Saturday, August 19, 2006
BRIDGES THAT CAN'T BE BOMBED
World Council of Churches calls for divestment from Israel
The Presbyterian threat, which echoes divestment debates at some U.S. universities, has set off a wave of dissent in the church and angered American Jewish leaders.
But the Central Committee, in a document approved at a week-long meeting at WCC headquarters that ended on Tuesday, highlighted the divestment push and encouraged other member churches to consider doing the same.
"This action is commendable in both method and manner, uses criteria rooted in faith and calls members to do the 'things that make for peace'," it declared, quoting St. Luke's Gospel. Continued.
Meanwhile, in Gaza
By Gideon Levy
The Gaza Strip has been completely closed to Israeli journalists for the last two months or so, since soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted. Not that hordes of these journalists have been gathering en masse at the Erez border crossing. Israel has been engrossed in another war, and even during normal times, it averts its gaze from what goes on in Gaza. However, the Israel Defense Forces has been operating quite energetically there recently, with no Israeli eyes keeping track of what it is doing. This week, as if with the wave of a magic wand, the media closure was lifted − which, it should be noted, is to the credit of the IDF.
A visit after this "forced vacation" reveals what one can see in Gaza, but also what one cannot see. The worst fears have proved false. We did not see scenes of horrifying mass destruction. Nor, contrary to our expectations, did we spot any signs of Nasrallah: no posters in the streets and no demolished neighborhoods, at least not in the northern or central Gaza Strip.
We did, however, see quite a lot of rubble, some inexplicable, such as the ruins of a once-flourishing sewing factory owned by Ahmed Abed al-Jawad, who makes garments for the Israeli fashion industry and has a "Jewish mentality," by his own definition. He employed 70 workers in the Muazi refugee camp, in the heart of the Gaza Strip. The bulldozers cruelly buried his life's work, and half a million shekels, he says, went down the drain.
Gaza looks even dirtier and more neglected than usual. Signs of the Israeli and international boycott can be seen in the piles of garbage that fill the streets: No salaries means no street cleaners. Cooking gas is difficult to come by, electricity is available only a few hours a day − after all, Israel, in its kindhearted wisdom, bombed the transformers. Generators for the rich and oil lanterns for the poor are highly sought-after commodities.
Fisherman like fish and the Israeli Air Force likes bridges: Not only did the IAF destroy the largest bridge in the Strip, in order to split the territory in half, but it also bombed a railway bridge, one over which no train has traveled for dozens of years.
Gaza does not appear to be interested in the war in Lebanon; it's not their war. Here, they are more concerned with when and where the army of tanks and bulldozers will invade tomorrow, how to find the money to buy school uniforms and bags for the school year that begins in two weeks' time, and how they'll make it through the upcoming month of Ramadan.
On the streets today, only one picture of Nasrallah can be seen, in a poster shop in the center of town. The firing of Qassam rockets has also diminished, although a Grad missile was fired at Ashkelon on Monday.
In the desolate Erez industrial zone, children toil at dismantling the remaining bricks for recycling; wall after wall, they demolish the dream that has gone up in smoke. Shimon Peres can still wax poetic about the "joint projects" and about a "free trade zone," but Erez is in ruins.
"Gaza is a garden compared to Lebanon," says M., our regular taxi driver.
A garden − a withered, blighted garden, enveloped in grief and suffering, bearing both in silence as this hot and lethal summer draws to a close.
The wall of a school has been destroyed, there are shattered tombstones in the cemetery and an endless number of homes with gaping holes in them. In the footsteps of the fighters: This is the route taken by IDF tanks and bulldozers through Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, the towns in the northern Gaza Strip, in their search for Qassam rocket "launch sites."
Crushed cars, looking like crumpled soda cans, lie at the side of the road. The tank's revenge. Here is the home of the Al-Masri family in Beit Hanoun: 13 souls and one tank that plowed through the living room as it went on its way. It drove forward and backward − and the corner house was gone. Why? What happened? Now 13 people are homeless.
They sit among the ruins of what was once their home, with no ceiling, no hope. Youssef-Shafiq, the father, says in poetic Hebrew: "On Monday, July 17, this huge tank came. It passed once, passed twice; on Monday, it entered the house. We were sitting where we are sitting now. We yelled: Stop! Stop! He didn't hear. Iron crushed iron. He doesn't hear, doesn't know. He doesn't know old people, doesn't know children, doesn't know women − just moves forward and destroys, destroys and goes. I have never seen a human being like that. He has no pity. There is no person like that in the world. He drove backward and did it deliberately. The girl stood like a pillar in front of the tank. She saw the tank with her own eyes."
In the end, they ran for their lives. Youssef-Shafiq "works at being unemployed," after having had a job in Yavne and Ashdod for 15 years. The ceiling fan now hangs by a thread, also bent and crumpled.
"What do they say in Israel? What do they see? What do people there say? We see the Jews crying over a one-year-old child. Why don't you tell your government: We cry over our children. Maybe they cry over their children? What's the matter with you? Only weapons? We worked in Israel. We know you. Why do the people destroy inside the house? The Al-Masri family was inside the house. Six boys and five girls, a father and mother, and we were in the house."
The entire street bears the scars left by the tanks and bulldozers. Hardly a wall remains intact. The street is wide enough for a Merkava 3 tank to move through, but who gives a damn?
And what happened in the home of the Shurafa family in nearby Beit Lahia? Four apartments for four brothers − Khaled, Ibrahim, Nafez and Mohammed and their children, about 50 people in all. A fairly nice-looking apartment building. A missile or bomb fell on it from a plane in the middle of the night. The entire building and everything in it was destroyed, and those that lived there have been forced to move in with relatives.
Family members say that that they received a warning by cell phone on August 7 from the IDF − 10 minutes to evacuate, 10 minutes till the bombing − in the middle of the night. Now the entire structure is ruined, with its blue and brown tiles in the bathrooms. The neighbors' homes were also damaged in the explosion.
Response of the IDF Spokesperson: "On August 7, the home of Mohammed Shurafa, which according to IDF intelligence served as a warehouse for arms for the terrorist organizations, was attacked. The IDF repeatedly warned the Palestinian population, for the sake of their own personal safety, to refrain from remaining in buildings used by the terror organizations. The warning is carried out in a number of ways: pamphlets, communications via the coordinating and liaison parties with their Palestinian counterparts, and the media as well as specific telephone messages. The IDF is careful to make sure that a reasonable period of time elapses from the time of the warning until the time of the attack, to enable the residents to leave and distance themselves from the area of danger."
The traffic lights don't work. There is no electricity. Unpaid traffic policemen seem to be the alternative to progress in the modern age. On the way south, along Saladin Street, you go down to a wadi, to bypass the monstrous concrete bridge that now looks like a collapsed house of cards. In the summer, it is still possible to go around it, but what will happen in the winter? Why did they have to bomb it? And the railway bridge, too?
The Mabruk home in the Muazi refugee camp. Home? Not quite. More like a shack. Dark-skinned family members on the background of a scene that resembles an African disaster area. A refugee camp planted on the sand, and the destroyed Mabruk home. As misfortune would have it, it too is a corner house, which is what perhaps doomed it.
The mother, Fatma, describes the events of Wednesday, July 19: "We were inside the house and we heard the sounds of the tanks from the direction of the olive trees. We hid in the next room and the bulldozer approached. We began to shout, so that he would hear that there were people in the house. We took out a white flag, so that he would see that we were in the house. They took us outside and we saw everyone running in the direction of the camp. We hid with the neighbors. On Friday we returned and found the house destroyed. No cupboard, no television, no washing machine. The refrigerator was on the floor."
A wedding picture still hangs on the bedroom wall, a final relic. Where will they go? What was their sin? No one came from the tax authorities to compensate them and they didn't receive any packages from the Supersol either.
This is where Ahmed Abed al-Jawad's textile factory was, on the outskirts of the Muazi camp. Only the labels for Madness Collection, Sack's, Zoom, Kookai − the trendiest fashions − can still be seen lying in the sand. Nothing else remains of the factory. It was all demolished and the debris removed.
The 2006 collection. Dozens of sewing machines are no more; 70 people's livelihoods have been crushed by IDF bulldozers. Farmer Majed Sa'id is now trying to fix the water pipes in the orchards that the IDF uprooted. He will soon replant the lemons and grapefruits. "It is not because of the Qassams, but rather so that the Israeli people will be satisfied that they caused the destruction here," says the farmer wearing a white T-shirt that says: "Gaza today, the West Bank and Jerusalem tomorrow."
The owner of the factory, Al-Jawad, emerges from the large building across the way, with its three floors of shiny brown tiles. A crushed child's bicycle stands in front of the building, whose shattered windows are covered with black fabric.
He is 43 years old and wears a fashionable blue shirt and plastic clogs, an all-Israeli look, smoking a Lucky Strike, speaking fluent Hebrew. Twenty years ago, when he himself worked in a sewing factory, he met Tikva Tzalah of Holon. He successfully managed Tzalah's factory in the Erez industrial zone, and when the factory there was closed, like all the Israeli-Palestinian ventures, Tzalah offered him the machines so he could set up a business in Gaza. Al-Jawad established a small sewing factory in his camp, and exactly a year ago, after the "work was going well," he explained, he set up the new factory near the orchard, 500 square meters, 150 sewing machines, two shifts, the last word. "I sewed for all the Israeli companies. You name them. Whatever the Israeli girls like, we sewed. And then came the great catastrophe."
On July 19, at 1 A.M., tanks and bulldozers entered the camp with a roar. Al-Jawad, his wife and their eight children hid under the sink in the bathroom. The children have been traumatized ever since.
"We were under fire until 7 A.M.," he says. "Then I saw that it was dangerous to remain under the sink, so I told my wife and children, 'Let's go hide on the stairs.' I once heard from Tikva that the safest place is behind the stairs, that it is a protected space. It turns out that it wasn't protected, so we went upstairs, to the second floor.
"At 7 A.M. I called Tikva. I told her: They are destroying our business. She said: Ahmed, what can I do? At 10 A.M., I peeked out the window and saw the bulldozer start to take down the roof of the business. Then I fainted. At that moment, I passed out for a couple of minutes. My wife poured water on me and the children began to cry. Instead of me encouraging them and strengthening them, they began to encourage and strengthen me. Ten minutes later, I came back to my senses. This situation lasted until 4 P.M. I saw about 100 tanks, no exaggeration. The entire area was filled with tanks.
"There were a few small children who thought that this was only a game and they started to throw stones at the tanks. I told my wife: It's all over for us. That's what I really thought. The tanks approached the house and the bulldozers destroyed the fence. They destroyed a building I had with goats and doves in the yard, together with the goats and doves inside. I told my family: 'That's it. It's over. Our story is finished. Children, our story is finished. Be strong. God is above us.' They all started to cry. It is impossible to describe what it was like. It's you and the children.
"This situation went on for a quarter of an hour until everything fell silent. A neighbor went outside with a white flag and we saw it and also went outside. Now I could see the tank sitting on top of my business. They completely erased it. I ran to the neighbors, and that's the whole story.
"No Qassams have been fired from this area. It is the quietest place in the camp. It was a place people came to for leisure, because of all the green and the trees and the tranquillity. After that, the neighbors told me that the soldiers knocked on the door after we left and then blew in the door and went inside. What didn't they do in the house? A mess. Their shoes with all the dirt, they ripped up the sofas, took down the curtains, they broke all the children's bureaus, and to top it off, they crapped on the clothes. That is the army's job, but why destroy things? And they commandeered the house from Thursday till Saturday.
"I have an Israeli mentality. Because of the television, the telephone calls to Israel all the time, the people I work with. I was more Jewish in my mind than a Jew. Until now. This will not change my mind. But I expect the State of Israel to look at me logically. Not to throw me to the dogs. It's a shame. It's a shame to lose a fellow like me who worked all these years making pretty things for the State of Israel. For 20 years, I build up the business, never even raise my eyes, and at one fell swoop, they destroy everything. Without talking. Without letting me know.
"The neighbors say that the soldiers opened the business and saw all the sewing machines and merchandise packed and ready to be sent to Israel and they destroyed the entire area, and then came back. Didn't they think about what would happen to the people? To the owner? To the workers? To the people in Israel that count on me the entire season? After all, the army and Shin Bet know every single person here. They know what they eat for breakfast and what they have for supper. So what − they don't know me? What I do and what I don't do? This kind of irresponsibility should never happen. But it did."
Response of the IDF Spokesperson: "On July 19, the IDF took action against terror infrastructures active inside the Muazi refugee camp and which use its inhabitants as human shields. During the operation, the IDF used heavy machinery to protect the soldiers, and if necessary, to destroy buildings that serve the terror infrastructures. It is possible that while moving within the densely constructed area, unintentional damage was caused to buildings."
"Unintentional damage? While moving? A densely constructed area? It was a beautiful place," sighs Al-Jawad, picking up yet another Madness Collection label from the sand.
Meanwhile in Palestine
Jerusalem's Shu'fat Refugee Camp residents appealing for water
Israel Arrests Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister
Palestinian farmer killed in Gaza; Friday's death toll rises to seven
Israeli soldiers attacking Palestinians with Nasrallah screen savers on their mobile phones
Chavez launches fundraising drive for Lebanon, Palestinians
Army storms charitable society offices in Hebron
Gaza border crossing re-opens for humanitarian cases
Off the Battlefield, Hezbollah Provides Aid
Chavez: Lebanon destroyed by genocidal hand of Israel
One in Ten Israeli Tanks Destroyed By Hezbollah
According to Armored Corps data published Thursday, Hezbollah anti-armor missiles penetrated 20 Israeli tanks during the monthlong war, killing 17 crewmen. Another 13 crewmen were killed when land mines destroyed or disabled their tanks. The number of tank crewmen wounded was in the double digits.
The high toll of the war on Israel’s Armored Corps was a shock to top military brass, especially given the fact that Hezbollah has no tanks.
Some experts said the tanks dispatched to Lebanon were older, less protected versions of the locally made Merkava. Two Israeli arms firms now have speeded up work on a tank anti-missile system.
The De-Zionization of the American Mind
| Americans are constantly told that they have to defend themselves against people who “hate them”, but without understanding why they are hated. Is the cause our secular democracy? Our appetite for oil? There are lots of democracies in the world that are far more secular than the United States (Sweden, France ...) and lots of places that want to buy oil at the best possible price (China) without arousing any noticeable hatred in the Middle East. Continued. |
Iraqi Kids Imprisoned, U.S. Official Says
| By UPI Wire Aug 19, 2006 |
| WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2006 (UPI) -- The U.S.-led coalition is ignoring innocent children being held and sometimes abused in Iraqi juvenile prisons, a State Department official says. "These are not hardened criminals or terrorists," wrote Marshall Adame, an official with the National Coordination Team based out of Camp Victory in Iraq, in a personal detailed report he published on an Internet Web log. He added there were reports of "physical and other abuse" in the prison, but the U.S.-led coalition considered the issue "not our urgent business." Adame, a retired U.S. Marine who has two sons who served in Iraq, told The Washington Times he published his report, titled "Six Blunders we made in Iraq we can still fix," because he wanted it to be part of the public record. The State Department had no immediate comment. |
U.S. Officer: Murder Of Iraqi Women And Children Routine
(Does he think that raping little girls and setting them on fire is also routine?)
No wonder the UN can't find volunteers, By Robert Fisk
And I have to say that there is a certain irony in watching Israel's diplomats paying such close attention to the wording of these resolutions and the need to abide by them after they have spent years trashing the very same UN force in Lebanon that is supposed to protect them in future.
Unifil, the so-called United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon, has been sitting in the south of the country for 28 years and has been the butt of Israel's jokes and slander and calumny for all of that time. I recall how the Israelis claimed that the Irish battalion - since withdrawn - were drunk or anti-semitic, how UN officers lied, how a Fijian commander was spreading syphilis among the women of Qana, the town whose inhabitants have just been massacred by Israel's forces for the second time in a decade. Continued.
Eyewitness in Lebanon
Lebanese journalist Omar Nachabe's eyewitness video of the destruction of villages in south Lebanon including Bint Jbeil.
As part of a number of journalists who entered Bint Jbeil to discover civilians still living amongst the rubble of their destroyed town.
Evidence of Israel's scorched earth policy.
I was given this video by Omar last night in the hope that it will help bring the necessary changes in our disgusting foreign policy. Please help, let all your friends know of this video. A DVD copy is available for screenings. If you are interested in getting a copy e-mail web@socialistworker.co.ukand we will forward your details to the producers.
Lebanese village in ruins
"We were forgotten"
"The world must hear our story"
The BBC's Fergal Keane visited the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil where scores of houses have been destroyed.
08/01/06 BBC News Report
“Honor First”; the liberation of Lebanon
By Mike Whitney
| “To confront this accursed plan, to thwart the goals of this war, to fight the battle to liberate, what remains of our land and our prisoners, I state categorically under no circumstances will we accept any term that is insulting to our country, our people, or our resistance. We will not accept any formula at the expense of the national interest, national sovereignty and national independence, especially after all these sacrifices, no matter how long the confrontation lasts and no matter how numerous the sacrifices may be. Our main and true slogan is “Honor First”. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah “The resistance is a weapon at the service of the entire nation. It has never acted against anyone but the Israeli occupation.” Talal Salman “A Guarantee Of Victory” |
08/19/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- One picture tells the whole story. The photograph shows a long column of Israeli soldiers, grimy and bedraggled, limping southwards towards the Israeli border. The lead soldier looks vacuously at the camera with an expression of pure gloom and fatigue. In the background a soldier is seen comforting another who is crying inconsolably.
This is what defeat looks like.
