the region: the U.S., the main colonial power in Iraq and Afghanistan; its client and proxy Israel, which is occupying the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza as well as part of Syria, and occupied south Lebanon for 22 years (1978-2000); and France, the former colonial empire in Lebanon after WWI. No wonder that the draft, which pays lip-service to Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity, in fact suggests a partition of this small land."

THE CROCODILE TEARS OF LEBANESE PM

HE IS MAKING A CAREER OF CRYING

By Robert Fisk

"We glower at Al Manar, Hizbollah's TV station, in the corner of the room, whose Hizbollah announcer is proclaiming the merits - and demerits - of the Arab foreign ministers meeting to start shortly in Beirut. These wealthy princes and emirs of the Gulf and the utterly boring Amr Moussa of Egypt roared and strutted upon the stage, remaining silent only when Fouad Siniora - Lebanon's sweet Prime Minister - went through another of his public weeping sessions and demanded an immediate ceasefire. Lebanon's proposals must be added to the UN draft resolution, he said between sobs, sniffles and whimpers. Shebaa Farms must be returned to Lebanon. The Israelis must leave Lebanon. Only then can Hizbollah abide by UN Security Council resolution 1559 and lay down its arms.

The ministers decided to send a delegation to the UN in New York - which will have Washington shaking in its boots - and the Saudis agreed to an Arab summit in Mecca, but one which should not be rushed because it must be carefully prepared - which sounded very like George W Bush's equally mendacious remark that a ceasefire had to be carefully prepared. And that will have them shaking in the shoes in Tel Aviv.

It was preposterous, scandalous, shameful to listen to these robed apparatchiks - most of them are paid, armed or otherwise supported by the West - shed their crocodile tears before a nation on its knees. "

Occupied Jerusalem - Hamas Movement has expressed absolute disappointment over the Arab countries' stand towards the "bleeding Lebanon", and described it as "weak and dull".

In a statement it issued Tuesday and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, Hamas stressed the "oneness of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples' fate, stand, and future in confronting the Nazi-like Zionist terrorism against them".

"Despite the destruction inflicted on Lebanon, and despite the continuous IOF troops' massacres that spare no infant, woman, sick, or elderly people that target the Lebanese people on daily basis under the watching eyes of the world, Lebanon got no more than a mere meeting of Arab foreign ministers and one month after all those lethal wounds", the statement added.

The statement described the Arab session in Beirut as a "very late step" and out of the context of the genuine Arab solidarity as mandated by the Arab League charter.

However, it added, the meeting produced no more than mere theoretical stands at a time Lebanon is in bad need of more courageous Arab actions to stop the Israeli destruction machine once and for all.

The Movement also flayed the draft resolution worded by France and the USA, charging that it lacks the minimum of honesty and neutrality basis and answers the Israeli demands and ambitions in order to get the Hebrew state out of the Lebanese "marsh", and to give it political gains it failed to achieve militarily.

The statement, furthermore, urged France not to follow the footsteps of the USA in inclining towards Israel against the Arabs, adding that such a stand could jeopardize the French credibility in the Arab world as an "honest player".

Moreover, the statement expressed the Palestinian peoples and factions' full support for the Lebanese people and resistance against the ferocious Israeli aggressions, adding that the heroic resistance in Palestine and Lebanon has stalled the American-Israeli project of subjugating the region.

In conclusion, the statement urged Arab and Muslim peoples not to be content with emotional stands towards the slaughtered Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, but to take more effective steps in pressuring their regimes to practically support the two bleeding Arab countries so as to restore the high status and glory of the Arab and Muslim Ummah on this planet.

مقتل خمسة جنود صهاينة وتدمير اربع دبابات ميركافا وجرافة في محاولات تقدم وتسلل فاشلة لقوات الاحتلال والمقاومون يهاجمون موقعاً عسكرياً قرب الناقورة.

/ تقرير خاص قناة المنار تتواصل المواجهات الباسلة والضارية لمجاهدي المقاومة الاسلامية مع قوات الاحتلال الصهيوني على طول القرى والبلدات الحدودية ويتكبد العدو فيها المزيد من القتلى والجرحى من دون ان يتمكن جيش الاحتلال من تحقيق أي تقدم يذكر. فقد ارتفع عدد القتلى في صفوف الجنود الصهاينة اليوم الثلاثاء الى خمسة وذلك بعد اعلان الاحتلال عن مقتل اثنين من جنوده في المواجهات المتواصلة في المناطق الحدودية. فقد قتل ثلاثة من جنود الاحتلال الصهيوني صباح اليوم في مواجهات مع مجاهدي المقاومة الاسلامية بالقرب من قرية دبل جنوب لبنان واصيب 11 آخرون بجراح، واشارت وسائل الاعلام ان الجنود الجرحى نقلوا الى مستشفى نهاريا وان اربعة منهم بحال الخطر. ناطق باسم الجيش الاسرائيلي اعلن ان وحدة راجلة كانت ترافق الية لسلاح الهندسة اصيبت بصاروخ مضاد للدروع وان خمسة جنود اصيبوا بجراح. كذلك اعلن الناطق الصهيوني عن اصابة عدة جنود اسرائيليين بجراح اليوم خلال اشتباكات عنيفة تجري بين القوات الاسرائيلية ومقاتلين من حزب الله في بلدتي عيترون والطيبة. كما اعلنت وسائل اعلام العدو عن اصابة جندي اسرائيلي بجراح خطرة في مواجهات بالقرب من بنت جبيل. واعترف الاحتلال بعد ظهر اليوم بمقتل أحد الجنود في اشتباكات عنيفة في احدىا البلدات الحدودية، واعلنت وسائل اعلام العدو ان جندياً اسرائيلياً آخر والذي كان قد أصيب بجراح خطيرة قد توفي في مستشفى "زيف" في صفد. وكانت قد أعلنت الإذاعة الإسرائيلية العامة، في وقت سابق من اليوم، عن مقتل جنديين من قوات الاحتياط وإصابة إثنين، إصابة أحدهم متوسطة، وقالت أنهم قتلوا ليلة أمس في اشتباكات مع المقاومة. وقالت مصادر إسرائيلية إن عدة جنود أصيبوا فجر اليوم في بلدة لبونا في القطاع الغربي، وإن اشتباكات دارت في محيط بلدة عيترون. وقد اعلنت المقاومة الاسلامية انه وبعد ان كبدت المقاومة الاسلامية قوات الاحتلال خسائر في المواجهات التي دارت في منطقة اللبونة صباحا، حاولت قوة صهيونية التقدم باتجاه مرتفع اللبونة على الحدود مع فلسطين الى الشرق من رأس الناقورة، فتصدى لها المجاهدون وأجبروها على التقهقر، موقعين خسائر كبيرة في صفوف القوة المتقدمة. وقد غنم المقاومون مجموعة من العتاد والسلاح تركه الغزاة في أرض المعركة. الى ذلك اعلنت المقاومة الاسلامية انه وعند الساعة الخامسة والنصف من بعد الظهر دمر المجاهدون دبابة اسرائيلية من نوع ميركافا عند الاطراف الشرقية لبلدة عيناتا بعد ان كان المجاهدون قد دمروا اثني منها عند الساعة 12:10 من بعد ظهر يوم الثلاثاء. وقام المجاهدون باستهداف دبابتي ميركافا على الاطراف الشمالية لبلدة عيناتا ما ادى الى تدميرهما تدميرا كاملا واصابة من بداخلهما بين قتيل وجريح. كما أكدت المقاومة الاسلامية في بيان آخر أنه وفي اطار المواجهة المتواصلة مع قوات الاحتلال قام مجاهدوها عند التاسعة صباحا بتدمير دبابة اسرائيلية في تلة الفريز عند الأطراف الشرقية لبلدة عيناتا حيث وقع طاقمها بين قتيل وجريح" ليرتفع بذلك الى اربع عدد الدبابات الاسرائيلية المدمرة منذ صباح يوم الثلاثاء. كما اصدرت المقاومة الاسلامية بيانا اعلنت فيه انه وتزامنا مع ذكرى ولادة امير المؤمنين علي بن ابي طالب عليه السلام وبنداء "يا علي" شن مجاهدوا المقاومة الاسلامية عند الثالثة من فجر اليوم هجوما منسقا من عدة جهات على موقع جل العلم الحدودي الواقع شرقي راس الناقورة في القطاع الغربي وهو من اهم مواقع العدو في هذا القطاع وذلك بالرغم من بعض التوغلات الواهية التي يجد العدو بكل قواه على تحقيقها منذ ما يقارب الشهر، وقد دارت اشتباكات عنيفة مع حامية الموقع بمختلف الاسلحة الرشاشة والصاروخية تمكن المجاهدون خلالها من ايقاع عدد كبير من جنود العدو بين قتيل وجريح. الى ذلك اعترفت مصادر عسكرية اسرائيلية ان ثلاثة جنود قتلوا امس في اشتباكات مع حزب الله في محيط بلدة بنت جبيل جنوب لبنان وقال متحدث باسم جنود العدو ان جنديين اخرين قتلا بقذيفة مضادة للدبابات كما قتل جندي ثالث واصيب ثلاثة اخرون خلال القتال في محيط البلدة. وافادت المقاومة الاسلامية ان قوة صهيونية معززة حاولت عند السابعة الا ربعا من مساء امس التقدم مجددا باتجاه بلدة العديسة فاستدرجها المجاهدون الى داخل البلدة حيث باغتوها بكمين محكم ادى الى مصرع خمسة جنود صهاينة فيما انتاب رفاقهم حالة من الهلع وعلا صراخهم جاء هذا الكمين بعد سقوط ثمانية جنود من المظليين الصهاينة بين قتيل وجريح خلال تصدي المقاومين لهم ظهرا عند الشريط الشائك بين العديسة ومسكاف عام كما اعلنت المقاومة انها دمرت عند العاشرة مساء الاثنين دبابة ميركافا شوهدت النيران تندلع منها خلال محاولة تقدم باتجاه عيتا الشعب ولاحقا تم تدمير جرافة بصاروخ مضاد للدروع على المحور ذاته . وبمقتل الجنود الخمسة اليوم ارتفع الى 65 عدد الجنود الاسرائيليين الذين قتلوا منذ بدء العدوان الاسرائيلي على لبنان في 12 تموز/يوليو.

