Another day, another slaughter. That's the latest news from the Middle East in a nutshell.
Over the weekend, Israel stepped up its attacks on Lebanon, killing who knows how many innocent people. Of course, the Zionists running Israel claim that they're battling terrorists and after George W. Bush popularized the infamous "pre-emptive strike", no one in the international community has the cajones to stand up tell Israel point-blank to back down. Besides, everyone knows that the US arrives loaded for bear at any and all UN gatherings and shoots down any ideas that Israel doesn't like; it's already happened over, and over, and over again.
But just who are these "evil terrorists" that Israel is pre-emptively attacking?
BEIRUT, Lebanon - At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed Saturday in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles fleeing a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon, a witness said.
The convoy was leaving the border village of Marwaheen, when it was attacked. An Associated Press photgrapher said he counted 12 bodies in two cars that were destroyed by the attack shortly after midday.
Several hours earlier, Israeli forces across the border told villagers by loudspeaker to leave the area or else the village would be destroyed. They did not give a reason for the ultimatum.
The convoy of several vehicles was hit near the border fence less than half a mile from the village.
The residents said they had first gone to a U.N. peacekeepers position manned by Ghanian forces to take refuge but they were turned down. There was no immediate confirmation from U.N. peacekeepers, who have a force in southern Lebanon.
And here's an AP photo of the aftermath of the convoy attack:
(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Note the dead adult lying to the left of the wreckage. Also note the dead child lying in the foreground. It seems Hizbollah starts them out young these days!
"But wait!" you cry, "Israel wouldn't have to retaliate if those Evil Terrorists weren't constantly attacking them!"
The Israeli army said it had struck about 150 targets in Lebanon so far, fewer than a dozen of them linked directly to Hizbollah. Most have hit civilian installations.
Israel's leadership obviously isn't trying to shut down Hizbollah; they are trying to start a war.
And where are the Israeli people of conscience in all of this? Why, they're conveniently distracted by a sex scandal involving their president that has pushed news of the brewing Middle East war onto the back pages! There's another important aspect to the situation: Remember Hamas, that Evil Terrorist Organization that is so diabolical? You know, the one that has launched so many "suicide attacks" on Israel? In September 2004, Kurt Nimmo wrote:
Isn't it curious that right smack in the middle of an investigation of Israel spying on its best "friend," Hamas pulls off back-to-back suicide bombings - after a lull of nearly six months - in Beersheba? Hamas declares the bombing was revenge for Israel's assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. Rantissi was assassinated on April 17 and Yassin on March 22.
Is there a reason Hamas waited so long to take revenge? Of course there is. Hamas is essentially an Israeli contrivance. It's used for effect when politically expedient.
Israel "aided Hamas directly - the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO," Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies, told the UPI's Richard Sale in 2002. Hamas is a descendant of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organization long ago penetrated by the CIA. "There is a long historic alliance between the CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood," writes Peter Goodgame. "The entire Bin Laden-CIA created 'mujahideen' network came from the Muslim Brotherhood." As we now know, Prince Turki of Saudi intelligence, in cahoots with William Casey of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI, sent bin Laden to Afghanistan and bankrolled the Services Center (Makhtab al-Khidmat) of the Jordanian Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, in the offices of the World Muslim League and Muslim Brotherhood in Peshawar (see Rashid, Taliban, p.131). After Azzam was assassinated, Makhtab al-Khidmat became al-Qaeda, although bin Laden did not call his organization such.
It should be obvious by now that the CIA and Mossad manufactured a virulent strain of Islamic terrorism for their own purposes.
They're called false flag operations; you know, like 9/11.
At this point, you certainly have the option of labeling me an anti-Semite in a vain effort to ignore everything above. But just for a minute, carefully consider the implications of doing so.
The term "anti-Semitism" is generally used to shut up and shut down anyone who criticises Israel. The latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Collegiate Thesaurus apparently includes a definition of anti-Semitism that reads, "opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of Israel".
Huh?!
Let's think about this for a minute. I can criticise George W. Bush and the American government all I want. Now, George seems to be - or at least pretends to be - a fundamentalist Christian. But if I call Georgie's policies murderous and fascist, I won't be branded "anti-Christian". So why are so many people immediately shut down when allegations of anti-Semitism are flung their way?
Opposing Fascist Zionism is not the same as opposing Judaism, just as opposing the Neocon Administration isn't the same as opposing Christianity - or America itself. Much of the world knows that Bush is a lunatic, but they don't hate Americans or other Christians. How do I know this? Because instead of believing everything I read in the newspapers, I actually TALK to people from around the world and ask them questions! Many Jews are against the policies of Israel's Zionist leadership in the same way that many Americans are against Bush. Why is it that in the case of any other country, people can separate the warped ideology of a nation's leaders from the ideology of that nation's people? Why CAN'T they do the same thing with Israel?
The short and obvious explanation is fear. Zionism appears to have an iron grip on much of the world - or at least on the secrets of the world's leaders. How else could so many world leaders be so well-controlled? Politics in much of the world heavily involve self-promotion and backstabbing. If world leaders are afraid of berating Israel's leaders for their current war on the rest of the Middle East, then there is probably a very good reason WHY.
There is, however, a bigger problem with the whole "anti-Semitic" schtick. The danger is that any group of people will only take so much. They will only allow themselves to be walked all over until they reach a breaking point. (Remember the American and French Revolutions? The Magna Carta?) What happens when the charges of anti-Semitism become stale? What happens if the US alters course on its unquestioning support of Israel? Better yet, what happens if the US becomes incapable of supporting Israel due to war, natural disasters, or other internal problems? Imagine the anger and frustration that will be applied full force against Israel if their current war on the Middle East continues. And don't fool yourself into thinking that it will just be a simple regime change. If the people and leaders of this world cannot now make the distinction between a government and its people, why would that change if the tables are turned on Israel? Furthermore, "I didn't know" didn't excuse Germans after WWII ended, and it won't be an acceptable excuse for ordinary Israelis - or Americans - in the future. If you truly believe that you live in a democracy, then it is your duty to know - and work for peaceful change if necessary .
What is most shocking to me is that so few people have entertained this notion of a turning of the tables. Jews are arguably one of the most persecuted peoples in history. Since the same types of forces that have attempted to engineer their demise are still around today in one form or another, then surely the current conflict in the Middle East will not be good for either Muslims or Jews.
So you see, no one can logically call me or anyone else an anti-Semite for opposing the policies of Israel's Zionist leadership, because I don't want to see any Jews or any Muslims or anyone else suffer or die for the petty, greedy interests of a handful of psychopathic leaders.
Rodrigue Tremblay
July 17, 2006
The New American Empire
"When Israel's interests are being considered, members of Congress act like trained poodles. They jump dutifully through hoops held by Israel's lobby."
George W. Ball (1909-1994), former U.S. Undersecretary of State
"The [Pro-Israel] Lobby has succeeded in redefining anti-Semitism to include any criticism of Israeli behavior, an inferred threat that prompts all major media to ignore or sanitize reports of Israeli violations."
Paul Findley, U.S. Republican Congressman, (1961-83)
"I've never seen a president-I don't care who he is-stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. -They always get what they want. The Israelis know what's going on all the time. ... If the American people understood what grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don't have any idea what goes on."
Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 1970-June 1974
Dead children lying on the ground-that's the barbarous legacy left by the Israeli bombings of Lebanon, in early July 2006. In less than one month, the Israeli government willfully delivered two collective punishments against civilians, in direct violation of international law according to the1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War; first, it was against Gaza's civilian Palestinian population; then, they extended this unquestionable policy to the civilian population of Beirut and other regions of Lebanon.
The government of Israel has been lighting fires in the Middle East for more than half a century. Incredibly, this nation of only six million people has decided to be a law unto itself, with the voluminous aid and active support of various American administrations. When bombs kill hundreds of civilians, among them many women and children, it cannot be argued that these victims are accidental "collateral damage", the euphemistic term used in such circumstances, not when the supposed target of those attacks, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organization, suffered only three deaths as a result of the bombings.
Is there not a larger agenda involved here? Could it be that the real aim of these atrocities is to provoke and bait Syria into supporting Lebanon, providing the justification to attack Syria? Then, if Iran were to come to the rescue of the Lebanese Shiites, an attack could also be launched against that country. And, as is often the case historically, [see how World War I started] such a conflct could easily escalate into a larger conflagration.
This is a scenario that rabid neocon ideologues in Israel and in the U. S. have referred to publicly over the years. Theblueprintwas even published ten years ago, in 1996, by a group of well-known members of thepro-Israel Lobby(Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser). Their policy statement for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of the Likud Party, was entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", and it called for a strategy of total war in the Middle East, using the military power of the United States.
Here is what they proposed in their grand neocon plan:
"An effective approach", [to break Israel's encirclement and isolation] "and one with which Americans can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon." ..."This effort can focus [first] on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
The irresponsible haste with which George W. Bush approved of Israel's attack against Lebanon (on July 13, 2006), may be a clear indication that he has fully adopted the grandiose neocon plan for war in the Middle East. In fact, his March 20, 2003 illegal attack against Iraq was part of the overall plan.
In September 2000, a few weeks before the November elections, a similar plan for endless war in the Middle East was penned by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and Lewis Libby, under the auspices of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and called "Rebuilding America's Defenses". It was a plan whose main elements were initially outlined in 1992, when Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were in charge of the Defense Department.
The plan called for the U. S. to take military control of the oil-rich Middle East, taking advantage of the demise of the Soviet Union. It says:
"The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." The plan called also for permanent military bases in the Middle East region "even should Saddam pass from the scene", because "Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has."
Therefore, the escalation of conflicts in the Middle East should be a surprise to no one, unless one has been asleep for the last fifteen years.
A bit of history.
The creation of the state of Israel was initially accepted by British politicians, after World War I. They had been pressured for years by Zionists to use Great Britain's hegemonic power in the Middle East in their favor. Indeed, it was thought after World War I, that the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the transfer of many of its Middle East territories to the British Empire created a golden opportunity for establishing a Hebrew state in Palestine, the paramount goal of the Zionists. Lord Walter Baron de Rothchild, leader of the British Jewish community, persuaded the government of Prime Minister David Lloyd-George, to issue the famous Balfour Declaration, of November 2, 1917, offering European Jews a "national home" in Palestine, "with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there." The Balfour letter, sent to Rothschild, was to be transmitted to the Zionist Federation, a private British Zionist organization.