Back in Israel, the headlines are splattered with every detail of the ongoing withdrawal from Lebanon. The op-ed pages and talk shows lash out at anyone even remotely involved with the month-long debacle. Prime Minister Olmert has become the favorite target of the media’s scathing criticism and the brunt of every joke. His public approval has dipped from a pre-war high of 80% to a meager 40%. Meanwhile, political rival Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity has soared to a hearty 57% making him the likely successor if Olmert is forced to step down.
Israel is drowning in collective angst and self-pity. The defeat has shattered the national sense of self confidence and well being. A joke that is circulating in Tel Aviv opines that Ariel Sharon’s condition suddenly worsened “when he found out what was happening in Lebanon.”
The punch-line epitomizes the general state of malaise in Israel.
The coverage of the Lebanon fiasco in the Israeli media is alternately narcissistic and hysterical. The details of the massive destruction to Lebanon’s civil infrastructure and environment are brushed aside as inconsequential; the 1,300 civilian deaths, irrelevant. The only thing that matters is Israeli suffering; everything else is trivial. While Lebanon is busy digging out another 300 or so corpses from the rubble of their destroyed homes, Israel is preoccupied with its loss of “deterrents” or its battered sense of “invincibility”.
It is an interesting study in the prevailing megalomania of Israeli society, a culture as pathologically self-absorbed as its American ally. It’s no wonder security is so hard to come by when people are so lacking in empathy.
In Lebanon, the extent of the damage is just beginning to be grasped. Whole cities in the south have been laid to waste and most of the vital infrastructure has been ruined. Barucha Peller summed it up this way in a Counterpunch article “This Pain has no Ceasefire”:
“The walls of homes that once protected families and cradled their lives are now in pieces, shreds, fine dust. Sift through the rubble. Kick the rubble. Stand still, silent, alone with the absoluteness of destruction and accompanied by the millions of shattered pieces of everything that was here before. Leave the rubble. Try to forget. Walk away from the terrible sight. But your mind is in pieces, lives in pieces, people who never again will stand in the doorway with greetings. You can walk away. There is a ceasefire. But missiles fall, they fall, not from the skies, but behind Lebanese eyes, they fall forever in memory, they are still crashing into what once was.”
“The absoluteness of destruction”; the faces that will never reappear “in the doorway”; this nagging, life-long suffering goes unrecorded in the Israeli media where the national obsession has turned to finger-pointing and empty recriminations. The lives and the civilization that’s been decimated are a mere footnote to Israel’s violated sense of security and the humiliation of losing to an Arab adversary. Looking at the papers, it’s easy to believe that the entire population is completely unaware of the misery they’ve caused. Instead, one gets the uneasy feeling that the anger is just beginning to mount and could wash across Lebanon in a second wave of hostilities.
Lebanon has been an embarrassing defeat for Israel, but this is probably just Round One. As public rage grows, it will be more and more tempting for Olmert to disregard the ceasefire and go on the offensive. He needs some way to acquit himself in the eyes of his people and revenge is an unfailing cure-all. He also needs to prove that he can be a reliable ally to the Bush team who gave him carte blanche to pulverize Hezbollah while they stalled the ceasefire at the UN. Israel needs to show that they can hold up their end of the bargain by cleaning up matters in their own back yard. Olmert’s failure will not go down well with the Washington neocons who’ve worked tirelessly to provide him with all the weaponry and support he needed.
According to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Israel originally planned an attack on Lebanon for September or October. This would have added an element of surprise to the war which could have been disastrous for Lebanon. It also may have affected the results of the 2006 congressional elections in the US.
The Bush administration has made no effort to conceal their involvement in the conflict. They provided logistical and material support in the form of satellite-intelligence and precision-guided missiles, and they blocked all efforts at the UN for an immediate ceasefire. Bush has stubbornly portrayed the war as “part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror”, but his platitudes have had less impact on public perceptions than the photos of bombed-out airports, bridges and factories which appear daily in the media.
The biggest champion of the war has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who characterized the vast and premeditated devastation as “birth pangs”. There now hangs a banner in downtown Beirut with a ghoulish picture of Rice with fangs dripping with blood which says, “The massacre of children at Qana is a gift from Rice”. The Farragamo-draped princess has quickly become the most reviled diplomat in US history. Move over Henry Kissinger.
It’s no surprise that she was rebuffed by President Siniora and told she wasn’t welcome in Lebanon until the terms of a ceasefire were in place.
Rice’s most revealing statement appeared in a USA Today article when she admitted that the Bush administration saw the conflict as an “opportunity to create a fundamentally different situation” in the Middle East.
“Opportunity”? Is that how the Washington mandarins see the utter destruction of an American-friendly ally?
Condi’s bromides only confirm Nasrallah’s claims that the plan to invade Lebanon is actually part of a broader strategy for establishing US/Israeli hegemony throughout the region so that they can “exclusively manage its affairs and resources”. The main obstacles to this “New Middle East” are the resistance organizations Hamas and Hezbollah as well as Syria and Iran. Bush and Olmert conspired to disarm Hezbollah by pushing Syria out of Lebanon and creating a political climate where (they believed) Hezbollah would be forced to give up their weapons.
Their plan failed. Hezbollah joined the government but maintained its guerilla network at the same time; accumulating the Katyushas and sophisticated anti-tank rockets it needed to take on Israel’s advancing army. It should be noted that Hezbollah was the only entity in Lebanon that wasn’t swept up in the heady revival of Beirut and vigilantly awaited Israel’s next rampage.
Their success in battling Israel is due in large part to the Russian-made Kornet anti-tank rockets they obtained from Syria. As reported in the UK Telegraph the rockets are “some of the best in the world” and “require serious training to operate which could be beyond the capabilities of some supposedly regular armies in the Middle East….It is laser-guided, has a range of three miles and carries a double-warhead capable of penetrating reactive amour on Israeli Merkava Tanks.”
Hezbollah used their anti-tank missiles with lethal efficiency during the campaign taking out an estimated 20 tanks, armored vehicles and buildings where troops were located. It was a critical part of the conflict and had a profound effect on the outcome.
Still, there’s little chance that Hezbollah’s victory will stop Israel from restarting the war. America and Israel are ideologically committed to establishing their mutual hegemony throughout the Middle East and they won’t be deterred by a bloody nose in south Lebanon. Israel will retool and return with greater determination to crush the resistance and set up a proxy government in Beirut. So far, they’ve enlisted the support of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, France and Denmark to patrol the southern border while Germany has offered “a rather substantive maritime component which could patrol and secure the whole of the Lebanese coast.” The German ambassador said, “We could also offer a substantial border patrol along the Syrian border.” (Al Jazeera) Germany certainly understands that their actions will establish a de-facto blockade which serves US/Israeli interests alone. This illustrates how Olmert and Bush have manipulated the UN to compromise Lebanon’s sovereignty and create a permanent state of siege. If Israel is able to cut Hezbollah’s supply-lines they can easily move in and crush them at a later date.
So, the US and Israel have found accomplices they need to help them achieve their goals of reshaping the Middle East and extending America’s dominance throughout the oil-rich region. If they succeed, they will have a stranglehold on the world’s most crucial natural resources and will be able to control the growth of China, India, Japan, and other potential rivals in the 21st century. Israel will also play a central role as regional leader in the oil trade; opening pipeline routes from Ceyhan to the Far East and from Kirkuk to Haifa. (check “Triple Alliance”: The US, Turkey, Israel and the war on Lebanon” Michel Chossudovsky)
But we shouldn’t underestimate the growing strength of non state actors and guerilla forces. In Iraq, the resistance has brought the world’s only superpower to a grinding standstill; frustrating all attempts to establish security, rebuild infrastructure, or transport vital resources.
Similarly, Hezbollah has won a stunning victory against a high-tech and well-disciplined Israeli army. They have shown the world that they are resourceful and ferocious fighters capable of forcing a fully-armed modern army of 30,000 men to withdrawal. That’s no small feat.
They have shattered the illusion of Israeli invincibility and emboldened a new generation of Arab youths to see beyond their present subjugation and despair and aspire to reclaim their countries from the corrupt US-backed regimes.
The imperial juggernaut will continue lurching recklessly through the Middle East until it is worn-down piecemeal by the bold actions of the resistance. Iraq and Lebanon foreshadow an even wider war extending from the Caspian to the Red Sea; destabilizing oil supplies and overturning the teetering Arab monarchies.
Bush and Olmert have thrown open Pandora’s Box thinking they can contain the chaos within, but have failed to achieve any of their objectives. They continue to misread the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. High-altitude bombing and trigger-happy soldiers only swell the ranks of the resistance and feed their determination. If Bush and Olmert choose to fight a generation-long 4-G (4th Generation) war, they should at least consider the modest goals set out by their adversary, Hassan Nasrallah, in a recent public statement:
“We are not a classic army. We are waging guerilla warfare Therefore what is important is the number of losses we inflict on the Israeli enemy. No matter how deep the incursion the Israeli enemy might accomplish, and the enemy has great capabilities in this area, it will not accomplish the goal of this incursion, preventing the shelling of the settlements in north of occupied Palestine, This shelling will continue no matter how deep the ground incursion and the reoccupation the Zionist enemy is trying to accomplish. The occupation of any inch of our Lebanese land will further motivate us to continue and escalate the resistance…In the ground war we will have the upper hand. In the ground war , the criterion is the attrition of the enemy rather than what territory does or does not remain in our hands because we are not fighting with the methods of a regular army we will definitely regain any land occupied by the enemy after inflicting great losses on it”.
Bush would be wise to pay attention to Nasrallah’s warnings. The conflict that the US and Israel are facing has no central battlefield and no timeline. It is war against men who know every street and every alleyway, and every cave in every mountain. It is “death by a thousand lashes”; engaging and killing the enemy and then disappearing into the shadows. The conflict only ends when every American and Israeli soldier has left Arab soil. This is a “no win” situation. Our leaders should recognize this and withdrawal.
As the resistance continues to mushroom in Iraq and Lebanon, we’re bound to see more devastation, more retreating armies, and more hand-wringing in Washington and Tel Aviv.
It could all be so easily avoided.
Recommended Reading on Palestine
Arabs & Israel for Beginners by Ron David (1993)[this is the best book for beginners now out of print but check on bookfinder, click the title of this post]
The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood by Rashid Khalidi (2006)
Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State by Jonathan Cook (2006)
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (2006)
One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
by Ali Abunimah (2006)
The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians
by Joseph Massad (2006)
The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine by Ray Dolphin (2006)
Palestine And the Palestinians: A Social and Political History by Samih K. Farsoun, Naseer H. Aruri (2006)
The Politics of Apocalypse: The History and Influence of Christian Zionism by Dan Cohn-Sherbok (2006)
Palestinian Refugee Repatriation: Global Perspectives by Michael Dumper (2006)
Ethnocracy: Land and Politics in Israel/Palestine by Oren Yiftachel (2006)
The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003 by Tanya Reinhart (2006)
The Second Palestinian Intifada by Ramzy Baroud (2006)
The West Bank and Gaza Strip: A Geography of Occupation by Elisha Efrat (2006)
Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Sarah Roy (2006)
Israel and Palestine; Competing Histories by Mike Berry, Greg Philo (2006)
The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003 by Tanya Reinhart (2006)
The Second Palestinian Intifada by Ramzy Baroud (2006)
The West Bank and Gaza Strip: A Geography of Occupation by Elisha Efrat (2006)
Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Sarah Roy (2006)
Israel and Palestine; Competing Histories by Mike Berry, Greg Philo (2006)
The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel 1993-2005 bt Joel Beinin, Rebecca L. Stein, editors (2006)
Israel & Palestine: Competing Histories by Mike Berry and Greg Philo (2006)
Living Palestine: Family Survival, Resistance, and Mobility Under Occupation by Liza Taraki (editor) (2006)
The Power of Israel in the United States by James Petras (2006)
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006)
The Case Against Israel by Michael Neumann (2005)
The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective by John Quigley (2005)
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (Hardcover) by Norman G. Finkelstein (2005)
On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals became Israel's best friend by Timothy P. Weber (2005)
The Other Side of Isarel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide by Susan Nathan (2005)
Against the Wall: Israel's Barrier to Peace by Michael Sorkin (Editor)(2005)
Palestine: A Guide by Mariam Shahin, George Baramki Azar (photographer) (2005)
An Issue of Justice: Origins of the Israel/Palestine Conflict (Audiobook)
by Norman Finkelstein (2005)
Obstacles to Peace: A Reframing of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Jeff Halper (2005) (Excellent maps)
The Peace Business: Money And Power in the Palestine-Israel Conflict by Markus Buillon (2004)
Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within by Uri Davis (2004)
The Myths of Zionism by John Rose (2004)
Culture and Customs of the Palestinians by Samih K. Farsoun (2004)
Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History Of The Palestinians 1876-1948 by Walid Khalidi (2004)
Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh (2004)
Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children by Catherine Cook, Adam Hanieh, Adah Kay (2004)
Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East: The Other Israel-Palestine Conflict
by Jan Selby (2004)
Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing About Zionism and Israel by Adam Shatz (Editor)(2004)
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel by Israel Shahak (2004)
Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law by Francis Anthony Boyle and Haider Abdul Shafi
(2003)
Ben-Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah and Mossad Elimated Jews by Naeim Giladi (2003)
Palestine, Palestinians & International Law by Francis Anthony Boyle (2003)
Middle East Illusions by Noam Chomsky (2003)
Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
by Michael R. Fischbach (2003)
A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples by Ilan Pappe (2003)
The Palestinian People: A History by Baruch Kimmerling, Joel S. Migdal (2003)
The Politics Of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem by Nur Masalha (2003)
Palestinian Refugees: Pawns to Political Actors by Ghada Hashem Talhami (2003)
In Hope and Despair: Life in the Palestinian refugee Camps (2003)
Live from Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action Against the Occupation by Nancy Stohlman, Laurieann Aladin (2003)
The Gun and the olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East by David Hirsch (2003)
Dishonest Broker: The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel by Nasser Aruri (2003)
51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis by Lenni Brenner (2002)
Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question by Edward W. Said & Christopher Hitchens (Editors)
Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return by Naseer Aruri (2001)
The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948
by Eugene L. Rogan & Avi Shlaim (Editors)(2001)
I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti (2001)
Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influences on U.S. Middle East Policy by Kathleen and Bill Christison (2001)
Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 by Meron Benvenisti (2000)
Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948 by Sami Hadawi (2000)
The Israel/Palestine Question (Rewriting Histories) by Ilan Pappe (1999)
The Fateful Triangle by Noam Chomsky (1999)
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman G. Finkelstein (1999, 2003)
Palestinian Identity by Rashid Khalidi (1998)
Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians by Staughton Lynd, Sam Bahour , Alice Lynd (Editors) (1998)
All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948
by Walid Khalidi (Editor)(1992)
Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of Transfer in Zionist Thought by Nur Masalha (1992)
The Land Question in Palestine 1917-1939 by Kenneth W. Stein (1987)
The best place to search for used and discounted books is www.bookfinder.com. If anyone needs help locating any of these books or for finding a book on a particular aspect of the conflict, contact me. I work in a bookstore and would be happy to help. Also, please send me any recommendations. Molly (mollistan@gmail.com)
Inside 1701: What the UN Security Council's Ceasefire Resolution Actually Says
By VIRGINIA TILLEY
(Virginia Tilley is a professor of political science, a US citizen working in South Africa, and author of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock)
"Most seriously, regarding the UN itself, the Resolution fails to condemn Israel for violating international law in its onslaught on Lebanon. It also fails to establish any basis for a serious peace process. It represents a twisted, tricky document, representing machinations of the United States in service to the neocon alliance with Israel to "remake" the Middle East. Its provisions to disarm Hizbullah are politically unworkable and beyond the SC's capacity. Its provisions for Israeli withdrawal are overwhelmingly to Israel's advantage.
Regarding its relevance to a real peace in Lebanon, within days or weeks of this writing Resolution 1701 may be a discredited artefact of history. But its design remains significant: inability of the SC to act in a principled fashion to impose international order. In that light, it tells us far more about the internal debility of the UN than it does about any future for the Israeli-Lebanese conflict."
Hezbollah 'foils Israeli raid'
Media reports quoted Lebanese security sources as saying on Saturday that Israeli aircraft and commandos raided the village of Bodai, west of the ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, at dawn.
The sources said that Israeli warplanes and helicopters attacked unidentified targets during the air drop of the commandos.
Al-Manar TV reported that fighters from Hezbollah clashed with Israeli commandos near Bodai and forced them to fly out under the cover of air strikes.
The Hezbollah-run station said the Israeli unit landed before dawn and was driving into the village when it was intercepted by the fighters, who forced it to retreat under the cover of warplanes.
It said the fighters had inflicted "certain casualties" among the Israeli forces.
A man holding up a Palestinian flag comes under Israeli police water cannon fire in the West Bank village of Bilin. Israeli troops have seized deputy Palestinian prime minister and senior Hamas member Nassereddin al-Shaer, in the latest move against the governing movement(AFP)
Why America Needs Hezbollah
The citizens of New Orleans desperately need Hezbollah's can-do terrorist spirit. Outside the French Quarter tourist zone, writes Jed Horne in The New Republic, what was until 2005 our nation's most charming city and cultural center remains "a disaster zone, an area five times the size of Manhattan."
Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Naser al-Shaer walks to a joint news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah in this August 7, 2006 file photo. Israel seized al-Shaer at his home in the occupied West Bank on August 19, 2006 (REUTERS)
More than resistance
Al-Ahram Weekly
"The Americans don't seem to understand the Arab mood or just how tired the public is of seeing their rulers take their cue from Washington. Arabs are not nostalgic for Saddam, nor are they thrilled to see countries such as Syria resist with words rather than deeds. They are tired of the endless oppression of Baathist-style regimes. What the Arabs want to see is democratic leaders, defiant but aware of the international situation. What the region needs is an injection of Latin American politics, leaders who are neither isolationist nor dictatorial in their outlook but who have backbone.
