New York Times
Audit Finds U.S. Hid Actual Cost of Iraq Projects
By JAMES GLANZ
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.
The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.
Called the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., the agency administers foreign aid projects around the world. It has been working in Iraq on reconstruction since shortly after the 2003 invasion.
The report by the inspector general’s office does not give a full accounting of all projects financed by the agency’s $1.4 billion budget, but cites several examples.
The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. American and Iraqi officials reported this week that the State Department planned to drop Bechtel, its contractor on that project, as signs of budget and scheduling problems began to surface.
The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred questions to the State Department in Washington, which declined to comment immediately.
In March 2005, A.I.D. asked the Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office at the United States Embassy in Baghdad for permission to downsize some projects to ease widespread financing problems. In its request, it said that it had to “to absorb greatly increased construction costs” at the Basra hospital, and that it would make a modest shift of priorities and reduce “contractor overhead” on the project.
The embassy office approved the request. But the audit found that the agency interpreted the document as permission to change reporting of costs across its program.
Referring to the embassy office’s approval, the inspector general wrote, “The memorandum was not intended to give U.S.A.I.D. blanket permission to change the reporting of all indirect costs.”
The hospital’s construction budget was $50 million. By April of this year, Bechtel had told the aid agency that because of escalating costs for security and other problems, the project would actually cost $98 million to complete. But in an official report to Congress that month, the agency “was reporting the hospital project cost as $50 million,” the inspector general wrote in his report.
The rest was reclassified as overhead, or “indirect costs.” According to a contracting officer at the agency who was cited in the report, the agency “did not report these costs so it could stay within the $50 million authorization.”
“We find the entire agreement unclear,” the inspector general wrote of the U.S.A.I.D. request approved by the embassy. “The document states that hospital project cost increases would be offset by reducing contractor overhead allocated to the project, but project reports for the period show no effort to reduce overhead.”
The report said it suspected that other unreported costs on the hospital could drive the tab even higher. In another case cited in the report, a power station project in Musayyib, the direct construction cost cited by the development agency was $6.6 million, while the overhead cost was $27.6 million.
The result is that the project’s overhead, a figure that normally runs to a maximum of 30 percent, was a stunning 418 percent.
The figures were even adjusted in the opposite direction when that helped the agency balance its books, the inspector general found. On an electricity project at the Baghdad South power station, direct construction costs were reported by the agency as $164.3 million and indirect or overhead costs as $1.4 million.
That is just 0.8 percent overhead in a country where security costs are often staggering. A contracting officer told the inspector general that the agency adjusted the figures “to stay within the authorization for each project.”
The overall effect, the report said, was a “serious misstatement of hospital project costs.” The true cost could rise as high as $169.5 million, even after accounting for at least $30 million pledged for medical equipment by a charitable organization.
The inspector general also found that the agency had not reported known schedule delays to Congress. On March 26, 2006, Bechtel informed the agency that the hospital project was 273 days behind, the inspector general wrote. But in its April report to Congress on the status of all projects, “U.S.A.I.D. reported no problems with the project schedule.”
In a letter responding to the inspector general’s findings, Joseph A. Saloom, the newly appointed director of the reconstruction office at the United States Embassy, said he would take steps to improve the reporting of the costs of reconstruction projects in Iraq. Mr. Saloom took little exception to the main findings.
In the letter, Mr. Saloom said that his office had been given new powers by the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, to request clear financing information on American reconstruction projects. Mr. Saloom wrote that he agreed with the inspector general’s conclusion that this shift would help “preclude surprises such as occurred on the Basra hospital project.”
“The U.S. Mission agrees that accurate monitoring of projects requires allocating indirect costs in a systematic way that reflects accurately the true indirect costs attributable to specific activities and projects, such as a Basra children’s hospital,” Mr. Saloom wrote.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Bush Bids for Sweeping Detention Power
The Associated Press
Bush Submits New Terror Detainee Bill
By Anne Plummer Flaherty
The Associated Press
Friday 28 July 2006
Washington -U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.
A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.
Administration officials, who declined to comment on the draft, said the proposal was still under discussion and no final decisions had been made.
Senior officials are expected to discuss a final proposal before the Senate Armed Services Committee next Wednesday.
According to the draft, the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."
Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.
"That's the big question ... the definition of who can be detained," said Martin Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown University who posted a copy of the bill to a Web blog.
Scott L. Silliman, a retired Air Force Judge Advocate, said the broad definition of enemy combatants is alarming because a U.S. citizen loosely suspected of terror ties would lose access to a civilian court - and all the rights that come with it. Administration officials have said they want to establish a secret court to try enemy combatants that factor in realities of the battlefield and would protect classified information.
The administration's proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony.
Senior Republican lawmakers have said they were briefed on the general discussions and have some concerns but are awaiting a final proposal before commenting on specifics.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England are expected to discuss the proposal in an open hearing next Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Military lawyers also are scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The legislation is the administration's response to a June 29 Supreme Court decision, which concluded the Pentagon could not prosecute military detainees using secret tribunals established soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The court ruled the tribunals were not authorized by law and violated treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions, which established many international laws for warfare.
The landmark court decision countered long-held assertions by the Bush administration that the president did not need permission from Congress to prosecute "enemy combatants" captured in the war on terror and that al Qaeda members were not subject to Geneva Convention protections because of their unconventional status.
"In a time of ongoing armed conflict, it is neither practicable nor appropriate for enemy combatants like al Qaeda terrorists to be tried like American citizens in federal courts or courts-martial," the proposal states.
The draft proposal contends that an existing law - passed by the Senate last year after exhaustive negotiations between the White House and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should "fully satisfy" the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday he expects to take up the detainee legislation in September.
Bush Submits New Terror Detainee Bill
By Anne Plummer Flaherty
The Associated Press
Friday 28 July 2006
Washington -U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.
A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.
Administration officials, who declined to comment on the draft, said the proposal was still under discussion and no final decisions had been made.
Senior officials are expected to discuss a final proposal before the Senate Armed Services Committee next Wednesday.
According to the draft, the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."
Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.
"That's the big question ... the definition of who can be detained," said Martin Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown University who posted a copy of the bill to a Web blog.
Scott L. Silliman, a retired Air Force Judge Advocate, said the broad definition of enemy combatants is alarming because a U.S. citizen loosely suspected of terror ties would lose access to a civilian court - and all the rights that come with it. Administration officials have said they want to establish a secret court to try enemy combatants that factor in realities of the battlefield and would protect classified information.
The administration's proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony.
Senior Republican lawmakers have said they were briefed on the general discussions and have some concerns but are awaiting a final proposal before commenting on specifics.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England are expected to discuss the proposal in an open hearing next Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Military lawyers also are scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The legislation is the administration's response to a June 29 Supreme Court decision, which concluded the Pentagon could not prosecute military detainees using secret tribunals established soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The court ruled the tribunals were not authorized by law and violated treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions, which established many international laws for warfare.
The landmark court decision countered long-held assertions by the Bush administration that the president did not need permission from Congress to prosecute "enemy combatants" captured in the war on terror and that al Qaeda members were not subject to Geneva Convention protections because of their unconventional status.
"In a time of ongoing armed conflict, it is neither practicable nor appropriate for enemy combatants like al Qaeda terrorists to be tried like American citizens in federal courts or courts-martial," the proposal states.
The draft proposal contends that an existing law - passed by the Senate last year after exhaustive negotiations between the White House and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should "fully satisfy" the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday he expects to take up the detainee legislation in September.
another retreat--Israel will not demand Hizbollah disarm - Yahoo! News
Yahoo! News
Israel will not demand Hizbollah disarm
Israel will not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the current fighting in Lebanon, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Saturday.
Israel's stance could make it easier to reach an agreement with major powers and the Lebanese government on the deployment of a peacekeeping force in south Lebanon.
Hizbollah would almost certainly reject a peacekeeping force whose mandate calls for its disarmament.
The foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel would demand that the proposed peacekeeping force in south Lebanon keep Hizbollah away from the Israeli border and prevent the group from replenishing its stockpile of rockets from Syria and Iran.
The official told Reuters that Israel was seeking a commitment to "start the process of implementing" U.N. Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hizbollah.
"But disarming Hizbollah now is not what Israel is demanding," the official said, adding that "disarming Hizbollah will not be part of the mandate for the (peacekeeping) mission."
Israel will not demand Hizbollah disarm
Israel will not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the current fighting in Lebanon, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Saturday.
Israel's stance could make it easier to reach an agreement with major powers and the Lebanese government on the deployment of a peacekeeping force in south Lebanon.
Hizbollah would almost certainly reject a peacekeeping force whose mandate calls for its disarmament.
The foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel would demand that the proposed peacekeeping force in south Lebanon keep Hizbollah away from the Israeli border and prevent the group from replenishing its stockpile of rockets from Syria and Iran.
The official told Reuters that Israel was seeking a commitment to "start the process of implementing" U.N. Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hizbollah.
"But disarming Hizbollah now is not what Israel is demanding," the official said, adding that "disarming Hizbollah will not be part of the mandate for the (peacekeeping) mission."
Israel pulls out of Hezbollah stronghold
Yahoo! News
Israel pulls out of Hezbollah stronghold
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
Israeli troops pulled back from a key Lebanese border town Saturday where it battled Hezbollah for a week, claiming to have finished its mission after the bloodiest ground fight of the 18-day war.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah threatened in a TV broadcast to attack more cities in central Israel, as Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children.
The battle for Bint Jbail has symbolized Israel's difficulty in pushing guerrillas back from the border, whether by air bombardment or ground assault. Hezbollah on Friday escalated its cross-border attacks, firing longer-range missiles deeper into Israel than ever before.
Lebanese civilians have born the brunt of the Israeli onslaught.
The woman and her children were crushed in their home by a strike outside the market town of Nabatiyeh, which also killed a man in a nearby house, Lebanese security officials said. In another southern town, six bodies were dug from the rubble of a house destroyed by a strike Friday, they said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was returning to the Middle East to give Lebanese and Israeli leaders a refined U.S. package of proposals aimed at ending the violence and breaking Hezbollah's domination of the region along Israel's border.
The American peace plan included new provisions aimed at addressing some demands in a proposal put forward late Thursday by the Lebanese government — and reluctantly agreed to by Hezbollah.
Rice made a fueling stop in Doha, Qatar and praised the Lebanese proposals, the first from Beirut, saying they showed the young democracy could function.
"The most important thing that this does for the process is that it shows a Lebanese government that is functioning as a Lebanese government," Rice told reporters traveling with her. "That is in and of itself extremely important."
Rice plans to meet first with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem for talks on Saturday night, said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry. There was no immediate word for a stop in Beirut, but Rice's visit to Lebanon earlier in the week was announced at the last minute for security reasons.
The U.S. peace plan envisions the deployment of a U.N.-mandated multinational force that can provide stability in the region, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
It also proposes: disarming Hezbollah and integrating the guerrilla force into the Lebanese army; Hezbollah's return of Israeli prisoners; and a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to put Hezbollah rockets out of range of Israel. And it seeks to address some demands from Lebanon: a commitment to resolve the status of a piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon; and the creation of an international reconstruction plan for Lebanon.
The United States is under increasing pressure to quickly find a way to end fighting sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 raid.
Israel's retaliation has spiraled into an all-out attempt to end the guerrillas' domination of south Lebanon. The fighting has killed hundreds, driven some 750,000 Lebanese from their homes, caused a humanitarian crisis — and brought some of the heaviest bombardment of Israel by rocket fire.
The Lebanese plan which Hezbollah signed on to calls for an international force in the south and the eventual disarming of the guerrillas. It falls short Israeli and U.S. demands, however, and there was skepticism Hezbollah would fully agree to an international force once the details are worked out.
Israeli Cabinet minister Avi Dichter said on Israel radio Saturday that it was unacceptable for Lebanon's government "to hide behind the claim that a terror organization is operating on their ground and they cannot stop it." He said Israel holds the government fully accountable for Hezbollah actions, and that "Lebanon is paying the full price these days."
Bombardment by Israeli forces and rocket fire from guerrillas was intense Saturday morning around Bint Jbail, Lebanese security officials said. In the afternoon, the Israeli military said its troops had withdrawn from the Hezbollah stronghold, saying that their mission was complete. The military did not say whether guerrillas remained holed up in the town.
Israeli troops launched their assault on Bint Jbail on July 23, entering some houses in heavy fighting.
Eighteen soldiers were killed in the battle — nine of them in Hezbollah ambushes Wednesday, the Israeli military's worst one-day loss of the campaign. On Friday, the army said seven of soldiers were wounded, one seriously, when Hezbollah attacked a ridge overlooking Bint Jbail and the nearby village of Maroun al-Ras.
On Saturday, military officials said the operation never intended to fully capture the town, but just to wear down Hezbollah forces.
Israel radio cited an unnamed high-ranking officer as saying 50 guerrillas were killed in the week of fighting and hundreds wounded, most of them from a special Hezbollah unit. Hezbollah has acknowledge the deaths of only 35 fighters in the entire campaign.
The officer also said Israeli soldiers entered a Hezbollah headquarters in Bint Jbail on Friday and seized weapons, maps and communications equipment.
Whatever Israel's intention, its the pull back from Bint Jbail could provide a propaganda boost for Hezbollah, whose radio and television have lauded guerrillas for their prowess and depicted them as slowing down the Israeli war machine.
The mainly Shiite town is symbolic for Hezbollah, earning the nickname "the capital of the resistance" for its vehement support for the Shiite guerrillas during the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation of the south.
Meanwhile, Israeli air raids destroyed the bridge over the Orontes river in the eastern Bekaa Valley and were targeting bridges in the south.
At least 458 Lebanese have been killed in the fighting, that broke out July 12 after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed one in a cross-border raid. The figure is based on a count Friday from the Health Ministry, based on the number of bodies in hospitals, plus Saturday's deaths outside Natabiyeh and Ain Arab. Some estimates range as high as 600 dead.
Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died in fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said. Israeli troops have killed about 200 Hezbollah guerrillas, the army said. Hezbollah has reported only 35 losses.
The United States, backed by Britain, has adopted a diplomatic stance not embraced by most allies, insisting that any cease-fire must come with conditions to address long-standing regional disputes. Many Europeans and Arab countries are increasing the pressure for an immediate cease-fire first.
There is general agreement an international force is needed in the south to end Hezbollah's decade-long free reign. Details about the force and its mandate are not resolved, but could be at the United Nations on Monday during a meeting called by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Humanitarian aid continued to arrive by sea and by air, but was piling up in Beirut on Saturday. Because aid convoys fear Israeli bombardment, only a trickle has reached the war zone in south Lebanon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese are stranded with dwindling supplies of medicine, food, water and fuel.
Israeli strikes have come within hundreds of yards of the few truck convoys making their way south this week — though no trucks have been hit so far — said officials from the international Red Cross, U.N. and other agencies. Israel has promised safe passage for aid but on a convoy-by-convoy basis; often 72-hour notice is required, slowing the process, officials said.
Israel on Saturday rejected a U.N. request for a three-day cease-fire to get in supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone.
Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, blamed Hezbollah for blocking aid convoys. But the top U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Mona Hammam, said convoys so far had encountered "no problems" from Hezbollah.
Israel pulls out of Hezbollah stronghold
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
Israeli troops pulled back from a key Lebanese border town Saturday where it battled Hezbollah for a week, claiming to have finished its mission after the bloodiest ground fight of the 18-day war.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah threatened in a TV broadcast to attack more cities in central Israel, as Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children.
The battle for Bint Jbail has symbolized Israel's difficulty in pushing guerrillas back from the border, whether by air bombardment or ground assault. Hezbollah on Friday escalated its cross-border attacks, firing longer-range missiles deeper into Israel than ever before.
Lebanese civilians have born the brunt of the Israeli onslaught.
The woman and her children were crushed in their home by a strike outside the market town of Nabatiyeh, which also killed a man in a nearby house, Lebanese security officials said. In another southern town, six bodies were dug from the rubble of a house destroyed by a strike Friday, they said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was returning to the Middle East to give Lebanese and Israeli leaders a refined U.S. package of proposals aimed at ending the violence and breaking Hezbollah's domination of the region along Israel's border.
The American peace plan included new provisions aimed at addressing some demands in a proposal put forward late Thursday by the Lebanese government — and reluctantly agreed to by Hezbollah.
Rice made a fueling stop in Doha, Qatar and praised the Lebanese proposals, the first from Beirut, saying they showed the young democracy could function.
"The most important thing that this does for the process is that it shows a Lebanese government that is functioning as a Lebanese government," Rice told reporters traveling with her. "That is in and of itself extremely important."
Rice plans to meet first with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem for talks on Saturday night, said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry. There was no immediate word for a stop in Beirut, but Rice's visit to Lebanon earlier in the week was announced at the last minute for security reasons.
The U.S. peace plan envisions the deployment of a U.N.-mandated multinational force that can provide stability in the region, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
It also proposes: disarming Hezbollah and integrating the guerrilla force into the Lebanese army; Hezbollah's return of Israeli prisoners; and a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to put Hezbollah rockets out of range of Israel. And it seeks to address some demands from Lebanon: a commitment to resolve the status of a piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon; and the creation of an international reconstruction plan for Lebanon.
The United States is under increasing pressure to quickly find a way to end fighting sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 raid.
Israel's retaliation has spiraled into an all-out attempt to end the guerrillas' domination of south Lebanon. The fighting has killed hundreds, driven some 750,000 Lebanese from their homes, caused a humanitarian crisis — and brought some of the heaviest bombardment of Israel by rocket fire.
The Lebanese plan which Hezbollah signed on to calls for an international force in the south and the eventual disarming of the guerrillas. It falls short Israeli and U.S. demands, however, and there was skepticism Hezbollah would fully agree to an international force once the details are worked out.
Israeli Cabinet minister Avi Dichter said on Israel radio Saturday that it was unacceptable for Lebanon's government "to hide behind the claim that a terror organization is operating on their ground and they cannot stop it." He said Israel holds the government fully accountable for Hezbollah actions, and that "Lebanon is paying the full price these days."
Bombardment by Israeli forces and rocket fire from guerrillas was intense Saturday morning around Bint Jbail, Lebanese security officials said. In the afternoon, the Israeli military said its troops had withdrawn from the Hezbollah stronghold, saying that their mission was complete. The military did not say whether guerrillas remained holed up in the town.
Israeli troops launched their assault on Bint Jbail on July 23, entering some houses in heavy fighting.
Eighteen soldiers were killed in the battle — nine of them in Hezbollah ambushes Wednesday, the Israeli military's worst one-day loss of the campaign. On Friday, the army said seven of soldiers were wounded, one seriously, when Hezbollah attacked a ridge overlooking Bint Jbail and the nearby village of Maroun al-Ras.
On Saturday, military officials said the operation never intended to fully capture the town, but just to wear down Hezbollah forces.
Israel radio cited an unnamed high-ranking officer as saying 50 guerrillas were killed in the week of fighting and hundreds wounded, most of them from a special Hezbollah unit. Hezbollah has acknowledge the deaths of only 35 fighters in the entire campaign.
The officer also said Israeli soldiers entered a Hezbollah headquarters in Bint Jbail on Friday and seized weapons, maps and communications equipment.
Whatever Israel's intention, its the pull back from Bint Jbail could provide a propaganda boost for Hezbollah, whose radio and television have lauded guerrillas for their prowess and depicted them as slowing down the Israeli war machine.
The mainly Shiite town is symbolic for Hezbollah, earning the nickname "the capital of the resistance" for its vehement support for the Shiite guerrillas during the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation of the south.
Meanwhile, Israeli air raids destroyed the bridge over the Orontes river in the eastern Bekaa Valley and were targeting bridges in the south.
At least 458 Lebanese have been killed in the fighting, that broke out July 12 after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed one in a cross-border raid. The figure is based on a count Friday from the Health Ministry, based on the number of bodies in hospitals, plus Saturday's deaths outside Natabiyeh and Ain Arab. Some estimates range as high as 600 dead.
Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died in fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said. Israeli troops have killed about 200 Hezbollah guerrillas, the army said. Hezbollah has reported only 35 losses.
The United States, backed by Britain, has adopted a diplomatic stance not embraced by most allies, insisting that any cease-fire must come with conditions to address long-standing regional disputes. Many Europeans and Arab countries are increasing the pressure for an immediate cease-fire first.
There is general agreement an international force is needed in the south to end Hezbollah's decade-long free reign. Details about the force and its mandate are not resolved, but could be at the United Nations on Monday during a meeting called by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Humanitarian aid continued to arrive by sea and by air, but was piling up in Beirut on Saturday. Because aid convoys fear Israeli bombardment, only a trickle has reached the war zone in south Lebanon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese are stranded with dwindling supplies of medicine, food, water and fuel.
Israeli strikes have come within hundreds of yards of the few truck convoys making their way south this week — though no trucks have been hit so far — said officials from the international Red Cross, U.N. and other agencies. Israel has promised safe passage for aid but on a convoy-by-convoy basis; often 72-hour notice is required, slowing the process, officials said.
Israel on Saturday rejected a U.N. request for a three-day cease-fire to get in supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone.
Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, blamed Hezbollah for blocking aid convoys. But the top U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Mona Hammam, said convoys so far had encountered "no problems" from Hezbollah.
The Truth Will Set You Free--- They may be ‘Chosen’ - but they sure are dumb
The Truth Will Set You Free
Even their only allies are jumping ship.
If they honestly think that the world is going to cheer them on as they kill women and children and turn nations into rubble over a few soldiers and some largely harmless rockets, then either they're as dumb as door knobs or they're terminally insane.
They don't need anyone to destroy them. They're destroying themselves.
They may be ‘Chosen’ - but they sure are dumb
Even their only allies are jumping ship.[Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw] echoed the words of Middle East minister Kim Howells that the current tough Israeli action was "disproportionate".But, Israel keeps piling it on.
Mr Straw said Mr Howells was right to tell the Israelis: "If you want to go for Hezbeollah, go for Hezbollah, don't go for the whole Lebanese nation."* * *
At talks in Rome on Wednesday, the US, UK and regional powers urged peace be sought with the "utmost urgency", but stopped short of calling for an immediate truce. That prompted Mr Ramon to declare Israel had received "permission from the world... to continue the operation".
But questioned by reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Kuala Lumpur, [US State Department spokesman, Adam] Ereli said: "Any such statement is outrageous."
Israel has carried out dozens of fresh strikes on Lebanon. Estimates of the number of people killed range from three to 13.And as if all this bloody murder isn't enough, they keep beaming images of their war-crazed population signing bombs and dancing on our graves. How sick and twisted.
Two mortar rounds have hit a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians escaping the violence in southern Lebanon.
The BBC's Jim Muir, who was with the convoy, said two people - a driver and a television cameraman in a German television car - were wounded when the rounds exploded next to their vehicle.
The convoy, organised by the Australian embassy, was returning to the port city of Tyre from the border village of Rmeish, where hundreds of people have been trapped by the Israeli offensive.
Our correspondent says the cars were clearly marked as a press and civilian convoy, and that individual journalists had been in contact with the Israelis who knew about the journey.
A BBC security adviser travelling in a car behind the German television car said he believed the mortar rounds had been fired from the Israeli side.
If they honestly think that the world is going to cheer them on as they kill women and children and turn nations into rubble over a few soldiers and some largely harmless rockets, then either they're as dumb as door knobs or they're terminally insane.
They don't need anyone to destroy them. They're destroying themselves.
FBI paid key terror informants $56,000
Sun-Sentinel
FBI paid key terror informants $56,000
Tactic will outrage jurors, defense says
By Madeline Baró Diaz
and Vanessa Blum Miami Bureau
Posted July 26 2006
The FBI paid almost $56,000 to two confidential informants who are key to the case against seven men accused of being involved in a terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower and other targets.
According to a document filed by federal prosecutors, the FBI paid one unnamed informant $10,500 and an additional $8,815 in expenses. They also paid a second informant $17,000 with another $19,570 for expenses.
U.S. officials also granted the second informant a "significant public benefit" -- immigration parole so he could remain in the country.
While using paid informants is not unusual in criminal cases, defense attorneys for the accused men said the compensation and benefits will help them show jurors the informants are not trustworthy.
"The fact that these are not just good citizens that are cooperating with the government, but that these are opportunists that are trying to earn not only money but other benefits by creating a case is extremely significant," said Gregory Prebish, attorney for Burson Augustin, one of the accused.
The seven men, part of a religious group headquartered in the Liberty City area of Miami-Dade County, are facing various charges in connection with attacks they allegedly planned.
Much of the case hinges on the two informants, one of whom knew the men and participated in the investigation after alerting authorities. The second man posed as an al-Qaida operative at the FBI's direction, according to prosecutors. Secret recordings made by the informants are also central to the case.
According to court documents, alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste approached the first informant, an acquaintance who has worked with the FBI since around 2004 and who has previously been arrested for assault, possession of marijuana, and motor vehicle violations.
Batiste allegedly asked the informant whether he knew anyone in Yemen who would be willing to support his mission against the United States.
After he began working with the FBI on the case, the informant introduced Batiste to the second informant, who has been working with the FBI for about six years.
The amount of money paid to the informants does not tell the whole story, defense attorneys said.
The informants also received valuable noncash perks, they said, like the immigration parole.
"That's a priceless benefit," said Albert Levin, attorney for Patrick Abraham, one of the seven.
"You've got to question justice if you've got money being paid to create cases," said Nathan Clark, attorney for Rotschild Augustine. "I think it's clearly going to demonstrate the lack of credibility of the charges against my client."
Levin said jurors would likely be outraged to learn how much was spent investigating a "so-called terrorist organization."
According to prosecutors, the men did not pose an imminent threat.
"I would think that the taxpayers would be outraged that they're paying this kind of money for this kind of information," he said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment Tuesday, citing the pending case.
Lawyer Mark Schnapp of Greenberg Traurig, former head of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's office, said compensating informants is routine in federal investigations.
"It's very rare you're going to find someone actively working undercover as an informant without being paid in some fashion," Schnapp said. "At the end of the day, what's on the tapes will govern."
FBI paid key terror informants $56,000
Tactic will outrage jurors, defense says
By Madeline Baró Diaz
and Vanessa Blum Miami Bureau
Posted July 26 2006
The FBI paid almost $56,000 to two confidential informants who are key to the case against seven men accused of being involved in a terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower and other targets.
According to a document filed by federal prosecutors, the FBI paid one unnamed informant $10,500 and an additional $8,815 in expenses. They also paid a second informant $17,000 with another $19,570 for expenses.
U.S. officials also granted the second informant a "significant public benefit" -- immigration parole so he could remain in the country.
While using paid informants is not unusual in criminal cases, defense attorneys for the accused men said the compensation and benefits will help them show jurors the informants are not trustworthy.
"The fact that these are not just good citizens that are cooperating with the government, but that these are opportunists that are trying to earn not only money but other benefits by creating a case is extremely significant," said Gregory Prebish, attorney for Burson Augustin, one of the accused.
The seven men, part of a religious group headquartered in the Liberty City area of Miami-Dade County, are facing various charges in connection with attacks they allegedly planned.
Much of the case hinges on the two informants, one of whom knew the men and participated in the investigation after alerting authorities. The second man posed as an al-Qaida operative at the FBI's direction, according to prosecutors. Secret recordings made by the informants are also central to the case.
According to court documents, alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste approached the first informant, an acquaintance who has worked with the FBI since around 2004 and who has previously been arrested for assault, possession of marijuana, and motor vehicle violations.
Batiste allegedly asked the informant whether he knew anyone in Yemen who would be willing to support his mission against the United States.
After he began working with the FBI on the case, the informant introduced Batiste to the second informant, who has been working with the FBI for about six years.
The amount of money paid to the informants does not tell the whole story, defense attorneys said.
The informants also received valuable noncash perks, they said, like the immigration parole.
"That's a priceless benefit," said Albert Levin, attorney for Patrick Abraham, one of the seven.
"You've got to question justice if you've got money being paid to create cases," said Nathan Clark, attorney for Rotschild Augustine. "I think it's clearly going to demonstrate the lack of credibility of the charges against my client."
Levin said jurors would likely be outraged to learn how much was spent investigating a "so-called terrorist organization."
According to prosecutors, the men did not pose an imminent threat.
"I would think that the taxpayers would be outraged that they're paying this kind of money for this kind of information," he said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment Tuesday, citing the pending case.
Lawyer Mark Schnapp of Greenberg Traurig, former head of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's office, said compensating informants is routine in federal investigations.
"It's very rare you're going to find someone actively working undercover as an informant without being paid in some fashion," Schnapp said. "At the end of the day, what's on the tapes will govern."
The Lies Israel Tells Itself (and We Tell on Its Behalf) - by Jonathan Cook
antiwar
July 29, 2006
The Lies Israel Tells Itself (and We Tell on Its Behalf)
by Jonathan Cook
When journalists use the word "apparently," or another favorite "reportedly," they are usually distancing themselves from an event or an interpretation in the supposed interests of balance. But I think we should read the "apparently" contained in a statement from the head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, relating to the killing this week of four unarmed UN monitors by the Israeli army in its other sense.
When Annan says that those four deaths were "apparently deliberate," I take him to mean that the evidence shows that the killings were deliberate. And who can disagree with him? At least 10 phone calls were made to Israeli commanders over a period of six hours warning that artillery and aerial bombardments were either dangerously close to or hitting the monitors' building.
The UN post, in Khaim just inside south Lebanon, was clearly marked and well-known to the army, but nonetheless it was hit directly four times in the last hour before an Israeli helicopter fired a precision-guided missile that tore through the roof of an underground shelter, killing the monitors inside. A UN convoy that arrived too late to rescue the peacekeepers was also fired on. From the evidence, it does not get much more deliberate than that.
The problem, however, is that Western leaders, diplomats, and the media take the "apparently" in its first sense – as a way to avoid holding Israel to account for its actions. For "apparently deliberate," read "almost certainly accidental." That was why the best the UN Security Council could manage after a day and a half of deliberation was a weaselly statement of "shock and distress" at the killings, as though they were an act of God.
Our media are no less responsible for this evasiveness. They make sure "we" – the publics of the West – never countenance the thought that a society like our own, one we are always being reminded is a democracy, could sink to the depths of inhumanity required to murder unarmed peacekeepers. Who can be taken seriously challenging the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni's assertion that "There will never be an [Israeli] army commander that will intentionally aim at civilians or UN soldiers [sic]"?
Even the minority in the West who have started to fear that Israel is "apparently" slaughtering civilians across Lebanon or that it is "apparently" intending to make refugees of a million Lebanese must presumably shrink from the idea that Israel is also capable of killing unarmed UN monitors.
After all, our media insinuate, the two cases are not comparable.
There may be good reasons why Lebanese civilians need to suffer. Let's not forget that they belong to a people (or is it a race or, maybe, a religion?) that gave birth to Hezbollah. "We" can cast aside our concerns for the moment and take it on trust that Israel has cause to kill the Lebanese or make them homeless. Doubtless the justifications will emerge later, when we have lost interest in the "Lebanon crisis." We may never hear what those reasons were, but who can doubt that they exist?
The "apparent" murder of four UN monitors, however, is a deeper challenge to our faith in our moral superiority, which is why that "apparently" is held on to as desperately as a talisman. No civilized country could kill peacekeepers, especially ones drawn from our own societies, from Canada, Finland, and Austria. That is the moral separation line that divides us from the terrorists. Were that line to be erased, we would be no different from those whom we must fight.
An iconic image of this war that our media have managed to expunge from the official record but which keeps popping up in e-mail inboxes like a guilty secret is of young Israeli girls, lipsticked and nail-polished as if on their way to a party, drawing messages of death and hatred on the sides of the missiles about to be loaded on to army trucks and tanks. In one, an out-of-focus soldier stands on a tank paternally watching over the girls as they address another death threat to Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Is this the truer face of Israeli society, even if it is the one we are never shown and refuse to believe in? And are "we" in the West hurtling down the same path?
Driving through the Jewish city of Upper Nazareth this week, I realized how inured I am becoming to this triumphal militarism – and the racism that feeds it. Nothing surprising about the posters of "We will win" on every hoarding. But it takes me more than a few seconds to notice that the Magen David ambulance in front of me is flying a little national flag, the blue Star of David, from its window. I have heard that American fire engines flew U.S. flags after 9/11, but this somehow seems worse. How is it possible for an ambulance, the embodiment of our neutral, civilized, universal, "Western," humanitarian values, to fly a national flag, I think to myself? And does it make a difference that only a few months ago Magen David joined the International Committee of the Red Cross?
Only slowly do my thoughts grow more disturbed: how many hospital administrators, doctors, and nurses have seen that ambulance arrive at their emergency departments and thought nothing of it? And is that the only Israeli ambulance flying the flag, or are many others doing the same? Later, the BBC TV news answers my question. I see two ambulances with the same flags going to the front line to collect casualties. Will others soon cross over the border into southern Lebanon, after it is "secured," and will no one mention those little flags fluttering from the window?
A psychologist tells me how upset she is about a meeting she attended a few days ago of the northern coordinating committee of her profession. They were discussing how best to treat the shock and trauma suffered by Israeli children under the bombardment from Hezbollah. The meeting concluded with an agreement that the psychologists would reassure the children with the statement: "The army is there to protect us."
And so, the seeds of fascism are unthinkingly sown for another generation of children, children like our own.
No one agreed with my friend when she dissented, arguing that this was not the message to be telling impressionable minds, and that violence against the Other is not a panacea for our problems. Parents, not soldiers, are responsible for protecting their children, she pointed out. Tanks, planes, and guns bring only fear and more hatred, hatred that will one day return to haunt us.
The slow, gentle indoctrination continues day in, day out, reinforcing the idea among Israel's Jewish population that the army can do no wrong and that it needs no oversight, not even from politicians (most of whom are former generals anyway, or like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert too frightened to stand up to the chiefs of staff if they wanted to). "We will win." How do we know we will win? Because "the army is there to protect us." Add into the mix that faceless "Arab" enemy, those sub-beings, and you have a recipe for fascism – even if it is of the democratically elected variety.
The Israeli media, of course, are the key to providing the second half of that equation – or rather not providing it. You can sit watching the main Israeli channels all day, flicking between channels 1, 2, and 10, and not see a Lebanese face, apart from that of Hassan Nasrallah, the new Hitler. I don't mean the charred faces of corpses, or the bandaged babies, or the amputees lying in hospital beds. I mean any Lebanese faces. Just as you almost never see a Palestinian face on Israeli TV unless they are the mob, disfigured with hatred as they hold aloft another martyr on his way to burial.
Lebanon only swings in to view on Israeli television through the black and white footage of an aerial gun sight, or through the long shot of a distant urban landscape seconds before it is "pulverized" by a dropped bomb. The buildings crumble, flames shoot up, clouds of dust billow into the air. Another shot of arcade-game adrenaline.
The humanitarian stories exist, but they do not concern Lebanon. Animal welfare societies plead on behalf of the dogs and cats left alone to face the rocket fire on deserted Kiryat Shmona, just as they did before for foxes and deer when Israel began building its mammoth walls of concrete and steel across their migration routes in the West Bank, walls that are also imprisoning, unseen, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
The rest of the coverage is dedicated to Israeli army spokespeople, including the national heartthrob Miri Regev, and media "commentators" and "analysts." Who are these people? They are from the same pool of former military intelligence and security service officers who once did this job in the closed rooms of army HQ but now wallow in the limelight. One favored pundit is even subtitled "Expert on psychological warfare against Hassan Nasrallah."
And who are the presenters and anchors who interview them? The other day an aging expert on Apache helicopters interrupted his interviewer irritatedly to tell him his question was stupid. "We were in the army together and both know the answer. Don't play dumb." It was a rare reminder that these anchors too are just soldiers in suits. One of the most popular, Ehud Yaari of Channel 2, barely conceals his military credentials as he condones yet more violence against the Lebanese or, if he can be deflected for a moment, the people of Gaza.
That is what comes of having a "citizen army," where teenagers learn to use a gun before they can drive and men do reserve duty until their late 40s. It means every male teacher, professor, psychologist, and journalist thinks as a soldier because that is what he has been for most of his life.
Israel is not unique, far from it, though it is in a darker place, and has been for some time, than "we" in the West can fully appreciate. It is a mirror of what our own societies are capable of, despite our democratic values. It shows how a cult of victimhood makes one heartless and cruel, and how racism can be repackaged as civilized values.
Maybe those UN monitors, with their lookout post above the battlefield where Israel wants to use any means it can to destroy Hezbollah and Lebanese civilians who get in the way, had to be removed simply because they are a nuisance, a restraint when Israel needs to get on with the job of asserting "our" values. Maybe Israel does not want the scrutiny of peacekeepers as it fights our war on terror for us. Maybe it feared that the monitors' reports might help to give back to the Lebanese, even to Hezbollah, their faces, their history, their suffering.
And, if we are honest, Israel is not alone. How many of us want the Arabs to remain faceless so we can keep believing we are the victims of a new ideology that wants only our evisceration, just as the "Red Indians" once supposedly wanted our scalps? How many many of us believe that our values demand that we fall in behind a new world order in which Arab deaths are not real deaths because "they" are not fully human?
And how many of us believe that deliberate barbarity, at least when we do it, is only "apparently" a crime against humanity?
July 29, 2006
The Lies Israel Tells Itself (and We Tell on Its Behalf)
by Jonathan Cook
When journalists use the word "apparently," or another favorite "reportedly," they are usually distancing themselves from an event or an interpretation in the supposed interests of balance. But I think we should read the "apparently" contained in a statement from the head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, relating to the killing this week of four unarmed UN monitors by the Israeli army in its other sense.
When Annan says that those four deaths were "apparently deliberate," I take him to mean that the evidence shows that the killings were deliberate. And who can disagree with him? At least 10 phone calls were made to Israeli commanders over a period of six hours warning that artillery and aerial bombardments were either dangerously close to or hitting the monitors' building.
The UN post, in Khaim just inside south Lebanon, was clearly marked and well-known to the army, but nonetheless it was hit directly four times in the last hour before an Israeli helicopter fired a precision-guided missile that tore through the roof of an underground shelter, killing the monitors inside. A UN convoy that arrived too late to rescue the peacekeepers was also fired on. From the evidence, it does not get much more deliberate than that.
The problem, however, is that Western leaders, diplomats, and the media take the "apparently" in its first sense – as a way to avoid holding Israel to account for its actions. For "apparently deliberate," read "almost certainly accidental." That was why the best the UN Security Council could manage after a day and a half of deliberation was a weaselly statement of "shock and distress" at the killings, as though they were an act of God.
Our media are no less responsible for this evasiveness. They make sure "we" – the publics of the West – never countenance the thought that a society like our own, one we are always being reminded is a democracy, could sink to the depths of inhumanity required to murder unarmed peacekeepers. Who can be taken seriously challenging the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni's assertion that "There will never be an [Israeli] army commander that will intentionally aim at civilians or UN soldiers [sic]"?
Even the minority in the West who have started to fear that Israel is "apparently" slaughtering civilians across Lebanon or that it is "apparently" intending to make refugees of a million Lebanese must presumably shrink from the idea that Israel is also capable of killing unarmed UN monitors.
After all, our media insinuate, the two cases are not comparable.
There may be good reasons why Lebanese civilians need to suffer. Let's not forget that they belong to a people (or is it a race or, maybe, a religion?) that gave birth to Hezbollah. "We" can cast aside our concerns for the moment and take it on trust that Israel has cause to kill the Lebanese or make them homeless. Doubtless the justifications will emerge later, when we have lost interest in the "Lebanon crisis." We may never hear what those reasons were, but who can doubt that they exist?
The "apparent" murder of four UN monitors, however, is a deeper challenge to our faith in our moral superiority, which is why that "apparently" is held on to as desperately as a talisman. No civilized country could kill peacekeepers, especially ones drawn from our own societies, from Canada, Finland, and Austria. That is the moral separation line that divides us from the terrorists. Were that line to be erased, we would be no different from those whom we must fight.
An iconic image of this war that our media have managed to expunge from the official record but which keeps popping up in e-mail inboxes like a guilty secret is of young Israeli girls, lipsticked and nail-polished as if on their way to a party, drawing messages of death and hatred on the sides of the missiles about to be loaded on to army trucks and tanks. In one, an out-of-focus soldier stands on a tank paternally watching over the girls as they address another death threat to Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Is this the truer face of Israeli society, even if it is the one we are never shown and refuse to believe in? And are "we" in the West hurtling down the same path?
Driving through the Jewish city of Upper Nazareth this week, I realized how inured I am becoming to this triumphal militarism – and the racism that feeds it. Nothing surprising about the posters of "We will win" on every hoarding. But it takes me more than a few seconds to notice that the Magen David ambulance in front of me is flying a little national flag, the blue Star of David, from its window. I have heard that American fire engines flew U.S. flags after 9/11, but this somehow seems worse. How is it possible for an ambulance, the embodiment of our neutral, civilized, universal, "Western," humanitarian values, to fly a national flag, I think to myself? And does it make a difference that only a few months ago Magen David joined the International Committee of the Red Cross?
Only slowly do my thoughts grow more disturbed: how many hospital administrators, doctors, and nurses have seen that ambulance arrive at their emergency departments and thought nothing of it? And is that the only Israeli ambulance flying the flag, or are many others doing the same? Later, the BBC TV news answers my question. I see two ambulances with the same flags going to the front line to collect casualties. Will others soon cross over the border into southern Lebanon, after it is "secured," and will no one mention those little flags fluttering from the window?
A psychologist tells me how upset she is about a meeting she attended a few days ago of the northern coordinating committee of her profession. They were discussing how best to treat the shock and trauma suffered by Israeli children under the bombardment from Hezbollah. The meeting concluded with an agreement that the psychologists would reassure the children with the statement: "The army is there to protect us."
And so, the seeds of fascism are unthinkingly sown for another generation of children, children like our own.
No one agreed with my friend when she dissented, arguing that this was not the message to be telling impressionable minds, and that violence against the Other is not a panacea for our problems. Parents, not soldiers, are responsible for protecting their children, she pointed out. Tanks, planes, and guns bring only fear and more hatred, hatred that will one day return to haunt us.
The slow, gentle indoctrination continues day in, day out, reinforcing the idea among Israel's Jewish population that the army can do no wrong and that it needs no oversight, not even from politicians (most of whom are former generals anyway, or like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert too frightened to stand up to the chiefs of staff if they wanted to). "We will win." How do we know we will win? Because "the army is there to protect us." Add into the mix that faceless "Arab" enemy, those sub-beings, and you have a recipe for fascism – even if it is of the democratically elected variety.
The Israeli media, of course, are the key to providing the second half of that equation – or rather not providing it. You can sit watching the main Israeli channels all day, flicking between channels 1, 2, and 10, and not see a Lebanese face, apart from that of Hassan Nasrallah, the new Hitler. I don't mean the charred faces of corpses, or the bandaged babies, or the amputees lying in hospital beds. I mean any Lebanese faces. Just as you almost never see a Palestinian face on Israeli TV unless they are the mob, disfigured with hatred as they hold aloft another martyr on his way to burial.
Lebanon only swings in to view on Israeli television through the black and white footage of an aerial gun sight, or through the long shot of a distant urban landscape seconds before it is "pulverized" by a dropped bomb. The buildings crumble, flames shoot up, clouds of dust billow into the air. Another shot of arcade-game adrenaline.
The humanitarian stories exist, but they do not concern Lebanon. Animal welfare societies plead on behalf of the dogs and cats left alone to face the rocket fire on deserted Kiryat Shmona, just as they did before for foxes and deer when Israel began building its mammoth walls of concrete and steel across their migration routes in the West Bank, walls that are also imprisoning, unseen, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
The rest of the coverage is dedicated to Israeli army spokespeople, including the national heartthrob Miri Regev, and media "commentators" and "analysts." Who are these people? They are from the same pool of former military intelligence and security service officers who once did this job in the closed rooms of army HQ but now wallow in the limelight. One favored pundit is even subtitled "Expert on psychological warfare against Hassan Nasrallah."
And who are the presenters and anchors who interview them? The other day an aging expert on Apache helicopters interrupted his interviewer irritatedly to tell him his question was stupid. "We were in the army together and both know the answer. Don't play dumb." It was a rare reminder that these anchors too are just soldiers in suits. One of the most popular, Ehud Yaari of Channel 2, barely conceals his military credentials as he condones yet more violence against the Lebanese or, if he can be deflected for a moment, the people of Gaza.
That is what comes of having a "citizen army," where teenagers learn to use a gun before they can drive and men do reserve duty until their late 40s. It means every male teacher, professor, psychologist, and journalist thinks as a soldier because that is what he has been for most of his life.
Israel is not unique, far from it, though it is in a darker place, and has been for some time, than "we" in the West can fully appreciate. It is a mirror of what our own societies are capable of, despite our democratic values. It shows how a cult of victimhood makes one heartless and cruel, and how racism can be repackaged as civilized values.
Maybe those UN monitors, with their lookout post above the battlefield where Israel wants to use any means it can to destroy Hezbollah and Lebanese civilians who get in the way, had to be removed simply because they are a nuisance, a restraint when Israel needs to get on with the job of asserting "our" values. Maybe Israel does not want the scrutiny of peacekeepers as it fights our war on terror for us. Maybe it feared that the monitors' reports might help to give back to the Lebanese, even to Hezbollah, their faces, their history, their suffering.
And, if we are honest, Israel is not alone. How many of us want the Arabs to remain faceless so we can keep believing we are the victims of a new ideology that wants only our evisceration, just as the "Red Indians" once supposedly wanted our scalps? How many many of us believe that our values demand that we fall in behind a new world order in which Arab deaths are not real deaths because "they" are not fully human?
And how many of us believe that deliberate barbarity, at least when we do it, is only "apparently" a crime against humanity?
Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine
Independent Online Edition > Middle East
Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine
By Anne Penketh in Gaza City
Published: 29 July 2006
A 12-year-old boy dead on a stretcher. A mother in shock and disbelief after her son was shot dead for standing on their roof. A phone rings and a voice in broken Arabic orders residents to abandon their home on pain of death.
Those are snapshots of a day in Gaza where Israel is waging a hidden war, as the world looks the other way, focusing on Lebanon.
It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and no protection from an fearsome battery of drones, precision missiles, tank shells and artillery rounds.
As of last night, 29 people had been killed in the most concentrated 48 hours of violence since an Israeli soldier was abducted by Palestinian militants just more than a month ago.
The operation is codenamed "Samson's Pillars", a collective punishment of the 1.4 million Gazans, subjecting them to a Lebanese-style offensive that has targeted the civilian infrastructure by destroying water mains, the main power station and bridges.
The similarities with Israel's blitz on Lebanon are striking, raising suspicions that the Gaza offensive has been the testing ground for the military strategy now unfolding on the second front in the north.