It is well to remember that the British government of the time was not disinterested in this endeavor. In fact, the Lloyd-George government was anxious to persuade the American government, through American Jewish interests, to join the war in Europe against the Germans.
It is also of highly historical significance that the state of Israel, since its unilateral creation in 1948, has violated international law countless times, and with impunity, thanks mainly to the military and diplomatic protection it has enjoyed for decades from the United States.
Ever since its creation, the state of Israel has behaved in a provocative way. A recent example among thousands is the arrest, on June 29, 2006, by Israeli soldiers of most of the elected Hamas leadership in Palestine, including eight cabinet ministers, 25 members of parliament, and other Palestinian officials, claiming they were responsible for an assault against an Israeli military post. As with the above mentioned incidents in Gaza and Lebanon, such actions represent collective punishment reprisals and are unlawful under the 1949 Geneva Convention. On other occasions, the government of Israel has repeatedly issued threats to extra-judicially assassinate political leadersin different countries, and there are clues that it has carried out such threats.
On an even larger scale, the government of Israel could be accused of implementing a policy of genocide against the nearly 4 million Palestinians in the occupied territories of Palestine.
By refusing to seriously negotiate the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, as requested by the United Nationsand most of the international community, and by continuing to encroach on Palestinian lands with new and expanded settlements as well as erecting its "separation" wall, it is clear that Israel's real intent is to choke the Palestinian people by leaving them with only some isolated uneconomical and bantustan-like lands. So far, the Israeli leadership has never been held accountable for the sufferings it has imposed upon the Palestinian people.
Contrary to more even-handed American administrations, the Bush-Cheney administration has weighed in unconditionally in favor of Israel. Even though most American administrations since Harry Truman have often sided with Israel against its Muslim neighbors, and have empowered it with financial and military aid, they have been cautious enough to take a balanced diplomatic posture regarding the sempiternal Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, people all over the world are puzzled to see a relatively small country dictate its policies to the United States and to the world. Such a situation has a lot to do with the working of American domestic politics. Most Americans do not clearly realize how the arrival of George W. Bush in the White House, on January 20, 2001, represented a genuine victory for the powerfulpro-Israel lobby. As Israel's fifth column in America, it has the means to successfully "spin" the news coming from the Middle East in favor of Israel. -Bush II has gone as far as declaring Israel his only true ally in the Middle East. On March 20, 2006, for example, his message was unequivocal: "I made it clear, and I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel."
That may be the most compelling reason why the government of Israel has steadfastly refused international mediation to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians, from whom it has taken lands, properties and thousands of lives. Supported covertly or openly by the United States, Israel has preferred a permanent state of war with its Palestinian 'citizens' to a negotiated settlement, and it has relied on a sophisticated brand of state terrorism to fulfill its political goals. Without this tacit complicity of the U.S. government, and sometimes, with the support of some European countries, the Israeli government could not do anything close to what it is doing in the Middle East.
It is a fact that Israel has used preemptive military aggression and systematic retaliation rather than mediation in the world court to solve its conflicts. This could be an indication that Israel realizes that its legal case is not very strong and that a military approach seems to be, in its view, less problematic and more rewarding than a court-imposed compromise. -It is a shame. And the United States government, through its one-sided military and diplomatic support, is an accomplice to the mess that prevails in that part of the globe and must accept much of the blame for the negative fall-out that this unresolved conflict creates in the entire Muslim world and even worldwide. The U. S. has imposed its veto dozens of times to prevent the United Nations from reigning in the illegal acts of Israel. This is truly the consequence of an Israel-United States Axis.
The war in Lebanon is due to the terrorist behavior and actions of Hizballah. One can imagine the terrorist bluntness of Hizballah that captured a couple of Israeli soldiers in purpose of freeing Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. Why are these in Israeli jails? Because they attacked Israeli targets. Why did they do so? Because the Israelis are angels descending from heavens to spread love, peace and fraternity in the world.
There is so much that Westerners need to learn about the situation in the Middle East. Does any body in the West tell the people that there are more than five million Palestinian refugees who have been living under difficult conditions for around sixty years, and Israel doesnt allow them back to their homes and property? Does any body tell them that Israel has been occupying Arab land for around forty years, and, for any withdrawal to take place, it insists that its terms must be accepted by the Arabs?
Palestinians and Lebanese have been captured by the Israelis because they insist on their rights and have the will to resist. If Israel has the right to defend itself, the Arabs have the right to defend themselves; and if Israel has the justification to hold Arabs captives, the Arabs have the justification to hold Israelis captives.
Who on earth can tell that Israel has the right to hold 9,000 Arabs as prisoners, while Hizballah is breaching all human values in holding two Israelis? What makes it right for Israel to fight for the freedom of its soldiers? And what makes it wrong for hizballah to fight for the freedom of Arab resistance men and women?
Hizballah which has been in a state of war with Israel attacked a military target killing a number of soldiers and capturing two. What is wrong in this pure military action? Since then, Israel has been destroying the Lebanese infrastructure and killing civilians. I know that I am asking questions of an ethical nature that hardly can find answers in a world that believes in power.
George Galloway MP is the controversial British politician who has proved a thorn in the side of advocates of the Iraq war. He is a fierce advocate of the Palestinian state, and a redoubtable campaigner against oppression and injustice throughout the world. In 2005 he made a memorable appearance before the US Senate, successfully defending himself against claims that he benefited from the Iraqi oil-for-food program. I'm Not the Only One is his critically acclaimed book on the Middle East, and the US and British administrations approach to this troubled region.
MOORE: You've taken a close interest in the Palestinian issue. Are you surprised that the international community has not condemned Israel's consistently aggressive stance against Gaza?
GALLOWAY: I'm not at all surprised. I'm dismally reconciled to the gigantic double standard that lies at the heart of Western policy towards the Middle East and the Muslim world. I have long become inured to the double standard that allows Israel to have hundreds of nuclear weapons and refuse to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet be rewarded by the West, whilst Iran has no nuclear weapons, has joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty and is, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, facing a devastating war.
I am dismally aware of the extent to which the blood of Palestinians is not worth anything like the blood of Israelis, still less the blood of Westerners. A good case in point was on the BBC's Question Time when every single member of the panel knew the name of the Israeli occupation soldier 'kidnapped' by the resistance, and they felt they had to pay endless sympathies to his family.
I found myself screaming at the television: "Can any of you name a single Palestinian victim, just say in the last 12 days, when 24 Palestinians, mostly women and children were killed by Israel in bomb, shell and rocket attacks?" No one knows the names of these victims, no one describes the Palestinian leaders who were kidnapped and languish in Israeli dungeons. All were seized in exactly the same way as this Israeli solder was seized. This is a double standard that does not occur to most people, but is endlessly burrowing away in my mind.
MOORE: I guess you'd say that the lack of recognition for the democratically elected Hamas Government is another example of Western double standards.
GALLOWAY: That is just one of many contradictions. Palestine is the only Arab country in which there is a free vote, and in it the Islamist party won, and the response from external powers was that the party that won should immediately scrap the policy on which it won the election and adopt the policy of the party it defeated. When they refused to do this, an economic and political siege was imposed on the entire kidnapped Palestinian population, because of their temerity at electing politicians of whom the West does not approve.
MOORE: Why do you think the US administration is persisting with Guantanamo Bay despite damning criticism from the Supreme Court, among others?
GALLOWAY: It is a peculiarity of the current Washington regime that it cares nothing about international opinion, nothing about international law and diplomacy. These are all merely tactics to be picked up and put down according to the needs of the hour. It is interesting in the respect that the judges both in the UK and the US are practically the last bastions against overwhelming executive power. The legislature in both countries has completely failed to perform that role of checking and balancing the power of government.
One British minister, Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General, put it in a nutshell when she said: "If there's nothing wrong with what's going on at Guantanamo Bay, why isn't it in America?" To answer this, it is not in America because if it were it would be subject to due process. It is precisely because there has to be no legal norms that it has to be extra terrestrial.
GALLOWAY: I think so, and if you look at some of the work that is being done in the US about the accountability of the activities at Abu Graib, it is clear that Donald Rumsfeld took a personal hand, as nauseating as it is, in discussing which forms of physical punishment and retribution can be taken against helpless prisoners before it becomes too much like torture to be contemplated.
It is obvious that what was happening at Abu Graib was not the mindless aberrations of some trailer-trash US privates. These were dynamics unleashed from the very top of the US administration. And for what? Whatever information you are going to get out of behaving in that way is far outweighed by the opprobrium into which it brings your country when it inevitably leaks out. And the information you get is usually worthless, as people will say anything under torture.
MOORE: Torture is not usually a weapon employed by democracies.
GALLOWAY: I think the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom know the limitations of democracy. My own father really believed that there was something special about Britain, that it was an especially free country. Were he alive, this epoch would come as a terrible blow because it turns out that we are only free as long as it doesn't really matter much. When it matters the freedoms are taken away. In other words the veneer that covers our society with the emblems of liberty, justice and democracy are very thin and can be dispensed with by the elected dictatorships that we now have on both sides of the Atlantic.
MOORE: Who's to blame for this situation?
GALLOWAY: I blame the Democrats. They have proved themselves to be an utterly spineless, unprincipled group of hucksters. They could have stopped all of this. They needn't have allowed Bush to become President. They could have whipped up a crisis over the brazen theft of the first election, but they didn't and they have been running ever since.
MOORE: The September 11 bombings exposed how certain groups feel about the United States and the West. Some say that since then an even more hard line approach from Washington has emerged. Do you think the current approach to terrorism has elevated or reduced the chances of another 9/11?
GALLOWAY: I said in Parliament just four days after 9/11 that if we handle this in the wrong way we will create 10,000 new Bin Ladens. I don't think that anyone doubts we did this. I use the metaphor that there is this swamp of hatred out there, and in it are festering all sorts of bad things. In time some will emerge to harm us. Instead of draining the swamp by dealing with the causes of it, we have engulfed it with new blood, making the swamp deeper, more toxic, and we will pay a price for it.