Why did Israel remain in southern Lebanon after the departure of the PLO in 1982? The publicly stated reason was to assure the security of its northern border by neutralizing the resistance forces and by maintaining a "buffer" zone. However, it is clear that the most secure period for northern Israel since 1978 and perhaps earlier has been the period from 2000 to the present, when it had no occupation forces in Lebanon except for the Shebaa farms. Many Lebanese and international observers suspect that the real purpose of Israel's leadership (as distinct from that of its population) was to seize and ultimately annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani river. If so, it is plausible to speculate that this may not have been the original intention, but rather evolved from the initial successes of Ariel Sharon, then commander of Israeli forces in Lebanon, in occupying the territory in question.

By TIM LLEWELLYN
Counterpunch

"Hezbollah and Hamas, beyond Lebanon, have become the voice of the Arab world in lieu of the nation states, kingdoms and republics who dropped the interests of their peoples long ago. Though these Arabs of the Street and their new heroes cannot turn soon the tide of American-Israeli-Western military and political pressure, they have put us and Israel on notice that for the first time in modern history the Middle East conflict is being fought on Israeli as well as Arab land, and that the highly mechanized delivery of death by machine that has been the fate of the Arabs since 1917 -- yes, 1917 -- comes no longer without cost, human and economic, for everyone.

Israel has made itself the least safe place in the world for a Jew to live, a terrible reflection on the calamity of Zionism for its own people and others. "

Video Letter From Beirut

Whores.

The Manmohan Singh government is hesitant to join the international community in unambiguously and consistently condemning Israel, despite domestic calls to do so. There are good reasons for this - a nuclear deal with the US and an arms deals with Israel. Continued.

Israeli raids in the Palestinian territories have left two people dead, including a 13-year-old boy killed in an air strike on Gaza. Continued.

A minaret of a mosque is seen behind a demolished house that was struck by Israeli war plane missiles at the village of Brital in the eastern Bekaa Valley, Lebanon Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006.






A Lebanese man passes by blood stains at a partly demolished house that was struck by Israeli war plane missiles at the village of Brital in the eastern Bekaa Valley, Lebanon Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006.


Relatives who lost family members in Monday's Israeli air strike pray over their bodies before the burial ceremony in Ghaziyeh village, south Lebanon, August 8, 2006. (Ali Hashisho/Reuters)


The father (R) of a young boy, killed in Monday's Israeli air strike on Ghaziyeh village, south Lebanon, grieves as his son's body is taken for burial August 8, 2006. REUTERS
A Lebanese woman walks past wreckage after an overnight Israeli air raid on Brital, 10 km south of Baalbeck, August 8, 2006. Nine people were killed in the attack. REUTERS

Lebanese civilians watch a bulldozer dig graves for nine people killed after an overnight Israeli air raid on Brital, south of Baalbeck, August 8, 2006. (Mohammed Solh/Reuters)


Lebanese women are supported by a relative at the funeral for nine people killed after an overnight Israeli air raid on Brital, 10 km south of Baalbeck, August 8, 2006. REUTERS

Rescuers Dig for Survivors as Israel Bombs Apartment Buiding in Christian District of Beirut








Injured Lebanese boy Hassan Al Raai rests in the intensive care unit of Hayat hospital in the Chiah suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday Aug. 8, 2006. Hassan was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building


A Lebanese civil defence worker removes the body of a toddler from the wreckage of a building August 8, 2006 that was hit by an Israeli raid in Beirut.


Lebanese civil defence workers clear the wreckage of a building in Beirut August 8, 2006 after it was hit by an Israeli raid.


Lebanese civil defence workers remove the body of a victim from the wreckage of

JOINT U.S.-FRENCH UN RESOLUTION

Palestinians in Lebanon open their camps to fleeing families.

RASHIDIYEH CAMP, LEBANON – Nearly six decades ago, the Lebanese gave shelter to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled their homeland when the state of Israel was created. Now some of those refugees' descendants are returning the favor. Hundreds of Lebanese who have abandoned their homes have sought shelter in the Palestinian camps ringing the southern coastal town of Tyre. Continued.

By Gilad Atzmon

"In a press conference following the heated cabinet debate, the Government spokesman Mr Zion Zioni stressed that “following the total success of the Security Wall in stopping Palestinian suicidal terror, ‘Security Roof’ is obviously the natural way to proceed.” Mr Zioni maintained as well that the new Israeli project will turn the Jewish State into a “sealed Jewish Bunker”. “In fact,” Zioni emphasised, “‘Operation Security Roof’ brings the Zionist adventure into its final destination. We are now moving from the ‘Iron Wall’ phase into the ‘Concrete Roof’ future. With a reinforced concrete ceiling from above, a Security Wall in the East and the Mediterranean Sea in the West, the Jewish State will eventually become the safest haven for world Jewry. Herzl’s dream comes true. Long Live Israel!” "

Two weeks ago Lebanon's Prime Minister was demanding an immediate cease fire while Shrub and company were insisting that only a "lasting cease fire," leading to a "permanent solution," would do.

Now it's the other way around:

Speaking to reporters today at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., where he is on vacation, Mr. Bush said, “Everyone wants the violence to stop.’’

“People understand that there needs to be a cessation of hostilities in order for us to address the root causes of the problem,’’ he said . .

Mr. Siniora said he opposed the cease-fire resolution in its current form, saying it would not effectively halt the violence. “It barely leads to a cease-fire,’’ he said, with tears in his eyes. “We want a permanent and full cease-fire.’’

Obviously, something has changed -- that something being the completely unexpected outcome of the war (unexpected by everyone but Hizbullah I mean.)

It would appear that I completely misjudged the situation when I suggested Sheikh Nasrallah would be smart to take or at least pretend to take, the deal on the table -- essentially agreeing to a ceasefire in place while ignoring the "permanent solution" his Anglo-Israeli enemies were in no position to demand or implement.

But every word spoken by the respective sides since Sunday indicates that the Israelis and the Americans have reached a point where they both want a cease fire more badly than Hizbullah does. The Israeli papers have been filled with loose talk from Jerusalem about what a good deal the Anglo-French draft is for the Jewish State (or rather was, since it appears DOA.) Either the Israelis are being exceptionally crafty (i.e. they want Hizbullah to think they want a ceasefire when actually they don't) or they're just bad poker players. Under the circumstances, and given the growing hysteria about the IDF's inabilty to stop or even slow Hizbullah's rocket fire, I'd say it was the latter.

"Bomber" Halutz isn't changing this impression any by doing his Curtis LeMay routine:
However, the officer said, "we are now in a process of renewed escalation. We will continue hitting everything that moves in Hezbollah -- but we will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure" . . . "It could be that at the end of the story, Lebanon will be dark for a few years," said one [officer].

The Israelis must not believe their own propaganda rhetoric about what a brutal, ruthless terrorist Sheikh Nasrallah is, or they would certainly understand that such threats will move him not at all. Hizbullah isn't going to cry uncle because of a little terror bombing -- no more than Uncle Ho (the original, not Horowitz) was willing to submit to a fleet of American B-52s over Hanoi. By talking such crazy talk, Halutz only demonstrates what a weak hand the Israelis are now holding, which strengthens Sheikh Nasrallah's hand immeasurably. Halutz really should check himself back into the hospital, and stay there.