People may well be tired of what the Americans and Israelis are doing to the region but is there any chance of the Arab world having a democratic -- Islamist or leftist -- government right now? For the moment the chances are slim. We have resistance movements, such as Hizbullah, but we also have repressive governments that hang on to the status quo. Neither seems to offer a way out of the region's dilemma though the resistance movements do at least have moral power. Hizbullah has offered the Arab world a voice that contrasts totally with that of incumbent governments. This moral power has immense potential which the Bush administration cannot, and never will, understand. Both Israel and the US want to manufacture a new elite in this region that will submit to their every demand, just as the current regimes do and this is unacceptable to the Arab public.
The destruction of Hizbullah is no solution. It would have opened the door to terror across the region. Had the war in Lebanon dismantled the state, which it almost did, the situation would have been disastrous not only for Lebanon but the entire region. A cycle of terror would have been unleashed, and the cost for the civilian population would have been enormous. We need to think only of Iraq."
Bush's latest fiasco
Al-Ahram Weekly
"US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's address about the "new Middle East" being in the throes of a difficult birth in Lebanon provides further evidence of the vastly problematic approach involved in the Bush administration's relation to the Arab world. Washington has acquired the habit of declaring its regional vision at inopportune moments that tend to prove shocking to Arab peoples and governments alike, be they liberal or Islamic. No doubt the invasion of Iraq and occupation of Baghdad were contemporaneous with the drafting of the Middle East partnership initiative and the "Greater Middle East Initiative" endorsing democratic reform and freedom in Arab societies. Regardless of differences concerning any given reading of the true goals and intentions behind these two initiatives, at the time, no Arab politician, activist or intellectual, could help but reject the initiatives, irrespective of ideology, for they were but new episodes in the saga of imposing American hegemony on the Middle East and breaking Arab will. "
CARTOON OF THE DAY
I really like this cartoon.
It shows a Palestinian resistance fighter declaring, "My name is so and so; I belong to such and such organization; I live in such and such town, on such and such street, down such and such lane; I am warning the Israeli colonizers that I will be firing on such and such colony and therefore they have been forewarned!"
The woman turns to him and says, "You (Palestinians) have learned nothing from Hizbullah!"
Friday, August 18, 2006
Life for Palestinians with AIDS
With the election of Hamas—classified by much of the West as a terrorist organization—
to the Palestinian Legislative Council, the government lost most of its foreign aid this spring, leaving its budget decimated, doctors and nurses unpaid for months and hospitals' medicinal stocks drastically depleted. For Palestinians living with HIV/AIDS, that means their government-supplied medication—hard to come by even in good times—is falling far down the list of their nation's priorities.
But the nearest specialized clinics that offer testing and treatment are in Israeli hospitals. To access those clinics, Arabs need permission to cross checkpoints into Israel—and both the permit process and the checkpoints themselves have become infinitely more strict since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000. While Israeli authorities have issued more than 20,000 permits for general hospital visits to West Bank and Gaza residents this year, a small number of patients are not allowed to travel unless they are accompanied to the hospital by armed security; another 600-odd patients from Gaza, a more volatile region and more of a Hamas stronghold, have been refused entry outright.
Lebanese residents walk past the rubble from Israeli bombardment in a residential area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2006.
Lebanese resident Najlah Takesh looks out from the stairwell of her apartment destroyed in Israeli bombardment while salvaging for belongings in a residential area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2006. (AP Photo)
A view of a neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, is seen Friday, Aug. 18, 2006.
Lebanese residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Aug. 18, 2006, salvage belongings from their bomb damaged apartment.
Hizbollah supporters with the national (C) and Hizbollah (L) flags draped about their shoulders walk in Beirut's southern suburbs August 18, 2006. REUTERS
A Lebanese woman begs for money as she walks past an apartment building in a residential area destroyed in Israeli bombardment in the Haret Hreik area of the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Aug. 18, 2006. (AP Photo)
A mass funeral procession passes a destroyed building on its way to the burial site in Qana, southern Lebanon Friday, Aug. 18, 2006.
Coffins are laid down for prayers before a mass funeral procession in Qana, southern Lebanon Friday, Aug. 18, 2006. The funeral of 29 people killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 30th - half of them children - took place about half a kilometer from the two-story home which was destroyed in the attack, and a 30th coffin was buried in a separate funeral. (AP Photo)
NO, SADDAM IS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR THESE...
(A relative walks amongst the graves in advance of a mass funeral in Qana, southern Lebanon Friday, Aug. 18, 2006)
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Count the UN Security Council among the losers
Resolution 1701, adopted unanimously, "calls for a full cessation of hostilities." Those seven words are the most important ones in the entire resolution. The rest is neither fair, nor compatible with the Security Council’s duties and responsibilities as defined by the United Nations Charter. Even after the resolution was passed, Israel escalated its aggression, sending thousands of troops towards the Litani River. The move, perhaps meant to seize more ground before the ceasefire took effect, was a disaster, as Israel lost dozens of soldiers and much equipment. Hours after the resolution was passed, Israel ceased its aerial bombardment of Lebanon, but shot dead at least one Hizbollah fighter. This last minute invasion, like Israel’s initial assault on Lebanon, seems to have had a green light from council members.
Why the IDF Lost in Lebanon
By WILLIAM S. LIND
"The magnitude of the defeat is considerable. Israel appears to have lost at every level-strategic, operational and tactical. Nothing she tried worked. Air power failed, as it always does against an enemy who doesn't have to maneuver operationally, or even move tactically for the most part. The attempts to blockade Lebanon and thus cut off Hezbollah's resupply failed; her caches proved ample. Most seriously, the ground assault into Lebanon failed. Israel took little ground and paid heavily in casualties for that. More, she cannot hold what she has taken; if she is not forced to withdraw by diplomacy, Hezbollah will push her out, as it did once before. The alternative is a bleeding ulcer that never heals.
Most importantly, an Islamic Fourth Generation entity, Hezbollah, will now point the way throughout the Arab and larger Islamic world to a future in which Israel can be defeated. That will have vast ramifications, and not for Israel alone. Hundreds of millions of Moslems will believe that the same Fourth Generation war that defeated hated Israel can beat equally-hated America, its "coalitions" and its allied Arab and Moslem regimes. Future events seem more likely to confirm that belief than to undermine it.
Most probably, Israel will escalate by taking the war to Syria or Iran, and what will be a strategy of desperation. That too will fail, after it plunges the whole region into a war the outcome of which will be catastrophic for the United States as well as for Israel."
Don't forget Gaza
With the UN-sponsored ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah going into effect, Palestinians are apprehensive that Israel might embark on a fresh rampage in Gaza in order to boost the morale of a conspicuously dispirited Israeli public.
In fact, the Israeli army never stopped murdering Palestinians and destroying their homes for even a single day during the war on Lebanon. Palestinian medical sources revealed this week that more than 187 Palestinians were killed, mostly in the Gaza Strip, since the beginning of July.
According to Riyad Awad, director of the Gaza-based Health Information Centre, the killings of Palestinians is becoming a "macabre daily routine". "Not a day passes without the Israeli army killing an average of five or six Palestinians, mostly children and women and other innocent civilians. Israel feels the world is giving it a mandate to kill and maim at will," he said.
After Lebanon war, unexploded bombs continue to sow death
Agence France Presse
18 August 2006
TEBNIN, Lebanon, Aug 18 2006--Kneeling in the rubble, the
deminer gently handled a tiny metallic tube, trying to
defuse one of the thousands of bomblets littering southern
Lebanon.
These deadly leftovers of weeks of fighting between Israel
and Hezbollah guerrillas continue to kill and maim nearly
a week after both sides silenced their guns, creating what
one munitions expert called a "humanitarian catastrophe"
as thousands displaced by the war return home.
"This has the potential to be a huge humanitarian issue,"
said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human
Rights Watch.
"People are coming back to their homes, they're hugging
and kissing and glad just to have survived and then there
are bombs going off," he said.
Just hours after the announcement of a cessation of
fighting on Monday, one civilian was killed and six others
wounded when Israeli cluster bombs exploded in the
southern village of Ansar.
In the southern Lebanon hillside town of Tebnin, Israeli
warplanes dropped hundreds of bombs right up to the last
day of the month-long conflict, which ended Monday.
In front of a hospital, a half-meter-deep crater has been
gouged into the pavement where one cluster bomb slammed
into the road, spraying the area with hundreds of tiny,
shrapnel-filled devices designed to shred anything they
strike.
"On Wednesday we removed 54 cluster bombs from the main
road in front of the hospital, and yesterday another 44,"
said Marck Masche, an expert with the British demining
organisation Mine Action Group (MAG).
"The main problem is cluster bombs -- there are hundreds
and hundreds of them," he told AFP.
As much as a quarter of the ordnance fired during the
fighting failed to explode, creating vast minefields in
villages and fields where hundreds of thousands of people
who fled the war are trying to return.
Masche's team has found countless bomblets in a home in
Tebnin that would have been undetectable to untrained
eyes, he said.
"We don't want people to try this for themselves," he
said, bending over one of the bomblets, protected only by
an armoured vest.
"If this exploded, I would die," he said, explaining why
he wore neither helmet nor protective bomb apron.
With no bomb disposal units arriving that morning, the
team -- four Lebanese munitions experts and a medic --
have to detonate the explosive on the site.
Surrounded by sandbags, the bomblet erupts in a sharp
blast that echoes off the hills. But countless others
remain.
"Some of the villages are completely contaminated from one
end to the other ... people are moving in and living among
UXOs (unexploded ordnance)," said Steven Priestley,
director for international projects with MAG.
MAG is currently trying to raise money for a three-month
emergency phase that gives priority to clearing homes of
the explosives, he said.
Many of the bombs are hard to see because they are very
small and likely covered in dust and debris, he said.
Disposing of them is no problem, "but finding them all is
a real nightmare".
Back in Tebnin, 27 year-old Lebanese ordnance expert Fatel
Fahes recounted how his team had cleared one home of
explosives, saying the family had "just returned with the
children but could not even go in the door".
He warned that the area's tobacco fields are also infested
with unexploded bombs -- again affecting the lives of
those caught in the area.
"If they cannot reach their fields, they lose everything
they have," he said.
Masche refused to guess how long it might take to clear
the area of unexploded bombs. On top of those left by the
most recent fighting, an estimated half-million landmines
still lie along the Lebanon-Israel border, put down during
previous conflicts, according to MAG's Priestley.
"The entire area deserves a year of solid cleaning, but
for the moment we only remove (the bombs) that we can
see," he said.
Israeli offensive destroyed up to 30,000 homes
18 August 2006
HELSINKI, Aug 18 2006-- Between 15,000 and 30,000 homes
were destroyed during Israel's month-long offensive in
Lebanon, the aid minister of Finland, which holds the
current EU presidency, said Friday.
"The numbers on how many houses or house units were
destroyed are very rough estimates. Numbers we heard are
something between 15,000 and 30,000 house units," Paula
Lehtomaeki said following a four-day visit to Lebanon
accompanied by the EU's commissioner for development and
humanitarian aid Louis Michel.
"That makes at least 100,000 people without a home and
decent shelter. Winter is not so far away, we only have a
couple of months to provide the basic shelter for these
people," she told a news conference.
Aid is urgently needed, she said.
"The ceasefire that began on Monday morning, hours before
we arrived in Beirut, has improved the possibility to meet
the humanitarian needs, and it has improved the
possibilities to have humanitarian access to victimes in
need.
"But it has also changed the internal situation in Lebanon
in the way that people who had escaped from their home
areas because of the bombings in the beginning of the
conflict started immediately on Monday to return back to
their homes, and this movement has been much broader and
much faster than anybody could have expected."
A ceasefire took effect in Lebanon on Monday, following a
UN resolution which paves the way for the deployment of
the international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
DOWN WITH THE STATE, LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE
It has been interesting, even amusing, in the aftermath of Hizbullah's impressive performance in the face of the massive Israeli assault on Lebanon to watch the various states in the region and to observe their attempts to get some mileage from what took place or to deflect criticism of their performance.
It is very clear that the success of Hizbullah's strategy in confronting the forces of the Israeli state was due to adopting the structure, organization, weapons and tactics of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). The success of Hizbullah in confronting one of the most modern and technologically advanced state armies in the world, has firmly vindicated 4GW as the only way a non-state resistance movement can defeat a state power, no matter how advanced and powerful.
The Syrian state and the Iranian state wasted no time in claiming victory and implicitly taking credit for Hizbullah's success. On the other side, are the US client states of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the stooge Abbas (claiming to represent a pseudo state) leading the chorus which has maintained the decades-old myth that the Israeli state could not be defeated militarily. This defeatist chorus was openly cheering for the power of the Israeli state to defeat Hizbullah in order to eliminate all non-state resistance movements that they rightly perceive as a threat to their existence as illegitimate states. The Syrian president attacked the leaders of the defeatist states and he called them "half-men" whom he claimed came up with only "half-solutions." Not to be outdone, the defeatist state leaders shot back that the Syrian state itself has done nothing and while the Syrian Golan Heights remain occupied by Israel, Syria has not fired a shot in an attempt to liberate its territory since 1973. How true! Some, in a moment of wishful thinking, have urged the Syrian regime to follow a strategy similar to Hizbullah's in attempting to dislodge the Israelis from the Golan Heights. Not so fast! Those indulging in such shallow wishful thinking ignore the fact that Hizbullah has succeeded because it is a non-state movement with deep and widespread grass roots and popular support. The same can't be said about the Syrian regime or any other Arab regime for that matter.
We had already observed another example of the success of a popular resistance and the failure of another state power, prior to this latest success by Hizbullah, and that of course was and continues to be in Iraq. News reports now indicate that the Bush Administration is so frustrated by its quagmire in Iraq that it has given up on the latest puppet "government" of Maliki and it is considering doing away with pretensions of "democracy" and instead installing a dictator (or a "strongman" as he would be called) who would rule by brutal force. But it is too late for that! The state does not have the institutions and the power to impose its will by force any longer.
In Lebanon itself, the politicians of the feeble Lebanese state have started their squabbles and they are re-adjusting their positions in light of the new realities. Some have not learned a thing and are still calling for disarming Hizbullah, while praising the Lebanese state for repelling the Israeli invasion! Who are they fooling? The forces of the Lebanese state were fraternizing with the invading Israelis and serving them tea in the town of Marji'youn while Lebanon was being bombed into rubble by the Israelis! Later, Israel disarmed those same representatives of the Lebanese state and released them only after heavy intervention by France and the US. Israel later bombed those representatives of the Lebanese state who served the Israelis tea and killed six of them.
The important point in all of this is that the states, by their illegitimacy, corruption and incompetence have perpetrated a culture of defeat and that defeat was hammered in the heads of the populace as an objective reality that could not be challenged. As a corollary, the states have perpetuated a culture of subservience to the US and a pursuit of an illusory "peace process" that has led to further strengthening of Usrael and the loss of more and more Palestinian and other Arab territories. Now, in Iraq and in Lebanon the non-state resistance movements have taken on the two mightiest military powers of the US and Israel and fought them off to a standstill. All of a sudden the state players and their weakness are exposed as never before and their legitimacy will be challenged as never before.
With all of these fundamental lessons becoming clear, the Palestinians who do not have a state, seem to want to move in the wrong direction. Instead of absorbing the lessons from Iraq and Lebanon and putting into practice what has been learnt in order to build an effective Palestinian resistance movement, the Palestinians (including all factions) are fooling themselves by hanging on to a make-believe "government" and an Authority with absolutely no authority. Even the resistance movement of Hamas is indulging in the silly trappings of a "state" by having "ministers," a "parliament" and other state structures such as foreign service and security! This is not only a wasted effort but also, more seriously, indicative of inability to learn and to apply from what is happening in the area. If the Palestinians are to be taken seriously, they have to dissolve the wretched Palestinian Authority and to get serious building an effective resistance movement. Not surprisingly, that is why the most admired leader in occupied Palestine today is not a Palestinian: he is Hasan Nasrallah.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The hidden story of Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails
Yet a secret list compiled by the Lebanese authorities, and leaked to the Lebanese newspaper al-Safir, has revealed the names of 67 men known to have been kidnapped by Israel and its allies during 18 years of occupation. Thousands of others are missing.
The most high profile prisoner in Israel is Samir Kuntar, who is serving a life sentence. Kuntar was captured by Israel in 1979 during an operation by a left wing Palestinian group. He was 16 at the time.
Kuntar has been kept out of prisoner exchanges until the Lebanese find the remains of an Israeli air force pilot downed in 1986. The Lebanese have repeatedly stated that the pilot is just one of 17,000 people who went missing over decades of war.
Hizbollah has demanded Kuntar be released in exchange for Israeli soldiers. The resistance is also demanding the return of hundreds of others held secretly by Israel.
The leaked list names those who were witnessed being seized and then identified as having been transferred to Israeli prisons. The majority were seized by Israeli troops or their allies, the right wing Lebanese Forces and Israel’s proxy South Lebanese Army (SLA).
The list gives the dates and locations where the men were seized, followed by verification either by witnesses or newspaper photographs of prisoners.
There is no reason given as to why the men were seized, or whether they are alive or dead. The Israelis have refused to discuss the list, and have given no details on the missing people’s whereabouts, or the locations of their graves.
Those campaigning for the families of the missing fear they were tortured, then killed inside Israel.
There are hopes that some of them might still be alive. Many would now be in their 40s. Of the 67 who have been verified as having been transferred to Israel, 43 were in their early 20s or younger.