MOORE: Moving onto Iraq, do you think Nouri al Maliki is a credible leader of Iraq?
GALLOWAY: Not at all. He is not remotely credible. He is not even known by the Iraqi people.
MOORE: Is his appointment then an example of the imposition of Western-style democracy, necessary if an Iraqi civil war is to be avoided?
GALLOWAY: I believe the opposite is true. The most expedient way to civil war is for us to stay, and if we stay in Iraq will surely be a civil war, and one like none you've ever seen. We are talking about a Yugoslav-style war on top of the world's biggest oilfields, sucking in the Sunnis in neighboring states, Iranians buttressing the Shiite power-base, the Turks becoming involved in Kurdistan. So if you want a civil war, forget $60 a barrel, you won't be able to buy oil at $600 a barrel because there will be no oil as there will be no production of oil in the Gulf, Iran or Iraq. Most of the world's oil supply will be wiped out.
Our presence in the country is the main cause of the war. I'm not saying that if we now withdraw peace and harmony will immediately break out. I'm not saying that withdrawal is a sufficient condition, but it is a necessary condition. If we don't withdraw there will never be a solution. In any event the solution will not be what I or Bush wants. The outcome in Iraq will not be a return to a secular nationalist government. It will be a government of religious obscurantism, Shiite and Sunni, battling it out like what we see in Afghanistan. There will come a day, perhaps we are already there, when people will realize that there are worse things than Saddam Hussein.
GALLOWAY: It's a farce. It would have been much less demeaning to everyone if they had just shot him when they captured him. Everything about the trial is a farce. For a start it is being held not by the Iraqis but by the occupiers, with a few puppets who are put up front for the television cameras, albeit with a 60-minute time delay before we can see the pictures.
I know from my dealings with the Arab population that this trial has done more to rehabilitate Saddam Hussein's reputation in the Muslim world than anything anyone could have designed. He is seen as a lion and they are seen as monkeys.
MOORE: Tariq Aziz defended Saddam from the stand with the following words: "The president of the state of any country, if faced with an assassination attempt, should take procedures to punish those who conduct and help this operation. According to the law, people who support this assassination can also be convicted." Do you think Tariq Aziz was talking about Iraq now, as much as Iraq under Saddam?
GALLOWAY: First of all, when Clinton came into power, he launched a cruise missile attack on Baghdad. It killed some friends of mine. He did so because an Iraqi plot to murder George Bush Senior in Kuwait had been unmasked. Whether that plot was fabricated is another matter, but not only did Clinton execute my friends, without trial, the Kuwaitis executed the plotters because they were planning to kill a president. As it happens I am against capital punishment, at all times in all societies, so I wouldn't have executed any of them, but it is another example of the double standards that we are constantly grappling with here.
MOORE: Do you expect to be invited back to the US Senate?
GALLOWAY: No. I told them last September to put up or shut up, and they appear to have chosen to shut up.
MOORE: Why do you think the Senate and indeed the British Labour Party have been so keen to besmirch your name?
GALLOWAY: I am quite good at what I do, and am quite a dangerous enemy for them. If I were an ineffective, sandal-wearing, woolly jumper-wearing, ghettoized leftist they wouldn't have to worry about me at all. However, because by the grace of God I have the ability to rally together and persuade large numbers of people, and because I have been proved right, the people whom I am against have every reason to besmirch me.
The good news is that they have comprehensively failed. I have just been speaking at a school where a thousand children came to hear me speak. They say that young people are apathetic about politics, but I say they are apoplectic about the pathetic nature of the political class that we have. If someone emerges who speaks clearly, speaks the truth, and provides some kind of vision as to how we get out of this, people will respond.
MOORE: But certain politicians see this approach as threatening. . . .
GALLOWAY: Yes, of course, and they're right to. I'm not a joker. I'm not in this for a laugh. I'm really serious about defeating these people. So they are right to be afraid of me.
MOORE: Are you afraid of them, though?
GALLOWAY: No, not at all, and this is my great strength. As I said to Senator Coleman in Washington, "Do not make the mistake of imagining that I'm afraid of you. You have nothing that I want and I have nothing that you can take away from me. The only thing that matters to me is my reputation amongst the people who support me, and you're not in a position to take that away from me." So I'm not afraid of any of them, and this gives me a sense of power, conviction and courage that I might not otherwise have.
The main problem in the House of Commons is the toxic mix of cowardice and careerism in which most of these people are deeply imbibed. A political class like that deserves contempt, and is in receipt of almost bottomless contempt amongst the people.
MOORE: What you are saying doesn't bode well for those hoping to win the war on terror, does it?
GALLOWAY: There will never be a winner because terrorism isn't an adversary -- it is a tactic. Peter Ustinov, the great European intellectual, put it this way: "War is the terrorism of the rich and powerful, and terrorism is the war of the poor and powerless." This word terrorism has been distorted beyond any further usefulness. Terrorism is what the other guy does.
If you reduce Fallujah to ash, and kill thousands of people using white phosphorus and other banned weapons and overwhelming firepower, that's not terrorism, but if you blow yourself up outside an Iraqi police station, that is terrorism. No person with half a brain can accept that definition of terrorism. So there will be no end to the war on terrorism, because there is no end to the injustice that produced it.
MOORE: President Bush is in his last term of office, as is PM Blair, we are told. What steps will the next leaders of these countries take to heal the rift with nations such as Iran, Syria, and so on?
GALLOWAY: I think they'll do nothing different. I think that Gordon Brown and Blair are two cheeks of the same arse, and Bush and Hilary Clinton are two cheeks of the same arse. In fact, Clinton is demanding more forces to be sent to Iraq. Despite a brief flirtation some years ago with the idea of a modicum of justice for the Palestinians, she has now turned utterly against the Palestinians. She is as slavish in her support of Israel as Bush is.
I can tell you, from 30 years of intimate contact with Gordon Brown, that he will be no different from Tony Blair in the material aspects. If Brown and Clinton are not the next leaders, then it will be people of their ilk, as there is no one on the radar who will do anything differently.
MOORE: So, will the list of disgruntled countries keep growing?
GALLOWAY: Of course. In his majestic article for the New Yorker Seymour Hersh makes it very clear that they are not discussing whether to attack Iran, they are discussing which weapons to use when they attack. Even I was startled at the level of detail Hersh went into about the debate inside the administration about whether to use a tactical nuclear weapon on the Iranian nuclear sites, and only the threat of mutiny from top military brass persuaded Bush to take this proposal off the table. Who knows where he will train his sights on next?
I don't think that they are in a position to invade anyone else right now. If they were, then Hugo Chavez had better watch out, Syria had better watch out, Iran had better watch out. North Korea had better watch out, although if the Americans hear nothing else from me, hear this. Please do not attack North Korea -- that would be picking up a very spiky porcupine indeed.
MOORE: If the status quo is to prevail, what could any new leader do to improve matters?
GALLOWAY: For the purposes of this interview I'll deal only with the Muslim world, although there are many other issues of injustice that afflict much of the planet. The way to drain the swamp is this.
First of all, we have to recognize the centrality of the Palestine question to this big crisis. We have to recognize that the flaw at the heart of Western policy is the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people, and the endless insult added to injury over the past 50 years.
We have to make reparation to the Palestinian people and stop bankrolling and arming Israel. We have to force them to knock down the wall, force them to disgorge every inch of the territory that they illegally occupied in 1967, force them to allow a Palestinian state with an Arab border with Jerusalem as its capital and no Zionist settlements on its land. No control over the airspace, sea space, access and so on. None of that will be done, but it needs to be done.
The second thing that needs to be done is that we need to withdraw from occupied Muslim lands, get our forces out of their lands. The third thing we must do is to stop propping up these tyrants that rule the Muslim world. As I implied earlier on, the Muslim world laughs at the idea that we are for freedom and democracy, as they know that their tyrant is only in power because of our support. I'm not asking for anything to be done to bring these tyrants down, other than to withdraw our support and let their people deal with them.
MOORE: In I'm Not the Only One, you wrote of the Labour Party: "Many of my friends have placed their faith in a campaign to 'Reclaim the Party'. I wish them luck. They will need it. I believe they will not succeed, but I sincerely hope that they do." What, if anything could emerge to fill the void to the left of British politics, and you suggest there is a similar void in the United States?
GALLOWAY: With Respect - the Unity Coalition we are trying to fill the void in the UK, as a void is an unnatural thing, especially in politics. I think that no one is trying to fill the vacuum in the United States.
I would like to make something clear about what I am trying to do. I am not a Marxist, a Leninist, Trotskyist or any other kind of 'ist'. I am just labor. I just believe that every country needs a labor party. A party that will stand up for people who work, those who are too old to work, who are poor, marginalized, on the end of the lash of bigotry and prejudice. A party that will stand up for immigrants, minorities and so on. Every country needs such a party. Britain no longer has one, and we are trying to build one from scratch.
It sounds like a very big mountain to climb, but in 1894 in the East End of London a Scotsman called Keir Hardie became the first ever Labour MP. At the time people said he was splitting the vote and he would let the Conservatives in. From that one victory in 1894 in East London grew the great oak of Labour. All the good that was done by Labour has been abandoned, and we are putting ourselves forward as a true labor party.
Gold closed at 665.40 dollars an ounce Friday, up 5.4% from $631.10 for the week. The dollar closed at 0.7904 euros on Friday, up 1.3% from 0.7806 at the end of the week before. That put the euro at 1.2652 dollars compared to 1.2810 at the close of the previous week. Gold in euros would be 525.92 an ounce up 6.8% from 492.66 for the week. Oil closed at 76.80 dollars a barrel Friday, up 4.1% from 73.79 at the close of the previous Friday. Oil in euros would be 60.70 euros a barrel, up 5.4% from 57.60 for the week. The gold/oil ratio closed at 8.66 Friday, up 1.3% from 8.55 at the end of the previous week. In U.S. stocks, the Dow closed at 10,739.35, down 3.3% from 11,090.67 for the week. The NASDAQ closed at 2,037.35 Friday, down 4.6% from 2,130.06 at the close of the Friday before. In U.S. interest rates, the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 5.06%, down seven basis points from 5.13 for the week.
