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Signs Editorials
Editorial: Note from Lebanon
by Rania Masri; July 17, 2006
Thank you all for your letters of concern. Yes, I am in Lebanon, and, yes, I am safe, as safe as one can be when one's country is under attack.
I appeal to you all: we need your voices of outrage to be heard.
Since Wednesday, we have been under vicious, unjustified attack, and the attacks have been intensifying.
Vicious. Perhaps you have not heard the news because the western news has not been reporting it. Perhaps you have seen the pictures because the western news is not printing the pictures (the media has access to the pictures, but is choosing not to print them).
See: www.angryarab.blogspot.com for some pictures. As for the attacks, the level of infrastructural damage exceeds that of the 1982 Israeli invasion:
Every airport has been attacked and rendered unfit for travel. The main airport (our only commerical airport) has been attacked several times over several days. The smaller military airports, none of which were in use for years, have also been attacked and rendered useless.
Every port from the south to the north has been attacked by the Israelis. For the first time, the port of Jounieh was bombed. (Which opens up the rather narrow question: how can the Americans, French, British, and Italians -- all of whom have called for the evacuation of their citizens -- evacuate their citizens?)
Several major gas stations and electrical stations have been destroyed. There is a rumor that every major gas station in the country is under threat.
The major bridges in the country have been destroyed. 64 to be exact. We are hesitant to cross over any bridge for the fear that it could be the next target.
The main arteries of the country have been destroyed -- from the south to the north. What does this mean? This means that travel between main cities *throughout Lebanon* is physically impossible. One cannot leave the country to Syria -- nor, and more importantly, can one move safely from one area to another, from one city to another, and, in the South, from one part of the village to another part of the village. There is only one main route that is still open (the highway from nothern Beirut to Tripoli), and since last night, Israel has been threatening to bomb the tunnel in Chekka, thus making it impossible to go - on the main road - from Jbeil/Byblos to the northern areas, and vice versa. (some basic geography of Lebanon, from the central Lebanon to the north, the main cities are: Beirut, Jounieh, Jbeil/Byblos, Batroun, Chekka, Tripoli. This besieging of villages is especially vicious in the South. The Israeli army has been calling upon villages in the South to evacuate yet they have destroyed the roads on which they can evacuate - so the message is clear: leave your homes and we will kill you, stay in your homes and we will kill you. They have done both.
What does all this mean?
Israel is attempting to scare the Lebanese into submission by forcing us to remain in the country and not "escape." This is terorism - in its purest form.
Israel is attempting to besiege every major community in the country, to isolate us so that eventually we will "surrender" when there is a lack of food and medicine and other basic necessities. Already, numerous villages and the major city of Sour/Tyre have spoken about the lack of basic goods.
Vicious. Yes. The Israeli acts of aggression have not been limited to infrastructure but have *deliberately* targeted civilians. Deliberately. Homes in the South have been deliberately targeted and attacked. How can we prove intent? Several ways. First: In open fields, the bombs have hit the homes and not the fields surrounding the homes. We have seen this kind of precision attacks during the 1996 Qana massacre, when the Israeli Offensive Forces bombed the areas in the UN compound in which the civilians were hiding and did not bomb the very close areas in which the UN staff were housed nor the trees that surrounded the compounds. Entire families, entire families, have been killed thus far in the South. In separate attacks, four families -- father, mother, and their children -- have been massacred. Their bodies torn apart. Their faces burned.
This is the Independent (UK)'s reporting on the first of the attacks: Israeli jets "came first to the little village of Dweir near Nabatiya in southern Lebanon where an Israeli plane dropped a bomb on to the home of a Shia Muslim cleric. He was killed. So was his wife. So were eight of his children. One was decapitated. All they could find of a baby was its head and torso which a young villager brandished in fury in front of the cameras. Then the planes visited another home in Dweir and disposed of a family of seven."
In a fifth attack, the Israeli terrorist forces bombed a building that was housing four families. No one survived. In another attack, a family -- after being told by the Israelis (through flyers that are dropped from their fighter planes) to evacuate -- went to the UN building for refuge. The UN threw them out. As they were leaving, their van was bombed. They were torn to pieces. Torn to pieces. See the pictures on www.angryarab.blogspot.com. See the pictures attached. These massacres have been continuing -- and these massacres, let us remember, are not unique in the history of Israeli aggression.
Vicious. Barbaric. Horrific. And Unjustified. Yes, unjustified. Let us remember: attacks by the Israeli Offensive Forces on the Lebanese border did not begin this Wednesday with the apprehending of two Israeli soldiers. For more than the past month, the Israeli army has been conducting live ammunition training on the border. Lebanese shepherds have been killed. The response from the "international community"? Silence. Let us remember: Israel continues to imprison Lebanese in their jails, and the call from Hezbollah has been clear for years: Hezbollah will work for their release. Lebanese are not the only ones held in Israeli jails; there are thousands of Arab prisoners. And in contrast to the incorrect reporting by The Guardian (UK), Hassan Narsallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, stated quite clearly that Hezbollah will use these 2 Israeli soldiers for negotiation and he did not specify the conditions; he did NOT say that he will release these soldiers only upon the release of all Arab prisoners in Israel. Let us also remember: Israel has refused to submit a map of the 400,000 land mines that it deliberately left in South Lebanon, and these mines regularly kill Lebanese children.
Regardless if one agrees with the action of Hezbollah or not, regardless if one views Hezbollah's action as a reaction or a provacation, regardless: the attacks by Israel are clearly not proportional. Furthermore, while Hezbollah has kidnapped soldiers, the Israeli army has been deliberately attacking civilians and imposing an illegal and terrorist collective punishment on the country as a whole. "[Israeli] Brigadier General Dan Halutz said: 'Nowhere is safe [in Lebanon] ... as simple as that.' "(From the Guardian (UK))
So, once again, I appeal to you. We are all expecting the situation to worsen in Lebanon. We are all expecting more massacres and more destruction to Lebanon's basic infrastructure.
** People have protested in Australia and in Germany. Protest in the United States, as well! Protest in solidarity with the Lebanese people -- who are standing united in the face of this aggression. The division is from the politicians, but not from the people. Protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people -- who have been standing strong for decades in the face of Israeli aggression. We Americans, you Americans, have a particular responsibility: these weapons that are being used to massacre and destroy are paid for by US taxpayer dollars, and supported by George Bush and an acquiscent Congress.
** Share these pictures with your local press. Meet with your local press and talk to them about what is happening in Lebanon. See: www.electroniclebanon.net for updates. Call for fair reporting. The Lebanese people being killed have names and faces. (I will share with you detailed stories as I gather them.)
** Call your Congressional representative and demand an immediate, unconditional end to Israeli aggression.
One more note to you all: In my constant calls to friends in the South, I have been hearing the same comment: We are strong. We are resilient. We will be victorious. This strenth of spirit is what our strongest weapon of resistance.
Rania Masri rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb
El Koura, Lebanon
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Editorial: Israel's Terrorism
by Gabriel Ash
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 18, 2006
The Middle East is boiling over yet again. Israel is resorting to the one strategy it has perfected since the day it was created, murdering civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure.
The Israeli defense doctrine, old as Israel itself, considers bombing of civilian targets a means for pressuring "militants" and uncooperative governments. So Israel bombs bridges and villages in South Lebanon, power plants in Gaza, orchards, fields, schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, beach barbecue parties, etc. Everything is a legitimate target. Israeli ministers announce publicly that their chief strategy is to cause civilian suffering. Every day sees its Guernica, and the U.N., which proudly displays a reproduction of the painting, is mum in the face of a hundred Guernicas.
To be clear, Israel's actions fit the very definition of terrorism. Doubly so now, since the bombing campaign is a response to attacks on Israeli soldiers, not civilians. The ever more morally bankrupt "international community" sees nothing, hears nothing, and says nothing. Don't take my word for it. An aide of the Israeli PM said recently: "We are acting there [in Gaza] in an unprecedented manner; we're firing hundreds of artillery shells, attacking from the air, sea and land and the world remains silent."
Having been so encouraged by the world's indifference to the bombing of Gaza, Israel is giving Lebanon the same murderous treatment. Putin and Chirac have managed to assemble some moderate testiness. The rest of the world called for "restraint." When the mission statement is to exact revenge and kill civilians, what's restraint?
According to the EU, Hamas has to renounce violence to become a "responsible government." And Hizbullah has to release the captured soldiers. The Israeli government, on the other hand, although responsible for an unending campaign of terrorism, need not renounce violence, nor release any of its political prisoners. The brotherhood of money and white skin is proving again to be thicker than blood.
Hizbullah's intervention proved again it is the only power that wouldn't stay silent in the face of Israeli barbarism. Since Israel recognizes neither international laws nor international borders, there was nothing morally wrong in Hizbullah's fighters crossing the border into Israel to raid a military patrol. Israel should not enjoy the defense of principles it doesn't respect. With its latest raid, Hizbullah consolidated its position as the leading popular voice in the Middle East, displaying tactical brilliance, solidarity, and a refusal to be bribed or cowered that is putting the rest of the world -- the Arab puppet governments as well as Europe's hypocrites -- to shame. To boot, Hizbullah is also putting to shame other Muslim radicals, most notably the Iraqi thugs and Al-Qaeda, both by successfully raiding legitimate military targets and by feeding a broad popular consensus that cuts across the Sunni-Shia divide.
However, courage and legitimacy aside, it is anybody's guess whether the leadership of Hizbullah foresaw that Israel would go postal and open a full-blown air war against Lebanon, shooting civilians in cars like ducks. If they did not, they were certainly shortsighted, and if they did, they were reckless.
Nevertheless, it is far from clear who wins when the dust settles. While guaranteed to suffer severe damage, Hizbullah still has the odds on its side. When Israel invaded Lebanon for the umpteenth time, government officials announced that Israel's goal was nothing less than the disarming of Hizbullah and the setting of "new rules of the game." That pronouncement sounds awfully reminiscent of Sharon's stated goal for invading Lebanon in 1982, to create "a new order in Lebanon." What are the chances that Olmert will have better success than Sharon? Slim. Hizbullah will nor disarm willfully. Who will disarm it? There are three candidates, and none of them looks too promising.
Israel: Israel can re-occupy Lebanon. That would certainly be a setback to Hizbullah, which would lose men, installations, and freedom of operation. But can Israel destroy Hizbullah? Note that Israel is unable to destroy Hamas, a much weaker organization, on a much smaller territory. No matter how much violence it used, Israel couldn't prevent Hamas from launching rockets and gaining popularity. Will Israel be more successful in Lebanon?
The "International Community": One could see France and the U.S. occupying Lebanon, probably under the guise of some invitation from the Christian minority, or a call for U.N. "peacekeeping" a la Haiti. Assuming Western powers are stupid (or cornered) enough to take the bait, can they achieve in Lebanon what Israel, with a lot more commitment, couldn't? A Western occupation of Lebanon is likely to turn the whole Middle East into one long crusaders vs. Muslims crescent. Does the West have the stomach for that? Does it have a reasonable chance of winning?