Robert Fisk: The army is back, but don't expect it to disarm Hizbollah
"For four hours, I took him on a tour of our base." the general said of "Ashaya". "He was probably on an intelligence mission and wanted to see if we had any Hizballah in here." But an hour after the supposedly friendly Israeli left, Israeli tanks blasted their way with shells through the gates of the Lebanese garrison. The Lebanese soldiers did not fire back. Instead, they fled Marjayoun - only to find that their long convoy, which included dozens of civilian cars, was attacked by Israeli pilots who killed seven civilians, including the wife of the mayor, who was decapitated by a missile.
محاولات احياء سلطة ميتة
ما زالت تداعيات انتصار المقاومة الاسلامية في لبنان بزعامة حزب الله تتواصل بشكل مكثف، بسبب التغييرات الجذرية التي احدثتها في المعادلات السياسية والعسكرية في المنطقة، حيث تعكف معظم الجهات الاقليمية والدولية علي دراستها بشكل معمق، واستخلاص الدروس، ورسم استراتيجيات المستقبل علي اساس انعكاساتها، باستثناء الطرف الفلسطيني الرسمي، الذي ما زال يتصرف وكأن الحرب في لبنان لم تحدث، وكأن اسرائيل لم تهزم، وكأن عملية السلام تتقدم وفق المخطط المرسوم لها.
فمن المفارقة، انه في الوقت الذي يتحدث فيه الجميع عن رد الاعتبار لثقافة المقاومة، وانكسار ثقافة الحلول السلمية المفروضة وفق المعايير الاسرائيلية، يخرج علينا المسؤولون الفلسطينيون بانباء عن بدء مشاورات رسمية لتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية، بين رئيس السلطة محمود عباس ورئيس وزرائها اسماعيل هنية، علي اساس وثيقة الاسري .
كنا نعتقد ان المجازر التي ترتكبها القوات الاسرائيلية بشكل يومي في قطاع غزة، وعمليات القرصنة التي تمارسها وتتمثل في اختطاف رئيس المجلس التشريعي واكثر من ربع النواب وتسعة وزراء، قد طوت هذه الوثيقة، مثلما طوت كل ما قبلها من اشكال وهمية مثل رئاسة الوزراء، ورئاسة السلطة، ولكن يبدو ان اعتقادنا في غير محله تماماً، وان هناك من المسؤولين الفلسطينيين من لا يزال يتمسك باشكال ومناصب وهمية، ليس لها اي مكان الا في مخيلتهم هم ولا احد غيرهم.
فكيف يمكن الحديث عن حكومة وحدة وطنية علي اساس عملية سلمية ماتت وشبعت موتاً، واعلن وفاتها رسمياً وزراء الخارجية العرب في اجتماعهم الطاريء الذي انعقد في القاهرة في بداية ازمة العدوان الاسرائيلي علي لبنان.
من يتذكر وثيقة الأسري هذه التي كانت مشروع فتنة داخلية فلسطينية كادت ان تؤدي الي حرب اهلية، ولم ينقذ الفلسطينيين منها الا العملية الفدائية الجريئة التي اسفرت عن اسر جندي اسرائيلي قرب معبر كرم سالم علي الحدود مع مصر.
اننا لا نلوم السيد عباس اذا ما حاول احياء هذه الوثيقة الميتة التي تجاوزتها الاحداث، ولكننا نلوم السيد اسماعيل هنية رئيس الوزراء الذي انطلت عليه هذه الحيلة، من قبل جماعة اوسلو الذين يريدون العودة الي الاضواء باي طريقة، ومن البوابة الخطأ، وفي الزمن الخطأ.
فالسيد هنية طالب قبل بضعة ايام قليلة بحل السلطة الفلسطينية باعتبارها فقدت مصداقيتها واسباب وجودها، بعد اختطاف رئيس المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني الدكتور عزيز الدويك، وها هو اليوم يتراجع عن هذا الموقف المشرف، بالسقوط في مصيدة من يريدون ان يتعلقوا بعربة تسوية ميتة حتي يظلوا تحت الاضواء، ويشككوا في انتصار المقاومة في لبنان، ويربطوا الشعب الفلسطيني وقضيته بالنظام العالمي القديم، نظام بوش ـ اولمرت ـ بلير الذي مني بهزيمة ساحقة ومذلة علي ايدي رجال المقاومة في لبنان.
نعم لحكومة وحدة وطنية، ولكن علي ارضية المقاومة، لا علي ارضية اشكال بالية من التسويات، تعكس الإذعان الكامل للشروط الاسرائيلية، وتحويل الشعب الفلسطيني الي شعب متسول للحلول وللمساعدات المالية.
ثم اين هي هذه الحكومة، وهي لا تستطيع فتح معبر، وحماية وزرائها من الخطف، وابناء الشعب الفلسطيني من القتل بالعشرات في قصف اسرائيلي مستكبر، وبمباركة امريكية وصمت عربي مريب؟
المشاورات الفلسطينية يجب ان تبدأ فعلاً، ليس من اجل تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية، وانما من اجل اعلان حل السلطة الفلسطينية، كأول خطوة تضامنية مع المقاومة اللبنانية، واول استيعاب للمتغيرات الجديدة التي فرضتها بصمودها في معارك الشرف والكرامة في جنوب لبنان.
الحديث عن حكومة وحدة وطنية فلسطينية يشكل اهانة لانتصارات المقاومة اللبنانية، ورد اعتبار للعملية السياسية التي يريد الرئيس بوش الايحاء بانها ما زالت موجودة وقائمة وناجحة، وان المتطرفين من امثال حزب الله وقيادته، هم الذين يريدون تدميرها.
اننا نستغرب ان يتحدث البعض عن هذه الحكومة وتسعة وزراء خلف القضبان، ورئيس المجلس التشريعي الذي من المفترض ان يكون الرجل الثاني في سلّم السلطة، ويتولي رئاستها في حال وفاة رئيسها فجأة، يعالج في المستشفي من شدة التعذيب في سجون الاحتلال بعد خطفه بطريقة مهينة ومذلّة.
الشعب الفلسطيني يريد قيادات علي مستوي السيد حسن نصر الله، يقود حركة مقاومة بطريقة تنظيمية فاعلة ومؤثرة، لا يخاف من امريكا واسرائيل، ويملك ارادة حديدية لا تلين، لا يخشي الموت، بل يسعي اليه باعتباره ذروة التضحية، وقمة المني، واسرع طريق لدار البقاء.
السيد محمود عباس رئيس السلطة ما زال يعيش في زمن اهل الكهف، ويفكر بطريقة تعود الي الوراء ثلاثين عاماً، ويرفض ان يستوعب، او يصدق ان هناك في لبنان من الحقوا هزيمة تاريخية بالدولة العبرية وجيشها الذي كان حتي الأمس القريب لا يقهر. حيث باتت ايام صديقه ايهود اولمرت وحزبه كاديما معدودة للغاية، وتتصاعد المطالبات باطاحته وحكومته بتهمة التقصير.
القائد الناجح هو من يلتصق بشعبه، ويقرأ ابجديات تفاعلاته وحقيقة مشاعره. فالفلسطينيون مثلهم مثل الغالبية الساحقة من العرب والمسلمين، يعيشون هذه الايام اسعد لحظات حياتهم، وهم يشاهدون المقابر الجماعية لدبابات الميركافا فخر الصناعة العسكرية الاسرائيلية، وجنازات الجنود الاسرائيليين تتواصل بالعشرات، بينما تزداد طوابير من يريدون الهروب من السفينة الاسرائيلية الغارقة امام السفارات الاوروبية والامريكية طمعاً بالنجاة وتربية اطفالهم في مجتمعات آمنة مستقرة.
انتصار المقاومة الاسلامية في جنوب لبنان جبّ كل ما قبله، وخلق واقعاً جديداً، وأنهي مرحلة من العربدة الاسرائيلية الامريكية، واحدث حالة من الفرز، بين ما هو محمود، اي قيم المقاومة، وما هو خبيث، اي قيم الاستجداء للسلام الامريكي ـ الاسرائيلي المغشوش.
مرة اخري نطالب بحل هذه السلطة، واعادة القضية الفلسطينية الي بيتها الحقيقي، اي بيت المقاومة، فقد اتضح زيــف هذه الاكذوبة ومدي خطورتها في خدمة الاحتلال وتنصله من مسؤولياته، وأي محاولة لإعادة احيائها، وهي عظام رميم، هي اهانة للشعب الفلسطيني، واهانة لانتصار المقاومة في لبنان.
فالمقاومة اللبـــنانية هي التي فرضت تعـــديلات قرار مجـــلس الامن الدولي، واجبرت امريكا واسرائيل علي سحب مشروع قرارهما المخجل لاول مرة في تاريخ المنظـــمة الدولية، والمقـــاومة الفلسطينية هي التي تفرض مسيرة سلمية جديدة قائمة علي العدل والمساواة، واستعادة الحقوق المغتصبة.
The Nasrallah Interview
"Goodbye to the Unipolar World"
By CounterPunch News Service
From an interview conducted shortly before the ceasefire by reporters from the Turkish Labor Party daily, Evrensel.
"Q. What is the current state of your relations with the Socialist movement?
Hasan Nasrallah: The socialist movement, which has been away from international struggle for a considerable time, at last has begun to offer moral support for us once again. The most concrete example of this has been Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. What most of the Muslim states could not do has been done by Chavez, by the withdrawal of Venezuela's ambassador to Israel. He furthermore communicated to us his support for our resistance. This has been an immense source of moral strength for us.
We can observe a similar reaction within the Turkish Revolutionary Movement. We had socialist brothers from Turkey who went to Palestine in 1960s to fight against Israel. And one of them still remains in my memory and my heart; Deniz Gezmis..!
Q. What is the importance of Denizs for you?
Hasan Nasrallah: We now want new Denizs. Our ranks are always open to new Denizs against the oppressors. Deniz will always live in the hearts of the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon. No-one should doubt this. Unfortunately, there is no longer a common fight and fraternity against the common enemy left over by the Denizs. What we would have liked is for our socialist brothers in Lebanon to fight against imperialism and Zionism shoulder to shoulder. This fight is not only our fight. It is the common fight of all those oppressed across the world. Don't forget that if the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon lose this war, this will mean the defeat of all the oppressed people of the world. In our fight against imperialism, the revolutionaries should also undertake a responsibility and should become, in the hearts of our people of Palestine and Lebanon, Denizs once again.
Q. It is possible to see the posters of Che, Chavez and Ahmadinejad side by side in the streets of Beirut. Are these the signs of a new polarization?
Hasan Nasrallah: We salute the leaders and the peoples of Latin America. They have resisted the American bandits heroically and have been a source of moral strength for us. They are guiding the way for the oppressed peoples. Go and wonder around our streets..! You will witness how our people have embraced Chavez and Ernesto Che Guevara. Nearly in every house, you will come across posters of Che or Chavez.
What we are saying to our socialist friends who want fight together with us for fraternity and freedom is: Do not come at all if you are going to say "Religion is an opiate". We do not agree with this analysis. Here is the biggest proof of this in our streets with the pictures of Chavez, Che, Sadr and Khamenei together. These leaders are saluting our people in unison. So long as we respect your beliefs, and you respect ours, there is no imperialist power we cannot defeat!"
PATHETIC!
(A member of the Palestinian Special Force trained to protect President Mahmoud Abbas takes part in an exercise during a graduation ceremony in Gaza August 17, 2006. REUTERS)
These "Special Forces" do not protect Palestinians when the Israelis invade refugee camps and kill innocent civilians. After taking away their weapons, the Israelis make them undress and parade in their underwear.
A Lebanese man inspects the wreckage of the Israeli CH-53 Sikorsky helicopter that was shot down by Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese village of Yater.
The Thirty Three Day War
By URI AVNERY
Tel Aviv.
"THE RESULTS of the war are obvious:
* The prisoners, who served as casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have not been released. They will come back only as a result of an exchange of prisoners, exactly as Hassan Nasrallah proposed before the war.
* Hizbullah has remained as it was. It has not been destroyed, nor disarmed, nor even removed from where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in battle and have even garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its command and communication stucture has continued to function to the end. Its TV station is still broadcasting.
* Hassan Nasrallah is alive and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him failed. His prestige is sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, songs are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns the walls.
* The Lebanese army will be deployed along the border, side by side with a large international force. That is the only material change that has been achieved.
This will not replace Hizbullah. Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every village and town. The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it from one single village. That was simply impossible without permanently removing the population to which it belongs.
The aim was to photograph the victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. The operation could only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into force. In spite of the fact that the army used helicopters to land the troops, the aim was not attained. At no point did the army reach the Litani.
This time, when the cease-fire took effect, all the units taking part had reached villages on the way to the river. There they became sitting ducks, surrounded by Hizbullah fighters, without secure supply lines. From that moment on, the army had only one aim: to get them out of there as quickly as possible, regardless of who might take their place.
Now, even before the last fallen soldier has been buried, the incompetent generals are starting to talk shamelessly about "another round", the next war that will surely come "in a month or in a year", God willing. After all, we cannot end the matter like this, in failure. Where is our pride?
Perhaps, in the end, it is logic that will win. Logic says: what has thoroughly been demonstrated is that there is no military solution. That is true in the North. That is also true in the South, where we are confronting a whole people that has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese guerilla will encourage the Palestinian guerilla."
Lebanon: The 33-Day War and UNSC Resolution 1701
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)
"Measured against the central goal and the three means described above, the Israeli offensive was a total and blatant failure. Most obviously, Hezbollah was not destroyed -- far from it. It has retained the bulk of both its political structure and its military force, indulging in the luxury of shelling northern Israel up to the very last moment before the ceasefire on the morning of August 14. It has not been cut off from its mass base; if anything, this mass base has been considerably extended, not only among Lebanese Shiites, but among all other Lebanese religious communities as well, not to mention the huge prestige that this war brought to Hezbollah, especially in the Arab region and the rest of the Muslim world. Last but not least, all this has led to a shift in the overall balance of forces in Lebanon in a direction that is the exact opposite of what Washington and Israel expected: Hezbollah emerged much stronger and more feared by its declared or undeclared opponents, the friends of the U.S. and the Saudi kingdom. The Lebanese government essentially sided with Hezbollah, making the protest against the Israeli aggression its priority. [2]
Arens speaks the truth: as Israel proved increasingly unable to score any of the goals that it had set for itself at the onset of its new war, it started looking for an exit. While it compensated for its failure by an escalation in the destructive and revengeful fury that it unleashed over Lebanon, its U.S. sponsors switched their attitude at the UN. After having bought time for Israel for more than three weeks by blocking any attempt at discussing a Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire -- one of the most dramatic cases of paralysis in the history of the 61-year old intergovernmental institution -- Washington decided to take over and continue Israel's war by diplomatic means.
Washington and Paris's main concession was to abandon the project of creating an ad-hoc multinational force under Chapter VII. Instead, the resolution authorizes "an increase in the force strength of UNIFIL to a maximum of 15,000 troops," thus revamping and considerably swelling the existing UN force. The main trick, however, was to redefine the mandate of this force so that it could now "assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps" towards "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." UNIFIL can now as well "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."
Nasrallah's position was the most correct possible given the circumstances. Hezbollah had to make concessions to facilitate the ending of the war. As the whole population of Lebanon was held hostage by Israel, any intransigent attitude would have had terrible humanitarian consequences over and above the already appalling results of Israel's destructive and murderous fury. Hezbollah knows perfectly well that the real issue is less the wording of a UN Security Council resolution than its actual interpretation and implementation, and in that respect what is determinant is the situation and balance of forces on the ground.
The second issue, also on the domestic Lebanese level, is the reconstruction effort. Hariri and his Saudi backers had built up their political influence in Lebanon by dominating the reconstruction efforts after Lebanon's 15-year war ended in 1990. This time they will be faced by an intensive competition from Hezbollah, with Iran standing behind it and with the advantage of its intimate link with the Lebanese Shiite population that was the principal target of the Israeli war of revenge.
The fourth issue, of course, is the composition and intent of the new UNIFIL contingents. The original plan of Washington and Paris was to repeat in Lebanon what is taking place in Afghanistan where a NATO auxiliary force with a UN fig leaf is waging Washington's war. Hezbollah's resilience on the military as well as on the political level thwarted this plan. Washington and Paris believed they could implement it nevertheless under a disguised form and gradually, until political conditions were met in Lebanon for a showdown pitting NATO and its local allies against Hezbollah. Indeed, the countries expected to send the principal contingents are all NATO members: along with France, Italy and Turkey are on standby, while Germany and Spain are being urged to follow suit. Hezbollah is no fool however. It is already engaged in dissuading France from executing its plan of sending elite combat troops backed by the stationing of the single French air-carrier close to Lebanon's shores in the Mediterranean."
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Blair's Middle East policy has driven me to return my MBE
Suzy Wighton
Wednesday August 16, 2006
The Guardian
In 1985, after completing a tropical nursing course, and galvanised by my earlier travelling experiences in the occupied West Bank, I found the London office of Medical Aid for Palestinians and Dr Swee Chai Ang, a surgeon who had survived the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. Her commitment to the Palestinian cause, along with that of Major Derek Cooper and his late wife Pamela, was inspirational. Her bravery in travelling to Israel to testify against Ariel Sharon for complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacres was breathtaking.
The Palestinian medical staff in Beirut were again being slaughtered in 1985 and 1986. They were dragged - along with their patients - from the hospital, which was on the edges of the Sabra and Shatila camps, and shot by militiamen.