Fears that Israel may have started World War III in the Middle East last week led to rises in gold, oil and a drop in U.S. stocks. The magnitude of the crimes being committed by Israel right now makes it hard to focus on the economy, but, since the economy is one front in this war of one human race (the psychopaths - those without a conscience) on the other human race (those with conscience), it may be worthwhile to pay some attention to it. The reality of this war can be seen in the year-later aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
Saturday I joined some volunteers and helped gut the home of one of my best friends. Two months after she finished paying off her mortgage, her one-story brick home was engulfed in 7 feet of water. Because she was under-insured and remains worried about a repeat of the floods, my friend, a grandmother, has not yet decided if she is going to rebuild.
Though it is Saturday morning, on my friend's block no children play and no one is cutting the grass. Most of her neighbors' homes are still abandoned. Three older women neighbors have died since Katrina.
We are still finding dead bodies. Ten days ago, workers cleaning a house in New Orleans found a body of a man who died in the flood. He is the 23rd person found dead from the storm since March.
Over 200,000 people have not yet made it back to New Orleans. Vacant houses stretch mile after mile, neighborhood after neighborhood. Thousands of buildings remain marked with brown ribbons where floodwaters settled. Of the thousands of homes and businesses in eastern New Orleans, 13 percent have been re-connected to electricity.
The mass displacement of people has left New Orleans older, whiter and more affluent. African Americans, children and the poor have not made it back - primarily because of severe shortages of affordable housing.
Thousands of homes remain just as they were when the floodwaters receded - ghost-like houses with open doors, upturned furniture, and walls covered with growing mold.
Not a single dollar of federal housing repair or home reconstruction money has made it to New Orleans yet. Tens of thousands are waiting. Many wait because a full third of homeowners in the New Orleans area had no flood insurance. Others wait because the levees surrounding New Orleans are not yet as strong as they were before Katrina and fear re-building until flood protection is more likely. Fights over the federal housing money still loom because Louisiana refuses to clearly state a commitment to direct 50 percent of the billions to low and moderate income families.
Meanwhile, 70,000 families in Louisiana live in 240-square-foot FEMA trailers - three on my friend's street. As homeowners, their trailer is in front of their own battered home. Renters are not so fortunate and are placed in gravel strewn FEMA-villes across the state. With rents skyrocketing, thousands have moved into houses without electricity.
Meanwhile, privatization of public services continues to accelerate.
Public education in New Orleans is mostly demolished and what remains is being privatized. The city is now the nation's laboratory for charter schools - publicly funded schools run by private bodies. Before Katrina the local elected school board had control over 115 schools - they now control 4. The majority of the remaining schools are now charters.
The metro area public schools will get $213 million less next school year in state money because tens of thousands of public school students were displaced last year. At the same time, the federal government announced a special allocation of $23.9 million which can only be used for charter schools in Louisiana. The teachers union, the largest in the state, has been told there will be no collective bargaining because, as one board member stated, "I think we all realize the world has changed around us."
Public housing has been boarded up and fenced off as HUD announced plans to demolish 5,000 apartments - despite the greatest shortage of affordable housing in the region's history. HUD plans to let private companies develop the sites. In the meantime, the 4,000 families locked out since Katrina are not allowed to return.
The broken city water system is losing about 85 million gallons of water in leaks every day. That is not a typo, 85 million gallons of water a day, at a cost of $200,000 a day, are still leaking out of the system even after over 17,000 leaks have been plugged. Michelle Krupa of the Times-Picayune reports that the city pumps 135 million gallons a day through 80 miles of pipe in order for 50 million gallons to be used. We are losing more than we are using; the repair bill is estimated to be $1 billion - money the city does not have.
Public healthcare is in crisis. Our big public hospital has remained closed, and there are no serious plans to reopen it. A neighbor with cancer who has no car was told that she has to go 68 miles away to the closest public hospital for her chemotherapy.
Mental health may be worse. In the crumbling city and in the shelters of the displaced, depression and worse reign. Despite a suicide rate triple what it was a year ago, we have lost half of our psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists and other mental health care workers, the New York Times reports.
Mental health clinics remain closed. The psych unit of the big public hospital has not been replaced in the private sector as most are too poor to pay. The primary residence for people with mental health problems are our jails and prisons.
For children, the Washington Post reports, the trauma of the floods has not ended. A LSU mental health screening of nearly 5,000 children in schools and temporary housing in Louisiana found that 96 percent saw hurricane damage to their homes or neighborhoods, 22 percent had relatives or friends who were injured, 14 percent had relatives or friends who died, and 35 percent lost pets. Thirty-four percent were separated from their primary caregivers at some point; 9 percent still are. Little care is directed to the little ones.
The criminal justice system remains shattered. Six thousand cases await trial. There were no jury trials and only four public defenders for nine of the last 10 months. Many people in jail have not seen a lawyer since 2005. The Times-Picayune reported one defendant, jailed for possession of crack cocaine for almost two years, has not been inside a courtroom since August 2005 despite the fact that a key police witness against him committed suicide during the storm.
You may have seen on the news that we have some new neighbors - the National Guard. We could use the help of our military to set up hospitals and clinics. We could use their help in gutting and building houses or picking up the mountains of debris that remain. But instead they were sent to guard us from ourselves.
Crime certainly is a community problem. But many question the Guard helping local police dramatically increase stops of young Black males - who are spread out on the ground while they and their cars are searched. The relationship between crime and the collapse of all of these other systems is a one rarely brought up.
It has occurred to us that our New Orleans is looking more and more like Baghdad.
People in New Orleans wonder if this is the way the U.S. treats its own citizens, how on earth is the U.S. government treating people around the world? We know our nation could use its money and troops and power to help build up our community instead of trying to extend our economic and corporate reach around the globe. Why has it chosen not to?
We know that what is happening in New Orleans is just a more concentrated, more graphic version of what is going on all over our country. Every city in our country has some serious similarities to New Orleans. Every city has some abandoned neighborhoods. Every city in our country has abandoned some public education, public housing, public healthcare and criminal justice.
Those who do not support public education, healthcare, and housing will continue to turn all of our country into the Lower Ninth Ward unless we stop them. Why do we allow this?
There are signs of hope and resistance.
Neighborhood groups across the Gulf Coast are meeting and insisting that the voices and wishes of the residents be respected in the planning and rebuilding of their neighborhoods.
Public outrage forced FEMA to cancel the eviction of 3,000 families from trailers in Mississippi.
Country music artists Faith Hill and Tim McGraw blasted the failed federal rebuilding effort, saying, "When you have people dying because they're poor and Black or poor and white, or because of whatever they are - if that's a number on a political scale - then that is the most wrong thing. That erases everything that's great about our country."
There is a growing grassroots movement to save the 4,000-plus apartments of public housing HUD promises to bulldoze. Residents and allies held a big July 4 celebration of resistance.
Voluntary groups have continued their active charitable work on the Gulf Coast. Thousands of houses are being gutted and repaired and even built by Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Jewish, Mennonite, Methodist, Muslim, Presbyterian and other faith groups. The AFL-CIO announced plans to invest $700 million in housing in New Orleans.
Many ask what the future of New Orleans is going to be like? I always give the lawyer's answer, "It depends."
The future of New Orleans depends on whether our nation makes a commitment to those who have so far been shut out of the repair of New Orleans. Will the common good prompt the federal government to help the elderly, the children, the disabled and the working poor return to New Orleans? If so, we might get most of our city back. If not, and the signs so far are not so good, then the tens of thousands of people who were left behind when Katrina hit 10 months ago will again be left behind.
The future of New Orleans depends on those who are willing to fight for the right of every person to return. Many are fighting for that right. Please join in.
Some ask, what can people who care do to help New Orleans and the Gulf Coast? Help us rebuild our communities. Pair up your community, your business, school, church, professional or social organization with one on the Gulf Coast - and build a relationship where your organization can be a resource for one here and provide opportunities for your groups to come and help and for people here to come and tell their stories in your communities.
Most groups here have adopted the theme first used by Common Ground: "Solidarity not charity." Or, as aboriginal activist Lila Watson once said: "If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us struggle together."
For the sake of our nation and for our world, let us struggle together.
In the meantime, I will be joining other volunteers this Saturday, knocking out the mold-covered ceiling of my friend's home and putting it out on the street - 10 months after Katrina.
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach Bill at Quigley@loyno.edu. For more information, see www.justiceforneworleans.org.
What can the normal people do? Know the enemy. Look at their works in New Orleans, Iraq, Gaza and Lebanon. Those are potential futures for all of us. Learn about psychopaths and how to spot them. They are a minority (some say 6%), so if identified, the rest of us can limit the damage they can cause by, among other things, not following their orders, not allowing them to have positions of power either collectively or personally. That can only be done if we know who they are AND how they operate.
BEIRUT - Israel killed at least 32 civilians on Saturday, including 15 children, in air strikes meant to punish Lebanon for letting Hizbollah guerrillas menace the Jewish state's northern border.
Israel's bombing of Lebanese roads, bridges, ports and airports, as well as Hizbollah targets, is its most destructive onslaught since its 1982 invasion to expel Palestinian forces.
An Israeli missile incinerated a van in south Lebanon, killing 20 people, among them 15 children, in the deadliest single attack of the four-day-old campaign launched by Israel after Hizbollah captured two of its soldiers and killed eight.
Police said the van was carrying two families fleeing the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes.
Raids on roads and petrol stations in north, east and south Lebanon killed 12 people and wounded 32, security sources said, bringing the death toll in four days of Israeli attacks to 99. All but three of the dead have been civilians.
Hizbollah rockets, meanwhile, struck deeper into Israel than ever before on Saturday, wounding eight people and damaging two buildings in the Sea of Galilee town of Tiberias, police said.
Altogether 10 Israelis were wounded throughout northern Israel as about 80 rockets rained down from Lebanon. A military spokesman said Israel had deployed Patriot missile batteries in the northern city of Haifa to intercept Hizbollah rockets.
Rocket attacks have killed four civilians, including a child, in northern Israel this week.