The "Cedar Revolution": The most promising alternative, for the West, is to empower some local stooges that would rule the new Lebanon colony for Western and Israeli interests. That is the West's favorite strategy, currently tried in many places around the globe. But Shiites are a poor, radical, bitter and armed majority in Lebanon. It would take more than a few Starbucks customers to subdue them. The anti-Hizbullah coalition is small and weak. Its unity is doubtful and its willingness to fight far from evident. Hizbullah, on the other hand, will have not only well-disciplined cadres and massive popular support, but also the support of Syria and Iran.
Israel could seek to cause as much damage as possible to Hizbullah's infrastructure with aerial assaults, then call it victory. But the blow to Hizbullah would not be enough to put an end to its operations, probably leaving Olmert in the unpleasant position of having to declare impotence. Hence the scenario of a full-blown war is extremely plausible. Such a war will eventually involve an Israeli invasion seeking to severely weakens Hizbullah, followed by an international peacekeeping force that replaces Israel and nurtures a government of Lebanese collaborators. In the rosiest scenario that government eventually gains the ability to repress the majority of the Lebanese population with only Western financial support. At that point the "peacekeepers" withdraw and Lebanon joins the dubious fraternity of Egypt and Jordan, safe Western puppet regimes.
A not-so-slight complication of this classic colonial scenario is the fact that Hizbullah is not an isolated resistance movement; rather it enjoys the international support of Iran and Syria, as well as strong ties with the Iraqi Shia militias, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, in the context of a growing resource conflict between the superpowers, Iran could eventually receive covert support from Russia and/or China, in ways reminiscent of the support the Afghani Mujahaddin (and Bin Laden) received from the U.S. Thus, a successful repression of Hizbullah is likely to require at some point dealing a severe blow to Syria and Iran, and such a blow could require a proxy war between the U.S., Russia and China.
To put it differently, the Israel-Hizbullah war can remain contained, or it can end in a decisive manner. But it cannot both remain contained and end in a decisive manner.
(In light of this, one must read skeptically Western editorials calling on Israel to exercise caution, avoid overreaching and limit itself to targeting Hizbullah only are a miserable attempt to defend Israel while keeping up the pretense of opposing the targeting of civilians. The fact is the "collateral damage" is not a result of Israel's failure to "minimize the damage to civilian bystanders." Since Israel can only achieve its aims by widening the scope of the war and forcing other parties to get involved, "damage to civilians" is not a by-product but the core of Israel's strategy of escalation. The longer other parties fail to get involved, the more civilians will die. The New York Times is right that such indiscriminate murder strengthens Hamas and Hizbullah, but the problem is not one that Israel can rectify by changing its tactics. The problem is Israel itself and its true goals.)
The long war scenario, which is the only scenario that has a slightest chance of achieving Israel's goal of disarming Hizbullah, is similar to what the U.S. strategy in Iraq, where success is getting ever more elusive. It is also similar to the original Sharon plan for Lebanon in 1982, which failed. Why would this scenario be more successful in today's Lebanon? Odds are that it won't. But there are good reasons to believe that it will be tried. Three reasons, to be precise:
First, the post-colonial Western imagination is limited. This scenario is the well-understood way of dealing with subject populations in troubled corners of the world. It worked many times in the past, and even if its effectiveness is on a downward curve, there isn't any alternative short of giving up power and compromising.
Second, even if final success is elusive, war buys time, for Israel as well as for the U.S., for the politicians as well as for the interests they represents. For the latter, losing in a decade is still better than compromising today. Raymond Aaron called politics "the art of making things last." That holds true even when what is being made to last is misery.
Third, in international politics it is often true that "it's not the destination that counts, it's the journey." For many Israeli and American interests, war has value, in some cases hard cash value, regardless of final outcome.
One aspect of the intrinsic value of war is that both the leaders and the public in Israel truly believe that all Arabs will surrender if enough force is applied. It never worked. But that racism is too deep to be inconvenienced by facts. The second Lebanon war won't be the first war fought for the sake of maintaining illusions.
Israeli PM Olmert and DM Peretz are both lacking in the most important social capital in Israel, military rank. They therefore need to prove -- to the public was well as to themselves -- that their manhood is the longest in the Middle East; (in Israel this is called "deterrence.") Within the Macho culture Israeli leaders have cultivated for decades, justice and compromise are for sissies. Real men murder civilians. The government has therefore little choice but to escalate the military conflict or risk losing its political credibility.
The Israeli Military, which pushed for the recent escalation in both Gaza and Lebanon, taking advantage of the weakness of the political echelon, itches for war. At stake is repairing the psychological damage than "asymmetric warfare" inflicts on the Israeli military (Ilan Pappe, "What Does Israel Want") But beyond psychology, there are also crucial economic interests. Israel was in the middle of a debate over military expenditures, which the latest budget would cut significantly. The new war will certainly serve as the needed excuse for canceling or otherwise evading the cuts.
Beyond the tangible budget numbers, there is the central position of the army, and the economic interests behind it, within Israeli economy and politics. The stalemate in Gaza and the Hamas's electoral victory are revealing the hollow core of Israel's military dominance, Israel's inability to reduce Palestinians to a hopeless and obedient subject population. Escalation masks this fatal weakness because Israel is undoubtedly the more powerful party. As long as fighting goes on, Israel has the upper hand, its army looks powerful, and above all, useful. The moment the fighting ends, the limits of military power reassert themselves. Continuing military escalation therefore protects the military establishment and Israel's war economy from internal challenges.
Finally, Israel has no hope of a decisive outcome without the U.S. fully backing it against Iran. And while there are many sane voices calling for the U.S. to dissociate itself from Israel and seek a diplomatic compromise with Iran, there are also powerful U.S. interests itching for a global war. The neo-conservative argument is that a global war is necessary for the maintenance of U.S. dominance, not only in the face of rising local challenges such as Iran, but also to curb the rise of China as a global force. (as an aside, I tend to agree that war is necessary to U.S. global dominance. I doubt however that it is also sufficient.) And behind the neo-cons' arguments loom the interests of the U.S. military-industrial-complex. Incidentally, the U.S. economy seems to be moving towards a potentially dangerous recession. While this is still early, there should be no doubt that as the U.S. economy deteriorates, the economic appeal of military conflict will increase.
Given his low poll numbers and public dissatisfaction with Iraq, Bush is probably unable to initiate a war against Iran. The generals are opposed and the GOP is likely to be hammered in the mid-term elections. But if the war is initiated by Israel and the U.S. is perceived to be "dragged" into it unwillingly, Bush and the GOP would benefit again from the popular glow of patriotism that war baths leaders in; Especially given that Democrats will not criticize a war fought "to protect Israel," whose crony capitalists, like Haim Saban, pay for their election campaigns. An Israeli escalation in Lebanon can therefore serve as the necessary trigger for a global conflict that U.S. neo-cons desire.
A larger war will thus serve the short-term interests of the leadership in both Israel and the U.S. It may delay their inevitable decline, but chances are it won't restore their power. Both have reached the double climax of military power and loathsomeness, a point at which they can win any war, but can impose no peace. Since the Islamist leaders of Hamas and Hizbullah tend to take the long view of history, whereas the leaders of the U.S. and Israel are driven mostly by concern for the near future of corporate balance sheets, an escalating conflict might just give both sides the kind of victory they most crave.
One wished that saner voices prevailed; the slide towards war can be stopped by determined international pressure on Israel to accept a ceasefire. That would save many lives, but it will also be a blow to Israeli and U.S. dominance. Therefore, unfortunately, help is definitely not on its way. The people of Lebanon are now being taught a lesson many of them had wanted to forget, that their only defense against their psychopathic southern neighbor is bigger and badder weapons. Rest assured that the lesson will be learned, and that bigger and badder weapons will be used, perhaps against Israel, perhaps half a globe away. Nothing breeds murderers better than silence in the face of murder. Israel's unquenchable bloodlust was forged in the furnaces of the holocaust and galvanized by the silence of the world. Bin Laden said he was inspired to blow the Twin Towers by the sight of Beirut burning in 1982, "and the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond." Who knows whom and to what the latest mayhem will inspire. There is no real justice in this ever-unfolding sickness, but for those who are content with the poetic kind of justice, there is a plenty.
* * * *
Perhaps a liberal rephrasing of Robert Frost can sum up the stakes:
Some say world domination ends in fire, Some say in ice. From knowing Olmert's and Bush's desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if our leaders go for ice, I think they are enough despised, so that for their destruction ice, is also great, and would suffice.
Gabriel Ash is an activist and writer who writes because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword and sometimes not. He welcomes comments at: g.a.evildoer@gmail.com.
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Editorial: Photo of the day: Israeli kids sends gifts of love to Arab kids
Sabbah's Blog
17. July 2006
Photo caption: Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
Dear Lebanese/Palestinian/Arab/Muslim/Christians - Kids,
Die with love.
Yours,
Israeli Kids*
Hate, disgust, extreme.... I don't know what word can describe these photos.
And they say that we are teaching our kids hate to Israelis!
Thank you, Israel kids, we received your gifts. See...
*PS. The above message is imaginary. It is not what I see written on the bombs (although it might be written on some but we can't see), it is just what this entire thing means. The girls might be signing the bombs to be send to Nasrallah and Hezbollah, but the bomb are falling on civilian heads, not Nasrallh!
Original
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Editorial: I am not making this up
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Angry Arab News Service
I am not making this up. Upon learning of the Israeli massacres of Marwahin, Rumaylah, Duwayr, etc in South Lebanon, the White House took a stand. Today, it called on Syria to stop the aggression.
Original
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Editorial: "The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel": Israel's Shameful attack on Gaza
July 18, 2006
By MIKE WHITNEY
CounterPunch
"We are sure that Israel is using a new chemical or radioactive weapon in their operation...When we try to X-ray dead bodies, we find no trace of shrapnel that hit the person killed." Dr. al-Saqqa, Shifa hospital, Gaza; following the examination of the "completely burnt" bodies of dead Palestinians killed in Israeli air raid.
Question: How many editorials or op-ed columns have appeared in American newspapers defending the rights of Palestinian civilians to live in peace without the constant threat of being invaded or shelled by the world's forth largest military?
None.
How many editorials or op-ed columnists have defended the Geneva Conventions or international laws against collective punishment, the willful destruction of critical infrastructure, or military maneuvers that deliberately put civilians in imminent danger?
None.
Then how many editorials or op-ed columnists have presented the recent flurry of events (including the capture of Israeli soldier Galid Shalit) in the broader context of Israel's ongoing boycott of food and medical supplies, as well as the 50 or so Palestinian civilians who have been killed in Israel's regular incitements in the occupied territories?
None.
