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Editorial: The Real Enemy
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
20/07/2006
At the moment, many writers in the alternative media are feeling extremely
angry, depressed and frustrated at what is happening in Palestine and Lebanon.
Despite hundreds of editorials and essays eloquently decrying Israeli aggression
and provocation and spelling out the very obvious reason for the long-standing
violence in the Middle East, Israel continues its murderous rampage,
killing almost 70 Lebanese civilians yesterday. Yesterday's attacks involved
Israeli bombing of entire Lebanese villages, such as Srifa in the south west
of Lebanon where Israeli F-16 jets, supplied free of charge by the US government,
destroyed 15 houses, killed at least 20, and wounded at least 30, men women,
young and old alike. The truly horrifying thing however is that the inhabitants
of the villages were fleeing on the orders of the Israeli government itself,
yet as the villagers attempted to leave in their cars and vans, they were targeted
by Israeli jets and blown to pieces...
At the beginning of the current crisis
in Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated
clearly that the lives of Israeli civilians were more important
than the lives of Palestinian civilians and that the bombing of the Gaza strip
and Lebanon is designed to wipe out the threat to Israeli citizens from Hamas
and Hezbollah. In the past 5 years, 5 Israeli civilians have been
killed in one town as a result of Hamas rockets, and none have been killed
as a result of Hizbollah attacks. Yet in the past week and as a result of
Israeli attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah, 14 Israeli citizens of Haifa have
been killed. Clearly, and despite his words, Olmert cares little more for the
lives of Israeli Jews than he does for the lives of Arabs.
Is It Really About Defence?
As an explanation for the murder of 300 Lebanese civilians over the past
7 days and the murder of over 3,000 Palestinian civilians and 800 Israeli civilians
over the past five years, Bush and Olmert repeatedly state that "Israel
has a right to defend itself". When the facts are analysed, this claim
is nonsensical and an outright lie. The Israeli military has been occupying
Palestinian, Lebanese (the Chebaa Farms area) and Syrian (Golan heights) for
almost 40 years. In the Palestinian land that it occupies, the Israeli government
had reduced the Palestinian population therein to little more than slaves.
Israel holds these lands in defiance of international law. This is the
major source of
Palestinian and Hezbollah resentment towards and attacks on Israel. The
continuation of an enforced occupation of the sovereign territory of another
people and nation simply cannot be described as "defence".
If a person comes and throws you out of your home and occupies it by force
of arms, he may claim that he is "defending" it, but it is a defence
of something acquired through illegal means and is therefore an unlawful
and aggressive act. It is not defence.
The history of Israeli tactics in the occupied Palestinian territories over
the past 50 years make it very clear that the ultimate goal of the Israeli
power brokers has always been the removal, in one way or another,
of all Palestinians from their land.
Consider the below image
of illegal Israeli settlements in the West.
Now remember, other than the miniscule
Gaza strip, this is all of the land available for a Palestinian
state! The Israeli government began building the illegal settlements in 1967,
they same year that it annexed Lebanese and Syrian land. Today, Israeli settlers
live in plush comfortable houses with all amenities on 40% of Palestinian land
in the West Bank, while Palestinians regularly have their meager houses destroyed
by Israeli bulldozers. All crossings out of Gaza and the West Bank are strictly
controlled by Israeli troops, with most Palestinians being denied the right
to leave. Poverty in Gaza and the West Bank is rife with 65% of the population
living below the poverty line i.e. on less than $2 per day.
What is very clear
to Palestinians, and has been for a very long time, is that the Israeli government never intended
to allow the Palestinians to have a state of their own. Palestinians are painfully
aware of the fact that, since 1967, the Israeli government has been preparing
what was left of Palestinian land for a final annexation into Israel, with
the only impediment to the fulfillment of this plan being the Palestinians
living there. With the recent staged crisis, Israel hopes to find the opportunity
to deal with this last 'obstacle' to Greater Israel, once and for all. Clearly
then, it is the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, who are, and have always
been engaged in defence against a long-term and ongoing Israeli plot to dispossess
them of their land and homes forever.
How do you feel about this?
When you look at the bodies of Lebanese babies, their little bodies lying
mangled, scattered around the ground beside the burnt-out van they were travelling
in only minutes before, what do you feel? Is this a just end
to this child's life?! Did he deserve it?!
When you realise
that these children were ordered to leave their homes by the Israeli military
in a deliberate ploy to "flush them out" in order to blow them to
pieces with their bombs, what do you feel?
When you see the once beautiful brown curls of a 5 year old Lebanese girl,
now matted with her own blood, her clothes torn, her head hanging lifeless,
what do you feel?
When you look at the image below of another Lebanese "terrorist" girl
'taken out' by Israeli war planes, do you think of your own children? Do you
imagine how you would feel if this were your child?
When you see the burning bodies of two lebanese civilians, the victims of
Israeli and American 'defence', is it pride you feel?
Imagine for a moment that you are the President of America, or a member of
his administration, or the Israeli Prime Minister, or a member of his administration.
Having seen these pictures, would you, as "Commander in Chief", continue
to order more air strikes on civilian targets? If you retained even an ounce
of your own humanity - your ability to empathise with the suffering of another
- you most definitely would not. You could not. Bush and Olmert
see these pictures and they remained unmoved, supremely detached from any
emotion at the sight of a dead child, and they give the order to continue the
bombing.
Apparently, they want to see more dead children.
Am I being inflammatory when I say this? Am I exaggerating? Can it really
be possible that our leaders are so inhuman, so different from you and I?
No
one wants to consider such a concept, but what else are we to conclude when
the bombing continues? When 270 of 300 Lebanese killed in the past week were
innocent civilians, are you going to tell me that Israeli (and therefore American)
war technology is so crude that it repeatedly hits the wrong target? In which
case, why do they keep using such devices? Are you trying to tell me that missiles
that hit the fleeing civilians were not deliberate? How far
can your credibility be stretched?
The Real Enemy Of Mankind
The 'crisis' in Palestine and Lebanon comes at a bad time for the alternative
media. Up until a few weeks ago, we could still entertain the idea that
we were making a difference. The dogged blogging and posting of articles and
editorials on web sites seemed to be having an effect. We felt we had a voice
and that it was being listened to by an ever increasing number of people. We
thought the pressure we were bringing to bear would surely stay the hand of
the war mongers, that they would 'see the light', that we could 'bring them
to their senses'. But we were wrong it seems.
If there is one glaring problem with the alternative media today it is that
they do not know the true nature of the enemy. In fact, no one seems to realise
that we are fighting an enemy at all. Most still believe that we are dealing
with a few misguided political leaders who just seem to have a really hard
time realising that their actions are causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of innocent people. If they could only be made aware of this, the world would
turn the corner towards peace and prosperity for all, right?
Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with this assumption.
If we, the information-deprived masses, are able to get a glimpse of the carnage
that our political leaders are causing, is it not a certainty that these same
political leaders are significantly
more aware of the results of their actions? After all, they are in possession
of detailed intelligence reports on demographics, details of targets selected
and the nature and destructive power of the weapons they employ against those
targets. When we hear of an Israeli or American bomb scoring a direct
hit on a residential house that kills dozens of innocent men women and children,
our lack of knowledge of military affairs and planning allows us to believe
that maybe it was a mistake, that they didn't really mean to kill
civilians. Indeed, we need to believe this, because to believe
otherwise is to face ourselves into a very frightening scenario indeed - that
our political leaders, the men and women who sit in almost absolute power over
us, are fully conscious of their actions and therefore lack the one characteristic
that defines a person as truly human: empathy for the suffering of another
human being.
So we force ourselves to believe that the men and women with the power to
kill millions would never take delight in exercising that power. We think that
because we recoil in horror and grief at the sight of the lifeless
body of a small child lying beside the burnt out shell of the car she was travelling
in before it was hit by an Israeli or American missile, that the men who fired
the missile, or those who ordered them to fire it, are also deeply moved by
such a tragic scene. Yet we run into a problem the very moment that a second
missile, then a third and then a fourth, extinguishes more innocent lives.
How many more bodies of dead children, how many more weeks of Israeli military
bombing campaigns on civilian targets are needed before we come to the conclusion
that the members of the Israeli, American and British governments who, in full
knowledge of their actions continue to sanction or order such attacks, simply
do not, cannot, feel the same way about the massacring of innocent children
as you and I?
Understandably, this is a hard one for many people to accept. To accept it
heralds the end of our cozy world-view where basically good and decent leaders,
people just like you and I, are at least striving to
do what is best for the world and its people. In its place, we find ourselves
in a world where the global power brokers, the people who control every aspect
of our material lives, appear not to care about human life at all, save
their own.
How long might an impala on the serengeti expect to survive if, despite all
evidence to contrary, it continues to believe in the innate benevolence of
a lion towards its species?
This is an appropriate analogy. Scientific studies have shown that when normal
human beings are presented with a disturbing image of human suffering, an area
of the brain associated with emotion and empathy "lights up". Similar
studies carried out on known psychopaths show that they appear to lack the
normal range of human emotion. When a psychopath is shown a picture of a car,
followed by a picture of a dead child and a grieving mother, there is no difference
in brain response. There is no feeling it seems.
Psychopathy
Dr Hervey Cleckly spent years studying psychopaths up close and personal.
His book, The Mask of Sanity, shows that, outwardly, the
average intelligent psychopath bears no resemblance, neither in appearance
nor actions, to Hannibal Lecter or Ted Bundy. Neither is he in jail. On the
contrary, the average psychopath appears to be conscious of the fact that he
lacks the basic human ability to feel deep emotion and empathy
for another. Early on in his life, the psychopath learns that displays of complete
indifference to the suffering of others are reacted to with concern and sometimes
anger by his family and peers. So he learns to conceal it. At the same time,
he recognises and gravitates towards others who share his deficiency.
It is not hard to imagine that psychopaths do very well in business and politics
where the promotion of self-interest and the accrual of personal and group
power is the name of the game. Where you or I, in possession of a conscience,
would surely balk at, for example deliberately getting a work colleague
fired for no reason other than facilitate our own ascent of the corporate ladder,
no such impediment to success exists for the psychopath who simply cannot put
himself in the place of another human being and therefore feel empathy. While
it has been estimated that approximately 6% of the global population falls
into the category of psychopath (about 360 million people), their extreme
self-interest and the fact that such "ambition" is a key ingredient
of success in the world of politics and business, we assume much more than
6% of top level corporate, government and military positions are held by people
who possess no ability to empathise with the needs or suffering of another
human being.