In Gaza, following the victory of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas in January, Israel, with the help of the US, initiated an immediate boycott and ensured the rest of the world fell into line after months of hand-wringing. Israel has secured the same flashing green light from the Bush administration over Lebanon, while the rest of the world appeals in vain for an immediate ceasefire.
The Israelis, who launched their Lebanon offensive on 12 July after the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbollah fighters, intend to create a "sterile" zone devoid of militants in a mile-wide stretch inside Lebanon.
In Gaza, Palestinian land has already been bulldozed to form a 300-metre open area along the border with Israel proper. And in both cases, the crisis will doubtless end up being defused by a prisoner exchange. With Lebanon dominating the headlines, Israel has "rearranged the occupation" in Gaza, in the words of the Palestinian academic and MP, Hanan Ashrawi. But unlike the Lebanese, the desperate Gazans have nowhere to flee from their humanitarian crisis.
Before Israeli tanks moved into northern Gaza, yesterday, 12-year-old Anas Zumlut joined the ranks of dead Palestinians, numbering more than 100. His body was wrapped in a funeral shroud, just like those of the two sisters, a three-year-old and an eight-month-old baby, who were killed three days ago in the same area of Jablaya.
In the past three weeks, the foreign ministry and the interior ministry in Gaza city have been smashed, prompting speculation that Israel's offensive is not only aimed at securing the release of Cpl Gilad Shalit, or bringing an end to the Qassam rocket attacks that have wounded one person in the past month and jarred the nerves of the residents of the nearest Israeli town of Sderot.
"At first we thought they were bombing the Hamas leaders by targeting Haniyeh and Zahar," a Palestinian official said, referring to the Palestinian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. "But when they targeted the economy ministry we decided they wanted to completely destroy the entire government."
The only functioning crossing, Erez, is closed to Palestinians who are almost hermetically sealed inside the Strip. As the local economy has been strangled by donor countries, Gaza City's 1,800 municipal employees have not been paid since the beginning of April. Families are borrowing to the hilt, selling their jewellery, ignoring electricity bills and tax demands and throwing themselves on the mercy of shopkeepers.
Western officials say they hope the pressure will coerce Hamas into recognising Israel but the Palestinians believe the real goal is the collapse of the Hamas government - six of whose cabinet members have been arrested, the rest are in hiding.
The signs on the ground are that Israel's military pressure is proving counter-productive. There is the risk of a total breakdown of the fabric of society at a time when the main political parties, Fatah and Hamas, are at each other's throats. "The popularity of Hamas is increasing," says the Palestinian deputy foreign minister, Ahmed Soboh, from the comparative safety of his West Bank office in Ramallah.
The situation has become unbearable for Gazans, says Nabil Shaath, a veteran Fatah official who is a former foreign and planning minister. Through the window, small fishing boats are anchored uselessly in the harbour, penned in by Israeli sea patrols.
All mechanisms for coping are being exhausted.
Mr Shaath, who had a daughter, Mimi, late in life, says that he tried "laughter therapy" with his five-year-old at home in northern Gaza. "Every time there was a shell, I would burst out laughing and she would laugh with me. But then the Israelis occupied everything around us, and there were tanks, and shrapnel in the garden, and she saw where the shells were coming from, and she was terrified. So Mimi now gets angry when I laugh."
Only a few miles away, on the other side of the border, the Israeli army says it is taking pains to minimise civilian casualties. Hila, a 21-year old paratrooper who is not allowed to give her last name, says the Hamas fighters in Gaza - like Hizbollah in Lebanon - deliberately mingle with the civilian population as a tactic. Weapons are stored in the upper storeys of houses where families live downstairs, she says. "The terrorists deliberately choose places where we can't retaliate."
But these places are being hit. And Mr Shaath is scornful of the disproportionate Israeli reaction to the Palestinian rockets. Five Israelis have been killed by the 10km range Qassams since 2000.
Mrs Ashrawi believes Samson's Pillars are no closer to falling. "Israelis think they are searing the consciousness of the Palestinians and the Lebanese with a branding iron. But if people have a cause they will never be defeated."
Day 17
* Israeli aircraft kill 12 in southern Lebanon, with hill villages near Tyre among the targets.
* Hizbollah fires a new long-range missile, the Khaibar-1, at Afula south of Haifa, the furthest a Hizbollah rocket has landed inside Israel.
* At least six people are wounded in rocket attacks on northern Israel. One rocket hits a hospital in Nahariya.
* US State Department describes Israel's remarks that the Rome conference gave it a ''green light'' to continue its attack on Lebanon as ''outrageous''.
* Emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland asks Israel and Hizbollah for a 72-hour ceasefire to allow evacuation of the elderly.
* Israeli aircraft attack homes owned by Palestinian militants and a metal workshop in the Gaza Strip, wounding seven, doctors say.
* Death toll:
At least 459 people, mostly civilians, in Lebanon
* 51 Israelis, including 18 civilians, according to Reuters' tally.
* Israeli military says 200 Hizbollah fighters killed, Hizbollah has said 31 of its fighters killed.
Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine
By Anne Penketh in Gaza City
Published: 29 July 2006
A 12-year-old boy dead on a stretcher. A mother in shock and disbelief after her son was shot dead for standing on their roof. A phone rings and a voice in broken Arabic orders residents to abandon their home on pain of death.
Those are snapshots of a day in Gaza where Israel is waging a hidden war, as the world looks the other way, focusing on Lebanon.
It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and no protection from an fearsome battery of drones, precision missiles, tank shells and artillery rounds.
As of last night, 29 people had been killed in the most concentrated 48 hours of violence since an Israeli soldier was abducted by Palestinian militants just more than a month ago.
The operation is codenamed "Samson's Pillars", a collective punishment of the 1.4 million Gazans, subjecting them to a Lebanese-style offensive that has targeted the civilian infrastructure by destroying water mains, the main power station and bridges.
The similarities with Israel's blitz on Lebanon are striking, raising suspicions that the Gaza offensive has been the testing ground for the military strategy now unfolding on the second front in the north.
In Gaza, following the victory of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas in January, Israel, with the help of the US, initiated an immediate boycott and ensured the rest of the world fell into line after months of hand-wringing. Israel has secured the same flashing green light from the Bush administration over Lebanon, while the rest of the world appeals in vain for an immediate ceasefire.
The Israelis, who launched their Lebanon offensive on 12 July after the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbollah fighters, intend to create a "sterile" zone devoid of militants in a mile-wide stretch inside Lebanon.
In Gaza, Palestinian land has already been bulldozed to form a 300-metre open area along the border with Israel proper. And in both cases, the crisis will doubtless end up being defused by a prisoner exchange. With Lebanon dominating the headlines, Israel has "rearranged the occupation" in Gaza, in the words of the Palestinian academic and MP, Hanan Ashrawi. But unlike the Lebanese, the desperate Gazans have nowhere to flee from their humanitarian crisis.
Before Israeli tanks moved into northern Gaza, yesterday, 12-year-old Anas Zumlut joined the ranks of dead Palestinians, numbering more than 100. His body was wrapped in a funeral shroud, just like those of the two sisters, a three-year-old and an eight-month-old baby, who were killed three days ago in the same area of Jablaya.
In the past three weeks, the foreign ministry and the interior ministry in Gaza city have been smashed, prompting speculation that Israel's offensive is not only aimed at securing the release of Cpl Gilad Shalit, or bringing an end to the Qassam rocket attacks that have wounded one person in the past month and jarred the nerves of the residents of the nearest Israeli town of Sderot.
"At first we thought they were bombing the Hamas leaders by targeting Haniyeh and Zahar," a Palestinian official said, referring to the Palestinian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. "But when they targeted the economy ministry we decided they wanted to completely destroy the entire government."
The only functioning crossing, Erez, is closed to Palestinians who are almost hermetically sealed inside the Strip. As the local economy has been strangled by donor countries, Gaza City's 1,800 municipal employees have not been paid since the beginning of April. Families are borrowing to the hilt, selling their jewellery, ignoring electricity bills and tax demands and throwing themselves on the mercy of shopkeepers.
Western officials say they hope the pressure will coerce Hamas into recognising Israel but the Palestinians believe the real goal is the collapse of the Hamas government - six of whose cabinet members have been arrested, the rest are in hiding.
The signs on the ground are that Israel's military pressure is proving counter-productive. There is the risk of a total breakdown of the fabric of society at a time when the main political parties, Fatah and Hamas, are at each other's throats. "The popularity of Hamas is increasing," says the Palestinian deputy foreign minister, Ahmed Soboh, from the comparative safety of his West Bank office in Ramallah.
The situation has become unbearable for Gazans, says Nabil Shaath, a veteran Fatah official who is a former foreign and planning minister. Through the window, small fishing boats are anchored uselessly in the harbour, penned in by Israeli sea patrols.
All mechanisms for coping are being exhausted.
Mr Shaath, who had a daughter, Mimi, late in life, says that he tried "laughter therapy" with his five-year-old at home in northern Gaza. "Every time there was a shell, I would burst out laughing and she would laugh with me. But then the Israelis occupied everything around us, and there were tanks, and shrapnel in the garden, and she saw where the shells were coming from, and she was terrified. So Mimi now gets angry when I laugh."
Only a few miles away, on the other side of the border, the Israeli army says it is taking pains to minimise civilian casualties. Hila, a 21-year old paratrooper who is not allowed to give her last name, says the Hamas fighters in Gaza - like Hizbollah in Lebanon - deliberately mingle with the civilian population as a tactic. Weapons are stored in the upper storeys of houses where families live downstairs, she says. "The terrorists deliberately choose places where we can't retaliate."
But these places are being hit. And Mr Shaath is scornful of the disproportionate Israeli reaction to the Palestinian rockets. Five Israelis have been killed by the 10km range Qassams since 2000.
Mrs Ashrawi believes Samson's Pillars are no closer to falling. "Israelis think they are searing the consciousness of the Palestinians and the Lebanese with a branding iron. But if people have a cause they will never be defeated."
Day 17
* Israeli aircraft kill 12 in southern Lebanon, with hill villages near Tyre among the targets.
* Hizbollah fires a new long-range missile, the Khaibar-1, at Afula south of Haifa, the furthest a Hizbollah rocket has landed inside Israel.
* At least six people are wounded in rocket attacks on northern Israel. One rocket hits a hospital in Nahariya.
* US State Department describes Israel's remarks that the Rome conference gave it a ''green light'' to continue its attack on Lebanon as ''outrageous''.
* Emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland asks Israel and Hizbollah for a 72-hour ceasefire to allow evacuation of the elderly.
* Israeli aircraft attack homes owned by Palestinian militants and a metal workshop in the Gaza Strip, wounding seven, doctors say.
* Death toll:
At least 459 people, mostly civilians, in Lebanon
* 51 Israelis, including 18 civilians, according to Reuters' tally.
* Israeli military says 200 Hizbollah fighters killed, Hizbollah has said 31 of its fighters killed.
Mortars hit Lebanon evacuation convoy. 29/07/2006. ABC News Online
ABC News Online
Mortars hit Lebanon evacuation convoy
By Peter Cave and wires
A rescue convoy bringing civilians from a village near the Lebanon-Israel border has come under fire from Israeli forces.
A cameraman for a German network and his driver were lightly injured and their car destroyed when it was struck by two mortar rounds.
The privately-organised convoy consisted of two buses, an ambulance and up to 40 cars including a number of media vehicles.
The Seven Network's Adrian Brown, who was travelling with the group, says two mortars struck the German vehicle in the centre of the convoy.
He says the convoy had collected about 50 people from Ramesh but had been unable to get to about 20 Australians trapped beyond the village.
The Australian embassy in Beirut had liaised with the Israeli Defence Forces to make them aware of the humanitarian convoy and its position.
The incident comes as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah enters its 17th day.
United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland has asked for a 72-hour pause in the fighting to enable relief workers to evacuate the elderly, the young and the wounded from southern Lebanon.
The pause also would enable aid agencies to bring in needed medical supplies as well as food and other emergency supplies for the hundreds of thousands driven from their homes by the fighting.
"There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men," Mr Egeland said after briefing the 15-nation UN Security Council on his to the area.
"It has to stop. There has been too much suffering in southern Lebanon, in Israel and in Gaza, which is becoming the forgotten conflict in the Middle East."
Attacks
At least 10 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon overnight.
The deaths take the toll for the conflict to at least 430 Lebanese, including 359 civilians, since Israel's offensive began on July 12.
A total of 51 Israelis have died in the conflict, including 18 civilians.
The Israeli air force has today carried out more than 27 raids at dawn in areas to the east of the port city of Tyre, which have also been hit by some 300 shells fired by Israeli artillery.
Hezbollah has fired scores of rockets into Israel, including at least one that the Lebanese guerrilla group says is a new long-range missile, wounding at least six people.
The longer-range rocket landed in an open area near the town of Afula, about 50 kilometres the Lebanese border.
It matches the furthest distance that Hezbollah rockets have landed inside Israel since the conflict began.
Diplomacy
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has invited countries interested in participating in an international force for Lebanon to gather in New York on Monday to begin planning.
"The time has come for us to really be action-oriented and [seek] concrete steps that can be taken to help the protagonists and the civilians who are caught in the middle" of the fighting," Mr Annan said.
He says governments are also discussing a possible meeting of the UN Security Council at the ministerial level next week to begin work on a resolution addressing the fighting.
"There has been talk about it," Mr Annan said.
"But I don't think any date or time has been fixed yet."
While many potential troop-contributing countries have been invited, UN officials have declined to identify them.
Although the US has ruled out offering troops, it will be represented by Nicholas Burns, the number three State Department official, diplomatic sources say.
"We believe strongly that there is broad international interest in doing this and that certainly there will be sufficient numbers of contributions available to make that force be a viable, robust force," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
Mr Casey says mission could be authorised by the Security Council but will not necessarily be a blue-hatted UN force.
"The decisions are yet to come as to whether it wears a blue helmet, whether it wears a NATO flag, whether it wears some other kind of multinational force emblem on it," he said.
"The thing that it is important is that we get the right troops in place as quickly as possible to do the job."
- ABC/Reuters
Mortars hit Lebanon evacuation convoy
By Peter Cave and wires
A rescue convoy bringing civilians from a village near the Lebanon-Israel border has come under fire from Israeli forces.
A cameraman for a German network and his driver were lightly injured and their car destroyed when it was struck by two mortar rounds.
The privately-organised convoy consisted of two buses, an ambulance and up to 40 cars including a number of media vehicles.
The Seven Network's Adrian Brown, who was travelling with the group, says two mortars struck the German vehicle in the centre of the convoy.
He says the convoy had collected about 50 people from Ramesh but had been unable to get to about 20 Australians trapped beyond the village.
The Australian embassy in Beirut had liaised with the Israeli Defence Forces to make them aware of the humanitarian convoy and its position.
The incident comes as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah enters its 17th day.
United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland has asked for a 72-hour pause in the fighting to enable relief workers to evacuate the elderly, the young and the wounded from southern Lebanon.
The pause also would enable aid agencies to bring in needed medical supplies as well as food and other emergency supplies for the hundreds of thousands driven from their homes by the fighting.
"There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men," Mr Egeland said after briefing the 15-nation UN Security Council on his to the area.
"It has to stop. There has been too much suffering in southern Lebanon, in Israel and in Gaza, which is becoming the forgotten conflict in the Middle East."
Attacks
At least 10 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon overnight.
The deaths take the toll for the conflict to at least 430 Lebanese, including 359 civilians, since Israel's offensive began on July 12.
A total of 51 Israelis have died in the conflict, including 18 civilians.
The Israeli air force has today carried out more than 27 raids at dawn in areas to the east of the port city of Tyre, which have also been hit by some 300 shells fired by Israeli artillery.
Hezbollah has fired scores of rockets into Israel, including at least one that the Lebanese guerrilla group says is a new long-range missile, wounding at least six people.
The longer-range rocket landed in an open area near the town of Afula, about 50 kilometres the Lebanese border.
It matches the furthest distance that Hezbollah rockets have landed inside Israel since the conflict began.
Diplomacy
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has invited countries interested in participating in an international force for Lebanon to gather in New York on Monday to begin planning.
"The time has come for us to really be action-oriented and [seek] concrete steps that can be taken to help the protagonists and the civilians who are caught in the middle" of the fighting," Mr Annan said.
He says governments are also discussing a possible meeting of the UN Security Council at the ministerial level next week to begin work on a resolution addressing the fighting.
"There has been talk about it," Mr Annan said.
"But I don't think any date or time has been fixed yet."
While many potential troop-contributing countries have been invited, UN officials have declined to identify them.
Although the US has ruled out offering troops, it will be represented by Nicholas Burns, the number three State Department official, diplomatic sources say.
"We believe strongly that there is broad international interest in doing this and that certainly there will be sufficient numbers of contributions available to make that force be a viable, robust force," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
Mr Casey says mission could be authorised by the Security Council but will not necessarily be a blue-hatted UN force.
"The decisions are yet to come as to whether it wears a blue helmet, whether it wears a NATO flag, whether it wears some other kind of multinational force emblem on it," he said.
"The thing that it is important is that we get the right troops in place as quickly as possible to do the job."
- ABC/Reuters
Israeli tanks move back into Gaza Strip
seattlepi
Israeli tanks move back into Gaza Strip
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli tanks pushed back into the Gaza Strip before dawn Saturday, a day after ending a bloody, three-day sweep that killed 30 Palestinians.
Seven tanks crossed just over Gaza's northern border, Palestinian security officials said. The army had said its withdrawal Friday was temporary and did not mean its monthlong offensive in the Gaza Strip was over.
Also Saturday, Israeli forces attacked a site on the Gaza-Egypt border where militants had been tunneling, the army said. Palestinian officials said electric cables were destroyed in the attack, knocking out power to the nearby town of Rafah.
The army said its aircraft also attacked a building housing a weapons cache in Gaza City. No injuries were reported in either incident.
After Israeli troops left Friday, Palestinians streamed out of their homes, inspecting their battered houses and vehicles while rescue workers searched for bodies underneath rubble. Militants picked up mines and explosives they had planted to hit Israeli tanks.
Israel's Gaza offensive started after a June 25 cross-border raid by Hamas-linked militants who captured an Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, and killed two others.
Palestinian officials said they had not received a response to their demand that Israel guarantee it will free women, children and long-serving Palestinian prisoners before Shalit, 19, is released. Salah Bardawil, a senior Hamas official, said it had created a stalemate.
Shalit is believed to remain in the custody of Palestinian militant groups.
Israeli troops have killed 159 Palestinians since they started attacking the Gaza Strip to try to rescue Shalit and stop militants from firing rockets into Israel, according to an Associated Press count. Most of the dead were militants but a considerable number were civilians.
The world's attention, however, has been fixed on Lebanon, where Israel is battling Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel opened its second front on the Lebanese border after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid July 12.
Bardawil denied reports that Hamas and Hezbollah were cooperating in negotiations for the release of prisoners.
Israeli tanks move back into Gaza Strip
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli tanks pushed back into the Gaza Strip before dawn Saturday, a day after ending a bloody, three-day sweep that killed 30 Palestinians.
Seven tanks crossed just over Gaza's northern border, Palestinian security officials said. The army had said its withdrawal Friday was temporary and did not mean its monthlong offensive in the Gaza Strip was over.
Also Saturday, Israeli forces attacked a site on the Gaza-Egypt border where militants had been tunneling, the army said. Palestinian officials said electric cables were destroyed in the attack, knocking out power to the nearby town of Rafah.
The army said its aircraft also attacked a building housing a weapons cache in Gaza City. No injuries were reported in either incident.
After Israeli troops left Friday, Palestinians streamed out of their homes, inspecting their battered houses and vehicles while rescue workers searched for bodies underneath rubble. Militants picked up mines and explosives they had planted to hit Israeli tanks.
Israel's Gaza offensive started after a June 25 cross-border raid by Hamas-linked militants who captured an Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, and killed two others.
Palestinian officials said they had not received a response to their demand that Israel guarantee it will free women, children and long-serving Palestinian prisoners before Shalit, 19, is released. Salah Bardawil, a senior Hamas official, said it had created a stalemate.
Shalit is believed to remain in the custody of Palestinian militant groups.
Israeli troops have killed 159 Palestinians since they started attacking the Gaza Strip to try to rescue Shalit and stop militants from firing rockets into Israel, according to an Associated Press count. Most of the dead were militants but a considerable number were civilians.
The world's attention, however, has been fixed on Lebanon, where Israel is battling Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel opened its second front on the Lebanese border after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid July 12.
Bardawil denied reports that Hamas and Hezbollah were cooperating in negotiations for the release of prisoners.
'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel'
seattlepi
Saturday, July 29, 2006
By CAROL SMITH, PHUONG CAT LE AND AMY ROLPH
P-I REPORTERS
On the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, a 31-year-old man claiming he was upset about "what was going on in Israel" opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building, killing one person and wounding five women, one of them pregnant.
Three of the women were in critical condition Friday night with gunshot wounds to the stomach.
The gunman, brandishing a large-caliber semi-automatic pistol, forced his way through the security door at the federation, on Third Avenue downtown, after an employee had punched in her security code.
"He said, 'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a database coordinator for the center. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."
The man was booked into King County Jail at 10:38 p.m. as Naveed Afzal Haq on one count of investigation of homicide and five counts of investigation of attempted homicide, according to King County Jail records.
The man apparently was from the Tri-Cities area, and authorities there confirmed Friday night that they had visited two residences in the area and were preparing to go into a third with the assistance of the FBI. A bomb squad was standing by in Kennewick. Local media reported he had a misdemeanor lewd conduct charge pending in Benton County. He allegedly exposed himself in a public place.
The shootings come just weeks after Jewish leaders told Congress that there was a "critical threat" to their institutions nationwide because of escalating tensions in the Middle East.
The FBI has labeled the shootings a "hate crime" based on what the gunman told police in a 911 call.
"I feel sick to my stomach," said Becki Chandler, 35, who has been a volunteer for the Jewish Federation for seven years. She came to Harborview Medical Center as soon as she heard about the shootings. "It feels like a personal attack."
Police apprehended the lone gunman without incident at 4:15 p.m. after officers talked him out of the building.
The man was arrested at the corner of Third Avenue and Lenora Street, near the federation building.
"We believe ... it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism," said David Gomez, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Seattle.
In Seattle, FBI agent Fred Gutt said the agency sent out two generalized warnings to Washington law enforcement, on July 21 and on Wednesday, listing general scenarios to be alert for. Places of religious significance were mentioned, including mosques, synagogues and churches, but the warning was not specific, he said.
Gutt said the FBI is helping Seattle police assess whether the gunman was a "lone wolf" or part of a wider plan. If evidence of a terrorist plot evolved, the FBI would become the lead agency, but as of Friday night the case remained Seattle's, Gutt said.
Authorities did not release any details about the suspect and would not discuss possible motives.
In a news conference, police Chief Kerlikowske said the man was a U.S. citizen, but not from Seattle. His relatives were being contacted and interviewed.
"There's nothing to indicate that it's terrorism-related," Gomez said. "But we're monitoring the entire situation."
"This is a sad day in the city of Seattle," Mayor Greg Nickels said. "This is a crime of hate, and there's no place for that in Seattle."
The mayor and Kerlikowske said the city will be providing outreach assistance to the local Jewish community, and added patrols will be on duty to protect synagogues and other Jewish facilities.
Seattle mosques will also be protected by police as a safeguard against possible retaliation from outraged citizens.
Harborview spokeswoman Pamela Steele said five victims were taken to the hospital. "I've never seen such a swarm of people," Steele said of the scene as the victims and medics arrived at the trauma center.
The women ranged in age from the 20s to the 40s. Each suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen, knee, groin or arm. Three were in surgery and in critical condition Friday night. Two were in satisfactory condition.
A hospital spokesman identified the pregnant woman as Dayna Klein. She was in satisfactory condition with a gunshot wound in her left forearm and was scheduled for surgery. Carol Goldman was in satisfactory condition with injuries to her knees.
Cheryl Stumbo, director of marketing and communications for the federation, also was identified as one of the victims and was in critical condition Friday night.
Kathryn Bush said Friday night that her daughter, Layla Bush, had been injured in the shooting.
"She's out of surgery, but that's all we know," she said in a call Friday night from her Florida home. "We're taking it moment by moment. I'm really in shock right now, but I'm trusting in the Lord to bring me through."
She said her daughter, 23, was "really bright" and always wanted to work for non-profits and foundations. She joined the federation as the office manager and receptionist about six months ago.
Police got the first 911 call of shots fired at the Jewish Federation at 4:03 p.m. Friday just as people were preparing to leave work for the weekend. About 10 people were left in the building. Witnesses said the shooter indicated he was acting because of Israel's actions in Lebanon.
The initial call authorities received reported the shots and a possible hostage situation, assistant Seattle police Chief Nick Metz said at an early evening news conference.
Witnesses to the shooting and people who work at the federation described a chaotic, terrifying scene.
Kami Knatt works at the federation's Holocaust center. As she exited the building, she saw a wounded co-worker fall down. Knatt took her sweater off and tried to stop the bleeding.
"I asked her, 'Are you OK?' She said, 'No, I've been shot.' I kept saying it's going to be OK."
The victim told Knatt: "I'm going to black out, I'm going to black out." Knatt replied: "You're going to be all right."
Several workers and victims ran toward a nearby Starbucks. There was a small pool of blood outside the coffee shop.
Nathaniel Mullins, 43, was turning onto Lenora Street with his 19-year-old daughter when he heard police say, "Get back! Get back!"
Mullins said he saw two shooting victims. "They were covered in blood," he said.
Rachel Hynes works in the building. "I was in the back of the building when I heard gunshots. It sounded like balloons, but they were really loud," she said. "I picked up my purse and I walked out of the building."
Zach Carstensen, who is the director of government relations for the Jewish Federation, said he heard shots and screams.
"People started running, and I started running with them," Carstensen said.
Asked whether he thought his office had been targeted because of the conflict in the Mideast, Carstensen said he wasn't sure. "We're all a little shaken, he said.
Jesse Black, general manager of Nyberg Locksmiths on Third Avenue diagonally across from the building, heard the shots and went to the sidewalk.
The cops yelled at him, "Get off the street because there's a sniper on the roof." He looked up and saw a figure in a white shirt on the rooftop.
Immediately after the shooting, a SWAT team searched the federation building for any other victims, anyone hiding or any other possible shooters, said police spokesman Rich Pruitt.
Police blocked off several city blocks to investigate. The suspect's vehicle was recovered near the shooting scene, Metz said. Police spent some time checking it for bombs before having it towed.
The federation issued a statement:
"Our federation colleagues so unmercifully and viciously attacked were spending their day as they normally do, providing for social and humanitarian services that benefited all of metropolitan Seattle. The hatred and violence visited upon them today offends the values that drove their work and passion for improving their neighbors' lives."
Early in July, Jewish non-profit organizations received more than half the federal homeland security grants to "harden" such "at-risk" non-profit groups against terrorist threats. Jewish groups received about $14 million of $25 million earmarked by Congress in 2005.
The federation building is known for its security, with gates and buzzers. Jacobs said the federation has an electronic security system that allows it to control access to the office. The shooter could not have simply entered the building unseen, said Anti-Defamation League leader Robert Jacobs.
The Muslim community in the region watched in horror as news broke of the shooting.
"We categorically condemn this and any similar acts of violence," the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a joint statement with the Ithna-Ashari Muslim Association of the Northwest, the Muslim Association of Puget Sound, the Islamic Educational Center of Seattle, American Muslims of Puget Sound and the Arab American Community Coalition.
"We pray for the safety and health of those injured and offer our heartfelt condolences to the family of the victims of this attack. ... We refuse to see the violence in the Middle East spill over to our cities and neighborhoods. We reject and categorically condemn any attacks against the Jewish community and stand in solidarity with the Jewish Federation in this tragedy."
The Seattle City Council issued a statement Friday offering its condolences to the victims and their families.
"There is too much hate and violence in the world and we do not wish to bring it to Seattle," said council President Nick Licata in the statement.
Just hours before the shooting, Jacobs ate lunch with shooting victim Dayna Klein.
"She's just a wonderful, ebullient, energetic person," said Jacobs, ADL's Pacific Northwest regional director. "She heads up major gifts and development for the federation."
He called shooting victim Cheryl Stumbo, a non-Jewish Unitarian, "a warm, good human being. She really brought a tremendous understanding of marketing to the federation."
Iantha Sidell, past board chairman of the federation, went to Harborview after the shootings to lend her support.
"This is just a disaster," she said. "We value every life. I don't know what we're going to do about it. We believe in life."
P-I reporters Brad Wong, John Iwasaki, Mike Barber, Kathy Mulady, Dan Richman and photographer Mike Urban contributed to this report. This report also contains material from The Associated Press.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
By CAROL SMITH, PHUONG CAT LE AND AMY ROLPH
P-I REPORTERS
On the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, a 31-year-old man claiming he was upset about "what was going on in Israel" opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building, killing one person and wounding five women, one of them pregnant.
Three of the women were in critical condition Friday night with gunshot wounds to the stomach.
The gunman, brandishing a large-caliber semi-automatic pistol, forced his way through the security door at the federation, on Third Avenue downtown, after an employee had punched in her security code.
"He said, 'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a database coordinator for the center. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."
The man was booked into King County Jail at 10:38 p.m. as Naveed Afzal Haq on one count of investigation of homicide and five counts of investigation of attempted homicide, according to King County Jail records.
The man apparently was from the Tri-Cities area, and authorities there confirmed Friday night that they had visited two residences in the area and were preparing to go into a third with the assistance of the FBI. A bomb squad was standing by in Kennewick. Local media reported he had a misdemeanor lewd conduct charge pending in Benton County. He allegedly exposed himself in a public place.
The shootings come just weeks after Jewish leaders told Congress that there was a "critical threat" to their institutions nationwide because of escalating tensions in the Middle East.
The FBI has labeled the shootings a "hate crime" based on what the gunman told police in a 911 call.
"I feel sick to my stomach," said Becki Chandler, 35, who has been a volunteer for the Jewish Federation for seven years. She came to Harborview Medical Center as soon as she heard about the shootings. "It feels like a personal attack."
Police apprehended the lone gunman without incident at 4:15 p.m. after officers talked him out of the building.
The man was arrested at the corner of Third Avenue and Lenora Street, near the federation building.
"We believe ... it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism," said David Gomez, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Seattle.
In Seattle, FBI agent Fred Gutt said the agency sent out two generalized warnings to Washington law enforcement, on July 21 and on Wednesday, listing general scenarios to be alert for. Places of religious significance were mentioned, including mosques, synagogues and churches, but the warning was not specific, he said.
Gutt said the FBI is helping Seattle police assess whether the gunman was a "lone wolf" or part of a wider plan. If evidence of a terrorist plot evolved, the FBI would become the lead agency, but as of Friday night the case remained Seattle's, Gutt said.
Authorities did not release any details about the suspect and would not discuss possible motives.
In a news conference, police Chief Kerlikowske said the man was a U.S. citizen, but not from Seattle. His relatives were being contacted and interviewed.
"There's nothing to indicate that it's terrorism-related," Gomez said. "But we're monitoring the entire situation."
"This is a sad day in the city of Seattle," Mayor Greg Nickels said. "This is a crime of hate, and there's no place for that in Seattle."
The mayor and Kerlikowske said the city will be providing outreach assistance to the local Jewish community, and added patrols will be on duty to protect synagogues and other Jewish facilities.
Seattle mosques will also be protected by police as a safeguard against possible retaliation from outraged citizens.
Harborview spokeswoman Pamela Steele said five victims were taken to the hospital. "I've never seen such a swarm of people," Steele said of the scene as the victims and medics arrived at the trauma center.
The women ranged in age from the 20s to the 40s. Each suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen, knee, groin or arm. Three were in surgery and in critical condition Friday night. Two were in satisfactory condition.
A hospital spokesman identified the pregnant woman as Dayna Klein. She was in satisfactory condition with a gunshot wound in her left forearm and was scheduled for surgery. Carol Goldman was in satisfactory condition with injuries to her knees.
Cheryl Stumbo, director of marketing and communications for the federation, also was identified as one of the victims and was in critical condition Friday night.
Kathryn Bush said Friday night that her daughter, Layla Bush, had been injured in the shooting.
"She's out of surgery, but that's all we know," she said in a call Friday night from her Florida home. "We're taking it moment by moment. I'm really in shock right now, but I'm trusting in the Lord to bring me through."
She said her daughter, 23, was "really bright" and always wanted to work for non-profits and foundations. She joined the federation as the office manager and receptionist about six months ago.
Police got the first 911 call of shots fired at the Jewish Federation at 4:03 p.m. Friday just as people were preparing to leave work for the weekend. About 10 people were left in the building. Witnesses said the shooter indicated he was acting because of Israel's actions in Lebanon.
The initial call authorities received reported the shots and a possible hostage situation, assistant Seattle police Chief Nick Metz said at an early evening news conference.
Witnesses to the shooting and people who work at the federation described a chaotic, terrifying scene.
Kami Knatt works at the federation's Holocaust center. As she exited the building, she saw a wounded co-worker fall down. Knatt took her sweater off and tried to stop the bleeding.
"I asked her, 'Are you OK?' She said, 'No, I've been shot.' I kept saying it's going to be OK."
The victim told Knatt: "I'm going to black out, I'm going to black out." Knatt replied: "You're going to be all right."
Several workers and victims ran toward a nearby Starbucks. There was a small pool of blood outside the coffee shop.
Nathaniel Mullins, 43, was turning onto Lenora Street with his 19-year-old daughter when he heard police say, "Get back! Get back!"
Mullins said he saw two shooting victims. "They were covered in blood," he said.
Rachel Hynes works in the building. "I was in the back of the building when I heard gunshots. It sounded like balloons, but they were really loud," she said. "I picked up my purse and I walked out of the building."
Zach Carstensen, who is the director of government relations for the Jewish Federation, said he heard shots and screams.
"People started running, and I started running with them," Carstensen said.
Asked whether he thought his office had been targeted because of the conflict in the Mideast, Carstensen said he wasn't sure. "We're all a little shaken, he said.
Jesse Black, general manager of Nyberg Locksmiths on Third Avenue diagonally across from the building, heard the shots and went to the sidewalk.
The cops yelled at him, "Get off the street because there's a sniper on the roof." He looked up and saw a figure in a white shirt on the rooftop.
Immediately after the shooting, a SWAT team searched the federation building for any other victims, anyone hiding or any other possible shooters, said police spokesman Rich Pruitt.
Police blocked off several city blocks to investigate. The suspect's vehicle was recovered near the shooting scene, Metz said. Police spent some time checking it for bombs before having it towed.
The federation issued a statement:
"Our federation colleagues so unmercifully and viciously attacked were spending their day as they normally do, providing for social and humanitarian services that benefited all of metropolitan Seattle. The hatred and violence visited upon them today offends the values that drove their work and passion for improving their neighbors' lives."
Early in July, Jewish non-profit organizations received more than half the federal homeland security grants to "harden" such "at-risk" non-profit groups against terrorist threats. Jewish groups received about $14 million of $25 million earmarked by Congress in 2005.
The federation building is known for its security, with gates and buzzers. Jacobs said the federation has an electronic security system that allows it to control access to the office. The shooter could not have simply entered the building unseen, said Anti-Defamation League leader Robert Jacobs.
The Muslim community in the region watched in horror as news broke of the shooting.
"We categorically condemn this and any similar acts of violence," the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a joint statement with the Ithna-Ashari Muslim Association of the Northwest, the Muslim Association of Puget Sound, the Islamic Educational Center of Seattle, American Muslims of Puget Sound and the Arab American Community Coalition.
"We pray for the safety and health of those injured and offer our heartfelt condolences to the family of the victims of this attack. ... We refuse to see the violence in the Middle East spill over to our cities and neighborhoods. We reject and categorically condemn any attacks against the Jewish community and stand in solidarity with the Jewish Federation in this tragedy."
The Seattle City Council issued a statement Friday offering its condolences to the victims and their families.
"There is too much hate and violence in the world and we do not wish to bring it to Seattle," said council President Nick Licata in the statement.
Just hours before the shooting, Jacobs ate lunch with shooting victim Dayna Klein.
"She's just a wonderful, ebullient, energetic person," said Jacobs, ADL's Pacific Northwest regional director. "She heads up major gifts and development for the federation."
He called shooting victim Cheryl Stumbo, a non-Jewish Unitarian, "a warm, good human being. She really brought a tremendous understanding of marketing to the federation."
Iantha Sidell, past board chairman of the federation, went to Harborview after the shootings to lend her support.
"This is just a disaster," she said. "We value every life. I don't know what we're going to do about it. We believe in life."
P-I reporters Brad Wong, John Iwasaki, Mike Barber, Kathy Mulady, Dan Richman and photographer Mike Urban contributed to this report. This report also contains material from The Associated Press.
Hezbollah not on Russia's terrorist list
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Friday, July 28, 2006 · Last updated 4:45 p.m. PT
Hezbollah not on Russia's terrorist list
By HENRY MEYER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MOSCOW -- Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations, but did not include the Palestinian militant movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group, both regarded as terrorists in Washington.
Separately, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Hezbollah must have a say in any agreements in the Middle East crisis, Russian news agencies reported - another sign of differences between Russia and the United States about the region.
"Any agreements must be coordinated with all the basic forces in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, as an organization that is represented in the parliament and government of Lebanon," RIA-Novosti reported quoted Lavrov as saying on a plane returning from an Asian security meeting in Malaysia. Hezbollah has 11 members in Lebanon's 128-seat parliament, and two Cabinet ministers.
The terrorist list, published in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, included al-Qaida and the Taliban as well as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a rebel group fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The Russian Federal Security Service's top official in charge of fighting international terrorism, Yuri Sapunov, said Hamas and Hezbollah were not a major threat to Russia and were not regarded as terrorist groups worldwide.
But he said Russian security agencies took account of international lists of terrorist groups when exchanging intelligence with foreign counterparts.
Sapunov told Rossiiskaya Gazeta the list of 17 "includes only those organizations which represent the greatest threat to the security of our country." Groups linked to separatist militants in Chechnya and Islamic radicals in Central Asia made the list.
Russia has come under criticism for its refusal to list Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Israel is now fighting a ground and air war in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas, who are firing rockets into northern Israel. Israeli forces have also attacked the Gaza Strip to target Hamas militants. Russia has criticized the scale of the Israeli offensive, while the United States has blamed Hezbollah for the violence.
President Vladimir Putin earlier this year provoked U.S. and Israeli anger by inviting leaders of Hamas to Moscow shortly after their January election victory. The meeting made no progress in softening the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist or foreswear violence.
Lavrov's reported comment about Hezbollah echoed the arguments Russian officials made for inviting Hamas leaders, when they said that they were dealing with Hamas as an entity that had just come to power in elections.
Lavrov said that Russia's support for a Hezbollah role in decision-making in the Mideast crisis was shared by European countries and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, adding: "As for support from the Americans for this position, I have no such information," RIA-Novosti reported.
The European Union considers Hamas a terrorist organization and along with the United States slapped financial sanctions on the new Hamas-led government. But it does not list Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
Friday, July 28, 2006 · Last updated 4:45 p.m. PT
Hezbollah not on Russia's terrorist list
By HENRY MEYER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MOSCOW -- Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations, but did not include the Palestinian militant movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group, both regarded as terrorists in Washington.
Separately, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Hezbollah must have a say in any agreements in the Middle East crisis, Russian news agencies reported - another sign of differences between Russia and the United States about the region.
"Any agreements must be coordinated with all the basic forces in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, as an organization that is represented in the parliament and government of Lebanon," RIA-Novosti reported quoted Lavrov as saying on a plane returning from an Asian security meeting in Malaysia. Hezbollah has 11 members in Lebanon's 128-seat parliament, and two Cabinet ministers.
The terrorist list, published in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, included al-Qaida and the Taliban as well as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a rebel group fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The Russian Federal Security Service's top official in charge of fighting international terrorism, Yuri Sapunov, said Hamas and Hezbollah were not a major threat to Russia and were not regarded as terrorist groups worldwide.
But he said Russian security agencies took account of international lists of terrorist groups when exchanging intelligence with foreign counterparts.
Sapunov told Rossiiskaya Gazeta the list of 17 "includes only those organizations which represent the greatest threat to the security of our country." Groups linked to separatist militants in Chechnya and Islamic radicals in Central Asia made the list.
Russia has come under criticism for its refusal to list Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Israel is now fighting a ground and air war in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas, who are firing rockets into northern Israel. Israeli forces have also attacked the Gaza Strip to target Hamas militants. Russia has criticized the scale of the Israeli offensive, while the United States has blamed Hezbollah for the violence.
President Vladimir Putin earlier this year provoked U.S. and Israeli anger by inviting leaders of Hamas to Moscow shortly after their January election victory. The meeting made no progress in softening the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist or foreswear violence.
Lavrov's reported comment about Hezbollah echoed the arguments Russian officials made for inviting Hamas leaders, when they said that they were dealing with Hamas as an entity that had just come to power in elections.
Lavrov said that Russia's support for a Hezbollah role in decision-making in the Mideast crisis was shared by European countries and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, adding: "As for support from the Americans for this position, I have no such information," RIA-Novosti reported.
The European Union considers Hamas a terrorist organization and along with the United States slapped financial sanctions on the new Hamas-led government. But it does not list Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - Israeli army divided, resistance tough
United Press International
Israeli army divided, resistance tough
TEL AVIV, Israel, July 28 (UPI) -- As Israeli troops sustained considerable casualties in the fighting in south Lebanon, the Israeli military appeared divided over the course of operations.
Disagreement broke out between the Mossad intelligence service and military intelligence at a meeting of the inner cabinet for security and political affairs Thursday over the evaluation of Hezbollah's force and capacity to resist a long offensive.
The two sides also could not agree on the extent of damage inflicted on Hezbollah's military infrastructure as a result of military operations which have been going on without respite for the past 17 days, Israeli daily Haaretz reported Friday.
In addition to differences between the intelligence apparatuses, sharp criticism was voiced within the military institution about the course of military operations in south Lebanon, reflecting confusion over the proceeding of the war conduct.
The military correspondent at Israel's Channel One television reported that high-ranking IDF officers are highly critical of the way military operations are being executed in south Lebanon and have accused military intelligence of underestimating Hezbollah's strength and failing to prevent the Shiite group from kidnapping Israeli soldiers despite previous unsuccessful attempts.
The officers charged that army command in north Israel failed to sound the alarm following Hezbollah's attack in the Ghajar area last November, which the army considered an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
The ongoing war in Lebanon was sparked by Hezbollah's kidnapping of two soldiers on July 12, which it sought to swap for Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.
The officers were highly critical of the way the commander of the northern front, Gen. Udy Adam, was leading the operations in south Lebanon.
They went as far as requesting Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz "to act like other chiefs of staff had acted during previous wars by appointing support officers on the side of the officers who fail to prove themselves during the war in Lebanon."
Israeli army divided, resistance tough
TEL AVIV, Israel, July 28 (UPI) -- As Israeli troops sustained considerable casualties in the fighting in south Lebanon, the Israeli military appeared divided over the course of operations.
Disagreement broke out between the Mossad intelligence service and military intelligence at a meeting of the inner cabinet for security and political affairs Thursday over the evaluation of Hezbollah's force and capacity to resist a long offensive.
The two sides also could not agree on the extent of damage inflicted on Hezbollah's military infrastructure as a result of military operations which have been going on without respite for the past 17 days, Israeli daily Haaretz reported Friday.
In addition to differences between the intelligence apparatuses, sharp criticism was voiced within the military institution about the course of military operations in south Lebanon, reflecting confusion over the proceeding of the war conduct.
The military correspondent at Israel's Channel One television reported that high-ranking IDF officers are highly critical of the way military operations are being executed in south Lebanon and have accused military intelligence of underestimating Hezbollah's strength and failing to prevent the Shiite group from kidnapping Israeli soldiers despite previous unsuccessful attempts.
The officers charged that army command in north Israel failed to sound the alarm following Hezbollah's attack in the Ghajar area last November, which the army considered an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
The ongoing war in Lebanon was sparked by Hezbollah's kidnapping of two soldiers on July 12, which it sought to swap for Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.
The officers were highly critical of the way the commander of the northern front, Gen. Udy Adam, was leading the operations in south Lebanon.
They went as far as requesting Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz "to act like other chiefs of staff had acted during previous wars by appointing support officers on the side of the officers who fail to prove themselves during the war in Lebanon."
U.S. plans $4.6 billion in Mideast arms sales
Reuters.com
UPDATE 2-U.S. plans $4.6 billion in Mideast arms sales
Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:05 PM ET
(Recasts, adds details on other proposed sales)
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - The Bush administration spelled out plans on Friday to sell $4.6 billion of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much as $2.9 billion to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.
The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to $210 million to help Israeli warplanes "keep peace and security in the region."
The United States also rushed a delivery of precision-guided bombs requested by Israel after launching its airstrikes against Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon 17 days ago, The New York Times reported last week.
In the newly proposed sales to Arab states, UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter gunships worth up to $808 million would go to the United Arab Emirates, while AH-64 Apache helicopters worth as much as $400 million would go to Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain would also get Black Hawk helicopters, valued at up to $252 million. Jordan would get a potential $156 million in upgrades to 1,000 of its M113A1 armored personnel carriers.
Javelin anti-tank missiles valued at up to $48 million would go to Oman under the deals put forward by the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which administers U.S. government-to-government arms sales.
The $2.9 billion Saudi deal involves the sale of 58 older-generation U.S. M1A1 Abrams tanks that would be modernized. Also, 315 Saudi-owned, newer-model, Abrams tanks would be improved with such things as air-conditioning and infrared sights for the commanders as well as the gunners.
The project's prime contractor would be General Dynamics Corp.'s Land Systems business unit of Sterling Heights, Michigan, the Pentagon said in a notice to Congress required by law.
Vehicle "teardown" and final reassembly would be carried out in Saudi Arabia, the notice said. The upgraded configuration is known as the M1A2S, in which the S stands for Saudi.
"The proposed sale and upgrade will allow Saudi Arabia to operate and exercise a more lethal and survivable M1A2S tank for the protection of critical infrastructure," it said.
It also would keep a substantial number of tanks in the region that have "a high degree of commonality" with the U.S. tank fleet, the Pentagon said, referring to interchangeable parts.
Notices of proposed U.S. arms sales are required by law once they top certain value thresholds. They do not mean a sale has been concluded. Congress may block a sale if both houses pass resolutions of disapproval within 30 calendar days of formal notification.
UPDATE 2-U.S. plans $4.6 billion in Mideast arms sales
Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:05 PM ET
(Recasts, adds details on other proposed sales)
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - The Bush administration spelled out plans on Friday to sell $4.6 billion of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much as $2.9 billion to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.