The account of Palestinian suffering and victim-hood rarely finds its way into the mainstream press, but in the present case, it has been completely ignored. In fact, none of the media provide any context for the current invasion at all. Israel's blockade of food and lethal provocations have been going on for months, and yet, the accounts from Gaza would have the reader believe that history began on the day that the Israeli soldier was captured.
Sure, if the reader wants a balanced perspective, he can go to the internet and choose from the many articles which provide the Israeli or Palestinian perspective of events, but the mainstream media?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
The bias has grown into such an impenetrable cloud of pro-Israeli rubbish that it's laughable. In fact, its more likely to stumble across the random article lambasting Bush or Cheney than anything remotely critical of Israel.
There's no debate about the facts of Israel's brutal siege of Gaza. The only thing in dispute is the way those facts are skewed in the American media. Pick up the New York Times and you would swear it was edited by Ariel Sharon. There's not even an attempt at evenhandedness; just the foolish ruminations of scribes who think they can spin war crimes into hard-hitting journalism.
Israel has been pummeling Gaza for months; intentionally starving the beleaguered occupants while lobbing 6,000 artillery shells into populated areas. Isn't that front page news?
Meanwhile, another 50 civilians have been bumped-off in gangland-style hits ("Targeted assassinations") authorized by the Knesset's newest Mafia Don, Ehud Olmert. Olmert has put the carnage and destruction into high-gear eliciting criticism from his very own daughter who protested in front of her father's home with signs that said, "Stop the Killing" among other things.
The Israelis have developed "sound machines" that emit ear-piercing explosions that have been deployed in Gaza City to shatter windows, cause miscarriages, and send children into deep trauma. It is a "terror device" pure and simple; it has no other function except to produce massive fear and anxiety. It is the latest weapon in the prodigious arsenal of the "world's most moral army" (Olmert quote)
So why can't we get the real scoop about Israel's depredations in the territories or, at the very least, an occasional article providing a differing point of view? Is that too much to ask?
Simply put, anyone who believes this nonsense about "the poor abducted soldier" who fell prey to Hamas terrorists is a fool. The soldier is part of an illegal occupation which has been condemned in countless UN resolutions and which makes him a legitimate target in the struggle for national liberation. Since his capture, he has received medical attention and, my guess is, he probably hasn't been tortured or abused at all. (which certainly would not be the case if he was captured by Israeli or American forces)
So, who're the terrorists here anyway?
Newly elected Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been calling for calm and restraint throughout the entire 14 day ordeal. In fact, Haniyeh has made repeated appeals to the militants to release the soldier unharmed even while "Olmert the barbarian" was rampaging through Gaza blowing up roads, electric power plants, water lines, and, yes, even schools.
Schools, for God's sakes. That's just flat nuts!
If Israel had any sense they'd dump Olmert the madman and appoint Haniyeh as Prime Minister. So far, he's the only one who has emerged from this mess looking like a reasonable fellow. (Note: Israel continues to threaten his life.)
Anyway, don't expect objectivity from the American "free press". I had to search through the Arab media just to find out that the UN was sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza to report on "Israel's grave rights violations". Don't you think that the American people would like to know that little tidbit?
Or, that UN special-rapporteur, John Dugard is headed off to Gaza to investigate the Israeli military's "disproportionate use of force against civilians". Dugard said, "It is clear that Israel is in violation of the most fundamental norms of humanitarian law and human rights."
His comments have not appeared in any American newspaper.
Wouldn't the American people want to know how far removed their government is from the prevailing opinion of other countries?
Sure they would, but don't expect the media to tell them.
The American public has no idea the effect this invasion has had on the Muslim world; the mass demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Tehran, Doha etc. They haven't heard the anger ring-out at the United Nations or the world leaders who are sick and tired of the US defending Israel's heavy-handed tactics.
The average American has no idea that Israel is keeping over 9,000 prisoners locked up without charges and that over 400 of them are woman and children.
What the hell are they doing with children anyway? It's an outrage.
It's pretty clear that Israel would never get away with its crimes against humanity if it didn't have a trustworthy friend in the American media. The streetwalking western press gave Bush a free pass on his Iraqi bloodbath; now they're abetting Israel in its terror-crusade in Gaza.
It's shameful.
Original
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Editorial: The origins of 'eliminationism'
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Dave Neiwert
Orcinus
Well, since this blog is the first entry in a Google search of the term "eliminationism," I suppose I'm going to have to take some ownership of it. And I'll gladly do so, because its increasing appearance in right-wing rhetoric is indeed an important phenomenon.
But I will be the first to point out that I didn't invent the term. I first encountered it in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's text Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, where it appears extensively and plays a central role in his thesis that "eliminationist antisemitism" had a unique life in German culture and eventually was the driving force behind the Holocaust.
A word about Goldhagen: In the ensuing debate over his thesis, I found myself falling more in the Christopher Browning camp, which doubted that "eliminationist antisemitism" was quite as pervasive as Goldhagen portrayed it, and that, moreover, it was as unique to Germany as he described it. Having some background of familiarity with the history of American eliminationism (particularly the "lynching era" and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the "Yellow Peril" agitation and the subsequent internment of Japanese Americans during World War II), I agreed especially with the latter point.
That said, Hitler's Willing Executioners is an important and impressive piece of scholarship, particularly in the extent to which it catalogues the willing participation of the "ordinary" citizenry in so many murderous acts, as well as in the hatemongering that precipitated them. And his identification of "eliminationism" as a central impulse of the Nazi project was not only borne out in spades by the evidence, but was an important insight into the underlying psychology of fascism.
Reexamining the text, it's hard to find a single point at which Goldhagen explains precisely the meaning of "eliminationist," except that it is spelled out in nearly every page of the book's first hundred pages (Part I is titled "Understanding German Antisemitism: The Eliminationist Mind-set"). Probably the closest I can come to a distillation of the concept appears on p. 69:
- The eliminationist mind-set that characterized virtually all who spoke out on the "Jewish Problem" from the end of the eighteenth century onward was another constant in Germans' thinking about Jews. For Germany to be properly ordered, regulated, and, for many, safeguarded, Jewishness had to be eliminated from German society. What "elimination" -- in the sense of successfully ridding Germany of Jewishness -- meant, and the manner in which this was to be done, was unclear and hazy to many, and found no consensus during the period of modern German antisemitism. But the necessity of the elimination of Jewishness was clear to all. It followed from the conception of the Jews as alien invaders of the German body social. If two people are conceived of as binary opposites, with the qualities of goodness inhering in one people, and those of evil in the other, then the exorcism of that evil from the shared social and temporal space, by whatever means, would be urgent, an imperative. "The German Volk," asserted one antisemite before the midpoint of the century, "needs only to topple the Jew" in order to become "united and free."
Of course, I'm struck in that passage by how easily one could replace "Jewishness" with "liberalism" and "liberals" in much of the current environment -- as well as a number of other targets for right-wing elimination, particularly illegal immigrants.'
I'm planning to write more on the subject soon, but I've noted previously that the eliminationist project is in many ways the signature of fascism, partly because it proceeds naturally from fascism's embrace of palingenesis, or Phoenix-like national rebirth, as its core myth. And I've also noted that eliminationist rhetoric has consistently preceded, and heralded, the eventual assumption of the eliminationist project.
This is the case not merely in Europe, but in America as well. Perhaps more germane in terms of our current milieu, eliminationism has a long and colorful -- and ultimately, shameful -- history in this country.
Halfwits and propagandists who assure us that it can't happen here are ignoring that, in fact, it has. It's buried in our hard-wiring. And the modern American right is doing its damnedest to bring it back to life.
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WWIII Part 1
New blasts rock Beirut
Last Updated Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:12:39 EDT
CBC News
At least three loud blasts were reported Tuesday night near Beirut's airport, as Israel and Hezbollah traded air strikes and rocket attacks in the region for a seventh day.
In another development, Israel took action on a second front, sending tanks into the Gaza Strip.
It's not clear what targets were hit in Beirut or whether there were any casualties.
As many as 32 people, including 31 in Lebanon and one in Israel, died Tuesday in the day's fighting.
Rockets launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah militants killed one person in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, while other rockets struck Haifa, Israel's third-largest city.
Israeli warplanes bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut, considered a Hezbollah stronghold, while nine members of a family were killed in an air strike in the village of Aitaroun, according to Lebanese officials.
Ten others were killed in other attacks in the south and the Bekaa Valley.
Israeli warplanes also fired missiles at an army base in the area of Kfar Chima as soldiers were heading for bomb shelters, Lebanese security officials said. Eleven soldiers were reportedly killed and 30 wounded.
The officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the base took a direct hit. The base has a unit that focuses on logistics and military engineering.
A man driving a truck carrying medical supplies from the United Arab Emirates was also killed.
Tanks move into Gaza
Late Tuesday, Israel said its tanks had moved into the Mughazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
No casualties have been reported and it's not clear how long the operation might last.
Palestinian militants have been holding an Israeli soldier since June 25, when he was taken following a raid on an Israeli military post inside Israel.
Israel amassed tanks and troops along the Gaza border three days after Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, was seized.
Israeli planes have hit a number of Palestinian targets, including the Hamas offices and power stations, cutting off electricity to some of the 1.2 million people in the disputed territory.
Most of the victims are civilians
The violence in Lebanon has killed more than 200 people in Lebanon and at least 25 Israelis, most of them civilians. A family of eight Canadians visiting Lebanon was killed on Sunday.
Israel's military operation was triggered when the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militants attacked an Israeli army post, killing eight soldiers and seizing two more.
Along with its aerial assault, Israel has imposed a sea blockade to isolate Hezbollah and Lebanon.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said his country would continue its offensive against Lebanon until its captured soldiers are released and Hezbollah stops launching rockets at Israeli towns and cities.
CBC's Laurie Graham reported Tuesday from Jerusalem that the Hezbollah rockets seem to be travelling a greater distance than before, raising fears about the range of the militant group's weapons.
She described Haifa as "really a community under siege," adding: "People there are feeling very nervous and very anxious. They don't know when the rockets will hit. They don't know if they are going to get hit."
Graham reported she has found support for the actions of the Israeli government.
"The people I have spoken to are feeling very determined," she said.
"They want to know how long this war is going to last and what would be victory. They are supportive of the government."
Two soldiers were killed when the militants dug under the border.
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Israeli jets hit central Beirut
Wednesday 19 July 2006, 17:30 Makka Time, 14:30 GMT
Israeli jets have hit central Beirut for the first time and dozens more people have been killed in continuing air attacks across south Lebanon, raising the toll there to about 295 people.
A truck in al-Ashrafiya district in central Beirut was struck by fire from an Israeli warship on Wednesday, the first time that central Beirut city had been hit.
Aljazeera's correspondent, Katia Nasir, reported that air raids had killed more than 55 people and destroyed much in the south during the day.
The fighting has killed about 295 people in Lebanon and 25 Israelis, mostly civilians.