A perusal of the last few thousand years of the history of our world quickly
reveals to us that, more than anything else, war has defined our 'evolution'
(if it can be called that). Equally obvious is the fact that, in war,
soldiers and civilians die while the men and women responsible for waging
war (on both sides) generally neither fight in the war nor are punished
for their part in it encouraging it.
Does that tell you anything?
Throughout
history, small groups of people have risen to power over the masses, and by
the promotion of religious, ethnic or political divisions, they have set large
groups of ordinary human beings against each other in order to further their
personal goals. More often that not, ideologies such as 'freedom' are used
to rally the masses to fight.
But history testifies that the only real net result of war is the consolidation
of power into the hands of an 'elite' few. The Second World War led to the
rise of Stalin and the murder of 50 million Russians. It led to the creation
of the state of Israel and the ongoing persecution of Middle Eastern Arabs.
It also facilitated the USA's rise to a position of global preeminence, a
situation which has caused more death and suffering over the past 60 years
than at any other time in our recent history.
Now more than ever, there is an opportunity for each
of us to recognise who the true enemy is. Why should we or our sons and daughers
continue to fight and kill each other on the command of a small group of people
whose only contribution has been to enrich themselves at our expense, at the
expense of our very lives? Are we stupid? Or are we just misinformed? The reality
of our world has always been a very clear case of Us and Them, yet we have
failed to see it. We fail to see the predatory, unfeeling nature of these
people because we ourselves lack such a nature. We project on to them
our own human values of empathy and conscience when, time and again, they have
proven that they possess no such qualities. We have allowed
them to divide us, and set us at each others throats in the name of
freedom, a value that we hold
dear, not they (save for their usefulness in manipulating us).
Now more than ever, the very real yet hidden
phenomenon of psychopathy needs desperately to be uncovered. We need to avail
ourselves of the evidence that suggests that many of our political leaders
are clinical, yet very smart and careful psychopaths. There is no other plausible
explanation for their smug brutality, their deadly lies, their utter indifference
to the pitiful sight of the lifeless body of small child for whose death they
are responsible.
Lest anyone begin the process of rationalising what I have
said, realise that to do so is evidence that your own humanity is being robbed
from you by the propagation of our 'leaders' psychopathic values and ideologies.
"War is peace", "Black is White" "Muslims are Terrorists" "Our
government is protecting us". Before you fall for such paramoralisms,
know this; psychopaths feel no empathy for any other human being.
Race or creed does not figure into the equation. There is significant evidence
that the psychopaths in power in the US and Israel knowingly murdered 3,000
American citizens on September 11th 2001, few were Muslim. At present the Israeli
government is placing the lives of Israeli Jews in clear danger precisely because
they simply cannot care about the life of any other human being, Christian,
Muslim, Jew they are concerned for none but themselves.
'Armgaeddon' Approaches
As a conclusion, I would like here to present a theory for your consideration,
and while you may immediately reject it as implausible, I suggest
you watch events in the Middle East and notice the direction they take. My
suggestion is that the ultimate goal of the plan that is being currently implemented
in Lebanon and Palestine is the destruction of a majority of the population
of the modern-day Middle East.
Far from
attempting to rid the world of a previously more or less non-existent anti-Semitism,
the policies pursued by successive Israeli governments have gone a long way
to increasing ill-feeling towards Jews and Israel. By repeatedly condemning
anyone who speaks out against the increasingly brutal actions of the Israeli
government as anti-Semitic, Israeli leaders and lobbyists are coming close
to making the word anti-Semitism respectable.
When that happens, the demise of Israel, the Jews and the Arabs of the Middle
East will be all but assured. That day is closer than any of us realise.
We have but one hope to prevent what appears to be an approaching major
war in the Middle East that will not be limited to that region and which will
result in the deaths of millions of innocents: we must understand the truth
about the men and women that call themselves our 'leaders', yet who offer nothing
but war, suffering and death. We must realise the that they are not like you
and I, they do not feel as you and I feel, they do not love and you and I love.
They are psychopaths, and under their stewardship death and destruction is
100% assured.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: From Israel to Lebanon
http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/
For more photos of the destruction and killing in Labanon because of the ruthless and premeditated attacks of Israel, go here.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Is Israel Using Arab Villages as Human Shields?
By JONATHAN COOK
July 19, 2006
Nazareth hit the international headlines for the first time in this vicious war being waged by Israel mostly on Lebanese civilians. Reporter Matthew Price, corseted in a blue flak jacket in Haifa, told BBC viewers that for the first time Hizbullah had targeted Nazareth late on Sunday. "Nazareth is a mostly Christian town", he added, managing to cram into a single sentence of a few words two factual mistakes and a disturbing hint of incitement.
Whatever the precision of its rockets (and Nazareth's residents are certainly worried enough about that), Hizbullah struck not at Nazareth but at a site some distance from Nazareth -- a site of strategic significance to Israel, though I cannot say more than that as we are now officially under martial law in the country's north.
Matthew Price was also wrong about Nazareth being a "mostly Christian town". During the 1948 war in which Israel's army ethnically cleansed much of the surrounding area of Palestinians, Muslim villagers fled to Nazareth in search of sanctuary. Today, two-thirds of the city's 75,000 inhabitants are Muslim -- or at least they are by the religious classification system imposed on all citizens by the Israeli authorities.
Which brings us to the nasty element of incitement from our BBC reporter.
Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields -- protection for Israel's war machine.
Before the strike close to Nazareth late on Sunday night, several Arab villages in the north had been hit by Hizbullah rockets trying to reach these factories. No one at the BBC saw the need to mention these attacks nor the fact that "mostly Muslim" villages had been hit. So why did the strike against Nazareth -- and its mistaken Christian status -- became part of the story for the BBC?
Because Israel wants to portray Hizbullah, and its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, as a crazed Islamic militia, as fanatical Muslims who hate Jews and Christians with equal vehemence. This is all part of Israel's claim that it is fighting George Bush's "war on terror". Predictably, the BBC obliged by regurgitating this piece of racist nonsense.
If anybody still doubts that Israel is shaping the news agenda of broadcasters like the BBC, here was as good as the proof.
* * *
According to the jingoistic Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and the army are delirious at their success in dictating the headlines and tone of foreign news broadcasts.
Ehud Olmert's media adviser, Assif Shariv, told the Post that the international media were interviewing Israeli spokespeople four times as much as spokespeople for the Palestinians and Lebanese. Another government adviser, Gideon Meir, boasted: "We have never had it so good. The hasbara [propaganda] effort is a well-oiled machine."
Which may explain why we know so little about what is happening in Lebanon and Gaza -- and why we know so little about what is happening inside Israel too.
To remind you, I, like other residents of northern Israel, am under martial law. As are the foreign journalists -- and in addition they are required to submit their copy to the military censor. So all I can tell you, without breaking the law, is that you are not hearing the entire picture of what has been happening here in the Galilee.
Certainly, a piece of news that I doubt you will hear from the foreign media, although bravely the liberal Hebrew media has been drawing attention to the matter, is that the "only democracy in the Middle East" has all but silenced al-Jazeera from reporting inside Israel.
The reason is clear: until recently al-Jazeera had been running rings around the local and foreign press.
Al-Jazeera is the Arab world's most serious and popular news gatherer, and essential viewing for anyone who wants to get a realistic idea of the news from both sides of the border. When I heard the missile strike close by Nazareth on Sunday night, al-Jazeera told me what had happened a full half hour before the Israeli media, and a day before my colleague Matthew Price.
How do they do it? Because most of their staff in Israel are Israeli citizens, as well as being Palestinian Arabs. Their journalists belong to the forgotten fifth of the Israeli population whose citizenship is Israeli but whose nationality is Palestinian.
So not only do al-Jazeera's reporters know the northern patch of Israel like home ground (because it is home ground) but they are also not cravenly waiting for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and army's spokesman to tell them what is going on.
Watching al-Jazeera has been a revelation: it has dedicated a substantial portion of its coverage to events inside Israel as well as in Lebanon, in stark contrast to Israeli broadcasters who rarely use any of the footage from Lebanon.
Similarly, al-Jazeera faithfully translated Ehud Olmert's speech word for word into Arabic, and then included a lengthy analysis from a local correspondent for its viewers. Israeli broadcasters, on the other hand, repeatedly mistranslated the televised words of Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah into Hebrew and English, removing context and his calls for negotiation.
Similar misrepresentations of Nasrallah's position in the foreign media presumably reflected their over-reliance on the Israeli broadcasters.
But al-Jazeera's coverage inside Israel -- the Arab world's best chance of being exposed to the Israeli point of view -- is being effectively shut down. In the past two days, its editor has been arrested on two occasions and another senior journalists taken in for questioning. According to its reporters, they cannot move from their office without being followed by the Israeli security services.
Why are they receiving this treatment? Because, according to Israel's only serious newspaper, Haaretz, the country's Hebrew media have been inciting against them. In particular Reshet Bet radio station, one of several wings of the Israeli media loyal to the government, has been telling lies that al-Jazeera is revealing classified information, namely the location of rocket strikes.
Is the claim true? According to Haaretz again: "Other TV networks, including Israeli news services, made similar reports without suffering from police intervention."
Freedom of the press rarely means much when governments go to war. The local media usually consider it their patriotic duty not only to strip of vital context the information they offer their viewers but they often falsify the record too. Much of Israel's media are clearly doing both jobs with some accomplishment.
But the fact that some in the Israeli media see it as part of their job to silence journalists not as craven as themselves is the real eye-opener. Maybe they realise al-Jazeera just makes them look like propagandists.
* * *
Nabila Espanioly, the director of a charitable organization in Nazareth promoting women and children's interests, makes a point worth remembering as the foreign and Israeli media huddle in the shelters of Haifa and Nahariya interviewing terrified "Israelis".
In fact, they are talking not to Israelis but to Israeli Jews. The fifth of the Israeli population who are not Jewish but Arab are rarely to be found hiding in public shelters because the authorities neglected to build any in their towns and villages.
In other words, although the Israeli army has sited several important weapons factories and military intelligence posts close to Arab communities in the north, the Israeli government has not offered the Arab residents any protection should there be fall-out -- quite literally in the case of the Katyusha rockets -- as a result.
This is another tiny facet of the discrimination endured for decades by the country's Arab population that so rarely surfaces in media coverage of Israel.
Similarly oblivious to the ironies, the Israeli and foreign media have been running heart-warming stories about how "Israelis" are opening their homes and hearths to their compatriots fleeing the north. Again for "Israelis" substitute "Israeli Jews".
No one I know here in Nazareth believes they would find much of a welcome in Tel Aviv or Beersheva should they go looking for one. Which leaves them with nowhere to run should they need to.