The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to $210 million to help Israeli warplanes "keep peace and security in the region."
The United States also rushed a delivery of precision-guided bombs requested by Israel after launching its airstrikes against Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon 17 days ago, The New York Times reported last week.
In the newly proposed sales to Arab states, UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter gunships worth up to $808 million would go to the United Arab Emirates, while AH-64 Apache helicopters worth as much as $400 million would go to Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain would also get Black Hawk helicopters, valued at up to $252 million. Jordan would get a potential $156 million in upgrades to 1,000 of its M113A1 armored personnel carriers.
Javelin anti-tank missiles valued at up to $48 million would go to Oman under the deals put forward by the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which administers U.S. government-to-government arms sales.
The $2.9 billion Saudi deal involves the sale of 58 older-generation U.S. M1A1 Abrams tanks that would be modernized. Also, 315 Saudi-owned, newer-model, Abrams tanks would be improved with such things as air-conditioning and infrared sights for the commanders as well as the gunners.
The project's prime contractor would be General Dynamics Corp.'s
Vehicle "teardown" and final reassembly would be carried out in Saudi Arabia, the notice said. The upgraded configuration is known as the M1A2S, in which the S stands for Saudi.
"The proposed sale and upgrade will allow Saudi Arabia to operate and exercise a more lethal and survivable M1A2S tank for the protection of critical infrastructure," it said.
It also would keep a substantial number of tanks in the region that have "a high degree of commonality" with the U.S. tank fleet, the Pentagon said, referring to interchangeable parts.
Notices of proposed U.S. arms sales are required by law once they top certain value thresholds. They do not mean a sale has been concluded. Congress may block a sale if both houses pass resolutions of disapproval within 30 calendar days of formal notification.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Israel nixes major U.N. role in Lebanon
Yahoo! News
Israel nixes major U.N. role in Lebanon
By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press WriterThu Jul 27, 10:50 PM ET
Israel's U.N. ambassador on Thursday ruled out major U.N. involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.
**Isn't it for Lebanon to decide what troops will patrol Lebanon?**
Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli airstrike that demolished a post belonging to the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four U.N. observers were killed in the Tuesday strike.
**It's the UN that should be investigating it, not the party that committed the crime**
"Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation," Gillerman said.
**except that it didn't happen in Israel, it happened in Lebanon.**
Gillerman, who spoke at an event hosted by The Israel Project advocacy group and later inside the United Nations, gave a heated defense of Israel's two-week campaign against Hezbollah militants. He said some diplomats from the Middle East had told him that Israel was doing the right thing in going after Hezbollah.
His refusal to conduct a joint investigation will be a slap to U.N. officials, who have specifically sought to partner with Israel to investigate the bombing.
Gillerman was highly critical of the current U.N. peacekeeping force, deployed in a buffer Zone between Israel and Lebanon since 1978, saying its facilities had sometimes been used for cover by Hezbollah militants and that it had not done its job.
"It has never been able to prevent any shelling of Israel, any terrorist attack, any kidnappings," he said. "They either didn't see or didn't know or didn't want to see, but they have been hopeless."
Gillerman even mocked the name of the force — the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
"Interim in U.N. jargon is 28 years," he said.
The flaws with the U.N. force make it imperative that any U.N. force come from somewhere else, though it could have a mandate from the United Nations, he said.
"So obviously it cannot be a United Nations force," Gillerman said. "It will have to be an international force, a professional one, with soldiers from countries who have the training and capabilities to be effective."
Any such force must have two main objectives. It must disarm Hezbollah completely and make sure that the group has lost all its capacity as a terror organization; and it should monitor the border between Syria and Lebanon "to make sure that no additional shipments of arms, rockets, illegal weapons, enter Lebanon," he said.
Despite his refusal for a U.N. force, he said Israel was not "excluding anybody," and that "the makeup, the composition and the countries which would supply the soldiers to that force still has to be decided."
Gillerman apologized for the strike that killed the four U.N. observers, but said the conflict was a war and that accidents happen.
"This is a war which is going on," he told reporters. "War is an ugly thing and during war, mistakes and tragedies do happen."
Gillerman said Israel would welcome any information from the U.N. as it conducts its investigation, and will consider any U.N. requests for information.
Israel nixes major U.N. role in Lebanon
By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press WriterThu Jul 27, 10:50 PM ET
Israel's U.N. ambassador on Thursday ruled out major U.N. involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.
**Isn't it for Lebanon to decide what troops will patrol Lebanon?**
Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli airstrike that demolished a post belonging to the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four U.N. observers were killed in the Tuesday strike.
**It's the UN that should be investigating it, not the party that committed the crime**
"Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation," Gillerman said.
**except that it didn't happen in Israel, it happened in Lebanon.**
Gillerman, who spoke at an event hosted by The Israel Project advocacy group and later inside the United Nations, gave a heated defense of Israel's two-week campaign against Hezbollah militants. He said some diplomats from the Middle East had told him that Israel was doing the right thing in going after Hezbollah.
His refusal to conduct a joint investigation will be a slap to U.N. officials, who have specifically sought to partner with Israel to investigate the bombing.
Gillerman was highly critical of the current U.N. peacekeeping force, deployed in a buffer Zone between Israel and Lebanon since 1978, saying its facilities had sometimes been used for cover by Hezbollah militants and that it had not done its job.
"It has never been able to prevent any shelling of Israel, any terrorist attack, any kidnappings," he said. "They either didn't see or didn't know or didn't want to see, but they have been hopeless."
Gillerman even mocked the name of the force — the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
"Interim in U.N. jargon is 28 years," he said.
The flaws with the U.N. force make it imperative that any U.N. force come from somewhere else, though it could have a mandate from the United Nations, he said.
"So obviously it cannot be a United Nations force," Gillerman said. "It will have to be an international force, a professional one, with soldiers from countries who have the training and capabilities to be effective."
Any such force must have two main objectives. It must disarm Hezbollah completely and make sure that the group has lost all its capacity as a terror organization; and it should monitor the border between Syria and Lebanon "to make sure that no additional shipments of arms, rockets, illegal weapons, enter Lebanon," he said.
Despite his refusal for a U.N. force, he said Israel was not "excluding anybody," and that "the makeup, the composition and the countries which would supply the soldiers to that force still has to be decided."
Gillerman apologized for the strike that killed the four U.N. observers, but said the conflict was a war and that accidents happen.
"This is a war which is going on," he told reporters. "War is an ugly thing and during war, mistakes and tragedies do happen."
Gillerman said Israel would welcome any information from the U.N. as it conducts its investigation, and will consider any U.N. requests for information.
Israel steps up "psy-ops" in Lebanon
BBC NEWS
Israel steps up "psy-ops" in Lebanon
By Peter Feuilherade
BBC Monitoring
From mass targeting of mobile phones with voice and text messages to old-fashioned radio broadcasts warning of imminent attacks, Israel is deploying a range of old and new technologies in Lebanon as part of the psychological operations ("psyops") campaign supplementing its military attacks.
According to US and UK media outlets, Israel has reactivated a radio station to broadcast messages urging residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate the region.
Some reports have named the station as the Voice of the South.
The South Lebanon Army, a Christian militia backed by Israel, operated a radio station called Voice of the South from Kfar Killa in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.
The station closed down in May 2000 when Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon.
Cash for tip-offs
The Israeli newspaper Maariv on Sunday reported the appearance of a website called All 4 Lebanon which offered payment for tip-offs from Lebanese citizens "that could help Israel in the fight against Hezbollah".
According to Maariv, the site, with content in Arabic, English and French, had been set up by Israeli intelligence.
"We appeal to everyone who has the ability and the desire to uproot the sore called Hezbollah from your heart and from the heart of Lebanon," the paper quoted the website as saying in Arabic.
On its English-language page, the site says: "Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah's evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us."
It adds: "For your own safety, please contact us from places where no-one knows you."
The Arabic wording is identical to that on leaflets which Israeli aircraft have been dropping over Beirut and the south of Lebanon.
The leaflets called on people to "remove the sore known as Hezbollah from the heart of Lebanon".
The rewards "could be a range of things, such as cash or a house", according to an Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman quoted by Reuters news agency.
It was not clear how such items would be delivered or exactly what information Israel wanted, Reuters noted.
Mobile aggression
On Friday, residents of southern Lebanon reported receiving recorded messages on their mobile phones from an unknown caller.
The speaker identified himself as an Israeli and warned people in the area to leave their homes and head north.
Dubai-based news channel al-Arabiya TV reported that the recorded messages also said they "held the Lebanese government responsible for the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers, and called on Lebanon to set them free".
Inquiries by Lebanon's communications ministry revealed that the calls had come from exchanges in Italy and Canada, but had originated in Israel.
According to US magazine Time, Israel has been targeting SMS text messages at local officials in southern Lebanon, urging them to move north of the Litani river before Israeli military operations intensified.
The UK's Guardian newspaper said mobile phone users in Lebanon were regularly receiving messages to their phones which purported to be news updates, attempting to discredit Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or his party.
Satellite warfare next?
As Israel broadens its psyops activities, it also continues to attack media targets using conventional military means.
Air raids on Saturday hit transmission stations used by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, Future TV and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC). A technician working for LBC was reported to have been killed.
The next day, a convoy of journalists from Lebanese and pan-Arab TV channels was attacked by Israeli planes while on a tour of southern Lebanon; no injuries were reported.
According to an unconfirmed report by Egypt's Middle East News Agency, Israel managed on Sunday "to intercept the satellite transmissions of Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel for the third successive day, replacing it with Israeli transmissions that reportedly showed Hezbollah command sites and rocket launching pads which Israel claimed it has raided".
Replacing a TV station's picture with output you want the audience to see is more difficult to achieve than jamming.
Al-Manar TV has three satellite signals, one on ArabSat 2B at 30.5 degrees east, one on Badr 3 at 26 degrees east and one on NileSat 102 at 7 degrees west.
On Badr 3 and NileSat, al-Manar is broadcast alongside other TV stations in a multiplexed or combined digital signal.
While it would be technically feasible to replace one station's output, all the other stations in the multiplex would be taken off the air too. The technical parameters of the original station would need to be exactly duplicated by the interloper.
Israel steps up "psy-ops" in Lebanon
By Peter Feuilherade
BBC Monitoring
From mass targeting of mobile phones with voice and text messages to old-fashioned radio broadcasts warning of imminent attacks, Israel is deploying a range of old and new technologies in Lebanon as part of the psychological operations ("psyops") campaign supplementing its military attacks.
According to US and UK media outlets, Israel has reactivated a radio station to broadcast messages urging residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate the region.
Some reports have named the station as the Voice of the South.
The South Lebanon Army, a Christian militia backed by Israel, operated a radio station called Voice of the South from Kfar Killa in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.
The station closed down in May 2000 when Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon.
Cash for tip-offs
The Israeli newspaper Maariv on Sunday reported the appearance of a website called All 4 Lebanon which offered payment for tip-offs from Lebanese citizens "that could help Israel in the fight against Hezbollah".
Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah's evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us
All 4 Lebanon website
According to Maariv, the site, with content in Arabic, English and French, had been set up by Israeli intelligence.
"We appeal to everyone who has the ability and the desire to uproot the sore called Hezbollah from your heart and from the heart of Lebanon," the paper quoted the website as saying in Arabic.
On its English-language page, the site says: "Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah's evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us."
It adds: "For your own safety, please contact us from places where no-one knows you."
The Arabic wording is identical to that on leaflets which Israeli aircraft have been dropping over Beirut and the south of Lebanon.
The leaflets called on people to "remove the sore known as Hezbollah from the heart of Lebanon".
The rewards "could be a range of things, such as cash or a house", according to an Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman quoted by Reuters news agency.
It was not clear how such items would be delivered or exactly what information Israel wanted, Reuters noted.
Mobile aggression
On Friday, residents of southern Lebanon reported receiving recorded messages on their mobile phones from an unknown caller.
The speaker identified himself as an Israeli and warned people in the area to leave their homes and head north.
Dubai-based news channel al-Arabiya TV reported that the recorded messages also said they "held the Lebanese government responsible for the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers, and called on Lebanon to set them free".
Inquiries by Lebanon's communications ministry revealed that the calls had come from exchanges in Italy and Canada, but had originated in Israel.
According to US magazine Time, Israel has been targeting SMS text messages at local officials in southern Lebanon, urging them to move north of the Litani river before Israeli military operations intensified.
The UK's Guardian newspaper said mobile phone users in Lebanon were regularly receiving messages to their phones which purported to be news updates, attempting to discredit Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or his party.
Satellite warfare next?
As Israel broadens its psyops activities, it also continues to attack media targets using conventional military means.
Air raids on Saturday hit transmission stations used by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, Future TV and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC). A technician working for LBC was reported to have been killed.
The next day, a convoy of journalists from Lebanese and pan-Arab TV channels was attacked by Israeli planes while on a tour of southern Lebanon; no injuries were reported.
According to an unconfirmed report by Egypt's Middle East News Agency, Israel managed on Sunday "to intercept the satellite transmissions of Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel for the third successive day, replacing it with Israeli transmissions that reportedly showed Hezbollah command sites and rocket launching pads which Israel claimed it has raided".
Replacing a TV station's picture with output you want the audience to see is more difficult to achieve than jamming.
Al-Manar TV has three satellite signals, one on ArabSat 2B at 30.5 degrees east, one on Badr 3 at 26 degrees east and one on NileSat 102 at 7 degrees west.
On Badr 3 and NileSat, al-Manar is broadcast alongside other TV stations in a multiplexed or combined digital signal.
While it would be technically feasible to replace one station's output, all the other stations in the multiplex would be taken off the air too. The technical parameters of the original station would need to be exactly duplicated by the interloper.
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
The New York Times
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By Neil MacFarquhar
The New York Times
Friday 28 July 2006
Damascus, Syria - At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 15 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.
An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a "new Middle East" that they say has led only to violence and repression.
Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.
Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, "The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world."
Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams "for the victims of Israeli aggression." Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.
The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan - offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war - could well perish.
"If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance," it said, "then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."
The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.
American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah - and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long - would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960's, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.
Egypt's opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.
An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.
After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.
"People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped," Mr. Negm said in an interview. "I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: 'Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!' "
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.
"Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states," she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.
In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a "new Middle East." That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.
A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled "The New Middle East" showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.
Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.
Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah's rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.
Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.
"It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine," he said. "Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine."
Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.
But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. "Everyone will be asking, 'Where is Al Qaeda now?'" said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.
Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah's ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.
"Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?" Mr. Rabbani said. "In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs."
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By Neil MacFarquhar
The New York Times
Friday 28 July 2006
Damascus, Syria - At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 15 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.
An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a "new Middle East" that they say has led only to violence and repression.
Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.
Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, "The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world."
Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams "for the victims of Israeli aggression." Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.
The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan - offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war - could well perish.
"If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance," it said, "then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."
The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.
American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah - and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long - would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960's, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.
Egypt's opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.
An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.
After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.
"People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped," Mr. Negm said in an interview. "I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: 'Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!' "
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.
"Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states," she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.
In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a "new Middle East." That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.
A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled "The New Middle East" showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.
Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.
Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah's rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.
Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.
"It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine," he said. "Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine."
Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.
But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. "Everyone will be asking, 'Where is Al Qaeda now?'" said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.
Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah's ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.
"Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?" Mr. Rabbani said. "In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs."
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.
More innocent blood is shed as Israel steps up offensive - Newspaper Edition - Times Online
Times Online
From Stephen Farrell in Safed
DEFYING the international clamour for a ceasefire, Israel declared yesterday that it would press ahead with the war in Lebanon and called up at least 15,000 more reservists.
“It was decided to continue the offensive with the same strategy, using pinpointed ground incursions and airstrikes,” a source said after a meeting of Ehud Olmert’s security Cabinet. “At the moment the army is not bound by time. It can act as long as needed.”
Haim Ramon, the Justice Minister, said the world had given Israel a green light to continue its war against Hezbollah because a meeting of 15 foreign ministers in Rome on Wednesday had failed to demand an immediate ceasefire. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, called that a “gross misunderstanding”.
Lebanon claimed last night that its hospitals had received about 400 bodies of people killed by Israeli strikes, with as many as 200 still buried under rubble. Israel has had 19 civilians killed, with hundreds more injured by Hezbollah rockets.
But, despite the rising toll and international anger, the Israeli media and public appeared increasingly bellicose in the face of Hezbollah’s unexpectedly fierce resistance. “Greater Determination, Less Sensitivity,” proclaimed the front page of the mass-circulation tabloid Ma’ariv.
Writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Alex Fishman declared: “A village from which rockets are fired will simply be destroyed by fire. From the air and from the ground. The decision should have been made and executed with the first Katyusha. But better late than never.”
**collective punishment = war crime**
One opinion poll showed 82per cent of Israelis favoured continuing the fight — only slightly down from 90 per cent a week ago — and 95 per cent considered Israel’s campaign “justified and correct”.
Behind Israel’s determination is a realisation that failure to crush Hezbollah would also destroy Israel’s image of military invulnerability in Arab minds. Ze’ev Schiff, a military analysts in the left-of-centre Ha’aretz paper, wrote that Hezbollah, “must be destroyed at any price . . . If Hezbollah does not experience defeat in this war, this will spell the end of Israeli deterrence against its enemies.”
The immediate cause of Israel’s unease has been the protracted battle to capture Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed there on Wednesday, the heaviest toll of the 17-day offensive.
In an interview with The Times from his hospital bed, a young Israeli paratrooper injured in Bint Jbeil acknowledged that Hezbollah fighters were proving unexpectedly tough adversaries. “They are much better than they used to be. They are good fighters. They are like an army,” conceded Tzfanya Meshulam, who saw one of his commanders killed.
He described how Israeli troops advance from house to house after Israeli artillery and aircraft have first pounded the targets. The old Arab casbah with its narrow lanes was the toughest area to take. There was no running battle. Hezbollah “don’t try to take over areas. They just come out of their underground shelters, shoot and disappear,” he said.
“We don’t really see them until we see the fire coming from somewhere. We were on one rooftop on the outskirts of town and they were shooting from everywhere — you don’t know where it is coming from. When we shoot at them they open up from another direction, like creating a diversion.”
He said that he and colleagues were protecting a heavy machinegun sniper position during a quiet period — “laughing with each other and looking at the town through binoculars” — when a missile hit them. “Suddenly I saw everything black and orange and I couldn’t hear what my colleagues were saying to me.
“I remember everything until this second then everything became slow motion and went black. I thought I was blind. Slowly I got my sight back and I heard my friends shouting.”
He was rushed downstairs for treatment, then taken across the border into Israel under heavy fire.
“Eventually we will win,” he said. “We are more experienced than them. Our weapons are better, and we have a lot more soldiers. They have had a long time to prepare. That is their advantage.”
LEBANESE TOLL
Up to 600 killed
1,788 seriously injured
5,000 homes damaged
More than 2,500 aerial attacks by Israel
500,000 people displaced within Lebanon
200,000 have left the country
3 airports bombed,
62 bridges destroyed
ISRAELI TOLL
19 civilians dead
26 seriously injured
374 less badly injured
632 treated for shock
33 Israeli soldiers killed
50 injured
1,514 rockets and missiles fired at Israel
200,000 Israelis have left their homes in North Israel
From Stephen Farrell in Safed
DEFYING the international clamour for a ceasefire, Israel declared yesterday that it would press ahead with the war in Lebanon and called up at least 15,000 more reservists.
“It was decided to continue the offensive with the same strategy, using pinpointed ground incursions and airstrikes,” a source said after a meeting of Ehud Olmert’s security Cabinet. “At the moment the army is not bound by time. It can act as long as needed.”
Haim Ramon, the Justice Minister, said the world had given Israel a green light to continue its war against Hezbollah because a meeting of 15 foreign ministers in Rome on Wednesday had failed to demand an immediate ceasefire. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, called that a “gross misunderstanding”.
Lebanon claimed last night that its hospitals had received about 400 bodies of people killed by Israeli strikes, with as many as 200 still buried under rubble. Israel has had 19 civilians killed, with hundreds more injured by Hezbollah rockets.
But, despite the rising toll and international anger, the Israeli media and public appeared increasingly bellicose in the face of Hezbollah’s unexpectedly fierce resistance. “Greater Determination, Less Sensitivity,” proclaimed the front page of the mass-circulation tabloid Ma’ariv.
Writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Alex Fishman declared: “A village from which rockets are fired will simply be destroyed by fire. From the air and from the ground. The decision should have been made and executed with the first Katyusha. But better late than never.”
**collective punishment = war crime**
One opinion poll showed 82per cent of Israelis favoured continuing the fight — only slightly down from 90 per cent a week ago — and 95 per cent considered Israel’s campaign “justified and correct”.
Behind Israel’s determination is a realisation that failure to crush Hezbollah would also destroy Israel’s image of military invulnerability in Arab minds. Ze’ev Schiff, a military analysts in the left-of-centre Ha’aretz paper, wrote that Hezbollah, “must be destroyed at any price . . . If Hezbollah does not experience defeat in this war, this will spell the end of Israeli deterrence against its enemies.”
The immediate cause of Israel’s unease has been the protracted battle to capture Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed there on Wednesday, the heaviest toll of the 17-day offensive.
In an interview with The Times from his hospital bed, a young Israeli paratrooper injured in Bint Jbeil acknowledged that Hezbollah fighters were proving unexpectedly tough adversaries. “They are much better than they used to be. They are good fighters. They are like an army,” conceded Tzfanya Meshulam, who saw one of his commanders killed.
He described how Israeli troops advance from house to house after Israeli artillery and aircraft have first pounded the targets. The old Arab casbah with its narrow lanes was the toughest area to take. There was no running battle. Hezbollah “don’t try to take over areas. They just come out of their underground shelters, shoot and disappear,” he said.
“We don’t really see them until we see the fire coming from somewhere. We were on one rooftop on the outskirts of town and they were shooting from everywhere — you don’t know where it is coming from. When we shoot at them they open up from another direction, like creating a diversion.”
He said that he and colleagues were protecting a heavy machinegun sniper position during a quiet period — “laughing with each other and looking at the town through binoculars” — when a missile hit them. “Suddenly I saw everything black and orange and I couldn’t hear what my colleagues were saying to me.
“I remember everything until this second then everything became slow motion and went black. I thought I was blind. Slowly I got my sight back and I heard my friends shouting.”
He was rushed downstairs for treatment, then taken across the border into Israel under heavy fire.
“Eventually we will win,” he said. “We are more experienced than them. Our weapons are better, and we have a lot more soldiers. They have had a long time to prepare. That is their advantage.”
LEBANESE TOLL
Up to 600 killed
1,788 seriously injured
5,000 homes damaged
More than 2,500 aerial attacks by Israel
500,000 people displaced within Lebanon
200,000 have left the country
3 airports bombed,
62 bridges destroyed
ISRAELI TOLL
19 civilians dead
26 seriously injured
374 less badly injured
632 treated for shock
33 Israeli soldiers killed
50 injured
1,514 rockets and missiles fired at Israel
200,000 Israelis have left their homes in North Israel
US 'outrage' over Israeli claims
BBC NEWS
US 'outrage' over Israeli claims
The US state department has dismissed as "outrageous" a suggestion by Israel that it has been authorised by the world to continue bombing Lebanon.
"The US is sparing no efforts to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict," said spokesman Adam Ereli.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon made the suggestion after powers meeting in Rome refrained from demanding an immediate ceasefire.
UK PM Tony Blair has arrived in Washington for talks on the crisis.
His meeting with US President George W Bush comes amid growing pressure for the UK and US to join calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah's missiles
Israel has carried out dozens of fresh strikes on Lebanon. Lebanese officials said at least 12 people had been killed.
Meanwhile at least 50 Hezbollah rockets have landed on northern Israel, hitting towns including Nazareth, Kiryat Shemona and Safed. Seven people have been injured.
Hezbollah said it had fired a new long-range rocket, called the Khaibar-1, into northern Israel.
The militant group said the rocket landed south of the city of Haifa, the deepest strike inside Israel so far.
Israeli police have confirmed that a previously unknown rocket carrying up to 100kg of explosives had struck an area near the town of Afula.
Convoy hit
Elsewhere, two mortar rounds hit a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians escaping the violence in southern Lebanon.
The BBC's Jim Muir, who was with the convoy, said two people in a German TV vehicle were wounded when the rounds exploded next to their car.
The convoy, organised by the Australian embassy, was returning to the port city of Tyre from the border village of Rmeish, where hundreds of people have been trapped by the Israeli offensive.
Our correspondent says the cars were clearly marked as a press and civilian convoy, and that individual journalists had been in contact with the Israelis who knew about the journey.
A BBC security adviser travelling in a car behind the German car said he believed the mortar rounds had been fired from the Israeli side.
The Israeli Defence Forces say they do not believe it was one of their mortars but say they are still checking.
At talks in Rome on Wednesday, the US, UK and regional powers urged peace be sought with the "utmost urgency", but stopped short of calling for an immediate truce. That prompted Mr Ramon to declare Israel had received "permission from the world... to continue the operation".
But questioned by reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Kuala Lumpur, Mr Ereli said: "Any such statement is outrageous."
The US has said a ceasefire is only worth it if it can be made to last. Mr Bush reiterated the US's rejection of a "false peace" on Thursday evening.
The BBC's world affairs correspondent, Nick Childs, points out that Mr Bush also emphasised how troubled he was by the mounting casualties, a suggestion - perhaps - that he is increasingly conscious of the price Washington is paying for its closeness to Israel.
According to Mr Blair's official spokesman, the UK leader wants to step up a gear in securing a UN agreement for an international stabilisation force in southern Lebanon.
But the BBC's James Coomersamy in Washington says that for the moment, there has been no sign that either leader is wavering in his much-criticised opposition to the idea of an immediate ceasefire.
Air strikes
Some 425 Lebanese, the vast majority civilians, are confirmed killed in the 17 days of the conflict - but a Lebanese minister has suggested scores more bodies lie under the rubble.
Fifty-one Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, have been killed, mostly by Hezbollah rockets.
The Israeli assault began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
In the latest developments:
* A Jordanian man was killed and at least three other people wounded in one of several strikes in Kfar Joz, close to the southern Lebanese market town of Natabiyeh
* There were multiple strikes on the Bekaa Valley to the east, on villages around Tyre, and roads in the south-east
* Sporadic clashes were reported in Bint Jbeil, where Israel suffered its worst single losses on Wednesday
* Unarmed UN observers have been temporarily relocated from border positions in southern Lebanon after the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli strike on Tuesday
In Israel, few people still speak of being able to neutralise Hezbollah, our correspondent in Jerusalem Katya Adler says.
Instead Israel speaks of trying to establish a "secure zone" empty of Hezbollah fighters north of the border with Israel.
The Israeli government's announcement that it is calling up three divisions of reservists - said to number between 15,000 to 40,000 - suggests it is preparing for the possibility of a protracted war, our correspondent says.
US 'outrage' over Israeli claims
The US state department has dismissed as "outrageous" a suggestion by Israel that it has been authorised by the world to continue bombing Lebanon.
"The US is sparing no efforts to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict," said spokesman Adam Ereli.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon made the suggestion after powers meeting in Rome refrained from demanding an immediate ceasefire.
UK PM Tony Blair has arrived in Washington for talks on the crisis.
His meeting with US President George W Bush comes amid growing pressure for the UK and US to join calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah's missiles
Israel has carried out dozens of fresh strikes on Lebanon. Lebanese officials said at least 12 people had been killed.
Meanwhile at least 50 Hezbollah rockets have landed on northern Israel, hitting towns including Nazareth, Kiryat Shemona and Safed. Seven people have been injured.
Hezbollah said it had fired a new long-range rocket, called the Khaibar-1, into northern Israel.
The militant group said the rocket landed south of the city of Haifa, the deepest strike inside Israel so far.
Israeli police have confirmed that a previously unknown rocket carrying up to 100kg of explosives had struck an area near the town of Afula.
Convoy hit
Elsewhere, two mortar rounds hit a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians escaping the violence in southern Lebanon.
The BBC's Jim Muir, who was with the convoy, said two people in a German TV vehicle were wounded when the rounds exploded next to their car.
The convoy, organised by the Australian embassy, was returning to the port city of Tyre from the border village of Rmeish, where hundreds of people have been trapped by the Israeli offensive.
Our correspondent says the cars were clearly marked as a press and civilian convoy, and that individual journalists had been in contact with the Israelis who knew about the journey.
A BBC security adviser travelling in a car behind the German car said he believed the mortar rounds had been fired from the Israeli side.
The Israeli Defence Forces say they do not believe it was one of their mortars but say they are still checking.
At talks in Rome on Wednesday, the US, UK and regional powers urged peace be sought with the "utmost urgency", but stopped short of calling for an immediate truce. That prompted Mr Ramon to declare Israel had received "permission from the world... to continue the operation".
But questioned by reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Kuala Lumpur, Mr Ereli said: "Any such statement is outrageous."
The US has said a ceasefire is only worth it if it can be made to last. Mr Bush reiterated the US's rejection of a "false peace" on Thursday evening.
The BBC's world affairs correspondent, Nick Childs, points out that Mr Bush also emphasised how troubled he was by the mounting casualties, a suggestion - perhaps - that he is increasingly conscious of the price Washington is paying for its closeness to Israel.
According to Mr Blair's official spokesman, the UK leader wants to step up a gear in securing a UN agreement for an international stabilisation force in southern Lebanon.
But the BBC's James Coomersamy in Washington says that for the moment, there has been no sign that either leader is wavering in his much-criticised opposition to the idea of an immediate ceasefire.
Air strikes
Some 425 Lebanese, the vast majority civilians, are confirmed killed in the 17 days of the conflict - but a Lebanese minister has suggested scores more bodies lie under the rubble.
Fifty-one Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, have been killed, mostly by Hezbollah rockets.
The Israeli assault began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on 12 July.
In the latest developments:
* A Jordanian man was killed and at least three other people wounded in one of several strikes in Kfar Joz, close to the southern Lebanese market town of Natabiyeh
* There were multiple strikes on the Bekaa Valley to the east, on villages around Tyre, and roads in the south-east
* Sporadic clashes were reported in Bint Jbeil, where Israel suffered its worst single losses on Wednesday
* Unarmed UN observers have been temporarily relocated from border positions in southern Lebanon after the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli strike on Tuesday
In Israel, few people still speak of being able to neutralise Hezbollah, our correspondent in Jerusalem Katya Adler says.
Instead Israel speaks of trying to establish a "secure zone" empty of Hezbollah fighters north of the border with Israel.
The Israeli government's announcement that it is calling up three divisions of reservists - said to number between 15,000 to 40,000 - suggests it is preparing for the possibility of a protracted war, our correspondent says.
Shin Bet Vetoed Secret Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement
gnn.tv
Drafted by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Department of International Relations, University of Sussex
Israeli and Palestinian Sources Concur: Israel Made War Inevitable
The Omega Institute (OI), which works closely with the Institute for Policy Research for Development (IPRD), has learned from Israeli and Palestinian sources that just prior to the current crisis, senior Hamas leaders were in active dialogue with Israeli religious leaders in a round of bilateral peace negotiations. Israeli negotiators included Rabbi Menachem Froman, former deputy leader and co-founder of the Israeli Settler movement Gush Khatif; Rabbi David Bigman, head of the liberal religious Kibbutz movement Yeshiva at Ma’ale Gilboa; and Yitzhak Frankenthal, founder of the Arik Institute. Ongoing negotiations had resulted in a breakthrough peace “understanding”, which was to be announced at a press conference in Jerusalem to mark the launching of an extraordinary peace initiative. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had been briefed extensively about the initiative by Frankenthal. Also due to attend the conference were Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian Cabinet Minister for Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhamed Abu Tir, senior Hamas Member of the Palestinian Parliament, and other senior Palestinian delegates.
The meeting was to announce a joint Israeli-Palestinian call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit who had been abducted by Hamas in Gaza, along with proposals for the beginning of the release of all Palestinian prisoners. These measures were to precipitate unprecedented new peace negotiations on a framework peace agreement, drawn on the 1967 borders. The presence of Palestinian Cabinet Officers and senior Israeli religious leaders in contact with the Prime Minster was to underline the seriousness of this peace proposal on both sides.
Just hours before the meeting was due to start, the Israeli Shin Bet internal Security Service arrested Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting, under threats of detention. The meeting, which offered a major opportunity to obtain Shalit’s release and launch a new framework for peace, was thrown into disarray. The next day, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) invaded Gaza, and the day after both Abu Tir and Abu Arafa were abducted by Israeli forces, along with a third of the Palestinian Cabinet, provoking a predictable escalation of violence.
Israel simultaneously began conducting covert incursions on to Lebanese territory, provoking Hizbollah’s capture of two IDF soldiers. Credible sources confirm that the soldiers were not abducted on Israeli territory, but inside Lebanon. Like the scuppered peace negotiations, Western officials have ignored this, and misinformed the media. However, some reports corroborate the sources. Israeli officials, for instance, informed Forbes (12.7.06) that “Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel.”
“The revelations show that Palestinian and Lebanese actors were not principally responsible for the escalation of the current conflict”, said OI Director Graham Ennis. “Contrary to the misinformation disseminated by the Whitehouse and Whitehall, Israel vetoed unprecedented peace proposals that would have initiated a promising new framework for serious negotiations, and went on to provoke Palestinian and Lebanese groups into retaliations, that now threaten to escalate into a dangerous regional conflict.”
For more information please contact
+44(0)7891 132 574 UK number, US callers; omit the zero (0)
or email: info@globalresearch.org
Drafted by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Department of International Relations, University of Sussex
Israeli and Palestinian Sources Concur: Israel Made War Inevitable
The Omega Institute (OI), which works closely with the Institute for Policy Research for Development (IPRD), has learned from Israeli and Palestinian sources that just prior to the current crisis, senior Hamas leaders were in active dialogue with Israeli religious leaders in a round of bilateral peace negotiations. Israeli negotiators included Rabbi Menachem Froman, former deputy leader and co-founder of the Israeli Settler movement Gush Khatif; Rabbi David Bigman, head of the liberal religious Kibbutz movement Yeshiva at Ma’ale Gilboa; and Yitzhak Frankenthal, founder of the Arik Institute. Ongoing negotiations had resulted in a breakthrough peace “understanding”, which was to be announced at a press conference in Jerusalem to mark the launching of an extraordinary peace initiative. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had been briefed extensively about the initiative by Frankenthal. Also due to attend the conference were Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian Cabinet Minister for Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhamed Abu Tir, senior Hamas Member of the Palestinian Parliament, and other senior Palestinian delegates.
The meeting was to announce a joint Israeli-Palestinian call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit who had been abducted by Hamas in Gaza, along with proposals for the beginning of the release of all Palestinian prisoners. These measures were to precipitate unprecedented new peace negotiations on a framework peace agreement, drawn on the 1967 borders. The presence of Palestinian Cabinet Officers and senior Israeli religious leaders in contact with the Prime Minster was to underline the seriousness of this peace proposal on both sides.
Just hours before the meeting was due to start, the Israeli Shin Bet internal Security Service arrested Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting, under threats of detention. The meeting, which offered a major opportunity to obtain Shalit’s release and launch a new framework for peace, was thrown into disarray. The next day, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) invaded Gaza, and the day after both Abu Tir and Abu Arafa were abducted by Israeli forces, along with a third of the Palestinian Cabinet, provoking a predictable escalation of violence.
Israel simultaneously began conducting covert incursions on to Lebanese territory, provoking Hizbollah’s capture of two IDF soldiers. Credible sources confirm that the soldiers were not abducted on Israeli territory, but inside Lebanon. Like the scuppered peace negotiations, Western officials have ignored this, and misinformed the media. However, some reports corroborate the sources. Israeli officials, for instance, informed Forbes (12.7.06) that “Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel.”
“The revelations show that Palestinian and Lebanese actors were not principally responsible for the escalation of the current conflict”, said OI Director Graham Ennis. “Contrary to the misinformation disseminated by the Whitehouse and Whitehall, Israel vetoed unprecedented peace proposals that would have initiated a promising new framework for serious negotiations, and went on to provoke Palestinian and Lebanese groups into retaliations, that now threaten to escalate into a dangerous regional conflict.”
For more information please contact
+44(0)7891 132 574 UK number, US callers; omit the zero (0)
or email: info@globalresearch.org
AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE ---The "hiding among civilians" myth
Salon.com News
The "hiding among civilians" myth
Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.
By Mitch Prothero
Jul. 28, 2006 | The bombs came just as night fell, around 7 p.m. The locals knew that the 10-story apartment building had been the office, and possibly the residence, of Sheik Tawouk, the Hezbollah commander for the south, so they had moved their families out at the start of the war. The landlord had refused to rent to Hezbollah when they requested the top floors of the building. No matter, the locals said, the Hezb guys just moved in anyway in the name of the "resistance."
Everyone knew that the building would be hit eventually. Its location in downtown Tyre, which had yet to be hit by Israeli airstrikes, was not going to protect it forever. And "everyone" apparently included Sheik Tawouk, because he wasn't anywhere near it when it was finally hit.
Two guided bombs struck it in a huge flash bang of fire and concrete dust followed by the roar of 10 stories pancaking on top of each other, local residents said. Jihad Husseini, 46, runs the driving school a block away and was sitting in his office when the bombs struck. He said his life was saved because he had drawn the heavy cloth curtains shut on the windows facing the street, preventing him from being hit by a wave of shattered glass. But even so, a chunk of smoldering steel flew through the air, broke through the window and the curtain, and shot past his head and through the wall before coming to rest in his neighbor's home.
But Jihad still refuses to leave.
"Everything is broken, but I can make it better," he says, surrounded by his sons Raed, 20, and Mohammed, 12. "I will not leave. This place is not military, it is not Hezbollah; it was an empty apartment."
Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.
But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they'll get some fighters, too. The almost nightly airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut could be seen as making some sense, as the Israelis appear convinced there are command and control bunkers underneath the continually smoldering rubble. There were some civilian casualties the first few nights in places like Haret Hreik, but people quickly left the area to the Hezbollah fighters with their radios and motorbikes.
But other attacks seem gratuitous, fishing expeditions, or simply intended to punish anything and anyone even vaguely connected to Hezbollah. Lighthouses, grain elevators, milk factories, bridges in the north used by refugees, apartment buildings partially occupied by members of Hezbollah's political wing -- all have been reduced to rubble.
In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah. Does mere support for Hezbollah, or even participation in Hezbollah activities, mean your house and family are fair game? Do you need to fire rockets from your front yard? Or is it enough to be a political activist?
The Israelis are consistent: They bomb everyone and everything remotely associated with Hezbollah, including noncombatants. In effect, that means punishing Lebanon. The nation is 40 percent Shiite, and of that 40 percent, tens of thousands are employed by Hezbollah's social services, political operations, schools, and other nonmilitary functions. The "terrorist" organization Hezbollah is Lebanon's second-biggest employer.
People throw the phrase "ghost town" around a lot, but Nabatiya, a bombed-out town about 15 miles from the Lebanon-Israel border, deserves it. One expects the spirits of the town's dead, or its refugees, to silently glide out onto its abandoned streets from the ruined buildings that make up much of the town.
Not all of the buildings show bomb damage, but those that don't have metal shutters blown out as if by a terrible wind. And there are no people at all, except for the occasional Hezbollah scout on a motorbike armed only with a two-way radio, keeping an eye on things as Israeli jets and unmanned drones circle overhead.
Overlooking the outskirts of this town, which has a peacetime population of 100,000 or so -- mostly Shiite supporters of Hezbollah and its more secular rival Amal -- is the Ragheh Hareb Hospital, a facility that makes quite clear what side the residents of Nabatiya are on in this conflict.
The hospital's carefully sculpted and trimmed front lawn contains the giant Red Crescent that denotes the Muslim version of the Red Cross. As we approach it, an Israeli missile streaks by, smashing into a school on the opposite hilltop. As we crouch and then run for the shelter of the hospital awning, that giant crescent reassures me until I look at the flagpole. The Lebanese flag and its cedar tree is there -- right next to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It's safe to say that Ragheh Hareb Hospital has an association with Hezbollah. And the staff sports the trimmed beards and polite, if somewhat ominous, manner of the group. After young men demand press IDs and do some quick questioning, they allow us to enter.
Dr. Ahmed Tahir recognizes me from a funeral in the nearby village of Dweir. An Israeli bomb dropped on their house killed a Hezbollah cleric and 11 members of his immediate family, mostly children. People in Lebanon are calling it a war crime. Tahir looks exhausted, and our talk is even more tense than the last time.
"Maybe it would be best if the Israelis bombed your car on the road here," he said, with a sharp edge. "If you were killed, maybe the public outcry would be so bad in America that the Jews would be forced to stop these attacks."
When I volunteered that the Bush administration cared little for journalists, let alone ones who reported from Hezbollah territory, he shrugged. "Maybe if it was an American bomb used by the Israelis that killed an American journalist, they would stop this horror," he said.
The handful of people in the town include some from Hezbollah's political wing, as well as volunteers keeping an eye on things while the residents are gone. Off to the side, as we watch the Israelis pummel ridgelines on the outskirts of town, one of the political operatives explains that the fighters never come near the town, reinforcing what other Hezbollah people have told me over the years.
Although Israel targets apartments and offices because they are considered "Hezbollah" installations, the group has a clear policy of keeping its fighters away from civilians as much as possible. This is not for humanitarian reasons -- they did, after all, take over an apartment building against the protests of the landlord, knowing full well it would be bombed -- but for military ones.
"You can be a member of Hezbollah your entire life and never see a military wing fighter with a weapon," a Lebanese military intelligence official, now retired, once told me. "They do not come out with their masks off and never operate around people if they can avoid it. They're completely afraid of collaborators. They know this is what breaks the Palestinians -- no discipline and too much showing off."
Perhaps once a year, Hezbollah will hold a military parade in the south, in which its weapons and fighters appear. Media access to these parades is tightly limited and controlled. Unlike the fighters in the half dozen other countries where I have covered insurgencies, Hezbollah fighters do not like to show off for the cameras. In Iraq, with some risk taking, you can meet with and even watch the resistance guys in action. (At least you could during my last time there.) In Afghanistan, you can lunch with Taliban fighters if you're willing to walk a day or so in the mountains. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Fatah or Hamas fighter is almost ubiquitous with his mask, gun and sloganeering to convince the Western journalist of the justice of his cause.
The Hezbollah guys, on the other hand, know that letting their fighters near outsiders of any kind -- journalists or Lebanese, even Hezbollah supporters -- is stupid. In three trips over the last week to the south, where I came near enough to the fighting to hear Israeli artillery, and not just airstrikes, I saw exactly no fighters. Guys with radios with the look of Hezbollah always found me. But no fighters on corners, no invitations to watch them shoot rockets at the Zionist enemy, nothing that can be used to track them.
Even before the war, on many of my trips to the south, the Lebanese army, or the ubiquitous guy on a motorbike with a radio, would halt my trip and send me over to Tyre to get permission from a Hezbollah official before I could proceed, usually with strict limits on where I could go.
Every other journalist I know who has covered Hezbollah has had the same experience. A fellow journalist, a Lebanese who has covered them for two decades, knows only one military guy who will admit it, and he never talks or grants interviews. All he will say is, "I'll be gone for a few months for training. I'll call when I'm back." Presumably his friends and neighbors may suspect something, but no one says anything.
Hezbollah's political members say they have little or no access to the workings of the fighters. This seems to be largely true: While they obviously hear and know more than the outside world, the firewall is strong.
Israel, however, has chosen to treat the political members of Hezbollah as if they were fighters. And by targeting the civilian wing of the group, which supplies much of the humanitarian aid and social protection for the poorest people in the south, they are targeting civilians.
Earlier in the week, I stood next to a giant crater that had smashed through the highway between Tyre and Sidon -- the only route of escape for most of the people in the far south. Overhead, Israeli fighters and drones circled above the city and its outlying areas and regular blasts of bombs and naval artillery could be heard.
The crater served as a nice place to check up on the refugees, who were forced by the crater to slow down long enough to be asked questions. They barely stopped, their faces wrenched in near panic. The main wave of refugees out of the south had come the previous two days, so these were the hard-luck cases, the people who had been really close to the fighting and who needed two days just to get to Tyre, or who had had to make the tough decision whether to flee or stay put, with neither choice looking good.
The roads in the south are full of the cars of people who chose wrong -- burned-out chassis, broken glass, some cars driven straight into posts or ditches. Other seem to have broken down or run out of gas on the long dirt detours around the blown-out highway and bridge network the Israeli air force had spent days methodically destroying even as it warned people to flee.
One man, slowing his car around the crater, almost screams, "There is nothing left. This country is not for us." His brief pause immediately draws horns and impatient yells from the people in the cars behind him. They pass the crater but within two minutes a large explosion behind us, north, in the direction of Sidon, rocks us.
As we drive south toward Tyre, we soon pass a new series of scars on the highway: shrapnel, hubcaps and broken glass. A car that had been maybe five minutes ahead of us was hit by an Israeli shell. Three of its passengers were wounded, and it was heading north to the Hammound hospital at Sidon. We turned around because of the attack and followed the car to Sidon. Those unhurt staked out the parking lot of the hospital, looking for the Western journalists they were convinced had called in the strike. Luckily my Iraqi fixer smelled trouble and we got out of there. Probably nothing would have happened -- mostly they were just freaked-out country people who didn't like the coincidence of an Israeli attack and a car full of journalists driving past.
So the analysts talking on cable news about Hezbollah "hiding within the civilian population" clearly have spent little time if any in the south Lebanon war zone and don't know what they're talking about. Hezbollah doesn't trust the civilian population and has worked very hard to evacuate as much of it as possible from the battlefield. And this is why they fight so well -- with no one to spy on them, they have lots of chances to take the Israel Defense Forces by surprise, as they have by continuing to fire rockets and punish every Israeli ground incursion.
And the civilians? They see themselves as targeted regardless of their affiliation. They are enraged at Israel and at the United States, the only two countries on earth not calling for an immediate cease-fire. Lebanese of all persuasions think the United States and Israel believe that Lebanese lives are cheaper than Israeli ones. And many are now saying that they want to fight.
-- By Mitch Prothero
The "hiding among civilians" myth
Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.
By Mitch Prothero
Jul. 28, 2006 | The bombs came just as night fell, around 7 p.m. The locals knew that the 10-story apartment building had been the office, and possibly the residence, of Sheik Tawouk, the Hezbollah commander for the south, so they had moved their families out at the start of the war. The landlord had refused to rent to Hezbollah when they requested the top floors of the building. No matter, the locals said, the Hezb guys just moved in anyway in the name of the "resistance."