In al-Srifa, at least 15 houses were completely demolished, the head of al-Srifa town municipality told Aljazeera.
News reports said at least 12 villagers, including several children, were killed and 30 wounded.
Afif Najdi, the mayor, said there had been a "massacre committed in Srifa".
"There are dozens dead and massive destruction. Emergency services are putting out fires [but] they cannot reach the houses to recover bodies," he said.
At least 29 other civilians were killed in air raids on other parts of south and east Lebanon, security sources said. Hezbollah said one of its fighters was killed in the fighting.
Ahmed Fatfat, the Lebanese acting interior minister, said Israel was trying to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, not just defeat Hezbollah. "Are they turning it into a second Iraq?" he asked.
Red Cross hit
The International Red Cross told Aljazeera that they could not reach areas in Selaa town because of the destruction and road closures.
In al-Ansariya, a Red Cross centre was hit by an air raid, injuring a medic, Red Cross sources told Aljazeera.
A car in Tyre was hit, injuring seven people, the correspondent said, and in al-Nabatiya, two woman and three children were killed in their house.
Another Aljazeera correspondent in Lebanon, Basam al-Qadiri, reported that Israel had struck a house in Maarabun town, near Baalbek, killing five civilians.
Another strike hit al-Nabishit area near Baalbek damaging a two-storey building, killing and injuring people, he added.
Israeli warplanes also struck Luci town in west Bekaa.
A base of the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Bekaa was also hit, the PFLP said. The guerrilla group gave no word on casualties.
Beirut's international airport, which was forced to closed last Thursday, was also targeted again. Two missiles struck the runway but no casualties were reported.
"The intensive fighting against the Hezbollah organisation shall continue," Israel's inner cabinet said, adding that it was to get back the soldiers and remove the group's threat.
Israeli troops crossed the border to attack Hezbollah positions, and the group's al-Manar TV said two soldiers had been killed and two wounded. Hezbollah officials said that one of their fighters had been killed.
Military officials said Israeli troops crossed the border in search of tunnels and weapons.
Israeli medics said earlier two Israeli soldiers had been wounded in the fighting.
Two Israeli civilians were killed when a rocket hit a house in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth, military spokesman said
Hezbollah has fired more than 70 rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday.
The group said it had also hit an air force base at Ramat David, about 35km inside Israel.
The Israeli military dismissed the report.
Israel said on Wednesday that its air strikes had destroyed "about 50%" of Hezbollah's arsenal.
The conflict has forced about 100,000 Lebanese to flee from their homes and many foreign citizens to evacuate.
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Israeli air raids kill 57
Wed Jul 19, 2006
Reuters
Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed 56 civilians and a Hizbollah fighter on Wednesday, the deadliest toll of the eight-day-old war, as thousands of villagers fled north and more foreigners were evacuated.
Israeli troops crossed the border to raid Hizbollah posts and Hizbollah television said three Israeli soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in clashes with the Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas.
Israeli medics said earlier two Israeli soldiers had been wounded in the fighting. The army had no immediate comment. Security sources in Lebanon said the clashes occurred during one of three cross-border incursions by Israeli forces.
More Hizbollah rockets fell on the Israeli city of Haifa and one hit an empty seafront restaurant. A few people were hurt.
Hizbollah said it had also rocketed an Israeli air force base at Ramat David, about 35 km (22 miles) inside Israel, and the town of Nahariya. The Israeli army said no base was hit.
Despite international diplomatic efforts, there was no sign Israel or its Lebanese Shi'ite foes were ready to heed the Beirut government's pleas for an immediate halt to a war that has cost at least 292 lives in Lebanon and 25 in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment would last "as long as necessary" to free two soldiers captured by Hizbollah guerrillas on July 12 and ensure the Shi'ite Muslim group is disarmed.
Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, wants to swap the two Israeli soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinians in Israeli jails.
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Israeli army crosses Lebanese border
Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 06:22:52 EDT
CBC News
Israel continued its offensive against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Wednesday, with warplanes dropping bombs on Beirut and in the south and troops going over the border to search for tunnels and weapons.
At the same time on Wednesday, Israeli cabinet ministers held an emergency meeting in Jerusalem. They have not yet released a statement on the outcome of the meeting.
The fighting between Israel and the radical Islamic group Hezbollah, which entered its eighth day on Wednesday, has claimed the lives of at least 240 people in Lebanon and 25 in Israel.
The Israeli military said Wednesday it has sent troops just inside southern Lebanon to search for tunnels and weapons and launched several air strikes on Wednesday.
Among the latest casualties, according to news reports, are four members of a family and their maid in a southern Lebanese town, killed in an air strike aimed at offices used by Hezbollah.
And in a village in the south, near the city of Tyre, Israeli air strikes flattened 15 houses. Rescue crews searched for victims of the air strikes Wednesday.
In Beirut, Israel hit the southern half of the city. Residents heard a series of explosions.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continued Wednesday as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
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Israeli tanks move into Gaza refugee camp
AP
July 18, 2006
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli tanks began moving into the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza early Wednesday under cover of machine gun fire from troops.
The Israeli military confirmed that an operation was in progress.
The camp is near the Gaza-Israel fence across from the Palestinian town of Deir al-Balah. Israeli forces operated in the region late last week before withdrawing.
The incursion was preceded by several hours of tank movements on the Israeli side, as well as exchanges of fire between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. Palestinian officials said a Hamas militant was seriously wounded.
Israel began a large-scale operation in Gaza on June 28, three days after Hamas-lined militants tunneled under the border and attacked an Israeli army base at a Gaza crossing, killing two soldiers and capturing a third.
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Palestinians die in Israeli raids
Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 09:25 GMT 10:25 UK
At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Under heavy gunfire Israeli tanks entered Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip before dawn.
At least six Palestinians, including a number of militants, were killed in the latest incursion in a three-week operation in Gaza by the Israelis.
Later, three Palestinians were shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian sources said.
Civilians are among the dozens of Palestinians who have died in the Israeli assault on Gaza, launched after an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinian militants.
Many injured
The Israeli army said five of its soldiers were injured in the operation, which saw some 30 Israeli armoured vehicles in the camp by sunrise, residents told the Associated Press news agency.
Israel is also reported to have carried out air strikes on the camp.
An army spokeswoman said the operation aimed "to target terror infrastructure" in the camp, "as part of the ongoing effort in which one of its main targets is getting back [captured Israeli Cpl] Gilad Shalit and stop the launching of Qassam rockets," news agency AFP reported.
At least 45 Palestinians, including children, were wounded, Palestinian hospital officials said.
According to Israel Radio, Israel is also shelling sites in Gaza which were used to launch Qassam rockets over into the western Negev on Tuesday evening.
Israel launched its military offensive in the Gaza Strip three weeks ago after Cpl Shalit was abducted by militants linked to Hamas's military wing.
Its Gaza assault prompted international calls for restraint, but a UN resolution urging Israel to stop the offensive was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council last week.
Nablus 'arrests'
In its raid on Nablus, soldiers surrounded a security building in a bid to capture militants apparently hiding inside.
Three Palestinians died in exchanges of fire with the troops, who reportedly used megaphones to demand those inside the building come out.
Dozens of Palestinians were then arrested, reports said.
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Hostages and history
July 18, 2006 12:20 PM
Dilip Hiro
Since it came into being to resist Lebanon's occupation by Israel after its June 1982 invasion, Hizbullah has a long history of taking hostages and using them as bargaining chips to achieve its political aims. After breaking away from the earlier Shia group called Amal, its leaders formed close links with the contingent of 2,000 Revolutionary Guards sent by Iran to fight the Israeli invaders, from its base in Baalbekin eastern Lebanon.
As Hizbullah escalated its guerrilla attacks on Israel in southern Lebanon its military aid from Tehran increased, with Syria acting as the conduit. Through its (domestic) Martyrs Foundation, Iran sent funds to Hizbullah to provide health, education and other public services to the Shia community which, forming two-fifths of the national population is the largest sectarian group in Lebanon.
Hizbullah assisted Iran by taking western, especially American, hostages (under such labels as the Organization of the Oppressed of the Earth) on the basis that their captivity would inhibit US military intervention in the Iran-Iraq War on the Iraqi side. It also used American hostages as a means to secure US-made weapons, clandestinely, for Iran which had been equipped with such arms before the 1979 revolution.
After the end of the Lebanese civil war in October 1990, Hizbullah fighters moved to the area adjacent to the Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon. In late 1991 a three-way swap - involving 450 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners, seven dead or captured Israeli soldiers, and the remaining Western hostages - ended this phase of Hizbullah's hostage-taking.
Steadily, it increased its attacks on the Israeli and its surrogate South Lebanon army targets, pushing the total to 1,200 in 1998. Unable to bear the pressure, Israel withdraw unconditionally from southern Lebanon in May 2000, except from the disputed Shebaa Farms.
Soon after the start of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, Hizbullah abducted a former Israeli colonel from inside Israel. Following tortuous negotiations, in January 2004 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon exchanged 436 Lebanese prisoners and 59 corpses of Lebanese soldiers for one Israeli hostage and three corpses of Israeli soldiers.
At the last minute Sharon held back three prominent Lebanese detainees. Since then Hizbullah has talked about getting them released by abducting Israeli soldiers. A recent poll showed that more Lebanese were interested in their release than settling the dispute about the Shebaa Farm with Israel.
Hizbullah's secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah claims that the leadership had been planning the abduction of Israeli soldiers for five months. Nonetheless, the flare-up has come at a time when Iran is under international pressure on its nuclear issue. So mayhem and diversions in the region suit Tehran. They also provide a foretaste of what would follow if Israel or America were to mount their threatened "pinpoint" strikes at Iran's nuclear and military facilities.
Yet, despite repeated Israeli and American claims that Iran and Syria are behind Hizbullah's moves, no solid evidence has emerged. That is what led French President Jacques Chirac to say that "I have the feeling, if not the conviction, that Hamas and Hizbullah would not have taken the initiative alone."
Quite simply, the alliance between Hizbullah and Iran and Syria is informal, not institutional. It is part of a broad anti-Washington, anti-Tel Aviv front led by Tehran in an international context where the legitimacy of the United Nations Security Council has collapsed in the Arab and Muslim world.
Washington's vetoing of the Qatari resolution at the Security Council - which condemned Israel for "disproportionate use of force", called for the release of the Israeli prisoner and urged the Palestinians to stop firing rockets at Israel - which won 10 votes, with four abstentions, was a glaring example of its denigration of the highest authority on international security.
"The situation in Lebanon and Palestine is a test for international organizations who claim to be defenders of human rights," said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Keeping silent won't solve any problems."
Those who now invoke Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2004, passed by the minimum requirement of nine votes, calling on all Lebanese militias to disarm, lack moral authority. They should remember that Israel defied Security Council Resolution 425 of March 1978 demanding its unconditional withdrawal from Lebanon for 22 years.