Health volunteers were required, and I ended up in Bourj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut. The Palestinian refugee population there had arrived from all over Palestine in 1948, mainly from the Galilee. They had left everything behind, locked their front doors, and moved over the border to wait for the fighting to end so they could return to their homes. They still haven't been able to. Tents were replaced by corrugated tin shelters in which babies died sometimes of the heat and sometimes of the cold. Six weeks after I arrived, the war of the camps restarted, and I stayed for six months in the besieged camp.
In recent weeks many of my friends from those Beirut days have been in Ain el-Helweh camp in Sidon, or have moved from Tyre to Beirut, from east Beirut to west Beirut, or from Bourj al-Barajneh to Sidon and back again, under aerial bombardment from Israel, hosting Lebanese refugees in the Palestinian refugee camps. The Lebanese people I met in the south of the country have been on our television screens, displaced or dead. The same destruction and despair has been revisited upon my friends, both Palestinian and Lebanese. All have been targets of massive military attacks in civilian areas. Bombarded for existing, bombarded for daring to show defiance to bigger global plans for them.
For me this is a moment for action, and for making whatever gestures we can here in Britain to show our solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinian people, who have been under siege both in Lebanon and Gaza.
On returning from Beirut after the siege of the refugee camps - having been saved from assassination on leaving the camps by the efforts of Canadian, Irish and Greek envoys - we international medical volunteers were given numerous awards. Our Palestinian and Lebanese counterparts received nothing. Their bravery and steadfastness went unnoticed. I was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Palestinian people - a people who live still under occupation and in refugee camps in exile, as UN resolutions that would solve their plight are ignored.
I accepted my MBE on behalf of all my unsung Palestinian and Lebanese colleagues and comrades. I have now returned it, also in their name. It is an utter disgrace that the British prime minister refused to press for a ceasefire, remained on holiday while these war crimes were being carried out and that parliament has not been recalled. It is a disgrace that the US ambassador to the UN described a call for a three-day truce to assist in humanitarian relief and evacuation of the wounded as "unhelpful". It is a disgrace that this government ignored the concerns of the electorate and all other forms of lawful protest. I have therefore come to the conclusion that to continue to hold on to my MBE, for which I was nominated by the parliamentary Labour party, is also a disgrace.
I have returned my MBE to St James Palace, with regret, in protest at the government's complicity in the prosecution of illegal wars and occupations. And I am returning it, above all, in the hope that this small gesture will add to the swell of support for action for the people of Lebanon and Palestine, and to those who wish to see peace in Israel and other nations.
I would urge others who also hold honours, and who feel the same powerlessness in the face of Tony Blair's foreign policy, to do as I am doing. In the history of quiet British protest, the return of honours has always had its place. And so it should now, in the name of the Lebanese and Palestinian people.
Bush is crap, says Prescott
Published: 17 August 2006
John Prescott has given vent to his private feelings about the Bush presidency, summing up George Bush's administration in a single word: crap. Continued.
Arias aims to win more friends in the Middle East
Costa Rica moves embassy to Tel Aviv
Wednesday 16 August 2006 11:10 PM GMT
The new president of Costa Rica has said that his country will move its embassy in Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, in a move that pleases Arab nations.
Oscar Arias, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, said on Wednesday that he made the decision to win more friends in the Middle East and comply with United Nations' resolutions. He said Shimon Peres, Israel's deputy prime minister, had called him on Tuesday to ask him to reconsider the decision. Israel regards East Jerusalem as part of its "undivided and eternal capital". It captured the eastern part of Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognised internationally. "As far as Costa Rica is concerned, the right to exist and live free of threat, particularly the criminal threat of terrorism, is beyond all doubt," said Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil wars in neighbouring Central American nations. The decision will leave El Salvador as the only country in the world with an embassy in Jerusalem.
"It's time to rectify an historic error that hurts us internationally and deprives us of almost any form of friendship with the Arab world, and more broadly with Islamic civilisation, to which a sixth of humanity belongs," Arias said at an event marking his first 100 days in office.
The 200,000 Arab residents of East Jerusalem are caught between Israel and an emerging Palestinian state, which wants the eastern part of Jerusalem as its future capital.
Luis Alberto Monge, the former Costa Rican president, moved the embassy to Jerusalem in 1982 as a show of support for Israel.
Arias said the relocation to Tel Aviv should not, however, be interpreted as a slight to Israel, which has had historically close ties to Costa Rica.
Hizbullah has achieved what Arab states only dreamed of
Thursday August 17, 2006
The Guardian
"What is new - and dramatically so - about this campaign is its outcome. Arabs soon dubbed this the sixth Arab-Israeli war, and for some of them - and indeed for some Israelis - it already ranks, in its strategic, psychological and political consequences, as perhaps the most significant since Israel's "war of independence" in 1948. For a state that relies for its survival not on the acceptance of its neighbours but on its repeatedly demonstrated ability to defeat and intimidate them by superior force of arms, it is vital to retain what it calls its "deterrent power". What, on July 12, made Hizbullah's seizure of two soldiers so unbearable was not that it was a "terrorist" act; it was that - allowed to pass without an appropriate response - it would have constituted a grievous blow to that "deterrent power". But with the extraordinary shortcomings of that response it has not only failed to repair its deterrent power, it has undermined it as never before.
Hizbullah achieved this in various ways. On the strictly military level, a small band of irregulars kept at bay one of the world's most powerful armies for over a month, and inflicted remarkable losses on it; the manner in which it did this - a combination of professional skills, ingenuity, intrepidity, meticulous preparation, masterful use of anti-tank missiles, brilliant organisation, labyrinthine underground defences - is only now fully coming to light. This was only possible because Hizbullah represented something else: the first non-state actor to single-handedly take on Israel in a full-scale war of this kind. "
Church body condemns Israel
Israel's assault on Lebanon was planned before Hezbollah attacked and was aimed at driving a wedge between the different faiths in the country, a delegation from the World Council of Churches says.
"We came back from Lebanon sharing the impression that this destruction was planned. And if the action by Hezbollah was the trigger, this was a planned operation all ready to go," Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Conference of European Churches, said in Geneva on the delegation's return from a visit to Beirut and Jerusalem. The Israeli Mission to the United Nations in Geneva declined to comment on Wednesday afternoon because they had yet to see a written statement from the council. "The representatives of Lebanon's various communities with whom we met had all agreed that the destruction was both deliberate and planned," the council's statement said. Continued.
Movie on Israeli Torture
Group Says Iran Is 'Not a Crisis'
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
08/16/06
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Seeking to counter the White House's depiction of its Middle East policies as crucial to the prevention of terrorist attacks at home, 21 former generals, diplomats and national security officials will release an open letter tomorrow arguing that the administration's "hard line" has actually undermined U.S. security. Read more.
VIDEO; Israeli Soldiers "Shoot to Kill" at Israeli Anti-war Demonstrators
TO SEE VIDEO CLICK HERE
Border Police unit firing on demonstrators from close range.
The video clearly shows the commander of the unit saying, “This is Lebanon!” as he orders his force to fire on retreating demonstrators, and “I will not allow a demonstration during wartime!”
"The video clearly shows the Border Police unit firing on the demonstrators from close range. There is no evidence that the soldiers were in danger. Typically, the military spokesperson has claimed that “activists threw stones” and Haaretz’s article yesterday reiterating the same false information. The video also clearly shows the commander of the unit saying, “This is Lebanon!” as he orders his force to fire on retreating demonstrators, and “I will not allow a demonstration during wartime!”"
A foretaste of larger furies to come
"This has serious implications for the whole region, which I expect we will now witness in the form of sharper political polarization, already seen in Lebanon. This polarization will take several forms. The first is rising tension and greater competition between official governments and non-state actors in the Arab world who have stepped into the void of credibility and impact that many Arab state institutions have forfeited in recent decades. Other like-minded movements in the Arab world will seek to emulate Hizbullah's organizational and political prowess.
A parallel polarization that has crystallized in the past year, and has been a theme of some recent Nasrallah speeches, is that between countries and political forces within the region that wage a regional cold war for the political identity of the Middle East. Syria and Iran, along with groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and others, are actively challenging the more conservative, often pro-Western states like Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Egypt. This contest will simmer for many years. This is closely linked to a wider contest focused around American-led pressure on Iran to stop its plans to develop a full nuclear fuel cycle.
The strength and assertiveness of the Islamist movements - whether through military confrontation like Hizbullah or through winning elections as in many other cases - is a sign that majorities of Arab citizens are not content to remain docile and dejected in the state of subjugation and defeat that has defined them for decades. Israel and the US have shown they are prepared to destroy an entire country to assert their interests if not also their dominance in this region. Most Arab countries watched all this on television, and sent relief supplies when Israel gave them permission to do so."
Everything Old Is New
"Everything old becomes new again. "A Clean Break" was written ten years ago to advocate for an Israeli attack on Lebanon, and by proxy Syria and Iran. It was cast aside then, but appears to have been revived for this current disaster. The lessons Israel is learning in Lebanon have been vividly available in Iraq these last years, as the basis for that invasion was essentially premised upon a slightly edited version of the same paper.
Those lessons have not achieved purchase with the neo-conservatives, and "A Clean Break" may come again to serve as the basis for an attack on Iran. There is little hope that such an attack will meet with any more success than the last two conflicts inspired by this dangerous document and the men who wrote it."
What Did and Didn't Happen in Lebanon
By RACHARD ITANI
Counter Punch
"What will happen:
1- The US-Israeli war against Lebanon will restart with a vengeance, leading to further killing of innocent Lebanese civilians and greater destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure;
2- Israel's deadly and destructive attacks against the Palestinians in Gaza will continue unabated, escalating into ever greater levels of cruelty and violence on the part of the military occupier;
3- Iraq's Shiites will emulate America's anti-British 18th century revolutionaries, by joining the liberation movement to rid their country of the Anglo-American, neo-colonial occupation that raped their people and plundered their resources.
Folks, the Israeli-Lebanese proxy war ain't over yet. There's more and worse to come. As long as the American, Israeli and British governments and their electorates continue to believe that they can cow people into subservience ad infinitum through unfettered violence, and as long as they continue to assert that Western blood is more valuable than Arab, African or Asian blood, these 19th century throwbacks will continue to cause mayhem and commit war crimes in the 21st century."
Real Photo Fakers
By JONATHAN COOK
Counter Punch
"But all of this, like the "faked photograph affair", is another layer of distraction. The real issue that should be the most pressing matter at the top of the world's agenda is not an assessment of the mutual crimes against property but the mostly one-sided crimes against human beings -- the massive Israeli war crimes that have been committed throughout the past month in Lebanon, whose effects will continue as cluster bombs blow up returning refugees, and are still being committed every day against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank.
This urgent moral case is being quietly overlooked in favor of the material damages story, and for reasons not hard to discern. Because if we concentrated on the tally of war crimes, Israel would come out the undoubted winner in both Lebanon and Gaza."
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Lebanon
"The "real issue" that is being ignored is the systematic destruction of any prospects for a viable Palestinian existence as Israel annexes valuable land and major resources (water particularly), leaving the shrinking territories assigned to Palestinians as unviable cantons, largely separated from one another and from whatever little bit of Jerusalem is to be left to Palestinians, and completely imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan valley (and of course controls air space, etc.). This program of "hitkansut," cynically disguised as "withdrawal," is of course completely illegal, in violation of Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court (including the dissenting statement of US Justice Buergenthal). If it is implemented as planned, it spells the end of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement that the US and Israel have unilaterally blocked for 30 years matters that are so well documented that I do not have to review them here.
To turn to your specific question, even a casual look at the Western press reveals that the crucial developments in the occupied territories are marginalized even more by the war in Lebanon. The ongoing destruction in Gaza which was rarely seriously reported in the first place -- has largely faded into the background, and the systematic takeover of the West Bank has virtually disappeared. The severe punishment of the population for "voting the wrong way" was never considered problematic, consistent with the long-standing principle that democracy is fine if and only if it accords with strategic and economic interests, documented to the heavens."
NICE TO BE HOME!
(Lebanese residents sit in their apartment damaged by Israeli bombardment after returning to their home in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2006.)
SEE NO WAR CRIMES, HEAR NO WAR CRIMES, SPEAK NO WAR CRIMES
THE KILLING IN GAZA NEVER STOPS!
(Palestinian mourners carry the body of Hasan Shaat, 70, during his funeral at Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday Aug. 16, 2006. An Israeli airstrike blew up a house in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis early Wednesday, killing Hasan Shaat and his son Ibrahim and wounding at least four people, Palestinian officials said.)
THIS USED TO BE A SCHOOL(Some of the classrooms of a destroyed school, attacked during the month-long Israeli forces' offensive, can be seen, in the southern town of Bint Jbail, Lebanon, Wednesday Aug. 16, 2006. (AP ))
July's toll is the highest of the war
An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll of January.
HOME, SWEET HOME!
(in Aita al-Shaab in south Lebanon August 15, 2006)
Report: Lebanon Reconstruction Costs Top $7B
THE MIGHTY ISRAELI AIRFORCE
A Lebanese Red Cross volunteer removes the jewelery from the body of an unidentified woman, to hand them back to her relatives, as they try to recover bodies from under the rubble of a house, destroyed by the month-long Israeli forces bombardment, in the southern village of Ainata, close to the town of Bint Jbail, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2006. (AP Photo)
West Bank "pullout" may be next casualty
Ehud Olmert's government has been weakened by intense criticism of its handling of the war and is in no position to force through its controversial "realignment policy" of unilateral withdrawal from Palestinian territory.
Hizbullah's unleashing of thousands of rockets from a border strip in Lebanon vacated six years ago by Israeli forces, coming soon after Hamas's use of rockets from the Gaza Strip, has created a political backlash against withdrawal.
Mr Olmert's hopes of pursuing his realignment policy appeared to have been delivered a fatal blow yesterday, with the leak of a government-appointed panel's report on its consequences. According to Ha'aretz newspaper, the committee found that a withdrawal would leave cities such as Tel Aviv vulnerable to rocket attacks from the West Bank.
GIVE CREDIT TO ZIONIZM!
(Lebanese people gather around thirty one coffins of victims, killed during the month-long Israeli forces offensive, at a mass grave during a funeral procession, in the southern port city of Tyre, late Tuesday Aug. 15, 2006. (AP Photo))
Sound familiar?
The government of Sri Lanka is drawing international condemnation for declaring that children can be legitimate targets in its fight against Tamil Tiger rebels. The declaration followed a military strike Monday that the Tigers say killed at least sixty-one children and wounded dozens more. UNICEF has condemned the bombing and says it believes the victims were schoolchildren attending a first aid course. The military says the children were conscripted child soldiers. A Sri Lankan government spokesperson said: "If the children are terrorists, what can we do?"
ANOTHER "MADE IN THE U.S.A." MONUMENT
(An anti-US banner decorates the rubble of a building destroyed during the month-long Israeli offensive against Lebanon, in the southern village of Abbassiyeh, close to the port city of Tyre, Wednesday Aug. 16, 2006.)
The day after/ How we suffered a knockout
In the past few weeks, the Israel Defense Forces has also adopted the body count approach. When the largest and strongest army in the Middle East clashes for more than two weeks with 50 Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbail and does not bring them to their knees, the commanders are left with no choice but to point to the number of dead fighters the enemy has left behind. It can be assumed that Bint Jbail will turn into a symbol of the second Lebanon war. For the Hezbollah fighters it will be remembered as their Stalingrad, and for us it will be a painful reminder of the IDF's defeat.
Ze'ev Schiff wrote in Haaretz on August 11 that we had "gotten a slap." It seems that "knockout" would be a more appropriate description. Continued.
How Superpowers Become Impotent
By Richard K. Betts
08/14/06 "Los Angeles Times" -- -- BEING A superpower is handy. No government in the world dares stand up to the United States on a regular battlefield. Having more than a quarter of the world's GDP and a half-trillion-dollar defense budget gets us that much — and it's a lot.
Israel is a superpower in its neighborhood too. And yet these two militarily muscular powers find themselves strategically impotent in the face of age-old guerrilla tactics married to high-tech capabilities. Continued.
Operation "Change of Location"?
By TRISH SCHUH
08/15/06 "Counterpunch" -- -- A team of Israeli lawyers is now suing the Lebanese government for starting the war. The case, to be filed in US civil court, will sue for compensation and damages incurred by Israeli residents and businesses as a result of the war. Attorneys Yehudah Talmon, Yoram Dantziger and Nitzah Libai claim the Lebanese government violated international law because it didn't stop Hezbollah's casus belli cross-border raid against Israel.
Israel's justification for its 'self-defense' attack on Lebanon, and the placement of the original "provocation" will take on new legal significance in coming months. Who infiltrated whom, and on what territory did the initial capture of the IDF soldiers occur? Differing press accounts stating that the capture occurred in Lebanon- not Israel- are now widely known: most frequently cited are AFP, Hindustan Times, Deutsch Press Agency, Asia Times, Bahrain News Agency and Voltairenet. Others reflect changes of direction in the recording of basic facts.
Newsweek's Michael Hirsh of MSNBC.com, on July 12, said: "As a result, things are blowing up so quickly it's difficult to know where to focus any longer. After the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah in Lebanon on Wednesday, which the hard-line group linked to a similar kidnapping by Hamas the week before, the mideast seemed to be closer to all-out war."
By July 13, the story out of MSNBC.com's Jerusalem bureau was different. In a piece titled "Crisis allows Israel to pursue strategic goals- Kidnappings give Israel excuse to neutralize Hamas, Hezbollah", Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Gutkin wrote: "Kidnappings changed everything: All that changed Wednesday, when Hezbollah guerillas crossed into Israel, seizing Goldwasser and Regev and killing eight other soldiers in the ensuing fighting."
AP also ran changed versions. On July 12, at 5:41AM Joseph Panossian wrote: "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them."