Everyone knew that the building would be hit eventually. Its location in downtown Tyre, which had yet to be hit by Israeli airstrikes, was not going to protect it forever. And "everyone" apparently included Sheik Tawouk, because he wasn't anywhere near it when it was finally hit.
Two guided bombs struck it in a huge flash bang of fire and concrete dust followed by the roar of 10 stories pancaking on top of each other, local residents said. Jihad Husseini, 46, runs the driving school a block away and was sitting in his office when the bombs struck. He said his life was saved because he had drawn the heavy cloth curtains shut on the windows facing the street, preventing him from being hit by a wave of shattered glass. But even so, a chunk of smoldering steel flew through the air, broke through the window and the curtain, and shot past his head and through the wall before coming to rest in his neighbor's home.
But Jihad still refuses to leave.
"Everything is broken, but I can make it better," he says, surrounded by his sons Raed, 20, and Mohammed, 12. "I will not leave. This place is not military, it is not Hezbollah; it was an empty apartment."
Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.
But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they'll get some fighters, too. The almost nightly airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut could be seen as making some sense, as the Israelis appear convinced there are command and control bunkers underneath the continually smoldering rubble. There were some civilian casualties the first few nights in places like Haret Hreik, but people quickly left the area to the Hezbollah fighters with their radios and motorbikes.
But other attacks seem gratuitous, fishing expeditions, or simply intended to punish anything and anyone even vaguely connected to Hezbollah. Lighthouses, grain elevators, milk factories, bridges in the north used by refugees, apartment buildings partially occupied by members of Hezbollah's political wing -- all have been reduced to rubble.
In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah. Does mere support for Hezbollah, or even participation in Hezbollah activities, mean your house and family are fair game? Do you need to fire rockets from your front yard? Or is it enough to be a political activist?
The Israelis are consistent: They bomb everyone and everything remotely associated with Hezbollah, including noncombatants. In effect, that means punishing Lebanon. The nation is 40 percent Shiite, and of that 40 percent, tens of thousands are employed by Hezbollah's social services, political operations, schools, and other nonmilitary functions. The "terrorist" organization Hezbollah is Lebanon's second-biggest employer.
People throw the phrase "ghost town" around a lot, but Nabatiya, a bombed-out town about 15 miles from the Lebanon-Israel border, deserves it. One expects the spirits of the town's dead, or its refugees, to silently glide out onto its abandoned streets from the ruined buildings that make up much of the town.
Not all of the buildings show bomb damage, but those that don't have metal shutters blown out as if by a terrible wind. And there are no people at all, except for the occasional Hezbollah scout on a motorbike armed only with a two-way radio, keeping an eye on things as Israeli jets and unmanned drones circle overhead.
Overlooking the outskirts of this town, which has a peacetime population of 100,000 or so -- mostly Shiite supporters of Hezbollah and its more secular rival Amal -- is the Ragheh Hareb Hospital, a facility that makes quite clear what side the residents of Nabatiya are on in this conflict.
The hospital's carefully sculpted and trimmed front lawn contains the giant Red Crescent that denotes the Muslim version of the Red Cross. As we approach it, an Israeli missile streaks by, smashing into a school on the opposite hilltop. As we crouch and then run for the shelter of the hospital awning, that giant crescent reassures me until I look at the flagpole. The Lebanese flag and its cedar tree is there -- right next to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It's safe to say that Ragheh Hareb Hospital has an association with Hezbollah. And the staff sports the trimmed beards and polite, if somewhat ominous, manner of the group. After young men demand press IDs and do some quick questioning, they allow us to enter.
Dr. Ahmed Tahir recognizes me from a funeral in the nearby village of Dweir. An Israeli bomb dropped on their house killed a Hezbollah cleric and 11 members of his immediate family, mostly children. People in Lebanon are calling it a war crime. Tahir looks exhausted, and our talk is even more tense than the last time.
"Maybe it would be best if the Israelis bombed your car on the road here," he said, with a sharp edge. "If you were killed, maybe the public outcry would be so bad in America that the Jews would be forced to stop these attacks."
When I volunteered that the Bush administration cared little for journalists, let alone ones who reported from Hezbollah territory, he shrugged. "Maybe if it was an American bomb used by the Israelis that killed an American journalist, they would stop this horror," he said.
The handful of people in the town include some from Hezbollah's political wing, as well as volunteers keeping an eye on things while the residents are gone. Off to the side, as we watch the Israelis pummel ridgelines on the outskirts of town, one of the political operatives explains that the fighters never come near the town, reinforcing what other Hezbollah people have told me over the years.
Although Israel targets apartments and offices because they are considered "Hezbollah" installations, the group has a clear policy of keeping its fighters away from civilians as much as possible. This is not for humanitarian reasons -- they did, after all, take over an apartment building against the protests of the landlord, knowing full well it would be bombed -- but for military ones.
"You can be a member of Hezbollah your entire life and never see a military wing fighter with a weapon," a Lebanese military intelligence official, now retired, once told me. "They do not come out with their masks off and never operate around people if they can avoid it. They're completely afraid of collaborators. They know this is what breaks the Palestinians -- no discipline and too much showing off."
Perhaps once a year, Hezbollah will hold a military parade in the south, in which its weapons and fighters appear. Media access to these parades is tightly limited and controlled. Unlike the fighters in the half dozen other countries where I have covered insurgencies, Hezbollah fighters do not like to show off for the cameras. In Iraq, with some risk taking, you can meet with and even watch the resistance guys in action. (At least you could during my last time there.) In Afghanistan, you can lunch with Taliban fighters if you're willing to walk a day or so in the mountains. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Fatah or Hamas fighter is almost ubiquitous with his mask, gun and sloganeering to convince the Western journalist of the justice of his cause.
The Hezbollah guys, on the other hand, know that letting their fighters near outsiders of any kind -- journalists or Lebanese, even Hezbollah supporters -- is stupid. In three trips over the last week to the south, where I came near enough to the fighting to hear Israeli artillery, and not just airstrikes, I saw exactly no fighters. Guys with radios with the look of Hezbollah always found me. But no fighters on corners, no invitations to watch them shoot rockets at the Zionist enemy, nothing that can be used to track them.
Even before the war, on many of my trips to the south, the Lebanese army, or the ubiquitous guy on a motorbike with a radio, would halt my trip and send me over to Tyre to get permission from a Hezbollah official before I could proceed, usually with strict limits on where I could go.
Every other journalist I know who has covered Hezbollah has had the same experience. A fellow journalist, a Lebanese who has covered them for two decades, knows only one military guy who will admit it, and he never talks or grants interviews. All he will say is, "I'll be gone for a few months for training. I'll call when I'm back." Presumably his friends and neighbors may suspect something, but no one says anything.
Hezbollah's political members say they have little or no access to the workings of the fighters. This seems to be largely true: While they obviously hear and know more than the outside world, the firewall is strong.
Israel, however, has chosen to treat the political members of Hezbollah as if they were fighters. And by targeting the civilian wing of the group, which supplies much of the humanitarian aid and social protection for the poorest people in the south, they are targeting civilians.
Earlier in the week, I stood next to a giant crater that had smashed through the highway between Tyre and Sidon -- the only route of escape for most of the people in the far south. Overhead, Israeli fighters and drones circled above the city and its outlying areas and regular blasts of bombs and naval artillery could be heard.
The crater served as a nice place to check up on the refugees, who were forced by the crater to slow down long enough to be asked questions. They barely stopped, their faces wrenched in near panic. The main wave of refugees out of the south had come the previous two days, so these were the hard-luck cases, the people who had been really close to the fighting and who needed two days just to get to Tyre, or who had had to make the tough decision whether to flee or stay put, with neither choice looking good.
The roads in the south are full of the cars of people who chose wrong -- burned-out chassis, broken glass, some cars driven straight into posts or ditches. Other seem to have broken down or run out of gas on the long dirt detours around the blown-out highway and bridge network the Israeli air force had spent days methodically destroying even as it warned people to flee.
One man, slowing his car around the crater, almost screams, "There is nothing left. This country is not for us." His brief pause immediately draws horns and impatient yells from the people in the cars behind him. They pass the crater but within two minutes a large explosion behind us, north, in the direction of Sidon, rocks us.
As we drive south toward Tyre, we soon pass a new series of scars on the highway: shrapnel, hubcaps and broken glass. A car that had been maybe five minutes ahead of us was hit by an Israeli shell. Three of its passengers were wounded, and it was heading north to the Hammound hospital at Sidon. We turned around because of the attack and followed the car to Sidon. Those unhurt staked out the parking lot of the hospital, looking for the Western journalists they were convinced had called in the strike. Luckily my Iraqi fixer smelled trouble and we got out of there. Probably nothing would have happened -- mostly they were just freaked-out country people who didn't like the coincidence of an Israeli attack and a car full of journalists driving past.
So the analysts talking on cable news about Hezbollah "hiding within the civilian population" clearly have spent little time if any in the south Lebanon war zone and don't know what they're talking about. Hezbollah doesn't trust the civilian population and has worked very hard to evacuate as much of it as possible from the battlefield. And this is why they fight so well -- with no one to spy on them, they have lots of chances to take the Israel Defense Forces by surprise, as they have by continuing to fire rockets and punish every Israeli ground incursion.
And the civilians? They see themselves as targeted regardless of their affiliation. They are enraged at Israel and at the United States, the only two countries on earth not calling for an immediate cease-fire. Lebanese of all persuasions think the United States and Israel believe that Lebanese lives are cheaper than Israeli ones. And many are now saying that they want to fight.
-- By Mitch Prothero
AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: 'The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked'
AlterNet: Blogs
'The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked'
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on July 28, 2006, Printed on July 28, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/39607/
'The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked'
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on July 28, 2006, Printed on July 28, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/39607/
Another story of a deliberate murder and cover-up is making its way out of Iraq.
War is terrible for the human soul. It's debatable whether containment is the best strategy or whether we can annihilate war altogether, but the one thing we can agree on is that it unleashes the worst in us.
And let's be honest here...
the longer this war rages on with unclear and politically-motivated goals leading the way, the more violence we'll see on the battlefield and off. And then there's the more concrete problem of unlawful violence from commanders.
If it were soldiers from another country here in America and we'd heard stories of abuse, rape and murder, we'd lose any feelings of equivocation very, very quickly.
Here's another. With a dose of Sopranos thrown in.
Differing accounts of the killing of three Iraqi prisoners have emerged.
The mission that led to the killings started at dawn on May 9, when soldiers with the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division landed in a remote area near a former chemical plant not far from Samarra, according to legal documents and lawyers for the accused soldiers. It was the site of a suspected insurgent training camp and was considered extremely dangerous.
From there, according to a Sergeant Lemus' changed of heart testimony, "he had witnessed a deliberate plot by his fellow soldiers to kill the three handcuffed Iraqis and a cover-up in which one soldier cut another to bolster their story. The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked."
The lawyers who dispute his account, don't have a prettier version: "Just before leaving, the soldiers had been given an order to 'kill all military-age men' at the site by a colonel and a captain." Which is a war crime.
The Colonel, famous for being the Black Hawk Down hero, refuses to testify: "It is very rare for any commanding officer to refuse to testify at any stage of a court-martial proceeding, said Gary D. Solis, a former military judge and prosecutor who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University."
Here's what's scariest: "Two initial investigations of the killings by commanders found no wrongdoing."
How many cases go unlitigated?
Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
The Chalabi Factor
truthout
The Chalabi Factor
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 28 July 2006
Their man - the dissident leader who sat behind the first lady in the president's box during the State of the Union address in which Bush prepared the country for war - appeared to have been working for Iran all along.
- James Bamford, "Iran: The Next War"
Ahmad Chalabi has been many things to many people over the last several years. Officials in Jordan considered him to be a petty criminal, convicting him of 32 counts of bank fraud and sentencing him in absentia to 22 years in prison.
Chalabi was, for a time, the leader of a manufactured dissident group called the Iraqi National Congress, and received millions of American taxpayer dollars thanks to the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act. This made him a source for New York Times reporter Judy Miller, who used his false information about Iraqi WMD capabilities to frighten the populace into war.
Chalabi enjoyed a short, shining moment in the spotlight during Bush's harrowingly incoherent speech to the United Nations in September 0f 2003. The occupation was only six months old at that point, and Bush was before that body to try to justify the whole thing. Below him, seated in Iraq's chair as if he were already in power, was Mr. Chalabi. Chalabi also sat beside First Lady Laura Bush during the State of the Union address that propelled America toward the invasion.
For Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and the masterminds of the Iraq invasion, however, Ahmad Chalabi was the anointed one, a statesman-to-be, the man who would replace Saddam Hussein once they figured out a way to attack and overthrow his regime. Chalabi had been chosen for this position as early as 1997, before this whole mess was anything more than a twinkle in the vice president's eye.
As it turns out, September 11 gave Rumsfeld and Cheney the pretext they required. Once the so-called "cakewalk" of invasion was over, they believed, Chalabi could be installed as the next Iraqi leader and the nation could be happily run by remote control from Washington and Houston.
It didn't quite work out that way.
Chalabi was in the mix, to be sure. He ran for the prime minister's spot and was handily defeated, but resurrected himself long enough to become the oil minister. He was a mover and a shaker, adept at playing both ends against the middle, at one point standing as the avatar of American power and at another fashioning himself as the anti-American savior of Iraqi Shiites.
And then his house got raided, and the whispers began to percolate. Something happened with Iran, something bad, and soon enough it became clear that Chalabi was playing a double game. Rumsfeld's promise to put him in power, and to give him unfettered access to Iraq's vast oil wealth, had not been fulfilled. Chalabi, therefore, switched sides.
Author James Bamford, in a meticulously researched article for Rolling Stone titled "Iran: The Next War," has finally and completely ripped the cover off exactly what Mr. Chalabi was doing while dressed in the clothing of an ally of the Bush administration.
It is possible, by way of a long series of very deep breaths, to objectively encompass the vast array of blunders, missteps and outright catastrophes that have marked the passage of the Bush administration. We lost two towers in New York. We lost the city of New Orleans. We invaded and occupied a nation that was no threat to destroy weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. A lot of people have been killed and maimed, and our national bank account is deeply in the red.
And now comes this Chalabi revelation, and the deep breaths stop working. This man manipulated the neo-conservatives within this administration into an invasion with false information they were all too willing to believe, and did so to gain himself a nation and its oil revenues. Once this didn't work out, this man sold our soldiers and intelligence services out to Iran in hopes of wrangling himself into power by way of a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government run by remote control out of Tehran.
Ahmad Chalabi was able to do all this because Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration picked him, groomed him, touted him, championed him, and helped him along every step of the way. Ahmad Chalabi was the physical manifestation of their dreams for Iraq. He has become, instead, the physical manifestation of absolutely everything that has gone sideways since this catastrophe was first undertaken.
2,570 American soldiers are dead, along with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Those civilians are dying now at the rate of 100 a day, according to the Washington Post, killed in the streets in a wave of sectarian violence that has all but doomed that nation to complete chaos. Iran, more than any other nation, reaps the benefits of this terrible situation.
Ahmad Chalabi has been many things to many people. Now, with the story fully told, we know him to be a back-stabbing spy for Iran. We know him to be responsible for an unimaginable number of deaths, thanks to the assistance he gave Iran in tracking our troops and foiling our intelligence networks.
We know him to be a long-time friend and boon companion of Donald Rumsfeld.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
The Chalabi Factor
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 28 July 2006
Their man - the dissident leader who sat behind the first lady in the president's box during the State of the Union address in which Bush prepared the country for war - appeared to have been working for Iran all along.
- James Bamford, "Iran: The Next War"
Ahmad Chalabi has been many things to many people over the last several years. Officials in Jordan considered him to be a petty criminal, convicting him of 32 counts of bank fraud and sentencing him in absentia to 22 years in prison.
Chalabi was, for a time, the leader of a manufactured dissident group called the Iraqi National Congress, and received millions of American taxpayer dollars thanks to the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act. This made him a source for New York Times reporter Judy Miller, who used his false information about Iraqi WMD capabilities to frighten the populace into war.
Chalabi enjoyed a short, shining moment in the spotlight during Bush's harrowingly incoherent speech to the United Nations in September 0f 2003. The occupation was only six months old at that point, and Bush was before that body to try to justify the whole thing. Below him, seated in Iraq's chair as if he were already in power, was Mr. Chalabi. Chalabi also sat beside First Lady Laura Bush during the State of the Union address that propelled America toward the invasion.
For Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and the masterminds of the Iraq invasion, however, Ahmad Chalabi was the anointed one, a statesman-to-be, the man who would replace Saddam Hussein once they figured out a way to attack and overthrow his regime. Chalabi had been chosen for this position as early as 1997, before this whole mess was anything more than a twinkle in the vice president's eye.
As it turns out, September 11 gave Rumsfeld and Cheney the pretext they required. Once the so-called "cakewalk" of invasion was over, they believed, Chalabi could be installed as the next Iraqi leader and the nation could be happily run by remote control from Washington and Houston.
It didn't quite work out that way.
Chalabi was in the mix, to be sure. He ran for the prime minister's spot and was handily defeated, but resurrected himself long enough to become the oil minister. He was a mover and a shaker, adept at playing both ends against the middle, at one point standing as the avatar of American power and at another fashioning himself as the anti-American savior of Iraqi Shiites.
And then his house got raided, and the whispers began to percolate. Something happened with Iran, something bad, and soon enough it became clear that Chalabi was playing a double game. Rumsfeld's promise to put him in power, and to give him unfettered access to Iraq's vast oil wealth, had not been fulfilled. Chalabi, therefore, switched sides.
Author James Bamford, in a meticulously researched article for Rolling Stone titled "Iran: The Next War," has finally and completely ripped the cover off exactly what Mr. Chalabi was doing while dressed in the clothing of an ally of the Bush administration.
"For years," wrote Bamford, "the National Security Agency had possessed the codes used by Iran to encrypt its diplomatic messages, enabling the U.S. government to eavesdrop on virtually every communication between Tehran and its embassies. After the U.S. invaded Baghdad, the NSA used the codes to listen in on details of Iran's covert operations inside Iraq. But in 2004, the agency intercepted a series of urgent messages from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Intelligence officials at the embassy had discovered the massive security breach - tipped off by someone familiar with the U.S. code-breaking operation."
"The blow to intelligence-gathering could not have come at a worse time," continued Bamford. "The Bush administration suspected that the Shiite government in Iran was aiding Shiite insurgents in Iraq, who were killing U.S. soldiers. The administration was also worried that Tehran was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Now, crucial intelligence that might have shed light on those operations had been cut off, potentially endangering American lives."
"On May 20th," continued Bamford, "shortly after the discovery of the leak, Iraqi police backed by American soldiers raided Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad. The FBI suspected that Chalabi, a Shiite who had a luxurious villa in Tehran and was close to senior Iranian officials, was actually working as a spy for the Shiite government of Iran. Getting the U.S. to invade Iraq was apparently part of a plan to install a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Baghdad, with Chalabi in charge. The bureau also suspected that Chalabi's intelligence chief had furnished Iran with highly classified information on U.S. troop movements, top-secret communications, plans of the provisional government and other closely guarded material on U.S. operations in Iraq. On the night of the raid, the CBS Evening News carried an exclusive report by correspondent Lesley Stahl that the U.S. government had 'rock-solid' evidence that Chalabi had been passing extremely sensitive intelligence to Iran - evidence so sensitive that it could 'get Americans killed.'"
"The revelation," concluded Bamford regarding Chalabi's spying, "shocked [Defense Intelligence Agency member Larry] Franklin and other members of [Defense Department official Douglas] Feith's office. If true, the allegations meant that they had just launched a war to put into power an agent of their mortal enemy, Iran. Their man - the dissident leader who sat behind the first lady in the president's box during the State of the Union address in which Bush prepared the country for war - appeared to have been working for Iran all along."
It is possible, by way of a long series of very deep breaths, to objectively encompass the vast array of blunders, missteps and outright catastrophes that have marked the passage of the Bush administration. We lost two towers in New York. We lost the city of New Orleans. We invaded and occupied a nation that was no threat to destroy weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. A lot of people have been killed and maimed, and our national bank account is deeply in the red.
And now comes this Chalabi revelation, and the deep breaths stop working. This man manipulated the neo-conservatives within this administration into an invasion with false information they were all too willing to believe, and did so to gain himself a nation and its oil revenues. Once this didn't work out, this man sold our soldiers and intelligence services out to Iran in hopes of wrangling himself into power by way of a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government run by remote control out of Tehran.
Ahmad Chalabi was able to do all this because Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration picked him, groomed him, touted him, championed him, and helped him along every step of the way. Ahmad Chalabi was the physical manifestation of their dreams for Iraq. He has become, instead, the physical manifestation of absolutely everything that has gone sideways since this catastrophe was first undertaken.
2,570 American soldiers are dead, along with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Those civilians are dying now at the rate of 100 a day, according to the Washington Post, killed in the streets in a wave of sectarian violence that has all but doomed that nation to complete chaos. Iran, more than any other nation, reaps the benefits of this terrible situation.
Ahmad Chalabi has been many things to many people. Now, with the story fully told, we know him to be a back-stabbing spy for Iran. We know him to be responsible for an unimaginable number of deaths, thanks to the assistance he gave Iran in tracking our troops and foiling our intelligence networks.
We know him to be a long-time friend and boon companion of Donald Rumsfeld.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Who is winning this war?
Q & A With Uri Avnery
07/26/07 "Information Clearing House" -- --
Who is winning this war?
On the 15th day of the war, Hizbullah is functioning and fighting. That by itself will go down in the annals of the Arab peoples as a shining victory.
When a featherweight boxer faces a heavyweight and is still standing in the 15th round - that is a victory, whatever the final outcome.
Can Hizbullah be pushed out of the border area?
The question is based on a misunderstanding of the essence of Hizbullah.
Not by accident is the organization call Hizb-Allah ("Party of Allah") and not Jeish-Allah ("Army of Allah"). It is a political organization, with deep roots in the Shiite population of South Lebanon. For all practical purposes, it represents this community. The Shiites are 40% of the Lebanese population, and together with the other Muslims they form the majority.
Hizbullah can be "moved" only if the whole Shiite population is moved - an ethnic cleansing that (I hope) no one is thinking about. After the war the population will return to their towns and villages, and Hizbullah will continue to flourish.
What would happen if the Lebanese Army were deployed along the border?
That has been one of the slogans of the Israeli government from the first moment. They will announce this as the main victory. That is very convincing - for anyone who has no idea about the complexities of Lebanon.
Anyone who was in Lebanon in 1982 and saw the Lebanese Army in action knows that it is not a serious army. Furthermore, many of its officers and soldiers are Shiites. Such a force will not fight Hizbullah.
Its deployment in the South would depend entirely on the agreement of Hizbullah - and that also applies to every day it stays there.
Would an international force help?
Ditto. That is a slogan especially tailored for diplomats, who look for an idea they can easily agree on. It sounds nice, especially if one adds the word "robust".
What exactly is the robust international force supposed to do?
It is proposed that it will remove Hizbullah from the border area. Not by words - like the hapless UNIFIL, that everyone ignored right from the beginning - but by force.
If the deployment of this force were to take place with the agreement of both sides - Israel and Hizbullah - alright. It may serve as a ladder for the Israeli government to climb down from the tree it has climbed up.
But if the force is placed there contrary to the will of Hizbullah, a guerilla war against it will start. Will the international force stand up and fight in a place which the mighty Israeli army fled with its tail between its legs?
For Israel, there will be a special dilemma: what will happen if Hizbullah attacks Israel in spite of the force? Will the Israeli army enter the area, risking a clash with the international force? With German soldiers, for example?
Olmert has said that we will not negotiate with Syria. Is that practical?
So he said. He has said a lot of things, and his tongue is still wagging.
Syria is a central player in this field. No real settlement in Lebanon will succeed without the participation - direct or indirect- of Syria.
True, Hizbullah was created by us. When the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982, the Shiites received the soldiers with rice and sweets. They hoped that we would evict the PLO forces, who were in control of the area. But when they realized that our army was there to stay, they started a guerilla war that lasted for 18 years. In this war, Hizbullah was born and grew, until it became the strongest organization in all Lebanon.
But this would not have happened without massive Syrian support. Syria wants to get back the Golan heights, which have been officially annexed to Israel. Therefore, it is important for the Syrians not to allow the Israelis any quiet. Since they do not want to risk trouble on their own borders with Israel, they use Hizbullah to cause trouble on Israel's border with Lebanon.
The Lebanese border will not become quiet until we reach an agreement with Syria. That is to say: until we give the Golan back.The alternative is to start a war with Syria, with its ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons and an army that has proved itself. President Bush is pushing Israel to do this, perhaps in order to divert attention from his fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How can one evaluate the conduct of the military campaign?
Dan Halutz will not enter the history books as one of the greatest captains of all time.
He pushed the government into this war, partly in order to cover up two embarrassing military failures: the Palestinian commando action in Kerem Shalom and the Hizbullah action on the Lebanese border. No officer has been called to bear responsibility for them. The ultimate responsibility rests, of course, with the chief-of-Staff.
Halutz, the first Chief-of-Staff who rose through the ranks of the Air Force, was convinced that he could finish it off by aerial bombardment, with the assistance of the artillery and navy. He was vastly mistaken. Even after sowing havoc in Lebanon, he did not succeed in vanquishing the opponent. Now he is compelled to do the one thing that everybody was afraid of: sending large land forces into the Lebanese quagmire.
On the 15th day of the war, not one of the aims is any nearer to being achieved. As far as Halutz is concerned, both as a strategist and as a commander, his marks are close to zero.
Have the civilians at the head of the government proved themselves?
After the elections, many people in Israel thought that a civilian era had begun, since both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense are complete civilians, without a military background. As it turns out, the opposite is the case.
History shows that political functionaries who succeed strong leaders are capable of doing terrible things. They want to prove that they, too, are strong leaders, that they have guts, that they can wage war. Harry Truman , who replaced Franklin Roosevelt, is responsible for what is perhaps the biggest war crime in history - the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anthony Eden, who succeeded Winston Churchill, started the foolish Suez war, in collusion with France and Israel.
The Olmert government started this war in shocking irresponsibility, without serious debate or deliberation. They were afraid to oppose the demands of the Chief-of-Staff, afraid to be branded as cowards.
Olmert has promised that after the war the situation in the region will be different from what it was before. Is there a chance of this?
Absolutely. But the new situation will be very much worse for us.
One of Hassan Nasrallah's aims is to unite Shiites and Sunnis in a common fight against Israel.
One has to realize that for centuries Sunnis and Shiites were mortal enemies. Many orthodox Sunnis consider the Shiites heretics. By coming to the aid of the Palestinians, who are Sunnis, Nasrallah hopes, among other aims, to forge a new alliance.
In the Middle East, a new axis may be coming into being, one that includes Hizbullah, the Palestinians, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Syria is a Sunni country. Iraq is now controlled by the Shiites, who wholeheartedly support Hizbullah. But the Iraqi Sunnis, who are waging a tough guerilla war against the Americans, also support Hizbullah.
This bloc enjoys a wide popularity among the masses throughout the Arab world, because of their fight against the USA and Israel. The opposite bloc, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, is losing popularity by the day. These regimes are considered by the masses as mercenaries of the Americans and agents of Israel. Mahmoud Abbas is strenuously trying to avoid being included in this category.
So what can be done about this?
To put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which causes ferment throughout the Middle East.
To draw Hamas out of this hostile front, by negotiating with the elected Palestinian government.
To reach a settlement in Lebanon. For it to last, this settlement must include Hizbullah and Syria. This will oblige us to give the Golan back.
It should be remembered that Ehud Barak had already agreed to that and almost signed a peace treaty, similar to the one signed with Egypt, but unfortunately chickened out at the last moment for fear of public opinion.
Uri Avnery is a journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom.
Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes
ZAMAN DAILY NEWSPAPER (2006072735131)
By Selcuk Gultasli
Thursday, July 27, 2006
zaman.com
Jewish associations have begun to react against the Israeli offensive into Lebanon. Head of the Union of Belgian Jewish Progressives (UPJB) Dr. Jacques Ravedovitch stated that Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.
In an interview with Zaman in Brussels, Ravedovitch said that while former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon committed indirect war crimes, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unquestionably a war criminal.
Dr. Ravedovitch said it is a shame that Jews who were once exposed to the holocaust are doing the same evil things against another nation today.
According to Ravedovitch, anti-Semitism is from time to time misused by Israeli statesman, and the recently intensified Israeli offensive into Lebanon has increased hatred for Israel.
The UPJB demands that both the EU and Belgium bring the Israeli attacks to an end.
UPJB, an active Jewish Association in Belgium, accuses Israel of committing war crimes despite the statements issued by the EU and US.
Some Jews still have dreams of a “Great Israel,” Ravedovitch noted, adding that the Israeli government is absolutely against negotiations and is acting aggressively to impose its own interests as a solution.
Seen as a traitor to the Diaspora cause, Ravdeovitch said: “Peace will not be secured without the return of Israel to its pre-1967 borders. Israel should stop destroying Lebanon. It should leave Eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians and accept that Jerusalem is the common capital; they should sit at the negotiation table for talks.”
Calling the Israeli attacks shameful, Ravedovitch said: “Resistance in Palestine and Lebanon is justified. Israel is an invader. I do not approve of Hamas killing innocent people, but I defend that if there are invaders there will be resistance at the same time. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is terror.”
Accusing the West, and particularly Europe, of fearing to criticize Israel, Ravedovitch said: “The EU keeps saying that they treat Israel and Palestine equally, but how can we behave equally towards both the invader and the invadee? We asked the EU to suspend the Partnership Agreement with Israel, but they didn’t answer.”
Ravedovitch said the EU’s attitude indicates Europe still feels guilty about the holocaust, but that Israel is exploiting anti-Semitism.
He pointed out that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are different concepts.
“Anti-Zionism is a political stance. For instance, when a person criticizes Britain, he shouldn’t be called racist or anti- British. Similarly, when people criticize Israel, they do not become anti-Semites.”
The last point Ravedovitch compared the situation to the US’s failure in Vietnam, and suggested that it’s impossible for Israel to attain its objectives in Lebanon as the latest attacks into Lebanon only increased the hatred against Israel tenfold.
By Selcuk Gultasli
Thursday, July 27, 2006
zaman.com
Jewish associations have begun to react against the Israeli offensive into Lebanon. Head of the Union of Belgian Jewish Progressives (UPJB) Dr. Jacques Ravedovitch stated that Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.
In an interview with Zaman in Brussels, Ravedovitch said that while former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon committed indirect war crimes, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unquestionably a war criminal.
Dr. Ravedovitch said it is a shame that Jews who were once exposed to the holocaust are doing the same evil things against another nation today.
According to Ravedovitch, anti-Semitism is from time to time misused by Israeli statesman, and the recently intensified Israeli offensive into Lebanon has increased hatred for Israel.
The UPJB demands that both the EU and Belgium bring the Israeli attacks to an end.
UPJB, an active Jewish Association in Belgium, accuses Israel of committing war crimes despite the statements issued by the EU and US.
Some Jews still have dreams of a “Great Israel,” Ravedovitch noted, adding that the Israeli government is absolutely against negotiations and is acting aggressively to impose its own interests as a solution.
Seen as a traitor to the Diaspora cause, Ravdeovitch said: “Peace will not be secured without the return of Israel to its pre-1967 borders. Israel should stop destroying Lebanon. It should leave Eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians and accept that Jerusalem is the common capital; they should sit at the negotiation table for talks.”
Calling the Israeli attacks shameful, Ravedovitch said: “Resistance in Palestine and Lebanon is justified. Israel is an invader. I do not approve of Hamas killing innocent people, but I defend that if there are invaders there will be resistance at the same time. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is terror.”
Accusing the West, and particularly Europe, of fearing to criticize Israel, Ravedovitch said: “The EU keeps saying that they treat Israel and Palestine equally, but how can we behave equally towards both the invader and the invadee? We asked the EU to suspend the Partnership Agreement with Israel, but they didn’t answer.”
Ravedovitch said the EU’s attitude indicates Europe still feels guilty about the holocaust, but that Israel is exploiting anti-Semitism.
He pointed out that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are different concepts.
“Anti-Zionism is a political stance. For instance, when a person criticizes Britain, he shouldn’t be called racist or anti- British. Similarly, when people criticize Israel, they do not become anti-Semites.”
The last point Ravedovitch compared the situation to the US’s failure in Vietnam, and suggested that it’s impossible for Israel to attain its objectives in Lebanon as the latest attacks into Lebanon only increased the hatred against Israel tenfold.
FAKE TERROR - THE ROAD TO DICTATORSHIP
WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM
It's the oldest trick in the book, dating back to Roman times; creating the enemies you need.
Hezbollah Could Be Gaining Strength
Dahr Jamail
July 27, 2006
Hezbollah Could Be
Gaining Strength
BEIRUT - The continuing Israeli bombing of south Lebanon and south Beirut might just have strengthened the Hezbollah.
The bombings appear particularly to have strengthened the hand of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic Hezbollah leader.
Hezbollah has over the years gained a strong following in Lebanon primarily on the back of its engagement in social services, taking on infrastructure projects, and looking after its followers. The Israeli assault is giving Hezbollah scope to gain more such power.
Hezbollah now controls, for example, more than half of about 100 schools in Beirut that have been converted into refugee shelters.
"These attacks show the true force of Israel," a young man told IPS at a refugee camp in a city park. "I was with Hezbollah before, but now I want to join them so I can fight the Israelis, who only want our land, and want to attack Islam."
A Hezbollah member in charge of a group of fighters in southern Beirut claimed that support for Hezbollah has increased dramatically since the Israeli attacks began two weeks ago.
"People are afraid, and in need, and we are protecting them and helping care for the refugees created by this Zionist aggression," he told IPS. "The longer this fight continues, the more support we will have. We are prepared to fight to the very end."
Support for the Hezbollah appears to be stronger among younger people. And some Christians too are speaking in support of Hezbollah. Ramzi Semaan, a 21-year-old Christian told IPS that "Hezbollah was defending this country, and the Israeli response was being planned months in advance. So Hezbollah is helping to defend Lebanon from the Zionists."
But most of the Christian population seem to blame Hezbollah. Of the 3.8 million people in Lebanon, about 60 percent are Muslims, mostly Shia, and most of the remaining 40 percent Christian.
Views on the Hezbollah fall largely, though not entirely, along religious lines. Most of the large Shia population obediently follow every word of Nasrallah.
Many who have their doubts about Hezbollah still speak of their need for Hezbollah protection against Israeli aggression. And most agree that Hezbollah is a strong political force, and will have to be negotiated with. It is clear that there can be no peace in the region without including Hezbollah in any process toward cease-fire and further, any lasting solution.
The widespread destruction of infrastructure has been decisive in turning popular anger against Israel, rather than Hezbollah.
"Israel is protecting itself because Hezbollah made their operation against her soldiers," said Fouad Rashed, a 33-year-old Christian owner of an electronics store in the capital. "Their reaction is too strong though, because now they are destroying our country."
A 50-year-old Christian, Nassan Hanin, said "Hezbollah was wrong to carry out their operation, and Israel is wrong in their extreme reaction. I'm happy that Hezbollah was hit for what they did, but this has been at too great a cost for us now."
Many who lived through the worst of the civil war in the eighties blame both.
"We can barely believe there is war here again," a 52-year-old waiter in the Hamra district of Beirut told IPS. "We thought we were finished with it 1990. I believe it was wrong for Hezbollah to kidnap the Israeli soldiers, but this level of reaction from the Israelis, of destroying all of Lebanon, is completely unjustified. It is insane."
(Inter Press Service)
July 27, 2006
Hezbollah Could Be
Gaining Strength
BEIRUT - The continuing Israeli bombing of south Lebanon and south Beirut might just have strengthened the Hezbollah.
The bombings appear particularly to have strengthened the hand of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic Hezbollah leader.
Hezbollah has over the years gained a strong following in Lebanon primarily on the back of its engagement in social services, taking on infrastructure projects, and looking after its followers. The Israeli assault is giving Hezbollah scope to gain more such power.
Hezbollah now controls, for example, more than half of about 100 schools in Beirut that have been converted into refugee shelters.
"These attacks show the true force of Israel," a young man told IPS at a refugee camp in a city park. "I was with Hezbollah before, but now I want to join them so I can fight the Israelis, who only want our land, and want to attack Islam."
A Hezbollah member in charge of a group of fighters in southern Beirut claimed that support for Hezbollah has increased dramatically since the Israeli attacks began two weeks ago.
"People are afraid, and in need, and we are protecting them and helping care for the refugees created by this Zionist aggression," he told IPS. "The longer this fight continues, the more support we will have. We are prepared to fight to the very end."
Support for the Hezbollah appears to be stronger among younger people. And some Christians too are speaking in support of Hezbollah. Ramzi Semaan, a 21-year-old Christian told IPS that "Hezbollah was defending this country, and the Israeli response was being planned months in advance. So Hezbollah is helping to defend Lebanon from the Zionists."
But most of the Christian population seem to blame Hezbollah. Of the 3.8 million people in Lebanon, about 60 percent are Muslims, mostly Shia, and most of the remaining 40 percent Christian.
Views on the Hezbollah fall largely, though not entirely, along religious lines. Most of the large Shia population obediently follow every word of Nasrallah.
Many who have their doubts about Hezbollah still speak of their need for Hezbollah protection against Israeli aggression. And most agree that Hezbollah is a strong political force, and will have to be negotiated with. It is clear that there can be no peace in the region without including Hezbollah in any process toward cease-fire and further, any lasting solution.
The widespread destruction of infrastructure has been decisive in turning popular anger against Israel, rather than Hezbollah.
"Israel is protecting itself because Hezbollah made their operation against her soldiers," said Fouad Rashed, a 33-year-old Christian owner of an electronics store in the capital. "Their reaction is too strong though, because now they are destroying our country."
A 50-year-old Christian, Nassan Hanin, said "Hezbollah was wrong to carry out their operation, and Israel is wrong in their extreme reaction. I'm happy that Hezbollah was hit for what they did, but this has been at too great a cost for us now."
Many who lived through the worst of the civil war in the eighties blame both.
"We can barely believe there is war here again," a 52-year-old waiter in the Hamra district of Beirut told IPS. "We thought we were finished with it 1990. I believe it was wrong for Hezbollah to kidnap the Israeli soldiers, but this level of reaction from the Israelis, of destroying all of Lebanon, is completely unjustified. It is insane."
(Inter Press Service)
Guardian | Dissent grows in Israel over Lebanon
Guardian
Dissent grows in Israel over Lebanon
Ian Black in Jerusalem
Wednesday July 26, 2006
Guardian
The government of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is facing a barrage of criticism over its handling of the war in Lebanon, with questions being raised about the decision to attack Hizbullah, mounting military losses, continuing missile strikes on northern Israel, and disquiet about Lebanese civilian casualties.
Israel has yet to confirm reports of 12 soldiers killed in heavy fighting around the south Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, but analysts in Jerusalem said fatalities on that scale are likely to bring pressure from the army and the public for a significant change of tack.
Two weeks into the fighting, growing unease about a wide range of war-related issues has burst into the open with a series of anxious comments by politicians, former officers and leading experts and pundits.
Few Israelis are protesting against the war, as they did in their hundreds of thousands after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Apart from small demonstrations by Israeli Arabs and Jewish leftwingers, there is broad support for hitting back at the Shia guerrillas after their border raid and abduction of two Israeli soldiers. But what is becoming clear is the deep concern about the conduct and progress of the campaign.
Moshe Arens, a hawkish former Likud defence minister, issued a stark warning that Hizbullah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, could emerge from the conflict undefeated. "This will be a disaster for Israel," he told the Ha'aretz newspaper. "Nasrallah will be seen as someone who fired thousands of katyushas at Israeli communities for weeks and came out unscathed."
Experts say Israel's much-vaunted intelligence services have underestimated Hizbullah capabilities, especially in not knowing it had an Iranian-made missile capable of hitting an Israeli naval vessel off Beirut.
The air force has also come under scrutiny after the loss of three US-built Apache helicopters and an F16 jet, with one helicopter reportedly downed by friendly fire. Five Israeli soldiers have also been killed by friendly fire.
Wall-to-wall TV and radio talk shows have wheeled out reserve or former officers highlighting the shortcomings of those running the show, bringing defensive responses from the IDF general staff and even charges of disloyalty in wartime.
But Ze'ev Schiff, the highly respected doyen of Israeli military commentators, and author of the definitive history of the 1982 war, put it bluntly: "Israel is far from a decisive victory and its main objectives have not been achieved."
Another veteran correspondent, Eitan Haber, wrote in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot: "This is neither the time nor the place in the middle of serious fighting, but when this is all over the IDF is going to have take a good look at itself."
The main worry is that Hizbullah can still launch 80-100 rockets a day despite thousands of Israeli sorties over Lebanon. Haifa, Carmiel and other northern areas were hit again on today. Israeli ground operations have inflicted losses on the guerrillas in Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, but none have been mounted in the Tyre area further west from where missiles are being launched at Haifa. Hizbullah has been damaged but is far from crippled. Supplies from Iran and Syria are getting through despite a blockade.
The subtext of much criticism is that Mr Olmert and his defence minister, the Labour party leader, Amir Peretz, have little military experience and none of the stature of the former prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Many of their closest advisers are untried novices - "raw recruits" in the words of one pundit.
Commentators are also questioning whether key government decisions were thought through in the context of an overall strategy. These include the immediate response to the July 12 attack, the bombing of Beirut international airport despite warnings this would trigger retaliation against Haifa, and the destruction of Hizbullah HQ in southern Beirut. They say the government's response has been to shift its goals and lower public expectations.
The original objective of "breaking Hizbullah" has been quietly watered down to "weakening Hizbullah". Mr Olmert's sudden agreement to the deployment of a multinational force on the border reflects reluctant recognition that Israel cannot itself disarm the Lebanese militia and needs a foreign buffer.
International focus on civilian deaths in Lebanon - roughly 10 times the number suffered by Israel - has badly undermined Israel's case abroad, despite the unwavering support of the US. Its own propaganda efforts have been poor and uncoordinated.
"Even before we know who will win this campaign we can state with certainty that Israel has suffered a terrible propaganda defeat in Lebanon and the Arab world," wrote the Ma'ariv columnist Jacky Hugi. "One country cannot destroy another without explaining to the neighbour the logic behind its actions. From being our silent allies the Lebanese have become the victims of our blind pounding."
On top of all that there are bitter complaints about poor conditions in air raid shelters in the north, the failure to compensate those whose property has been damaged by enemy action and the confusion caused by a plethora of officials giving out conflicting messages. Some want a single "war spokesman" to be responsible for all government information, a concept which worked well in the 1991 Gulf war, when Iraqi Scud missiles hit Israel.
Nahum Barnea, the country's leading political commentator, warned earlier this week that the Israeli public had exaggerated expectations of what might emerge from this crisis. "Israel is like the guy who promised to jump off the big top at the circus but freezes the moment he gets up there. 'Why isn't he jumping,' the spectators ask. 'No question of jumping,' the guy replies. 'The only question is how I can get down'."
Dissent grows in Israel over Lebanon
Ian Black in Jerusalem
Wednesday July 26, 2006
Guardian
The government of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is facing a barrage of criticism over its handling of the war in Lebanon, with questions being raised about the decision to attack Hizbullah, mounting military losses, continuing missile strikes on northern Israel, and disquiet about Lebanese civilian casualties.
Israel has yet to confirm reports of 12 soldiers killed in heavy fighting around the south Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, but analysts in Jerusalem said fatalities on that scale are likely to bring pressure from the army and the public for a significant change of tack.
Two weeks into the fighting, growing unease about a wide range of war-related issues has burst into the open with a series of anxious comments by politicians, former officers and leading experts and pundits.
Few Israelis are protesting against the war, as they did in their hundreds of thousands after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Apart from small demonstrations by Israeli Arabs and Jewish leftwingers, there is broad support for hitting back at the Shia guerrillas after their border raid and abduction of two Israeli soldiers. But what is becoming clear is the deep concern about the conduct and progress of the campaign.
Moshe Arens, a hawkish former Likud defence minister, issued a stark warning that Hizbullah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, could emerge from the conflict undefeated. "This will be a disaster for Israel," he told the Ha'aretz newspaper. "Nasrallah will be seen as someone who fired thousands of katyushas at Israeli communities for weeks and came out unscathed."
Experts say Israel's much-vaunted intelligence services have underestimated Hizbullah capabilities, especially in not knowing it had an Iranian-made missile capable of hitting an Israeli naval vessel off Beirut.
The air force has also come under scrutiny after the loss of three US-built Apache helicopters and an F16 jet, with one helicopter reportedly downed by friendly fire. Five Israeli soldiers have also been killed by friendly fire.
Wall-to-wall TV and radio talk shows have wheeled out reserve or former officers highlighting the shortcomings of those running the show, bringing defensive responses from the IDF general staff and even charges of disloyalty in wartime.
But Ze'ev Schiff, the highly respected doyen of Israeli military commentators, and author of the definitive history of the 1982 war, put it bluntly: "Israel is far from a decisive victory and its main objectives have not been achieved."
Another veteran correspondent, Eitan Haber, wrote in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot: "This is neither the time nor the place in the middle of serious fighting, but when this is all over the IDF is going to have take a good look at itself."
The main worry is that Hizbullah can still launch 80-100 rockets a day despite thousands of Israeli sorties over Lebanon. Haifa, Carmiel and other northern areas were hit again on today. Israeli ground operations have inflicted losses on the guerrillas in Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, but none have been mounted in the Tyre area further west from where missiles are being launched at Haifa. Hizbullah has been damaged but is far from crippled. Supplies from Iran and Syria are getting through despite a blockade.
The subtext of much criticism is that Mr Olmert and his defence minister, the Labour party leader, Amir Peretz, have little military experience and none of the stature of the former prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Many of their closest advisers are untried novices - "raw recruits" in the words of one pundit.
Commentators are also questioning whether key government decisions were thought through in the context of an overall strategy. These include the immediate response to the July 12 attack, the bombing of Beirut international airport despite warnings this would trigger retaliation against Haifa, and the destruction of Hizbullah HQ in southern Beirut. They say the government's response has been to shift its goals and lower public expectations.
The original objective of "breaking Hizbullah" has been quietly watered down to "weakening Hizbullah". Mr Olmert's sudden agreement to the deployment of a multinational force on the border reflects reluctant recognition that Israel cannot itself disarm the Lebanese militia and needs a foreign buffer.
International focus on civilian deaths in Lebanon - roughly 10 times the number suffered by Israel - has badly undermined Israel's case abroad, despite the unwavering support of the US. Its own propaganda efforts have been poor and uncoordinated.