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'Lebanon crisis an international conspiracy'
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
Tuesday 18 July 2006, 20:49 Makka Time, 17:49 GMT
The Israeli-Hezbollah conflict threatens to drag Syria, Iran and the US into a regional war.
As'ad AbuKhalil, author of Bin Laden, Islam, and America's New 'War on Terrorism' as well as The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power, believes the recent violence is a symptom of an international conspiracy under way to enforce UN resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of militia groups in Lebanon - a reference to Hezbollah.
A professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, AbuKhalil just returned from Lebanon. He also maintains the Angry Arab blogsite (http://angryarab.blogspot.com/ ).
Aljazeera.net: Israel says its assault on Lebanon is in self-defence against Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks and the capture of two of its soldiers.
Hezbollah says southern Lebanon has long been an area of conflict with Israel occupying Lebanese land and that it wants indirect negotiations to secure the release of its prisoners in Israeli jails. How did the situation deteriorate so rapidly and so violently?
As'ad AbuKhalil: This particular conflict, and Israel's act of aggression on Lebanon, did not take place in a vacuum, and Israel did not act in some spontaneous fashion.
Hezbollah did not surprise Israel with the capture of the two Israeli occupation soldiers. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has repeatedly warned that if Israel does not release its Lebanese prisoners, he will be compelled to take Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.
And Israel has not been sitting idly by since its partial withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. It has not only continued to occupy parts of South Lebanon, but also has been violating Lebanese sovereignty, by air, sea, and land.
Israel has also been kidnapping innocent Lebanese citizens: fishermen and shepherds. And one fisherman from Tyre - my hometown - is still missing, and at least one shepherd was killed last year.
Furthermore, Israel has adamantly refused to give to Lebanon a map of the more than 400,000 land mines that it left behind in South Lebanon, and which continue to kill Lebanese children in the region.
The recent crisis, as the article in the Washington Post by Robin Wright pointed out yesterday, is an international/regional conspiracy to implement United Nations Security Council resolution 1559.
The groundwork for this aggression began with the work of Rafiq al-Hariri [the slain former Lebanese prime minister] in 2004, when he worked with the US and France to pass that resolution in the Security Council.
The plan has the full support of Israel and client Arab regimes of the US: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. But it will not work, and Hezbollah will not lay down its arms.
If the Lebanese government, led by the Hariri camp, thinks that it can now convince Hezbollah to lay down its arms and to trust the Lebanese Army - which has been sitting idly over the last week - to take care of Lebanon's defence, it is wildly mistaken.
What are Israel's goals? What are Hezbollah's goals?
I think that Israel often acts in revenge. The Zionist movement is a vengeful movement; it always has been.
It wants not only to implement UNSC 1559 to disarm Hezbollah, but it also wants, as it did in 1982, to pave the way for the installation of American puppets as rulers of Lebanon. These plans never work: All grand plans for Lebanon strike the rocks of deep sectarian divisions in the country.
I think that Hezbollah started by wanting to achieve a prisoner exchange with Israel, and probably to ease the pressures on Palestine.
But now, they mostly and primarily want to retain possession of their weapons, and they have in that at least the overwhelming support of the Shia in Lebanon, the single largest sect in the country.
Dozens of civilians have been killed on both sides but there has been little movement in the international community. Is there a feeling that mediation or efforts to bring about a ceasefire will be fruitless?
The silence of the so-called international community, which has been under the control and in the service of the US government since the end of the Cold War, has been most painful for those in Lebanon who have been told in the last two years that the international community cares about Lebanon and its people. Now people know better.
I do believe that the same racist impulse that considers Israeli lives worth more than Arab lives is at play here. I have no doubt that the lives of Arabs never meant much for the descendants of colonial powers in the region.
And it is important that we don't allow Israeli propaganda to present an image of symmetry between the two sides: There is no symmetry between the two sides in this conflict.
Not only in terms of Israeli military superiority, but also in terms of massive killings by Israel of largely innocent civilians.
Do the Lebanese blame Hezbollah or Israel for this crisis?
I think that all Lebanese blame Israel for the killing and for the aggression. But the Saudi clients in Lebanon are trying to exploit the events to build up resentment against Hezbollah.
In Lebanon, there never are unified opinions on anything, and certainly the sectarian divisions do not amount to a unified stance behind Hezbollah.
There are many Lebanese who don't support the ideology of Hezbollah but who also believe that the party is now single-handedly defending Lebanon against savage Israeli aggression.
John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, implicated Iran and Syria as being at least partially to blame for supporting Hezbollah...
It is ironic to speak of John Bolton - the same person who was honoured a few months ago by the Hariri ruling coalition in Lebanon.
Yes, Hezbollah receives the support of Iran and Syria, just as the Hariri coalition receives the support of US, France, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and possibly Israel indirectly.
Will Israel attack Syria or Iran next? Could this become an all-out regional war? Could this draw the US into the conflict?
It seems that Israel will avoid attacking Iran and Syria at this stage. With the Israeli war on Palestine still proceeding unabated, the Israelis may not find a need.
The US/EU/UN will deal with both countries, on behalf of Israel, through pressures and punitive measures.
But, if Syria and Iran come under attack, then all bets are off in the region, and US plans in Iraq will face more challenges and more subversion.
Iran has indirectly facilitated the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Syria has recently been co-operating with the US occupation in Iraq.
If attacked, both countries can easily make things worse for the US, and that explains the reluctance of the US in endorsing attacks on Iran or Syria.
With Iraq on the verge of civil war, how will the Lebanon crisis affect the region?
It depends on what happens. If Israel is permitted to continue in the aggression, Syria and Iran may feel threatened, and that may unleash their forces in Iraq against the US.
Under such circumstances, American troubles in the region will only increase. But no matter what happens, this carnage will have affects thoughout the Middle East.
Let us remember that the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon unleashed seismic changes and movements in the region, including the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Those who think that when the dust settles, all will go back to normal, are people who have not read the contemporary history of the Middle East.
In the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this Israeli aggression will go down as a watershed; it will have an impact on the course of the conflict and also on the stability of the very regimes that the US spends money and weapons to prop up.
As the main power-broker in the Middle East, what role can the US play to end the violence?
You have to be either ignorant or foolish or both to consider the US interested in ending the current conflict. The US has clearly endorsed an unconditional Israeli aggression on Lebanon and Palestine. The US will leave it to Israel to decide not only the manner of killing of Arabs, but even to determine the number of Arabs that Israel wishes to kill.
Some Arab countries have criticised Hezbollah and its backers for the recent crisis but Iran and some fighters in Iraq have firmly stood by Hezbollah. Could we see a more extensive Shia-Sunni conflict on the sidelines of an Arab-Israeli war?
Yes, the Saudis have now officially endorsed a Shia-Sunni conflict in the Middle East. And this plan has the support of the US and Israel. This can easily, however, affect stability of several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. So trying to manipulate the Sunni-Shia divide is like playing with fire. We saw the fruits of American sectarian manipulation in Iraq.
How likely is the Lebanese government to survive the crisis?
The Hariri element of the ruling coalition will come out weaker as a result of this crisis. That seems certain. They will either be seen as incompetent, or as secret partners of the American/Israeli/Saudi plan for Lebanon.
But even at the humanitarian level, the Lebanese government has failed miserably in meeting the basic demands of the refugees.
In recent months, there was a general feeling that Lebanon had bounced back with major economic drive and a tourism boost. How do Lebanese look at their long-term prospects now that much of what they rebuilt has been destroyed?
The Lebanese have been through a lot - the people of south Lebanon have been through scores of savage Israeli invasions and campaigns of aggression. Not only are the people known for resilience, but their ability to reconstruct and resume normal life - as much as possible - has become well known.
But the funds needed for reconstruction will come at a high price: It will be like Hariri's accruement of foreign debt which further eroded the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon.
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The Madman of Tel-Aviv
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
The Truth Will Set You Free
"The situation is both alarming and catastrophic. There are about 500,000 people displaced already. The situation is extreme" the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Beirut, Roberto Laurenti, told AFP.
Lebanon's grim body count [well over 200] continued to mount as Israeli pressed on with its campaign to defeat fighters of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, killing 28 people in attacks that flattened homes and hit an army barracks.
And across the border in northern Israel, a civilian was killed when a rocket hit a park in the resort of Nahariya in the latest of hundreds of rocket attacks by Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora accused Israel of "committing massacres against Lebanese civilians and working to destroy everything that allows Lebanon to stay alive."
"The intensifying aggression in this barbaric way proves that Israel has decided to push Lebanon back 50 years," he said.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defended the relentless bombardment, saying it was aimed at obtaining the release of TWO Israeli soldiers and the disarmament of Hezbollah in line with an existing UN resolution.
That's right - TWO.
This stark-raving lunatic and his band of murderous thugs have destroyed an entire nation, displaced half a million people, and killed hundreds of innocent civilians so that he can secure the safety of only 2 -- that's right -- T-W-O, Israeli soldiers and to ensure compliance with a resolution that he has no authority whatsoever to enforce.
He is a murderous madman and anyone who supports him is insane.
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Leviathan run amok
By Pepe Escobar
07/18/06 "Asia Times"
Hezbollah may be writing the book - at least for now - of fourth-generation war. Hezbollah had a reputation as an extremely disciplined, mobile guerrilla force. Now Hezbollah has fully revealed itself as a more than competent asymmetrical actor.
Hezbollah controls a great deal of territory - Beirut's southern suburbs, vast areas in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, which is sandwiched between two mountain ranges along the Syrian border. Hezbollah enjoys staunch popular support running to probably one and a half million people, almost half the population of Lebanon. And Hezbollah has been capable of unleashing some relatively sophisticated military operations against Israel using both conventional and unorthodox weapons.
It's still impossible to assess the ramifications of Hezbollah's prestige in the Arab street being tremendously enhanced after its military success for the past week - which include delivering missiles to the heart of Israel. But the Arab street has certainly registered the communique by the House of Saud against Hezbollah, as well as the thunderous silence-cum-embarrassment displayed by the US client regimes of Egypt and Jordan.
A certified effect of the Israeli bombing barrage will be to draw newer, thicker waves of moderate Muslims toward political - and radical - Islam. The perception in the Arab street - as well as for most of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims - has been reinforced: the US/Israel axis seems to hold a license to kill Arabs with impunity.
For its part, Israel's Leviathan-run-amok tactic of trying to turn the Lebanese as a whole against Hezbollah seems to be doomed to failure. This is especially because compounding Israel's trademark collective-punishment techniques - bombing bridges and an international airport, killing scores of civilians indiscriminately, turning Beirut into Gaza - shines President George W Bush's imperial indifference, not to mention the international community's. Just as in 1982 - when president Ronald Reagan said it was all right for Ariel Sharon to invade Lebanon - now Bush says it's all right for Israel to bomb Lebanese civilians.