President George W. Bush, who has declined to urge Israel to curb its military operations, said Syria should tell Hizbollah, which is also backed by Iran, to stop cross-border attacks.
In strikes on Beirut, Israeli warplanes flattened Hizbollah's nine-storey headquarters and destroyed the office of a Hamas leader, Mohammed Nazzal. An official of the ruling Palestinian Islamist group said Nazzal had survived the attack.
For the first time, Israel bombarded the ports of Beirut and Tripoli in the north, security sources and witnesses said.
Shortly after, Israeli warships bombarded Beirut's lighthouse and two ports in Christian areas north of the capital, a Lebanese security source said.
SYRIAN-LEBANESE BORDER
Israel's campaign in Lebanon coincided with an offensive it launched in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to try to retrieve another captured soldier, halt Palestinian rocket fire and destroy institutions of the Hamas-led government.
Israeli planes fired rockets near a Lebanese-Syrian border crossing, heightening fears that it could extend its campaign to Syria, which along with Iran is Hizbollah's main ally.
Israel said it had attacked targets only in Lebanon. A Syrian official also said Israel had not attacked Syria.
The Israeli army said it had struck about 150 targets in Lebanon so far, fewer than a dozen of them linked directly to Hizbollah. Most have hit civilian installations.
The assault has choked Lebanon's economy.
Israel aims not just to force Hizbollah to free the soldiers, which the Shi'ite group wants to trade for prisoners in Israel, but to destroy its ability to launch rocket attacks on northern Israel.
"The best way to stop the violence is for Hizbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking. And therefore I call upon Syria to exert influence over Hizbollah," Bush told a joint news conference with President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Russia.
The European Union, in a statement at the G8 summit, said Israel's assault on Lebanon was disproportionate.
Israeli army chief Dan Halutz said on Friday more targets would be bombed as part of the effort to remove Hizbollah from the border and replace it with a force answering to the Lebanese government.
LACKS UNITY
The Beirut government, led by an anti-Syrian coalition, lacks the unity and firepower to disarm Hizbollah, the only Lebanese faction to keep its guns after the 1975-90 civil war.
After Israel quit Lebanon in 2000, Hizbollah confined its attacks mainly to a disputed border area, but Wednesday's bold raid shattered tacit rules that had limited frontier violence.
The Israeli military said it had recovered the body of one of four sailors missing from a warship struck by Hizbollah off Beirut on Friday evening. A military source said Hizbollah had fired an Iranian-made missile at the vessel.
Hizbollah announced one of its fighters had been killed, only the second such death it has announced this week.
In Gaza, Israeli aircraft attacked the Palestinian Economy Ministry and a house where a Hamas militant was killed and eight people were wounded. Israel has killed about 85 Palestinians, around half of them militants since the offensive was launched.
Comment:
The Israeli army said it had struck about 150 targets in Lebanon so far, fewer than a dozen of them linked directly to Hizbollah. Most have hit civilian installations.
That pretty much says it all, doesn't it? The assault on Lebanon has nothing to do with Hizbollah - that much is plainly obvious. In fact, it is SO glaringly obvious that we just have to ask why so many countries around the world are doing so little to stop Israel.
The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Saturday that "Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hizbullah's activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences."
The report said "a senior Pentagon source warned that should the Arab world and international community fail in the efforts to convince Syria to pressure Hizbullah into releasing the soldiers and halt the current escalation Israel may attack targets in the country." Al-Hayat quoted the source as saying that "the US cannot rule out the possibility of an Israeli strike in Syria," this despite the fact that the Bush administration has asked Israel to "refrain from any military activity that may result in civilian casualties."
'Hizbullah made the same mistake'
The report also mentioned that President George W. Bush has repeatedly put much of the blame for the recent escalation on Syria.
"It is no coincidence that the Hizbullah operation comes at a time when the international community is working to impose sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear program and settle the score with Syria by establishing an international court to try those behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri," the Pentagon source said.
According to the source, Hizbullah made the same mistake as Hamas when it did not predict the ramifications of its actions and ignored the regional and international changes since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The source said that Israel has indicated that it "will not end its military activity until a new situation is created that will prevent Syria and Iran from using terror organizations, such as Hamas and Hizbullah, to threaten its security."
Comment: To better understand the mindset of the criminals who are perpetrating the crimes in Palestine and to see the propaganda that is used to dull minds and present Israel as the victim, we run articles from the Israeli press and their defenders. It should be clear that we in no way support these killers.
Summary: Key world leaders struggled to draft a response to the raging Middle East crisis as US President George W. Bush defended Israel and blamed militants backed by Iran and Syria.
But many G8 partners, notably Russian President Vladimir Putin and some European leaders, say the Israeli assaults, in response to Hezbollah rocket attacks on the Jewish state and the abduction of three Israeli soldiers, are disproportionate" and a waste of innocent life.
They have called for restraint by Israel which Putin said appeared to have "wider objectives" than simply retrieving its soldiers.
SAINT PETERSBURG - Key world leaders struggled to draft a response to the raging Middle East crisis as US President George W. Bush defended Israel and blamed militants backed by Iran and Syria.
In talks dominated by Israel's devastating offensives in Lebanon and Gaza, leaders of the select Group of Eight major industrialized nations jettisoned their original energy-focused agenda to grasp for consensus on the Middle East.
The United States pressed for a tough statement identifying the root cause of the violence as the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and its allies Iran and Syria.
"As a sovereign nation, Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorist activity," Bush said after meeting British Prime Minister Tony Blair here.
He added: "Our message to Israel is defend yourself, but be mindful of the consequences. And so we've urged restraint."
But many G8 partners, notably Russian President
Vladimir Putin and some European leaders, say the Israeli assaults, in response to Hezbollah rocket attacks on the Jewish state and the abduction of three Israeli soldiers, are "disproportionate" and a waste of innocent life.
They have called for restraint by Israel which Putin said appeared to have "wider objectives" than simply retrieving its soldiers.
The Lebanon offensive has left more than 100 people dead on both sides -- Israeli warplanes bombed more targets Sunday while Hezbollah retaliated with rockets on Haifa, killing eight -- while scores have also died in Gaza where tanks rolled in again overnight.
Blair pointed his finger more directly at Damascus and Tehran. "The fact is there are people in that region, notably Iran and Syria, who do not want this process of democratisation and peace and negotiation to succeed," he said.
A French diplomatic source said senior G8 foreign ministry officials were working on a statement stopping short of an outright call for a ceasefire -- rejected by the United States -- but appealing for efforts to put in place the conditions for a truce.
The source said the statement would contain two other strands: protecting civilian lives and infrastructure, and shoring up the Lebanese government and Palestinian Authority.
The G8 countries -- as well as Britain, Russia and the United States, they are Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- are also due to discuss Iran's nuclear programme and North Korea's missiles during the summit, which runs to Monday.
One thing they did agree on Sunday was a joint statement on energy, vowing to promote "open, transparent" energy markets and develop alternative energy sources, including nuclear power, to counter soaring oil prices and declining fossil fuel reserves.
The statement may ease friction between Russia and European consumers after Moscow cut gas supplies to Ukraine in a price war earlier this year, resulting in disruption to markets in Europe.
Bush was due to have talks Sunday with Chinese President
Hu Jintao to map the way forward on North Korea after UN condemnation of its missile tests.
The presidents were expected to renew their call for Pyongyang to return to six-country talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thanked Beijing for its support in helping pass the "remarkable" unanimous resolution.
"We really now have a coalition," Rice told reporters, saying North Korea "will have no choice but to return to the talks and pursue denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
On Monday, the G8 leaders will meet with counterparts from the five major emerging market economies -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa -- to try to rescue the floundering Doha round of trade liberalization talks.
Earlier, Russian and US negotiators failed despite intensive talks here to overcome lingering obstacles to a bilateral accord enabling Moscow to join the World Trade Organization, which sets global trade rules.
On the margins of the summit, Russian police halted an anti-G8 protest by some 50 activists in central Saint Petersburg and detained 37 of them, mostly foreigners, organisers said.
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press
Sat Jul 15, 2006
UNITED NATIONS - Lebanon accused the United States on Saturday of blocking a U.N. Security Council statement calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the impotence of the United Nations' most powerful body sent the wrong signal to small countries and the Arab world.
Israel has killed more than 100 people in a four-day bombardment of Lebanon. The offensive was triggered by a cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerrillas in which eight soldiers were killed and two others were captured. Fifteen Israelis have died in the fighting and the Shiite militant group has been raining rockets on northern Israel.
"It's unacceptable because people are still under shelling, bombardment and destruction is going on ... and people are dying," said Lebanese special envoy Nouhad Mahmoud.
Qatar, the only Arab nation on the council, received widespread support during closed council consultations late Saturday for a press statement calling for an immediate cease-fire, restraint in the use of force, and the protection of civilians caught in the conflict, council diplomats said.
But Argentina's U.N. Ambassador Cesar Mayoral said the United States objected to any statement and Britain opposed calling for a cease-fire.
The U.S. and Britain want to wait for the outcome of this weekend's Group of Eight meeting in Russia, an Arab League foreign ministers meeting, and a mission sent to the Middle East by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Mayoral and other diplomats said.
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, the current council president, confirmed "there was no agreement on a text tonight, but we will meet on Monday."
"Many delegations would have liked to have a very prompt reaction," he said. "Others think the spotlight should be elsewhere, not here in the council. "
But Lebanon's Mahmoud protested, saying while innocent civilians are killed, "here we are impotent."
"It sends very wrong signals not only to the Lebanese people but to the Arab people, to all small nations that we are left to the might of Israel and nobody is doing anything," he said.
Lebanon's pro-Western government came to power following the February 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, which led to Syria ending its 29-year occupation of its smaller neighbor. The Security Council has passed several resolutions promoting the full restoration of Lebanon's sovereignty and has urged it to deploy troops to the Hezbollah-dominated south to assert control there.
"We have many reasons to expect much more from the Security Council," said Mahmoud. And from the United States?
"They were always supportive in the last 1 1/2 years, but when it comes to Israel it seems things change," he said.
In another development, Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno told reporters that Israel had rescinded a directive that would have restricted the movements of the 2,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, blocking it from carrying out its observer mission.