The only Arab communities out of the line of Hizbullah fire are those in the southern Negev belonging to the Bedouin. But that is not much comfort. Most of the Negev's 150,000 Bedouin have been forced to live in squalid tents and metal shacks by an Israeli government that bulldozes anything more permanent. The authorities also deprive many of the Bedouin communities of water and all public services. So sweating it out with the Katyushas may be the better option.
* * *
A final footnote -- one to ponder in the quieter moments after the worst of the suffering is over. Those Israeli Jews fleeing for their lives as they head south to the quiet -- so far at least -- of Tel Aviv and beyond offer a small echo of events nearly six decades ago when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes by the Israeli army.
Israeli Jews have always taken the view -- and happily tell any outsiders as much -- that the "Arabs" lost the right to their homes in the war of 1948 because they "fled" (in fact many were forcibly expelled, but let that drop for the moment).
The Israeli government has adopted much the same view, even refusing to allow the 250,000 of its own Arab citizens who are classified as internal refugees -- their ancestors fled the fighting in 1948 but have citizenship because they stayed inside what is today Israel -- to return to their original homes and land.
So how exactly should we regard those Israeli Jews now fleeing from Nahariya and Haifa? Should they lose their homes, their land and their bank accounts just as the Palestinians did in 1948?
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book, "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State", is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
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Editorial: Watching American TV in Beirut
By Habib Battah
Thursday 20 July 2006, 12:24 Makka Time, 9:24 GMT
Aljazeera
War in Lebanon has once again become breaking news on television screens across the world, but a growing body of distorted reporting is being disseminated just as rapidly as the country is being destroyed.
In recent days, many American news programmes have demonstrated an exceptionally weak knowledge of Lebanese politics, skewed further by a lack of access to areas that have been attacked in the country and their victims.
Take Monday's coverage of the conflict on NBC's popular Today Show with anchorwoman Nathalie Morales, who in introducing a report on Hezbollah, rhetorically asks: "So just who is Israel at war with in this latest chapter of an ancient conflict?"
Not only does the reporter assume that Israel's war targets only Hezbollah (and not the Lebanese civilians, government, private businesses and the military, which have all been attacked) but even contradicts earlier reports on her own network indicating Hezbollah's founding to be in the early 1980s; hardly considered "ancient" times.
Equally misleading were reports on the Today Show defining Hezbollah solely as the mastermind of the 1982 attacks on US marines and possessor of long-range missiles.
Absent in the reporting was any reference to Hezbollah's role in defeating the 22-year Israeli occupation of the country and its support among up to a million Lebanese, with many benefiting from an intricate network of social services and political representation.
Of course, failing to report such details contributes to the view that Hezbollah acts as merely a renegade organisation rather than a movement that encompasses roughly a quarter of the country's population.
On the other hand, when it comes to reporting the situation in Israel, anchors on sister network MSNBC seem to boast an intimate knowledge of the population, even a bit of psychoanalytical skill.
During his show Hardball with Chris Mathews, the host describes the Israeli town of Haifa as being similar to a city in California, "very modern, very debonair".
Anchorwoman Rita Cosby, who freely dubs Hezbollah as "rag-tag" terrorists, would later describe an attack on "Holy Nazareth" as an assault on "the home town of Jesus", and erroneously as his birthplace - of course no reference to the multitude of biblical cities in Lebanon.
On Hardball, Mathews asks a reporter on the scene how Israelis are coping with "vacation plans" considering the war situation. Mathews concludes that a resilient character among the Israeli people, will "keep that country around for a very long time".
Later in the show there is analysis with field reporters and political pundits, many blatantly supportive of Israel's fight against "terror acts" and the "worldwide Islamic threat" - still no mention of the widespread devastation and human loss in Lebanon.
Mathew's questions include: "How do you get Hezbollah to stop? Will Israel get the job done? How broad a goal is Israel setting?" And finally: "What's a bigger threat to the United States? Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah?"
Mathews makes reference to the plight of the Lebanese only once during his show, when a reporter raises the possibility of a "bloody mess" for Israel.
Hours later, early on Tuesday, the casualty count in Lebanon stands at around 200 as cities and towns across the country are systematically pulverised, leaving hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians trapped and unable to escape the fighting.
A massive refugee crisis looms large while the country lies in complete disarray with its arterial roadways and bridges completely destroyed. Meanwhile, around a dozen are dead in Israel, with the last large attack occurring at a train depot on Sunday.
On Tuesday, 11 Lebanese soldiers are killed and a handful of rockets are launched at northern Israel with no casualties reported.
MSNBC decides to begin its newscast from Israel with a graphic that reads "breaking news: more than 250 killed in 7 days of fighting in Israel and Lebanon". There is no indication of which side is doing the lion's share of the killing, perpetuating a false sense of balance on the battlefield.
Over a live video feed, MSNBC anchorwoman Chris Jansen asks a reporter in North Israel about how average citizens there are coping with the short time lag between rocket attacks and air-raid sirens. The reporter describes a "quite frightening" situation for locals.
Jansen then speaks to a reporter in Lebanon over the phone, with a focus on the latest developments in the evacuation of foreign nationals. We are never told that average Lebanese citizens across the border have absolutely no warning of attacks and little access to well-fortified bomb shelters.
Before a commercial break there is footage of destruction across Lebanon, with swaths of the capital reduced to rubble. However, the graphics indicate that these are images of "Mideast Crisis" and not the result of round-the-clock Israeli air strikes.
Unlike the static clip of masked gunmen stomping on Israeli flags - images repeatedly attributed to Hezbollah and the Lebanese side - we see no equivalent attribution of burning cities and residences to Israel and its people.
The media myths continue unabated on Wednesday when an NBC reporter stationed on Cyprus tells a studio anchor that the American evacuation from Beirut will begin shortly and that the US embassy is providing a "safe haven" or "bomb shelters" for the thousands of US citizens as they wait.
But in truth, hundreds of Americans amass on an open-air seafront promenade near the embassy compound, where hundreds more crowd the streets and parking areas.
One US citizen, who gave her name only as Liliane, decided to return to her apartment after waiting out in the heat for several hours, disgusted she said by the disorganisation and curt attitude of US military personnel.
She described the plight of a woman with a newborn child sitting on the pavement with other children, pleading for help.
"They just didn't care," she said, drawing a contrast with television pictures of a smiling US ambassador escorting evacuees on to helicopters and while others were ferried away on chartered ships.
"They didn't show what was happening outside the boats. On TV it looks like the situation is under control."
Aljazeera
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Lebanon in Tears
Dozens more die as air strikes continue
Staff and agencies
Wednesday July 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Scores of people were killed today as Israel broadened its military offensive in Lebanon while also launching raids into the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
At least 57 Lebanese civilians were killed in the latest Israeli air strikes, raising the death toll of Lebanese to at least 293 since the offensive began last week.
Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, called on the international community to immediately call for a ceasefire to "end the Israeli onslaught" which had caused "unimaginable losses".
He said his country badly needed international humanitarian aid, addint that there were 500,000 displaced Lebanese people, shortages of food and medical supplies, and the hospitals were crippled, he said.
"I hope you won't let us down," Mr Siniora said in a televised appeal.
The Israeli offensive continued as international sources told the Guardian that the Bush administration had given Israel a one-week window to attack Hizbullah before it would join international calls for a ceasefire.
In other developments today, two Israeli soldiers died and nine were wounded during clashes with Hizbullah on the Lebanese side of the border near the coastal town of Naqoura. One Hizbullah militant was killed during the Israeli raid, aimed at finding weapons and tunnels. At least nine Palestinian fighters were also killed in Israeli military operations as the violence escalated in Gaza and the West Bank. Five of the militants were killed after Israeli tanks entered the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza and one was killed in an air strike. In the West Bank city of Nablus, three fighters died when Israeli troops surrounded a prison where wanted militants were thought to be hiding. At least 107 Palestinian policemen were detained in the operation.
In the southern Lebanese village of Srifa, where at least 12 died in an Israeli air strike, the mayor told al-Arabiya television that a "massacre" had taken place. "There are dozens dead and massive destruction," he said. "Emergency services are putting out fires, they cannot reach the houses to recover bodies."
Outside Srifa, at least 29 other civilians were reported killed in air strikes on other parts of south and east Lebanon. Further north, Israeli jets hit Hizbullah's south Beirut stronghold and the Shweifat area outside the capital.
Three family members and a Sri Lankan maid were killed by a missile that struck the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, police and hospital officials said. The target was the office of a company belonging to Hizbullah.
Three Israeli Arabs, including two children, were killed when a presumed Hizbullah rocket slammed into a building in Nazareth, authorities said. Nazareth is inland from Haifa, around 25 miles south of the Lebanon border. More rockets hit Haifa this afternoon.
In Beirut, foreign nationals continued to leave. HMS York, a Royal Navy destroyer, left Beirut with more British evacuees bound for Cyprus. Around 80 Britons who arrived there this morning on HMS Gloucester were expected to fly out later today.
Tony Blair today told the Commons the violence was "tragic and terrible" for the Lebanese government and people but it could only stop "by undoing how it started".
The US government has denied it was playing any role in setting a timetable for Israeli action. The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was reported to be trying to drum up diplomatic support for what she called a ceasefire of "lasting value".
Such a plan would see the Lebanese army take over the south of the country, where Hizbullah guerrillas have operated. "The Middle East has been through too many spasms of violence and we have to deal with underlying conditions," Ms Rice said.
Israeli air strikes on Hizbullah militants in Lebanon had destroyed about half of the militia's arsenal, a senior Israeli military figure said today.
Brigadier General Alon Friedman said Israel had targeted Hizbullah rocket launchers in an effort to prevent the militants from aiming towards Tel Aviv. Israel believes that Hizbullah may have as many as 20 rockets that could reach Tel Aviv.
UN envoys were expected to suggest deploying Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon and enlarging an international force in the region to try to end the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah. The proposals will be presented to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, in New York after talks this week between the envoys and senior Israeli and Lebanese officials.
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Israel Targets, Flattens
Beirut TV Station HQ
July 19, 2006
By TRISH SCHUH
CounterPunch
After years of asymmetric attacks on the First Amendment- assassinating journalists, surveilling dissent, and censoring the free flow of information- the Democracy Mukhabarat reigns. Using national security to prohibit scrutiny or prosecution, the Bush administration instead labels opposition media as the criminal, declaring the Fourth Estate to be the Fourth Front. US policy equates 'unfriendly' media with enemy propaganda, declaring both "a weapon of war" and a legitimate military target.