Israel does not listen to anybody - be it the toothless United Nations or the even more cowardly European Union. Beirut is in panic. According to Hanady Salman, a journalist at As-Safir newspaper, the population widely expects that "as soon as the evacuation of foreigners will be completed, the Israelis will have a freer hand". Not by accident, all the areas bombed by Israel - and most of the civilians killed - are among the poorest in Lebanon.
Hezbollah is convinced it got its overall strategy right - factoring all the angles of the Leviathan-run-amok response; so there's no way the Lebanese people as a whole may blame Hezbollah for the escalation. Moreover, Hezbollah is a key force in fractured Lebanon. The majority of Lebanon's population is Shi'ite: at least 45% (in south Beirut, this correspondent was repeatedly told they may be from 55% to 60%). Christians are no more than 30%. The majority of Shi'ites - mostly poor, with very extended families, and a great deal of them basically peasants - support Hezbollah. Symbolically, fiercely independent Hezbollah represents the revenge of the oppressed - not only against the well off Sunni and Christians but against the Israeli invaders.
Hezbollah is a genuine resistance movement, such as Hamas in Palestine. Israel's military logic rules that it must crush any Arab resistance movement. Now Israel seems to have found two pretexts to try to crush simultaneously both Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel's modus operandi is to take entire populations hostage.
French social scientist Alain Joxe has demonstrated how these policies are "technical experiments" always observed with extreme interest by the Pentagon. The stateless Palestinians have been taken hostage in two giant, unconnected gulags in Gaza and the West Bank. Now the experiment - through relentless bombing - applies to a whole sovereign country. But Israel is also reaping - in the form of Hezbollah's renewed fourth-generation war efforts - what it sowed with its debasement of Palestinians.
The absence of a level playing field is glaring. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) may kidnap a doctor and his brother - two civilians - from their home in Gaza. But Leviathan runs amok when Hezbollah captures soldiers (according to Israel that's "illegitimate and illegal"). Meanwhile, Israel's Defense Ministry places "the head of the snake" in Damascus, even while the IDF uses the same questionable methods - toward civilians.
The taboo - never questioned by the bulk of Western mainstream media - runs that Israel is allowed to kill innocent civilians without expecting any retaliation. The Lebanese French-language daily L'Orient-Le Jour summed it up: the "international community" supports Lebanon without condemning Israel, which is reducing a sovereign country to rubble.
Our way or the (bombed) highway
Israel's logic is unilateral. It has blamed the Lebanese government as a whole. Hezbollah has only a small role in the Lebanese government; it is actually in the opposition. Power in Beirut is in the hands of US and Sunni Arab allies. The Hariri clan, mired in dodgy deals, remains extremely powerful. Fouad Siniora, a banker, the new Lebanese prime minister - and a strong critic of Syria - defines Hezbollah as a "legitimate resistance" group. As such, it should not be disarmed.
Thus Israel's real objective must be to provoke civil war in Lebanon - just as it did everything to provoke civil war in Palestine. The strategy is always the same. Israel wants Fatah to crush Hamas in Palestine, and now it wants the government in Beirut to crush Hezbollah. Or else ...
It was Hezbollah's hardcore warriors - trained by Syria and Iran - who ultimately expelled Israel from Lebanon in 2000. It's difficult for Westerners - or non-Arab Asians - to understand how powerfully symbolic this is in the Arab world: it means that Hezbollah was the only Arab military force ever to defeat Israel. Not surprisingly, even Lebanese Sunnis approve what Hezbollah is doing - they interpret it as solidarity with Hamas and the Palestinian struggle (as Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, made it all too clear).
Moreover, Israel's Leviathan-run-amok response has only served to rally Sunnis behind a "Lebanon under siege" banner.
The relationship between Iran and Hezbollah is not unlike Moscow's with assorted communist parties during the Cold War. There are no directives issued from Tehran - as Washington neo-cons see it. Hamas may be Sunni and Hezbollah may be Shi'ite, but both parties - supported by Syria and Iran - converge as resistance movements based on a platform of national struggle against foreign (Israeli) occupation.
There's nothing sectarian about it. On the contrary, Hezbollah shows total solidarity with Hamas. And way beyond Israel identified as the common enemy, both Hamas and Hezbollah clearly identify the not-so-invisible big enemy behind, the US, for which Israel is a kind of "militarized offshoot", in the words of Noam Chomsky. Virtually every Lebanese knows that the missiles currently exterminating their compatriots were made in Miami, Duluth and Seattle.
Whatever the outcome, blowback will be inevitable. Osama bin Laden, in one of his videos, told the world how he burned with anger when he saw the Israeli bombing of the "towers" of Lebanon during the 1982 invasion. The new Osamas in the making may be Sunni or Shi'ite, it doesn't matter: what matters is what they identify as the American/Israeli license to kill (mostly poor, defenseless) Arabs.
Iran for its part may have been a full Hezbollah supporter, but now it's as much a staunch supporter of Hamas. As Nasrallah has emphasized on many occasions, Hezbollah as a resistance movement is not engaged only in the liberation of the Sheba Farms, still occupied by Israel; Hezbollah sees itself as a powerful actor positioned right at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As Lebanese-born Gilbert Achcar, a political-science professor at the University of Paris-VIII, puts it, "The main source of destabilization in the region is this violent and arrogant behavior of Israel that is in full harmony with the equally arrogant and violent behavior the United States displayed in Iraq." No change is in sight, not when Bush's "Greater Middle East" has revealed itself for what it is - a fallacy.
When in doubt, invade
The Israeli public relations machine - in English, thus widely monopolizing the airwaves, unlike Hezbollah, which expresses itself in Arabic - brags that now it's time to finish off Hezbollah. That makes no sense - because Hezbollah is a mass movement with roughly 1.5 million adherents. To finish off Hezbollah means in practice to finish off all poor Lebanese Shi'ites.
Iran and Iraq would never let it go unpunished. Israel also conveniently forgets that Hezbollah itself should not even exist - after all, it was founded to fight the Israeli invasion (in 1982) and occupation (until 2000) of southern Lebanon.
Israel's three basic demands, passed to Beirut by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, are the return of two captured Israeli soldiers now under Hezbollah; a Hezbollah withdrawal to the Litani River, which is roughly 45 kilometers north of the current Lebanese-Israeli border; and no more rocket attacks against Israel.
Most of this could have happened before Israel illegally - international law is clear about it - started bombing a sovereign country. They could have traded prisoners. And there would be no Hezbollah rocket attacks because there would have been no Israeli indiscriminate bombings. One thing is certain: there is absolutely no chance the Lebanese will accept retreating to the Litani River. That would mean the establishment of a new Israeli de facto border. The only way Israel can annex these waters is by invading southern Lebanon - again.
That's what the Stratfor Intelligence Report said would happen. "The Israeli Defense Forces is preparing for a major, sustained assault into southern Lebanon to eliminate the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah," said the report. "The assault will extend at least to the Litani River - the first natural barrier, roughly 20 miles into Lebanon - and possibly all the way to areas south of Beirut ... Israel stands on the verge of attempting to completely annihilate Hezbollah in southern Lebanon."
Sounds like wishful thinking. And Hezbollah will do anything to prevent it from happening any time in the future. The key question remains. The Lebanese government knows that if it accedes to Israel's demands, there will be another civil war in the country. At least for the moment, Lebanon seems to be hanging on, engaged in passive resistance against collective punishment.
As Israel wages war on the Palestinian people and now the Lebanese people, Hezbollah may be betting that Lebanon as whole will be able to absorb the extreme limits of collective punishment - and in the end the resistance movement will still come out alive. Now that would be a lesson for the ages.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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Israel faces 'new reality' of sirens in night, Canadian says
Last Updated Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:43:38 EDT
CBC News
A Canadian in the Israeli city of Haifa says she has always felt safe there - until Hezbollah militants started daily shelling that has made her and other residents prisoners in their own homes.
Sharon Berg told CBC News that the "rules have changed" since Hezbollah militants based in southern Lebanon recently acquired longer-range rockets that have been able to hit targets much further south in Israel - including Haifa, its third largest city.
Hezbollah rockets have hit Haifa repeatedly since July 12, when its militants in southern Lebanon crossed the border, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight others. Israel responded by sending warplanes, tanks, gunboats and ground troops into southern Lebanon. Hezbollah in turn has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.
Now Berg and other people living in northern communities live with the constant wail of sirens warning of attacks, while spending much more time in safe rooms with no windows and no outside walls.
"We have always felt that we were safe because we thought we were far enough away, but the rules have changed. This is the first time that we have been vulnerable from attacks from the other side of the border," Berg told CBC Newsworld in an interview on Tuesday.
"It's astonishing. I never thought they could do this. This is the new reality."
Heard blasts after daughter left on playdate
Berg said air raid sirens have been going off daily in Haifa - including on Tuesday, when the city went on high alert.
"We have no idea how long this is going to go on. It's very tense, difficult. We are living close to our homes, we can't go to work, we can't go out shopping, we are awakened in the middle of the night by sirens. It's frightening. It's unfamiliar," Berg said.
She said earlier in the day, a siren went off but no explosion followed, so she let her daughter be picked up to go on a playdate. Then the sirens wailed again, followed by a couple of large blasts that seemed close to her home.
"I have no idea what happened. My daughter is out on the streets. That is not recommended," Berg said.
Canadians scramble to leave Lebanon
Meanwhile, on the other side of the border in Lebanon, Canadians are scrambling to get out of the country as soon as possible as the Israeli military continues to pound the country.
The outbreak of intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has left at least 230 people dead in Lebanon and 24 in Israel as of Tuesday.
The victims in Lebanon included a family of six who were vacationing from Montreal. They were killed on Sunday by an Israeli air strike on the village of Aitaroun.
Canada has arranged for six ships to arrive in Lebanon on Wednesday to pick up stranded Canadians and take them to Cyprus and Turkey, from where they will be flown home.
The evacuation is expected to unfold gradually, with hundreds of people to be transported at one time.
Canadian Arab Federation slams evacuation plans
For relatives of Canadians in Lebanon, however, the evacuation is not happening fast enough. Families back home told CBC News that they are frustrated, angry and anxious.
An emergency meeting was held in Toronto on Tuesday night to discuss the situation.
Ali Mallah, of the Canadian Arab Federation, said the Canadian embassy had not worked out how it will transport Canadians in the south of Lebanon to Beirut, since major roads have been bombed repeatedly. Hundreds of Canadians had been visiting relatives in the south when the fighting broke out.
"I don't think they have thought enough about this plan," Mallah said.
But Alan Baker, Israel's ambassador to Canada, said the logistics were being worked out between Canadian diplomats at the embassy in Beirut and the Israeli army to ensure safe passage of Canadians.
Comment: Gee, those poor Israelis. They are having to get used to sirens at night while their neighbours, the Palestinians and the Lebanese have to get used to bombs and death.