"Even before we know who will win this campaign we can state with certainty that Israel has suffered a terrible propaganda defeat in Lebanon and the Arab world," wrote the Ma'ariv columnist Jacky Hugi. "One country cannot destroy another without explaining to the neighbour the logic behind its actions. From being our silent allies the Lebanese have become the victims of our blind pounding."
On top of all that there are bitter complaints about poor conditions in air raid shelters in the north, the failure to compensate those whose property has been damaged by enemy action and the confusion caused by a plethora of officials giving out conflicting messages. Some want a single "war spokesman" to be responsible for all government information, a concept which worked well in the 1991 Gulf war, when Iraqi Scud missiles hit Israel.
Nahum Barnea, the country's leading political commentator, warned earlier this week that the Israeli public had exaggerated expectations of what might emerge from this crisis. "Israel is like the guy who promised to jump off the big top at the circus but freezes the moment he gets up there. 'Why isn't he jumping,' the spectators ask. 'No question of jumping,' the guy replies. 'The only question is how I can get down'."
Israeli strike hits lorry carrying aid
Reuters.co.uk
Israeli strike hits lorry carrying aid
Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:00 PM BST
BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike on Wednesday hit a lorry carrying medical and food supplies donated to Lebanon by the United Arab Emirates, killing its Syrian driver and wounding two others, security sources said.
The lorry was destroyed just a few kilometres from Lebanon's eastern border with Syria in the town of Anjar. Israel has been hitting targets in southern Lebanon, Beirut and other parts of the country in a war with Hizbollah.
An Israeli air strike on July 18 hit another lorry carrying aid donated by the UAE. The lorry, whose driver was killed, was travelling from Damascus.
Israeli strike hits lorry carrying aid
Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:00 PM BST
BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike on Wednesday hit a lorry carrying medical and food supplies donated to Lebanon by the United Arab Emirates, killing its Syrian driver and wounding two others, security sources said.
The lorry was destroyed just a few kilometres from Lebanon's eastern border with Syria in the town of Anjar. Israel has been hitting targets in southern Lebanon, Beirut and other parts of the country in a war with Hizbollah.
An Israeli air strike on July 18 hit another lorry carrying aid donated by the UAE. The lorry, whose driver was killed, was travelling from Damascus.
Lebanon offensive criticized in Israel
Yahoo! News
Lebanon offensive criticized in Israel
By ARON HELLER, Associated Press WriterWed Jul 26, 4:56 PM ET
As Israel's offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon enters its third week, the government is coming under growing criticism at home.
Israel is sustaining heavy casualties — nine soldiers were killed and at least 22 others were wounded in south Lebanon on Wednesday alone — while the army has been unable to stop the rocket barrages on northern Israel that have killed 18 civilians in 15 days.
An Israeli airstrike that killed four U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and plans for a new 1.2-mile-deep buffer zone also have rekindled fears of a return to Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000 after the Israeli public grew exhausted with the mounting death toll there.
After Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border July 12, killing three soldiers and capturing two others, there was nearly unanimous political consensus in Israel behind the government's decision to launch a large-scale offensive to crush the militant group.
But that consensus is beginning to crack, and critics are starting to say the government launched the offensive hastily, with no exit strategy. Many fear the country is again being dragged into a quagmire across its northern border.
"The war is leading us by the nose to sink deeper in the Lebanese mud. The Hezbollah wants to drag us into its territory. The moment the army will be in Lebanon for an extended period, it will be hell for us in there," said Ran Cohen, a dovish lawmaker and a colonel in the Israeli army reserves. "The deeper we get drawn in, the worse it will be."
While Cohen called for a cease-fire, political hawks demanded a tougher military strategy, taking issue with Israel's decision to begin the offensive with airstrikes and artillery barrages and only later to send in ground troops.
"We should have begun moving troops on the ground right from the beginning, when the war started," said Moshe Arens, a former defense minister from the Likud Party. "It's difficult terrain, and we're up against some tough fighters who have dug in, who have prepared themselves for six years for this encounter."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried to quell the criticism Wednesday, warning of tougher times ahead and asking lawmakers to hold their tongues until the fighting ended.
"Back us, because the homefront needs to know that we are united," he told a group of parliamentarians, according to participants in the meeting.
Wednesday saw one of the heaviest days of battles with at least 129 Katyusha rockets landing in northern Israel. Coupled with the deadly clashes in southern Lebanon, many Israelis started to wonder when it will all end.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper featured three front-page columns reflecting the frustration. Their headlines: "Was there a proper decision process?" "No goals attained," and "Has the army failed?"
Among the questions raised were whether the military operation included an exit strategy and took into consideration the scope of rocket fire at Israeli towns, and whether the army has the ability to crush Hezbollah. They also questioned whether the military was prepared for guerrilla warfare on enemy land.
The military countered such concerns, calling for Israel to unite behind its soldiers.
"There are difficult days like this and the army I think is operating with determination, the soldiers are acting with courage," said Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, chief of Israel's northern command. "There is no doubt about their abilities and I think at this time we have to strengthen them because they are the ones who have successes and prevent terrorism."
But Danny Yatom, a retired general and Labor Party legislator, said the operation's initial goals were too grandiose and the government now realizes that wiping out Hezbollah is no longer realistic.
"This campaign will not be won by knockout, but by points," he said.
Brig. Gen. Miri Regev, the army's chief spokeswoman, told Israel Television that while Israel has hurt Hezbollah, it would not be able to stop the rocket fire completely.
Israeli military analyst Shlomo Brom said it was too early to say whether any strategic mistakes had been made in the offensive. He did, however, say there was something wrong in the way the political leadership was relaying its message to the people.
"They aren't telling the public where we are going, what are the realistic aims and how we are going about achieving them," he said.
Lebanon offensive criticized in Israel
By ARON HELLER, Associated Press WriterWed Jul 26, 4:56 PM ET
As Israel's offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon enters its third week, the government is coming under growing criticism at home.
Israel is sustaining heavy casualties — nine soldiers were killed and at least 22 others were wounded in south Lebanon on Wednesday alone — while the army has been unable to stop the rocket barrages on northern Israel that have killed 18 civilians in 15 days.
An Israeli airstrike that killed four U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and plans for a new 1.2-mile-deep buffer zone also have rekindled fears of a return to Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000 after the Israeli public grew exhausted with the mounting death toll there.
After Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border July 12, killing three soldiers and capturing two others, there was nearly unanimous political consensus in Israel behind the government's decision to launch a large-scale offensive to crush the militant group.
But that consensus is beginning to crack, and critics are starting to say the government launched the offensive hastily, with no exit strategy. Many fear the country is again being dragged into a quagmire across its northern border.
"The war is leading us by the nose to sink deeper in the Lebanese mud. The Hezbollah wants to drag us into its territory. The moment the army will be in Lebanon for an extended period, it will be hell for us in there," said Ran Cohen, a dovish lawmaker and a colonel in the Israeli army reserves. "The deeper we get drawn in, the worse it will be."
While Cohen called for a cease-fire, political hawks demanded a tougher military strategy, taking issue with Israel's decision to begin the offensive with airstrikes and artillery barrages and only later to send in ground troops.
"We should have begun moving troops on the ground right from the beginning, when the war started," said Moshe Arens, a former defense minister from the Likud Party. "It's difficult terrain, and we're up against some tough fighters who have dug in, who have prepared themselves for six years for this encounter."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried to quell the criticism Wednesday, warning of tougher times ahead and asking lawmakers to hold their tongues until the fighting ended.
"Back us, because the homefront needs to know that we are united," he told a group of parliamentarians, according to participants in the meeting.
Wednesday saw one of the heaviest days of battles with at least 129 Katyusha rockets landing in northern Israel. Coupled with the deadly clashes in southern Lebanon, many Israelis started to wonder when it will all end.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper featured three front-page columns reflecting the frustration. Their headlines: "Was there a proper decision process?" "No goals attained," and "Has the army failed?"
Among the questions raised were whether the military operation included an exit strategy and took into consideration the scope of rocket fire at Israeli towns, and whether the army has the ability to crush Hezbollah. They also questioned whether the military was prepared for guerrilla warfare on enemy land.
The military countered such concerns, calling for Israel to unite behind its soldiers.
"There are difficult days like this and the army I think is operating with determination, the soldiers are acting with courage," said Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, chief of Israel's northern command. "There is no doubt about their abilities and I think at this time we have to strengthen them because they are the ones who have successes and prevent terrorism."
But Danny Yatom, a retired general and Labor Party legislator, said the operation's initial goals were too grandiose and the government now realizes that wiping out Hezbollah is no longer realistic.
"This campaign will not be won by knockout, but by points," he said.
Brig. Gen. Miri Regev, the army's chief spokeswoman, told Israel Television that while Israel has hurt Hezbollah, it would not be able to stop the rocket fire completely.
Israeli military analyst Shlomo Brom said it was too early to say whether any strategic mistakes had been made in the offensive. He did, however, say there was something wrong in the way the political leadership was relaying its message to the people.
"They aren't telling the public where we are going, what are the realistic aims and how we are going about achieving them," he said.
MEDIA ALERT: DEMOLISHING LEBANON - PARTS 1 and 2
media alerts
July 25 and 26, 2006
MEDIA ALERT: DEMOLISHING LEBANON - PARTS 1 and 2
In launching an emergency appeal for aid on July 24, the United Nations estimated that the lives of 800,000 Lebanese civilians have been disrupted by Israeli bombing. Hundreds of bridges and virtually all road networks have been systematically destroyed across the country, making relief efforts almost impossible. BBC and other journalists report many civilians trapped in the rubble of villages in the south of Lebanon cut off from medical aid by air strikes. ReliefWeb comments:
"As the conflict continues, food stocks in many parts of Lebanon are running low. Shortages of water are already a reality in parts of southern Lebanon due to a lack of electricity and fuel. The possibility of shortages of medical supplies in health facilities in the coming weeks is of growing concern. While medical and food stocks are available delivery is almost impossible in many parts of the country." ('Flash appeal on the Lebanon crisis launched today,' ReliefWeb, July 24, 2006)
To date, some 377 Lebanese and 17 Israeli civilians have been killed in the conflict.
Save The Children reports that 45% of the Lebanese dead are children, as are 200,000 of the 500,000 refugees forced to flee the bombing. (Save The Children, 'Crisis in middle east - children hit hardest,' July 21, 2006;)
The Red Cross reported (July 23) that five of its volunteers and three patients were wounded when Israeli aircraft attacked two ambulances in successive missile strikes. The attacks took place near Qana when an ambulance arrived to evacuate three patients from the border town of Tibnin. The drivers said that two guided missiles were fired at each ambulance. Three injured patients - a woman, her son and grandson - were all injured again, the son losing his leg to a direct hit from one of the anti-tank missiles. (Ed O'Loughlin, 'Ambulances fired on by Israel, says Red Cross,' Sydney Morning Herald, July 25, 2006)
According to Human Rights Watch, Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon. Researchers on the ground confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Eyewitnesses and survivors described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, commented:
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians. They should never be used in populated areas." ('Israeli cluster munitions hit civilians in Lebanon Israel Must Not Use Indiscriminate Weapons,' HRW, July 24, 2006; )
Blair - We Must Act
The day before British and American bombers began attacking Serbia on March 24, 1999, Tony Blair told the House of Commons: "We must act to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from humanitarian catastrophe."
Blair explained:
"Let me give the House an indication of the scale of what is happening: a quarter of a million Kosovars, more than 10 per cent of the population, are now homeless as a result of repression by Serb forces. 65,000 people have been forced from their homes in the last month, and no less than 25,000 in the four days since peace talks broke down. Only yesterday, 5,000 people in the Srbica area were forcibly evicted from their villages."
Blair also reported deaths:
"Since last summer 2000 people have died." (Blair: 'We must act - to save thousands of innocent men, women and children,' The Guardian, March 23, 1999; )
No one, of course, not even Blair, was suggesting that the killing was all on one side - the Kosovo Liberation Army had been responsible for hundreds of deaths. But journalists lined up to declare Serb actions ample justification for military intervention. On the day of his speech, a Guardian leader backed Blair all the way:
"The only honorable course for Europe and America is to use military force to try to protect the people of Kosovo... If we do not act at all, or if there is a limited bombing campaign which still fails to change Milosevic's mind, what is likely to be Kosovo's future? The Serbs would certainly try to wipe out the Kosovo Liberation Army completely. They might well go in for large-scale evacuation of villages, so as to control the population more effectively, and deny popular support to what KLA fighters might remain." (Leader, 'The sad need for force, Kosovo must be saved,' The Guardian, March 23, 1999)
Warnings that resonate strongly in July 2006 as the media report, with minimal discernible outrage, Israel's enforced "large-scale evacuation of villages" in Lebanon. Thus the Independent on July 22:
"Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over southern Lebanon yesterday warning civilians to leave border villages. The area is normally inhabited by about 300,000 people." (Donald Macintyre, 'Israel calls up 3,000 reservists to prepare for ground invasion,' The Independent, July 22, 2006)
The Evening Standard reported in an article titled, 'The "get out or die" text message':
"Israel is waging war by text message as it steps up attacks on Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Mobile phones are being bombarded with messages and voicemails telling civilians to leave areas earmarked for bombardment or risk being killed." (Evening Standard, July 24, 2006)
In March 1999, the Guardian editors' outrage at the suffering of displaced civilians was palpable:
"The Serbs are even now attacking in the Pagarusa valley, where 50,000 displaced Kosovars are sheltering behind makeshift Kosovo Liberation Army defences, and those people could, within a very short time, be fleeing, or being brutally herded, toward Albania. Among the many obligations the Nato countries owe these suffering folk is that of meticulously recording their stories, so that when they return to Kosovo full restitution can be made for their losses and full justice meted out to their persecutors. The Serbs have stripped them of their possessions and their documents and have tried to strip them of their dignity. All three must be restored, beginning with the last." (Leader, 'The human cost,' The Guardian, March 31, 1999; )
Compare and contrast to this recent, more matter of fact, Guardian editorial:
"For Israel, a ceasefire would mean respite from deadly rocket strikes, such as the one that struck a railway station in Haifa on Sunday, killing eight civilians. For Lebanon, it would have meant allowing its dysfunctional government to deal with the sudden population convulsions taking place as its citizens flee in panic at Israeli air attacks, and try to restrain the fanatics intent on provoking Israel further."
The leader concluded:
"Israel has the right to defend itself, a task made harder by the hidden arsenal of Hizbullah, and it should object to any one-sided calls for restraint. But it cannot control its enemies' responses: it can only control its own." (Leader, 'Middle East: On the brink of chaos,' The Guardian, July 17, 2006; )
A week into the bombing of Serbia and the Independent was struck down by war fever:
"High-altitude hit-and-run bombing missions will have to be supplemented by lower- altitude attacks on infantry and vehicles... Second, Nato will need to decide how this campaign is to end. It has already gone on long enough without a focused picture of the status quo post bellum. Nato should send in ground troops to establish a protectorate over Kosovo." (Leader, 'NATO cannot delay in sending troops to protect Kosovo,' The Independent, March 30, 1999)
John Sweeney wrote in the Guardian one day later:
"And still they come, a severed artery of human misery, spurting through the high mountain pass, beneath jagged peaks lost in sunlit clouds.
"And still they come, the sick, babies, women, rheumy-eyed old men and wild-eyed young boys, sardine-packed in rickety trailers pulled by clack-clacking tractors, some weeping, a few happy, but most just staring into the far distance.
"And still they come, past the concrete dragon's teeth on the Serb side of the border, to the grotesque, pitiful but not murdering chaos of the poorest country in Europe." (Sweeney, 'Tide of misery flows into Albania,' The Guardian, March 31, 1999)
How freely the tears flow when the compassion is government-approved. Last Sunday, the Observer made its position on the current conflict clear enough. Compare the moral outrage and impassioned literary flourishes above with this new-found 'pragmatism':
"Ideally, Israel's reflex action to any threat would not be to respond with such massive force that significant civilian casualties become inevitable. Ideally, Hizbollah would not want to provoke the Jewish state by firing missiles into Israeli territory that kill Israeli civilians, or by capturing its soldiers... But we do not live in an ideal world. And in the Middle East it is reality that counts."
Ideally, half a million ordinary Lebanese civilians would not, in a matter of days, be transformed into refugees struggling to survive. Ideally, close to 400 Lebanese civilians would not be killed by indiscriminate bombing as an entire country's infrastructure - roads, bridges, power stations, petrol dumps, sea ports, milk factories, TV transmission masts, mobile phone masts, and much else - is simply demolished.
The Observer continued:
"The only path is that of pragmatism. In other words, a compromise based not on rhetoric or ideals but on a realistic appraisal of our capabilities and influence. The immediate task is to try to ensure that Israel does not attempt to re-establish its occupation of southern Lebanon or trigger a full-scale escalation of a Middle Eastern war. We need to solve the problem, not pontificate." (Leader, 'Britain still has a role in our less than ideal world,' The Observer, July 23, 2006)
Just four months ago this same newspaper claimed that, in response to conflict in the Balkans, "a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention emerged. It was led at first by President Clinton over Bosnia, and again in Kosovo. The rationale behind those interventions was then invoked for the invasion of Iraq..."
The "wisdom" of the latter had been questioned, the editors noted: "But the principle that a brutal regime does not have inalienable rights to do as it pleases within its borders... is a good one." (Leader, 'Let a dictator's death remind us of the evil of unchecked nationalism,' The Observer, March 12, 2006)
The Observer's hypocrisy makes sense - "ideals" and "principles" are useful when brutal realpolitik can be sold as 'humanitarian intervention'. But not even the Observer could sell US-UK support for the demolition of Lebanon as a moral cause.
As in Kosovo, crimes are being committed on both sides. Unlike Kosovo, the "humanitarian interventionists" have little to say. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland wrote in 1999:
"How did the British left get so lost? How have its leading lights ended up as the voices of isolationism? How did it come to this...? Why is it the hard left - rather than the isolationist right - who have become the champions of moral indifference? For, make no mistake, that's what opposition to Nato's attempt to Clobba Slobba (as the Sun puts it) amounts to... either the West could try to halt the greatest campaign of barbarism in Europe since 1945 - or it could do nothing." (Jonathan Freedland, 'The left needs to wake up to the real world. This war is a just one,' The Guardian, March 26, 1999)
Last week, with the destruction of Lebanon well under way, Freedland's tone had changed:
"Both Hamas and Hizbullah captured soldiers. To outsiders, that would seem to be fair play under the rules of guerrilla warfare. But soldiers carry an almost sacred status in the Israeli imagination. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is a conscript army, so the rhetoric about 'everyone's son or daughter' is literally true. Its personnel are not seen as professionals hired to kill or be killed, but as citizens." (Freedland, 'There is a way out of this crisis, but the legacy of hatred will endure,' The Guardian, July 19, 2006)
Where once Freedland was resolute in his "Clobba Slobba" view of international relations, he now gropes for answers: "Israel pounds Lebanon out of all proportion to the original provocation and Hizbullah replies with rockets landing deep in the Israeli interior. What might make this storm pass?"
In reality, Palestinian and Lebanese civilian deaths are mildly troubling for our media, little more. As with the early days of the Iraq catastrophe, there is the overwhelming sense that 'It will be over soon', that bitter medicine sometimes just has to be swallowed - there's nothing much anyone can do. Previously outspoken commentators have sought shelter in the bunker of 'objective' journalism. The BBC's Paul Reynolds wrote from Washington in 1999 of the NATO assault:
"One often wonders why America bothers. Kosovo, after all, is a far away place of which they know little. And yet the crisis shows that there is room in this great land for a sense of justice and responsibility, just as there was in imperial Britain... Great powers are capable of great oppressions, but also of great gestures. The Balkans, it seems, have not lost their fascination for the West, though luckily, this time round, the powers are not pitching in against each other as they did in 1914.
"Some progress has been made in this violent century." (Reynolds, 'Kosovo: Clinton's greatest foreign test,' April 4, 1999; )
Media innocents might be forgiven for shuddering at the thought of the fierce managerial censure that surely followed this outpouring of personal opinion - BBC journalists, after all, are supposed to keep their views to themselves. We asked Reynolds last week if he thought Israel's attacks on Lebanese roads, bridges, petrol stations, milk factories, and other civilian infrastructure were illegitimate - something he had not stressed in his BBC online articles. We wondered if perhaps the United States should again "bother" with some kind of "great gesture" of "justice and responsibility". Reynolds replied:
"My views are not relevant." (Email to Media Lens, July 20, 2006)
The rules are clear but never discussed - corporate reporters are free and happy to declare their personal views insofar as they accord with state interests, but not when they conflict. To criticise the powerful is to be 'biased' and 'crusading'. To support the case made by power is to be 'measured', 'objective' and 'balanced'. Journalists' moral outrage is not relevant when the West does not give a damn about the men, women and children dying under its bombs.
July 26, 2006
MEDIA ALERT: DEMOLISHING LEBANON - PART 2
Israeli Propaganda - Never Had It So Good
Assaf Shariv, media adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, boasted to the Jerusalem Post last week that Israelis have been interviewed by the foreign press four times as much as spokespeople for the Palestinians and Lebanese. Shariv cited a poll of Sky News viewers that found that 80 percent believe Israel's attacks on Lebanon were justified. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gideon Meir, added: "We have never had it so good. The hasbara [propaganda] effort is a well-oiled machine." (Gil Hoffman, 'Israel calls up media "reserves",' Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2006; )
British and American journalists are certainly willing recipients of Israeli and US-UK propaganda. Thus, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, "embarked last night on a mission to the Middle East to stitch together a peace plan", the Guardian declared on July 24. (Ewen MacAskill, Ian Black and Brian Whitaker, 'Rice finally sets out in search of ceasefire formula,' The Guardian, July 24, 2006)
Unfortunately, "any deal put together by Ms Rice will take a minimum of a week to negotiate, allowing Israel the freedom to continue its war". Perhaps this is a Natural Law of diplomatic negotiations, although honest journalists recognise that the timescale could be reduced - to the time it takes to make a phone call from the White House, to be precise - if peace, rather than US-Israeli interests, was on the Rice agenda. The Guardian writers sidled a little closer to the truth when they wrote:
"Agreement on a ceasefire will be harder to pin down. Ms Rice has made it clear that America does not want a quick fix ceasefire that keeps Hizbullah intact."
Agreement is indeed made harder by the fact that the United States is backing Israel's slaughter to the hilt - notably by supplying the state of the art missiles, bombs, attack helicopters and jets doing the killing. The Guardian noted that the world is witnessing "one of the slowest international responses to a crisis of such gravity". The New York Times made a nonsense of that observation last Saturday:
"The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday." (David S. Cloud and Helene Cooper, 'US Speeds Up Bomb Delivery For the Israelis,' New York Times, July 22, 2006)
An arms-sale package last year approved Israel's purchase of as many as 100 GBU-28's, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also includes satellite-guided bombs. But still, Rice is on a "mission" to stitch together a "peace plan" according to the Guardian in its scruplously unbiased news reporting.
Dr. Doug Rokke, former Director of the US Army's Depleted Uranium project wrote on July 24:
"The delivery of at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters bombs containing depleted uranium warheads by the United States to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon will result in additional radioactive and chemical toxic contamination with consequent adverse health and environmental effects throughout the middle east."
Rokke added:
"The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the world and all governments must force cessation of uranium weapons use. I must demand that Israel now provide medical care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and clean up all DU contamination." (Rokke, 'Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action By President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert,' July 25, 2006)
The British government's feelings were made clear in a Daily Telegraph article (July 26) that reported Britain has been used as a staging post for major shipments of these bunker-busting DU bombs from America to Israel:
"Two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU 28 laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, for refuelling and crew rests after flying across the Atlantic at the weekend, defence sources confirmed. The airport has also been used by the CIA for rendition flights carrying terrorist suspects." (Thomas Harding and Anil Dawar, 'UK airport used to fly bombs to Israel,' Daily Telegraph; )
Continuing the required deception, Channel 4's Jonathan Rugman declared:
"If you think in the last week the US has given up its role as honest broker in the Middle East then now, it seems, they've taken it back." (Channel 4 News, July 21, 2006)
A Serious Escalation
On July 16, a BBC radio report described a "serious escalation" in the conflict. The report was not describing the killing, by then, of 130 Lebanese as a result of 2,000 sorties by Israeli war planes smashing bridges, roads, airports, oil refineries, and driving half a million people from their homes. Instead, the BBC referred to a Hezbollah rocket attack that day that had killed eight Israelis in Haifa.
A report on the attack by Channel 4 News was ironically titled 'Lebanon burns' . The irony lay in the fact that three minutes of the four-minute film focused on the Haifa attack, while some ten seconds were devoted to Israel's subsequent killing of 16 people in Lebanon's southern city of Tyre in a building used by rescue workers.
The Channel 4 piece began by describing how Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned that the attack on Haifa was "just the beginning". Like the BBC, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail and other news outlets, Channel 4 omitted to mention Nasrallah's caveat that Haifa was only the beginning "if Israel continues its attacks". (See Jonathan Cook, 'Israelis are dying - it must be an escalation,' ZNet, July 17, 2006; )
A BBC online article covering the story was titled 'Deadly Hezbollah attack on Haifa'. Much milder language has been used to describe Lebanese civilian deaths, as journalist Jonathan Cook writes on ZNet:
"Those dead, many of them women and children, hardly get a mention, their lives apparently empty of meaning or significance in this confrontation." (Ibid)
Sometimes there is no mention at all. One Media Lens reader posed a simple question to the BBC on July 17:
"The closing headlines included the information that 24 Israelis have died in the current conflict. But no mention was made of the 200 Lebanese reported as killed and as reported by Ch4 News at 7pm.
"WHY EXACTLY IS THIS?" (Email copied to Media Lens, July 26, 2006)
One Debby Moyse, Assistant Editor to the Head of BBC TV News, replied with standard BBC audacity:
"You are right to point out that the number of people killed, in the current conflict, in Lebanon was not in the closing headlines and it would have been better to have reflected both figures. However the reporting from Lebanon, seen in conjunction with the pictures of people fleeing the country, clearly reflected the impact of the six days of air strikes. Also taken in the context of the overall coverage, the effect of the conflict on each country was balanced..." (Ibid)
And so on.
Thus the indifference to the fate of the Lebanese civilians who fled their homes in the border village of Marwaheen on Israeli orders. As the villagers left in a convoy on July 15, Israeli jets attacked, killing 20 people, at least nine of them children. Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent of how the local fire brigade "could not put out the fires as they all burned alive in the inferno". Fisk noted sardonically that another "terrorist" target had thereby been eliminated. (Fisk, 'Hizbollah's response reveals months of planning,' The Independent, July 16, 2006)
The Daily Telegraph's coverage of the atrocity was titled merely: 'Iran blamed as Lebanon battle broadens.' (Harry de Quettevill, Daily Telegraph, July 16, 2006) The BBC and other media described these and other killings as "retaliation" for Haifa, even though Israel had been launching such strikes for four days before the Hezbollah attack.
Indeed, with great consistency, the media describe Israel as merely "responding" or "retaliating". In a 2002 report, Bad News From Israel, The Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) provided numerous examples stretching over several years:
"The trigger for the Israeli offensive was a massacre on the West Bank." (ITV early evening news, December 13, 2001)
"Palestinian suicide attacks trigger more Israeli raids." (BBC 1, late news, January 5, 2002)
The authors commented:
"On the news, Israeli actions tended to be explained and contextualised - they were often shown as merely 'responding' to what had been done to them by Palestinians (in the 2001 samples they were six times as likely to be presented as 'retaliating' or in some way responding than were the Palestinians)."
The report focused on a particular phase of reporting. The BBC described events thus:
"This cycle of violence began six weeks ago when an Israeli cabinet minister was shot." (BBC1 News 24, December 2, 2001; )
GUMG noted that this is also how the Israelis presented the sequence of events. The Palestinians, however, regarded the
killing of the Israeli minister as a 'response' to the assassination of one of their political leaders. In a rare departure from the norm, the Independent described the sequence as follows:
"The most notorious assassination came at the end of August when Israeli helicopters hovering over the West Bank town of Ramallah fired two missiles through the office windows of the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa, 64, decapitating him as he sat in his swivel chair. As the leader of an established PLO faction, who according to Palestinians, was a politician rather than a member of the PFLP's military wing - he was the most senior figure to be picked off by the Israelis. Seven weeks later the PFLP sought revenge by infiltrating a Jerusalem hotel and assassinating Israel's tourism minister, Rehavem Ze'evi, whose support for ethnically cleansing the West Bank and Gaza of Arabs had long made him an enemy of the Palestinians." (November 9, 2001)
Exceptions of this kind aside, most media present a consistently biased version of events. Thus the BBC in 2001:
"Israel has been under intense pressure from the Americans to pull out of Palestinian areas it occupied last week +following the killing of the+ Israeli tourism minister." (BBC1 late News, October 26, 2001 - GUMG italics)
"The assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister +led to the reoccupation+ of Palestinian areas." (BBC News 24, November 3, 2001 - GUMG italics)
"Dozens of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed in a relentless round of suicide bombings and +Israeli counter-attacks+." (BBC2 Newsnight 22:30, December 13, 2001 - GUMG italics)
"The Israelis had carried out this demolition +in retaliation+ for the murder of four soldiers." (Channel 4 News 19:00, January 10, 2002 - GUMG italics)
In an almost child-like way, journalists take their lead from Israeli actions. A July 17 Guardian editorial reported that the sixth day of Israeli aerial attacks had killed 47 people and wounded at least 53. The editors noted:
"It is also worth remembering that the weekend's chaos began three weeks ago, with the [June 25] provocative kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by allies of Hamas." (Leader, 'Middle East: On the brink of chaos,' The Guardian, July 17, 2006)
The June 24 kidnapping of a Palestinian doctor and his brother by Israeli forces is thereby wiped from history. Inconvenient "chaos" is ignored more generally - for example, the fact that between January to May 30, 2006, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Israeli military launched 18 assassinations, described as "targeted assassinations of militants". Between March 29 to May 30, there were 77 air strikes on Palestinian population centres, government offices and other infrastructure, with nearly 4,000 artillery shells being fired by Israel over the same period. Between May 26 and June 21, more than 40 Palestinians were killed, 30 of them civilians, including 11 children and two pregnant women. None of these are deemed "provocative" by our media.
The Right Of Self-Defence
This preferential reading of recent history allows the media to portray Israeli actions as being consistently in "self-defence". The Financial Times reported:
"The world's big powers were at odds over Israel's strikes on Lebanon yesterday, with US President George W. Bush invoking Israel's right of self-defence and Russia and European Union officials accusing the country of 'disproportionate' actions." (Martin Arnold, Caroline Daniel and Daniel Dombey, 'World powers split over strikes,' Financial Times, July 14, 2006)
The Daily Mail wrote:
"Whatever provocation Israel has suffered and the murderous fanaticism of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon is a cause of despair this brutally disproportionate action is an unworthy and ultimately self-defeating response from a great liberal democracy.
"Of course, any country has a right to self defence. But this deadly cycle of tit-for-tat offers no solution." (Leader, 'Stumbling to the brink of the abyss,' Daily Mail, July 15, 2006)
Over the last month, there have been dozens of references of this kind in the British press to the issue of Israel's right to self-defence. We have been able to find just one reference to the possibility that Palestinian violence, for example, might be justified on the same grounds.
Chris Hedges, formerly foreign correspondent for The New York Times and currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute, has noted some of the missing context:
"This isn't the first time that Israeli soldiers have been captured. We've had long and painful negotiations over kidnapped Lebanese, and Israel has made cross-border incursions into Lebanon to capture Lebanese for years and years and years. That's something well known to Lebanese and probably not as well known to other people." ('United States and the Context Behind Israel's Offensive on Lebanon,' Democracy Now! July 17, 2006; )
Hedges also recalled that massive aerial bombardment has not always been deemed the necessary Israeli response - in January 2004, Israel freed more than 400 Arab prisoners in return for an Israeli spy.
But kidnapped Lebanese and Palestinians do not exist for our media, just as Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli artillery in May and June are ignored in seeking the causes of conflict. The poverty, malnutrition and oppression within the giant open prison that is Gaza also do not exist as any kind of justification for actions in "self-defence".
Conclusion - Purely For The Cameras
The public is relentlessly bombarded by the fraudulent media version of events: Israel is merely 'retaliating' in 'self-defence'. Condoleeza Rice (often referred to, affectionately, as 'Condi') is an honest broker seeking peace. And, the icing on the propaganda cake, Britain is biased +towards+ Arabs. Patrick Wintour and Ewen MacAskill wrote in the Guardian on July 21:
"In private, the Foreign Office, which has a reputation as being traditionally pro-Arabist, is sceptical about the Israeli strategy and its impact on the wider Middle East." ?
We asked British historian Mark Curtis for his response:
"This is the traditional mainstream media view - 'pro-Arabist' being some nice, meaningless term. In fact, the record clearly shows that Britain has played it both ways - both strongly backing its favoured Arab dictators ('pro-Arabist') and at the same time arming Israel and supporting its aggression. Current policy is a good example. Traditionally, Britain has also armed both sides. Of course it is by no means against UK interests to have ongoing instability and conflict in the Middle East - the goals are control over oil and having pro-Western regimes in place, after all, not weird notions of peace or democracy, which are purely for the cameras." (Email to Media Lens, July 26, 2006)
Curtis points to a dark, and for the mainstream media all but unthinkable, truth - when state goals are best achieved by exploiting an overwhelming military advantage, peaceful negotiation, diplomacy and compromise can come to be seen as threats to be crushed at every turn. From this perspective, the more vicious the killing, the more wanton the destruction, the better.
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July 25 and 26, 2006
MEDIA ALERT: DEMOLISHING LEBANON - PARTS 1 and 2
A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gideon Meir, added: "We have never had it so good. The hasbara [propaganda] effort is a well-oiled machine."
In launching an emergency appeal for aid on July 24, the United Nations estimated that the lives of 800,000 Lebanese civilians have been disrupted by Israeli bombing. Hundreds of bridges and virtually all road networks have been systematically destroyed across the country, making relief efforts almost impossible. BBC and other journalists report many civilians trapped in the rubble of villages in the south of Lebanon cut off from medical aid by air strikes. ReliefWeb comments:
"As the conflict continues, food stocks in many parts of Lebanon are running low. Shortages of water are already a reality in parts of southern Lebanon due to a lack of electricity and fuel. The possibility of shortages of medical supplies in health facilities in the coming weeks is of growing concern. While medical and food stocks are available delivery is almost impossible in many parts of the country." ('Flash appeal on the Lebanon crisis launched today,' ReliefWeb, July 24, 2006)
To date, some 377 Lebanese and 17 Israeli civilians have been killed in the conflict.
Save The Children reports that 45% of the Lebanese dead are children, as are 200,000 of the 500,000 refugees forced to flee the bombing. (Save The Children, 'Crisis in middle east - children hit hardest,' July 21, 2006;)
The Red Cross reported (July 23) that five of its volunteers and three patients were wounded when Israeli aircraft attacked two ambulances in successive missile strikes. The attacks took place near Qana when an ambulance arrived to evacuate three patients from the border town of Tibnin. The drivers said that two guided missiles were fired at each ambulance. Three injured patients - a woman, her son and grandson - were all injured again, the son losing his leg to a direct hit from one of the anti-tank missiles. (Ed O'Loughlin, 'Ambulances fired on by Israel, says Red Cross,' Sydney Morning Herald, July 25, 2006)
According to Human Rights Watch, Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon. Researchers on the ground confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Eyewitnesses and survivors described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, commented:
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians. They should never be used in populated areas." ('Israeli cluster munitions hit civilians in Lebanon Israel Must Not Use Indiscriminate Weapons,' HRW, July 24, 2006; )
Blair - We Must Act
The day before British and American bombers began attacking Serbia on March 24, 1999, Tony Blair told the House of Commons: "We must act to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from humanitarian catastrophe."
Blair explained:
"Let me give the House an indication of the scale of what is happening: a quarter of a million Kosovars, more than 10 per cent of the population, are now homeless as a result of repression by Serb forces. 65,000 people have been forced from their homes in the last month, and no less than 25,000 in the four days since peace talks broke down. Only yesterday, 5,000 people in the Srbica area were forcibly evicted from their villages."
Blair also reported deaths:
"Since last summer 2000 people have died." (Blair: 'We must act - to save thousands of innocent men, women and children,' The Guardian, March 23, 1999; )
No one, of course, not even Blair, was suggesting that the killing was all on one side - the Kosovo Liberation Army had been responsible for hundreds of deaths. But journalists lined up to declare Serb actions ample justification for military intervention. On the day of his speech, a Guardian leader backed Blair all the way:
"The only honorable course for Europe and America is to use military force to try to protect the people of Kosovo... If we do not act at all, or if there is a limited bombing campaign which still fails to change Milosevic's mind, what is likely to be Kosovo's future? The Serbs would certainly try to wipe out the Kosovo Liberation Army completely. They might well go in for large-scale evacuation of villages, so as to control the population more effectively, and deny popular support to what KLA fighters might remain." (Leader, 'The sad need for force, Kosovo must be saved,' The Guardian, March 23, 1999)
Warnings that resonate strongly in July 2006 as the media report, with minimal discernible outrage, Israel's enforced "large-scale evacuation of villages" in Lebanon. Thus the Independent on July 22:
"Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over southern Lebanon yesterday warning civilians to leave border villages. The area is normally inhabited by about 300,000 people." (Donald Macintyre, 'Israel calls up 3,000 reservists to prepare for ground invasion,' The Independent, July 22, 2006)
The Evening Standard reported in an article titled, 'The "get out or die" text message':
"Israel is waging war by text message as it steps up attacks on Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Mobile phones are being bombarded with messages and voicemails telling civilians to leave areas earmarked for bombardment or risk being killed." (Evening Standard, July 24, 2006)
In March 1999, the Guardian editors' outrage at the suffering of displaced civilians was palpable:
"The Serbs are even now attacking in the Pagarusa valley, where 50,000 displaced Kosovars are sheltering behind makeshift Kosovo Liberation Army defences, and those people could, within a very short time, be fleeing, or being brutally herded, toward Albania. Among the many obligations the Nato countries owe these suffering folk is that of meticulously recording their stories, so that when they return to Kosovo full restitution can be made for their losses and full justice meted out to their persecutors. The Serbs have stripped them of their possessions and their documents and have tried to strip them of their dignity. All three must be restored, beginning with the last." (Leader, 'The human cost,' The Guardian, March 31, 1999; )
Compare and contrast to this recent, more matter of fact, Guardian editorial:
"For Israel, a ceasefire would mean respite from deadly rocket strikes, such as the one that struck a railway station in Haifa on Sunday, killing eight civilians. For Lebanon, it would have meant allowing its dysfunctional government to deal with the sudden population convulsions taking place as its citizens flee in panic at Israeli air attacks, and try to restrain the fanatics intent on provoking Israel further."
The leader concluded:
"Israel has the right to defend itself, a task made harder by the hidden arsenal of Hizbullah, and it should object to any one-sided calls for restraint. But it cannot control its enemies' responses: it can only control its own." (Leader, 'Middle East: On the brink of chaos,' The Guardian, July 17, 2006; )
A week into the bombing of Serbia and the Independent was struck down by war fever:
"High-altitude hit-and-run bombing missions will have to be supplemented by lower- altitude attacks on infantry and vehicles... Second, Nato will need to decide how this campaign is to end. It has already gone on long enough without a focused picture of the status quo post bellum. Nato should send in ground troops to establish a protectorate over Kosovo." (Leader, 'NATO cannot delay in sending troops to protect Kosovo,' The Independent, March 30, 1999)
John Sweeney wrote in the Guardian one day later:
"And still they come, a severed artery of human misery, spurting through the high mountain pass, beneath jagged peaks lost in sunlit clouds.
"And still they come, the sick, babies, women, rheumy-eyed old men and wild-eyed young boys, sardine-packed in rickety trailers pulled by clack-clacking tractors, some weeping, a few happy, but most just staring into the far distance.
"And still they come, past the concrete dragon's teeth on the Serb side of the border, to the grotesque, pitiful but not murdering chaos of the poorest country in Europe." (Sweeney, 'Tide of misery flows into Albania,' The Guardian, March 31, 1999)
How freely the tears flow when the compassion is government-approved. Last Sunday, the Observer made its position on the current conflict clear enough. Compare the moral outrage and impassioned literary flourishes above with this new-found 'pragmatism':
"Ideally, Israel's reflex action to any threat would not be to respond with such massive force that significant civilian casualties become inevitable. Ideally, Hizbollah would not want to provoke the Jewish state by firing missiles into Israeli territory that kill Israeli civilians, or by capturing its soldiers... But we do not live in an ideal world. And in the Middle East it is reality that counts."
Ideally, half a million ordinary Lebanese civilians would not, in a matter of days, be transformed into refugees struggling to survive. Ideally, close to 400 Lebanese civilians would not be killed by indiscriminate bombing as an entire country's infrastructure - roads, bridges, power stations, petrol dumps, sea ports, milk factories, TV transmission masts, mobile phone masts, and much else - is simply demolished.
The Observer continued:
"The only path is that of pragmatism. In other words, a compromise based not on rhetoric or ideals but on a realistic appraisal of our capabilities and influence. The immediate task is to try to ensure that Israel does not attempt to re-establish its occupation of southern Lebanon or trigger a full-scale escalation of a Middle Eastern war. We need to solve the problem, not pontificate." (Leader, 'Britain still has a role in our less than ideal world,' The Observer, July 23, 2006)
Just four months ago this same newspaper claimed that, in response to conflict in the Balkans, "a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention emerged. It was led at first by President Clinton over Bosnia, and again in Kosovo. The rationale behind those interventions was then invoked for the invasion of Iraq..."
The "wisdom" of the latter had been questioned, the editors noted: "But the principle that a brutal regime does not have inalienable rights to do as it pleases within its borders... is a good one." (Leader, 'Let a dictator's death remind us of the evil of unchecked nationalism,' The Observer, March 12, 2006)
The Observer's hypocrisy makes sense - "ideals" and "principles" are useful when brutal realpolitik can be sold as 'humanitarian intervention'. But not even the Observer could sell US-UK support for the demolition of Lebanon as a moral cause.
As in Kosovo, crimes are being committed on both sides. Unlike Kosovo, the "humanitarian interventionists" have little to say. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland wrote in 1999:
"How did the British left get so lost? How have its leading lights ended up as the voices of isolationism? How did it come to this...? Why is it the hard left - rather than the isolationist right - who have become the champions of moral indifference? For, make no mistake, that's what opposition to Nato's attempt to Clobba Slobba (as the Sun puts it) amounts to... either the West could try to halt the greatest campaign of barbarism in Europe since 1945 - or it could do nothing." (Jonathan Freedland, 'The left needs to wake up to the real world. This war is a just one,' The Guardian, March 26, 1999)
Last week, with the destruction of Lebanon well under way, Freedland's tone had changed:
"Both Hamas and Hizbullah captured soldiers. To outsiders, that would seem to be fair play under the rules of guerrilla warfare. But soldiers carry an almost sacred status in the Israeli imagination. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is a conscript army, so the rhetoric about 'everyone's son or daughter' is literally true. Its personnel are not seen as professionals hired to kill or be killed, but as citizens." (Freedland, 'There is a way out of this crisis, but the legacy of hatred will endure,' The Guardian, July 19, 2006)
Where once Freedland was resolute in his "Clobba Slobba" view of international relations, he now gropes for answers: "Israel pounds Lebanon out of all proportion to the original provocation and Hizbullah replies with rockets landing deep in the Israeli interior. What might make this storm pass?"
In reality, Palestinian and Lebanese civilian deaths are mildly troubling for our media, little more. As with the early days of the Iraq catastrophe, there is the overwhelming sense that 'It will be over soon', that bitter medicine sometimes just has to be swallowed - there's nothing much anyone can do. Previously outspoken commentators have sought shelter in the bunker of 'objective' journalism. The BBC's Paul Reynolds wrote from Washington in 1999 of the NATO assault:
"One often wonders why America bothers. Kosovo, after all, is a far away place of which they know little. And yet the crisis shows that there is room in this great land for a sense of justice and responsibility, just as there was in imperial Britain... Great powers are capable of great oppressions, but also of great gestures. The Balkans, it seems, have not lost their fascination for the West, though luckily, this time round, the powers are not pitching in against each other as they did in 1914.
"Some progress has been made in this violent century." (Reynolds, 'Kosovo: Clinton's greatest foreign test,' April 4, 1999; )
Media innocents might be forgiven for shuddering at the thought of the fierce managerial censure that surely followed this outpouring of personal opinion - BBC journalists, after all, are supposed to keep their views to themselves. We asked Reynolds last week if he thought Israel's attacks on Lebanese roads, bridges, petrol stations, milk factories, and other civilian infrastructure were illegitimate - something he had not stressed in his BBC online articles. We wondered if perhaps the United States should again "bother" with some kind of "great gesture" of "justice and responsibility". Reynolds replied:
"My views are not relevant." (Email to Media Lens, July 20, 2006)
The rules are clear but never discussed - corporate reporters are free and happy to declare their personal views insofar as they accord with state interests, but not when they conflict. To criticise the powerful is to be 'biased' and 'crusading'. To support the case made by power is to be 'measured', 'objective' and 'balanced'. Journalists' moral outrage is not relevant when the West does not give a damn about the men, women and children dying under its bombs.
July 26, 2006
MEDIA ALERT: DEMOLISHING LEBANON - PART 2
Israeli Propaganda - Never Had It So Good
Assaf Shariv, media adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, boasted to the Jerusalem Post last week that Israelis have been interviewed by the foreign press four times as much as spokespeople for the Palestinians and Lebanese. Shariv cited a poll of Sky News viewers that found that 80 percent believe Israel's attacks on Lebanon were justified. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gideon Meir, added: "We have never had it so good. The hasbara [propaganda] effort is a well-oiled machine." (Gil Hoffman, 'Israel calls up media "reserves",' Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2006; )
British and American journalists are certainly willing recipients of Israeli and US-UK propaganda. Thus, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, "embarked last night on a mission to the Middle East to stitch together a peace plan", the Guardian declared on July 24. (Ewen MacAskill, Ian Black and Brian Whitaker, 'Rice finally sets out in search of ceasefire formula,' The Guardian, July 24, 2006)
Unfortunately, "any deal put together by Ms Rice will take a minimum of a week to negotiate, allowing Israel the freedom to continue its war". Perhaps this is a Natural Law of diplomatic negotiations, although honest journalists recognise that the timescale could be reduced - to the time it takes to make a phone call from the White House, to be precise - if peace, rather than US-Israeli interests, was on the Rice agenda. The Guardian writers sidled a little closer to the truth when they wrote:
"Agreement on a ceasefire will be harder to pin down. Ms Rice has made it clear that America does not want a quick fix ceasefire that keeps Hizbullah intact."