Ditto the defense minister, Amir Peretz, who appears to have reached his level of incompetence when he became chairman of the Histadrut (Israel's equivalent of the old AFL-CIO, back before it became a shell corporation.) Peretz's threat to take the IDF to the Litani would have a little more credibility if the Israelis still weren't fighting in good 'ol Bint Jbeil, the "terror capital of southern Lebanon." But as things stand, it's having pretty much the same effect as Halutz's raving in demonstrating to Sheikh Nasrallah that his enemy is badly rattled.

Even Ha'aretz's normally unflappable military analyst, Ze'ev Schiff, is starting to flap a bit. A couple of days ago he was warning the Olmert goverment that it must avoid getting sucked into the Lebanon quagmire at any and all costs -- even if it meant letting Hizbullah come right back up to the border. Now he's saying just the opposite: that Israel must push on to the Litani River in order to avoid the very same guerrilla war of attrition he warned about earlier. Take a deep breath, Ze'ev.

I don't know how much the Israelis have contributed to their own bad bargaining position by flexing their jawbones so much, but there's no question we've seen an amazing turnabout over the past three or four days. Now it's the dimwitted sheriff and his clown posse who are looking for a way to get out of the showdown while Hizbollah, the bad hombre in the black hat (or turban, as the case may be) is cooly standing in the middle of the street outside the saloon saying "take your best shot, pardner."

Whether this is because Sheikh Nasrallah thinks his hand is so strong he can bluff the Israelis back across the border, or whether it's because he believes a long, drawn-out war of attrition with the IDF actually suits his interests even better than a ceasefire (and to hell with the agony and death it will inflict on the Lebanese people) I don't know. I'm also not willing to venture a guess. One burnt, twice shy and all of that.

But I have to say, the spectacle of Israel's political and military establishment dancing anxiously on the diplomatic sidelines, hoping the U.N. Security Council will step in with a timely ceasefire, while their Arab enemy impassively declares his willingness to keep on fighting, is a sight I truly never expected to see.

To call it the world turned upside down doesn't do it justice by half.

Posted by billmon at August 7, 2006 06:04 PM

(P.S. everyone should be reading Whiskey Bar)

"US soldiers, accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, drank alcohol and hit golf balls before the attack. One of them grilled chicken wings afterwards, a criminal investigator told a US military hearing yesterday." Continued.

OK, everyone knows that there are sick and deranged people all over the world and that it has nothing to do with ethnicity, religion, etc., right?

OK. That being said, I wonder what the percentage of lunatics in the U.S. who think gang rape, murder and human pyro tricks are "cool" considering that between 4-5 guys took part in this atrocity. I mean is it just a wacky coincidence that 4-5 guys who think gang rape, murder and setting bodies on fire is fun happened to be manning the same checkpoint at the same time? Or, is the percentage of sick Americans just higher?

I've been sitting around with my friends and asked to do crazy things plenty'o times--but never anything like this. Never.

What?

You don't believe me?

See: Half of US still believes Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The government thinks they can pull one of these off, again:

War Pimp Alert: Yellow Cake II - Iran's plot to mine uranium in Africa : IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

Yo, stupid Americans! Wake UPPPP! They don't even bother making up new lies to fool you, they just recycle the old stupid lies that EVERYONE else on earth laughs at. That's how DUMB your own government knows you are.

Thanks!

US evangelist leads the millions seeking a battle with Islam: Anyone who wants to understand why Israel has such unwavering support from the United States should speak to one man.

"But today most of America's 60 million Christian evangelicals, who make up about a quarter of the US electorate and the essence of the President's "base", are behind Mr Bush's pro-Israeli position and are pushing for a showdown with Iran. As many as half of those are Christian Zionists."

Lebanon says Israeli assault killed 925, 75 missing: Israel's 27-day-old attack against Lebanon has killed 925 people and left 75 missing and presumed dead, Lebanese Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh told Reuters on Monday.

At least 28 civilians killed in Israeli attacks : Israeli commandos landed on a southern hilltop near Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast today, fighting Hezbollah in close combat in a bid to destroy its rocket launchers, as warplanes launched fresh airstrikes across the country, killing at least 28 people.

Israeli strikes kill 14 Lebanese: Israeli air strikes killed 14 civilians in Lebanon and Hizbollah battled Israeli ground troops on Monday as the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a draft resolution seeking to end 27 days of fighting.

By Mike Whitney

"By now, it should be apparent that Israel’s military campaign has nothing to do with Hizbullah’s capturing of the 2 Israeli soldiers on July 14. The present plan, which was drawn up more than a year ago (and which high-ranking members of the Bush administration were fully briefed) is designed to establish a new northern border for Israel at the Litani River and create an “Israel-friendly” regime in Beirut.

By destroying the infrastructure and life-support systems, Israel hopes to eliminate the rise of a potential rival as well as to diminish the ability of the Lebanese resistance to wage war against the Jewish state. Once Lebanon is decimated, it will be delivered to Zionists at the World Bank (Paul Wolfowitz) who will apply the shackle of reconstruction loans and structural readjustment, which will keep Lebanon as an indentured servant to the global banking establishment.

The scene in the south of Lebanon is hauntingly similar to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948; the Nakba. Once again, Israel is seen driving Muslims from their homes in an attempt to expand its territory. The “deliberate” attack on Qana, which killed 57 civilians, as well as the bombing of clearly marked ambulances and “white flag-waving” mini-buses chock-full of fleeing villagers, shows that the Israeli high-command still understands the importance of using terror as a means of controlling behavior.

Oil is also a major factor in the calls for “regime change” in Syria. An article in the UK Observer “Israel Seeks Pipeline for Iraqi Oil” notes that Washington and Tel Aviv are hammering out the details for a pipeline that will run through Syria and “create and endless and easily accessible source of cheap oil for the US guaranteed by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia.” The pipeline “would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria, and solving Israel’s energy crisis at a stroke.”


The Middle East is being reshaped according to the ideological aspirations of Zionists and the exigencies of a viciously-competitive energy market. Behind the bombed-out ruins of Qana and the endless sorties laying Lebanon to waste, are the tireless machinations of the energy giants, the corporate media, the banking establishment and Israel.

Don’t expect a quick return to peace. This war is just beginning."

A Seminal Article

By Gilbert Achcar

(Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and teaches political science at the University of Paris-VIII. His best-selling book The Clash of Barbarisms just came out in a second expanded edition and a book of his dialogues with Noam Chomsky on the Middle East, Perilous Power, is forthcoming)

"True, Condoleezza Rice did her best to put some make-up on the face of the Bush administration's foreign policy, but there was no significant shift in substance. A pillar of this administration since its inception, she shares the same delusions of grandeur and folly of overreaching designs that characterize the rest of the team. Put in charge of the State department for Bush's second term, Rice's mission consisted primarily in sealing off the many leaks in the administration's foreign policy ship: it was indeed a mission impossible. The ship is sinking inexorably in the dark waters of the Iraqi oil slick.

The U.S. proved unable to control Vietnam with a much higher rate of occupation troops to inhabitants than is the case in Iraq. And yet, U.S. military power is today much greater than at the time of Vietnam in all respects except the one that is most crucial for occupation endeavors: troops. The number of U.S. troops has been radically cut since Vietnam and the end of the Cold War. Inspired by a spirit typical of the capitalism of the automation age, the Pentagon believed that it could make up for the unreliability of human resources by depending heavily on sophisticated weaponry -- the so-called "revolution in military affairs." It thus entered in the age of "post-heroic" wars as they were aptly called by a maverick analyst of military affairs. [3] And, it did not take much trouble indeed for the U.S. to defeat "post-heroically" the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein. Controlling the Iraqi population "post-heroically," however, proved an altogether different challenge.

One more time in four decades of strategic alliance between the U.S. sponsor and the Israeli champion, Washington, still believing in the Israelis' old reputation of infallible know-how in dealing with their Arab foes, unleashed its favorite proxy against those that it deemed to be Iran's proxies, namely Hamas and Hezbollah. What the Bush administration has overlooked, however, is that Israel's reputation had already been very much eroded by its blatant failure in controlling the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories, and even more so by its Saigon-like withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, after 18 years of occupation. Israel has already met its own Vietnam in Lebanon.

Shamelessly exploiting one more time the horrible memory of the Nazi judeocide -- an exploitation which reached new peaks in indecency on the occasion of the ongoing war -- Israel's leaders believed that they would thus be able to deflect any criticism from the Western powers a.k.a. "the international community." And although the resources for this exploitation are unmistakably depleting with every new threshold in brutality that Israel crosses, it is still effective indeed: any other state in the world that would have attacked a neighboring country, deliberately committing war crimes concentrated in time in the way Israel is doing in Lebanon would have brought upon itself an outcry of a magnitude that bears no relation to the faint or timid reproaches made to Israel on the theme that it is overdoing it.

Whatever the final outcome of the ongoing war on Lebanon, one thing is already clear: instead of helping in raising the sinking ship of the U.S. Empire, the Israeli rescue boat has actually aggravated the shipwreck, and is currently being dragged down with it."