In 2004, the US government also declared it a Terrorist Organization. Under US Executive Order 12334, Lebanon's Al Manar TV was the first television station ever to be legally designated a 'terrorist entity' equivalent to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration, at Israel's urging, silenced Al Manar satellite transmissions into the US. In 2006 the order was expanded to include Al Noor Radio, Al Ahed & Al Intiqad Newspapers and their parent company the Lebanese Media Group. On March 23, the US Treasury Department froze Al Manar's financial assets. On July 16, after five attempts, the Israeli Defense Forces blew Al Manar up. Eight employees were injured, but broadcasting continues elsewhere. IDF also bombed Al Noor Radio.
The Lebanese Media Group is affiliated with the Arab League, the Arab Federation of Journalists and the Union of Arab Audiovisual Media. It complies with Lebanese law and some of its staff are also democratically elected Ministers in Parliament.The organization has won dozens of awards from media associations around the world, and Al Manar footage has been shown by such western outlets as Reuters, AP, C-SPAN,BBC, EuroNews, FOX and CNN.
In Lebanon, each major religious sect has its own broadcasting outlet. But only LMG has been targeted. LMG's Al Manar TV is the broadcasting outlet for Hezbollah. On April 21, 2006 I asked Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora about the distinction. "Well of course we would prefer that all media be treated equally democratic, but we do not make American laws so I can not comment."
Responding to the State Department 's decision on December 17, 2004, local and international press demonstrated in Beirut to support Al Manar. The National Audiovisual Media Council denounced the US decision. Competing MBC TV producer/director Suzen Moussa challenged the decision's fairness, and Ghassan Hajjar, an Editorial Director for New TV told me: "International law protects the right of free speech equally to all world press- American, Israeli and Arab. No one has the right to accuse Al Manar of terrorism for speaking their minds."
In America's losing battle for Arab hearts and minds, Al Manar propaganda is as effective as American propaganda is impotent. Lebanon's Daily Star quoted an estimate that Al Manar has up to 200 million viewers via satellite, correspondents worldwide, and a nightly news program that often outranks Al Jazeera. It broadcasts in Arabic, English, French and Hebrew. An American AUB professor in Beirut, Dr. Judith Harik, told me that Al Manar often features video not seen elsewhere. "Many people here tune into Al Manar whether they are Christian, Druse, Sunnis or what, because Al Manar has very good reporting. Their analysis is very precise and very well thought out. They're very shrewd, forthright and are taken very seriously."
Especially in Israel. It was Al Manar's Hebrew broadcasts and images of IDF casualties during the occupation that galvanized Israeli public opinion against the war. The Israeli military had portrayed its losses as minimal, until Al Manar exposed the toll. Speaking to Adnkronos International, Hezbollah media director Hassan Ezz Eddine summarized the Israeli response: "We have to watch Al Manar to learn the truth about our boys in Lebanon."
As a "fair & balanced" Arab TV network, Al Manar TV dubs itself 'the Medium of resistance' to Israeli and American occupations. Al Manar's blunt, relentless criticism of US-Israeli policy has been called hate speech and incitement to violence. The US State Department deems Hezbollah and its TV station, "the A team of terror" and more dangerous than the "B team Al Qaeda." Ironically, the US-sponsored Tolo TV in Afghanistan regularly features Taliban/Al Qaeda interviews along with Taliban chanting. Attempts to halt such broadcasts were condemned by the international community as censorship.
In the Haret Hreik district of south Beirut, Al Manar headquarters are in a packed, threadbare neighborhood of family-owned shops and apartment buildings. The streets are marked by blue and yellow Zakat donation boxes decorated with upturned hands over an AK-47 raised in the fist of the Shia martyr Hussein, relative of the Prophet Muhammad. It is the Party of God's trademark, and it adorns everything from Hezbollah's yellow flags and pennants (Hezbollah owns exclusive rights to Lebanon's soccer league), to its coffee mugs for sale at area souvenir shops.
In 2005, I visited Al Manar's high tech offices. The state-of-the- art facilities included an extensive video archives/library, modern recording studios, sound booths and edit bays. In the Green Room I spoke to Sheikh Khoury Noor Ad Dine of the Hezbollah Political Council. He denied that the TV station committed atrocities or waged war on civilians. In fact, a large percentage of Al Manar employees are female. "Hezbollah differs from many Islamic groups in our treatment of women. We believe women have the ability like men to participate in all parts of life."
From its founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah women have headed education, medical and social service organizations. Most recently Hezbollah nominated several women to run in the Lebanese elections. It named Wafa Hoteit as a Chief of Al Noor Radio (also recently bombed), and promoted 37-year old Rima Fakhry to its highest ruling body, the Hezbollah Political Council. Part of Fakhry's duties include interpreting Islamic feminism in Sharia law for the Committee for Political Analysis.
I asked Sheikh Khoury if Sharia law liberated women to be recruited in the military or as 'suicide bombers'? "Not now. We don't need it at the present. If we need it in future we would." But the staff at Al Manar has no combat function. These sisters, daughters and mothers in the mujahedin shoot film, not bullets.
It was an issue I also raised with Al Manar film editor, Farah Noor Eddine, 30. Ms. Eddine has a B.A. in Journalism. She emphasized that she has relatives in the US and likes Americans. "Being Hezbollah doesn't mean that you are a military woman or a military creature. Hezbollah, the 'Party of God' is mentioned in the Qoran. It's a way of thinking or acting.We are ordinary persons." She is a vegetarian, plays ping pong, but has never fired a gun or seen a 'suicide vest.'
With Israel attacking Beirut, "Radical Islamic Terrorists" are again the demons of US media sensationalism. It was a charge that exasperated Health News anchor Mariam Karnib, so I asked her to define terrorism. "It is using excessive force or violence in a way that is not justified. They are calling us terrorist, but I know I am not like this. I was brought up here. We know our rights. We are not fools." Ms. Karnib, 29 has a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Social Science and is now earning a Masters in the Sociology of Communication. I asked her if Hezbollah women are familiar with the notorious Saudi website, Al Khansaa that trains female jihadis. She was not aware of it, she said, and when off-duty preferred happier fare. "I love Danielle Steele, Barbara Cartland and Barbara Taylor."
Al Manar TV has been boycotted for inciting violence and suicide attacks against Israel in its MTV-inspired videos, and "Death to America" is a signature slogan. Ms. Karnib dismissed the idea that Al Manar clips were powerful enough to produce this result, and felt sloganeering could not be taken seriously. The most effective training for 'militants' was American cartoons, she explained, which "are filled with alot more violence, terrorism and hatred- and they are aimed specifically at children." She also criticized video games which promote brutal killings of 'Arab Terrorists' and 'Muslim fanatics'. In the game of dueling propaganda, Hezbollah has met its match. Israel's media features extermination, liquidation and elimination as frequent themes, especially regarding the Palestinians: "those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. So if we want to remain alive we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day. Every day." Jerusalem Post, 5/21/04 More recently, the Chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party called for Arab Knesset members to be executed. Israel Koenig (from Israel's Al Hamishmar newspaper): "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." The Neocon state within a state has orchestrated its series of "Clean Break" Arab wars via the US-Israeli military/media complex, where the Fourth Estate doubles as a Fifth Column. The crusade against Al Manar TV originated with Israel's Natan Sharansky and former Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. The Israeli Defense Forces' Arab Media desk decided its propaganda leafletting of targeted areas prior to bombing them was inadequate. "Israel must concentrate on Arab media."
On the US side, Israeli Avi Jorisch wrote a book on Al Manar TV called "Beacon of Hatred" for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It was endorsed by Dennis Ross and used to pressure Congress and the Pentagon (which had not previously known of the station) to censor Al Manar.The coalition also pressured commerical advertisers to boycott Al Manar.
Anti-Defamation League, CAMERA.org, American Jewish Congress and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies allied with AIPAC against Al Manar worldwide. The neocon Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) took credit for persuading world leaders in Germany, Sweden, Australia and France to outlaw Al Manar. The Netherlands and the EU followed suit, and Spain was coerced into removing Al Manar from Latin American programming. MEMRI has recently announced a new front- France has just agreed to silence Iran's Al Sahar TV.
This success has emboldened an expanding wish-list of opposition media "soon to be banned." Like a press version of Daniel Pipe's "Campus Watch", Israel's Foreign Ministry, the IDF and its US surrogates are blacklisting a number of Arab media- Palestinian TV, Egyptian televsion, Saudi Arabia's Al Majd and ART TV, and Iran's Al Alam. Bomb attacks on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are well known, and now Al Manar's facilities have been completely flattened.
Trish Schuh writes about Middle East politics. She can be reached at: hsvariety@yahoo.com.
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'Catastrophe' looms in Lebanon as Israel pushes offensive
by Nayla Razzouk Tue Jul 18, 3:31 PM ET
BEIRUT (AFP) - The United Nations warned of a humanitarian "catastrophe" in Lebanon as Israel launched more deadly air attacks on the seventh day of an assault that has killed at least 245 and displaced half a million people.
Helicopters, ferries and cruise liners began taking foreign nationals to safety but Lebanese civilians remained trapped in a cycle of violence that has left them in fear of each new attack and their infrastructure in tatters.
"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 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.
He told visiting UN envoys trying to broker a ceasefire that "Israel will continue the battle against Hezbollah and will continue to strike targets belonging to the group until it obtains the release of its captured soldiers and restores the security of Israeli citizens."
Israel said it has not ruled out a massive ground offensive in a bid to crush Hezbollah, which it has branded part of an "axis of terror" along with arch-enemies Tehran and Damascus and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Amid continued fears the conflict could spiral into a regional war involving Israel's arch foes Syria and Iran, the Israeli army said it had destroyed four trucks travelling from Syria with weapons and munitions destined for Hezbollah fighters in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.
"Our planes identified and destroyed these four trucks coming from Syria that were transporting weapons and munitions destined to replenish Hezbollah's stocks in south Lebanon," a spokeswoman said, adding that the contents and destination of the trucks were based on "intelligence".
Israel launched the all-out assault against Lebanon following Hezbollah's capture of two soldiers last Wednesday, battering the militant group's power base in Beirut's southern suburbs and hitting targets across the country.
The international airport has been knocked out, ports bombed, bridges destroyed, power stations set ablaze and houses turned to rubble in scenes reminiscent of the country's devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
Israel, which has sent ground troops back into Lebanon for the first time since it ended its occupation in May 2000, warned that its offensive could last at least another week -- emboldened by strong public support at home.