Agreement is indeed made harder by the fact that the United States is backing Israel's slaughter to the hilt - notably by supplying the state of the art missiles, bombs, attack helicopters and jets doing the killing. The Guardian noted that the world is witnessing "one of the slowest international responses to a crisis of such gravity". The New York Times made a nonsense of that observation last Saturday:
"The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday." (David S. Cloud and Helene Cooper, 'US Speeds Up Bomb Delivery For the Israelis,' New York Times, July 22, 2006)
An arms-sale package last year approved Israel's purchase of as many as 100 GBU-28's, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also includes satellite-guided bombs. But still, Rice is on a "mission" to stitch together a "peace plan" according to the Guardian in its scruplously unbiased news reporting.
Dr. Doug Rokke, former Director of the US Army's Depleted Uranium project wrote on July 24:
"The delivery of at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters bombs containing depleted uranium warheads by the United States to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon will result in additional radioactive and chemical toxic contamination with consequent adverse health and environmental effects throughout the middle east."
Rokke added:
"The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the world and all governments must force cessation of uranium weapons use. I must demand that Israel now provide medical care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and clean up all DU contamination." (Rokke, 'Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action By President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert,' July 25, 2006)
The British government's feelings were made clear in a Daily Telegraph article (July 26) that reported Britain has been used as a staging post for major shipments of these bunker-busting DU bombs from America to Israel:
"Two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU 28 laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, for refuelling and crew rests after flying across the Atlantic at the weekend, defence sources confirmed. The airport has also been used by the CIA for rendition flights carrying terrorist suspects." (Thomas Harding and Anil Dawar, 'UK airport used to fly bombs to Israel,' Daily Telegraph; )
Continuing the required deception, Channel 4's Jonathan Rugman declared:
"If you think in the last week the US has given up its role as honest broker in the Middle East then now, it seems, they've taken it back." (Channel 4 News, July 21, 2006)
A Serious Escalation
On July 16, a BBC radio report described a "serious escalation" in the conflict. The report was not describing the killing, by then, of 130 Lebanese as a result of 2,000 sorties by Israeli war planes smashing bridges, roads, airports, oil refineries, and driving half a million people from their homes. Instead, the BBC referred to a Hezbollah rocket attack that day that had killed eight Israelis in Haifa.
A report on the attack by Channel 4 News was ironically titled 'Lebanon burns' . The irony lay in the fact that three minutes of the four-minute film focused on the Haifa attack, while some ten seconds were devoted to Israel's subsequent killing of 16 people in Lebanon's southern city of Tyre in a building used by rescue workers.
The Channel 4 piece began by describing how Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned that the attack on Haifa was "just the beginning". Like the BBC, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail and other news outlets, Channel 4 omitted to mention Nasrallah's caveat that Haifa was only the beginning "if Israel continues its attacks". (See Jonathan Cook, 'Israelis are dying - it must be an escalation,' ZNet, July 17, 2006; )
A BBC online article covering the story was titled 'Deadly Hezbollah attack on Haifa'. Much milder language has been used to describe Lebanese civilian deaths, as journalist Jonathan Cook writes on ZNet:
"Those dead, many of them women and children, hardly get a mention, their lives apparently empty of meaning or significance in this confrontation." (Ibid)
Sometimes there is no mention at all. One Media Lens reader posed a simple question to the BBC on July 17:
"The closing headlines included the information that 24 Israelis have died in the current conflict. But no mention was made of the 200 Lebanese reported as killed and as reported by Ch4 News at 7pm.
"WHY EXACTLY IS THIS?" (Email copied to Media Lens, July 26, 2006)
One Debby Moyse, Assistant Editor to the Head of BBC TV News, replied with standard BBC audacity:
"You are right to point out that the number of people killed, in the current conflict, in Lebanon was not in the closing headlines and it would have been better to have reflected both figures. However the reporting from Lebanon, seen in conjunction with the pictures of people fleeing the country, clearly reflected the impact of the six days of air strikes. Also taken in the context of the overall coverage, the effect of the conflict on each country was balanced..." (Ibid)
And so on.
Thus the indifference to the fate of the Lebanese civilians who fled their homes in the border village of Marwaheen on Israeli orders. As the villagers left in a convoy on July 15, Israeli jets attacked, killing 20 people, at least nine of them children. Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent of how the local fire brigade "could not put out the fires as they all burned alive in the inferno". Fisk noted sardonically that another "terrorist" target had thereby been eliminated. (Fisk, 'Hizbollah's response reveals months of planning,' The Independent, July 16, 2006)
The Daily Telegraph's coverage of the atrocity was titled merely: 'Iran blamed as Lebanon battle broadens.' (Harry de Quettevill, Daily Telegraph, July 16, 2006) The BBC and other media described these and other killings as "retaliation" for Haifa, even though Israel had been launching such strikes for four days before the Hezbollah attack.
Indeed, with great consistency, the media describe Israel as merely "responding" or "retaliating". In a 2002 report, Bad News From Israel, The Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) provided numerous examples stretching over several years:
"The trigger for the Israeli offensive was a massacre on the West Bank." (ITV early evening news, December 13, 2001)
"Palestinian suicide attacks trigger more Israeli raids." (BBC 1, late news, January 5, 2002)
The authors commented:
"On the news, Israeli actions tended to be explained and contextualised - they were often shown as merely 'responding' to what had been done to them by Palestinians (in the 2001 samples they were six times as likely to be presented as 'retaliating' or in some way responding than were the Palestinians)."
The report focused on a particular phase of reporting. The BBC described events thus:
"This cycle of violence began six weeks ago when an Israeli cabinet minister was shot." (BBC1 News 24, December 2, 2001; )
GUMG noted that this is also how the Israelis presented the sequence of events. The Palestinians, however, regarded the
killing of the Israeli minister as a 'response' to the assassination of one of their political leaders. In a rare departure from the norm, the Independent described the sequence as follows:
"The most notorious assassination came at the end of August when Israeli helicopters hovering over the West Bank town of Ramallah fired two missiles through the office windows of the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa, 64, decapitating him as he sat in his swivel chair. As the leader of an established PLO faction, who according to Palestinians, was a politician rather than a member of the PFLP's military wing - he was the most senior figure to be picked off by the Israelis. Seven weeks later the PFLP sought revenge by infiltrating a Jerusalem hotel and assassinating Israel's tourism minister, Rehavem Ze'evi, whose support for ethnically cleansing the West Bank and Gaza of Arabs had long made him an enemy of the Palestinians." (November 9, 2001)
Exceptions of this kind aside, most media present a consistently biased version of events. Thus the BBC in 2001:
"Israel has been under intense pressure from the Americans to pull out of Palestinian areas it occupied last week +following the killing of the+ Israeli tourism minister." (BBC1 late News, October 26, 2001 - GUMG italics)
"The assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister +led to the reoccupation+ of Palestinian areas." (BBC News 24, November 3, 2001 - GUMG italics)
"Dozens of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed in a relentless round of suicide bombings and +Israeli counter-attacks+." (BBC2 Newsnight 22:30, December 13, 2001 - GUMG italics)
"The Israelis had carried out this demolition +in retaliation+ for the murder of four soldiers." (Channel 4 News 19:00, January 10, 2002 - GUMG italics)
In an almost child-like way, journalists take their lead from Israeli actions. A July 17 Guardian editorial reported that the sixth day of Israeli aerial attacks had killed 47 people and wounded at least 53. The editors noted:
"It is also worth remembering that the weekend's chaos began three weeks ago, with the [June 25] provocative kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by allies of Hamas." (Leader, 'Middle East: On the brink of chaos,' The Guardian, July 17, 2006)
The June 24 kidnapping of a Palestinian doctor and his brother by Israeli forces is thereby wiped from history. Inconvenient "chaos" is ignored more generally - for example, the fact that between January to May 30, 2006, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Israeli military launched 18 assassinations, described as "targeted assassinations of militants". Between March 29 to May 30, there were 77 air strikes on Palestinian population centres, government offices and other infrastructure, with nearly 4,000 artillery shells being fired by Israel over the same period. Between May 26 and June 21, more than 40 Palestinians were killed, 30 of them civilians, including 11 children and two pregnant women. None of these are deemed "provocative" by our media.
The Right Of Self-Defence
This preferential reading of recent history allows the media to portray Israeli actions as being consistently in "self-defence". The Financial Times reported:
"The world's big powers were at odds over Israel's strikes on Lebanon yesterday, with US President George W. Bush invoking Israel's right of self-defence and Russia and European Union officials accusing the country of 'disproportionate' actions." (Martin Arnold, Caroline Daniel and Daniel Dombey, 'World powers split over strikes,' Financial Times, July 14, 2006)
The Daily Mail wrote:
"Whatever provocation Israel has suffered and the murderous fanaticism of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon is a cause of despair this brutally disproportionate action is an unworthy and ultimately self-defeating response from a great liberal democracy.
"Of course, any country has a right to self defence. But this deadly cycle of tit-for-tat offers no solution." (Leader, 'Stumbling to the brink of the abyss,' Daily Mail, July 15, 2006)
Over the last month, there have been dozens of references of this kind in the British press to the issue of Israel's right to self-defence. We have been able to find just one reference to the possibility that Palestinian violence, for example, might be justified on the same grounds.
Chris Hedges, formerly foreign correspondent for The New York Times and currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute, has noted some of the missing context:
"This isn't the first time that Israeli soldiers have been captured. We've had long and painful negotiations over kidnapped Lebanese, and Israel has made cross-border incursions into Lebanon to capture Lebanese for years and years and years. That's something well known to Lebanese and probably not as well known to other people." ('United States and the Context Behind Israel's Offensive on Lebanon,' Democracy Now! July 17, 2006; )
Hedges also recalled that massive aerial bombardment has not always been deemed the necessary Israeli response - in January 2004, Israel freed more than 400 Arab prisoners in return for an Israeli spy.
But kidnapped Lebanese and Palestinians do not exist for our media, just as Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli artillery in May and June are ignored in seeking the causes of conflict. The poverty, malnutrition and oppression within the giant open prison that is Gaza also do not exist as any kind of justification for actions in "self-defence".
Conclusion - Purely For The Cameras
The public is relentlessly bombarded by the fraudulent media version of events: Israel is merely 'retaliating' in 'self-defence'. Condoleeza Rice (often referred to, affectionately, as 'Condi') is an honest broker seeking peace. And, the icing on the propaganda cake, Britain is biased +towards+ Arabs. Patrick Wintour and Ewen MacAskill wrote in the Guardian on July 21:
"In private, the Foreign Office, which has a reputation as being traditionally pro-Arabist, is sceptical about the Israeli strategy and its impact on the wider Middle East." ?
We asked British historian Mark Curtis for his response:
"This is the traditional mainstream media view - 'pro-Arabist' being some nice, meaningless term. In fact, the record clearly shows that Britain has played it both ways - both strongly backing its favoured Arab dictators ('pro-Arabist') and at the same time arming Israel and supporting its aggression. Current policy is a good example. Traditionally, Britain has also armed both sides. Of course it is by no means against UK interests to have ongoing instability and conflict in the Middle East - the goals are control over oil and having pro-Western regimes in place, after all, not weird notions of peace or democracy, which are purely for the cameras." (Email to Media Lens, July 26, 2006)
Curtis points to a dark, and for the mainstream media all but unthinkable, truth - when state goals are best achieved by exploiting an overwhelming military advantage, peaceful negotiation, diplomacy and compromise can come to be seen as threats to be crushed at every turn. From this perspective, the more vicious the killing, the more wanton the destruction, the better.
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Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 24
yahoo
Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 24
Twenty-four Palestinians, including a baby and two toddlers, were killed as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery on the deadliest day in the territory for two weeks.
The bloodshed came one day after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas demanded an immediate ceasefire to Israel's offensive, launched with the twin purposes of retrieving a captured soldier and stopping rocket attacks.
At least 140 Palestinians have now been killed in the four-week assault that has been increasingly sidelined as the world focuses on a deadlier conflict in Lebanon, triggered by the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah militants.
While world diplomats in Rome tried but failed to agree on calls for a ceasefire in Israel's war on the Shiite militant group, 24 Palestinians were killed in multiple Israeli attacks east and north of Gaza City, medics said.
Abbas condemned what he called "unacceptable acts" and charged that "Israel is clearly violating the Geneva convention" in attacking civilian areas.
Only hours before the latest violence flared, Abbas demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories following talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday.
"It is important to end the Gaza crisis," said Rice, adding that "the Palestinian people have lived too long in violence".
At least seven of the dead were militants, including four from the armed wing of the governing Hamas and another from the Popular Resistance Committees, two of three groups to claim the June 25 raid in which a soldier was snatched.
But a seven-month-old Palestinian baby girl was also killed, along with two three-year-old girls and a 17-year-old boy.
Medics said most of the bodies brought into hospital after the attacks were ripped to pieces, as paramedics took at least 69 wounded people, including two journalists working for Palestine TV, away for treatment.
An Israeli military spokesman said the air force had carried out more than a dozen air strikes targeting "armed gunmen" east of Gaza City as troops mounted a fresh incursion in the outer fringes of the largest Palestinian city.
Gunfire erupted on the ground as Israel stepped up its offensive after a relative lull that has nonetheless put soldiers back in impoverished Gaza less than 10 months after they ended a 38-year occupation.
Security sources reported heavy exchanges of fire as Israeli troops thrust about two kilometres (just over a mile) from the border with the Jewish state, which has ignored repeated international calls for restraint.
"I can't confirm casualties but if there were we sincerely regret that," said a military spokeswoman when asked about the deaths of a baby and toddler in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
"I would say it is increasingly unfortunate that Palestinian terrorists operate," in civilian areas, she added.
Despite the fact that halting rocket attacks is one of the principal motives of the operation, militants on Wednesday fired a further four rockets into the Jewish state, none of which caused any damage or casualties.
Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya, whose Hamas-led government has been directly targeted in the offensive, threatened that Israel was responsible for the fate of its missing soldier.
"Military force will not manage to break the will of our people," he declared during a graduation ceremony at the Islamic University, which was itself bombed by Israel on grounds that it was used to plan "terror attacks".
Living conditions for the 1.4 million people in densely packed Gaza have badly deteriorated since the West suspended direct aid to the Hamas-led government, plunging the territory deeper into financial crisis.
At least 137 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have now died since Israel stepped up its ground offensive on July 5 to recover the soldier and end the firing of rockets at Israeli territory, according to an AFP count.
Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 24
Twenty-four Palestinians, including a baby and two toddlers, were killed as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery on the deadliest day in the territory for two weeks.
The bloodshed came one day after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas demanded an immediate ceasefire to Israel's offensive, launched with the twin purposes of retrieving a captured soldier and stopping rocket attacks.
At least 140 Palestinians have now been killed in the four-week assault that has been increasingly sidelined as the world focuses on a deadlier conflict in Lebanon, triggered by the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah militants.
While world diplomats in Rome tried but failed to agree on calls for a ceasefire in Israel's war on the Shiite militant group, 24 Palestinians were killed in multiple Israeli attacks east and north of Gaza City, medics said.
Abbas condemned what he called "unacceptable acts" and charged that "Israel is clearly violating the Geneva convention" in attacking civilian areas.
Only hours before the latest violence flared, Abbas demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories following talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday.
"It is important to end the Gaza crisis," said Rice, adding that "the Palestinian people have lived too long in violence".
At least seven of the dead were militants, including four from the armed wing of the governing Hamas and another from the Popular Resistance Committees, two of three groups to claim the June 25 raid in which a soldier was snatched.
But a seven-month-old Palestinian baby girl was also killed, along with two three-year-old girls and a 17-year-old boy.
Medics said most of the bodies brought into hospital after the attacks were ripped to pieces, as paramedics took at least 69 wounded people, including two journalists working for Palestine TV, away for treatment.
An Israeli military spokesman said the air force had carried out more than a dozen air strikes targeting "armed gunmen" east of Gaza City as troops mounted a fresh incursion in the outer fringes of the largest Palestinian city.
Gunfire erupted on the ground as Israel stepped up its offensive after a relative lull that has nonetheless put soldiers back in impoverished Gaza less than 10 months after they ended a 38-year occupation.
Security sources reported heavy exchanges of fire as Israeli troops thrust about two kilometres (just over a mile) from the border with the Jewish state, which has ignored repeated international calls for restraint.
"I can't confirm casualties but if there were we sincerely regret that," said a military spokeswoman when asked about the deaths of a baby and toddler in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
"I would say it is increasingly unfortunate that Palestinian terrorists operate," in civilian areas, she added.
Despite the fact that halting rocket attacks is one of the principal motives of the operation, militants on Wednesday fired a further four rockets into the Jewish state, none of which caused any damage or casualties.
Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya, whose Hamas-led government has been directly targeted in the offensive, threatened that Israel was responsible for the fate of its missing soldier.
"Military force will not manage to break the will of our people," he declared during a graduation ceremony at the Islamic University, which was itself bombed by Israel on grounds that it was used to plan "terror attacks".
Living conditions for the 1.4 million people in densely packed Gaza have badly deteriorated since the West suspended direct aid to the Hamas-led government, plunging the territory deeper into financial crisis.
At least 137 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have now died since Israel stepped up its ground offensive on July 5 to recover the soldier and end the firing of rockets at Israeli territory, according to an AFP count.
US blocks UN from condemning Israel | Jerusalem Post
Jerusalem Post
The United States blocked the UN Security Council on Wednesday from issuing a statement that would have condemned Israel's bombing of a UN post on the Lebanon border that killed four military observers overnight Tuesday.
US diplomats refused to comment, and US Ambassador John Bolton was in Washington preparing for a new confirmation hearing before the Senate; however, several diplomats said the United States objected to one paragraph, which said the council "condemns any deliberate attack against UN personnel and emphasizes that such attacks are unacceptable."
Earlier Wednesday, UN officials said that the UN observers in Lebanon had telephoned the IDF 10 times in six hours to ask it to stop shelling near their position.
Jane Lute, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told the UN Security Council in New York that the UN observation post near Khiam came under close IDF fire 21 times Tuesday - including 12 hits within 100 yards and five direct hits - until the peacekeepers' post was destroyed.
UN officials said Hezbollah guerillas had been operating in the area of the post near the eastern end of the border with Israel, a routine tactic to prevent Israel from attacking them.
"We did repeatedly in recent days say (to Israel) that this was an exposed position, that Hezbollah militants were 500 meters (yards) away shielding themselves near UN workers and civilians," UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said. "That's why it is so inexplicable that what happened happened."
IDF officials had told the United Nations that the bombing around the base was part of an "an aerial preparation for a ground operation," said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Officials in the outpost called the IDF 10 times during those six hours, and each time an army official promised to have the bombing stopped, according to a preliminary UN report on the incident.
Once it became clear those pleas were being ignored, the force's commander sought the involvement of top officials in New York, a senior UN official in New York said.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown and Lute herself then made several calls to Israel's UN mission "reiterating these protests and calling for an abatement of the shelling," Lute said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep regret" for the deaths and dismay over UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's accusation that the attack was "apparently deliberate."
Olmert told Annan in a phone call Wednesday that the attack was inadvertent and he promised a "thorough investigation," his office said in a statement.
"It's inconceivable for the UN to define an error as an apparently deliberate action," Olmert said.
China called for an Israeli apology and asked the UN Security Council to condemn the bombing - which killed one of its citizens - and demand the IDF stop attacking UN positions and personnel.
"For China and for others, we condemn this because I think any attack on the United Nations positions and the United Nations personnel is inexcusable and unacceptable," China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said.
Austria and Finland, both of which also lost citizens in the attack, condemned the bombing, with Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja calling it "truly tragic." The fourth victim was Canadian.
"These so-called precision attacks seem to be mainly targeting everyone else except the Hezbollah," Tuomioja said. "The longer this continues, the more likely it is that there will be more similar victims."
White House spokesman Tony Snow described the strike as a "horrible thing," but said Israel was behaving responsibly in its aftermath.
"They'll be completely transparent in the way they conduct the investigation," Snow said. "And I think that's the appropriate way to proceed."
UN officials said the observation position was well marked. A picture the world body released Wednesday showed the three-story building was painted white with the letters "UN" emblazoned in large black letters on all sides, and a light blue UN flag hung from a nearby flagpole that was roughly 50 feet high.
Witnesses said the building, which was surrounded by concrete blast walls and barbed wire, also had the letters UN painted on the roof and it was illuminated by floodlights at night.
The United States blocked the UN Security Council on Wednesday from issuing a statement that would have condemned Israel's bombing of a UN post on the Lebanon border that killed four military observers overnight Tuesday.
US diplomats refused to comment, and US Ambassador John Bolton was in Washington preparing for a new confirmation hearing before the Senate; however, several diplomats said the United States objected to one paragraph, which said the council "condemns any deliberate attack against UN personnel and emphasizes that such attacks are unacceptable."
Earlier Wednesday, UN officials said that the UN observers in Lebanon had telephoned the IDF 10 times in six hours to ask it to stop shelling near their position.
Jane Lute, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told the UN Security Council in New York that the UN observation post near Khiam came under close IDF fire 21 times Tuesday - including 12 hits within 100 yards and five direct hits - until the peacekeepers' post was destroyed.
UN officials said Hezbollah guerillas had been operating in the area of the post near the eastern end of the border with Israel, a routine tactic to prevent Israel from attacking them.
"We did repeatedly in recent days say (to Israel) that this was an exposed position, that Hezbollah militants were 500 meters (yards) away shielding themselves near UN workers and civilians," UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said. "That's why it is so inexplicable that what happened happened."
IDF officials had told the United Nations that the bombing around the base was part of an "an aerial preparation for a ground operation," said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Officials in the outpost called the IDF 10 times during those six hours, and each time an army official promised to have the bombing stopped, according to a preliminary UN report on the incident.
Once it became clear those pleas were being ignored, the force's commander sought the involvement of top officials in New York, a senior UN official in New York said.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown and Lute herself then made several calls to Israel's UN mission "reiterating these protests and calling for an abatement of the shelling," Lute said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep regret" for the deaths and dismay over UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's accusation that the attack was "apparently deliberate."
Olmert told Annan in a phone call Wednesday that the attack was inadvertent and he promised a "thorough investigation," his office said in a statement.
"It's inconceivable for the UN to define an error as an apparently deliberate action," Olmert said.
China called for an Israeli apology and asked the UN Security Council to condemn the bombing - which killed one of its citizens - and demand the IDF stop attacking UN positions and personnel.
"For China and for others, we condemn this because I think any attack on the United Nations positions and the United Nations personnel is inexcusable and unacceptable," China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said.
Austria and Finland, both of which also lost citizens in the attack, condemned the bombing, with Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja calling it "truly tragic." The fourth victim was Canadian.
"These so-called precision attacks seem to be mainly targeting everyone else except the Hezbollah," Tuomioja said. "The longer this continues, the more likely it is that there will be more similar victims."
White House spokesman Tony Snow described the strike as a "horrible thing," but said Israel was behaving responsibly in its aftermath.
"They'll be completely transparent in the way they conduct the investigation," Snow said. "And I think that's the appropriate way to proceed."
UN officials said the observation position was well marked. A picture the world body released Wednesday showed the three-story building was painted white with the letters "UN" emblazoned in large black letters on all sides, and a light blue UN flag hung from a nearby flagpole that was roughly 50 feet high.
Witnesses said the building, which was surrounded by concrete blast walls and barbed wire, also had the letters UN painted on the roof and it was illuminated by floodlights at night.
James Bamford | Iran: The Next War
Rolling Stone
Iran: The Next War
By James Bamford
Rolling Stone
Monday 24 July 2006
Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran.
How did the Bush administration sell the Iraq war? Is war with Iran unavoidable?
I. The Israeli Connection
A few blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue, the FBI's eight-story Washington field office exudes all the charm of a maximum-security prison. Its curved roof is made of thick stainless steel, the bottom three floors are wrapped in granite and limestone, hydraulic bollards protect the ramp to the four-floor garage, and bulletproof security booths guard the entrance to the narrow lobby. On the fourth floor, like a tomb within a tomb, lies the most secret room in the $100 million concrete fortress - out-of-bounds even for special agents without an escort. Here, in the Language Services Section, hundreds of linguists in padded earphones sit elbow-to-elbow in long rows, tapping computer keyboards as they eavesdrop on the phone lines of foreign embassies and other high-priority targets in the nation's capital.
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications that a rogue group of senior Pentagon officials were already conspiring to push the United States into another war - this time with Iran.
A few miles away, FBI agents watched as Larry Franklin, an Iran expert and career employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, drove up to the Ritz-Carlton hotel across the Potomac from Washington. A trim man of fifty-six, with a tangle of blond hair speckled gray, Franklin had left his modest home in Kearneysville, West Virginia, shortly before dawn that morning to make the eighty-mile commute to his job at the Pentagon. Since 2002, he had been working in the Office of Special Plans, a crowded warren of blue cubicles on the building's fifth floor. A secretive unit responsible for long-term planning and propaganda for the invasion of Iraq, the office's staffers referred to themselves as "the cabal." They reported to Douglas Feith, the third-most-powerful official in the Defense Department, helping to concoct the fraudulent intelligence reports that were driving America to war in Iraq.
Just two weeks before, in his State of the Union address, President Bush had begun laying the groundwork for the invasion, falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had the means to produce tens of thousands of biological and chemical weapons, including anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. But an attack on Iraq would require something that alarmed Franklin and other neoconservatives almost as much as weapons of mass destruction: detente with Iran. As political columnist David Broder reported in The Washington Post, moderates in the Bush administration were "covertly negotiating for Iran to stay quiet and offer help to refugees when we go into Iraq."
Franklin - a devout neoconservative who had been brought into Feith's office because of his political beliefs - was hoping to undermine those talks. As FBI agents looked on, Franklin entered the restaurant at the Ritz and joined two other Americans who were also looking for ways to push the U.S. into a war with Iran. One was Steven Rosen, one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington. Sixty years old and nearly bald, with dark eyebrows and a seemingly permanent frown, Rosen was director of foreign-policy issues at Israel's powerful lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Seated next to Rosen was AIPAC's Iran expert, Keith Weissman. He and Rosen had been working together closely for a decade to pressure U.S. officials and members of Congress to turn up the heat on Tehran.
Over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton, Franklin told the two lobbyists about a draft of a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive that dealt with U.S. policy on Iran. Crafted by Michael Rubin, the desk officer for Iraq and Iran in Feith's office, the document called, in essence, for regime change in Iran. In the Pentagon's view, according to one senior official there at the time, Iran was nothing but "a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice." So far, though, the White House had rejected the Pentagon's plan, favoring the State Department's more moderate position of diplomacy. Now, unwilling to play by the rules any longer, Franklin was taking the extraordinary - and illegal - step of passing on highly classified information to lobbyists for a foreign state. Unable to win the internal battle over Iran being waged within the administration, a member of Feith's secret unit in the Pentagon was effectively resorting to treason, recruiting AIPAC to use its enormous influence to pressure the president into adopting the draft directive and wage war against Iran.
It was a role that AIPAC was eager to play. Rosen, recognizing that Franklin could serve as a useful spy, immediately began plotting ways to plant him in the White House - specifically in the National Security Council, the epicenter of intelligence and national-security policy. By working there, Rosen told Franklin a few days later, he would be "by the elbow of the president."
Knowing that such a maneuver was well within AIPAC's capabilities, Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him. Rosen agreed. "I'll do what I can," he said, adding that the breakfast meeting had been a real "eye-opener."
Working together, the two men hoped to sell the United States on yet another bloody war. A few miles away, digital recorders at the FBI's Language Services Section captured every word.
II. The Guru and the Exile
In recent weeks, the attacks by Hezbollah on Israel have given neoconservatives in the Bush administration the pretext they were seeking to launch what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "World War III." Denouncing the bombings as "Iran's proxy war," William Kristol of The Weekly Standard is urging the Pentagon to counter "this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." According to Joseph Cirincione, an arms expert and the author of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, "The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a U.S. war against Syria, Iran or both."
But the Bush administration's hostility toward Iran is not simply an outgrowth of the current crisis. War with Iran has been in the works for the past five years, shaped in almost complete secrecy by a small group of senior Pentagon officials attached to the Office of Special Plans. The man who created the OSP was Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy. A former Middle East specialist on the National Security Council in the Reagan administration, Feith had long urged Israel to secure its borders in the Middle East by attacking Iraq and Iran. After Bush's election, Feith went to work to make that vision a reality, putting together a team of neoconservative hawks determined to drive the U.S. to attack Tehran. Before Bush had been in office a year, Feith's team had arranged a covert meeting in Rome with a group of Iranians to discuss their clandestine help.
The meeting was arranged by Michael Ledeen, a member of the cabal brought aboard by Feith because of his connections in Iran. Described by The Jerusalem Post as "Washington's neoconservative guru," Ledeen grew up in California during the 1940s. His father designed the air-conditioning system for Walt Disney Studios, and Ledeen spent much of his early life surrounded by a world of fantasy. "All through my childhood we were an adjunct of the Disney universe," he once recalled. "According to family legend, my mother was the model for Snow White, and we have a picture of her that does indeed look just like the movie character."
In 1977, after earning a Ph.D. in history and philosophy and teaching in Rome for two years, Ledeen became the first executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a pro-Israel pressure group that served as a flagship of the neoconservative movement. A few years later, after Reagan was elected, Ledeen had become prominent enough to earn a spot as a consultant to the National Security Council alongside Feith. There he played a central role in the worst scandal of Reagan's presidency: the covert deal to provide arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages being held in Lebanon. Ledeen served as the administration's intermediary with Israel in the illegal-arms deal. In 1985, he met with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a one-time Iranian carpet salesman who was widely believed to be an Israeli agent. The CIA considered Ghorbanifar a dangerous con man and had issued a "burn notice" recommending that no U.S. agency have any dealings with him. Unfazed, Ledeen called Ghorbanifar "one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." The two men brokered the arms exchange - a transaction that would result in the indictment of fourteen senior officials in the Reagan administration.
"It was awful - you know, bad things happened," Ledeen says now. "When Iran-Contra was over, I said, Boy, I'm never going to touch Iran again.'"
But in 2001, soon after he arrived at the Pentagon, Ledeen once again met with Ghorbanifar. This time, instead of selling missiles to the Iranian regime, the two men were exploring how best to topple it.
"The meeting in Rome came about because my friend Manucher Ghorbanifar called me up," Ledeen says. Stout and balding, with a scruffy white beard, Ledeen is sitting in the living room of his white-brick home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, smoking a Dominican cigar. His Airedale terrier, Thurber, roams the room protectively. In his first extensive interview about the covert Pentagon operation, Ledeen makes no secret of his desire to topple the government in Tehran. "I want to bring down the regime," he says. "I want the regime gone. It's a country that is fanatically devoted to our destruction."
When Ghorbanifar called Ledeen in the fall of 2001, he claimed, as he often does, to have explosive intelligence that was vital to U.S. interests. "There are Iranians who have firsthand information about Iranian plans to kill Americans in Afghanistan," he told Ledeen. "Does anyone want to hear about it?"
Ledeen took the information to Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser at the White House. "I know you're going to throw me out of the office," Ledeen told him, "and if I were you I would throw me out of the office too. But I promised that I would give you this option. Ghorbanifar has called me. He said these people are willing to come. Do you want anybody to go and talk to them?"
Hadley was interested. So was Zalmay Khalilzad, then the point man on Near East issues for the National Security Council and now the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. "I think we have to do this, we have to hear this," Hadley said. Ledeen had the green light: As he puts it, "Every element of the American government knew this was going to happen in advance."
III. The Meeting in Rome
Weeks later, in December, a plane carrying Ledeen traveled to Rome with two other members of Feith's secret Pentagon unit: Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, a protégé of Ledeen who has been called the "theoretician of the neocon movement." A specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish and Farsi, Rhode had experience with shady exiles like Ghorbanifar: He was close to Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi dissident whose discredited intelligence helped drive the Bush administration to invade Baghdad. According to UPI, Rhode himself was later observed by CIA operatives passing "mind-boggling" intelligence to Israel, including sensitive information about U.S. military deployments in Iraq.
Completing the rogues' gallery that assembled in Rome that day was the man who helped Ledeen arrange the meeting: Nicolò Pollari, the director of Italy's military intelligence. Only two months earlier, Pollari had informed the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had obtained uranium from West Africa - a key piece of false intelligence that Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
To hide the shadowy rendezvous in Rome, Pollari provided a well-protected safe house near the noisy espresso bars and busy trattorias that surround the Piazza di Spagna in central Rome. "It was in a private apartment," Ledeen recalls. "It was fucking freezing - it was unheated." The Pentagon operatives and the men from Iran sat at a dining-room table strewn with demitasse cups of blackish coffee, ashtrays littered with crushed cigarette butts and detailed maps of Iran, Iraq and Syria. "They gave us information about the location and plans of Iranian terrorists who were going to kill Americans," Ledeen says.
Ledeen insists the intelligence was on the mark. "It was true," he says. "The information was accurate." Not according to his boss. "There wasn't anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later conceded. "It went nowhere."
The men then turned their attention to their larger goal: regime change in Iran. Ghorbanifar suggested funding the overthrow of the Iranian government using hundreds of millions of dollars in cash supposedly hidden by Saddam Hussein. He even hinted that Saddam was hiding in Iran.
Ledeen, Franklin and Rhode were taking a page from Feith's playbook on Iraq: They needed a front group of exiles and dissidents to call for the overthrow of Iran. According to sources familiar with the meeting, the Americans discussed joining forces with the Mujahedin-e Khalq, an anti-Iranian guerrilla army operating out of Iraq.
There was only one small problem: The MEK had been certified by the State Department as a terrorist organization. In fact, the White House was in the midst of negotiations with Tehran, which was offering to extradite five members of Al Qaeda thought to be of high intelligence value in return for Washington's promise to drop all support for the MEK.
Ledeen denies any dealings with the group. "I wouldn't get within a hundred miles of the MEK," he says. "They have no following, no legitimacy." But neoconservatives were eager to undermine any deal that involved cooperating with Iran. To the neocons, the value of the MEK as a weapon against Tehran greatly outweighed any benefit that might be derived from interrogating the Al Qaeda operatives - even though they might provide intelligence on future terrorist attacks, as well as clues to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
Ledeen and his Pentagon cabal were not the only American officials to whom Ghorbanifar tried to funnel false intelligence on Iran. Last year, Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, claimed he had intelligence - from an "impeccable clandestine source" he code-named "Ali" - that the Iranian government was plotting to launch attacks against the United States. But when the CIA investigated the allegations, it turned out that Ali was Fereidoun Mahdavi, an Iranian exile who was serving as a frontman for Ghorbanifar and trying to shake down the CIA for $150,000. "He is a fabricator," said Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris. Weldon was furious: The agency had dismissed Ali, he insisted, "because they want to avoid, at all costs, drawing the United States into a war with Iran."
After the Rome rendezvous, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar continued to meet several times a year, often for a day or two at a time. Rhode also met with Ghorbanifar in Paris, and the Iranian phoned or faxed his Pentagon contacts almost every day. At one point Ledeen notified the Pentagon that Ghorbanifar knew of highly enriched uranium being moved from Iraq to Iran. At another point, in 2003, he claimed that Tehran was only a few months away from exploding a nuclear bomb - even though international experts estimate that Iran is years away from developing nuclear weapons. But the accuracy of the reports wasn't important - what mattered was their value in drumming up support for war. It was Iraq all over again.
IV. On the Trail of Mr. X
Such covert efforts by Feith's team in the Pentagon started to have the desired effect. In November 2003, Rumsfeld approved a plan known as CONPLAN 8022-02, which for the first time established a pre-emptive-strike capability against Iran. That was followed in 2004 by a top-secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" that put the military on a state of readiness to launch an airborne and missile attack against Iran, should Bush issue the command. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," said Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."
But as the Pentagon moved the country closer to war with Iran, the FBI was expanding its investigation of AIPAC and its role in the plot. David Szady, then the bureau's top spy-catcher, had become convinced that at least one American citizen working inside the U.S. government was spying for Israel. "It's no longer just our traditional adversaries who want to steal our secrets, but sometimes even our allies," Szady declared. "The threat is incredibly serious." To locate the spy sometimes referred to as Mr. X, agents working for Szady began focusing on a small group of neoconservatives in the Pentagon - including Feith, Ledeen and Rhode.
The FBI also had its sights on Larry Franklin, who continued to hold clandestine meetings with Rosen at AIPAC. Apparently nervous that the FBI might be on to them, the two men started taking precautions. On March 10th, 2003, barely a week before the invasion of Iraq, Rosen met Franklin in Washington's cavernous Union Station. The pair met at one restaurant, then they hustled to another, and finally they ended up in a third - this one totally empty. As an added precaution, Franklin also began sending faxes to Rosen's home instead of to his AIPAC offices.
A few days later, Rosen and Weissman passed on to Israeli-embassy officials details about the draft of the top-secret presidential directive on Iran, saying they had received the document from a "friend of ours in the Pentagon." They also relayed to the Israelis details about internal Bush-administration discussions on Iran. Then, two days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Rosen leaked the information to the press with the comment "I'm not supposed to know this." The Washington Post eventually published the story under the headline "Pressure Builds for President to Declare Strategy on Iran," crediting the classified information to "well-placed sources." The story mentioned Ledeen, who helped found the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, a pressure group dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian government, but gave no indication that the leak had come from someone with a definite agenda for planting the information.
That June, Weissman called Franklin and left a message that he and Rosen wanted to meet with him again and talk about "our favorite country." The meeting took place in the Tivoli Restaurant, a dimly lit establishment two floors above the metro station in Arlington that was frequently used by intelligence types for quiet rendezvous. Over lunch in the mirrored dining room, the three men discussed the Post article, and Rosen acknowledged "the constraints" Franklin was under to meet with them. But the Pentagon official placed himself fully at AIPAC's disposal. "You set the agenda," Franklin told Rosen.
In addition to meeting Rosen and Weissman, Franklin was also getting together regularly with Naor Gilon, an Israeli embassy official who, according to a senior U.S. counterintelligence official, "showed every sign of being an intelligence agent." Franklin and Gilon would normally meet amid the weight machines and punching bags at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club, where Franklin passed along secret information regarding Iran's activities in Iraq, its missile-testing program and even, apparently, New York Times reporter Judith Miller. At one point, Gilon suggested that Franklin meet with Uzi Arad, Mossad's former director of intelligence and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign-policy adviser. A week later, Franklin had lunch in the Pentagon cafeteria with the former top Israeli spy.
V. Iran's Double Agent
Larry Franklin, it turns out, wasn't the only person involved in the Pentagon's covert operation who was exchanging state secrets with other governments. As the FBI monitored Franklin and his clandestine dealings with AIPAC, it was also investigating another explosive case of espionage linked to Feith's office and Iran. This one focused on Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, the militant anti-Saddam opposition group that had worked for more than a decade to pressure the U.S. into invading Iraq.
For years, the National Security Agency had possessed the codes used by Iran to encrypt its diplomatic messages, enabling the U.S. government to eavesdrop on virtually every communication between Tehran and its embassies. After the U.S. invaded Baghdad, the NSA used the codes to listen in on details of Iran's covert operations inside Iraq. But in 2004, the agency intercepted a series of urgent messages from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Intelligence officials at the embassy had discovered the massive security breach - tipped off by someone familiar with the U.S. code-breaking operation.
The blow to intelligence-gathering could not have come at a worse time. The Bush administration suspected that the Shiite government in Iran was aiding Shiite insurgents in Iraq, who were killing U.S. soldiers. The administration was also worried that Tehran was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Now, crucial intelligence that might have shed light on those operations had been cut off, potentially endangering American lives.
On May 20th, shortly after the discovery of the leak, Iraqi police backed by American soldiers raided Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad. The FBI suspected that Chalabi, a Shiite who had a luxurious villa in Tehran and was close to senior Iranian officials, was actually working as a spy for the Shiite government of Iran. Getting the U.S. to invade Iraq was apparently part of a plan to install a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Baghdad, with Chalabi in charge. The bureau also suspected that Chalabi's intelligence chief had furnished Iran with highly classified information on U.S. troop movements, top-secret communications, plans of the provisional government and other closely guarded material on U.S. operations in Iraq. On the night of the raid, The CBS Evening News carried an exclusive report by correspondent Lesley Stahl that the U.S. government had "rock-solid" evidence that Chalabi had been passing extremely sensitive intelligence to Iran - evidence so sensitive that it could "get Americans killed."
The revelation shocked Franklin and other members of Feith's office. If true, the allegations meant that they had just launched a war to put into power an agent of their mortal enemy, Iran. Their man - the dissident leader who sat behind the first lady in the president's box during the State of the Union address in which Bush prepared the country for war - appeared to have been working for Iran all along.
Franklin needed to control the damage, and fast. He was one of the very few in the government who knew that it was the NSA code-breaking information that Chalabi was suspected of passing to Iran, and that there was absolute proof that Chalabi had met with a covert Iranian agent involved in operations against the U.S. To protect those in the Pentagon working for regime change in Tehran, Franklin needed to get out a simple message: We didn't know about Chalabi's secret dealings with Iran.
Franklin decided to leak the information to a friendly contact in the media: Adam Ciralsky, a CBS producer who had been fired from the CIA, allegedly for his close ties to Israel. On May 21st, the day after CBS broadcast its exclusive report on Chalabi, Franklin phoned Ciralsky and fed him the information. As the two men talked, eavesdroppers at the FBI's Washington field office recorded the conversation.
That night, Stahl followed up her original report with "new details" - the information leaked earlier that day by Franklin. She began, however, by making clear that she would not divulge the most explosive detail of all: the fact that Chalabi had wrecked the NSA's ability to eavesdrop on Iran. "Senior intelligence officials were stressing today that the information Ahmed Chalabi is alleged to have passed on to Iran is so seriously sensitive that the result of full disclosure would be highly damaging to U.S. security," Stahl said. "Because of that, we are not reporting the details of what exactly Chalabi is said to have compromised, at the request of U.S. officials at the highest levels. The information involves secrets that were held by only a handful of very senior intelligence officials." Thanks to the pressure from the administration, the public was prevented from learning the most damaging aspect of Chalabi's treachery.
Then Stahl moved on to Franklin's central message. "Meanwhile," she said, "we have been told that grave concerns about the true nature of Chalabi's relationship with Iran started after the U.S. obtained, quote, 'undeniable intelligence' that Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence officer, a, quote, 'nefarious figure from the dark side of the regime, an individual with a direct hand in covert operations against the United States.' Chalabi never reported this meeting to anyone in the U.S. government, including his friends and sponsors." In short, the Pentagon - and Feith's office in particular - was blameless.
VI. The Cabal's Triumph
Soon after the broadcast, David Szady's team at the FBI decided to wrap up its investigation before Franklin leaked any more information. Agents quietly confronted Franklin with the taped phone call and pressured him to cooperate in a sting operation directed at AIPAC and members of Feith's team in the Pentagon. Franklin, facing a long prison sentence, agreed. On August 4th, 2005, Rosen and Weissman were indicted, and on January 20th, 2006, Franklin, who had earlier pleaded guilty, was sentenced to twelve years and seven months in prison. In an attempt to reduce his sentence, he agreed to testify against the former AIPAC officials. The case is set to go to trial this fall.
So far, however, Franklin is the only member of Feith's team to face charges. The continuing lack of indictments demonstrates how frighteningly easy it is for a small group of government officials to join forces with agents of foreign powers - whether it is AIPAC or the MEK or the INC - to sell the country on a disastrous war.
The most glaring unindicted co-conspirator is Ahmed Chalabi. Even top-ranking Republicans suspect him of double dealing: "I wouldn't be surprised if he told Iranians facts, issues, whatever, that we did not want them to know," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who chairs the House subcommittee on national security. Yet the FBI has been unable to so much as question Chalabi as part of its ongoing espionage case. Last November, when Chalabi returned to the United States for a series of speeches and media events, the FBI tried to interview him. But because he was under State Department protection during his visit, sources in the Justice Department say, the bureau's request was flatly denied.
**maybe because the "cabal" is happier with a blind NSA, that way any lie that's made up can be believed**
"Chalabi's running around saying, 'I have nothing to hide,'" says one senior FBI official. "Yet he's using our State Department to keep us from him at the same time. And we've got to keep our mouth shut."
In the end, the work of Franklin and the other members of Feith's secret office had the desired effect. Working behind the scenes, the members of the Office of Special Plans succeeded in setting the United States on the path to all-out war with Iran. Indeed, since Bush was re-elected to a second term, he has made no secret of his desire to see Tehran fall. In a victory speech of sorts on Inauguration Day in January 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney warned bluntly that Iran was "right at the top" of the administration's list of "trouble spots" - and that Israel "might well decide to act first" by attacking Iran. The Israelis, Cheney added in an obvious swipe at moderates in the State Department, would "let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward."
Over the past six months, the administration has adopted almost all of the hard-line stance advocated by the war cabal in the Pentagon. In May, Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, appeared before AIPAC's annual conference and warned that Iran "must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences." To back up the tough talk, the State Department is spending $66 million to promote political change inside Iran - funding the same kind of dissident groups that helped drive the U.S. to war in Iraq. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared.
In addition, the State Department recently beefed up its Iran Desk from two people to ten, hired more Farsi speakers and set up eight intelligence units in foreign countries to focus on Iran. The administration's National Security Strategy - the official policy document that sets out U.S. strategic priorities - now calls Iran the "single country" that most threatens U.S. interests.
The shift in official policy has thrilled former members of the cabal. To them, the war in Lebanon represents the final step in their plan to turn Iran into the next Iraq. Ledeen, writing in the National Review on July 13th, could hardly restrain himself. "Faster, please," he urged the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it," he concluded. "There is no other way."
James Bamford is the author of A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies. His story for RS on consultant John Rendon, "The Man Who Sold the War" [RS 988], won the 2006 National Magazine Award for reporting.
Iran: The Next War
By James Bamford
Rolling Stone
Monday 24 July 2006
Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran.
How did the Bush administration sell the Iraq war? Is war with Iran unavoidable?
I. The Israeli Connection
A few blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue, the FBI's eight-story Washington field office exudes all the charm of a maximum-security prison. Its curved roof is made of thick stainless steel, the bottom three floors are wrapped in granite and limestone, hydraulic bollards protect the ramp to the four-floor garage, and bulletproof security booths guard the entrance to the narrow lobby. On the fourth floor, like a tomb within a tomb, lies the most secret room in the $100 million concrete fortress - out-of-bounds even for special agents without an escort. Here, in the Language Services Section, hundreds of linguists in padded earphones sit elbow-to-elbow in long rows, tapping computer keyboards as they eavesdrop on the phone lines of foreign embassies and other high-priority targets in the nation's capital.