The Guardian

"The UN security council will almost certainly adopt a ceasefire resolution this week, in spite of objections from Lebanon and others in the Arab world. But diplomats and analysts were united in despair yesterday, expressing doubts that the resolution could stop the fighting.

"It does not look good," one European diplomat said. "There is nobody interested in stopping now. Hizbullah has no reason to stop. The discrepancy between what is being discussed at the diplomatic table and what is happening on the ground is terrible.""

ARAB FOREIGN MINISTERS MEET IN BEIRUT

By Uri Avnery

"AFTER THE 25th day, the 26th will arrive, and so on and on. President Bush, who pushed us into this war to start with, is now pushing us to fight on ("Until the last Israeli soldier," as the saying goes.) Like Olmert, he lives in an imaginary world.

Bush, Olmert and their like can incite and draw the masses behind them, until the call of "the Emperor is naked" finds receptive ears.

One of the most sickening sights of the war is the picture of the international diplomats doing everything they can to enable Olmert & Co. to go on with the war. The UN has long since become an agent of the White House. Hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness are having a field day, while lives are being destroyed and the dead buried on both sides of the border.

Olmert wants to "gain" as many days as possible for continued fighting. What sort of gain is this? We are conquering South Lebanon as flies conquer fly-paper. Generals present maps with impressive arrows to show how Hizbullah is being pushed north. That might be convincing - if we were talking about a front-line in a war with a regular army, as taught in Staff College. But this is a different war altogether. In the conquered area, Hizbullah people remain, and our soldiers are exposed to attacks of the kind in which Hizbullah has excelled from its first day.

So we shall get to the Litani River. Beyond it, there is another river, and another one. Lebanon has an abundance of rivers we can get to.Perhaps it would be worthwhile for these two junkies, Olmert and Peretz, to come down from their "high" and study the map."

"CONDI, WHERE THE HELL IS LEBANON? SHOW ME. AND ENOUGH BIRTHS IN THE NEW MID-EAST. BETWEEN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, PALESTINE AND NOW LEBANON, I CAN'T ENJOY A DECENT VACATION ANYMORE!"

BEIRUT, July 27 (Reuters) - Along Lebanon's sandy beaches and rocky headlands runs a belt of black sludge, 10,000 to 30,000 tonnes of oil that spilled into the Mediterranean Sea after Israel bombed a power plant.

Lebanon's Environment Ministry says the oil flooded into the sea when Israeli jets hit storage tanks at the Jiyyeh plant south of Beirut on July 13 and 15, creating an ecological crisis that Lebanon's government has neither the money nor the expertise to deal with.

"We have never seen a spill like this in the history of Lebanon. It is a major catastrophe," Environment Minister Yacoub al-Sarraf told Reuters.

"The equipment we have is for minor spills. We use it once in a blue moon to clean a small spill of 50 tonnes or so. To clean this whole thing up we would need an armada ... The cost of a full clean-up could run as high as $40-50 million."

The spill is especially threatening since fish spawn and sea turtles nest on Lebanon's coast, including the green turtle which is endangered in the Mediterranean, local ecologists say.

Israeli Military Official: "Lebanon Will Be Dark For a Few Years"
The Israeli military is reportedly planning to ramp up its attacks on Lebanon by targeting more of the civilian infrastructure as well as symbols of the Lebanese government. One military official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "It could be that at the end of the story, Lebanon will be dark for a few years."

Report: Israel Allowing Rocket Attacks to Give It "A Sort of Moral Equivalency"
On the military front, Thomas Ricks, a top reporter for the Washington Post, has said that Israel is purposely not bombing all of Hezbollah's rocket launchers. Sources have told him that the Israeli military feels that if Hezbollah continues to fire rockets at Israel it gives Israel a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

5,000 Israelis Protest in Tel Aviv Against Attacks
In Israel, over 5,000 protesters marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday to condemn the attack on Lebanon. The protest was one of the largest in Israel since the attacks on Lebanon began. Demonstrators called on Israel to negotiate with Hizbollah.

* Israeli Protester: "Hizbollah kidnapped two soldiers and Israel started a stupid war instead of talking to Hizbollah like it demanded. And we are protesting against those stupid acts. Israel is murdering people every day and we disagree."

The protesters also encouraged Israeli soldiers to disobey orders in Lebanon.

Reporter: Israeli Fighter Pilots Deliberately Missing Targets
The Observer newspaper reports that at least two Israeli fighter pilots have deliberately missed bombing targets in Lebanon because they were concerned they were being ordered to bomb civilians.

UNICEF Warns of Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
In Gaza, the aid organization UNICEF is warning the region is facing a humanitarian crisis. This is UNICEF Special Representative Dan Rohrmann.

* Dan Rohrmann: "I just returned from Gaza and the situation there is quite dramatic for the children. And It is understandable that the international media is paying attention to what goes on in Lebanon right now, because there you have a humanitarian disaster. But I can tell you that for the children in Gaza the eight hundred and forty thousand, the humanitarian crisis there is very real to them."

Palestinian Government spokesperson Ghazi Hamad accused Israel of waging a war against the people of Gaza.

* Ghazi Hamad: "What happening in Rafah is something that is critical, because we feel that there is a comprehensive war against the people, against civilians and against their buildings so we think that in the last two days we lost about 15 people in the last aggression attack"

Palestinian Cultural Activists Call for Israeli Boycott
Meanwhile over 100 Palestinian cultural activists have begun distributing a letter urging artists and filmmakers to participate in an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. The letter reads in part "Like the boycott of South African art institutions during apartheid, cultural workers must speak out against the current Israeli war crimes and atrocities."

U.S. Sends 3,700 More Troops Into Baghdad
In Iraq, the U.S. is sending 3,700 more troops into Baghdad to help contain the increasing violence. An average of 100 people are dying a day in Baghdad. Last week General John Abizaid, the top US military commander in Iraq, admitted that Baghdad is now more violent than ever. The general warned that Iraq could be moving toward civil war.

The July report of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, completing only about its 50th project assessment out of some almost 2,000 U.S. government projects in Iraq. And in this assessment, the first to target Bechtel, as you reported, they found gross mismanagement: a planned critical children's hospital in Basra, simply mismanaged, incomplete; a chain of subcontractors that led to no work being done, and they canceled the contract. And the fact is, as the Special Inspector General has looked more closely at each contract, more and more and more of the U.S. contracts are being canceled.

However, while the U.S. has spent about $15 billion on reconstruction in Iraq, there's a time limit. September 30th is when all un-obligated funds are going to revert back to the U.S. Treasury. So now is a time that the audits have to be completed of these projects. The bad projects have to be canceled, and the money needs to be immediately turned over to Iraqi companies.

Bechtel? Because, first of all, of their horrific war profiteering, their push that brought us into the war in Iraq, their profiting from that war, and, as I explain in my book, their utter failure in providing the services that we and the Iraqis have paid them $2.8 billion to provide. And that includes the most basic services in Iraq: water, electricity, sewage.

As the Special Inspector General reports found, in these sectors, only 50% of projects have even been completed, and in the electricity sector, a full third have not yet even begun. This means that Iraqis, for example, in Baghdad, only have eight hours of electricity a day, again, after we have spent, just in this sector alone, $3 billion. We might recall that it was just three months after the 1991 U.S. invasion of Iraq that the Iraqi companies got these services up and running right away.

Electricity in Iraq controls water and sewage. So that means that without electricity, the country doesn’t have these other services, as well. Many people across Iraq over and over again in regular public protests point to the lack of electricity as one of the key sources of unrest and the insurgency in Iraq.

SYRIA'S foreign minister yesterday offered to join militant group Hezbollah in its fight against Israel and said a regional war would be "most welcome" as more than 30 people in Israel and Lebanon were killed on one of the worst days since the conflict began. Syria's foreign minister, Walid Muallem, defiantly trumpeted his country's support for Hezbollah and warned that Syria was ready for "the possibility of a regional war if the Israeli aggression continues".

"If you wish, I'm ready to be a soldier at the disposal of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah [the Hezbollah leader]," he said.

He was speaking after crossing into neighbouring Lebanon in the first visit by a senior Syrian official since Damascus - under international and Lebanese pressure - ended a 29-year military presence there last year.

Asked if he feared the conflict in Lebanon could spill over into a regional war, Mr Muallem said: "Most welcome.

By Dahr Jamail

BEIRUT, Aug 7 (IPS) - As the war in Lebanon approaches the one-month mark, and amid the destruction of much of Lebanon, Hezbollah appears to be gaining strength within the country and around the Arab world.

The Israeli aim of widespread bombing of the Lebanese infrastructure in order to create resentment against Hezbollah seems to have played into the strengths of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, known in many western countries as a "terrorist organisation", is widely seen in Lebanon as a legitimate political and social power.