Foreign nations embarked on a massive operation to evacuate thousands of their nationals away from the bombing raids and devastation by air or sea to the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
Britain, which is hoping to evacuate some 5,000 of its nationals from Lebanon by the end of the week, started to pull out the first British citizens on board the destroyer HMS Gloucester.
The United States flew 120 citizens out of Beirut Tuesday on the third day of an air bridge that is to be followed by a mass evacuation by sea, amid criticism that Washington's reaction has been too slow.
Apparently agreeing to briefly halt Lebanon's sea blockade, Israel said it has made arrangements with several Western governments for a major evacuation of foreign nationals from Lebanon Wednesday involving 20 vessels.
The United Nations said it was evacuating all non-essential staff from the country.
The overall death toll now stands at at least 245, including 216 civilians and 23 soldiers, according to medics and police. More than 500 people have been wounded.
"I was at work at the time of the Israeli bombardments, and I went back home to find it in ashes," said one elderly woman who has fled her home in Beirut's southern suburbs.
"I was told to leave the area quickly, and for seven days now I've not known if my sons are under the rubble or safe somewhere."
Around 15 petrol stations have been blown up, along with fuel depots and water pumping stations. The highway from Beirut to the Syrian capital Damascus was cut on Tuesday after being repeatedly hit in recent days.
As the European Union and the United States prepared to send envoys to the region, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan outlined plans for an international force for Lebanon that he said should be "considerably larger" than the current 2,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.
But Israel -- which has always rejected the deployment of foreign forces in its conflict with the Palestinians -- said it was "too early" to discuss such a possibility.
The US State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to the region, while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is also preparing for a trip.
The United States has maintained Israel has every right to defend itself and also urged restraint over the offensive, which has split the international community and raised fears of dragging Syria and Iran into the conflict.
Twenty-five Israelis have been killed since last Wednesday, including 13 civilians in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire across the border, and 12 servicemen.
Israel's assault on Lebanon opened up another battleground after it launched a similar offensive three weeks ago against Gaza where militants are holding a third soldier.
At least 87 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed since Israel sent troops back into the territory to try to free the captured soldier.
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Lebanon 'torn to shreds'
Thursday 20 July 2006, 13:15 Makka Time, 10:15 GMT
Lebanon's prime minister has pleaded for help to stop the "callous retribution" being inflicted by Israel.
Fuad Siniora said: "The country has been torn to shreds. Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?
"You want to support the government of Lebanon? Let me tell you ... no government can survive on the ruins of a nation.
"I hope you will not let us down. We the Lebanese want life. We have chosen life. We refuse to die."
Wednesday's death toll reached 74, as Israeli strikes killed 72 people in Lebanon and a Hezbollah rocket attack left two Arab-Israeli children dead in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth.
More than 300 people have now been killed and 500,000 displaced during the week-long conflict.
'Bunker' bombed
Jets dropped bombs on an area of southern Beirut where Israeli commanders said senior Hezbollah leaders were sheltering.
Israeli military officials said dozens of aircrafts dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on what they described as a bunker in the Bourj al-Barajneh section of southern Beirut.
Three unusally heavy explosions were heard in the evening from the southern districts of the capital.
An army spokesman said Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, may have been hiding at the site.
Hezbollah said none of its leaders was killed during the air strike.
A statement from the group said: "Hezbollah denies that any of its leaders or personnel were killed during the latest bombardment ... in the southern suburb."
The statement said that the bombed building was a mosque under construction and not a bunker housing Hezbollah leaders.
Wave of attacks
Throughout Wednesday, Israel pressed on with a wave of attacks from air and sea against southern and eastern Lebanon, flattening houses, destroying roads and hitting trucks, police said.
Twenty-five people were killed and 26 wounded in one village where residents said 10 houses were reduced to rubble by shelling from Israeli gunboats and aircraft.
Eleven other civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a four-storey building in the eastern Lebanese village of Nabi Sheet.
Israeli helicopters also fired rockets at a residential Christian district in Beirut, the first direct strikes in the centre of the capital, raising concerns about the evacuation operation under way at the nearby port.
Talks scheduled
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, were to meet Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, in New York on Thursday.
Annan has proposed the creation of an international force to restore calm in Lebanon.
Solana said: "We will work very, very hard to see if we can have an end of hostilities and the beginning of something of a political nature before the end of next week."
Comment: How many months or years will it take to rebuild Lebanon? Who will pay for Israel's crimes?
The dead cannot be brought back to life. There is no payment or reconstruction that can return a child to its mother's arms or a wife to her husband.
Yet the leaders of Israel, aided and abetted by the leaders of the rest of the world, and the complicit silence of the people, continue to bomb Lebanon in retaliation for the capture of two Israeli soldiers who shouldn't have been in Lebanon in the first place.
Do you feel sick to your stomach when you hear the news? Are you angry that this violence continues?
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Hezbollah bunker bombed: Israeli military
Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:53:00 EDT
CBC News
Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected Hezbollah bunker in southern Beirut late Wednesday, but the militant organization said none of its members were killed.
Israeli military officials said warplanes dropped 20 tonnes of explosives on the bunker, which is believed to be used by senior Hezbollah officials and is in the Bourj al-Barajneh section of southern Beirut.
Hezbollah later faxed a statement to Reuters news agency, saying none of its "leaders or personnel" were killed in the bombing, which the group said took place at a religious facility it had nothing to do with.
Israel has said that one of the objectives of its offensive in Lebanon is to eliminate top Hezbollah figures, including leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Earlier Wednesday evening, three large explosions rocked southern Beirut in one of the deadliest days so far in the eight days of violence between Israel and Hezbollah. The blasts were reported in Beirut's Dahiya district, home to Hezbollah's already flattened headquarters.
As many as 58 people in Lebanon were killed in Israeli air strikes on Wednesday, while four Israelis died in rocket attacks and clashes with Hezbollah militants.
Israel launched its military campaign against the Lebanese-based militant group eight days ago, following a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli army post. Eight soldiers were killed and two were seized.
Hezbollah has responded with rocket attacks in northern Israel.
The death toll has reached 300 in Lebanon, according to the government, and 29 in Israel.
Two of the Israeli deaths were soldiers killed in a clash with Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. Israel had sent the military across the border to search for tunnels and weapons.
The Israeli military said the clash, which took place just inside the Lebanese border, killed two Israeli soldiers. Officials with the Lebanese-based Hezbollah said one of their fighters was also killed.
Hours later, Hezbollah fired a Katyusha rocket into northern Israel, killing three people, including two children, in the town of Nazareth. The Israeli Arab children, aged three and seven, were killed as they played on the street outside a house.
The strike marked the first direct hit on a holy town during the current conflict. Nazareth, located about 30 kilometres from the Lebanese border, is a holy place for Christians, who believe it is where Jesus grew up.
CBC's Peter Armstrong reported from Jerusalem that 70 rockets fell in the space of an hour on Nazareth on Wednesday. He said Nazareth is largely an Arab city in Israel and the home to many Israeli Arabs.
Armstrong said more rocket attacks are expected in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, which has been targeted repeatedly by Hezbollah missiles.
Crushed half of Hezbollah's arsenal: Israel
Israeli air strikes overnight levelled close to 20 houses and buildings in Lebanon, with the military saying it had crushed "about 50 per cent" of Hezbollah's arsenal. "It will take us time to destroy what is left," Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio.
As many as 17 Lebanese were killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern village of Srifa.
As well, Lebanese security officials say up to 41 other people were killed in air strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon.
Also Wednesday, Israeli air strikes hit a Christian suburb of Beirut for the first time since the offensive began. The target was a water-drilling machine on the back of a truck.
And warplanes again bombed the runway of Beirut International Airport, a frequent target of the Israelis.
Deaths in Gaza, West Bank
At least nine Palestinians were killed Wednesday in violence in Gaza and the West Bank.
Four gunmen and two civilians were killed as Israeli tanks pushed into the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. About 45 more people were injured, along with five Israeli soldiers, said the Israeli army.
In the occupied West Bank town of Nablus, Israeli troops shot three Palestinian gunmen in a raid on a security compound, said the army.
Israel moved tanks and troops along the Israeli border with Gaza in late June after Palestinian militants attacked an Israeli army post and seized a soldier.
Israel has fired on Palestinian targets, including offices of the governing Hamas party, and power stations, while Palestinians have fired rockets at Israeli communities.
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Heavy Fighting Reported on Israel-Lebanon Border
By Jim Teeple
Jerusalem
20 July 2006
At least two Israeli troops were wounded, Thursday, in heavy fighting with Hezbollah militants, as Israeli air strikes continued in Lebanon and Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. More than 300 people, nearly all civilians, have died in Lebanon and at least 15 civilians have been killed in Israel by Hezbollah rockets, since fighting began nine days ago. Hezbollah militants continued rocket attacks in Israel, Thursday, striking the cities of Haifa and Tiberias.
For the second day in a row, there was ground fighting between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops in Lebanese territory. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Israeli troops are reluctant to enter Lebanon where they could face a disadvantage against Hezbollah forces.
"We know exactly what this can bring about. We know what mayhem this can cause. And, this is precisely what we want to avoid," he said. "We do not want to be dragged into this. This is precisely what Hezbollah is trying to do, to drag us into a ground battle, because they know they have an advantage as a guerrilla organization."
Thursday's Israeli air strikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, where Israeli warplanes Wednesday dropped 23 tons of explosives on what Israeli officials say was a bunker used by senior Hezbollah leaders. Hezbollah says the target was a mosque - a charge denied by Israeli officials.
Lebanon's prime minister says the bombing has "torn the country into shreds." Nearly all of the casualties in Lebanon have been civilian casualties. Yigal Palmor of Israel's foreign ministry says that is because Hezbollah has based its operations in civilian areas.
"We never target civilian objectives. However, Hezbollah has been using the population as a human shield," he said. "They have been storing weapons and rockets in civilian homes and buildings and they have been firing rockets from within villages and civilian population centers."
Lebanese officials say more than 500,000 people have been displaced as a result of the fighting. Lebanon is appealing for international assistance. A small contingent of U.S. Marines is in Lebanon to help evacuate more than 1,000 American citizens. Other Western nations are continuing to evacuate their citizens to Cyprus.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the bombing will continue, as long as Hezbollah continues to hold two Israeli soldiers it captured last week, and until the Lebanese Army moves into southern Lebanon - into positions now occupied by Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Israel dropped leaflets across the Gaza Strip, Thursday, warning Palestinians that anyone hiding weapons will be targeted. Shortly afterwards, Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian militants in central Gaza. Israel also carried out an air strike in the area. Palestinian authorities say several Palestinians were killed in the exchange.