At 7:09 AM, Panossian had altered his report: "The Hezbollah militant group captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes along the Lebanese border on Wednesday."
By late afternoon, at 4:13 PM, AP's Panossian had completely shifted location: "Hezbollah militants crossed into Israel on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded in southern Lebanon with warplanes, tanks and gunboats, and said eight of its soldiers had been killed in the violence."
Israeli sources went almost unnoticed. Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) of July 12 said: "The abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah militants in southern Lebanon was not a terrorist attack but an act of war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday."
Australia's ABC News (Reuters) on July 13 quoted the IDF: "The sources say the Israeli soldiers had been seized at around 9am local time across the border from Aita al Shaab, some 15 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. The Israeli army confirmed that two Israeli soldiers had been captured on the Lebanese frontier. Israeli ground forces crossed into Lebanon to hunt for the missing soldiers, Israeli Army Radio said."
Voice of America, Jerusalem, on July 12 said: "Speaking to reporters outside the Israeli Foreign Ministry, spokesman Mark Regev says Hezbollah is responsible for the violence. "It appears we have an escalation in the North," he said. "It is very clear that the escalation started on the Lebanese side of the border, and Israel will respond appropriately."
In his article "Casus Belli", IDF Brigadier General Moshe Yaalon wrote: "The present crisis was initiated- in Gaza by Hamas and in southern Lebanon by Hezbollah- from lands that are not under Israeli occupation." New Republic, July 31.
A quote by Hamas political bureau member Mohammad Nazzal in the July 13 edition of Haaretz said: "This is a heroic operation carried out against military targets and so it is a legitimate operation, especially as it took place in occupied Lebanese territory."
A Lebanese government official told this writer that the first information about the soldiers' capture in southern Lebanon came from the Lebanese Army Police, a source also quoted in many media accounts. "At the beginning the Lebanese Army said it was on the Lebanese side," the official told me. The verbatim Army communique' to the Lebanese government follows: " 'At 9:03 or 9:05am in the vicinity or in front of Ayt Al Shaab village the members of the resistance have abducted two soldiers. At 9:15am the resistance shelled the position of the enemy in the occupied territories. At 10:10am the Resistance and Israeli forces clashed with each other in the area of Naqoura,' on Lebanon's side of the border."
Lebanon's Ambassador to the US, Farid Abboud discussed the events publicly on July 12, 2006. Because of his stance to CNN Abboud was reprimanded, and recalled to Lebanon._
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN International: "You say that you don't want any escalations, but ...
FARID ABBOUD: No, we don't.
HOLMES: ... but crossing over the border into Israel, killing and--seizing soldiers, what did you think would happen?
ABBOUD: I'm not sure where the location of the attack took place. I understand that there was another battle, also, where during which the Israelis crossed Lebanese soil and that the casualties that fell then were inside Lebanon territory ... We do not want any escalation, and I don't think we have ever attacked Israel. I mean, Israel has always occupied our territory, and we have always defended ourselves. Our position has always been very reactive, defensive.
This writer then spoke to the chief of the Lebanese Defense Cabinet General Edmond Fadel in Beirut for clarification. He said he was not authorized to speak on Hezbollah's position.
Hezbollah's position had been cited in the Jerusalem Post of July 12 : "Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said the timing of the capture of two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon on Wednesday would boost the position of Palestinians in Gaza."
It was a view Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi had reiterated to me on July 16 by phone. He insisted that the crisis occurred on the Lebanese side of the border "in front of the village of Ayt Al Shaab" adjacent to a military post.
On August 2, I discussed the kidnapping issue again with Hezbollah's Mousawi in Beirut.
Q: We spoke earlier on July 16, 2006 about this issue and I would like to make it official. The Lebanese Army has claimed that the Israeli soldiers captured on July 12, 2006 were captured in Lebanon, not Israel as we hear in the US. Were they caught inside Israel or Lebanon?
MOUSAWI: How can you possibly say Israel? This is an occupied land, occupied Palestine.
Q: Alright. Was it in occupied Palestine or Lebanon?
MOUSAWI: It was in Lebanon, on the border.
Q: On the border- What town? Where was it near?
MOUSAWI: There is no town. It was a military post.
Q: Did Hezbollah cross over into Israel?
MOUSAWI: This has never been claimed by Hezbollah- only on the border. And don't say Israel- its occupied Palestine.
Q: The IDF soldiers in the tank who hit the mine and were killed?
MOUSAWI: It was all in the Lebanese lands when they wanted to penetrate- to go after the resistance.... No one believes anymore that this is about the two soldiers, not with the destruction of the infrastructure. Besides, Hezbollah got information that this Israeli aggression was scheduled to take place this September or October...
According to Attorney Yehudah Talmon, Israelis will also sue to collect money from Lebanese assets and property in the United States. "No group associated in any way, shape or form to Hizbullah is immune to these claims." Never mind if the claims are based on shifting boundaries.
Israel should pack up and go
America's one-eyed view of war: Stars, stripes, and the Star of David
By Andrew Gumbel
08/15/06 "The Independent" -- - Los Angeles -- If these were normal times, the American view of the conflict in Lebanon might look something like the street scenes that have electrified the suburbs of Detroit for the past four weeks.
In Dearborn, home to the Ford Motor Company and also the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, up to 1000 people have turned out day after day to express their outrage at the Israeli military campaign and mourn the loss of civilian life in Lebanon. At one protest in late July, 15,000 people - almost half of the local Arab American population - showed up in a sea of Lebanese flags, along with anti-Israeli and anti-Bush slogans.
A few miles to the north, in the heavily Jewish suburb of Southfield, meanwhile, the Congregation Shaarey Zedek synagogue has played host to passionate counter-protests in which the US and Israeli national anthems are played back to back and demonstrators have asserted that it is Israel's survival, not Lebanon's, that is at stake here.
Such is the normal exercise of free speech in an open society, one might think. But these are not normal times. The Detroit protests have been tinged with paranoia and justifiable fear on both sides. Several Jewish institutions in the area, including two community centres and several synagogues, have hired private security guards in response to an incident in Seattle at the end of July, in which a mentally unstable 30-year-old Muslim walked into a Jewish Federation building and opened fire, killing one person and injuring five others.
On the Arab American side, many have expressed reluctance to stand up and be counted among the protesters for fear of being tinged by association with Hizbollah, which is on the United States' list of terrorist organisations. (As a result, the voices heard during the protests tend to be the more extreme ones.) They don't like to discuss their political views in any public forum, following the revelation a few months ago that the National Security Agency was wiretapping phone calls and e-mail exchanges as part of the Bush administration's war on terror.
They are even afraid to donate money to help the civilian victims of the war in Lebanon because of the intense scrutiny Islamic and Arab charities have been subjected to since the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration has denounced 40 charities worldwide as financiers of terrorism, and arrested and deported dozens of people associated with them. Consequently, while Jewish charities such as the United Jewish Communities are busy raising $300m to help families affected by the Katyusha rockets raining down on northern Israel, donations to the Lebanese victims have come in at no more than a trickle.
Outside Detroit and a handful of other cities with sizeable Arab American populations, it is hard to detect that there are two sides to the conflict at all. The Dearborn protests have received almost no attention nationally, and when they have it has usually been to denounce the participants as extremists and apologists for terrorism - either because they have voiced support for Hizbollah or because they have carried banners in which the Star of David at the centre of the Israeli flag has been replaced by a swastika.
The media, more generally, has left little doubt in the minds of a majority of American news consumers that the Israelis are the good guys, the aggrieved victims, while Hizbollah is an incarnation of the same evil responsible for bringing down the World Trade Centre, a heartless and faceless organisation whose destruction is so important it can justify all the damage Israel is inflicting on Lebanon and its civilians.
The point is not that this viewpoint is necessarily wrong. The point - and this is what distinguishes the US from every other Western country in its attitude to the conflict - is that it is presented as a foregone conclusion. Not only is there next to no debate, but debate itself is considered unnecessary and suspect.
The 24-hour cable news stations are the worst offenders. Rupert Murdoch's Fox News has had reporters running around northern Israel chronicling every rocket attack and every Israeli mobilisation, but has shown little or no interest in anything happening on the other side of the border. It is a rarity on any of the cable channels to see any Arab being tapped for expert opinion on the conflict. A startling amount of airtime, meanwhile, is given to the likes of Michael D Evans, an end-of-the-world Biblical "prophet" with no credentials in the complexities of Middle Eastern politics. He has shown up on MSNBC and Fox under the label "Middle East analyst". Fox's default analyst, on this and many other issues, has been the right-wing provocateur and best-selling author Ann Coulter, whose main credential is to have opined, days after 9/11, that what America should do to the Middle East is "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity".
Often, the coverage has been hysterical and distasteful. In the days following the Israeli bombing of Qana, several pro-Israeli bloggers started spreading a hoax story that Hizbollah had engineered the event, or stage-managed it by placing dead babies in the rubble for the purpose of misleading reporters. Oliver North, the Reagan-era orchestrator of the Iran-Contra affair who is now a right-wing television and radio host, and Michelle Malkin, a sharp-tongued Bush administration cheerleader who runs her own weblog, appeared on Fox News to give credence to the hoax - before the Israeli army came forward to take responsibility and brought the matter to at least a partial close.
As the conflict has gone on, the media interpretation of it has only hardened. Essentially, the line touted by cable news hosts and their correspondents - closely adhering to the line adopted by the Bush administration and its neoconservative supporters - is that Hizbollah is part of a giant anti-Israeli and anti-American terror network that also includes Hamas, al-Qa'ida, the governments of Syria and Iran, and the insurgents in Iraq. Little effort is made to distinguish between these groups, or explain what their goals might be. The conflict is presented as a straight fight between good and evil, in which US interests and Israeli interests intersect almost completely. Anyone who suggests otherwise is likely to be pounced on and ripped to shreds.
When John Dingell, a Democratic congressman from Michigan with a large Arab American population in his constituency, gave an interview suggesting it was wrong for the US to take sides instead of pushing for an end to violence, he was quickly - and loudly - accused of being a Hizbollah apologist. Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker, accused him of failing to draw any moral distinction between Hizbollah and Israel. Rush Limbaugh, the popular conservative talk-show host, piled into him, as did the conservative newspaper The Washington Times. The Times was later forced to admit it had quoted Dingell out of context and reprinted his full words, including: " I condemn Hizbollah, as does everyone else, for the violence."
The hysteria has extended into the realm of domestic politics, especially since this is a congressional election year. Republican have sought to depict last week's primary defeat of the Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of the loudest cheerleaders for the Iraq war, as some sort of wacko extremist anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli stand that risks undermining national security. Vice-President Dick Cheney said Lieberman's defeat would encourage "al-Qa'ida types" to think they can break the will of Americans. The fact that the man who beat Lieberman, Ned Lamont, is an old-fashioned East Coast Wasp who was a registered Republican for much of his life is something Mr Cheney chose to overlook.
Part of the Republican strategy this year is to attack any media that either attacks them or has the temerity to report facts that contradict the official party line. Thus, when Reuters was forced to withdraw a photograph of Beirut under bombardment because one of its stringers had doctored the image to increase the black smoke, it was a chance to rip into the news agency over its efforts to be even-handed. In a typical riposte, Michelle Malkin denounced Reuters as "a news service that seems to have made its mark rubber-stamping pro-Hizbollah propaganda".
She was not the only one to take that view. Mainstream, even liberal, publications have echoed her line. Tim Rutten, the Los Angeles Times liberal media critic, denounced the "obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press" in his most recent column.
It is not just the US media which tilts in a pro-Israeli direction. Congress, too, is remarkably unified in its support for the Israeli government, and politicians more generally understand that to criticise Israel is to risk jeopardising their future careers. When Antonio Villaraigosa, the up-and-coming Democratic Mayor of Los Angeles, was first invited to comment on the Middle East crisis, he sounded a note so pro-Israeli that he was forced to apologise to local Muslim and Arab community leaders. There is far less public debate of Israeli policy in the US, in fact, than there is in Israel itself.
This is less a reflection of American Jewish opinion - which is more diverse than is suggested in the media - than it is a commentary on the power of pro-Israeli lobby groups like Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which bankrolls pro-Israeli congressional candidates. That, in turn, is frustrating to liberal Jews like Michael Lerner, a San Francisco rabbi who heads an anti-war community called Tikkun. Rabbi Lerner has tried to argue for years that it is in Israel's best interests to reach a peaceful settlement, and that demonising Arabs as terrorists is counter-productive and against Judaism.
Lerner is probably right to assert that he speaks for a large number of American Jews, only half of whom are affiliated with pro-Israeli lobbying organisations. Certainly, dinner party conversation in heavily Jewish cities like New York suggest misgivings about Israel's strategic aims, even if there is some consensus that Hizbollah cannot be allowed to strike with impunity.
Few, if any, of those misgivings have entered the US media. "There is no major figure in American political life who has been willing to raise the issue of the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people, or even talk about them as human beings," Lerner said. "The organised Jewish community has transformed the image of Judaism into a cheering squad for the Israeli government, whatever its policies are. That is just idolatry, and goes against all the warnings in the Bible about giving too much power to the king or the state."
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
52 percent of Israelis: IDF failed
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
In the face of Bush's lies, it's left to Assad to tell the truth
"In the sparse Baathist drawing rooms of Damascus, reality often seems a long way away. But it was a sign of the times that President Bashar al-Assad was able to bring the great and the good of Damascus to their feet by the simple token of telling the truth - which no other Arab leader has chosen to do these past five weeks: that the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla army has, in effect, won this round of their war with Israel.
However, it is clear that President Assad now sees himself back at the centre of Arab power after his army's humiliating retreat from Lebanon last year. There was no more need for defeatism among Arabs, he said - a sentiment widely held in the real Arab world but quite absent from President Bush's fantasy Middle East.
The fact that Syria could bellow about the "achievements" of Hizbollah while avoiding the destruction of a blade of grass inside Syria suggests a cynicism that has yet to be grasped inside the Arab world. But for now, Syria has won."
A dummy run against Hezbollah
Asia Times
"If that, indeed, is true, then America's image as a military power, along with the image of the Israeli military, has been severely tarnished. This is not the end of the negative spillover effect from Israel's palpable failure to damage severely the fighting capabilities of Hezbollah. The United States might be in for more damaging fallout emanating from this fiasco.
Now that there is ceasefire, there are ample discussions of who won and who emerged as a loser in this war. From the Arab perspectives, there are still two clear winners and three equally apparent losers. The chief winner is Hezbollah and its execution of asymmetric war against the high-tech Israeli military. As much as he is berated in the US and in Israel, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has created a niche for himself as an Arab hero of this war.
The second major winner is Iran and its low-tech missiles and training of Hezbollah. It is worth noting, however, that Iran still faces the long shot of becoming a target of the Bush doctrine of regime change that continues to lurk in the background."
CARTOON OF THE DAY
THEY ARE LEAVING SOUTH LEBANON WITH THEIR TAIL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS,
BUT BETTER OFF THAN THE 200 TANKS DESTROYED BY HIZBULLAH
Monday, August 14, 2006
Sorry, but he doesn't believe in paragraphs...
Israeli forces attack demonstration
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.
Another demonstrator from Denmark, Rina, has suffered a fracture in her skull and brain contusion after a soldier beat her with the butt of his gun. She is currently hospitalized in Hebron, West Bank and is conscious but unable to walk. She was also beaten on her legs and sustained minor injuries.
Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure
"You have to be down here with the Hizbollah amid this terrifying destruction - way south of the Litani river, in the territory from which Israel once vowed to expel them - to realise the nature of the past month of war and of its enormous political significance to the Middle East. Israel's mighty army has already retreated from the neighbouring village of Ghandoutiya after losing 40 men in just over 36 hours of fighting. It has not even managed to penetrate the smashed town of Khiam where the Hizbollah were celebrating yesterday afternoon. In Srifa, I stood with Hizbollah men looking at the empty roads to the south and could see all the way to Israel and the settlement of Mizgav Am on the other side of the frontier. This is not the way the war was supposed to have ended for Israel.
Far from humiliating Iran and Syria - which was the Israeli-American plan - these two supposedly pariah states have been left untouched and the Hizbollah's reputation lionised across the Arab world. The "opportunity" which President George Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, apparently saw in the Lebanon war has turned out to be an opportunity for America's enemies to show the weakness of Israel's army. Indeed, last night, scarcely any Israeli armour was to be seen inside Lebanon - just one solitary tank could be glimpsed outside Bint Jbeil and the Israelis had retreated even from the "safe" Christian town of Marjayoun. It is now clear that the 30,000-strong Israeli army reported to be racing north to the Litani river never existed.
Far from driving the Hizbollah north across the Litani river, Israel has entrenched them in their Lebanese villages as never before. "
Israel's verdict: we lost the war
"Mr Olmert's admission in a stormy Knesset session came in the face of devastating poll figures showing a majority of the Israeli public believes none or only a very small part of the goals of the war had been achieved.
Critics from right and left were fortified by a Globes Smith poll showing, remarkably given the degree to which the army is embedded in Israeli society, that 52 per cent of electors believed the Israel Defence Forces had been unsuccessful in its Lebanon offensive as opposed to 44 per cent who believed it did well."
Halutz to officers: Don't talk to media without authorization
A SCORE CARD
-------------------Israeli Objective--------------------- ----------Score (0-10)------
1) Kill Hasan Nasrallah ----------------------------------------------------0
2) Prevent Missile Firing On Israel, In Retaliation--------------------0
3) Occupy The Area South Of The Litani--------------------------------0
4) Push Hizbullah North Of The Litani----------------------------------0
5) Turn The Lebanese And The Arabs Against Hizbullah-------------0
6) Destroy The Military Capability Of Hizbullah-----------------------0
7) Disarm Hizbullah---------------------------------------------------------0
8) Demonstrate The Decisive Military Capability Of Israel-----------0
9) Demonstrate To The Arabs That Resistance Is Futile---------------0
10) Strengthen The Puppet Regimes Of Jordan, Egypt, S.A.