One reason for this, according to an official representative of Hezbollah and member of the Lebanese Parliament, is that Hezbollah has never aimed to turn Lebanon into an Islamic state.

"Hezbollah is a democratic party whose principles are based on the Lebanese constitution," Tarad Hamade told IPS. "This means we have to respect the cultural and religious diversity in the country. We have never intended to establish an Islamic state."

Hamade, who is also labour minister, said: "Israel wants to terrorise the country and inflict as much damage as possible. They call us terrorists, at the same time as they are exercising state terrorism. Are they not terrorists?"

More and more Lebanese are beginning to hold this view.

Lebanese see the destruction by Israelis all around them. The damage to the civilian infrastructure will cost billions of dollars to fix.

All three of Lebanon's airports and all four of its ports have been bombed. Damage done to houses and businesses is estimated at above a billion dollars. At least 22 fuel and gas stations have been bombed. Scores of factories have been damaged or destroyed.

Red Cross ambulances, government emergency centres, UN peacekeeping forces and observers, media outlets and mobile phone towers have been bombed -- all in violation of international law.

Mosques and churches have been bombed, and illegal weapons such as cluster bombs and white phosphorous used. More than 90 percent of those killed, close to 1,000 according to official estimates, are civilians.

The result is that rather than pressuring Hezbollah by destroying Lebanon, Israel has increased popular support for the group, and brought the wishes of most Lebanese more in line with the stated goals of Hezbollah to keep Israel at bay.

Birth Pangs and Dead Babies
By SHARON SMITH

"Yet Israel's military bombardments of Lebanon and Gaza are failing in their aims, as are the U.S.' occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan-and for the same reasons. The parallels are too striking to ignore.

Do not expect, however, either the U.S. or Israel to retreat at this juncture. The stakes are too high for both, and neither can back down because humiliation at the hands of a resistance movement spells imperial defeat. In all likelihood, the war on terror will expand to include new targets-including possibly Syria, and more likely, Iran.

As Australian journalist Ghali Hassan noted, "In fact the current Israeli aggression on Lebanon ­ a defenseless nation ­ is designed to coerce not only the Lebanese people to rise up against Hezbollah, but also to blackmail other nations and to use the war as a rehearsal for a region-wide war against Iran or Syria.

As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer commented, "America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat. The defeat of Hezbollah would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically. Iran would be shown to have vastly overreached in trying to establish itself as the regional superpower."

In contrast, as journalist Tamim Al-Barghouti argues, for Arabs and Muslims in the region, Hezbollah, as an indigenous resistance movement, "represents an all powerful example to Arabs and Muslims who have been longing to regain some of the dignity they lost at the hands of their leaders, who look more like employees in the American bureaucracy than heads of independent states.""

The Deadly US-Israeli Shell Game at the UN

By JONATHAN COOK

"If there were any remaining illusions about the purpose of Israel's war against Lebanon, the draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a "cessation of major hostilities" published at the weekend should finally dispel them. This entirely one-sided document was drafted, the Hebrew-language media have reported, with close Israeli involvement. The top adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked through the resolution with the US and French teams, while the Israeli Foreign Ministry had its man alongside John Bolton [yet another of Israel's men, Eds ] at the UN building in New York.

The reason for Israel's barely concealed pleasure is that Hizbullah now faces an international diplomatic and public relations assault in place of the unsuccessful Israeli military one. Israel, and the United States, are trying to set a series of traps for Hizbullah -- and Lebanon too -- that will justify Israel's reoccupation of south Lebanon, the further ethnic cleansing of the country, and a widening of the war to include Iran, and possibly Syria.

Israel and Washington, however, may hope that, given time, they can break that national solidarity by provoking a civil war in Lebanon to deplete local energies, similar to Israel's attempts at engineering feuds between Hamas and Fatah in the occupied Palestinian territories. Certainly, it is difficult to make sense otherwise of Israel's bombing for the first time of Christian neighborhoods in Beirut and what looks like the intended ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims from Sidon, which was leafletted by Israeli war planes at the weekend.

Not only will Washington and Israel blame Hizbullah for refusing to agree to the ceasefire but they will seek to use any retaliation against Israeli "defensive" aggression -- including, presumably, further invasion -- as a pretext for widening the war and dragging in the real target of their belligerence: Iran.This subterfuge was voiced at the weekend by Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, who told the BBC that if Hizbullah fired at Tel Aviv -- which it has threatened to do if Israel continues attacking Beirut -- this would be tantamount to an "act of war" that could only have been ordered by Iran. In other words, at some point soon Israel may stop blaming Hizbullah and turn its fire -- defensively, of course -- on Iran.

So in the coming days, in the wake of this US-Israeli concoction of an impossible peace, we are going to be hearing a lot more nonsense from Israel and the White House about Iran's role in supposedly initiating and expanding this war, its desire to "wipe Israel off the map" and the nuclear weapons it is developing so that it can achieve its aim."

All generalizations are wrong, except this one: Israeli liberal intellectuals are against war. They have always been against it, and they even suffered greatly for their critical views, as they stress proudly. They were against the previous war, they will be against the next war, they are against all wars. There is just one minor exception, though: the present war, every present war, which they always support. Because the present war - well, that's something totally different from all those other wars! How can you even compare?! The present war is always inevitable, and necessary, and just, and worthy of support.

For those who imagine Israel's intellectual elite as asane oasis of rational, moderate, peace-loving liberals,here are a few snapshots of Israel's intellectual cheerleaders on their current patriotic march supporting the devastation of Lebanon. Continued.

Zionists Brutalize Handicapped Palestinian American

I want to tell you the story of what happened to my friend Maysoon Zayid when she left Ben Gurion Airport a few days ago to fly back to NYC.

She called me when she landed in NYC and said "Emily you won't believe what happened to me at Ben Gurion Airport. ( I should note that Maysoon has cerebral palsy and went through this whole process in a wheelchair at Ben Gurion airport.)

Maysoon began "Emily I was strip-searched. They took everything. They left me naked in the room and when they returned with my clothes they had taken my maxipad." Continued.

Army Pvt. Ryan Johnson drove off his Mojave Desert base at 3 a.m.

Sgt. Patrick Hart told his Army superiors he was going to watch one last Buffalo Bills football game.

Marine police officer Christian Kjar of Santa Barbara got permission to leave his base in North Carolina to visit a mall.

[Podcast: Three deserters on their decision to go AWOL and their response to criticism.]
Rather than go to the Iraq war, all three went to Canada, where a small community of military deserters is growing as the conflict drags on. They are drawn by Canada's history of helping Vietnam War-era draft evaders and the country's open opposition to the war. Continued.

At least four Palestinian clerks hospitalized after opening package thought to contain dangerous substance. Package arrived at office of Haniyeh's deputy in Ramallah. Haniyeh himself doesn't go to West Bank and there are disagreements in PA if Israel had any connection to event, or if it is connected to internal conflict.

At least four Palestinian clerks working in the Palestinian Prime Minister's Office in Ramallah, lost consciousness Monday after opening a package thought to contain a poisonous substance. The package arrived at the Palestinian government building in Ramallah, sent to the office of Nasser al-Din Shaer, Ismail Haniyeh's deputy prime minister. Sources in the office said that the package was sent from an address in Tel Aviv. They refused to pass on details about the address.

One of the clerks opened the package, which emanated a strange smell, and passed out. After, at least another three clerks felt unwell and lost consciousness. According to some reports, seven clerks have been hospitalized following the incident.

Immediately after the package was opened and the employees injured, most of the people working in the Prime Minister's Office were evacuated and security began combing the building for additional dangerous substances or bombs potentially hidden in the building.

After the clerks lost consciousness, panic gripped the employees working in the office. This is due to the fact that Shaer himself is practically the only Hamas leader in the West Bank that wasn't arrested in the wave of recent arrests made by the IDF and the Shin Bet. Shaer said that the poisonous package was an Israeli attempt to hurt the Palestinian prime minister and his deputy, noting that the package was addressed to Haniyeh.

However, it must be mentioned that Prime Minister Haniyeh does not usually come to Ramallah, and hasn't been in the city at all since his appointment to the position out of fear that Israel will hurt, or arrest him. Shaer added that the office intends to open an investigation of the issue.

In Ramallah, opinions about the source of the package were divided – some said that there is no doubt that it was an Israeli attempt to hurt Shaer, and yet others said that the option must be checked that it may have been connected to the conflict and power struggles between the Palestinian ministers from Hamas, and the clerks in their offices, most of whom were appointed by Fatah.

By Robert Fisk

"So the great and the good on the East River laboured at the United Nations Security Council - and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"

A close analysis of the American-French draft - the fingerprints of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, were almost smudging the paragraphs - showed just who is running Washington's Middle East policy: Israel. And one wondered how even Tony Blair would want to associate himself with this nonsense. It made no reference to the obscenely disproportionate violence employed by Israel - just a sleek reference to "hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides" - and it made only passing reference to Hizbollah's demand that it would only release the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July in return for Lebanese and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails."