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications that a rogue group of senior Pentagon officials were already conspiring to push the United States into another war - this time with Iran.
A few miles away, FBI agents watched as Larry Franklin, an Iran expert and career employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, drove up to the Ritz-Carlton hotel across the Potomac from Washington. A trim man of fifty-six, with a tangle of blond hair speckled gray, Franklin had left his modest home in Kearneysville, West Virginia, shortly before dawn that morning to make the eighty-mile commute to his job at the Pentagon. Since 2002, he had been working in the Office of Special Plans, a crowded warren of blue cubicles on the building's fifth floor. A secretive unit responsible for long-term planning and propaganda for the invasion of Iraq, the office's staffers referred to themselves as "the cabal." They reported to Douglas Feith, the third-most-powerful official in the Defense Department, helping to concoct the fraudulent intelligence reports that were driving America to war in Iraq.
Just two weeks before, in his State of the Union address, President Bush had begun laying the groundwork for the invasion, falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had the means to produce tens of thousands of biological and chemical weapons, including anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. But an attack on Iraq would require something that alarmed Franklin and other neoconservatives almost as much as weapons of mass destruction: detente with Iran. As political columnist David Broder reported in The Washington Post, moderates in the Bush administration were "covertly negotiating for Iran to stay quiet and offer help to refugees when we go into Iraq."
Franklin - a devout neoconservative who had been brought into Feith's office because of his political beliefs - was hoping to undermine those talks. As FBI agents looked on, Franklin entered the restaurant at the Ritz and joined two other Americans who were also looking for ways to push the U.S. into a war with Iran. One was Steven Rosen, one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington. Sixty years old and nearly bald, with dark eyebrows and a seemingly permanent frown, Rosen was director of foreign-policy issues at Israel's powerful lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Seated next to Rosen was AIPAC's Iran expert, Keith Weissman. He and Rosen had been working together closely for a decade to pressure U.S. officials and members of Congress to turn up the heat on Tehran.
Over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton, Franklin told the two lobbyists about a draft of a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive that dealt with U.S. policy on Iran. Crafted by Michael Rubin, the desk officer for Iraq and Iran in Feith's office, the document called, in essence, for regime change in Iran. In the Pentagon's view, according to one senior official there at the time, Iran was nothing but "a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice." So far, though, the White House had rejected the Pentagon's plan, favoring the State Department's more moderate position of diplomacy. Now, unwilling to play by the rules any longer, Franklin was taking the extraordinary - and illegal - step of passing on highly classified information to lobbyists for a foreign state. Unable to win the internal battle over Iran being waged within the administration, a member of Feith's secret unit in the Pentagon was effectively resorting to treason, recruiting AIPAC to use its enormous influence to pressure the president into adopting the draft directive and wage war against Iran.
It was a role that AIPAC was eager to play. Rosen, recognizing that Franklin could serve as a useful spy, immediately began plotting ways to plant him in the White House - specifically in the National Security Council, the epicenter of intelligence and national-security policy. By working there, Rosen told Franklin a few days later, he would be "by the elbow of the president."
Knowing that such a maneuver was well within AIPAC's capabilities, Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him. Rosen agreed. "I'll do what I can," he said, adding that the breakfast meeting had been a real "eye-opener."
Working together, the two men hoped to sell the United States on yet another bloody war. A few miles away, digital recorders at the FBI's Language Services Section captured every word.
II. The Guru and the Exile
In recent weeks, the attacks by Hezbollah on Israel have given neoconservatives in the Bush administration the pretext they were seeking to launch what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "World War III." Denouncing the bombings as "Iran's proxy war," William Kristol of The Weekly Standard is urging the Pentagon to counter "this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." According to Joseph Cirincione, an arms expert and the author of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, "The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a U.S. war against Syria, Iran or both."
But the Bush administration's hostility toward Iran is not simply an outgrowth of the current crisis. War with Iran has been in the works for the past five years, shaped in almost complete secrecy by a small group of senior Pentagon officials attached to the Office of Special Plans. The man who created the OSP was Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy. A former Middle East specialist on the National Security Council in the Reagan administration, Feith had long urged Israel to secure its borders in the Middle East by attacking Iraq and Iran. After Bush's election, Feith went to work to make that vision a reality, putting together a team of neoconservative hawks determined to drive the U.S. to attack Tehran. Before Bush had been in office a year, Feith's team had arranged a covert meeting in Rome with a group of Iranians to discuss their clandestine help.
The meeting was arranged by Michael Ledeen, a member of the cabal brought aboard by Feith because of his connections in Iran. Described by The Jerusalem Post as "Washington's neoconservative guru," Ledeen grew up in California during the 1940s. His father designed the air-conditioning system for Walt Disney Studios, and Ledeen spent much of his early life surrounded by a world of fantasy. "All through my childhood we were an adjunct of the Disney universe," he once recalled. "According to family legend, my mother was the model for Snow White, and we have a picture of her that does indeed look just like the movie character."
In 1977, after earning a Ph.D. in history and philosophy and teaching in Rome for two years, Ledeen became the first executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a pro-Israel pressure group that served as a flagship of the neoconservative movement. A few years later, after Reagan was elected, Ledeen had become prominent enough to earn a spot as a consultant to the National Security Council alongside Feith. There he played a central role in the worst scandal of Reagan's presidency: the covert deal to provide arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages being held in Lebanon. Ledeen served as the administration's intermediary with Israel in the illegal-arms deal. In 1985, he met with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a one-time Iranian carpet salesman who was widely believed to be an Israeli agent. The CIA considered Ghorbanifar a dangerous con man and had issued a "burn notice" recommending that no U.S. agency have any dealings with him. Unfazed, Ledeen called Ghorbanifar "one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." The two men brokered the arms exchange - a transaction that would result in the indictment of fourteen senior officials in the Reagan administration.
"It was awful - you know, bad things happened," Ledeen says now. "When Iran-Contra was over, I said, Boy, I'm never going to touch Iran again.'"
But in 2001, soon after he arrived at the Pentagon, Ledeen once again met with Ghorbanifar. This time, instead of selling missiles to the Iranian regime, the two men were exploring how best to topple it.
"The meeting in Rome came about because my friend Manucher Ghorbanifar called me up," Ledeen says. Stout and balding, with a scruffy white beard, Ledeen is sitting in the living room of his white-brick home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, smoking a Dominican cigar. His Airedale terrier, Thurber, roams the room protectively. In his first extensive interview about the covert Pentagon operation, Ledeen makes no secret of his desire to topple the government in Tehran. "I want to bring down the regime," he says. "I want the regime gone. It's a country that is fanatically devoted to our destruction."
When Ghorbanifar called Ledeen in the fall of 2001, he claimed, as he often does, to have explosive intelligence that was vital to U.S. interests. "There are Iranians who have firsthand information about Iranian plans to kill Americans in Afghanistan," he told Ledeen. "Does anyone want to hear about it?"
Ledeen took the information to Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser at the White House. "I know you're going to throw me out of the office," Ledeen told him, "and if I were you I would throw me out of the office too. But I promised that I would give you this option. Ghorbanifar has called me. He said these people are willing to come. Do you want anybody to go and talk to them?"
Hadley was interested. So was Zalmay Khalilzad, then the point man on Near East issues for the National Security Council and now the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. "I think we have to do this, we have to hear this," Hadley said. Ledeen had the green light: As he puts it, "Every element of the American government knew this was going to happen in advance."
III. The Meeting in Rome
Weeks later, in December, a plane carrying Ledeen traveled to Rome with two other members of Feith's secret Pentagon unit: Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, a protégé of Ledeen who has been called the "theoretician of the neocon movement." A specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish and Farsi, Rhode had experience with shady exiles like Ghorbanifar: He was close to Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi dissident whose discredited intelligence helped drive the Bush administration to invade Baghdad. According to UPI, Rhode himself was later observed by CIA operatives passing "mind-boggling" intelligence to Israel, including sensitive information about U.S. military deployments in Iraq.
Completing the rogues' gallery that assembled in Rome that day was the man who helped Ledeen arrange the meeting: Nicolò Pollari, the director of Italy's military intelligence. Only two months earlier, Pollari had informed the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had obtained uranium from West Africa - a key piece of false intelligence that Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
To hide the shadowy rendezvous in Rome, Pollari provided a well-protected safe house near the noisy espresso bars and busy trattorias that surround the Piazza di Spagna in central Rome. "It was in a private apartment," Ledeen recalls. "It was fucking freezing - it was unheated." The Pentagon operatives and the men from Iran sat at a dining-room table strewn with demitasse cups of blackish coffee, ashtrays littered with crushed cigarette butts and detailed maps of Iran, Iraq and Syria. "They gave us information about the location and plans of Iranian terrorists who were going to kill Americans," Ledeen says.
Ledeen insists the intelligence was on the mark. "It was true," he says. "The information was accurate." Not according to his boss. "There wasn't anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later conceded. "It went nowhere."
The men then turned their attention to their larger goal: regime change in Iran. Ghorbanifar suggested funding the overthrow of the Iranian government using hundreds of millions of dollars in cash supposedly hidden by Saddam Hussein. He even hinted that Saddam was hiding in Iran.
Ledeen, Franklin and Rhode were taking a page from Feith's playbook on Iraq: They needed a front group of exiles and dissidents to call for the overthrow of Iran. According to sources familiar with the meeting, the Americans discussed joining forces with the Mujahedin-e Khalq, an anti-Iranian guerrilla army operating out of Iraq.
There was only one small problem: The MEK had been certified by the State Department as a terrorist organization. In fact, the White House was in the midst of negotiations with Tehran, which was offering to extradite five members of Al Qaeda thought to be of high intelligence value in return for Washington's promise to drop all support for the MEK.
Ledeen denies any dealings with the group. "I wouldn't get within a hundred miles of the MEK," he says. "They have no following, no legitimacy." But neoconservatives were eager to undermine any deal that involved cooperating with Iran. To the neocons, the value of the MEK as a weapon against Tehran greatly outweighed any benefit that might be derived from interrogating the Al Qaeda operatives - even though they might provide intelligence on future terrorist attacks, as well as clues to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
Ledeen and his Pentagon cabal were not the only American officials to whom Ghorbanifar tried to funnel false intelligence on Iran. Last year, Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, claimed he had intelligence - from an "impeccable clandestine source" he code-named "Ali" - that the Iranian government was plotting to launch attacks against the United States. But when the CIA investigated the allegations, it turned out that Ali was Fereidoun Mahdavi, an Iranian exile who was serving as a frontman for Ghorbanifar and trying to shake down the CIA for $150,000. "He is a fabricator," said Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris. Weldon was furious: The agency had dismissed Ali, he insisted, "because they want to avoid, at all costs, drawing the United States into a war with Iran."
After the Rome rendezvous, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar continued to meet several times a year, often for a day or two at a time. Rhode also met with Ghorbanifar in Paris, and the Iranian phoned or faxed his Pentagon contacts almost every day. At one point Ledeen notified the Pentagon that Ghorbanifar knew of highly enriched uranium being moved from Iraq to Iran. At another point, in 2003, he claimed that Tehran was only a few months away from exploding a nuclear bomb - even though international experts estimate that Iran is years away from developing nuclear weapons. But the accuracy of the reports wasn't important - what mattered was their value in drumming up support for war. It was Iraq all over again.
IV. On the Trail of Mr. X
Such covert efforts by Feith's team in the Pentagon started to have the desired effect. In November 2003, Rumsfeld approved a plan known as CONPLAN 8022-02, which for the first time established a pre-emptive-strike capability against Iran. That was followed in 2004 by a top-secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" that put the military on a state of readiness to launch an airborne and missile attack against Iran, should Bush issue the command. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," said Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."
But as the Pentagon moved the country closer to war with Iran, the FBI was expanding its investigation of AIPAC and its role in the plot. David Szady, then the bureau's top spy-catcher, had become convinced that at least one American citizen working inside the U.S. government was spying for Israel. "It's no longer just our traditional adversaries who want to steal our secrets, but sometimes even our allies," Szady declared. "The threat is incredibly serious." To locate the spy sometimes referred to as Mr. X, agents working for Szady began focusing on a small group of neoconservatives in the Pentagon - including Feith, Ledeen and Rhode.
The FBI also had its sights on Larry Franklin, who continued to hold clandestine meetings with Rosen at AIPAC. Apparently nervous that the FBI might be on to them, the two men started taking precautions. On March 10th, 2003, barely a week before the invasion of Iraq, Rosen met Franklin in Washington's cavernous Union Station. The pair met at one restaurant, then they hustled to another, and finally they ended up in a third - this one totally empty. As an added precaution, Franklin also began sending faxes to Rosen's home instead of to his AIPAC offices.
A few days later, Rosen and Weissman passed on to Israeli-embassy officials details about the draft of the top-secret presidential directive on Iran, saying they had received the document from a "friend of ours in the Pentagon." They also relayed to the Israelis details about internal Bush-administration discussions on Iran. Then, two days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Rosen leaked the information to the press with the comment "I'm not supposed to know this." The Washington Post eventually published the story under the headline "Pressure Builds for President to Declare Strategy on Iran," crediting the classified information to "well-placed sources." The story mentioned Ledeen, who helped found the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, a pressure group dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian government, but gave no indication that the leak had come from someone with a definite agenda for planting the information.
That June, Weissman called Franklin and left a message that he and Rosen wanted to meet with him again and talk about "our favorite country." The meeting took place in the Tivoli Restaurant, a dimly lit establishment two floors above the metro station in Arlington that was frequently used by intelligence types for quiet rendezvous. Over lunch in the mirrored dining room, the three men discussed the Post article, and Rosen acknowledged "the constraints" Franklin was under to meet with them. But the Pentagon official placed himself fully at AIPAC's disposal. "You set the agenda," Franklin told Rosen.
In addition to meeting Rosen and Weissman, Franklin was also getting together regularly with Naor Gilon, an Israeli embassy official who, according to a senior U.S. counterintelligence official, "showed every sign of being an intelligence agent." Franklin and Gilon would normally meet amid the weight machines and punching bags at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club, where Franklin passed along secret information regarding Iran's activities in Iraq, its missile-testing program and even, apparently, New York Times reporter Judith Miller. At one point, Gilon suggested that Franklin meet with Uzi Arad, Mossad's former director of intelligence and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign-policy adviser. A week later, Franklin had lunch in the Pentagon cafeteria with the former top Israeli spy.
V. Iran's Double Agent
Larry Franklin, it turns out, wasn't the only person involved in the Pentagon's covert operation who was exchanging state secrets with other governments. As the FBI monitored Franklin and his clandestine dealings with AIPAC, it was also investigating another explosive case of espionage linked to Feith's office and Iran. This one focused on Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, the militant anti-Saddam opposition group that had worked for more than a decade to pressure the U.S. into invading Iraq.
For years, the National Security Agency had possessed the codes used by Iran to encrypt its diplomatic messages, enabling the U.S. government to eavesdrop on virtually every communication between Tehran and its embassies. After the U.S. invaded Baghdad, the NSA used the codes to listen in on details of Iran's covert operations inside Iraq. But in 2004, the agency intercepted a series of urgent messages from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Intelligence officials at the embassy had discovered the massive security breach - tipped off by someone familiar with the U.S. code-breaking operation.
The blow to intelligence-gathering could not have come at a worse time. The Bush administration suspected that the Shiite government in Iran was aiding Shiite insurgents in Iraq, who were killing U.S. soldiers. The administration was also worried that Tehran was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Now, crucial intelligence that might have shed light on those operations had been cut off, potentially endangering American lives.
On May 20th, shortly after the discovery of the leak, Iraqi police backed by American soldiers raided Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad. The FBI suspected that Chalabi, a Shiite who had a luxurious villa in Tehran and was close to senior Iranian officials, was actually working as a spy for the Shiite government of Iran. Getting the U.S. to invade Iraq was apparently part of a plan to install a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Baghdad, with Chalabi in charge. The bureau also suspected that Chalabi's intelligence chief had furnished Iran with highly classified information on U.S. troop movements, top-secret communications, plans of the provisional government and other closely guarded material on U.S. operations in Iraq. On the night of the raid, The CBS Evening News carried an exclusive report by correspondent Lesley Stahl that the U.S. government had "rock-solid" evidence that Chalabi had been passing extremely sensitive intelligence to Iran - evidence so sensitive that it could "get Americans killed."
The revelation shocked Franklin and other members of Feith's office. If true, the allegations meant that they had just launched a war to put into power an agent of their mortal enemy, Iran. Their man - the dissident leader who sat behind the first lady in the president's box during the State of the Union address in which Bush prepared the country for war - appeared to have been working for Iran all along.
Franklin needed to control the damage, and fast. He was one of the very few in the government who knew that it was the NSA code-breaking information that Chalabi was suspected of passing to Iran, and that there was absolute proof that Chalabi had met with a covert Iranian agent involved in operations against the U.S. To protect those in the Pentagon working for regime change in Tehran, Franklin needed to get out a simple message: We didn't know about Chalabi's secret dealings with Iran.
Franklin decided to leak the information to a friendly contact in the media: Adam Ciralsky, a CBS producer who had been fired from the CIA, allegedly for his close ties to Israel. On May 21st, the day after CBS broadcast its exclusive report on Chalabi, Franklin phoned Ciralsky and fed him the information. As the two men talked, eavesdroppers at the FBI's Washington field office recorded the conversation.
That night, Stahl followed up her original report with "new details" - the information leaked earlier that day by Franklin. She began, however, by making clear that she would not divulge the most explosive detail of all: the fact that Chalabi had wrecked the NSA's ability to eavesdrop on Iran. "Senior intelligence officials were stressing today that the information Ahmed Chalabi is alleged to have passed on to Iran is so seriously sensitive that the result of full disclosure would be highly damaging to U.S. security," Stahl said. "Because of that, we are not reporting the details of what exactly Chalabi is said to have compromised, at the request of U.S. officials at the highest levels. The information involves secrets that were held by only a handful of very senior intelligence officials." Thanks to the pressure from the administration, the public was prevented from learning the most damaging aspect of Chalabi's treachery.
Then Stahl moved on to Franklin's central message. "Meanwhile," she said, "we have been told that grave concerns about the true nature of Chalabi's relationship with Iran started after the U.S. obtained, quote, 'undeniable intelligence' that Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence officer, a, quote, 'nefarious figure from the dark side of the regime, an individual with a direct hand in covert operations against the United States.' Chalabi never reported this meeting to anyone in the U.S. government, including his friends and sponsors." In short, the Pentagon - and Feith's office in particular - was blameless.
VI. The Cabal's Triumph
Soon after the broadcast, David Szady's team at the FBI decided to wrap up its investigation before Franklin leaked any more information. Agents quietly confronted Franklin with the taped phone call and pressured him to cooperate in a sting operation directed at AIPAC and members of Feith's team in the Pentagon. Franklin, facing a long prison sentence, agreed. On August 4th, 2005, Rosen and Weissman were indicted, and on January 20th, 2006, Franklin, who had earlier pleaded guilty, was sentenced to twelve years and seven months in prison. In an attempt to reduce his sentence, he agreed to testify against the former AIPAC officials. The case is set to go to trial this fall.
So far, however, Franklin is the only member of Feith's team to face charges. The continuing lack of indictments demonstrates how frighteningly easy it is for a small group of government officials to join forces with agents of foreign powers - whether it is AIPAC or the MEK or the INC - to sell the country on a disastrous war.
The most glaring unindicted co-conspirator is Ahmed Chalabi. Even top-ranking Republicans suspect him of double dealing: "I wouldn't be surprised if he told Iranians facts, issues, whatever, that we did not want them to know," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who chairs the House subcommittee on national security. Yet the FBI has been unable to so much as question Chalabi as part of its ongoing espionage case. Last November, when Chalabi returned to the United States for a series of speeches and media events, the FBI tried to interview him. But because he was under State Department protection during his visit, sources in the Justice Department say, the bureau's request was flatly denied.
**maybe because the "cabal" is happier with a blind NSA, that way any lie that's made up can be believed**
"Chalabi's running around saying, 'I have nothing to hide,'" says one senior FBI official. "Yet he's using our State Department to keep us from him at the same time. And we've got to keep our mouth shut."
In the end, the work of Franklin and the other members of Feith's secret office had the desired effect. Working behind the scenes, the members of the Office of Special Plans succeeded in setting the United States on the path to all-out war with Iran. Indeed, since Bush was re-elected to a second term, he has made no secret of his desire to see Tehran fall. In a victory speech of sorts on Inauguration Day in January 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney warned bluntly that Iran was "right at the top" of the administration's list of "trouble spots" - and that Israel "might well decide to act first" by attacking Iran. The Israelis, Cheney added in an obvious swipe at moderates in the State Department, would "let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward."
Over the past six months, the administration has adopted almost all of the hard-line stance advocated by the war cabal in the Pentagon. In May, Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, appeared before AIPAC's annual conference and warned that Iran "must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences." To back up the tough talk, the State Department is spending $66 million to promote political change inside Iran - funding the same kind of dissident groups that helped drive the U.S. to war in Iraq. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared.
In addition, the State Department recently beefed up its Iran Desk from two people to ten, hired more Farsi speakers and set up eight intelligence units in foreign countries to focus on Iran. The administration's National Security Strategy - the official policy document that sets out U.S. strategic priorities - now calls Iran the "single country" that most threatens U.S. interests.
The shift in official policy has thrilled former members of the cabal. To them, the war in Lebanon represents the final step in their plan to turn Iran into the next Iraq. Ledeen, writing in the National Review on July 13th, could hardly restrain himself. "Faster, please," he urged the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it," he concluded. "There is no other way."
James Bamford is the author of A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies. His story for RS on consultant John Rendon, "The Man Who Sold the War" [RS 988], won the 2006 National Magazine Award for reporting.
US may increase Iraq force by delaying departures
washingtonpost
US may increase Iraq force by delaying departures
By Will Dunham
Reuters
Wednesday, July 26, 2006; 6:21 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military, faced with unrelenting violence in Baghdad, is expected to delay the departure of about 4,000 troops due to leave Iraq in the coming days in order to boost the size of the U.S. force, officials said on Wednesday.
In a sign that any significant cut in the 130,000-strong U.S. force in Iraq is unlikely soon, officials also said there are no plans to drop below the current level of 15 combat brigades this fall, as had previously been discussed.
The military, as it has been done periodically during the 3-year-old war, would temporarily increase the size of the U.S. force by extending the overlap between newly arriving units and those leaving.
A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said at least 200 troops from the Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, operating primarily in the Mosul area in northern Iraq, already had left Iraq after a yearlong deployment.
But the remaining roughly 3,700 troops are expected to have their departure delayed, the officials said. Officials could not say how long they will remain, but typically these delays have lasted a few weeks to a couple of months.
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that more U.S. and Iraqi troops would be deployed in Baghdad from other parts of Iraq to try to curb sectarian violence in the capital amid concern that the country is sliding toward civil war.
PENTAGON POLICY
Pentagon policy is for Army units to serve 12-month tours in Iraq and Marine Corps units to serve seven-month tours.
But at key times in the war -- for example, during Iraqi elections in 2005 and during the return of sovereignty in 2004 -- the Pentagon has delayed the departure of thousands of troops to beef up the American troop presence temporarily.
Officials said commanders in Iraq also were looking at shifting some troops from other parts of Iraq into Baghdad. In addition, 400 soldiers who had been held in reserve in Kuwait have been brought into the country, they said.
Another defense official said the idea would be to create "a momentary overlap of at least a brigade" -- meaning roughly 3,500 troops. Another official said the increase might be "from the low 3,000s to the high 4,000s."
A third defense official said there was concern over keeping troops, facing stress and peril, longer than they had expected. "It's always painful to try to tell a unit they are staying longer than they were supposed to stay," this official said.
Opinion polls show eroding U.S. public support for the war and Bush's handling of it as congressional elections approach in November. The U.S. military death toll in the war, which began in March 2003, stood at 2,565 on Wednesday, with 19,157 wounded, the Pentagon said.
Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, last month expressed confidence that the military would be able to cut the size of the U.S. force there over the rest of the year. Defense officials months ago had said one option was to drop to about 100,000 troops.
But Bush, Casey and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have emphasized that reductions in the U.S. force depended on the security situation in Iraq and the development of U.S-trained Iraqi government security forces.
(Additional reporting by Kristin Roberts)
© 2006 Reuters
US may increase Iraq force by delaying departures
By Will Dunham
Reuters
Wednesday, July 26, 2006; 6:21 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military, faced with unrelenting violence in Baghdad, is expected to delay the departure of about 4,000 troops due to leave Iraq in the coming days in order to boost the size of the U.S. force, officials said on Wednesday.
In a sign that any significant cut in the 130,000-strong U.S. force in Iraq is unlikely soon, officials also said there are no plans to drop below the current level of 15 combat brigades this fall, as had previously been discussed.
The military, as it has been done periodically during the 3-year-old war, would temporarily increase the size of the U.S. force by extending the overlap between newly arriving units and those leaving.
A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said at least 200 troops from the Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, operating primarily in the Mosul area in northern Iraq, already had left Iraq after a yearlong deployment.
But the remaining roughly 3,700 troops are expected to have their departure delayed, the officials said. Officials could not say how long they will remain, but typically these delays have lasted a few weeks to a couple of months.
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that more U.S. and Iraqi troops would be deployed in Baghdad from other parts of Iraq to try to curb sectarian violence in the capital amid concern that the country is sliding toward civil war.
PENTAGON POLICY
Pentagon policy is for Army units to serve 12-month tours in Iraq and Marine Corps units to serve seven-month tours.
But at key times in the war -- for example, during Iraqi elections in 2005 and during the return of sovereignty in 2004 -- the Pentagon has delayed the departure of thousands of troops to beef up the American troop presence temporarily.
Officials said commanders in Iraq also were looking at shifting some troops from other parts of Iraq into Baghdad. In addition, 400 soldiers who had been held in reserve in Kuwait have been brought into the country, they said.
Another defense official said the idea would be to create "a momentary overlap of at least a brigade" -- meaning roughly 3,500 troops. Another official said the increase might be "from the low 3,000s to the high 4,000s."
A third defense official said there was concern over keeping troops, facing stress and peril, longer than they had expected. "It's always painful to try to tell a unit they are staying longer than they were supposed to stay," this official said.
Opinion polls show eroding U.S. public support for the war and Bush's handling of it as congressional elections approach in November. The U.S. military death toll in the war, which began in March 2003, stood at 2,565 on Wednesday, with 19,157 wounded, the Pentagon said.
Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, last month expressed confidence that the military would be able to cut the size of the U.S. force there over the rest of the year. Defense officials months ago had said one option was to drop to about 100,000 troops.
But Bush, Casey and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have emphasized that reductions in the U.S. force depended on the security situation in Iraq and the development of U.S-trained Iraqi government security forces.
(Additional reporting by Kristin Roberts)
© 2006 Reuters
Mysterious wounds from Israeli shells in Gaza
Middle East Online
Mysterious wounds from Israeli shells in Gaza
Palestinians accuse Israel of using new bombs that cause burn injuries never seen before.
By Jennie Matthew - GAZA CITY
"When the bomb exploded from the plane. I felt I was in hell. Real hell," shouts 31-year-old Ghassan stabbing the air with his finger and straining over the side of his grubby hospital bed.
Professing allegiance to Palestinian national security but parroting ideology atune to armed factions, Ghassan went to Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp last week to fight the Israelis during a particularly bloody incursion.
"I feel chemicals. I feel high heat, I feel high pain," he elaborates in English, both legs heavily bandaged, as patients and visitors brush past in a crowded corridor of Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital.
"They found shrapnel with 'test' written on it," he shouts.
Accusations abound that the Israelis, pressing a nearly five-week offensive in which 130 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, are using a new weapon.
Doctors say they have never before seen such specific burn injuries, concentrated so much on the lower body and causing such a high propensity of amputations. The health ministry has already called for an independent inquiry.
A French humanitarian group reported unusually severe injuries. One of its doctors reportedly raised the possibility that Israel used cluster bombs.
In response to a query about use of a new type of weapon possibly containing chemicals, the army said only that "specific claims are being checked".
"The IDF (Israel Defence Force) use of weapon and ammunition conforms with international law," it said in a statement.
But the Palestinian health ministry spokesman said that "we are sure that the occupation forces are using bombs that are forbidden under international law."
At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Habes el-Wehedi, a softly spoken senior surgeon, said medical staff were "amazed" by injuries of more than 30 percent of the wounded admitted from Maghazi.
"There were amputations of limbs. Most patients were afflicted below the waist. They had burns all over their lower limb," he said.
Others were afflicted by what he described as "translucent shrapnel not shown by X-ray" that caused burns.
Wehedi studied in Romania and throughout his 20 years in emergency medicine in Gaza and Jerusalem says this is the first time he's seen such wounds.
A piece of plastic with the word "test" written on it had been found. "I think it was in one of the patient's wounds or something like that. One of the nurses came to me. I saw it myself and touched it with my hand."
Admitting there are no analysis laboratories in the poorly equipped hospital, he confesses he has no concrete proof only "suspicion" that the Israelis shelled something other than the usual tank and plane fodder.
"As far as we are concerned, this is a new weapon for us. This could be phosphorus, chemicals or a mix, but until we find out and conduct an analysis we can't say what type exactly," he said.
Visiting two patients bearing the hallmarks of such injuries who have not yet been discharged or sent for referral, Wehedi gently points out the injuries on a 16 and 17-year-old boy.
Ismail el-Sawaferi's lower legs, torso and face are splattered everywhere with flecks of burn. His thighs and abdomen are heavily bandaged. The 17-year-old said he was standing in a group attacked from the air.
"I saw a light shinning in my face. I couldn't hear anything. I was deaf. I lost my clothes and after that I woke up in the emergency room," he said.
Wehedi's suspicions are backed up by fellow Deir al-Balah hospital doctor Ismail Bashir, 40, who has been working in emergency medicine since the first Palestinian uprising broke out in 1987.
Stuart Shepherd from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said "some kind of inquiry" was needed, confirming that the Palestinian health ministry had already requested an independent commission of inquiry.
French group Medecins du Monde said its emergency doctor, Regis Garrigues, who has traveled regularly to Gaza "noted the particular gravity and severity of injuries" from the latest conflict.
Garrigues was quoted as telling French newspaper Liberation that "this resembles the effects of cluster bombs", particularly dangerous because they have a high level of duds that can explode much later after the attack.
The US-based rights group, Human Rights Watch, also accused Israel of using artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon.
Mysterious wounds from Israeli shells in Gaza
Palestinians accuse Israel of using new bombs that cause burn injuries never seen before.
By Jennie Matthew - GAZA CITY
"When the bomb exploded from the plane. I felt I was in hell. Real hell," shouts 31-year-old Ghassan stabbing the air with his finger and straining over the side of his grubby hospital bed.
Professing allegiance to Palestinian national security but parroting ideology atune to armed factions, Ghassan went to Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp last week to fight the Israelis during a particularly bloody incursion.
"I feel chemicals. I feel high heat, I feel high pain," he elaborates in English, both legs heavily bandaged, as patients and visitors brush past in a crowded corridor of Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital.
"They found shrapnel with 'test' written on it," he shouts.
Accusations abound that the Israelis, pressing a nearly five-week offensive in which 130 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, are using a new weapon.
Doctors say they have never before seen such specific burn injuries, concentrated so much on the lower body and causing such a high propensity of amputations. The health ministry has already called for an independent inquiry.
A French humanitarian group reported unusually severe injuries. One of its doctors reportedly raised the possibility that Israel used cluster bombs.
In response to a query about use of a new type of weapon possibly containing chemicals, the army said only that "specific claims are being checked".
"The IDF (Israel Defence Force) use of weapon and ammunition conforms with international law," it said in a statement.
But the Palestinian health ministry spokesman said that "we are sure that the occupation forces are using bombs that are forbidden under international law."
At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Habes el-Wehedi, a softly spoken senior surgeon, said medical staff were "amazed" by injuries of more than 30 percent of the wounded admitted from Maghazi.
"There were amputations of limbs. Most patients were afflicted below the waist. They had burns all over their lower limb," he said.
Others were afflicted by what he described as "translucent shrapnel not shown by X-ray" that caused burns.
Wehedi studied in Romania and throughout his 20 years in emergency medicine in Gaza and Jerusalem says this is the first time he's seen such wounds.
A piece of plastic with the word "test" written on it had been found. "I think it was in one of the patient's wounds or something like that. One of the nurses came to me. I saw it myself and touched it with my hand."
Admitting there are no analysis laboratories in the poorly equipped hospital, he confesses he has no concrete proof only "suspicion" that the Israelis shelled something other than the usual tank and plane fodder.
"As far as we are concerned, this is a new weapon for us. This could be phosphorus, chemicals or a mix, but until we find out and conduct an analysis we can't say what type exactly," he said.
Visiting two patients bearing the hallmarks of such injuries who have not yet been discharged or sent for referral, Wehedi gently points out the injuries on a 16 and 17-year-old boy.
Ismail el-Sawaferi's lower legs, torso and face are splattered everywhere with flecks of burn. His thighs and abdomen are heavily bandaged. The 17-year-old said he was standing in a group attacked from the air.
"I saw a light shinning in my face. I couldn't hear anything. I was deaf. I lost my clothes and after that I woke up in the emergency room," he said.
Wehedi's suspicions are backed up by fellow Deir al-Balah hospital doctor Ismail Bashir, 40, who has been working in emergency medicine since the first Palestinian uprising broke out in 1987.
Stuart Shepherd from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said "some kind of inquiry" was needed, confirming that the Palestinian health ministry had already requested an independent commission of inquiry.
French group Medecins du Monde said its emergency doctor, Regis Garrigues, who has traveled regularly to Gaza "noted the particular gravity and severity of injuries" from the latest conflict.
Garrigues was quoted as telling French newspaper Liberation that "this resembles the effects of cluster bombs", particularly dangerous because they have a high level of duds that can explode much later after the attack.
The US-based rights group, Human Rights Watch, also accused Israel of using artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon.
US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces
WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM
US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces
Posted Jul 27, 2006 09:07 AM PST
US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces
Posted Jul 27, 2006 09:07 AM PST
Translation: US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Israel Prepares To Attack Syria and make it look like Syria attacked first (which is why that pesky UN Observation Post had to be bombed).
**ps---the USS Liberty was bombed because it had intel that Israel, not Egypt, started that war. Wonder if the IDF will be content just bombing a UN post this time?**
**ps---the USS Liberty was bombed because it had intel that Israel, not Egypt, started that war. Wonder if the IDF will be content just bombing a UN post this time?**
Israel holds Canadian accused of being 'Hezbollah' spy- CBC.ca
CBC.ca
Israel holds Canadian accused of being Hezbollah spy
Last Updated Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:32:38 EDT
CBC News
The family of a professor accused of being a Hezbollah spy says the Canadian government has abandoned them as they try to learn more about his fate.
A 2006 photo provided by his family shows Akron University Prof. Ghazi Falah. (Associated Press)
Gahzi Falah, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio who formerly taught at the University of Toronto, was arrested in northern Israel near the Lebanese border in early July. Falah has both Canadian and Israeli citizenship.
"He was taking pictures of Israeli installations along the northern border," said Nancy Goldfarb, spokeswoman for the Israeli Consulate General in Philadelphia to the Associated Press on Wednesday. "He was arrested on suspicion that his pictures were taken for intelligence purposes. Currently, he is still under investigation and I don't know whether he will be indicted."
An Israeli court extended Falah's detention through Sunday and an appeal is scheduled for Thursday in Haifa, according to his lawyer in Israel, Husein abu-Husein.
Falah's son, Naail, told CBC News that the family's daily calls to Foreign Affairs have been ignored.
"I've seen more effort done by the American government than I have from the Canadian government, and we are not American citizens," he said.
Alan Baker, Israel's ambassador to Canada, said he first heard about the case this week.
"I was approached by some members of Parliament yesterday, and I passed their request on to Jerusalem, and as soon as I get an answer I will be in a position to reply," Baker said on Wednesday.
A renowned Middle East geographer, Falah often takes pictures of landmarks for his work, according to his son.
"If he is detained on the basis of his academics, it's a sad situation for Israel, because academic freedom should be respected all around the world," Naail Falah said.
He said that his father considers himself pro-Palestinian and has written articles critical of Israeli policies in the past, but is not a security threat.
Abu-Husein said he was only able to visit his client for the first time on Wednesday.
With files from Associated Press
Israel holds Canadian accused of being Hezbollah spy
Last Updated Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:32:38 EDT
CBC News
The family of a professor accused of being a Hezbollah spy says the Canadian government has abandoned them as they try to learn more about his fate.
A 2006 photo provided by his family shows Akron University Prof. Ghazi Falah. (Associated Press)
Gahzi Falah, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio who formerly taught at the University of Toronto, was arrested in northern Israel near the Lebanese border in early July. Falah has both Canadian and Israeli citizenship.
"He was taking pictures of Israeli installations along the northern border," said Nancy Goldfarb, spokeswoman for the Israeli Consulate General in Philadelphia to the Associated Press on Wednesday. "He was arrested on suspicion that his pictures were taken for intelligence purposes. Currently, he is still under investigation and I don't know whether he will be indicted."
An Israeli court extended Falah's detention through Sunday and an appeal is scheduled for Thursday in Haifa, according to his lawyer in Israel, Husein abu-Husein.
Falah's son, Naail, told CBC News that the family's daily calls to Foreign Affairs have been ignored.
"I've seen more effort done by the American government than I have from the Canadian government, and we are not American citizens," he said.
Alan Baker, Israel's ambassador to Canada, said he first heard about the case this week.
"I was approached by some members of Parliament yesterday, and I passed their request on to Jerusalem, and as soon as I get an answer I will be in a position to reply," Baker said on Wednesday.
A renowned Middle East geographer, Falah often takes pictures of landmarks for his work, according to his son.
"If he is detained on the basis of his academics, it's a sad situation for Israel, because academic freedom should be respected all around the world," Naail Falah said.
He said that his father considers himself pro-Palestinian and has written articles critical of Israeli policies in the past, but is not a security threat.
Abu-Husein said he was only able to visit his client for the first time on Wednesday.
With files from Associated Press
Could U.S. Troops End Up in Lebanon? (Harpers.org)
(Harpers.org)
Could U.S. Troops End Up in Lebanon?
Posted on Wednesday, July 26, 2006. By Ken Silverstein.
There's much discussion of putting a multinational, NATO-led force in southern Lebanon as part of a ceasefire agreement in the Israel–Lebanon conflict, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to a story in the Washington Post, has said that she does “not think that it is anticipated that U.S. ground forces . . . are expected for that force.” However, a well-connected former CIA officer has told me that the Bush Administration is in fact considering exactly such a deployment.
The officer, who had broad experience in the Middle East while at the CIA, noted that NATO and European countries, including England, have made clear that they are either unwilling or extremely reluctant to participate in an international force. Given other nations' lack of commitment, any “robust” force—between 10,000 and 30,000 troops, according to estimates being discussed in the media—would by definition require major U.S. participation. According to the former official, Israel and the United States are currently discussing a large American role in exactly such a “multinational” deployment, and some top administration officials, along with senior civilians at the Pentagon, are receptive to the idea.
The uniformed military, however, is ardently opposed to sending American soldiers to the region, according to my source. “They are saying 'What the fuck?'” he told me. “Most of our combat-ready divisions are in Iraq or Afghanistan, or on their way, or coming back. The generals don't like it because we're already way overstretched.”
Sending American soldiers is at this point simply an option and by is no means a certainty, but if the administration decides to move forward, my source said, “It would be viewed in the Arab world as the United States picking up a combat role on behalf of Israel.” And as Mahan Abedin, Director of Research at the Centre for the Study Of Terrorism in London, noted in an email he sent me yesterday, any deployment of peacekeepers to southern Lebanon “would require the acquiescence of Hezbollah. There are no indications [that] this will be forthcoming, not least because such a force could potentially lay the groundwork for Hezbollah's disarmament.”
The former CIA officer said that the Bush Administration seems not to understand Hezbollah's deep roots and broad support among Lebanon's Shiites, the country's largest single ethnic bloc. “A U.S. force is going to end up making, not keeping, peace with Hezbollah. Once you start fighting in a place like that you’re basically at war with the Shiite population. That means that our soldiers are going to be getting shot at by Hezbollah. This would be a sheer disaster for us.”
The scenario of an American deployment appears to come straight out of the neoconservative playbook: send U.S. forces into the Middle East, regardless of what our own military leaders suggest, in order to “stabilize” the region. The chances of success, as we have seen in Iraq, are remote. So what should be done? My source said the situation is so volatile at the moment that the only smart policy is to get an immediate ceasefire and worry about the terms of a lasting truce afterwards.
Could U.S. Troops End Up in Lebanon?
Posted on Wednesday, July 26, 2006. By Ken Silverstein.
There's much discussion of putting a multinational, NATO-led force in southern Lebanon as part of a ceasefire agreement in the Israel–Lebanon conflict, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to a story in the Washington Post, has said that she does “not think that it is anticipated that U.S. ground forces . . . are expected for that force.” However, a well-connected former CIA officer has told me that the Bush Administration is in fact considering exactly such a deployment.
The officer, who had broad experience in the Middle East while at the CIA, noted that NATO and European countries, including England, have made clear that they are either unwilling or extremely reluctant to participate in an international force. Given other nations' lack of commitment, any “robust” force—between 10,000 and 30,000 troops, according to estimates being discussed in the media—would by definition require major U.S. participation. According to the former official, Israel and the United States are currently discussing a large American role in exactly such a “multinational” deployment, and some top administration officials, along with senior civilians at the Pentagon, are receptive to the idea.
The uniformed military, however, is ardently opposed to sending American soldiers to the region, according to my source. “They are saying 'What the fuck?'” he told me. “Most of our combat-ready divisions are in Iraq or Afghanistan, or on their way, or coming back. The generals don't like it because we're already way overstretched.”
Sending American soldiers is at this point simply an option and by is no means a certainty, but if the administration decides to move forward, my source said, “It would be viewed in the Arab world as the United States picking up a combat role on behalf of Israel.” And as Mahan Abedin, Director of Research at the Centre for the Study Of Terrorism in London, noted in an email he sent me yesterday, any deployment of peacekeepers to southern Lebanon “would require the acquiescence of Hezbollah. There are no indications [that] this will be forthcoming, not least because such a force could potentially lay the groundwork for Hezbollah's disarmament.”
The former CIA officer said that the Bush Administration seems not to understand Hezbollah's deep roots and broad support among Lebanon's Shiites, the country's largest single ethnic bloc. “A U.S. force is going to end up making, not keeping, peace with Hezbollah. Once you start fighting in a place like that you’re basically at war with the Shiite population. That means that our soldiers are going to be getting shot at by Hezbollah. This would be a sheer disaster for us.”
The scenario of an American deployment appears to come straight out of the neoconservative playbook: send U.S. forces into the Middle East, regardless of what our own military leaders suggest, in order to “stabilize” the region. The chances of success, as we have seen in Iraq, are remote. So what should be done? My source said the situation is so volatile at the moment that the only smart policy is to get an immediate ceasefire and worry about the terms of a lasting truce afterwards.
No Exit - Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone
Yahoo! News
No Exit
American citizens are caught in the crossfire in southern Lebanon while trying to flee the fighting.
By Kevin Sites, Tue Jul 25, 8:56 PM ET
TYRE, Lebanon - For the Chahines of Dearborn, Mich., spending summers in south Lebanon is a family tradition. It also helps to keep them in touch with their Arabic heritage. But this summer that tradition almost cost them their lives.
The Chahines were in the village of Yaroun near the Israeli border when fighting began, sparked by a cross-border raid in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed several others. In the two weeks since,
Israel has launched a fierce offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah has responded with missile assaults on towns in northern Israel.
Fear and frustration for Americans trapped in southern Lebanon » View
As casualties mount on both sides, Israeli troops are now engaged in a limited ground offensive in southern Lebanon, in a bid to neutralize deeply-entrenched Hezbollah forces. The suffering here in southern Lebanon continues to grow.
The Chahines spent a week moving from house to house in southern Lebanon, staying with relatives, trying to find a way out, the violence getting closer each day.
"I left my clothes in the trunk of the car," says Mr. Chahine, who only wanted to be identified by his last name. "That night it was hit by an Israeli missile where it was parked. Everything burned. That's why I've been wearing the same clothes for the last seven days."
Today, along with 100 others in an eleven-car convoy, the Chahines finally reached the city of Tyre, a waystation in a long journey they all hope will lead back to America. They are all American citizens, either naturalized or born in the U.S., summering in the same village and now desperately trying to escape the violence.
They say they were told by the U.S. Embassy to go to a hotel in Tyre called the Rest House, where a small
United Nations contingent is based.
When they reach the hotel, nineteen-year-old Zeinab Chahine, a pharmacy student, is overcome by the stress of the ordeal.
"Make them stop, make them stop, people are dying," she says, beginning to cry. "I'm American. I was born in America. Why do they do this to me, why?"
Zeinab Shahen, from Los Angeles, was also staying in Yaroun for the summer with her husband and four children. She arrived at the Rest House with the others, but says she had a close call when the Israelis fired a rocket near one of the vehicles they were riding in.
"Where the rocket hit it didn't damage the car much, luckily," says Zeinab. "They're using bombs, phosphorous or something. It burns. It melts. They're burning people inside their houses. They're burning cars, they're melting cars. No one can leave. We barely made it."
The Americans that made the trip are tired, hungry and shell-shocked, but even though they're safe for the moment, their first concern is those they had to leave behind.
Kevin Sites surveys the damage around Tyre. » View
"There are so many Americans still down there," says Zeinab Shaheen. "There weren't enough vehicles to get them out. And they don't have anything. There's no food, no water, they're desperate."
"I didn't see any Hezbollah fighters in our village," says Mr. Chahine, "so why are they bombing there?"
Mr. Chahine, who came to the U.S. 32 years ago, built a business and raised a family there. "I love America," he says. "My children were born there. But the U.S. needs to protect its citizens in this case and help get us home."
One of Mr. Chahine's other daughters, Fatme, and her eleven-month-old daughter, Batoul, also made the trip up from Yaroun.
"She's been so good," says Fatme, holding her daughter in her arms, "but when she hears the big explosions, she get scared and starts to cry. I have to be strong for her."
The hotel is allowing the group of Americans to stay in a large room under the pool house until the American Embassy can find a way to evacuate them. The U.S. says it is doing all it can.
"We are working with the Lebanese internal security forces, the Israeli Defense Forces, U.N. personnel and governments of other nations to assist Americans in departing southern Lebanon safely," says State Dept. spokesman Kurtis Cooper.