Count on the Western media to put the emphasis where it matters.
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WWIII Part 2
UN to discuss more peacekeeping force in Lebanon
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-19 12:58:01
BEIJING, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations will discuss reinforcing its peacekeeping force in Lebanon and the Arab League (AL) is preparing for an emergency summit to avert an all-out war in the Middle East.
In Brussels, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Tuesday for the establishment of a larger and stronger international force in Lebanon than the current 2,000-strong contingent, which was created in 1978 to monitor the Blue Line separating Israel and Lebanon and which is responsible for reporting violations by either side.
Annan underscored that the new force would have "different capabilities" from the present UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), appearing to suggest a much more powerful military presence.
He expected European and other countries to supply troops for the force, saying "it is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground."
Standing next to Annan at a news conference, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: "We are ready to help."
Several EU nations have said they were ready to contribute forces to a Lebanon stabilization force if the U.N. Security Council agreed to form one.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair first mentioned such a force at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia on Monday as the only way to achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
By early Wednesday, at least 237 people had been killed in Lebanon and 25 in Israel since fighting broke out July 12 between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas following its capture of two Israeli soldiers.
Beirut and southern Lebanon in particular have suffered punishing raids by the Israeli air force. Some half-a-million people have been displaced.
Annan said earlier that Vijay Nambiar, his special political adviser, who had reported "constructive" talks with the Lebanese leadership in Beirut, planned to go to Israel Tuesday and then "possibly go back to Lebanon" and on to Damascus, Syria, in efforts to "find a way of getting the parties to end the hostilities."
In the meantime, the AL was trying to win the support of more Arab nations to call an emergency summit to deal with the crisis which threatens the wider security of the region.
The idea of holding such a summit was proposed by Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh on July 12, shortly after the Israeli army and the Hezbollah guerilla group clashed in the border area.
Up to now, eight AL members have showed their readiness to attend the proposed summit, namely, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon, Djibouti and the Palestinians, but the number remains short of the necessary majority of two thirds of the 22 league members.
AL Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in a statement on Monday that the Middle East peace process had failed and it was important to refer the whole Middle East crisis to the UN Security Council.
Moussa said the Arabs were not seeking a UN Security Council draft resolution or statements, instead, the Arabs would like the Security Council to have a clear and accurate political review of all the regional issues.
Tensions in the Middle East have been dramatically heightened as Israel has pressed ahead with a massive assault in Lebanon since July 12 and continued a three-week-old offensive in the GazaStrip.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora pleaded on Tuesday for the international community to organize an immediate ceasefire, accusing Israel of massacres and wanting to blast his country "back 50 years."
In a statement, he "implored the international community and the Arab countries to work toward installing an immediate ceasefire" to end Israel's week-old offensive against Lebanon.
The Syrian cabinet emphasized on Tuesday its readiness in all fields to face all future scenarios as Israel continued to bomb neighboring Lebanon for the seventh day.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Ottri underlined "the importance of coordination and integration of government performance" to upgrade the state of readiness in all sectors in order to "face all prospects in the future", the official SANA news agency reported.
Chairing a weekly cabinet meeting, the premier hailed the steadfastness of the national resistance in Lebanon and its qualitative operations that had inflicted grave loss on the Jewish state.
Egypt called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
"Israel will not emerge as a victor in this war. It will only create more enemies," said President Hosni Mubarak. "The war will only inflame Arab animosity toward Israel, many anti-Israel extremist forces will surface and Israel will find itself the loser rather than the victor in this war."
While warning Israel against more military operations, Mubarak also cautioned that other countries should resort to "wise judgment" in light of the conflict.
Shortly after the Israeli-Hezbollah clashes on the border area on Wednesday, Mubarak made phone calls to or met face-to-face with leaders of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bahrain to discuss the conflict.
Egypt, one of the only two Arab countries to have a peace treaty with Israel, has long played the role of mediator in regional problems, especially in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
French President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday called for maximum humanitarian aid to be brought to Lebanon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called for calm in the Middle East.
"The main thing now is to stop the worsening of the conflict, [to] not allow extremists to bring chaos to the region, and to prevent a wider conflict," Putin told a press conference at the end of the three-day G-8 summit.
The Russian president urged the return of the two Israeli soldiers, saying "we would very much like to see the speedy return of the kidnapped and a stop to the bloodshed."
"But I am also not confident that the return of soldiers will stop the conflict," said the G8 summit host.
As world leaders tried frantically to use their influence to try to avert an all-out war in the Middle East, U.S. President George W. Bush was moving with care.
The Bush administration is trying to drum up diplomatic support for a so-called ceasefire of "lasting value," that is, where the Lebanese army takes control of the south and disarms the Hezbollah militia.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has conferred by phone with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and at the State Department with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit of Egypt.
She will probably travel to the area this weekend, but there has been no announcement.
Israel did not rule out negotiations, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue operations in Lebanon until Hezbollah returned the two captured Israeli soldiers, stopped rocket attacks on Israel and pulled back from the borders that Lebanon shares with his nation.
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Russia Urges Diplomatic Solution to Middle East Conflict, Ready to Send Peacekeepers
Created: 19.07.2006 14:29 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:29 MSK
MosNews
Diplomacy is the only way of settling the Middle East conflict, Russia's defense minister said Wednesday, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Israel launched a military operation in Lebanon after the Hezbollah Islamist group took two Israeli soldiers hostage last week. Over 200 Lebanese civilians have since been killed in fighting.
"The only way of resolving the Middle East conflict is by political and diplomatic means," Sergei Ivanov told journalists in reply to a question on whether Russian peacekeepers might be sent to the area. "I do not see any other option."
Ivanov, who is also a deputy prime minister, said the issue of peacekeeping could only be discussed after both conflicting sides agreed to the idea.
"The UN Security Council will within the next few days or even hours adopt a resolution, but we can only start talking about peacekeepers when both parties to the conflict have given their consent," he said, echoing a position voiced by the Russian leadership over the last few days.
"Otherwise the presence of peacekeepers is pointless," Ivanov said.
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World must avert Israel-Lebanon spillover - ex-Russian PM
19/ 07/ 2006
RIA Novosti
MOSCOW - A former Russian prime minister and expert on the Arab world urged the global community Wednesday to send a peacekeeping force to the Israel-Lebanon conflict zone to prevent hostilities from spilling over to other countries.
"I fear other nations may find themselves drawn into the conflict," Yevgeny Primakov, who now heads Russia's Industry and Commerce Chamber, told reporters. "UN forces are needed there to bring the warring sides apart and kick-start [peace] negotiations."
The military conflict was sparked last week by the killing of eight Israeli soldiers and the abduction of two others by militants from the Islamist group Hizbollah, based in Lebanon. Israel has since been hitting Hizbollah sites to secure the release of the captured soldiers. Hizbollah has been firing rockets into Israeli territory in response.
Primakov said Israel's actions in Lebanon had gone "beyond the scope of a purely anti-terrorist operation" because it was destroying the country's infrastructure - not just that of Hizbollah - and its air raids had claimed many civilian lives.
"It is unsettling that our Western partners have started the evacuation of civilians [from Lebanon]," he said. "Everyone expects an all-out war."
Primakov also voiced alarm at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's allegations that Iran had provoked the hostilities to divert world leaders' attention from its controversial nuclear program during last weekend's Group of Eight summit near St. Petersburg.
"There is a dangerous trend toward escalation behind Olmert's statements," he said.
According to Primakov, one other factor likely to aggravate the Israeli-Arab conflict is the U.S.-led coalition's latest operation in Iraq, which he believes has deepened a communal divide between the Sunni and the Shi'ite Muslims.
But he said he was quite optimistic about Lebanon's ability to recover.
"I know that Lebanon, where I worked as a correspondent, can rise from the ashes like a Phoenix," he said. "The Lebanese are a special breed of people; they are very practically-minded, they love their country and can do quite a lot [for it]. But for now the imperative is to end the war."
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Israeli PM: negotiations not ruled out
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-19 05:17:46
JERUSALEM, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Israel did not rule out negotiations to resolve the conflict with Hezbollah, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said when he paid a surprise visit to the rocket-battered city of Haifa on Tuesday evening.
But the negotiations should be "on the condition the hostages are returned and UN resolution 1559 is enforced," Olmert said in a meeting with heads of about 60 regional councils in northern Israel, Israeli Channel 10 TV reported.
Resolution 1559 called for the deployment of the Lebanese army along the border with Israel and disarming Hezbollah. Olmert hinted that it was premature to discuss the stationing of international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon as suggested by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
He also pointed out that Hezbollah's operation was coordinated with Iran and was aimed at drawing the international attention from Iran.
Earlier on Tuesday, Olmert said Israel would continue a seven-day-old massive assault in Lebanon until two Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Lebanon's Hezbollah guerillas were released and rocket attacks on Israel stopped.
Comment: It is the height of arrogant hypocrisy for Israel to condemn anyone for ignoring UN resolutions. It is the national sport in the Zionist state.
Israel wants to widen the conflist in the Middle East. They wish to push the US into war with Iran, and would like to see Syria taken out as well. Israel wants it all. What they don't understand is that there are others, including some of those who claim to be Israel's best friends, who wish to see Israel destroyed, and the non-psychopathic Jews destroyed with it.
There are manipulations within manipulations going on here, and, frankly, without an understanding of psychopathy and ponerology, you can even begin to really understand what is going on.
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Peretz: Attacks on Hezbollah to continue without letup, time limit
IDF: We need two weeks to end Lebanon operation
08:55 19/07/2006 By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies
The Israel Defense Forces estimate that 10-14 more days are necessary in order to meet the military aims of the operation in Lebanon.
According to General Staff estimates, it is possible to greatly intensify the scope of the attacks against the Hezbollah rockets, with special emphasis on their longer-range weapons, as well as strikes against senior members of the group's operational arm.
A senior military source said on Tuesday that Israel seeks "to significantly weaken Hezbollah but not crush it." He said that "it is impossible to crush a popular, religious movement."
The source added that had the government of Israel reacted differently to the abduction of three soldiers in an attack on Har Dov in October 2000 and behaved as Israel is doing now, it is likely that the attack last Wednesday could have been prevented.
Some IDF ground troops crossed into southern Lebanon on Wednesday to carry out attacks on Hezbollah guerrilla outposts.
"These are restricted, pinpoint attacks," an IDF spokesman said. "This is not out of the ordinary. This has been happening close to the border."
IDF troops have crossed into southern Lebanon several times in recent days to destroy Hezbollah posts, returning soon afterwards. The army has not ruled out the possibility of a major land offensive at some stage.
Assessments vary within the IDF regarding the effect that the assault on Hezbollah is having on the organization's morale, but Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is among those officers who believe that the first signs of cracks in the group are evident.
In Lebanon, reports claimed more than 35 people dead, most of them civilians, on Tuesday. The IDF instructed the residents of 28 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes and warned them of "accurate fire" against Hezbollah targets.