By URI DAN, Mideast Correspondent
The New York Post
July 16, 2006
JERUSALEM - Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah strongholds pounded central Beirut yesterday as terrorist rockets continued to be fired back across the border - and Iranian involvement was exposed in the attack on an Israeli warship.
Israeli officials charged that elite Iranian troops operating in Lebanon were involved in the Hezbollah offensive, and were responsible for firing an Iranian-made, radar-guided C802 missile - not the unmanned bomb-laden drone originally reported - that struck the warship on Friday, killing four sailors.
"There are Iranian officers belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard among Hezbollah and they operated the missile," said Israeli Vice Prime Minister and elder statesman Shimon Peres.
Iran and Hezbollah both denied cooperation but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned Israel's military offensive in Lebanon, saying "the Zionist regime behaves like Hitler," Iranian state television reported.
Among yesterday's other developments:
* More than 100 rockets fired from Lebanon struck deeper and deeper into Israel, hitting apartment buildings in the tourist-packed resort town of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, 22 miles south of the border.
* Israel stepped up round-the-clock bombing raids in an effort to destroy Hezbollah rocket caches in Lebanon, but one attack struck a convoy of civilians fleeing the fighting, killing 18. In all, 35 Lebanese were killed yesterday.
* Israeli officials fear Hezbollah terrorists still possess rockets with ranges of 60 to 120 miles that could strike Tel Aviv.
Authorities issued a warning to the 1.4 million residents of northern Israel to stay close to bomb shelters for the time being, and deployed Patriot-missile batteries in Haifa for the first time since the Gulf War in 1991.
* The Israeli air force continued bombing Hezbollah compounds in southern Beirut, in a bid to kill the group's leadership.
Warplanes also took out gas stations, roads and bridges near the Syrian border in an effort to completely seal off Lebanon.
As the violence escalated, Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad expressed solidarity with Lebanon and pledged resources to help cope with Israeli attacks, threatening to plunge the region into further chaos.
* Israeli tanks also moved back into the northern Gaza strip, clashing with militants, killing two. The offensive is aimed at recovering a captured soldier and stopping armed groups.
Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers, backed by helicopters firing machine guns, moved into farmland near Beit Hanoun, an area often used by militants for launching rockets.
* U.S. officials planned an airlift to evacuate the 25,000 American citizens believed trapped in Lebanon.
"As of the morning of July 15, we are looking at how we might transport Americans to Cyprus," the State Department said.
As the violence worsened, neither side appeared willing to back down on the fifth day of fighting since Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on Wednesday, and President Bush leveled stern warnings at Iran and Syria.
The guided-missile attack on the Israeli destroyer represented "a very profound fingerprint of Iranian involvement in Hezbollah," said Israeli Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan.
Iran denied involvement in a statement released by its embassy in Beirut. "These accusations by Israeli officials are baseless and constitute an attempt to escape reality and cover up the impotence of this regime in the face of resistance and the Lebanese people," the statement read.
Israel also claimed that the missile was fired using the Lebanese military's radar system, and used airstrikes to take out government radar sites along the coast.
In an emotional televised speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called on the United Nations to broker an immediate cease-fire to end Israel's land, sea and air offensive against Lebanon.
He also pledged to reassert government authority all over Lebanese territory. That would meet a repeated U.N. and U.S. demand.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute had yet to get off the ground.
Bush, at the G-8 summit in Russia, called on Hezbollah "to lay down its arms and to stop attacking."
Bush pointed the blame squarely at Hezbollah and Syria - the terror group's principal backer.
The violence, he said, was caused "because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers."
Since Palestine is occupied, we accept no less than its total liberation. It belongs to our people since time immemorial. Our ancestors, the Canaanites, have lived there thousands of years before the biblical stories came to existence without interruption until the present time. They were Arab tribes, and we are their descendents. Abraham and his descendents came from Ur of Chaldea, the Chaldeans originated from Arabia, and they spoke Aramaic like many Arabs did. Aramaic was an old Arabic language, which was replaced by the modern Arabic language of the tribe of Quraish, the tribe of Prophet Mohammad in which the Holy Qoran was revealed to humanity. The modern Jews have nothing to do with the old Hebrews who were from Ur of Chaldea. They are not the same; they have nothing in common, ethnically, culturally or otherwise.
No one has the right to Palestine except our ancestors who died long ago, our generations who are struggling to expel the occupiers and the generations who are not yet born.
Palestine was carved out of Syria, the Arab homeland was ripped apart and mini states were created. We lost our unity, our freedom and we became under the rules of tyrants and oppressors. Our beloved Palestine was taken away from us by the Western Powers and by the Stalinist Russia and given to the Zionists. Since then, the Palestinians are resisting the foreign usurpation of the homeland and they will keep resisting until justice prevails and the six millions go back to their homes.
The aggression against the Palestinians did not stop since the beginning of last century and the massacres of the Palestinians continue until this very day. The massacres at large scale are considered genocide and the Palestinians are the victims. The perpetrators are the Western Imperialist Zionists allies. The Zionist forces are destroying our refugee camps, our towns, cities, farms, and infrastructure and contaminating our waters in the Gaza Strip. They are killing our women, our children and our people and the Western governments are giving their blessings to the criminals on our land.
Forty-five year old, Mr. Mohammad Erheem, who lives in Al-Issraa' west of Beit Lahiya stated that the occupation Zionist forces killed the sheep in his farm by burying them alive and he was jailed in one room of his house with the rest of his family.
The Zionist soldiers who occupied his house were drinking liquor, shouting and laughing every time a sniper among them killed or wounded a Palestinian from the town. These immoral racist soldiers were celebrating and dancing on our bleeding wounds with no respect to human feeling, but the story did not stop there. One of the soldiers took the family Qoran, tore it and stepped on it.
Before withdrawing from the neighborhoods of Al Atatira, Al Salateen, and Al Issraa', the soldiers destroyed many houses, bulldozed hundreds of acres, and uprooted olive, orange and lemon trees. Vineyards also did not escape their ravaging and destruction. They bulldozed the main and side roads, pulled down the electric and telephone posts, The water pipes were blown up, the cemetery of Al Issraa' was desecrated and tombs were leveled. Then, two mosques, Al Huda and Faith were severely damaged. The Zionists now expanded their war of aggression against Lebanon and not a single Western State has the morality to put a stop of this continuous war of aggression against the Arabs.
"Israel" is a racist-settler-colonialist entity that has no legitimate right to exist on our land. It pauses danger to our existence as a nation and those who created it have no conscience.
The Anti-War Movement and the progressive organizations in the West should come to a conclusion that the racist settler-invaders do not belong to Palestine, they should go back to the country of their origin or to the Mohave Desert to make it fertile and blooming. The Land of Milk and Honey is not theirs. It is ours; this land belongs to our people, to our martyrs and to our future generations. It is about time to end the hypocrisy and injustice, and to put an end to the genocide and starvation against the Palestinians.
Moshe Dayan who once said: "The key of any city is no more than a piece of Iron put under the "Israeli" tank to take the shape of the key we want... to suit the door of the city we want to take over...." The gallant Gazans are fighting and facing the Zionist tanks, planes, missiles and the siege of the Western governments. The tanks of the Zionists that Dayan was speaking of are treading over the Zionist dreams, his dreams and the Zionist entity's dreams
We tell all the friends and supporters of the Zionist aggression that our people will keep fighting. The American tanks and missiles with all the heavy armaments, and the blockade and starvation policies imposed upon the Palestinians will not deter them. Their determination is the total liberation of their land that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; A15
Israel, with U.S. support, intends to resist calls for a cease-fire and continue a longer-term strategy of punishing Hezbollah, which is likely to include several weeks of precision bombing in Lebanon, according to senior Israeli and U.S. officials.
For Israel, the goal is to eliminate Hezbollah as a security threat -- or altogether, the sources said. A senior Israeli official confirmed that Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah is a target, on the calculation that the Shiite movement would be far less dynamic without him.
For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.
Whatever the outrage on the Arab streets, Washington believes it has strong behind-the-scenes support among key Arab leaders also nervous about the populist militants -- with a tacit agreement that the timing is right to strike.
"What is out there is concern among conservative Arab allies that there is a hegemonic Persian threat [running] through Damascus, through the southern suburbs of Beirut and to the Palestinians in Hamas," said a senior U.S. official who requested anonymity because of sensitive diplomacy. "Regional leaders want to find a way to navigate unease on their streets and deal with the strategic threats to take down Hezbollah and Hamas, to come out of the crisis where they are not as ascendant."
Hezbollah's cross-border raid that captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others has provided a "unique moment" with a "convergence of interests" among Israel, some Arab regimes and even those in Lebanon who want to rein in the country's last private army, the senior Israeli official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing conflict.
Israel and the United States would like to hold out until Hezbollah is crippled.
"It seems like we will go to the end now," said Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon. "We will not go part way and be held hostage again. We'll have to go for the kill -- Hezbollah neutralization."
White House officials said Friday that Bush has called on Israel to limit civilian casualties and avoid toppling the Lebanese government but has not pressured Israel to stop its military action. "He believes that the Israelis have a right to protect themselves," spokesman Tony Snow said in St. Petersburg, where Bush is attending the Group of Eight summit. "The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel."
Specifically, officials said, Israel and the United States are looking to create conditions for achieving one remaining goal of U.N. Resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, which calls for the dismantling and disarming of Lebanon's militias and expanding the state's control over all its territory.
"We think part of the solution to this is the implementation of 1559, which would eliminate that [armed group operating outside the government] and help Lebanon extend all of its authority throughout the whole country," national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley told reporters with Bush in Russia yesterday.
The other part of the resolution calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which was completed in April last year -- after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, which was widely linked to Syria.
If Lebanon as a first step takes over Hezbollah's stockpiles, which included more than 12,000 rockets and missiles before the current strife began, then cease-fire talks could begin, the Israeli official said.
"The only way a cease-fire will even be considered is if 1559 is fully implemented," said the senior Israeli official. Lebanese troops must be deployed to take over positions in Hezbollah's southern Lebanon strongholds to ensure that there are no more cross-border raids or rocket barrages into northern Israel.