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Israel Hints at a Full-Scale Invasion
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB
Associated Press
Jul 20, 2006
Summary: Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.
But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel broadcast warnings Wednesday into south Lebanon, telling civilians to leave the region - a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
Israeli warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak, followed by strikes in the guerrillas' heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley.
The strikes followed bombings Wednesday that killed as many as 70 people, according to Lebanese television, making it the deadliest day since the fighting began July 12.
Russia sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.
At least 306 people have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli campaign began, according to the security forces control room that collates casualties. In Israel, 29 people have been killed, including 14 soldiers. The U.N. has said at least a half-million people have been displaced in Lebanon.
About 40 U.S. Marines landed in Beirut to help Americans onto the USS Nashville, which will carry 1,200 evacuees bound for Cyprus in the second mass U.S. exodus from Lebanon. Thousands of Europeans also fled on ships - continuing one of the largest evacuation operations since World War II. An estimated 13,000 foreign nationals have been evacuated.
Israel's series of small ground forays across the border have aimed to push back Hezbollah guerrillas who have continued firing rockets into northern Israel despite more than a week of massive bombardment - raising the question of whether air power alone can suppress them. Guerrillas fired 25 rockets into Israel on Thursday, which caused no casualties.
But the guerrillas have been fighting back hard on the ground, wounding three Israeli soldiers Thursday, a day after killing two. An Israeli unit sent in to ambush Hezbollah guerrillas also had a fierce gunbattle with a cell of militants.
In another clash, just across the border from the Israeli town of Avivim, guerrillas fired a missile at an Israeli tank, seriously wounding one soldier. Hezbollah said its guerrillas destroyed two tanks trying to enter the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras, across from Avivim.
Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.
But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel broadcast warnings Wednesday into south Lebanon, telling civilians to leave the region - a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.
"There is a possibility - all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Leaflets dropped Wednesday night warned the population that any trucks traveling in Lebanese towns south of the Litani River would be suspected of carrying weapons and rockets and could be targeted by Israeli forces.
The Lebanese government is under international pressure to deploy troops in the south to rein in Hezbollah guerrillas _ but even before the fighting, many considered it too weak to do so without deeply fracturing the country.
An Italian newspaper quoted Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora on Thursday as making his strongest statement yet against the Shiite militant group. But Saniora's office quickly said he was misquoted.
The Milan-based Corriere della Sera quoted him as saying in an interview that Hezbollah has created a "state within a state," adding: "The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah. But first we need to reach a cease-fire."
Saniora later issued a statement denying the remarks. He said he told the paper the international community must help press Israel from Chebaa Farms, a small border area that Lebanon claims and Hezbollah points to as proof of the continued need for armed resistance.
Saniora told the paper that "the continued presence of Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands in the Chebaa Farms region is what contributes to the presence of Hezbollah weapons. The international community must help us in (getting) an Israeli withdrawal from Chebaa Farms so we can solve the problem of Hezbollah's arms," the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the newspaper.
On Wednesday, Saniora appealed for a cease-fire, saying Lebanon "has been torn to shreds." Warplanes pounded southern areas where Hezbollah operates, but civilian residential neighborhoods bore the brunt, with dozens of houses destroyed.
Dallal said Israel had hit "1,000 targets in the last eight days - 20 percent were missile-launching sites and the rest were control and command centers, missiles and so forth."
Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan insisted the Israeli army never targets civilians but has no way of knowing whether they are in an area it is striking. "Civilians might be in the area because Hezbollah is operating from civilian territory," Nehushtan said.
He said that Hezbollah has fired more than 1,100 rockets at civilian areas in Israel since the fighting began and that 12 percent - or about 750,000 people - of Israel's population lives in areas that can be targeted by the guerrillas.
Israel said its airstrikes so far have destroyed about half of Hezbollah's arsenal - and it has been trying to take out its top leaders.
The Israeli military said aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives on what it believed was a bunker for senior Hezbollah leaders in the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Hezbollah said none of its members was hurt and denied a leadership bunker was in the area, saying a mosque under construction was hit. It has a headquarters compound in Bourj al-Barajneh that is off limits to Lebanese police and army, so security officials could not confirm the strike.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman told CNN his country would not comment about the attack until it is sure of all the facts. But he added, "I can assure you that we know exactly what we hit. ... This was no religious site. This was indeed the headquarters of the Hezbollah leadership."
On Thursday, Israeli jets struck houses believed used by Hezbollah officials in the town of Hermel in the western Bekaa Valley, wounding at least three.
Israeli warplanes also destroyed a five-story residential and commercial building that reportedly once held a Hezbollah office in the Bekaa Valley city of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold, witnesses said. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Two civilians were killed late Wednesday in strikes on bridges in Lebanon's far north, near Tripoli, the National News Agency said.
Israeli jets also raided a detention center in the southern town of Khiam Thursday, witnesses and local TV said. The notorious Khiam prison, formerly run by Israel's Lebanese militia allies during its occupation, was destroyed in four bombing runs, they said.
International pressure mounted on Israel and the United States to agree to a cease-fire. The destruction and rising death toll deepened a rift between the U.S. and Europe.
The Bush administration is giving Israel a tacit green light to take the time it needs to neutralize Hezbollah, but the Europeans fear mounting civilian casualties will play into the hands of militants and weaken Lebanon's democratically elected government.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour criticized the rising toll, saying the shelling was invariably killing innocent civilians.
"International law demands accountability," she said in Geneva. "The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
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'Is this the price to pay?' Lebanese PM asks
Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:53:50 EDT
CBC News
Lebanon's leader appealed Wednesday for an end to eight days of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the violence has killed 300 people in his country, wounded 1,000 and displaced more than half a million others.
"Is this what the international community calls the right of self-defence? Is this the price to pay?" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora asked, in a swipe at countries that have defended Israel's decision to send in planes, tanks and troops as measured self-defence.
Saniora's comment, made at a gathering in Beirut that included U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, included the first official casualty figures out of Lebanon since Israel began military strikes after Lebanese-based Hezbollah militants conducted a cross-border raid on July 12.
Saniora also said he would "spare no avenue" to make Israel compensate for Lebanon's "unimaginable losses."
But Israel's cabinet said it has no plans to back down.
"The intensive fighting against the Hezbollah organization shall continue ... with the aim of returning the kidnapped soldiers to Israel, bringing about the cessation of rocket fire on communities and Israeli targets and to remove this threat," said a statement from the inner cabinet.
Rice continues diplomatic efforts
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the violence continued 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.
The U.S. has rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying the captured soldiers must first be returned and the rocket attacks end.
Rice has said she is trying to build support for a ceasefire of "lasting value" that would see Lebanon's army take over control of the country's south.
A day earlier, she said she hoped for a ceasefire when conditions were conducive.
She will meet with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and Solana on Thursday evening in New York and could travel to the Middle East as early as this weekend.
A UN team is on its way back to New York to brief Annan, who will deliver the report to the Security Council on Thursday.
The team, sent earlier this week, was denied entry to Syria because Damascus objected to a member who has written previous reports demanding Syrian troops leave Lebanon.
World leaders have been split on their reaction to the crisis, with Canada and the United States defending Israel's military actions as a reasonable response while some other Western countries condemned it as an overreaction.
Arbour suggests killings could be war crimes
Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Louise Arbour said the scale of killings in the region could involve war crimes.
"International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities," said Arbour in a statement Wednesday.
"This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity. ...The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court judge and war crimes prosecutor, didn't single out any government.
Her comments come as UNICEF and the World Health Organization said the violence is hindering the movement of humanitarian supplies and warned of the serious psychological effects of the fighting.
"The psychological impact is serious, as people, including children, have witnessed the death or injury of loved ones and destruction of their homes and communities," the organizations said in a joint statement.
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A Silent World
France pushes UN for action on conflict
Simon Tisdall and Ewen MacAskill
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian
Security council move challenges US and British approach
France challenged the Bush administration's hands-off approach to the Lebanon crisis yesterday by pushing for immediate action by the UN security council to stop the fighting.
The move came as the UN human rights chief warned that Israeli and Hizbullah leaders could face war crimes charges.
Angered by US stalling, France circulated proposals at the UN which could form the basis of a binding resolution. The proposals will be discussed in private today after Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, briefs the security council on the findings of an emergency UN mission to the region. Terje Roed-Larsen, a member of the mission, said yesterday there should be no more delays. "We're in a hurry. It has to happen fast," he said. "There is serious work to be done in order to reach conclusions, which will be presented to the parties."
The mission is expected to propose creating a buffer zone on the Israeli-Lebanese border, a beefed-up international force, deployment of the Lebanese army into the south and a pullback by Hizbullah as well as the release of captured Israeli soldiers as part of possible prisoner exchange.
A French diplomatic source said: "The security council cannot remain inactive. There has been a general call for the UN to act from the Group of Eight, from the Arab League and the European Union - they are all calling for it. France is taking the lead because of its historic role in Lebanon, and because it holds the presidency of the security council."
The French move has tacit support from Russia and China, which have criticised Israel's response to attacks by Hizbullah. But it will cause problems with the US and Britain. A security council source characterised the initial US response as a mixture of "nervousness and irritation".
Louise Arbour, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, said yesterday the scale of killing in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories could constitute war crimes. The obligation to protect civilians during hostilities was laid down in international criminal law "which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity", she said in a statement.
"The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."
Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, was asked repeatedly whether the US was deliberately delaying diplomatic action in order to give Israel another week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah. He denied this was the case.
Asked why George Bush was not pursuing more active peace making by phoning leaders such as Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, Mr Snow replied: "Because the track record stinks."
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, met Mr Bush yesterday to discuss a planned trip to Israel, Lebanon and possibly Egypt over the next few days. But the White House has blocked calls, repeated yesterday by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, for an immediate cessation of hostilities by both sides.
Last week the US vetoed a proposed resolution on Israeli actions in Gaza, sponsored by Arab countries. John Bolton, Washington's ambassador to the UN, has argued against any security council action before Ms Rice returns from the region.
Responding to the French proposals, Mr Bolton said yesterday: "The notion that you just declare a ceasefire and act as if that's going to solve the problem I think is simplistic. Among other things ... I'd like to know when there's been an effective ceasefire between a terrorist organisation and a state in the past."
Since the schism with the US over Iraq in 2003, France has slowly rebuilt relations with Washington. They cooperated closely over last year's withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. But the latest crisis is straining their collaboration.
The French proposals, circulated among the other 14 security council members, call for "a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire", and express "extreme concern at the escalation of hostilities ... and at the deteriorating humanitarian situation and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure".