IDF estimates hold that some 60,000 Lebanese civilians have fled the south while many others have taken refuge in mosques in villages that Israel has said it would not attack.
Head of Operations at the General Staff, Major General Gadi Eisenkot, said on Tuesday that Israel views Syrian efforts to replenish Hezbollah armaments as a "grave" development, but does not intend to attack it or the Lebanese army.
He added that that "over the course of the last 24 hours, very successful attacks have continued, especially those of the air force but also other units, by land and by sea, in Lebanon."
"Until now, over 1,000 terrorist targets have been attacked, including 180 Katyusha and long-range rocket launch sites," Eisencott said.
Defense sources said on Tuesday that in the coming days action would also be taken to further damage the infrastructure of Hezbollah. The sources refused to offer details.
A day's fighting in the north is estimated to cost more than NIS 50 million.
Peretz instructed the IDF to enable as many factories as possible along the northern border to reopen so that damage to the economy can be minimized.
The Home Front Command will decide which factories have the necessary reinforcement to protect workers from possible rocket strikes.
Lebanese death toll rises to 260
At least 10 civilians were killed when Israel Air Force aircraft bombed a street in a south Lebanon village on Wednesday, residents said.
They said more people were feared buried under the rubble of about 10 houses flattened by the strike on the village of Srifa.
Israel Air Force missiles continued hitting towns to the east and south of Lebanon's capital, as five big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday. At least 11 other people were killed in overnight air strikes on these areas, security sources said.
The death toll since the start of the IDF military campaign in Lebanon has risen to 260, the majority of the casualties being civilians.
The explosions appeared to be from hits in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold badly devastated since Israel launched its military blitz against Lebanon last week.
In separate attacks, missiles also hit Chuweifat - a coastal town where several factories are located, just south of the capital, near the airport - and Hadath, a mainly Christian town just east of Beirut, local television said.
IAF warplanes also struck a bridge in the southern city of Sidon and houses in two other southern villages, local media reported. There was no immediate word on casualties in any of the air strikes.
IAF warplanes killed on Tuesday 35 Lebanese, including 13 civilians - all of them members of two families - and 14 soldiers. An armed Hezbollah operative and the driver of a truck carrying humanitarian supplies were also killed in Tuesday's raids.
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Americans irked by fee to flee Lebanon
CNN
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Americans stranded in Lebanon are miffed -- not only at what they see as the slow pace at which the State Department is evacuating them from Lebanon but also that they're having to pay for the ride.
As of dusk Tuesday, the State Department had helped about 350 Americans flee the country. Others had found their own way out, so it was difficult to determine how many of the estimated 25,000 Americans there remained, said Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs.
Monday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the government would charge evacuees commercial rates to take them out by plane or boat.
"It's not an excessive rate. It's a rate that they might pay for a regular airline flight out or a ship leaving Beirut," McCormack told MSNBC.
Harty said she understood people were irked by having to pay for their evacuations to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, about 100 miles northwest, but that a 1956 law requires that the State Department be reimbursed. Those who can't afford it can sign a promissory note and pay later, she said.
"No U.S. citizen will not be boarded because they left their checkbook or credit card at home," Harty said. "I need to get people out of harm's way first, and that's what we're going to do."
The State Department has arranged for six CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, which collectively can ferry about 300 passengers a day, and two commercial cruise ships, which can carry about 2,200 total passengers, to help in the evacuation effort.
The helicopters are reserved primarily for medical emergencies and were used Tuesday to airlift about 60 of the most vulnerable people from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the embassy said.
The cruise ships, one of which already was docked in Beirut on Tuesday night, will depart for Cyprus on Wednesday, Harty said. The State Department has said the U.S. military will escort the ships.
However, the idea that Americans would have to pay to board one of the ships is drawing the ire of stranded Americans and their politicians and families back home.
Atlanta resident Maya Nessouli, whose mother, brother and sisters are in Beirut, wrote CNN and said she is disgusted by the government's policy.
"The government wants $3,000 per person for the helicopter to Cyprus and you're not allowed to take any of your stuff with you. Once they get to Cyprus, they'll have to pay an exorbitant amount to find flights out," Nessouli wrote.
Nessouli called CNN later to say that her family had rented a car for $1,500 and drove all night through Syria to Jordan, where they're now trying to find a flight back to the United States.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Washington has an obligation to evacuate citizens without "quibbling over payment."
"A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon," the California Democrat said in a statement. "I call upon the president to remove one worry from the minds of stranded American citizens in Lebanon and their families back home by declaring immediately that their country will bear the costs of bringing them to safety."
Another Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said she is introducing legislation authorizing the secretary of state to waive the fees if it would create a financial hardship or if the evacuee "would be unable to recoup the cost of or reuse a previously purchased airline ticket."
"We must not abandon American citizens in a war zone," she said. "Our government should be focusing on the fastest, safest way to get Americans home, not how much to bill them once they get there."
Stuck in Lebanon
Several of the Americans in Lebanon have written e-mails to CNN, expressing their frustration with the evacuation process.
"We are desperately trying to evacuate and have become more and more disappointed and angry with the way the evacuation is being handled," said Lina Fleihan, of Greensboro, North Carolina. "We hear more about what's going on from CNN than we do from the U.S. government and the American Embassy here."
Natalie Kerlakian of Denver, Colorado, wrote that she has not heard from the embassy in a week.
"I hope this response will be better than that of Katrina," she wrote, referring to the heavily criticized government response to the hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in August.
Susan Omar, of Clifton, New Jersey, wrote that she has family stuck in the southern Lebanese city of Maryajoun, and her phone calls to various governments' offices have been fruitless.
"We have begged and pleaded with anyone and everyone, but our kids still don't have water, food or medicine," she wrote. "The media is telling everyone that those with medical necessity have already been evacuated. I guess that only means those lucky enough to be near Beirut!"
Kellee Khalil of Los Angeles, California, wrote that she was trapped in Lebanon while vacationing with her father, who has diabetes and a heart condition.
"The embassy has not put him on a priority list," he wrote. "It has been several days of airstrikes and the United States seems to care little about the 25,000 Americans that are trapped here."
However, the U.S. State Department has warned Americans against traveling in Lebanon for the past several years. The Web site for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut reminds travelers "that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need."
The embassy issued a statement Tuesday saying that Americans were being contacted about departing Lebanon via sea and air. The statement added that Americans should not move until contacted by the embassy staff.
"Those who wish to leave should ready themselves immediately," it said.
The U.S. military does not charge for evacuations. Nor do the governments of France, Ireland, Britain and Italy, which already have ferried hundreds of their citizens out of Lebanon.
Help on the way
In addition to the warships and helicopters, nine U.S. Navy ships have arrived in Lebanon to help with the evacuations, as well as ships from the Spain, Italy and Britain, said Brig. Gen. Mike Barbero. The Pentagon said Tuesday that the destroyer USS Gonzales will escort one of the cruise ships.
"These operations are taking place in a war zone," Barbero said. "They involve passage through a strict blockade and are limited by the capacity of the ports and the degraded infrastructure in Lebanon."
Many Americans were already aboard one of the cruise ships Tuesday, said Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs.
Video footage from the U.S. Defense Department also showed women and children boarding a military helicopter on what appeared to be a building's rooftop.
More than 100 Europeans and Americans joined at least 800 French citizens on one of the few vessels to arrive in Lebanon to carry evacuees to Cyprus. From there, people were flying to their home countries.
The ferry docked Tuesday in the Cypriot port of Larnaca and is to return to Beirut on Wednesday and again later in the week to evacuate others if the French military deems it safe, the French Foreign Ministry said.
Burns called the evacuation effort well-conceived and methodical.
"People go out when they want to go out," he said. "We have an open line to all American citizens. We're in touch with them by Web site. Those Americans who wish to leave will obviously go out. Those who are in critical need of leaving over the weekend have left through the air bridge."
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U.S. response exasperating for some Americans
by Anderson Cooper
CNN
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
We spent the day in Cyprus tracking the latest efforts to get Americans out of Lebanon.
The U.S. government says it has evacuated more than 100 Americans, but their efforts are clearly lagging behind those of other countries. The French and Italians have gotten hundreds of their citizens out.
Some of the Americans who have made it out are clearly exasperated with the U.S. response.
You see them checking into Larnaca's beachfront hotels tired, frustrated, and a little stunned at what they've been through.
I just finished interviewing one American woman with three young children. The kids were bouncing on the bed of their hotel room, oblivious to the nightmare they just escaped.
Their mother was lucky. She was able to get a spot on a Marine Corps chopper and has a ticket back to New York in a few hours.
"I don't know how they are going to get all those people out," she told me.
The United States has a number of ships en route and chopper flights will continue, but getting people out means crossing a logistical minefield.
Another ship may arrive with more evacuees tonight while we are on the air, but it's hard to predict exact arrival times.
We will bring you the latest tonight on the evacuations. We'll also check-in with CNN correspondents for the latest news from Lebanon, Israel, Syria and the rest of the region.
As for tomorrow, there's no telling where we will be. This is a fast-moving story and we are trying to bring it to you from as many angles as possible.
I'm curious to hear your perspective. Do you think what Israel is doing is legitimate? Should the United States push for a ceasefire? Or is the Bush administration's current approach appropriate?
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Senators initiate resolution supporting Israel, condemning Hezbollah
By Shmuel Rosner and Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondents and The Associated Press08:38 18/07/2006
WASHINGTON - The Senate is likely to pass a resolution, as early as Tuesday, condemning Hezbollah and expressing support of Israel's actions in Lebanon.
The resolution was submitted by majority leader Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee. Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, Michigan Senator Carl Levin and others lend their signatures to the initiative.
According to the resolution, the Senate "supports Israel's right of self defense and Israel's right to take appropriate action to deter aggression... calls for immediate and unconditional release of Israeli soldiers... condemns the governments of Iran and Syria ... responsible for the acts of aggression carried out by Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel..."
The Senate resolution urges the President to use all "political and diplomatic means" including sanctions to help end the support by Iran and Syria to Hezbollah and Hamas, and calls upon the Lebanese government to fulfill its responsibility to disarm Hezbollah.
The resolution also urges the UN to demand compliance with Security Council resolution 1559, and to condemn the "unprovoked acts" of Hezbollah.
Hillary Clinton rallies for Israel
Speaking at a large demonstration in support of Israel in Manhattan on Monday, United States Senator Hillary Clinton expressed unreserved support for Israel and commended President George Bush for his stance in the present crisis.
Clinton said on Monday that all Americans, whether Democrats or Republicans, stood behind Israel at this time.
The demonstration, which drew an estimated 5,000 people, was described as one of the largest Jewish events in recent years.
Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel also spoke at the gathering, which ended in a call to free the captured soldiers.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people, many of them holding Lebanese flags, marched Monday night in Rome to protest the e