There are no guarantees, however, that this strategy will work. Israeli airstrikes could backfire, experts warn.
"Hezbollah was risking alienating not only the Lebanese public at large but, incredibly, its very own Shiite constituency. But if Israel continues with its incessant targeting of exclusively civilian targets, and, as a result, life becomes increasingly difficult for the people, I would not be surprised if there is a groundswell of support for Hezbollah, exactly opposite of what Israel is trying to achieve," said Timur Goksel, an analyst and former spokesman for the U.N. force in Lebanon who lives in Beirut.
The Bush administration's position -- and diplomacy -- are the opposite of what happened during the Clinton administration.
The last Hezbollah-Israel cease-fire was just before dawn on April 27, 1996, after the United States brokered a deal to end a punishing 16-day Israeli offensive designed to end Hezbollah's rocket barrages. More than 150 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed; more than 60 Israelis were injured. Tens of thousands on both sides of the border had fled or gone into bunkers.
Then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher shuttled for a week between Jerusalem and Damascus to mediate a written agreement, a sequel to a similar oral deal he negotiated after skirmishes in 1993.
For now, that is not a viable option to end the current conflict, U.S. officials say. With its diplomacy redefined by the war on terrorism, the Bush administration has opted for a course that plays out on the battlefield.
Pressed on whether a cease-fire was possible soon, the Israeli official said it was "way, way premature" to consider an end to hostilities. "There is no sense to have a cease-fire without a fundamental change," he said. "That change is to make sure the explosiveness of the situation cannot carry over to the future. That means neutralizing Hezbollah's capabilities."
The Bush administration is also using Resolution 1559 as a barometer, U.S. officials say, acknowledging that the Lebanese government has shown neither the ability nor the willingness to deploy its fledgling army to the southern border.
U.S. officials have cautioned Israel to use restraint, particularly on collateral damage and destruction of infrastructure, which might undermine the fragile government. There was some U.S. concern about attacks on the Beirut airport, but otherwise Washington is prepared to step aside and defer diplomacy unless there is a dramatic break, U.S. officials say.
"They do have space to operate for a period of time," the U.S. official said about Israel. "There's a natural dynamic to these things. When the military starts, it may be that it has to run its course."
Israel and the United States believe that the Israeli strikes in Gaza, following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, have undermined Hamas. "There is no Hamas government -- eight cabinet ministers or 30 percent of the government is in jail, another 30 percent is in hiding, and the other 30 percent is doing very little," said the senior U.S. official.
Jeff Blankfort Comments: The arguments being made to justify Israel's undeclared war on Lebanon are similar to those made in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, again with the applause of both Democrats and Republicans, as well as President Reagan, . At that time, Hizbullah did not exist and the target was the PLO. The notion that Israel's devastation of Lebanon is going to help further US goals in the region is more a cover-up to disguise the fact that the Jewish Zionist lobby, with the backing of the Christian Zionists, is dictating US policy as a miniature version of the Third Reich does as it wishes with its northern neighbor, or does not collectively punishing an entire country as punishment for the capture of two of its soldiers and the killing of a handful more, put it in that category? Those who fault Hizbollah for acting in solidarity with the Palestinians under siege in Gaza when Lebanon had not been attacked, must then fault the US for entering the war against Nazi Germany in 1941 when Germany has not attacked the US.
BEIRUT - Israel is keeping up its blistering offensive against Lebanon after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared open war in a conflict that appears to be spiralling dangerously out of control despite international calls for restraint.
Combat jets bombarded Lebanon in a series of dawn raids, slamming missiles into bridges and petrol stations and killing four people on the fourth day of fighting that has so far claimed the lives of around 90 people on both sides.
Emerging unscathed after Israeli air strikes late Friday on his home and office in Hezbollah's southern suburbs, Nasrallah warned: "You wanted an open war, you will get an open war."
And in a dramatic new development, Nasrallah boasted that Hezbollah struck an Israeli warship patrolling off the coast of Lebanon, telling his supporters to "watch it burning"
Israel said four Israeli servicemen were missing after the attack on the vessel, which reports said was hit either by a rocket or an explosives-laden drone. Another civilian ship, believed to be Egyptian, was also hit and set ablaze, Israel said.
While the international community has issued urgent appeals for restraint, world powers appear divided over how to deal with the conflict, which erupted after Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in an attack on the volatile Lebanon-Israeli border on Wednesday.
The attack opened up a new battleground in the Middle East following the massive Israeli onslaught against Gaza launched after the capture of another soldier by Palestinian militants three weeks ago.
Israel is under fire from some members of the UN Security Council for using "disproportionate force" against Lebanon and Gaza.
But at an emergency Council debate on the crisis on Friday, the the United States stood alone in refusing to even caution restraint from Israel, instead laying the blame firmly at the feet of Iran and Syria, which both back Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movmement Hamas.
Lebanon is virtually cut off from the outside world after Israel imposed an air and sea blockade, launched repeated strikes on the country's only international airport and bombed the main highway to neighbouring Syria.
And in a sign that there would be no early easing of the crisis, Israel army chief Dan Halutz warned his forces would continue to strike Hezbollah and other infrastructure targets in Lebanon.
"Lebanon is paying a very heavy price because of Hezbollah: bridges, roads and airports destroyed -- and it could yet be deprived of other infrastructure," he said.
Northern Israel has been hit by a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire from Lebanon, triggering the most intensive offensive by the Jewish state against its northern neighbour since its Grapes of Wrath operation in 1996.
Four people have been killed in towns in northern Israel, where panicked residents are spending much of their time in bomb shelters or reinforced rooms.
On Saturday, four civilians, including an Egyptian worker, were killed in a series of Israeli air raids across southern and easten Lebanon. War planes also struck the suburbs of Tripoli on Saturday, in the first such strike so far north by Israel.
"It's sparing nobody, in no area of Lebanon. Actually it is cutting the country into pieces, whereby more than 20 bridges in the country have been destroyed," Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora told CNN.
In a wave of strikes Friday, Israeli jets hit the main highway linking Beirut and Damascus and an airport hangar and fuel tanks, pounded Hezbollah's command headquarters in Beirut and a Palestinian guerrilla base in eastern Lebanon, as well as bridges and other roads.
A UN mission despatched to the region by Secretary General
Kofi Annan arrived in Egypt on Friday ahead of an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on the crisis.
But Friday's UN Security Council meeting ended with no action on the Beirut government's demand for a ceasefire and an immediate end to Israeli air strikes on its territory.
US Ambassador John Bolton laid sole blame for the escalating violence in the region on Israel's arch-foes Iran and Syria and their support Hezbollah and Hamas.
And US President George W. Bush, preparing to attend the Group of Eight summit which opens in Russia on Saturday, is not pressuring Israel to halt strikes on targets in Lebanon.
"The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel," spokesman Tony Snow said.
In one of the strongest statements from a world leader on the conflict, President Jacques Chirac of France, the former colonial power in Lebanon, said Israel appeared to "wish to destroy" Lebanon.
Lebanon has been mired in its own political crisis since the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005 and is still rebuilding after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
The Western-backed Lebanese government -- which includes two Hezbollah ministers but is led by anti-Syrian politicians -- denied any involvement in the Hezbollah action and demanded a "complete and immediate ceasefire".
Israel also pressed on with its air assault on Gaza on Saturday, killing one Palestinian in a helicopter strike in the centre of the impoverished territory after the United States vetoed a UN resolution calling on Israel to halt its military operations there.
At least 77 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, which the
United Nations has warned is causing a humanitarian crisis in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
Both Hezbollah and the Palestinian militants holding the soldiers are demanding the release of prisoners being held in Israeli jails -- something Israel has rejected outright.
Army chief Halutz said Friday that all three captured servicemen were alive and in a "reasonable" state of health.
BEIRUT, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV on Sunday that his group's fight against Israel just began.
"Our fight against the enemy is just a beginning," Nasrallah said in the video tape.
He said that Hezbollah's strength was not harmed by Israeli massive offensive in the past five days. "We are in full strength and we'll give them more surprise on the land."
He vowed to use all means to exercise the right of resistance." As long as the enemy has no limits, we will have no limits."
He declared that Hezbollah was not fighting a battle for the group or Lebanon only, but also for the whole Arab world.
It was Nasrallah's first television appearance since a wave of Israeli bombardments against his headquarters on Beirut's southern suburbs in the wake of Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday.
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb in Beirut
Saturday July 15, 2006
The Guardian
The capture of three Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese resistance movement, Hizbullah, to bargain for prisoner exchange should come as no surprise - least of all to Israel, which must bear its own responsibility for the abductions and is using this conflict to pursue its wider strategic aims.
The prisoners Hizbullah wants released are hostages who were taken on Lebanese soil. In the successful prisoner exchange in 2004, Israel held on to three Lebanese detainees as bargaining chips and to keep the battle front with Hizbullah open. These detentions have become a cause celebre in Lebanon. In a recent poll, efforts to effect their release attracted majority support, much more even than the liberation of Shebaa Farms, the disputed corridor of land between Syria and Lebanon still occupied by Israel.
The domestic significance of these hostages is ignored by those who choose to reduce the abductions to an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Indeed Israel's media are aware of recent attempts to capture soldiers, including a botched attempt a few months ago in which three Hizbullah fighters were killed. Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed the attack took five months to plan. Its timing was probably a coincidence. It would seem, though, Hizbullah exerts some influence over the fighters in Gaza - those who captured Corporal Shalit were at the very least inspired by Hizbullah.
The regional significance of the abductions has also been misconstrued. To suggest Hizbullah attacked on the orders of Tehran and Damascus is to grossly oversimplify a strong strategic and ideological relationship. Historically there has been an overlap of interests between Syria, Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. Together they form a strategic axis - the "axis of terror" to Israel - that confronts US-Israeli designs to redraw the map of the region.
But the nature of that relationship has changed much over the years. Since Syrian forces left Lebanon, Hizbullah has become the stronger party. It has never allowed any foreign power to dictate its military strategy.
It is ironic, given Israel's bombing of civilian targets in Beirut, that Hizbullah is often dismissed in the west as a terrorist organisation. In fact its military record is overwhelmingly one of conflict with Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory. This is just an example of the way that the west employs an entirely different definition of terrorism to the one used in the Arab world and elsewhere, where there is a recognition that terrorism can come in many forms.