Lebanon, 2006, and Czechoslovakia, 1938 – the historical parallels
by Justin Raimondo

"There are two possible avenues of American intervention in this battle – aside from the rush of U.S. armaments to Israel and whatever covert cooperation is underway. The first is via the "international force" called for in the UN resolution: of course, an American presence is not stipulated, but, as I have said before, it is difficult to imagine what other country is either prepared or willing to undertake such an operation. Policing southern Lebanon will require anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 troops. Where will they come from? You guessed it…

As opposed to the heroic narrative marketed by the Lobby and its friends, which portrays this as a defensive war, a mere reaction to Lebanese attacks, the reality is that this is the most cynical exercise in brazen aggression since the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in the run-up to World War II. Prior to offering the thinnest of pretexts to justify the invasion of Poland – the Germans claimed Polish soldiers had launched a raid into their territory – Hitler's wolves tore off a large chunk of Czech flesh in the form of the Sudetenland. Today, Israeli predators are biting off a similar-sized chunk of Lebanon on their way to a much larger meal.

One hopes the historical parallels will end there, but I fear not: just as the German push for Lebensraum ended in a world war, so an apparent campaign to give Israel a bit of elbow room may result in yet another global conflagration. The UN resolution, then, amounts to a new Munich agreement, which – if history teaches us anything – will serve to embolden the Israelis to go on the offensive against Syria, and, perhaps, Iran. If the appeasement of Israel continues while the U.S. sacrifices its own clear interest in lessening support for extremists in the Arab-Muslim world, Condoleezza Rice will go down in history as the Neville Chamberlain of her time."

Gaza's health and environment statistics are reaching record lows. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that Israeli forces killed 177 Palestinians in military operations during the month of July. This figure represents a 222 percent rise in the number of deaths in June. The number of injured in the attacks in July was 1,010, representing a 317 percent rise from the previous month. Continued.

Palestinian medical sources and eyewitnesses in Gaza reported that one child was killed after midnight Saturday night, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Hussein Mardawi, 48, of Habla village near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, was killed early Monday when gunfire hit the car.

Mardawi's 17-year-old son was also in the car, and was wounded in the incident.

The son said that settlers had opened fire on the car.

Palestinian witnesses said that the assailants' car bore Israeli license plates.

Judea and Samaria District police said they had no knowledge of the incident.

Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

Continued.

Seems like the only freedom the U.S. brought to Iraq was the freedom for American soldiers to rape, pillage, murder and loot.

Testimony Begins in Hearing for U.S. Soldiers Accused of Rape
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post
Monday, August 7, 2006

BAGHDAD, Aug. 6 -- An Iraqi medic who responded to a home where U.S. soldiers allegedly raped and killed a teenage Iraqi girl and murdered her sister and parents described on Sunday a display of carnage so horrific he said it made him sick for two weeks.

In the opening day of testimony in a military hearing in Baghdad to determine whether there is enough evidence to hold a court-martial for five U.S. soldiers, the medic, whose name was withheld for security reasons, testified that he saw smoke when he arrived at the family's home in Mahmudiyah on the afternoon of March 12. Inside, on the floor of the living room by the window, a teenage girl lay dead on her back, her legs spread, her clothes torn off, her body burned from her waist to her head, a single bullet hole under her left eye, he said.

Her mother also lay dead on the floor with bullet wounds in her chest and abdomen, he said.

In another room, the medic found what remained of the girl's father in a pool of blood. "The brain was on the floor and parts of the head were all over the place," the medic said. Next to him was his other daughter, who was about 6years old. It appeared to him as if a bullet had "entered the front of her face and out the back of her head," he said.

With the help of Iraqi soldiers, the medic said, he put the remains of the family in bags and stored them in an air-conditioned ambulance because there was no room at the Mahmudiyah hospital.

The case is one of the most brutal in a series of recent incidents in which U.S. soldiers allegedly killed Iraqis. The sexual nature of the crime has outraged Iraqis, and the killings caused Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to call for a review of rules that prevent U.S. troops from being tried in Iraqi courts.

The U.S. military has charged four soldiers from the B Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment -- Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spec. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard -- with rape and murder. A fifth soldier, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, was charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement for allegedly failing to report the incident. And a sixth man, former Army private Steven D. Green, who was discharged for a "personality disorder," pleaded not guilty to rape and murder charges in a federal court in Kentucky.

At Sunday's hearing at Camp Liberty, near Baghdad International Airport, defense attorneys questioned the medic's medical training and posed the possibility that the family had already been dead before they were shot. During a cross-examination, the medic admitted he could only assume the family was shot to death, but said, "I believe that's how they were killed, which is what I've told you."

The soldiers' battalion commander, Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, said he received a phone call on June 17 from the company commander, Capt. John Goodwin, informing him of the alleged murders and asking his guidance. At first incredulous, Kunk said, he went to the area south of Baghdad the next morning to begin his investigation.

"Absolutely not, I did not believe that report," he said. "I wanted to get on the ground."

Kunk recalled that Green, one of the alleged ringleaders in the incident, once said, "All Iraqis are bad people."

"I told him that that wasn't true, and that 90 to 95 percent of the Iraqi people are good people and they want the same thing that we have in the United States," Kunk said.

One of the defense attorneys, Capt. James D. Culp, who sucked on lollipops during his cross-examination, questioned Kunk about whether the unremitting violence in the area south of Baghdad patrolled by the soldiers caused combat stress. Kunk said most of the soldiers in the battalion were able to deal with the deaths of their fellow soldiers.

Two other Iraqi witnesses also testified at the hearing, but reporters were kept from hearing their statements out of concern that the witnesses might be later targeted.

The hearing took place on another violent day in Iraq. In Tikrit, a man detonated explosives attached to himself inside a funeral service. The blast killed 15 people and wounded 30 others, according to Iraqi army officials.

A witness, Omar Ghalib, 23, said the suicide bomber parked his car near the funeral hall and walked in wearing a light blue dishdasha , the traditional Iraqi robe.

"He went inside as if he wanted to offer condolences, and then a few seconds later, the explosion occurred," Ghalib said.

Police found the man's car also rigged with bombs, said 1st Lt. Norras Hamid of the Tikrit police. Tikrit General Hospital had received seven corpses and 14 injured people, said physician Jassim Dulaimi, but "we believe there are more dead bodies which have not been evacuated or were evacuated by their families directly."

[Early Monday, heavy gunfire and explosions rattled the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Government television and aides to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said U.S. aircraft were attacking buildings in the area, the Associated Press reported. Southwest of the capital, three U.S. soldiers were killed late Sunday in a roadside bombing, the U.S. military said.]

Special correspondent K.I. Ibrahim and other Washington Post staff contributed to this report.

"We will continue hitting everything that moves in Hezbollah - but we will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure."

This miserable war in Lebanon, which is just getting more and more complicated for no reason at all, was born in Israel's greed for land. Not that Israel is fighting this time to conquer more land, not at all, but ending the occupation could have prevented this unnecessary war. If Israel had returned the Golan Heights and signed a peace treaty with Syria in a timely fashion, presumably this war would not have broken out. Continued.

Watch Galloway go at it with Sky News. Whether you love him or hate him it was a great interview. Favorite part comes at the end when the whiny newscaster tries to lecture him for the language he uses in describing Hezbollah's attacks against Israeli soldiers today, he said Hezbollah gave them a "good hiding." He asks her to name one single Palestinian that has been killed, then he asks if she knows the name of anyone from the family of Palestinians killed on the beach in Gaza. Priceless.

One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. George Galloway has spoken out in support of Lebanon, saying he believes Hizbollah is justified in defending Lebanon against Israeli attacks . The Respect MP also lambasted media coverage of the war and said the UN resolution means nothing. Watch here.

13 Israeli soldiers were killed in Kfar Giladi by a Hizbullah rocket Sunday (AP, 8/6/06).

يقول الأستاذ أحمد علي المدير العام لصحيفة الوطن القطرية في مقاله اليوم الأحد:
مع دخول العدوان الإسرائيلي على لبنان أسبوعه الرابع، وانقشاع غبار معارك "بنت جبيل" الصامدة و"عيترون" وسائر قرى الجنوب، يأتينا صوت الأمين العام لحزب الله السيد "حسن نصر الله" بروح معنوية عالية، وإرادة وطنية لا تنكسر، ليبشر الأمة بنصر قريب بإذن الله.

ولأن مقاييس النصر وحسابات الهزيمة تختلف في هذه الحرب غير المتكافئة عن غيرها من حروب إسرائيل ضد العرب، فإن مجرد ظهور حسن نصر الله على تليفزيون "المنار"، متحديا الغارات العشوائية يعني انتصارا لمبادئ الرجل الذي أصبح رمزا للمقاومة الوطنية بوجه الغطرسة الإسرائيلية.