And Others----------------------------------------------------------------------0
11) Increase Support For US Policies In Lebanon And
The Rest Of The M.E.---------------------------------------------------------0
12) Strengthen Usrael Vis-A-Vis Syria And Iran And Cow Both--------0
TOTAL SCORE------------------------------------------------------------------0
You be the judge, who won this war?
The Flaws in the UN Resolution
(Karim Makdisi is Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Dept of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon)
"Resolution 1701 clearly envisions that the long-term solution to this conflict rests on the need for disarming "all armed groups" in keeping with Resolution 1559 (previously rejected by Hizbullah), the establishment of a buffer zone free of any "armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government," and a de facto arms embargo on Lebanon except for those authorized by the government itself. In other words, Israel and the US are openly interpreting this resolution as a de facto enforcement mechanism for 1559.
Overall, if the UN is to be judged in terms of its primary mandate, that of ensuring international peace and security via the principle of collective security, then it has quite clearly failed the people of Lebanon, just as it has the people of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. More than anything, Resolution 1701 confirms fears held by many that the UN as a political body has been demoted in the post 9/11 unipolar era to a subsidiary of the US government at the cost of its legitimacy and effectiveness. Lebanon avoided total capitulation in this resolution because of Hizbullah's resistance on the ground and its success in achieving a balance of terror with Israel, not because the UN Security Council was applying the rules of international law in a just manner. This is a dangerous signal that the UN is sending to the world.
In the meantime, those of us living in Lebanon await news of another round of war, as political in-fighting has already begun in Lebanon between the March 14 camp and Hizbullah."
الأمين العام لحزب الله/ حسن نصر الله
Iranian Leader Opens Up
When correspondent Mike Wallace interviewed him in Tehran last week, it became apparent that he sees the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — a militia Iran has long supported — as part of a larger battle between the U.S. and a militant Islam for control of the Middle East.
08/13/06 "CBS" -- -- "Very clearly, I will tell you that I fully oppose the behavior of the British and the Americans," Ahmadinejad tells Wallace. "They are providing state-of-the-art military hardware to the Zionists. And they are throwing their full support behind Israel. We believe that this threatens the future of all peoples, including the American and European peoples. So we are asking why the American government is blindly supporting this murderous regime."
Wallace tried to ask him about Hezbollah's use of missiles, rockets furnished by Iran, but he wanted to talk about Israel's attacks with American bombs.
"The laser-guided bombs that have been given to the Zionists and they're targeting the shelter of defenseless children and women," the president said.
"Who supports Hezbollah?" Wallace asked. "Who has given Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars for years? Who has given Hezbollah Iranian-made missiles and rockets that is making — that are making all kinds …" he continued as he was interrupted.
"Are you the representative of the Zionist regime? Or a journalist?" Ahmadinejad asked Wallace.
"I'm a journalist. I am a journalist," Wallace replied.
"This is not journalism, sir. Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon, and they are defending their land," the president said. "They are defending their own houses. And, according to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.
"What I'm saying is that the killing of innocents is reprehensible. And making this — the displacement of people and making them refugees, again, is reprehensible,"
"Well, what has Hezbollah, though — wait a minute," Wallace asked. "Hezbollah is displacing and damaging and making bleed all kinds of people. You know that."
"Please tell me, are the Lebanese inside the occupied lands right now or is it the other way around, that the Zionist troops are in Lebanese territory?" Ahmadinejad replied. "Lebanon is defending its independence. We are not at all happy with war. That is why on the first day we condemned these recent — conflict. And we asked for an immediate cease fire."
Ahmadinejad told Wallace the United Nations Security Council has not passed an effective ceasefire resolution because the Security Council is in America's pocket.
"Tell, the reason is, that the United Nations Security Council is there to safeguard the interests of the British and the Americans. They are not there to provide security. It's very clear," the president said.
"The UNSC, the United Nations Security Council, is there to protect the interests of the United States and the British. That's what you say?" Wallace asked.
"It has been created to help with peace and justice. But we see that it is not responding to atrocities. If we search for the root causes we see the hand of the British and the Americans," Ahmadinejad said. "People, innocent people are being killed. … And houses are being destroyed. Where is the UNSC? Also, the draft resolution which has been circulated only serves the interests of one party. And it is not just."
And, he told Wallace the Security Council is also doing America's bidding by trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear energy. The Security Council is demanding that Iran stop all uranium enrichment by the end of this month, which Iran is refusing to do.
"But if Mr. Bush thinks that he can stop our progress, I have to say that he will be unable to do that," Ahmadinejad said.
Asked to elaborate, the president said: "We want to have access to nuclear technology. We want to produce fuel. Do you not think that the most important issue of the world of tomorrow that is will be energy?
"We think that Mr. Bush's team and the parties that support him want to monopolize energy resources in the world. Because once they have that they can impose their opinions, points of view, policies on other nations and, of course, line their own pockets."
"President Bush said — vowed — he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. You believe it?" Wallace asked.
"Basically we are not looking for — working for the bomb," the president said. "The problem that President Bush has is in his mind he wants to solve everything with bombs. The time of the bomb is in the past. It's behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges."
But "dialogue and cultural exchanges" don't sound like his policy toward Israel.
"Israel, you have said time and again, Israel must be wiped off the map. Please explain why. And what is Iran doing about that?" Wallace asked.
"Well, allow me to finish with the nuclear dossier first," Ahmadinejad said.
"No, you finished with that. You finished with that. Please," Wallace continued.
"No, it's not finished, sir. It's not finished. We are just beginning," Ahmadinejad said.
"OK, oh!" Wallace replied with a chuckle. "That's what I was afraid of. But go."
"Well, the Americans are overly sensitive. And, of course, the American government. I don't know why they're opposed to Iranian progress," the president said.
Asked if he really believed that the United States is against Iranian progress and development, Ahmadinejad said, "That is true. That is what I am saying."
"You know that's not so," Wallace replied.
President Ahmadinejad then offered an explanation for his theory.
"Before the revolution, the German, French, American government and the Canadian government had signed contracts with us to produce nuclear fuel inside Iran. But immediately after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, their opposition started," he said. "Right now, they are opposed to our nuclear technology. Now why is that?"
The United States is convinced that nuclear energy is just a smokescreen and that what Iran really wants is the bomb. Then Wallace tried to get the president back to his most inflammatory statement regarding Israel.
"You are very good at filibustering," Wallace remarked. "You still have not answered the question. You still have not answered the question. Israel must be wiped off the map. Why?"
"Well, don't be hasty sir," the president said. "I'm going to get to that. I think that the Israeli government is a fabricated government."
"Fabricated" following the Holocaust, which he's said may also have been fabricated.
Last December, Ahmadinejad said the Europeans had created a myth of the Holocaust.
"What I did say was, if this is a reality, if this is real, where did it take place?" Ahmadinejad replied.
"In Germany," Wallace said.
"Who — who caused this in Europe?" Ahmadinejad asked.
"In Europe. If I may … so …what you're suggesting — one moment — what you're suggesting then, that Israel should be over in Germany because that's where the holocaust took place?" Wallace asked.
"I'm not saying that, mind you," the president replied.
But he has said Israel could be moved to Europe, or even to the United States but it shouldn't be in Palestine.
"Well, if an atrocity was committed in Germany or Europe for that matter, why should the Palestinians answer for this?" the president asked. "They had no role to play in this. Why on the pretext of the Holocaust they have occupied Palestine? Millions of people have been made refugees. Thousands of people to-date have been killed, sir. Thousands of people have been put in prison. Well, at the very moment, a great war is raging because of that."
"Look if you could — if you could keep your answers concise. Concise. I beg you. We'll get more questions in," Wallace requested.
"Well, one of your questions required — all of your questions require a book-long answer. If you want me to just finish the interview, please tell me and we can wrap up right now," the president said.
"No, no, no, no, no," Wallace said.
"Do you, perhaps want me to say what you want me to say?" Ahmadinejad said to Wallace.
"No, no," Wallace insisted.
"If that is the case, then I ask you to please be patient," the president replied. "Maybe these days you don't have a lot of patience to spare. Maybe these are words that you don't like to hear, Mr. Wallace."
"Why? What? What words do I not like to hear?" Wallace asked.
"Because I think that you're getting angry," Ahmadinejad said.
"I couldn't be happier for the privilege of sitting down with the president of Iran," Wallace said.
And with that established, Wallace moved on to the topic of Iraq.
"I am told that your revolutionary guards, Mr. President, are taking bombs, those — those roadside bombs — the IED's into Iraq. And what they are doing is furnishing the insurgents in Iraq with the kind of material that can kill U.S. soldiers. Why would you want to do that?" Wallace asked.
"Well, we are very saddened that the people of Iraq are being killed," Ahmadinejad replied. "I believe that the rulers of the U.S. have to change their mentality. I ask you, sir, what is the American army doing inside Iraq? Iraq has a government, a parliament. Iraq is — has a civilized nation with a long history of civilization. These are people we're dealing with."
Asked if he thinks Saddam Hussein was a civilized, reasonable, leader and whether the United States was wrong about going into Iraq, Ahmadinejad said: "Well, Saddam's story has been finished for close to three years, I would say. He belongs in the past. … And the Americans are openly saying that 'We are here for the long run,' in Iraq that is. So, a question for you, according to international law, the responsibility of providing security rests on the shoulder of the occupying, rather army. So, I ask them why are not — why are they not providing security?"
Instead of security, he says the United States is oppressing Iraq, and instead of calling the United States, "the great Satan," as the Ayatollah Khomeini did, Ahmadinejad calls the United States "the great oppressor."
"We are opposed to oppression," the president told Wallace. "We support whoever is victimized and oppressed even the oppressed people of the U.S."
A senior European diplomat in Tehran told Wallace that Iran's president feels the United States should be confronted in Iraq — and around the world — because he truly believes that the U.S. government is against Islam, and the developing world, that America keeps pushing Iran and other countries around, and he is determined to push back.
The Bush administration paints Iran's president as America's mortal enemy — as a man who wants nuclear weapons and supports Islamic terrorists. For his part, President Ahmadinejad views the United States as his major adversary.
He's the son of a blacksmith; was a commando during the Iran-Iraq war; has a Ph.D. in civil engineering, and became president a year ago by running as a populist man of the people. He is savvy, self-assured and self-righteous, but he rarely gives interviews to American journalists. His last U.S. newspaper interview was six months ago in USA Today.
But he sat down with 60 Minutes because he wanted to speak directly to the American people — and to President Bush.
Asked what he thinks of Mr. Bush, Ahmadinejad replied, "What do you think I should think about the gentlemen? How should I think about him?"
"Come on. Come on. You're perfectly capable of handling that question if you have the courage to answer it," Wallace pushed.
"Well, thank you very much. So, you're teaching me how to be bold and courageous," Ahmadinejad said, laughing. "That's interesting."
"Answer the question," Wallace said.
"I think that Mr. Bush can be in the service of his own people," Ahmadinejad said. "He can save the American economy using appropriate methodologies without killing people, innocents, without occupation, without threats. I am very saddened to hear that 1 percent of the total population is in prison. And 45 million people don't have a health care cover. That is very sad to hear."
And he was sad also not to hear any answer from President Bush to an 18-page letter he sent three months ago, urging him to be less bellicose in his view of the world. The White House dismissed the letter as a publicity stunt.
Asked what he expected to hear back from President Bush, Ahmadinejad said: "I was expecting Mr. Bush to give up or, I should say, to change his behavior. I was hoping to open a new window for the gentlemen. One can certainly look on the world from other perspectives. You can love the people. You can love all people. You can talk with the people of the Middle East using another language, other words. Instead of blind support for an imposed regime, they can establish a more appropriate relationship with the people of the region."
"You can love the people. That's very easy to say," Wallace remarked. "You despise certain people. You despise the Zionists."
"Well, I don't despise people or individuals, I should say," Ahmadinejad said.
Pushed further on Zionists, the president said, "What I am saying is that I despise heinous action."
And as for his letter to Mr. Bush.
"In the letter you praise Jesus and ask President Bush how he could be a follower of Christ and claim to support human rights but at the same time attack and occupy other countries, kill thousands of people, spend billions of dollars on wars. And you urged him, the president, out of respect for the teachings of Christ to be a force for peace instead of war. How is that so?" Wallace asked.
"That is true, which was a part of my letter," Ahmadinejad acknowledged.
And then he had a new message for President Bush: "Please give him this message, sir. Those who refuse to accept an invitation to good will not have a good ending or fate."
Asked what that means, Ahmadinejad said: "Well, you see that his approval rating is dropping everyday. Hatred vis-à-vis the president is increasing everyday around the world. For a ruler, this is the worst message that he could receive. Rulers and heads of government at the end of their office must leave the office holding their heads high."
After Ahmadinejad answered the question, an assistant handed the president a note. Asked what he was telling him, Ahmadinejad said he had been told to rearrange his jacket.
"Why are they worried about your jacket? I think you look just fine," Wallace said, laughing.
"That is right. They have told me the same thing. They tell me that it's a very nice looking coat," Ahmadinejad replied.
Asked if he is a vain man, Ahmadinejad said, "Sometimes appearances — yes, you have to look your back… that is why I comb my hair."
"What do you do for leisure?" Wallace asked.
"I study. I read books. I exercise. And, of course, I spend some time — quality time — with my family," said Ahmadinejad, who is a father of three.
"How long has it been since the leaders of Iran and the leaders of the U.S. have had any conversations?" Wallace asked.
"Twenty-six, 27 years," the president replied.
Asked if he has a desire to resume relations with the United States, Ahmadinejad said, "Who cut the relations, I ask you."
"That's not the point. The question is would you, the president of Iran, like to resume relations which have been gone for 26, 27 years with the United States," Wallace pressed.
"Well, we are interested to have relations with all governments … and all nations. This is a principle of my foreign policy," Ahmadinejad said.
"I know that," Wallace said.
"Allow me to finish myself," Ahmadinejad said.
"Why don't you just answer, say yes or no?" Wallace asked. "Do you want to have relations now, after 26, 27 years, with the United States? What harm could come from that?"
"We are not talking about harm. The conditions, conducive conditions, have to be there," Ahmadinejad said.
Asked what those "conducive conditions" are, the president said, "Well, please look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American administration. See how they talk down to my nation. They want to build an empire. And they don't want to live side by side in peace with other nations."
"Who does not? Washington does not?" Wallace asked.
"The American government, sir. It is very clear to me they have to change their behavior and everything will be resolved," Ahmadinejad answered.
"I am told that your aides want us to wind up our interview. But you kindly promised to answer my questions," Wallace said. "And I still have just a few left."
"Well, you might have five more hours of questions now," Ahmadinejad said. "Well, I have other appointments to get to. It's time for the night prayer, sir."
"Last one," Wallace said. "You have a special unit of martyr seekers in your revolutionary guard. They claim they have 52,000 trained suicide bombers ready to attack American and British targets if America should attack Iran."
"So, are you expecting the Americans to threaten us and we sit idly by and watch them with our hands … tied?" Ahmadinejad said.
Asked if the Americans have threatened him, Ahmadinejad said: "I do hope that the Americans will give up this practice of threatening other nations so that you are not forced me to ask such questions. I wish you well."
Produced By Robert G. Anderson ©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
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.
Much has been written about this term, which explains so little but hides so much -- which, after all, is the function of much political jargon: to keep people from understanding what is really going on. "Collateral damage" is used to refer to the civilian casualties in the war against terrorism, or the war against those who target civilians. Generally the victims of collateral damage far outnumber the victims of actual terrorist attacks.
Oil Pollution of Byblos port-Israel destroying life and nature.
Why America wants Hizbullah beaten even more than Israel does
Commentary by
Monday, August 14, 2006
As diplomats looked for a way to end the conflict in Lebanon, the United States was reticent to support an immediate cease-fire endorsing the status quo ante. What most observers failed to see in Washington's reluctance was how important it was for the US that Israel defeat Hizbullah. In fact, a successful conclusion was far more critical for Washington than for Israel.
Of course Israel wants to defeat Hizbullah. However, what would satisfy Israel may fall short of US strategic goals. Israel would accept a severely weakened Hizbullah that retreats north concurrently with the deployment of Lebanese and international forces to the border region. As far as the Israelis are concerned, a Hizbullah that remains armed within Lebanon but far away from Israel then becomes a Lebanese problem. The Lebanese will have to decide if they want Iran and Syria to continue supplying a militia within their own borders. Israel has amply demonstrated its fury and it is unlikely that a Lebanon-based organization will ever again risk a repeat of recent events.
Why would such an outcome fall short for the US? There are two reasons. The first is what can be called the Hizbullah model. It represents the nightmarish metamorphosis of a well-supplied and trained militia. If it can work in Lebanon, the model can be emulated elsewhere around the globe. Consider for one moment what Hizbullah has achieved: It has a parallel state structure in Lebanon complete with its own social services and rudimentary revenue collection system. It conducts its own foreign policy and, as events have demonstrated, its decision-making system is unaccountable to the central government. Worse, it has managed to build up a sophisticated arsenal of missiles and other armaments that intimidates the Lebanese Army.