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Saudi, France to seek common stance on conflict
RIYADH, July 19, 2006 (AFP)
Saudi Arabia's crown prince was due in Paris Wednesday for talks with French President Jacques Chirac aimed at finding a joint stance on the conflict in Lebanon, press reports said.
The visit "comes at a time when the region is going through renewed tension, necessitating consultation between our two countries, whose positions are very close," Chirac wrote in a "message to the Saudi people" published in the daily Al-Riyadh.
The daily Okaz said that Riyadh and Paris would seek to formulate a "joint position to end the bloodshed, shield Lebanon from destruction and rebuild the Lebanese economy."
Saudi Arabia and France played a key role in assisting the
reconstruction of Lebanon in the wake of its 1975-1990 civil war, a period which also witnessed a full-scale Israeli invasion in 1982.
Lebanon has already suffered losses of more than half a billion dollars and seen its crucial tourist season wrecked since Israel launched a devastating assault a week ago which has targeted the country's infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia has urged international action to end hostilities between Israel and Shiite Hezbollah militants, while France has suggested ideas that could form the basis of a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
France has also indicated it wants to help oil-rich Saudi Arabia "preserve its external security, whether in terms of training personnel, cooperation between the armed forces or the modernization of its equipment," Chirac said.
The visit of Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, who is also defense minister, might lead to the signing of defense contracts, according to French sources.
The French presidential palace said Tuesday that Chirac would meet with Sultan on Thursday as planned but that an additional meeting had been set for Wednesday.
Chirac visited Saudi Arabia in March without clinching a defense deal, but the two countries are in talks over the supply to Riyadh of helicopters, Rafale fighters, refueling planes, tanks, frigates and submarines, among others.
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United Against the U.S., Israel
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
July 20, 2006
Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are partners in that sense, and they are gaining clout. The Iraq war has played a key role, analysts say.
SAYEDA ZAINAB, Syria - One of the hottest-selling items in Mustafa Hahel's shop here off Baghdad Street is a poster showing the leaders of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah side by side, smiling pleasantly and surrounded by roses and daffodils. Portraits of the founder of Hamas are on sale just down the road.
"This is one country, Syria and Lebanon, and as for Iran, how can the average person be anything but grateful to Iran for supporting the resistance?" said Hahel, whose business lies outside one of the most famous shrines in Shiite Islam, the mosque of Sayeda Zainab.
If there is a crossroads for the Middle East's axis of fundamentalist Shiites, hard-line Sunnis and Arab nationalists, it must be in this dusty, gridlocked suburb of Damascus. Angrily dispossessed people have landed in succession from the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Iran and southern Lebanon, whose residents have been arriving dazed and tearful by the car- and busload for days.
There is broad opposition to the U.S. and Israel across the Middle East. But the resistance heroes, radical clerics and rogue heads of state dear to the residents of Sayeda Zainab include the late Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian leader Bashar Assad. They are the figureheads of an increasingly powerful alliance aimed at countering U.S. and Israeli policy.
"We are different in every single scope in this community," said Wasef Mahmoud, a 31-year-old Palestinian whose family left northern Israel after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. "But we have one thing in common: Israel is against us, and we are against Israel."
They are against the United States too. At a religious school housing Lebanon refugees, an American's brief query Wednesday was met with angry shouts and a plea from the proprietor to leave as quickly as possible to avoid trouble.
"Death to America!" three men shouted, rushing at the door before being pulled back. "We hate you!"
Many Lebanese, who pressed Syria to withdraw from their country last year, would disagree with Hahel's characterization of Lebanon and Syria as one country. But it was Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that first sent Shiite Lebanese fleeing toward the ornate mosaic and silver-spangled shrine here dedicated to the prophet Muhammad's granddaughter. Many of them subsequently returned home.
Palestinians had already set up a small refugee town here, as had Syrians who fled the Golan Heights when Israel captured it in 1967. Iranians ousted from Iraq by Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war flooded in when Iran wouldn't take them back. A wave of Iraqi refugees arrived after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. And now the Lebanese are coming again.
Syria's secular regime, governing a nation of mainly Sunni Muslims, forged a friendship with Shiite Iran years ago based on their mutual antagonism toward Hussein. Hezbollah and Hamas come from entirely separate schools of Islamic theology, but the two found common cause in their hatred of Israel.
Now all four are united in a program whose ultimate goal is ejecting Israel from at least the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Lebanon, undermining pro-Western Arab governments.
Analysts here say a key factor in solidifying the partnership was the current war in Iraq, which not only raised fears among pro-Western Sunni Arab leaders that Shiites were gaining power, but also provided a successful model for long-running guerrilla warfare against the U.S.
"The insurgency in Iraq was able up to this moment to stand against the United States Army. And this has taught a lesson to the others. It has changed the whole equation in the Middle East," said Nabil Samman, head of the Center for Research and Documentation, a Damascus think tank.
"We're not talking about open war with the United States. We're not adventurists. We know very well our limitations," said Mohammed Habash, an independent member of parliament and director of the Islamic Studies Center in the Syrian capital.
"But we believe there are more tools than this kind of war in the Middle East," he said. "It's not a secret to tell you that there are a lot in Syria who have a desire to work in the sphere of resistance, to fight."
A previously unheard-of group calling itself the National Popular Coalition for the Liberation of the Golan Heights issued a statement last week "calling to open the door for volunteers in the resistance movement to defend our land."
"We have no doubt now that resistance is the only way to get back our Arab rights," it said.
Analysts say the Iraq war also played a part in pushing Syria closer to Iran. Moderate Arab governments became worried about the rising influence of Shiite Islam after the Iraqi elections, at the same time that they were becoming alarmed about Iran's nuclear program.
"The Arab countries, with Iran having its nuclear plans, sort of tried to make Syria choose between Iran and them," said Georges Jabbour, a legislator from the ruling Baath Party and an advisor to the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, father of the current head of state.
"But Syria was aware of the importance of the Iranian role in the region even before the Islamic Revolution" of 1979, he said. The elder Assad, he said, "was a strategist, he was a military man. He looked at the map and saw that Iran had a very big place on the map."
Some Syrians say they've been waiting decades for the kinds of apocalyptic pronouncements Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has made against Israel.
"Ahmadinejad is a good man, because he wants to get rid of Israel," said Hahel, at the poster shop. "For Muslims, there is a promise that the state of Israel will not survive. If not now, then 100 years from now. This is God's promise to the Muslims."
The Iranians have helped restore the shrine here in Sayeda Zainab and are handing out alms to Lebanese who arrive.
A few blocks away, the Persian on the street signs gives way to Arabic. Vendors selling fat tomatoes and lamb stuffed with parsley have Iraqi accents. But the words are the same.
"The Americans want to make it a Crusaders-Muslim war, and if it keeps going like this, they will get one," said Abu Jaffar, an unemployed Iraqi musician who gathers daily with other displaced Iraqis, including several former soldiers in Hussein's army, to drink lemon-lime sodas on Baghdad Street.
"With what's going on in Lebanon, I can tell you that all the Arabs are supporters of Hezbollah," he said. "Because they are Muslims."
Comment: This article is a fine example of the kind of propaganda that is seen every day in the US media. It reinforces the idea that Israel is the poor victim in a sea of Arab hostility. That Israel has been the aggressor over and again, that Israel has no respect for international law or human rights when it comes to the Palestinians or their Arab nrighbors, is passed over in silence.
Israel is the nuclear power in the Middle East, yet there are no calls for Israel to disarm. No, instead the drums of war are being sounded against Iran. Such double standards and hypocrisy are not unnoticed in the Arab world.
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US orders nine warships to waters off Lebanon
by Jim Mannion Tue Jul 18, 4:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States ordered nine warships to waters off the Lebanese coast amid fears of possible terrorist attacks on ships evacuating US nationals, officials said.
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Though only 124 Americans have been brought out so far, the State Department defended the speed of the evacuation, calling it "highly organized, very efficient, very active."
Six days after the start of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, the first US chartered cruise ship arrived in Beirut to pick up US citizens, and the US Navy ordered the nine ships to waters off Lebanon.
The vessels, including four amphibious assault ships now in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, will be used to bring out large numbers of Americans and provide security amid fears of terrorist attacks, said Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of US Fifth Fleet.
"I'm concerned about attacks on ships, you bet," he told reporters here via videolink from his headquarters in Bahrain.
Ferries and cruise ships have been able to move freely between Lebanon and Cyprus so far, and the US navy has been making arrangements to hire more commercial vessels to bring out Americans, officials said.
But Walsh said, "It's prudent not to assume anything when we go into an environment like this. So we make all preparations in our planning and deliberations so we're ready for any contingency."
"That sort of scenario is something we are planning for," he said.
The first of four amphibious warships is expected to enter the eastern Mediterranean on Wednesday and the others will arrive over the course of the week, he said.
They include the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, two amphibious dock landing ships, and an amphibious transport dock ship.
About 2,200 marines are aboard the Iwo Jima, including a battalion and a medium lift helicopter squadron.
Walsh said landing craft and helicopters will be used to move Americans to the safety of the amphibious warships which he said can hold about 1,000 people.
A guided missile destroyer, the USS Gonzalez, was already in the area to provide security, officials said. Other warships were coming from elsewhere in the European theater, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Walsh said.
The Orient Queen, a Greek cruise ship hired Monday, docked in Beirut and was boarding Americans, and another chartered vessel with space for 1,400 passengers was due to arrive Wednesday, Walsh said.
"The threat level presently allows for to us move the ferry back and forth. We will take advantage of that to the maximum extent possible," he said.
"But we'll also have warships positioned strategically and tactically in order to ensure the safe and secure passage of American citizens from Lebanon to Cyprus," he said.
Until now the US evacuation has consisted of a half dozen CH-53 helicopters that have flown only 124 Americans to safety in Cyprus since Sunday.
Walsh said the mobilization of US naval forces had been ordered earlier but took time to assemble because of the distances involved, and because the marines aboard the amphibious ships were engaged in an exercise in Jordan.
France and Italy already have major evacuations underway. About 900 mostly French nationals arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday by chartered ferry from Beirut. An Italian warship brought out another 300 people Monday.
Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging that all resources be made available for a swift evacuation of Americans.
"Reports that American citizens who have been registered with the State Department are not being evacuated immediately are enormously troubling," Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, and senior senators Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy, said in the letter.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, criticized the State Department for demanding that US citizens sign agreements to repay their transportation costs.
"I think we moved very fast," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN television.
"We're highly organized, very efficient, very active. We're on this one and doing a good job," he said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States was in discussions to hire four or five other commercial vessels of varying size for the evacuation.