The attempt to frame Hizbullah as a terrorist organisation is very far from political reality in Lebanon, from public opinion across the Arab and Islamic world, and from international law.
Israel's disproportionate response to the soldiers' capture will have an impact on Lebanese domestic policy. Hizbullah has recently proposed a comprehensive national defence strategy; the Lebanese government has yet to come up with anything similarly convincing. If demands for a prisoner exchange are successful then it shows that what Hizbullah would term the logic of resistance is the most effective defence strategy. Israel's escalation has been a poor PR exercise. Even if it succeeds in showing the Lebanese people that Hizbullah can be a liability, this may well be cancelled out by Israel's own aggression, which will only confirm Hizbullah's repeated warnings of the constant threat posed by Israel.
- Amal Saad-Ghorayeb is assistant professor of political science at the Lebanese-America University.
WASHINGTON - The State Department said Saturday it was trying to determine how it might evacuate Americans from besieged Lebanon to the neighboring Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where they could get on commercial planes.
The United States estimates 25,000 Americans live or work in Lebanon. Officials assume far fewer would choose to leave if they could.
The department said it was working with the Pentagon on a plan for helping American citizens depart Lebanon.
Israel imposed a sea, air and land blockade of Lebanon. It was targeting bridges, roads, the international airport and ports in response to a raid by Hezbollah militants into Israel that captured two soldiers and killed eight.
Witnesses said Saturday that Israeli aircraft attacked central Beirut for the first time in a four-day offensive.
The State Department said Friday that Americans in Lebanon should consider leaving when it was safe to do so, and officials made contingency plans for the evacuation of people who cannot leave on their own.
Family members and non-emergency American employees of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon have been given permission to leave.
Pentagon officials have said they were monitoring the situation and studying options for removing Americans, in anticipation of the State Department requesting help soon with an evacuation. As of late Saturday afternoon, the Pentagon said it had not received such a request.
Last Updated Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:00:15 EDT
CBC News
Seven Canadians - including four children - were killed in an Israeli air raid that hit a Lebanese town on the border with Israel on Sunday. Three Canadians were seriously injured.
Israel has acknowledged carrying out the attack and has apologized to Ottawa, CBC's Nahlah Ayed reported from Beirut.
Most of the dead were members of one extended Montreal family, on vacation in the village of Aitaroun at the time of the Israeli attack. Among those killed was Ali El-Akhras who came to Montreal from Lebanon 15 years ago. His wife, Saada El-Akhras, was among the injured.
The nephew of Ali El-Akhras, also named Ali, had accompanied his uncle and aunt on their annual summer vacation. His wife, Amira, and their four children, ages one, four, six and eight, were killed in the attack.
Reports from Lebanon say the victims were crushed in a collapsed house.
Hassan El-Akhras, the son of Ali El-Akhras, was not with his parents on the trip to Lebanon. He heard about his father's death while he was demonstrating against Israel's attacks on Lebanon in Montreal. Family and friends gathered at the El-Akhras apartment to comfort each other and await further news from Lebanon.
"It's not just us," Hassan El-Akhras told CBC news, "There are a lot of civilians who have been killed. The streets are closed. I am asking the international community to help and put pressure on Israel to stop the bombing."
Ottawa sends vessels to help evacuation
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said in Ottawa that plans were being drawn up for a co-ordinated rescue effort by land sea and air for Canadians who want to leave Lebanon.
Ottawa was working with other countries who were trying to get their citizens out of harm's way. Commercial ships were to be hired and sent to the eastern Mediterranean, MacKay said.
"We are securing these vessels. They will be in the region as soon as humanly possible," he told CBC Newsworld.
The Foreign Affairs Department says 16,000 Canadians have registered with the government to say they're in Lebanon, while estimating that there are likely two to three times that many in the country.
On Sunday, for the first time since fighting began, Israeli warplanes unleashed bombs on central Beirut, as well as pounding its suburbs and striking a major power station nearby.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah - which spurred the outbreak of violence with a cross-border raid on the Israeli military - carried out a deadly rocket attack on the northern Israeli port of Haifa.
About 150 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have died since the violence erupted on Wednesday. At least 24 Israelis, including 12 civilians, have died from Hezbollah rockets.
HAIFA, Israel - Eight people were killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on Israel's third largest city as Israel pounded Lebanon on the fifth day of a spiralling conflict that has cost scores of lives but spurred little international action.
The United States maintained Israel had every right to defend itself but also urged restraint over a blistering offensive that has left much of Lebanon's infrastructure in tatters and raised fears of all-out regional war.
Israel's arch-foe Syria, blamed by the United States and the Jewish state for backing Islamist militants, warned that it would respond to any attack while Iran warned of "unimaginable losses" from any such action.
The Israeli military ordered residents to flee villages in southern Lebanon, warning of air and artillery operations after the rocket attack on the Mediterranean port of Haifa, the deadliest cross-border rocket attack on Israel in decades.
Israeli medics said eight people were killed and dozens wounded by the rocket attacks on Haifa, with most casualties at the main railway station.
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz vowed Israel would attack all sources of fire in its offensive, regardless of location, issuing a veiled threat to civilians living in Hezbollah strongholds, such as south Beirut.
"All those who attacked Haifa and positions behind our lines will pay a very heavy price," Peretz told a news conference in Haifa.
We have given orders that "every source of identified fire will be struck no matter where it is," he added.
But despite the rocket attacks on Haifa and the northern coastal towns of Nahariya and Shavei Zion, Peretz said Israel had no plans to reoccupy Lebanon. "We do not want to get bogged down in the Lebanese quagmire," he told reporters in Haifa.
The attack on Haifa came as Israeli jets showed no sign of letting up with an ever-widening assault on Lebanon that has almost completely cut it off from the outside world with its airport shut and ports blockaded.
At least 16 Lebanese civilians were killed and 33 others wounded Sunday in air attacks on southern Lebanon, medics and police said.
Their deaths bring to 119 the number of people killed in the Israeli offensive which began last Wednesday, according to an AFP tally based on official and medical sources. Another 313 have been wounded.
The military wing of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah has declared "open war" on the Jewish state, claimed it fired dozens of anti-tank missiles at the city and warned it would not spare Haifa if Israel retaliated.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who ordered the offensive against Lebanon after two soldiers were seized by Hezbollah, warned of the consequences of the attack.
"Our government is determined to do everything necessary to reach our objectives. Nothing will prevent us," he said. "There will be long-term consequences on the northern border and in Lebanon and in the entire region."
Governments worldwide were drawing up emergency plans to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon, but world powers appeared sharply divided on how to end the conflict and avoid all-out regional conflict.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora had called Saturday for an immediate UN-sponsored ceasefire to halt the fiercest Israeli assault on its northern neighbour in 10 years and to stop Israel's "collective punishment".
The offensive has put Lebanon under an air and sea blockade, with wave after wave of air strikes that have shut the international airport, destroyed bridges and roads.
Sunday's 16 deaths followed a deadly day of relentless air raids Saturday that blitzed the Beirut headquarters of Nasrallah and struck ports up and down the Mediterranean coast.
At least 18 people, half of them children, were also burnt to death Saturday when jets fired missiles on a convoy of villagers fleeing the assault.
Early Sunday, air strikes hit Hezbollah's television station in Beirut's southern suburbs and other targets across southern Lebanon, and also launched a new air raid and incursion into the Gaza Strip, another battlefront.
Siniora declared Lebanon a "disaster zone" and appealed for urgent international help for a country that was slowly rebuilding after a devastating 15-year civil war and the end of a three-decade Syrian military presence.
Israel says the aim of its operation is to destroy Hezbollah, which sparked the offensive by capturing two Israeli soldiers last week and was instrumental in Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 after a bloody 22-year occupation.
For the past few days, northern Israel has come under a barrage of rocket fire from across the border in Lebanon that has now killed a total of 20 people.
Hezbollah also claimed a rocket attack Friday on an Israeli warship enforcing the blockade that killed four sailors in another display of its military capabilities.
Israel has also put the commercial capital Tel Aviv and all towns further north on alert for rocket attacks.
US President George W. Bush said at the G8 summit in Russia that Israel had "every right to defend itself against terrorist activity" by militants backed by Iran and Syria, but it must be "mindful of the consequences".
Damascus warned that any Israeli attack "will provoke an unlimited, direct and firm response using all means necessary".
Iran also warned of "unimaginable losses" if Israel attacked Syria and accused the US of playing a "destructive role by vetoing resolutions and hence encouraging the Israeli crimes".
Israeli television meanwhile reported that Nasrallah had been injured in an attack on his stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, but Hezbollah dismissed this as "Israeli propaganda".
Israel is now fighting on two fronts after it launched a similar deadly offensive against against Gaza over the capture of another soldier by Palestinian militants more than three weeks ago.
Foreign governments were drawing up plans to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon, either by land to Syria or by ferry to the island of Cyprus.
Air travel from Beirut was made impossible after the country's only international airport was shut down Thursday by Israeli air strikes on its runways.
Shell-shocked Beirut residents were stocking up on basic goods and making plans to flee to the relative safety of the mountains outside the capital.
Israel also pressed on with its assault on Gaza, killing four more Palestinians in air raids and a ground incursion on Sunday. At least 82 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.
Both Hezbollah and Palestinian militants holding the soldiers are demanding the release of prisoners from Israeli jails -- something Israel has rejected outright.
By SAMAR ASSAD
July 14 / 17, 2006
Executive Director of The Palestine Center
Arrangements for prisoner exchanges between Arab governments and Israel date back to 1948. During the early 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel exchanged prisoners, the most famous of which is known as the "Jibril Deal" in May 1985. Through third-party negotiations, Israel and Hizballah carried out three prisoner exchanges starting in 1996. Attempts to secure the release of Palestinian political prisoners through negotiations often failed because Israel regularly suspended talks over prisoners or renegotiated established criteria for their release. When negotiations resulted in an agreement, Israel ignored deadlines for the releases, released nonpolitical prisoners and claimed it had fulfilled its obligations, or simply dismissed agreements. I