ما من شك في أنه كلما استطاعت المقاومة الصمود يوما آخر في وجه الآلة العسكرية الإسرائيلية المدمرة والمدعومة أميركيا فإن ذلك يعني انتصارا لها، وهزيمة لمقولة الجيش الإسرائيلي الذي لا يقهر.

لقد تعدت الحرب الظالمة التي تشنها إسرائيل ضد لبنان بأهدافها الإستراتيجية قضية الإفراج عن الجنديين الأسيرين، وبات واضحا أنها جزء من مخطط تآمري لتغيير المعادلات السياسية بالمنطقة، بالتخلص من حركات المقاومة الوطنية بالعالم العربي، وإعادة تشكيل شرق أوسط يريدونه خاليا من المدافعين عن كرامة الأمة، بمشروع يحظى بموافقة بل مشاركة أنظمة عربية تريد دورا وموقعا مؤثرين.

وإذا كانت الحرب كشفت صلابة المقاومة وصعوبة هزيمتها، فإنها كشفت أيضا هشاشة مواقف حكومات عربية وجدناها مع إطلاق الرصاصة الإسرائيلية الأولى على الجنوب ترفع راية الاستسلام، بدلا راية الإسلام!

فوضى كبيرة وتخبط وتردد بل وعجز في حركة النظام الرسمي العربي الذي يقف ساكتا ولا يحرك ساكنا، إزاء مجازر إسرائيل الوحشية دون أن يسعى لقمة عربية طارئة, وكأن أطفال لبنان الذين قتلوا في "قانا" الأولى والثانية لا ينتمون إلى أمتنا العربية، ولا يمثلون مستقبلنا العربي الذي يبدو مظلما، خصوصاً مع إصدار فتاوى ملكية تفصل حسب مقاسات ومتطلبات وتقلبات الظروف السياسية تحرم نصرة "حزب الله"، مما يدعم موقف إسرائيل بعدوانها، ويساهم في تقسيم الأمة الإسلامية.

المؤسف، بل المخجل، أن هذه الأنظمة الخائفة على مصائرها ذهبت إلى حد توفير غطاء رسمي عربي لضرب المقاومة، بإعطاء الضوء الأخضر لشن العدوان بتحميل المسؤولية لحزب الله، ليكون ضربه عملا مشروعا بأذهان الرأي العام العالمي، وتكسير إرادته عملا مقبولا لدى رجل الشارع العادي، مما دفع رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي "إيهود أولمرت" إلى التفاخر بالتأييد الرسمي العربي.

سواء اختلفنا طائفيا أو مذهبيا أو سياسيا مع حزب الله، فالظرف لم يكن مناسبا أبدا لتصفية الحسابات الأيديولوجية، واتهامه بخوض "المغامرات"، وإنما كان مطلوبا رصّ الصفوف وبحث السبل الكفيلة بوقف العدوان الغاشم.

لا أدري ما الذي تغير في القواميس السياسية لأنظمة ابتعدت عن إرادة شعوبها حتى أصبحت المقاومة المشروعة من أعمال "المغامرات"، فالذي نعرفه أن "حزب الله" هو نفس الحزب الشيعي المقاتل الذي أجبر إسرائيل على الانسحاب من الجنوب اللبناني قبل ستة أعوام بعمل بطولي شجع الأمير الشاعر خالد الفيصل للتغني بإنجاز المقاومة اللبنانية بقصيدة "لبنان أكبر من بلد" والتي يقول فيها:

قالوا إسرائيل ما تُهزم أبد
وانسحب جيش العدو قبل الوعدْ
أرغموه أبطال لبنان الرّجال
ما انسحبْ لا لا تحجّم وانطردْ
يسبق اللّحظات في ليل الهروب
يدري إن الموت حظّه لو قعدْ
لو ظهر لبنان في حجمه صغير
بالنصر لبنان أكبر من بلد

This video is about the Israeli invasion of Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, during the past three days. This invasion has caused the death of at least 17 Palestinians, mostly civilians. The audio is Arabic. The lady in white that appears early on complained of the constant shelling, lack of electricity, water or fuel. She said that injured people were everywhere, but they could not be transported to hospital, due to the shelling.

Tragically, that same woman, looking for shelter that same evening, with her three children, was hit by Israeli missiles. A son and a daughter were killed, with their bodies torn to pieces. She and another son are in critical condition in a hospital. The doctor describes the effects of a new weapon not used before. He said the limbs were torn off.

Seeking relative safety from the indiscriminate Israeli shelling, entire families flocked to the UNRWA schools, with no guarantee of safety.

Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target

Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution.

There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country.

Ali Hili runs the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group out of London. He used to have 40 volunteers in Iraq but says after recent raids by militia in Najaf, Karbala and Basra he has lost contact with half of them. They move to different safe houses to protect their identities, but their work is incredibly dangerous. Continued.

(I wonder if this was the intention of the gay hating White House or if this was just an added *bonus* for them? I've certainly never heard them speak out against what is happening to gay Iraqis, for that matter I haven't heard them speak out against what is happening to women.)

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Michigan (AP) -- Former President Carter, who helped broker the historic Camp David peace accord, said President Bush has pursued an "erroneous policy" that has fostered violence in the Middle East.

Carter said the United States should work for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and the world community should concentrate on a long-term solution, but he is uncertain whether Bush can accomplish a cease-fire.

"It depends on whether world opinion is strong enough to get the administration to change its erroneous policy, which has been to encourage the continuation of attacks on both sides," Carter, a Democrat, told The Grand Rapids Press in an interview Friday. Continue.

طالب رئيس البرلمان الأوروبي جوزيب بوريل بالإفراج فورا عن رئيس المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني عزيز الدويك، منددا بحزم باعتقاله الذي اعتبر أنه غير مقبول على الإطلاق.
كما أدانت مصر والجامعة العربية اختطاف الدويك، وقال محمد الصبيح الأمين العام المساعد للجامعة العربية إن إسرائيل تجاوزت كل حدود القوانين والأعراف المعمول بها دوليا، وانتهكت أبسط قواعد الديمقراطية "لتثبت أنها تتقن فقط فن الخطف والتعذيب والإرهاب".
وفي تطورات هذه المسألة أكد الدويك في تصريحات صحفية من سجنه أنه يرفض أن يتم الإفراج عنه بدلا عن أسرى فلسطينيين آخرين في مقابل الإفراج عن الجندي الإسرائيلي الذي أسره مقاومون فلسطينيون في غزة.
وقال الدويك بالأصالة عن نفسه ونيابة عن وزراء ونواب اعتقلوا نهاية يونيو/حزيران الماضي، "لا نريد ولن نقبل أن نكون بدائل عن الإخوة الأسرى في السجون، لن نكون ورقة مساومة في هذا المجال"، وأضاف "لو بقيت بقية سني عمري وراء القضبان لن أقبل أن أكون بديلا".

وبدورهم دعا نواب فلسطينيون الرئيس الفلسطيني محمود عباس ورئيس الوزراء إسماعيل هنية إلى التفكير في الإعلان عن حل السلطة الفلسطينية.
ومن المقرر أن يعقد المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني يوم الأربعاء المقبل جلسة لبحث تداعيات اعتقال الدويك، حيث قال أكثر من نائب إن الباب سيكون مفتوحا أمام كل الخيارات، وقال النائب عن حركة حماس محمود مصلح الذي حاول الاحتلال اعتقاله أكثر من مرة "هناك رأي بحل السلطة الفلسطينية ووضع الاحتلال الإسرائيلي أمام مسؤولياته، ووضع القضية الفلسطينية برمتها أمام المجتمع الدولي".