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon, and its fighter jets have severely damaged Beirut International Airport and struck roads, bridges and other infrastructure in retaliation for the Hezbollah missile attacks on northern Israel.
The US embassy has discouraged Americans from trying to get out of the country by road toSyria, warning of the danger of Israeli airstrikes.
The State Department estimates there are 25,000 Americans in Lebanon, and about 15,000 of them have registered with the US embassy.
Military officials said helicopters flew out 60 people on Tuesday, 43 on Monday and 21 on Sunday. Another 60 passengers were due to fly back later in the day, they said.
But the State Department was generally reserving those flights for Americans with special needs and will rely instead on chartered vessels for the bulk of evacuees, Whitman said.
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Russia Calls Israel's Attacks on Lebanon Disproportional, Urges Ceasefire
Created: 20.07.2006 16:53 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:53 MSK
MosNews
The scale of destruction caused in Lebanon by the Israeli military has gone far beyond Israel's stated goals, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday, RIA Novosti news agency reports.
Israel has carried out bombings and air strikes in Lebanon, and sent its troops into the country, in a wave of violence that began nine days ago when Islamic militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli servicemen in a cross-border raid. Israel's attacks have left around 300 Lebanese dead and displaced 500,000, according to the Lebanese prime minister. At least 29 Israelis have also lost their lives.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said, "Moscow confirms its commitment to a decisive war against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We also confirm our demands that the captured Israeli servicemen be unconditionally freed. However, the unprecedented scale of fatalities and destruction shows that actions [on the part of Israel] to achieve this goal have gone far beyond the bounds of an anti-terrorist operation."
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a Sunday night news conference at the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations that, according to Arab sources, Israel was pursuing goals other than the release of its hostages.
The ministry statement said an immediate ceasefire was the first urgent step needed to end the escalating violence. "The first urgent step in the current critical situation must be an immediate ceasefire and end to bloodshed. We support the urgent call for this made by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora."
The Lebanese leader called for an end to Israel's military action - which he called "barbaric" - in an appeal Wednesday. He also asked for immediate humanitarian aid. The Russian Foreign Ministry said a ceasefire would enable civilians to leave the conflict zones safely, and would allow political and diplomatic negotiations to begin.
The ministry said it had also sent a proposal to deliver aid to Lebanon.
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EU demands ceasefire in Lebanon
Thursday, 20 July 2006, 15:09 GMT 16:09 UK
The European Union is calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon amid growing fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
It has urged Israel and Hezbollah militants to end hostilities, and announced 10m euros (£6.8m) in aid for civilians suffering in the conflict.
Bombed roads are hampering aid efforts, with the UN warning the humanitarian crisis is worsening by the hour.
The EU intervention comes as Israeli soldiers are fighting militants inside Lebanon, Israeli officials say.
Israel is also continuing its bombing campaign, carrying out 80 air strikes early on Thursday.
'Catastrophe'
As thousands of foreigners continue to flee the country with the help of their governments, aid agencies are expressing increasing concern for those who will be left behind, especially people in the south who have been displaced by the fighting.
UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said the wounded could not be helped because Israeli air raids had cut off roads.
Without a truce allowing aid agencies to begin the relief effort there would be a "catastrophe", he warned.
On Thursday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will try to persuade the Security Council to take action to end the violence.
He will then hold a private meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Mr Annan has already repeated calls for a new international force to be deployed in the Lebanese border region.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU aid would be dedicated to those in most urgent need "so that we can express our solidarity to the civilians that are suffering for this terrible conflict".
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen of Finland, which holds the EU presidency, said the 25-member bloc was "acutely concerned" about the crisis.
"The EU stands ready to help. A strong international presence in southern Lebanon, approved by the Security Council, may be needed," he said.
"However, all parties to the conflict must first commit to a ceasefire."
Lebanon's president has also called for an immediate ceasefire, describing Israel's offensive - which has killed about 300 people and displaced an estimated 500,000 - as a "massacre".
Stranded in the war zone
The nine days of fighting - triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid - have left 29 Israelis dead, including 15 civilians killed by rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel.
Earlier, Captain Eric Schneider from the Israeli Defence Force told the BBC there was heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants in two places inside Lebanon's border.
Hezbollah issued a statement saying that it had destroyed two Israeli tanks. The Israeli army has not confirmed this, but did say at least three Israeli soldiers had been injured.
The Israeli public security minister, Avi Dichter, said Hezbollah had to understand that its "time is up" and that Israel will only accept a Lebanese government force at the border.
In other developments:
* Those being evacuated on Thursday include about 3,000 Britons, who are being transferred onto three Royal Navy ships
* US marines from the USS Nashville have come ashore in Beirut to assist with the evacuation of US citizens
* Cyprus says it cannot cope with the influx of evacuees, expected to reach 60,000, and appeals to the European Commission for additional planes to fly evacuees to their home countries
* The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, warns that those involved in the spiral of violence between Israel and Lebanon could face war crimes charges if they are found to have deliberately attacked civilians
* Pope Benedict XVI calls for a day of prayer on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the crisis
The Israelis say they are fighting to end the control of Hezbollah over the lives of ordinary people on both sides of the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign against the militants would continue "as long as necessary" to free its captured soldiers and ensure Hezbollah was not a threat.
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Britain fears assault on Hezbollah will backfire
By Bronwen Maddox, Foreign Editor
Sunday Times
July 20, 2006
BRITAIN fears that Israel's assault on Hezbollah is failing to cripple the guerrilla group and that continued bombardment will bring huge civilian casualties in Lebanon for little military gain.
The rising concern that any further Israeli military action could intensify the crisis, expressed by senior officials yesterday, strikes a much more urgent tone than the American position, which accepts a continued Israeli campaign to crush the Shia militant group.
Yesterday was the heaviest day for civilian casualties since Israel's bombardment began last week, with at least 63 killed and scores more wounded. A total of 315 Lebanese, mostly civilians, have been killed and hundreds injured since the start of the Israeli offensive.
Last night dozens of planes dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on what the Army said was a bunker in south Beirut used by Hezbollah's leadership. The group said none of is leaders where killed in the attack.
A senior British official said: "Our concern is that Israeli military action is not having the desired effect. We're not seeing the level of impact [which Israel and its allies would want]." Hezbollah was "still highprofile in southern Beirut", even if its claims to have lost only three fighters underplayed the damage done. "We're not seeing any large-scale destruction of Hezbollah rockets," the official added, "and we don't know where they are."
Israel claimed yesterday to have destroyed half of Hezbollah's rockets, which the guerrilla group has been firing steadily across the Lebanese border. "We have already destroyed around 50 per cent of the rockets and missiles that Hezbollah had," General Alon Friedman told army radio.
The Israeli action had "disrupted Hezbollah but there's not much more they can do with an extensive campaign", a British official said. "We are concerned that continued military operations by Israel will cause further damage to infrastructure and loss of civilian life which the damage to Hezbollah will not justify."
But the need for Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, to appear tough at home might tempt him to continue even when the military value was slight, officials suggested.
The Bush Administration, by contrast, has given Israel a green light to continue its attempt to crush Hezbollah.
Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, is now expected to visit the region on Sunday in a sign of greater US engagement, that will be welcomed by European governments. Today, at the UN Security Council in New York, Britain will push for a set of "guidelines for the next phase" which go further than the G8 summit managed last week. "We do need a plan, partly to give Israel a reason to stop its military action," the official said. Britain and the US also want to show Iran, Hezbollah's backers, that it cannot ignite such conflicts.
But the meeting will expose differences within the council - and between Britain and the US. There are deep disagreements about how to respond to the crisis, which began nine days ago with Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.
The heart of the British plan is the proposal, promoted by Tony Blair at the G8 summit, for an international force in southern Lebanon to allow Lebanese security forces to regain control from Hezbollah. The US has been sceptical of the idea. Britain has also been anxious about the lack of urgency shown by the US, reflected in the nine days that it has taken to assemble the Council.
On Tuesday, Dr Rice said that there should be a ceasefire "as soon as possible when conditions are conducive to do so", words widely interpreted as licence for Israel to continue.
France, which backs the notion of an international force, also wants the Council to call for a ceasefire, a demand on Israel which the US and Britain are unlikely to accept.
The first sign of British frustration at the US position came during the summit when, in an unguarded conversation with Mr Bush, Mr Blair revealed his anxiety about the need for urgent intervention. The Prime Minister suggested that he could visit the region immediately if a trip by Dr Rice took too long to arrange.
However, in the Commons yesterday, Mr Blair backed Israel's right to defend itself, provided that it "does its best to minimise civilian casualties", a position matching that of the US. This conflict "started with the kidnap of Israeli soldiers and the bombardment of northern Israel", he told Sir Menzies Campbell when challenged to say whether it was US policy to tolerate further Israeli military action. Mr Blair mocked Sir Menzies for saying that Britain should call for an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire". Hezbollah had sent " in the region of 1,600 rockets into northern Israel", and while that continued, a "proportionate" response was justified.
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State Dept.: No Free Evacuations for Dead Americans, Either
By Paul Kiel - July 18, 2006, 2:55 PM
Alive or dead, Uncle Sam doesn't give any free rides.
Earlier I noted that the State Department, in stark contrast to the Canadian government, is requiring U.S. citizens caught in Lebanon to pay for the cost of their evacuation. (Rep. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has since weighed in, saying that this was no time "for quibbling over payment for evacuation.")
I called up the State Department to ask about the policy. "We are not standing there with a cash box asking people to pay before they get on the boat," spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus told me. But if they don't pay (by check, no cash or credit cards accepted), or sign a form promising to pay, they don't go. It's the law: "Reasonable commercial air fare" shall be charged to all evacuees.
What if they're dead?
Same deal, she said. No freebies, even if you're not around to enjoy it.
Hironimus said that she didn't know the exact fee being charged. Evacuees are signing promissory notes. Those citizens will find out how much they owe when they get the bill in the mail.
And if a U.S. citizen is killed waiting to evacuate -- or because they stayed behind, unable to promise their government they could pay?
"We arrange with their families," Hironimus said. "We discuss their choices, but it's paid for by the families."
In any case, the spokeswoman assured me, no one would get left behind.
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Still More Israeli Crimes
Israelis against the war
By Rob Winder in Tel Aviv
Thursday 20 July 2006, 7:45 Makka Time, 4:45 GMT
An overwhelming majority of Israelis support their country's assault on Lebanon, opinion polls suggest, but despite the clamour for military action, voices of dissent continue to be heard.
Arab-Israelis, many of whom