Arms by themselves do not make the organization. Clearly, Hizbullah fighters have been trained at using weapons that no terrorist organization has hitherto acquired or mastered. It fired two Chinese-designed Iranian-built Silkworm missiles at an Israeli naval vessel. One of the missiles hit its target while the other sunk a nearby commercial vessel. The Silkworm is a weapon that armies use and it boggles the mind that a militia such as Hizbullah not only can acquire it but also use it with a modicum of success. Hizbullah is far more sophisticated and entrenched among a supportive population than Al-Qaeda. It is impossible to defeat it without inflicting civilian casualties. Therein lies Hizbullah's strength; it calculates that the outside world will relent in the face of civilian casualties.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
The Hizbullah model can easily be exported to other failed or semi-failed states, ranging from Somalia to Sri Lanka, Iraq and Colombia and perhaps even to Pakistan one day. All you need is an external patron willing to invest resources just as Iran has in this case, and a supportive population base. One can easily imagine a scenario of a Venezuela-supported FARC in Colombia initiating action against Bogota's southern neighbor, Ecuador or Peru. The Hizbullah model completely emasculates the notion that a state is defined by, among other things, a monopoly over the means of violence.
The second reason is because of Iran's patronage. Bogged down in Iraq, the US is facing an emboldened Iran ready to challenge it at any moment of its own choosing. For Iran, Hizbullah is another strategic tool in an asymmetric conflict with the West. Hizbullah extends Iran's reach well beyond the immediate region and the Middle East, but also to far-flung places such as the South American continent where it has an entrenched presence in the tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. In Iraq, the Mehdi Army has already modeled itself along Hizbullah lines, as has Hamas. Any outcome that does not end up with Hizbullah's disarmament is another step in the institutionalization of the model under Iranian tutelage.
The US as the sole superpower, which for better or worse also acts as the world's first responder, cannot afford to see the proliferation of Hizbullah-like organizations deciding the fate of nations. For the same reasons, it is critical for the international community that UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for Hizbullah's disarmament and the reinforcement of Lebanese authority, be implemented fully.
Henri J. Barkey is chair of the International Relations Department at Lehigh University and a former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
Seymour Hersh interview on Lebanon War
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, when you say Washington, you have to talk about Dick Cheney. I can tell you pretty firmly that it's his office. I guess you could say it's sort of the home of the neoconservative thinking in Washington -- some of his aides and the people close to him in the White House: Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, others.
What I understand is this: our military, our Air Force has been trying for a year to get plans for a major massive bombing assault on Iran pushed through the Pentagon, pushed through the process. And there's been sort of an internecine fight inside the Pentagon over just basically the idea of strategic war against Iran. They're very dug in Iran. The Persians have been digging in for -- what? -- centuries and centuries. And the Marines and the Navy and the Army have said, No way we're going to start bombing, because it will end up with troops on the ground. So there's been a stalemate. I've written a lot about it.
And in this spring, as part of the stalemate, the American Air Force approached the Israeli Air Force, which as you know is headed by General Dan Halutz, who is an Air Force -- I think the first IDF commander, the commander of the Israeli Defense Forces, to be an Air Force guy, and another believer of strategic war, and the two had a lot of interests. And so, out of these meetings in the spring became an agreement, you know, sort of we'll help you, you help us, and it got to Cheney's attention, this idea of Israel planning a major, major strategic bombing campaign against Hezbollah. And for -- I can't tell you where Bush is, but you have to assume he’s right with him. Obviously everything he's done makes that clear.
Cheney's idea was this, that we sort of -- it's like a three-for. We get three for one with this. One, here we're having this war about the value of strategic bombing, and the Israeli Air Force, whose pilots are superb, can go in and -- if they could go in and blast Hezbollah out of their foxholes or whatever they are, their underground facilities, and roll over them, as everybody in the White House and I'm sure everybody in the Israeli Air Force thought they could do, that would be a big plus for the ambitions that I think the President and Cheney have for Iran. I don't think this president, our president, is going to leave office with Iran being, as he sees it, a nuclear threat.
The second great argument you have, of course, is if you are going to do Iran, you're going to need -- you can't attack Iran without taking care of the Hezbollah missiles or rockets. They're really rockets. They're not independently guided. Even their long-range rockets that go a few hundred kilometers, you cannot attack Iran without taking them out, because obviously that's the deterrent. You hit Iran, Hezbollah then bombs Tel Aviv and Haifa. So that's something you have to clean out first.
And thirdly, of course, is if you get rid of Hezbollah and Nasrallah, why, you get rid of a terror -- a man who’s considered to be, as somebody famously said, Richard Armitage, the “A-Team of terrorism.”
So on that basis, there was a tremendous interest in Israel going ahead. There were meetings. There were an enormous amount of contacts. I should add, Amy, that of course -- and this is reflected in the story -- Israel doesn't need the United States to know they have a problem with Hezbollah. And so, they were going to do something anyway. But it's a question of timing, and that's one of the big issues.
This summer, earlier this summer, there was -- and late, I guess after the Israelis began their reoccupation -- occupation of Gaza, after the first Israeli soldier was captured, a soldier named Shalit, I think, June 28th, after he was captured, the traffic, the signals traffic that the Israeli signals community gets showed an enormous amount of talk about doing something on the northern border. That is, on the border between Syria -- I mean between Lebanon and Israel.
And so, on that basis, it was clear this summer, the next time Hezbollah made a move, and there's been a cat-and-mouse game between Israel and Hezbollah for about six years, since the Israelis were kicked out or driven out by Nasrallah in 2000. It’s been cat-and-mouse. Both sides have been going against each other, nickel-dime stuff. And the next time Hezbollah made a move, the Israeli Air Force was going to bomb, the plan was going to go in effect. The move came very quick. It came about ten days after or twelve days after the first Israeli soldier was captured.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, his latest piece appears in this week's issue of the New Yorker magazine. You say the Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits, quoting a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, sure. I mean, believe me, Israel thought, you know -- I guess the only other time in history where you can look back on such misguided optimism or one of the more recent times was, of course, us going into Iraq. Shades of Iraq, deja-vu or however you want to put it. Israel was convinced it would be easy. The Air Force was going to go and clean them out.
There was another element, and you mentioned that in your intro and also in your news report. One of the things that struck me right away, as soon as I saw how Israel was bombing, and my instinct told me there was something there, because in one of the Air Force plans that I knew about but didn't write about, one of the Air Force options for taking out Iran was, of course, shock and awe, a massive, massive bombing well beyond any of the nuclear facilities. Go hit the country hard for 36 hours, drive people into underground bunkers. Don't target civilians, necessarily, but hit their infrastructure, hit the roads, hit the power plants, hit the water facilities.
And so, when they come out of their bunkers after 36 hours, they look around. In the American neo-con view, they were going to say to each other, “Oh, my god, the mullahs did this to us, the religious mullahs who run the country. We're going to overthrow them and install a secular government.” That was the thinking for the last year. That is the thinking for the last year inside some elements of the Pentagon, the civilian side, and also in Cheney's shop.
So when you watch what Israel did in its opening salvo, the first targets, I remember vividly, was -- and everybody should -- they took out the civilian airstrip. They took away civilian -- the ability to use aircraft to travel. They took out highways. They took out roads. They took out petrol stations. They basically isolated Southern Lebanon. But I think part of the reason they did so much damage to the infrastructure was they believed -- and I think the Israelis have been very clear about it -- that the Christian population and the Sunni population -- don't forget Hezbollah is Shia -- would rise up against Hezbollah, and it would be a great feather in the cap, etc., etc., etc.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His latest piece is called "Watching Lebanon: Washington’s Interests in Israel’s War." We'll come back with him in a minute.
Israeli raid damages Roman temple
August 13, 2006 12:00
Article from: Agence France-Presse
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ISRAELI air raids in the eastern Lebanese region of Baalbek killed one child and caused damage to the ancient Roman temple of Bacchus overnight, the town mayor said.
Israeli fighter bombers carried out two raids overnight in the old town square near the centuries-old Baalbek temple complex, killing a 10 year-old boy and wounding three people, police said.
Two buildings were completely destroyed in the raids.
The bombardment caused cracks in the Bacchus temple, weakening the structures of the Roman temple which had withstood several earthquakes, head of the municipality Mohsen al-Jamal said.
Several stones fell inside the temple complex which is a UNESCO world heritage site, he added.
The raids also destroyed the old market, where a two-year renovation project financed by the United Nations had just been completed.
Israel, Defeated
"Remember, Hezbollah is not some foreign force, or even an Iranian "proxy," as the Israelis (and George W. Bush) aver: it is a Lebanese institution, by far the best organized political force in the country – and one that now has the overwhelming support of the populace. The Israelis have not only lost militarily – in the sense that Hezbollah fought the IDF to a draw – they has also lost politically, within Lebanon, where they have alienated their former allies by bombing Christian neighborhoods.
The events surrounding Israel's second invasion of Lebanon underscore the utter isolation of the U.S. and Israel in the face of universal opposition: we are getting a taste of what it would be like if the Americans went along with Tel Aviv's strategy of a U.S.-Israeli alliance against the world. As the divergence between American and Israeli interests widened, the former blinked – and reined in the latter. But for how long?
As usual, Seymour Hersh has the inside dope, and he depicts Israel's failed blitz as a dress rehearsal for the main event: an American confrontation with Iran. Once again, as in the run-up to American's war with Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney and his office were among the chief instigators. "
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Ceasefire or Trojan Horse?
By Mike Whitney
| “Israel’s strategy is to establish positions as far north as possible to implement a fighting withdrawal, meaning they will try to take on as much of Hezbollah as they can as they work their way south. “ Ha’aretz editorial 8-17-06 “As long as there is Israeli military movement, Israeli field aggression and Israeli soldiers occupying our land, it is our natural right to fight them and defend our lands, our homes, and ourselves.” Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese armed resistance Hezbollah |
08/14/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Israel’s sudden push to the Litani River is a blatant act of political desperation intended to conceal the humiliating defeat the IDF has suffered at the hands of Hezbollah. It comes in the wake of a UN ceasefire agreement worked out by friends of Israel in the Bush administration who were looking for a diplomatic way for Olmert to climb down from Israel’s greatest debacle since the Yom Kippur war.
The so-called ceasefire is tailored to stop the victim of Israeli aggression from defending himself, but provides the IDF with the go-ahead to continue its rampage. Such is the Kafkaesque logic of the United Nations and their puppet-masters in Tel Aviv.
There is no longer any reasonable expectation that Israel will accomplish any of its stated objectives. The mighty IDF has been slapped around by a handful of tough-minded guerillas who kept Israel pinned-down to within a 5 mile radius of the northern border for a full month. It is, without question, one of the greatest triumphs in the history of asymmetrical warfare.
Hezbollah will not be “disarmed” as Ehud Olmert boasted just weeks ago. Instead, their fortunes look to be steadily improving as Israel continues to flail about dropping bombs indiscriminately on critical infrastructure and civilians with impunity. The conflict has simply reinforced widely-held suspicions that the Jewish State is a loose-cannon ready to go berserk at the slightest provocation.
Prime Minister Olmert, Defense Minister Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz have been the brunt of withering criticism in the Israeli press, and for good reason. They are, without question, the worst collection of bunglers in Israeli history; the political equivalent of the “3 Stooges”. Sharon may have been a war criminal, but he was an astute strategist. Olmert and “wrongway” Halutz are completely clueless. As soon as it was decided that the war could not be won militarily, Halutz charged up to the Litani River backed by thousands ground-troops afraid that his chances for glory were quickly ebbing-away. In the process, another 31 soldiers were killed in a campaign that still has no clearly defined objectives. Meanwhile, Shaul Mofaz, the only Israeli general who could probably transform the current disaster into something resembling “a draw”; is left sitting on the sidelines.
What a fiasco.
Now that the ceasefire has been approved, the politicians and the generals are stumbling over themselves trying to cobble together the victory that has escaped them for the last 4 weeks. Olmert and co. know that as soon as the dust settles they will face an irate Israeli public looking for someone to hold accountable for the debacle. Ha’aretz op-ed writer Ari Shavit summed up the public mood this way:
“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, oooops, I made a mistake.”
Columnist Moshe Arens added to Shavit’s critique saying, “The task facing Israel now is to restore its deterrent posture and prepare for the attacks that are sure to come. But not with this leadership. They have exhausted whatever little credit they had when they were voted into office.”
The anger that is growing in Israel is narcissistic and self-serving and has nothing to do with the vast devastation the IAF has visited on battered Lebanon.
Lebanon is in ruins. The country’s main bridges, roads, industries, ports, canals, telecommunications, oil depots, water facilities and factories have been buried by a steady barrage of Israeli precision guided munitions. George Bush can be credited with a large part of the damage. He rushed an order of high-tech bombs to his friends in Tel Aviv to make sure that the slaughter would continue without interruption. He also blocked the ceasefire resolutions at the UN which allowed Israel to continue its withering bombardment of Lebanon.
The UN ceasefire agreement was clearly written in close collaboration with Israel. It allows the IDF to continue “defensive operations” while Hezbollah is required to stop fighting. Israel interprets this as a green light for aggressively pursuing Hezbollah.
According to Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz, “The army will stop its offensive as soon as it is ordered to do so by the political leadership and later it will begin to retrace its steps to uncover any pockets of resistance that may remain in the area.” With troops presently located at the Litani River that could involve military operations throughout the entire south, which means that hostilities could continue for months.
Israel is at war with itself. It’s trying to produce a victory where victory is impossible. With less than 24 hours until the ceasefire goes into effect, they’ve unleashed a massive aerial assault bombing more than 50 cities and towns north and south of the Litani River. The bombing campaign drew the immediate censure of Kofi Annan who said that the attack was not in keeping with the spirit of the ceasefire.
No matter. Israel will keep firing away; savaging what little is left of Lebanon’s tattered infrastructure in the vain hope that they might patch together something that resembles success, but to what affect? Hezbollah may be badly damaged and its supply-lines ruptured, but they merely need to hang on to generate a reliable stream of new recruits and to win plaudits from around the world for standing up to the IDF.
Prime Minister Olmert is ambivalent about the sudden military escalation just prior to the ceasefire. Clearly, the war is controlling Olmert; Olmert does not control the war. The uproar in the media has left him vacillating and hesitant; searching for other solutions besides a quick withdrawal. He looks like a man gabbing at straws, hoping for a decisive event that will prove that Hezbollah is weakening. Meanwhile the IDF casualties continue to mount and the collective angst of the Israeli public becomes more palpable.
As for Sheik Nasrallah, he has resisted the usual inflammatory rhetoric and demonstrated Hezbollah’s lethal proficiency on the battlefield where it counts. The guerillas have matched the IDF man-for-man and forced the world’s 4th most powerful army into a stalemate.
In the early days of the war, Nasrallah described Hezbollah’s abilities in modest terms:
“We are not a classic army extending form the sea to Mt Hermon. We are a popular and serious resistance movement that is present in many areas and axes. Our equation and principles are the following: When the Israelis enter, they must pay dearly in terms of their tanks, officers, and soldiers. That is what we pledge to do and we will honor our pledge, God willing”.
Olmert should study this passage and commit it to memory. Nasrallah has laid out his very limited goals in the war in lucid but powerful language. These are realistic objectives and they are achievable, unlike Israel’s. That’s why he will probably prevail, if he perseveres. Nasrallah does not entertain the foolish idea that he will overwhelm the IDF or invade Israel. He simply plans to gnaw away day by day, hour by hour, at the occupying army forcing them eventually to retreat. He is a shrewd student of asymmetrical warfare and grasps how to exploit the vulnerabilities of a regular army as well as Israeli public opinion (which is already souring on the conflict)
Nasrallah has said that he will abide by the terms of the ceasefire, but will not disarm until the Lebanese Army and the UN forces are in place and the IDF has left Lebanese soil. In his mind, it is pointless to talk about disarmament now when Hezbollah is the only force capable of defending Lebanon from foreign invasion.
Will Hezbollah willingly disarm after Israel leaves?
That is what Israel wonders, but it is the wrong question. The real question is: What are the chances that the IDF will reinvade sometime in the future as they have 4 times before? And, who will provide the weaponry that will create a viable deterrent to Israeli aggression so that Lebanon can live in peace?
Nasrallah’s promises to disarm mean nothing. His primary responsibility is to his own people, to protect their right to live free of Israeli violence and occupation.
If Sheik Nasrallah chooses to disarm and put his faith in Israel’s assurances of non aggression, that’s his choice. But he should pay close attention to the treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza before he sets his rifle down.
From the Daily Show--Must see!
As the 6am ceasefire takes effect... the real war begins
"In all, at least 39 - possibly 43 - Israeli soldiers have been killed in the past day as Hizbollah guerrillas, still launching missiles into Israel itself, have fought back against Israel's massive land invasion into Lebanon.
Israeli military authorities talked of "cleaning" and "mopping up" operations by their soldiers south of the Litani river but, to the Lebanese, it seems as if it is the Hizbollah that have been doing the "mopping up". By last night, the Israelis had not even been able to reach the dead crew of a helicopter - shot down on Saturday night - which crashed into a Lebanese valley.
From this morning, Hizbollah's operations will be directed solely against the invasion force. And the Israelis cannot afford to lose 40 men a day. Unable to shoot down the Israeli F-16 aircraft that have laid waste to much of Lebanon, the Hizbollah have, for years, prayed and longed and waited for the moment when they could attack the Israeli army on the ground.
At this fatal juncture in Middle East history - and no one should underestimate this moment's importance in the region - the Israeli army appears as impotent to protect its country as the Hizbollah clearly is to protect Lebanon."
ISRAEL LEAVES ITS DAILY TRAIL OF DEATH
A Lebanese civil defense rescuer runs through the rubble of a collapsed building while others search for survivors as smoke rises in the background, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006, following an Israeli warplane bombardment. 
A general view of destroyed buildings after an Israeli airstrike attacked a complex of eight residential buildings at the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday Aug. 13, 2006.
Lebanese citizens stand next to a destroyed apartment building, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006, following an Israeli attack.
Lebanese civil