د. دويك من داخل سجن "عوفر" الصهيوني: (إسرائيل) بإمعانها في عدوانها وظلمها ترسم خريطة نهايتها

اعتبر الدكتور عزيز الدويك رئيس المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني عملية اعتقاله على يد قوات الاحتلال الصهيوني فجر اليوم الأحد (6/8) من منزله في مدينة رام الله دليل عجز وفشل للعدو، مؤكداً في الوقت ذاته على أنه لن يقبل أن يكون ضمن صفقة تبادل مع الجندي الصهيوني الأسير في غزة "جلعاد شليط".
وقال دويك في مقابلة مع وكالة أنباء "رامتان" من داخل سجن "عوفر" الصهيوني: إن "(إسرائيل) بظلمها واستمرارها وإمعانها في عدوانها فإنها ترسم بذلك خريطة نهايتها، وإن اعتداءها على المؤسسات الشرعية الفلسطينية هو دليل عجز وفشل".
وعبر رئيس المجلس التشريعي عن رفضه القاطع أن يكون هو والوزراء والنواب المعتقلون داخل السجون الصهيونية ضمن أي صفقة تبادل في مقابل الإفراج عن الجندي الأسير في غزة، وقال: "نحن مختطفون ولسنا جزءا من أي صفقة بأي حال من الأحوال، ونحن لن نقبل أن نكون بديلا عن أولئك الذين أفنوا زهرات شبابهم خلف القضبان سعيا إلى حرية شعبهم ووطنهم ومقدساتهم".
يذكر أن 27 نائبا فلسطينيا اختطفوا في نهاية حزيران/يونيو الماضي إلى جانب 8 وزراء، وتقوم السلطات الصهيونية بتقديمهم للمحاكمة وتمديد فترات اعتقالهم، فيما تعتبر الجهات الفلسطينية اعتقالهم بأنه غير شرعي.
ووصف دويك عملية اعتقاله بأنها كانت وحشية وغير إنسانية، وقال: "الحقيقة المعاملة وحشية والجنود شدوا ملابسي في أكثر من موقع في جسدي، وقلت لهم هذه أخلاقكم وأنتم تعتقلون رئيس المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني، الحقيقة أنا وجدت فيهم من الفظاظة ومن سوء الأخلاق ما تجاوز كل الحدود"، ومضى يقول " عصبوا عيني وربطوا يدي و آثار الرباط البلاستيك الشديد لا يزال على يدي".
واستذكر دويك (58 عاما) الذي انتخب عضواً في المجلس التشريعي عن دائرة الخليل في حديثه ظروف إبعاده في مطلع التسعينات مع مئات القادة من حركتي "حماس" و"الجهاد الإسلامي" إلى مرج الزهور بلبنان قائلاً: إنها كانت مماثلة لعملية اعتقاله أمس على يد الجيش الصهيوني في رام الله والذي عاث في منزله خرابا.
وندد دويك بالممارسات الصهيونية والمواقف الأمريكية الداعمة لتلك الممارسات وقال: "هذا العدو لا يعرف خلقا ولا يعرف ضميرا هذا يتعامل بشريعة الغاب مثله كمثل أسياده في واشنطن، الذين تسودهم حضارة رعاة البقر ولا تسودهم أخلاق الشعوب المتحضرة بأي حال من الأحوال".
وحول ظروف اعتقاله في سجن "عوفر" الذي يحتجز فيه، قال دويك: " أنا الآن في سجن "عوفر" بين أبطال فلسطين من شبابنا من كافة الفصائل، هذا الشباب البطل المتطلع للحرية، وفي عيون كل واحد منهم عزيمة وإصرار وثبات" مؤكدا على أنه يستمد المعنويات من المعتقلين الفلسطينيين المحيطين به داخل الزنازين الصهيونية.
وتابع قائلاً: "أنا الحمد لله رب العالمين استمد كل المعنويات من هذا الشباب الصابر، فحوالي ألف شاب من عوفر كلهم عزيمة وإصرار وهم على موعد إن شاء الله تعالى مع الحرية والنصر".
وكرر دويك في أكثر من مرة عبارات الصمود والتحدي قائلاً: "سنبقى إن شاء الله نبنى ونشيد صرح هذا الوطن في صمودنا وإبائنا وصبرنا وتحملنا، وإن شاء الله لن نذل ولن نخضع للمحتل".
واغتنم رئيس المجلس التشريعي الفرصة لتوجيه رسالة تحية للشعب الفلسطيني والشعوب العربية والإسلامية، ومحبي السلام في العالم، كما خص بالذكر الشعب اللبناني الذي وصفه بالبطل قائلاً: "إنه أظهر للعالم كله أن الشعوب إذا أرادت فإنها لن تقهر ولن تقهر إرادتها أبدا".

Ramallah - The kidnapping of the PLC speaker Dr. Aziz Duwaik at the hands of the IOF troops in Ramallah city Saturday night left its impact on the PA officials as PA premier Ismail Haneyya described the abduction as "plain Zionist piracy".

In press statements, the PA premier urged all Arab and foreign legislatures and lawmakers to condemn the kidnapping of Duwaik, and to mobilize all their capabilities and energies to secure his unconditional release along with the freedom of the other kidnapped Palestinian lawmakers and PA ministers.

Duwaik has just finished his Isha'a (night) prayer with his wife when IOF troops surrounded his home and asked him to surrender. The unshaken PLC speaker resolutely accompanied his kidnappers apparently to block any possible harm on his family. He was reportedly taken to the Israeli Ofer detention center near Ramallah city.

Legislators of the Hamas-affiliated change and reform parliamentary bloc, which Duwaik belongs to, have deprecated the kidnapping, charging that the Israeli occupation government was deliberately undermining all international statutes and agreements."The abduction of Duwaik at the hands of the IOF troops reflects Olmert's government's political bankruptcy and panicking before the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance", the bloc's lawmakers said in statement they issued Sunday.They explained that Israel is mistaken if it thinks that such acts would subjugate the Palestinian people or blackmail them to free its captured soldier who has been in the hands of the Palestinian resistance fighters for more than a month."If they (Israelis) think they can extort the Palestinian people and resistance with those kidnappings to retrieve their captured soldier, then they are indeed mistaken", the bloc elaborated.

Kidnapped Palestinian lawmakers and elected officials as well as PA ministers have repeatedly asserted that they disagree to be part of any swap deal with Israel, and that they should be unconditionally freed being illegally detained.For his part, Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the PLC first-deputy speaker, affirmed that Israel meant to paralyze the PLC with the kidnapping of Duwaik, but, for sure, he stressed, its goal will fail.He further held the Israeli occupation government fully responsible for the safety of Duwaik and the rest of the kidnapped PA officials and deputies, adding that he will spare no time in relaying the Israeli "barbarism" to the rest of the world's parliaments.

Ramallah – IOF troops, disguised in Arab clothes, helped by regular IOF troops surrounded, Saturday night, the house of Dr. Aziz Duwaik, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), and kidnapped him from his home and took him to an unknown destination, according to his wife.His wife said that the IOF troops went into their house after kidnapping her husband and searched it thoroughly confiscating two computers and paper documents from the house.IOF troops had kidnapped at the end of last June about 20 Palestinian Lawmakers and ministers in response to the capture of an Israeli soldier in a military operation by three Palestinian resistance groups.Dr. Duwaik and a number of ministers managed to escape the wave kidnappings at the time by going into hiding and taking care when making public appearances.The deputy speaker condemned the kidnapping and called on parliamentarians around the world to pressure Israel to release all the kidnapped Palestinian lawmakers and ministers.

Peter Beaumont in Kfar Kila
Sunday August 6, 2006
The Observer

"But nothing appears to spook Yahia. A member of Amal, the group fighting alongside Hizbollah in the Islamic Resistance, he barely flinches as the Israeli shells crash in. The streets are open on one side to observation from the gunners around Metula. 'If they want to come, they'll come,' he said sombrely, showing off the rubble in his parents' house, where a shell had punched a hole through the wall. 'Then we will fight them.'

'I won't fight without a reason. But because I have a reason I will fight. Because this is my land, I am prepared to die for it. How could you stay silent when you see your land burn and your children get killed? The whole population here is now resisting.'

It is something that strikes you forcefully when you reach the front line of this war. In these villages that form the strongholds of the Islamic Resistance, the men - many of them obviously fighters out of uniform - do not talk much in terms of ideology or religious fanaticism. They are not the zealots and jihadis that Israel claims. Instead, they talk about their damaged property and their livestock scattered by the shelling on the mountains. They talk about family who have fled and those who have stayed. And all the time they carefully skirt talk of the fighters. If they do talk politics it is sometimes with an unexpected spin. Several say that it is not so much the Israelis they blame for this - indeed, who they suggest would agree to a truce - but US President George Bush, who they claim is the real force behind the war."

By Juan Cole

"It may be that that hawks are thinking this way: Destroy Lebanon, and destroy Hizbullah, and you reduce Iran's strategic depth. Destroy the Iranian nuclear program and you leave it helpless and vulnerable to having done to it what the Israelis did to Lebanon. You leave it vulnerable to regime change, and a dragooning of Iran back into the US sphere of influence, denying it to China and assuring its 500 tcf of natural gas to US corporations. You also politically reorient the entire Gulf, with both Saddam and Khamenei gone, toward the United States. Voila, you avoid peak oil problems in the US until a technological fix can be found, and you avoid a situation where China and India have special access to Iran and the Gulf.

The second American Century ensues. The "New Middle East" means the "American Middle East."

And it all starts with the destruction of Lebanon.

More wars to come, in this scenario, since hitting Lebanon was like hitting a politician's bodyguard. You don't kill a bodyguard just to kill the bodyguard. It is phase I of a bigger operation."

Thousands of people marched through the streets of Cape Town to Parliament on Saturday to demand diplomatic and trade sanctions against Israel. Continue.

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"These neocon prescriptions, of which Israel has its equivalents, are fatal for America and ultimately for Israel. They will totally turn the overwhelming majority of the Middle East's population against the United States. The lessons of Iraq speak for themselves. Eventually, if neo-con policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well". Continued.