Cooper said the U.S. has helped evacuate about 500 Americans from the south so far, and remains in contact with about 100 more — though it's not clear if that includes the Chahines and others who just arrived in Tyre. With Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon making road journeys dangerous, if not impossible, Cooper said he couldn't give specifics about the next step in their journey home.
"What I can say is if you're in southern Lebanon and you want to get out, then call the embassy, and we will tell you what you have to do, we will assist you in getting out," Cooper said.
But at the Rest House, food and water is short and many evacuees are still shaken by the perilous nature of their journey so far.
Stranded in Lebanon
Some of the older men lie on the plastic chaise lounges and make phone calls to relatives in America while children play nearby.
One husband and wife both sit with their faces in their hands, crying, while their children sit nearby, staring at them and wondering what to do.
One man named Hassan is trying to organize a trip to go back to Yaroun with some of the cars and try to pick up the people still left in the village, including his mother.
But just as he gets ready to leave, someone gets a text message on the telephone saying that the Israeli military is on the outskirts of the village and may enter Yaroun.
It's too dangerous now, people tell him — it's better to wait and see what happens.
And for the rest of the Americans here, safe but stranded between their homeland and home, for now, waiting is all they can do.
No Exit
American citizens are caught in the crossfire in southern Lebanon while trying to flee the fighting.
By Kevin Sites, Tue Jul 25, 8:56 PM ET
TYRE, Lebanon - For the Chahines of Dearborn, Mich., spending summers in south Lebanon is a family tradition. It also helps to keep them in touch with their Arabic heritage. But this summer that tradition almost cost them their lives.
The Chahines were in the village of Yaroun near the Israeli border when fighting began, sparked by a cross-border raid in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed several others. In the two weeks since,
Israel has launched a fierce offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah has responded with missile assaults on towns in northern Israel.
Fear and frustration for Americans trapped in southern Lebanon » View
As casualties mount on both sides, Israeli troops are now engaged in a limited ground offensive in southern Lebanon, in a bid to neutralize deeply-entrenched Hezbollah forces. The suffering here in southern Lebanon continues to grow.
The Chahines spent a week moving from house to house in southern Lebanon, staying with relatives, trying to find a way out, the violence getting closer each day.
"I left my clothes in the trunk of the car," says Mr. Chahine, who only wanted to be identified by his last name. "That night it was hit by an Israeli missile where it was parked. Everything burned. That's why I've been wearing the same clothes for the last seven days."
Today, along with 100 others in an eleven-car convoy, the Chahines finally reached the city of Tyre, a waystation in a long journey they all hope will lead back to America. They are all American citizens, either naturalized or born in the U.S., summering in the same village and now desperately trying to escape the violence.
They say they were told by the U.S. Embassy to go to a hotel in Tyre called the Rest House, where a small
United Nations contingent is based.
When they reach the hotel, nineteen-year-old Zeinab Chahine, a pharmacy student, is overcome by the stress of the ordeal.
"Make them stop, make them stop, people are dying," she says, beginning to cry. "I'm American. I was born in America. Why do they do this to me, why?"
Zeinab Shahen, from Los Angeles, was also staying in Yaroun for the summer with her husband and four children. She arrived at the Rest House with the others, but says she had a close call when the Israelis fired a rocket near one of the vehicles they were riding in.
"Where the rocket hit it didn't damage the car much, luckily," says Zeinab. "They're using bombs, phosphorous or something. It burns. It melts. They're burning people inside their houses. They're burning cars, they're melting cars. No one can leave. We barely made it."
The Americans that made the trip are tired, hungry and shell-shocked, but even though they're safe for the moment, their first concern is those they had to leave behind.
Kevin Sites surveys the damage around Tyre. » View
"There are so many Americans still down there," says Zeinab Shaheen. "There weren't enough vehicles to get them out. And they don't have anything. There's no food, no water, they're desperate."
"I didn't see any Hezbollah fighters in our village," says Mr. Chahine, "so why are they bombing there?"
Mr. Chahine, who came to the U.S. 32 years ago, built a business and raised a family there. "I love America," he says. "My children were born there. But the U.S. needs to protect its citizens in this case and help get us home."
One of Mr. Chahine's other daughters, Fatme, and her eleven-month-old daughter, Batoul, also made the trip up from Yaroun.
"She's been so good," says Fatme, holding her daughter in her arms, "but when she hears the big explosions, she get scared and starts to cry. I have to be strong for her."
The hotel is allowing the group of Americans to stay in a large room under the pool house until the American Embassy can find a way to evacuate them. The U.S. says it is doing all it can.
"We are working with the Lebanese internal security forces, the Israeli Defense Forces, U.N. personnel and governments of other nations to assist Americans in departing southern Lebanon safely," says State Dept. spokesman Kurtis Cooper.
Cooper said the U.S. has helped evacuate about 500 Americans from the south so far, and remains in contact with about 100 more — though it's not clear if that includes the Chahines and others who just arrived in Tyre. With Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon making road journeys dangerous, if not impossible, Cooper said he couldn't give specifics about the next step in their journey home.
"What I can say is if you're in southern Lebanon and you want to get out, then call the embassy, and we will tell you what you have to do, we will assist you in getting out," Cooper said.
But at the Rest House, food and water is short and many evacuees are still shaken by the perilous nature of their journey so far.
Stranded in Lebanon
Some of the older men lie on the plastic chaise lounges and make phone calls to relatives in America while children play nearby.
One husband and wife both sit with their faces in their hands, crying, while their children sit nearby, staring at them and wondering what to do.
One man named Hassan is trying to organize a trip to go back to Yaroun with some of the cars and try to pick up the people still left in the village, including his mother.
But just as he gets ready to leave, someone gets a text message on the telephone saying that the Israeli military is on the outskirts of the village and may enter Yaroun.
It's too dangerous now, people tell him — it's better to wait and see what happens.
And for the rest of the Americans here, safe but stranded between their homeland and home, for now, waiting is all they can do.
AlterNet: Did Israel Attack the U.N. 'Accidentally on Purpose'?
AlterNet
Did Israel Attack the U.N. 'Accidentally on Purpose'?
By Ian Williams, AlterNet
Posted on July 27, 2006, Printed on July 27, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39518/
With the Israeli bombing of a U.N. camp and the killing of four U.N. peacekeepers, we really do seem to be in a "deja vu" all over again phase. Already Kofi Annan is under attack for condemning the "apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. Observer post."
It is reminiscent of the trouble his predecessor Boutros Boutros-Ghali got himself into last time the Israelis tried shock and awe on Lebanon back in 1996, when he failed to suppress a report that said pretty much the same thing about the IDF shelling of the U.N. post in Qana, which macerated some 106 Lebanese civilians to death.
It is worth remembering that of all U.N. secretaries-general, Annan has done the most to end Israel's isolation in the organization and maintained the closest relations with Israel's friends in the United States. In the end, however, he is also a secretary-general who sets great store by protecting U.N. staff, and so the palpable anger of his statement is entirely understandable.
"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire. Furthermore, Gen. Alain Pellegrino, the U.N. force commander in southern Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack."
So to accept it was yet another accident presupposes a level of incompetence or insubordination in the Israeli army that should result in some serious courts-martial but never does. That feeling was doubtless exacerbated when the IDF shelled the site and prevented a rescue operation.
So what could be the motive? It is clear that there are many in the IDF with a profound contempt for the United Nations and all it stands for, and who would not shed many tears at such an accident. It may also rankle that UNIFIL has, with the dearth of Western reporters in much of southern Lebanon, provided independent corroboration of many incidents of IDF attacks on civilians. One only has to think of the fate of the USS Liberty in 1967 for being in a position to observe what the IDF was up to when the Israelis bombed and shelled an American ship for over an hour, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 170 more.
And most sinisterly of all, there are many Israelis -- including the government only a few days ago, who do not want an international force between them and their targets in Lebanon, who would have no great scruples about bombing a U.N. compound "accidentally on purpose."
This time, the "collateral damage" is not just four dead U.N. personnel. The bombing scotches any realistic chance of a reinforced U.N. or multinational peacekeeping force -- which it is worth remembering that Israel itself opposed until a few days ago, and which the war party in Israel sees as a potential obstacle to its attempts to emulate Ariel Sharon's disastrous invasion in 1982. (See the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom's ad in Ha-Aretz at the end of the article.)
Already, while many countries have endorsed the general idea of putting foreign troops on the Lebanese side of the border, there has been a complete lack of specific volunteers -- for the understandable reasons that the attack on Khiyam now so forcibly demonstrates.
Third-world militaries like the Fijians and Ghanaians make lots of money out of providing peacekeepers for UNIFIL and seem to think weekly humiliation by the Israelis and Hezbollah is worth it. There are few serious military powers that would tolerate sending their troops for IDF target practice, let alone Hezbollah attacks. And who knows? If any were so bold as to put in contingents, they may well stand up to Israeli incursions as well.
Some Israel supporters are already arguing that the bombing could not have been deliberate because it was a public relations disaster for Israel. Excuse me, but only an American or Israeli commentator could say that. Manifestly, for the rest of the world, the whole Israeli campaign is a PR disaster, with massive majorities even in Blair's Britain regarding the Israeli attack as a massively disproportionate reaction, let alone how Israel's assault is turning Hezbollah into the toast of the Third World. There is some added piquancy that both the Lebanese and Iraqi prime ministers (until this week at least champions of the democratic "New Middle East") are condemning Israel's assault.
Condoleezza Rice's statement that it is "too early" for a ceasefire, when only 500 were dead and countless more dismembered, should go down with Madeleine Albright's since regretted statement that the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a result of sanctions was "a price worth paying."
Since Annan is already going at the end of year, which puts him beyond reach of Bolton's veto, we can but hope that he will not be browbeaten by Rice, Bolton or Bush, but will use the sacrifice of the U.N. observers to shame the Security Council into demanding an immediate ceasefire.
And who knows, while he is still angry, he may wish to remind them that Israel was defying Resolution 242 for many decades before 1559, and that it has to be a crucial foundation for any peace settlement for the region.
1982 and 2006, side by side
THEN: The war was prepared well in advance.
THIS TIME: The same.
THEN: We went to war only to protect "the Peace of Galilee".
THIS TIME: We go to war to protect Haifa and Afula, too.
THEN: We waited for a provocation (the attempt on the life of Ambassador Argov).
THIS TIME: We waited for a provocation (the capture of two soldiers).
THEN: "We shall advance only 40 KM in order to eliminate the Katyushas."
THIS TIME: "We shall advance only a few kilometers in order to eliminate the rockets."
THEN: Sharon acted behind the back of the cabinet.
THIS TIME: Olmert-Peretz-Halutz act behind the back of the ministers.
THEN: We destroyed Lebanon.
THIS TIME: We are destroying Lebanon.
THEN: Only the PLO profited from the war. A few years later they returned to Palestine.
THIS TIME: Only Hezbollah will profit from the war. Their prestige in the Arab world increases every day.
THEN: We were stuck in the quagmire for 18 years.
THIS TIME: How long shall we be stuck?
Ian Williams writes on the United Nations for AlterNet. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, The Nation and Salon. He is also the author of "Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776."
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/39518/
Did Israel Attack the U.N. 'Accidentally on Purpose'?
By Ian Williams, AlterNet
Posted on July 27, 2006, Printed on July 27, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39518/
With the Israeli bombing of a U.N. camp and the killing of four U.N. peacekeepers, we really do seem to be in a "deja vu" all over again phase. Already Kofi Annan is under attack for condemning the "apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. Observer post."
It is reminiscent of the trouble his predecessor Boutros Boutros-Ghali got himself into last time the Israelis tried shock and awe on Lebanon back in 1996, when he failed to suppress a report that said pretty much the same thing about the IDF shelling of the U.N. post in Qana, which macerated some 106 Lebanese civilians to death.
It is worth remembering that of all U.N. secretaries-general, Annan has done the most to end Israel's isolation in the organization and maintained the closest relations with Israel's friends in the United States. In the end, however, he is also a secretary-general who sets great store by protecting U.N. staff, and so the palpable anger of his statement is entirely understandable.
"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire. Furthermore, Gen. Alain Pellegrino, the U.N. force commander in southern Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack."
So to accept it was yet another accident presupposes a level of incompetence or insubordination in the Israeli army that should result in some serious courts-martial but never does. That feeling was doubtless exacerbated when the IDF shelled the site and prevented a rescue operation.
So what could be the motive? It is clear that there are many in the IDF with a profound contempt for the United Nations and all it stands for, and who would not shed many tears at such an accident. It may also rankle that UNIFIL has, with the dearth of Western reporters in much of southern Lebanon, provided independent corroboration of many incidents of IDF attacks on civilians. One only has to think of the fate of the USS Liberty in 1967 for being in a position to observe what the IDF was up to when the Israelis bombed and shelled an American ship for over an hour, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 170 more.
And most sinisterly of all, there are many Israelis -- including the government only a few days ago, who do not want an international force between them and their targets in Lebanon, who would have no great scruples about bombing a U.N. compound "accidentally on purpose."
This time, the "collateral damage" is not just four dead U.N. personnel. The bombing scotches any realistic chance of a reinforced U.N. or multinational peacekeeping force -- which it is worth remembering that Israel itself opposed until a few days ago, and which the war party in Israel sees as a potential obstacle to its attempts to emulate Ariel Sharon's disastrous invasion in 1982. (See the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom's ad in Ha-Aretz at the end of the article.)
Already, while many countries have endorsed the general idea of putting foreign troops on the Lebanese side of the border, there has been a complete lack of specific volunteers -- for the understandable reasons that the attack on Khiyam now so forcibly demonstrates.
Third-world militaries like the Fijians and Ghanaians make lots of money out of providing peacekeepers for UNIFIL and seem to think weekly humiliation by the Israelis and Hezbollah is worth it. There are few serious military powers that would tolerate sending their troops for IDF target practice, let alone Hezbollah attacks. And who knows? If any were so bold as to put in contingents, they may well stand up to Israeli incursions as well.
Some Israel supporters are already arguing that the bombing could not have been deliberate because it was a public relations disaster for Israel. Excuse me, but only an American or Israeli commentator could say that. Manifestly, for the rest of the world, the whole Israeli campaign is a PR disaster, with massive majorities even in Blair's Britain regarding the Israeli attack as a massively disproportionate reaction, let alone how Israel's assault is turning Hezbollah into the toast of the Third World. There is some added piquancy that both the Lebanese and Iraqi prime ministers (until this week at least champions of the democratic "New Middle East") are condemning Israel's assault.
Condoleezza Rice's statement that it is "too early" for a ceasefire, when only 500 were dead and countless more dismembered, should go down with Madeleine Albright's since regretted statement that the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a result of sanctions was "a price worth paying."
Since Annan is already going at the end of year, which puts him beyond reach of Bolton's veto, we can but hope that he will not be browbeaten by Rice, Bolton or Bush, but will use the sacrifice of the U.N. observers to shame the Security Council into demanding an immediate ceasefire.
And who knows, while he is still angry, he may wish to remind them that Israel was defying Resolution 242 for many decades before 1559, and that it has to be a crucial foundation for any peace settlement for the region.
1982 and 2006, side by side
THEN: The war was prepared well in advance.
THIS TIME: The same.
THEN: We went to war only to protect "the Peace of Galilee".
THIS TIME: We go to war to protect Haifa and Afula, too.
THEN: We waited for a provocation (the attempt on the life of Ambassador Argov).
THIS TIME: We waited for a provocation (the capture of two soldiers).
THEN: "We shall advance only 40 KM in order to eliminate the Katyushas."
THIS TIME: "We shall advance only a few kilometers in order to eliminate the rockets."
THEN: Sharon acted behind the back of the cabinet.
THIS TIME: Olmert-Peretz-Halutz act behind the back of the ministers.
THEN: We destroyed Lebanon.
THIS TIME: We are destroying Lebanon.
THEN: Only the PLO profited from the war. A few years later they returned to Palestine.
THIS TIME: Only Hezbollah will profit from the war. Their prestige in the Arab world increases every day.
THEN: We were stuck in the quagmire for 18 years.
THIS TIME: How long shall we be stuck?
Ian Williams writes on the United Nations for AlterNet. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, The Nation and Salon. He is also the author of "Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776."
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/39518/
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
mparent7777: AP: Lebanese Hospital Struggles With Wounded - Israel blows up ambulances; uses chemical weapons
mparent7777: AP: Lebanese Hospital Struggles With Wounded - Israel blows up ambulances; uses chemical weapons
AP: Lebanese Hospital Struggles With Wounded - Israel blows up ambulances; uses chemical weapons
Related
Israel bans reporting of use of "unique" weapons in Lebanon W/Video
Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Lebanon: Latest report on IC Red Cross activities in the field (22-24 July 2006) - Ambulances bombed
LOOK IF YOU DARE
---
Associated Press
Lebanese Hospital Struggles With Wounded
By KATHY GANNON , 07.24.2006, 05:46 PM
Dirty bandages hid the worst of 8-year-old Zainab Jawad's swollen, bloodied nose Monday. Her arm was strapped to her chest and fractured in two places.
Stretched out on a bed a Najem Hospital, Zainab squeezed shut her brown eyes as memories of the attack flooded back, some of her words muffled as she fought sobs.
A day earlier, Israeli bombs destroyed her family's home in the southern village of Ayta Chaeb. Then rockets slammed into the car as they fled.
"I don't want to remember, but I can't help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes and I was scared because I thought there were so many," she said. "I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were planes."
Zainab's aunt was in the next bed. Her mother, Usra Jawad, and 4-year-old brother, Mohammed, were across the hall. Mohammed's eyes fluttered as he slipped in and out of consciousness; his leg was in a cast to his hip. His mother's leg was in traction, with steel pins in several places.
The week before, Usra Jawad's three sisters visited her village to see the new family home. When the bombing started, the four sisters fled in a car with the two children, hoping to reach their parents home north of Tyre.
But rockets hit their car. Two of the sisters, both teachers, were killed.
"Now I have no house. My sisters are dead," Usra Jawad said. "I can't do anything."
Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas; Israel said its weapons comply with international law.
"Mahmoud Sarour, 14, was admitted to the hospital yesterday and treated for phosphorous burns to his face," Najem said. Mahmoud's 8-month-old sister, Maryam, suffered similar burns on her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit the family car.
The children were with their father, mother and other relatives when the car was hit by an Israeli missile. The father died instantly.
The Sarour family was evacuated from Tyre to Cyprus on Monday aboard a ferry chartered by Germany.
The Sarours had to go to the port by taxi because the Lebanese Red Cross suspended operations outside Tyre after Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets, said Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre.
In the incident Sunday, one Red Cross ambulance went south of Tyre to meet an ambulance and transfer the wounded to the hospital.
"When we have wounded outside the city, we always used two ambulances," Deebe said.
The rocket attack on the two vehicles wounded six ambulance workers and three civilians - an 11-year-old boy, an elderly woman and a man, Deebe said.
"One of the rockets hit right in the middle of the big red cross that was painted on top of the ambulance," he said. "This is a clear violation of humanitarian law, of international law. We are neutral and we should not be targeted."
Kassem Shalan, one of the ambulance workers, told AP Television News that nine people were injured. "We were transferring the wounded into our vehicle and something fell and I dropped to the floor," he said.
Amateur video provided by an ambulance worker confirmed Deebe's account of damage to the vehicles, showing one large hole and several smaller ones in the roof of one ambulance and a large hole in the roof of the second. Both were destroyed.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.
Israeli rockets have been hitting around Najem Hospital for most of the last two weeks, said nursing director Inaya Haydar. "I don't sleep very much at night, sometimes two hours, sometimes I don't sleep at all."
Six members of Haydar's family were killed three days ago in Srifa, her home village southeast of Tyre.
Before the Israeli assault began July 12 in response to Hezbollah militants capturing two Israeli soldiers, Haydar commuted 30 minutes a day to her village. Since the bombardment began, she has not left the hospital.
Haydar's parents and younger sister have fled to the mountains north of Tyre. Her fiance, a Lebanese studying engineering in Sweden, wants Haydar to leave as well.
"At midnight last night he called me and said: 'Please leave there and come to Sweden.' But I can't. If I leave ... then who is left here in the hospital to help our people and our country. I am Lebanese, this is my country. I love my country. I should stay."
She gestured toward another hospital room by way of explanation. Inside, lay a day-old infant in an incubator. The baby was born in Tibnin, south of Tyre; his mother stayed home because she was too ill to travel after a Caesarean delivery.
"He was two hours old when he came and so sick," Haydar said. "They had to get him here quickly. If we were not here, who would help him?"
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/feeds/ap/2006/07/24/ap2900674.html
AP: Lebanese Hospital Struggles With Wounded - Israel blows up ambulances; uses chemical weapons
Related
Israel bans reporting of use of "unique" weapons in Lebanon W/Video
Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Lebanon: Latest report on IC Red Cross activities in the field (22-24 July 2006) - Ambulances bombed
LOOK IF YOU DARE
---
Associated Press
Lebanese Hospital Struggles With Wounded
By KATHY GANNON , 07.24.2006, 05:46 PM
Dirty bandages hid the worst of 8-year-old Zainab Jawad's swollen, bloodied nose Monday. Her arm was strapped to her chest and fractured in two places.
Stretched out on a bed a Najem Hospital, Zainab squeezed shut her brown eyes as memories of the attack flooded back, some of her words muffled as she fought sobs.
A day earlier, Israeli bombs destroyed her family's home in the southern village of Ayta Chaeb. Then rockets slammed into the car as they fled.
"I don't want to remember, but I can't help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes and I was scared because I thought there were so many," she said. "I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were planes."
Zainab's aunt was in the next bed. Her mother, Usra Jawad, and 4-year-old brother, Mohammed, were across the hall. Mohammed's eyes fluttered as he slipped in and out of consciousness; his leg was in a cast to his hip. His mother's leg was in traction, with steel pins in several places.
The week before, Usra Jawad's three sisters visited her village to see the new family home. When the bombing started, the four sisters fled in a car with the two children, hoping to reach their parents home north of Tyre.
But rockets hit their car. Two of the sisters, both teachers, were killed.
"Now I have no house. My sisters are dead," Usra Jawad said. "I can't do anything."
Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas; Israel said its weapons comply with international law.
"Mahmoud Sarour, 14, was admitted to the hospital yesterday and treated for phosphorous burns to his face," Najem said. Mahmoud's 8-month-old sister, Maryam, suffered similar burns on her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit the family car.
The children were with their father, mother and other relatives when the car was hit by an Israeli missile. The father died instantly.
The Sarour family was evacuated from Tyre to Cyprus on Monday aboard a ferry chartered by Germany.
The Sarours had to go to the port by taxi because the Lebanese Red Cross suspended operations outside Tyre after Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets, said Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre.
In the incident Sunday, one Red Cross ambulance went south of Tyre to meet an ambulance and transfer the wounded to the hospital.
"When we have wounded outside the city, we always used two ambulances," Deebe said.
The rocket attack on the two vehicles wounded six ambulance workers and three civilians - an 11-year-old boy, an elderly woman and a man, Deebe said.
"One of the rockets hit right in the middle of the big red cross that was painted on top of the ambulance," he said. "This is a clear violation of humanitarian law, of international law. We are neutral and we should not be targeted."
Kassem Shalan, one of the ambulance workers, told AP Television News that nine people were injured. "We were transferring the wounded into our vehicle and something fell and I dropped to the floor," he said.
Amateur video provided by an ambulance worker confirmed Deebe's account of damage to the vehicles, showing one large hole and several smaller ones in the roof of one ambulance and a large hole in the roof of the second. Both were destroyed.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.
Israeli rockets have been hitting around Najem Hospital for most of the last two weeks, said nursing director Inaya Haydar. "I don't sleep very much at night, sometimes two hours, sometimes I don't sleep at all."
Six members of Haydar's family were killed three days ago in Srifa, her home village southeast of Tyre.
Before the Israeli assault began July 12 in response to Hezbollah militants capturing two Israeli soldiers, Haydar commuted 30 minutes a day to her village. Since the bombardment began, she has not left the hospital.
Haydar's parents and younger sister have fled to the mountains north of Tyre. Her fiance, a Lebanese studying engineering in Sweden, wants Haydar to leave as well.
"At midnight last night he called me and said: 'Please leave there and come to Sweden.' But I can't. If I leave ... then who is left here in the hospital to help our people and our country. I am Lebanese, this is my country. I love my country. I should stay."
She gestured toward another hospital room by way of explanation. Inside, lay a day-old infant in an incubator. The baby was born in Tibnin, south of Tyre; his mother stayed home because she was too ill to travel after a Caesarean delivery.
"He was two hours old when he came and so sick," Haydar said. "They had to get him here quickly. If we were not here, who would help him?"
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
http://www.forbes.com/business/businesst
Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross on the roof of each ambulance
link
Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross on the roof of each ambulance
By Robert Fisk
07/26/06 "Independent" --- -- From Qlaya, Southern Lebanon -- The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'
Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross on the roof of each ambulance
By Robert Fisk
07/26/06 "Independent" --- -- From Qlaya, Southern Lebanon -- The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'
Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
Venezuela To Send Medicine To Citizens Who Fled To Syria
Easy bourse - NEWS
Venezuela To Send Medicine To Citizens Who Fled To Syria
Thursday July 27th, 2006 / 1h42
CARACAS (AP)--Venezuela will send medicine and water to its citizens who have sought refuge in Syria from fighting in Lebanon, a foreign ministry official said Wednesday.
A plane from Venezuela's state-run Conviasa airline was scheduled to depart Wednesday evening carrying 2.2 tons of medicine, 1.1 tons of water and medical personnel to treat the refugees, acting Foreign Minister Reinaldo Bolivar said.
The plane will return early next week with about 100 Venezuelans who have sought shelter at the Venezuelan Embassy in Damascus after fleeing the fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Bolivar said.
Venezuela's air force also plans to send a plane on Thursday to evacuate an additional 150 people, he said.
At least 700 Venezuelans have sought refuge at the embassy in Damascus, but officials have said they expect many more to seek a safe passage out of Lebanon.
Bolivar is standing in for Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez, who was hospitalized last week for heart problems.
Thursday July 27th, 2006 / 1h42
Venezuela To Send Medicine To Citizens Who Fled To Syria
Thursday July 27th, 2006 / 1h42
CARACAS (AP)--Venezuela will send medicine and water to its citizens who have sought refuge in Syria from fighting in Lebanon, a foreign ministry official said Wednesday.
A plane from Venezuela's state-run Conviasa airline was scheduled to depart Wednesday evening carrying 2.2 tons of medicine, 1.1 tons of water and medical personnel to treat the refugees, acting Foreign Minister Reinaldo Bolivar said.
The plane will return early next week with about 100 Venezuelans who have sought shelter at the Venezuelan Embassy in Damascus after fleeing the fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Bolivar said.
Venezuela's air force also plans to send a plane on Thursday to evacuate an additional 150 people, he said.
At least 700 Venezuelans have sought refuge at the embassy in Damascus, but officials have said they expect many more to seek a safe passage out of Lebanon.
Bolivar is standing in for Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez, who was hospitalized last week for heart problems.
Thursday July 27th, 2006 / 1h42
RIA Novosti - World - Russia rebuffs U.S. call to rethink $1bln Venezuela arms deal
RIA Novosti
Russia rebuffs U.S. call to rethink $1bln Venezuela arms deal
26/07/2006 15:50 RYAZAN REGION, July 26 (RIA Novosti) -
Russia's defense minister ruled out Wednesday reconsidering a $1 billion contracts on supplies of military planes and helicopters to Venezuela.
Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said Tuesday that President George Bush's administration wanted Russia to review the deals. He said the weapons purchases Venezuela planned exceeded the country's demands and did not contribute to regional stability.
But Sergei Ivanov, who is also a deputy prime minister of Russia, said, "Reviewing the contract is absolutely out of the question. In my opinion, the 24 planes and the number of helicopters recorded in the contract are not excessive for the defense of a small country such as Venezuela."
"We will honor the contract," Ivanov said, adding that Venezuela had no restrictions on arms supplies.
The South American country's outspoken president, Hugo Chavez, is touring defense-industry plants as part of a three-day visit to Russia.
The Foreign Ministry's official spokesman also said Wednesday Russian arms deliveries to Venezuela fully corresponded to the norms of international and Russian law.
Russia has supplied Venezuela with Kalashnikov assault rifles in addition to the billion-dollar combat aircraft deal.
Mikhail Kamynin said, "Military-technical cooperation with Venezuela, as well as with other countries, is carried out by Russia in full accordance with the norms of international law as well as Russian legislation."
Russia rebuffs U.S. call to rethink $1bln Venezuela arms deal
26/07/2006 15:50 RYAZAN REGION, July 26 (RIA Novosti) -
Russia's defense minister ruled out Wednesday reconsidering a $1 billion contracts on supplies of military planes and helicopters to Venezuela.
Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said Tuesday that President George Bush's administration wanted Russia to review the deals. He said the weapons purchases Venezuela planned exceeded the country's demands and did not contribute to regional stability.
But Sergei Ivanov, who is also a deputy prime minister of Russia, said, "Reviewing the contract is absolutely out of the question. In my opinion, the 24 planes and the number of helicopters recorded in the contract are not excessive for the defense of a small country such as Venezuela."
"We will honor the contract," Ivanov said, adding that Venezuela had no restrictions on arms supplies.
The South American country's outspoken president, Hugo Chavez, is touring defense-industry plants as part of a three-day visit to Russia.
The Foreign Ministry's official spokesman also said Wednesday Russian arms deliveries to Venezuela fully corresponded to the norms of international and Russian law.
Russia has supplied Venezuela with Kalashnikov assault rifles in addition to the billion-dollar combat aircraft deal.
Mikhail Kamynin said, "Military-technical cooperation with Venezuela, as well as with other countries, is carried out by Russia in full accordance with the norms of international law as well as Russian legislation."
Fighting Rages On: Israel Suffers Heavy Losses
The New York Times
Israel Suffers Bloodiest Day of Fight With Hezbollah
By Craig S. Smith
The New York Times
Wednesday 26 July 2006
Avivim, Israel - Israel suffered its worst casualties in southern Lebanon today since the current conflict with Hezbollah started, as thousands of Israeli troops there fought house to house, and village to village, in an attempt to create a buffer zone that Israel hoped would be filled by a multinational peacekeeping force.
At least eight Israeli soldiers were killed and many were wounded in the ground battles, according to unofficial reports from military officers, who were not yet authorized to speak publicly about casualties and had not yet received a full account of the day's toll.
The Israeli military has not yet officially confirmed the figures, but some news service reports indicated that the death toll could be as high as 14.
Israeli officers on the border said there were thousands of soldiers in the south of the country engaged in very heavy fighting. Soldiers involved in the battle say that Hezbollah is dug in deeply, and its fighters have shown a willingness to die. Most of the Israeli casualties have come from ambushes, trapping tanks under intense fire and making rescue operations difficult, they said.
"This is a conflict which will take some time," said Gen. Benny Ganz, the chief of the northern command, who is directing ground operations. He described the environment around Bint Jbeil in Lebanon, where the bulk of the fighting took place today, as "harsh," calling the Hezbollah a well-trained military organization.
Israel staged 15 airstrikes in southern Lebanon today, The Associated Press reported. In the southern port city of Tyre, an Israeli strike leveled an empty six-story building, it said, quoting security officials and witnesses.
CNN broadcast footage from a blast scene in Tyre, which it said was in a civilian area, of flames shooting up between piles of collapsed building rubble and casualties being helped into an ambulance, faces coated with dust from the explosions. A woman clutched a child in her arms; sirens wailed.
One man stumbled through the burning rubble, salvaging a Koran from the dust and kissing it.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending about two decades of occupation. The current conflict with Hezbollah started on July 12, when the Lebanese guerrilla group surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and at least eight killed.
The fighting in Lebanon has opened a second front for Israel, which is also battling in the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to rescue a kidnapped Israeli soldier and stop rocket attacks launched from the northern part of that territory into Israel by Palestinian militants.
Today, Israeli airstrikes and ground fire killed at least 12 Palestinians, most of them militants, but also a small girl, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most of the deaths were in the eastern part of Gaza City, and more than 20 people were injured.
Since the fighting with Hezbollah started, the Israeli military has been bombarding targets in Lebanon with artillery and fighter planes. Last week, Israeli tanks clanked into the mountaintop village of Marun al-Ras in the army's first ground penetration into Lebanese villages, in territory said to be the launching site for rockets that have rained over northern Israel for more than a week.
On the so-called Avivim line, a road that runs parallel to the Lebanese border, an Israeli army major, who said his first name was Sahar, said he sent his forces over the border to extricate a tank this morning in which a battalion commander was wounded.
The fighting was "very, very heavy, and it took a long time," said the major, who is in charge of some armored bulldozers that he said were preparing to go back in again soon.
Early this morning, the Avivim line, from which Israel launched its ground troops into Lebanon during the 1982 invasion, was crowded with tanks and soldiers. Some were sweat-stained and exhausted coming out of battle. Other soldiers, appearing anxious or preoccupied, had daubed their faces with olive drab and black grease paint, prepared to go into battle.
By late afternoon the road was largely cleared, apparently as forces either withdrew or were deployed.
Battlefield casualties which had been moved by overland the short distance from Bint Jbeil to the border in recent days were now being taken by helicopter directly to Ramban hospital in Haifa, where a soldier reached by telephone said there were many wounded.
Israel Suffers Bloodiest Day of Fight With Hezbollah
By Craig S. Smith
The New York Times
Wednesday 26 July 2006
Avivim, Israel - Israel suffered its worst casualties in southern Lebanon today since the current conflict with Hezbollah started, as thousands of Israeli troops there fought house to house, and village to village, in an attempt to create a buffer zone that Israel hoped would be filled by a multinational peacekeeping force.
At least eight Israeli soldiers were killed and many were wounded in the ground battles, according to unofficial reports from military officers, who were not yet authorized to speak publicly about casualties and had not yet received a full account of the day's toll.
The Israeli military has not yet officially confirmed the figures, but some news service reports indicated that the death toll could be as high as 14.
Israeli officers on the border said there were thousands of soldiers in the south of the country engaged in very heavy fighting. Soldiers involved in the battle say that Hezbollah is dug in deeply, and its fighters have shown a willingness to die. Most of the Israeli casualties have come from ambushes, trapping tanks under intense fire and making rescue operations difficult, they said.
"This is a conflict which will take some time," said Gen. Benny Ganz, the chief of the northern command, who is directing ground operations. He described the environment around Bint Jbeil in Lebanon, where the bulk of the fighting took place today, as "harsh," calling the Hezbollah a well-trained military organization.
Israel staged 15 airstrikes in southern Lebanon today, The Associated Press reported. In the southern port city of Tyre, an Israeli strike leveled an empty six-story building, it said, quoting security officials and witnesses.
CNN broadcast footage from a blast scene in Tyre, which it said was in a civilian area, of flames shooting up between piles of collapsed building rubble and casualties being helped into an ambulance, faces coated with dust from the explosions. A woman clutched a child in her arms; sirens wailed.
One man stumbled through the burning rubble, salvaging a Koran from the dust and kissing it.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending about two decades of occupation. The current conflict with Hezbollah started on July 12, when the Lebanese guerrilla group surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and at least eight killed.
The fighting in Lebanon has opened a second front for Israel, which is also battling in the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to rescue a kidnapped Israeli soldier and stop rocket attacks launched from the northern part of that territory into Israel by Palestinian militants.
Today, Israeli airstrikes and ground fire killed at least 12 Palestinians, most of them militants, but also a small girl, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most of the deaths were in the eastern part of Gaza City, and more than 20 people were injured.
Since the fighting with Hezbollah started, the Israeli military has been bombarding targets in Lebanon with artillery and fighter planes. Last week, Israeli tanks clanked into the mountaintop village of Marun al-Ras in the army's first ground penetration into Lebanese villages, in territory said to be the launching site for rockets that have rained over northern Israel for more than a week.
On the so-called Avivim line, a road that runs parallel to the Lebanese border, an Israeli army major, who said his first name was Sahar, said he sent his forces over the border to extricate a tank this morning in which a battalion commander was wounded.
The fighting was "very, very heavy, and it took a long time," said the major, who is in charge of some armored bulldozers that he said were preparing to go back in again soon.
Early this morning, the Avivim line, from which Israel launched its ground troops into Lebanon during the 1982 invasion, was crowded with tanks and soldiers. Some were sweat-stained and exhausted coming out of battle. Other soldiers, appearing anxious or preoccupied, had daubed their faces with olive drab and black grease paint, prepared to go into battle.
By late afternoon the road was largely cleared, apparently as forces either withdrew or were deployed.
Battlefield casualties which had been moved by overland the short distance from Bint Jbeil to the border in recent days were now being taken by helicopter directly to Ramban hospital in Haifa, where a soldier reached by telephone said there were many wounded.
US Thwarts Middle East Cease-Fire
The Washington Post
Nations Fail to Reach Agreement on Middle East Cease-Fire
By Robin Wright and Fred Barbash
The Washington Post
Wednesday 26 July 2006
Rome - As the fighting and bombing intensified in Lebanon and Israel, an urgently convened, high-level international conference in Rome concluded in open disagreement, failing to reach accord on a plan to bring a halt to the strife.
A formal statement from the 18 nations agreed on the need for humanitarian assistance and for an eventual international force to be deployed in Lebanon.
But the participating foreign ministers could not agree on the timing of a cease-fire, with the United States standing by its position that a settlement be in place for an "enduring" peace prior to a cessation of hostilities.
And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly disagreed at a grim-faced news conference on whether Iran and Syria should be involved in talks, with Annan saying they should, and Rice denouncing the two nations for their role in the region.
After listening to the news conference, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora expressed despair. Saying his country was being "cut to pieces" by Israel, Siniora said: "We really wanted, on the one hand, to really ask the participants to provide humanitarian relief assistance, which is important, and to provide all other assistance. . . . But more, we wanted a cease-fire, an immediate cease-fire."
U.S. officials briefing after the meeting played down disagreements. But others did not. Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said that "we agreed upon what we could agree upon, but that does not change the fact that the European Union has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities" while the United States has not.
A senior U.S. official traveling with Rice said after the news conference that the United States "would take strong issue that there is isolation or there's us on one side and everyone else on the other. What we're seeing here is everyone wanting to do something lasting for Lebanon. It was never the purpose of this meeting to achieve a cease-fire. That was never the expectation going into this thing ...."
**seems everyone disagrees, and that a cease-fire was the goal, just not the US goal**
In Rome, Rice hoped to refine ideas for the proposed international force with European and Arab allies as well as discuss reconstruction aid for Lebanon. The goal was to move quickly after the hostilities to strengthen the beleaguered government of Siniora and to draw international support for the prospect of rebuilding Beirut, a city once called the Paris of the Middle East.
Reading a statement from the participants, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said: "The Rome conference participants expressed their determination to work immediately to reach, with the utmost urgency, a cease-fire that put an end to the current violence and hostilities." But, in a reflection of the U.S. position, he added that "the cease-fire must be lasting, permanent and sustainable."
The disagreements in Rome revolve around what is being called the "sequencing" of steps toward a cessation of hostilities.
Arab demands have focused on first achieving an immediate cease-fire, before considering such other measures as arrangements to disarm Hezbollah and the release of two Israeli soldiers taken captive by Hezbollah on July 12 in an incident that sparked the crisis. The Bush administration has backed Israel's campaign to cripple the Shiite militia, which has fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel, and the United States and Israel are demanding the immediate release of the Israeli soldiers.
"I have made very clear that I seek urgently to get an end to these hostilities, an end to this violence. We all want this urgently," Rice said in the news conference. But, she added: "We have to be effective. It means that we have to have a plan that will actually create conditions in which we can have a cease-fire that will be sustainable. We're going to work very, very hard to do precisely that. I think many of the elements in this statement show the way forward to getting an end to the hostilities, getting an end to the violence."
Annan called for working "with the countries of the region to find a solution," saying pointedly "that should also involve Iran and Syria." He made a similar statement before the conference opened Wednesday.
As he spoke, reporters shifted their focus to Rice, standing on the podium with Annan and the others. She smiled briefly, but said later that she was "glad that the secretary general is going to use his good offices in whatever way that he can to try and gain an understanding from other states that they have responsibilities, too. Syria has responsibilities [under United Nations resolutions] which it in fact has not exercised, and we ask that they do. And we are also deeply concerned, as we have said, about the role of Iran."
Fred Barbash reported from Washington.
Nations Fail to Reach Agreement on Middle East Cease-Fire
By Robin Wright and Fred Barbash
The Washington Post
Wednesday 26 July 2006
Rome - As the fighting and bombing intensified in Lebanon and Israel, an urgently convened, high-level international conference in Rome concluded in open disagreement, failing to reach accord on a plan to bring a halt to the strife.
A formal statement from the 18 nations agreed on the need for humanitarian assistance and for an eventual international force to be deployed in Lebanon.
But the participating foreign ministers could not agree on the timing of a cease-fire, with the United States standing by its position that a settlement be in place for an "enduring" peace prior to a cessation of hostilities.
And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly disagreed at a grim-faced news conference on whether Iran and Syria should be involved in talks, with Annan saying they should, and Rice denouncing the two nations for their role in the region.
After listening to the news conference, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora expressed despair. Saying his country was being "cut to pieces" by Israel, Siniora said: "We really wanted, on the one hand, to really ask the participants to provide humanitarian relief assistance, which is important, and to provide all other assistance. . . . But more, we wanted a cease-fire, an immediate cease-fire."
U.S. officials briefing after the meeting played down disagreements. But others did not. Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said that "we agreed upon what we could agree upon, but that does not change the fact that the European Union has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities" while the United States has not.
A senior U.S. official traveling with Rice said after the news conference that the United States "would take strong issue that there is isolation or there's us on one side and everyone else on the other. What we're seeing here is everyone wanting to do something lasting for Lebanon. It was never the purpose of this meeting to achieve a cease-fire. That was never the expectation going into this thing ...."
**seems everyone disagrees, and that a cease-fire was the goal, just not the US goal**
In Rome, Rice hoped to refine ideas for the proposed international force with European and Arab allies as well as discuss reconstruction aid for Lebanon. The goal was to move quickly after the hostilities to strengthen the beleaguered government of Siniora and to draw international support for the prospect of rebuilding Beirut, a city once called the Paris of the Middle East.
Reading a statement from the participants, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said: "The Rome conference participants expressed their determination to work immediately to reach, with the utmost urgency, a cease-fire that put an end to the current violence and hostilities." But, in a reflection of the U.S. position, he added that "the cease-fire must be lasting, permanent and sustainable."
The disagreements in Rome revolve around what is being called the "sequencing" of steps toward a cessation of hostilities.
Arab demands have focused on first achieving an immediate cease-fire, before considering such other measures as arrangements to disarm Hezbollah and the release of two Israeli soldiers taken captive by Hezbollah on July 12 in an incident that sparked the crisis. The Bush administration has backed Israel's campaign to cripple the Shiite militia, which has fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel, and the United States and Israel are demanding the immediate release of the Israeli soldiers.
"I have made very clear that I seek urgently to get an end to these hostilities, an end to this violence. We all want this urgently," Rice said in the news conference. But, she added: "We have to be effective. It means that we have to have a plan that will actually create conditions in which we can have a cease-fire that will be sustainable. We're going to work very, very hard to do precisely that. I think many of the elements in this statement show the way forward to getting an end to the hostilities, getting an end to the violence."
Annan called for working "with the countries of the region to find a solution," saying pointedly "that should also involve Iran and Syria." He made a similar statement before the conference opened Wednesday.
As he spoke, reporters shifted their focus to Rice, standing on the podium with Annan and the others. She smiled briefly, but said later that she was "glad that the secretary general is going to use his good offices in whatever way that he can to try and gain an understanding from other states that they have responsibilities, too. Syria has responsibilities [under United Nations resolutions] which it in fact has not exercised, and we ask that they do. And we are also deeply concerned, as we have said, about the role of Iran."
Fred Barbash reported from Washington.
Britain complains to US over Israel bomb transit
Yahoo! News
Britain complains to US over Israel bomb transit
The British government will make a formal complaint to the United States over its use of a British airport for transiting bombs to Israel, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said on Wednesday.
Beckett said it appeared the United States did not follow correct procedures when transporting arms to Israel -- engaged in a war with Hizbollah forces in Lebanon -- via Britain.
"I have already notified the United States that we are not happy about it," Beckett told reporters after a meeting of foreign ministers on the Lebanon crisis in Rome.
"We have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, and we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened."
British media reported earlier on Wednesday that aircraft carrying "bunker-busting" bombs from the United States to Israel refueled at Prestwick airport in Scotland over the weekend.
Beckett indicated that her complaint was of a procedural nature. "It appears that in so far as there are procedures for handling that kind of hazardous cargo, irrespective of what they are, it does appear that they were not followed," she said.
Some opposition politicians have called on the government to suspend arms shipments to Israel because of what they see as its disproportionate use of force in the Lebanon conflict.
Britain complains to US over Israel bomb transit
The British government will make a formal complaint to the United States over its use of a British airport for transiting bombs to Israel, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said on Wednesday.
Beckett said it appeared the United States did not follow correct procedures when transporting arms to Israel -- engaged in a war with Hizbollah forces in Lebanon -- via Britain.
"I have already notified the United States that we are not happy about it," Beckett told reporters after a meeting of foreign ministers on the Lebanon crisis in Rome.
"We have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, and we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened."
British media reported earlier on Wednesday that aircraft carrying "bunker-busting" bombs from the United States to Israel refueled at Prestwick airport in Scotland over the weekend.
Beckett indicated that her complaint was of a procedural nature. "It appears that in so far as there are procedures for handling that kind of hazardous cargo, irrespective of what they are, it does appear that they were not followed," she said.
Some opposition politicians have called on the government to suspend arms shipments to Israel because of what they see as its disproportionate use of force in the Lebanon conflict.
Norman Solomon | Applauding While Lebanon Burns
truthout
Applauding While Lebanon Burns
By Norman Solomon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 26 July 2006
Syndicated columnist Richard Cohen declared in the Washington Post on Tuesday that an-eye-for-an-eye would be a hopelessly wimpy policy for the Israeli government.
"Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness," he wrote. "For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy's back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights."
Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like "punch out your lights" as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers.
In mid-November 1998, when President Clinton canceled plans for air attacks on Iraq after Saddam Hussein promised full cooperation with UN weapons inspectors, Cohen wrote: "Something is out of balance here. The Clinton administration waited too long to act. It needed to punch out Iraq's lights, and it did not do so."
The resort to euphemism tells us a lot. So does Cohen's track record of sweeping statements on behalf of his zeal for military actions funded by the US Treasury.
On February 6, 2003, the Washington Post published Richard Cohen's judgment the morning after Colin Powell made his televised presentation to the UN Security Council. "The evidence he presented to the United Nations - some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail - had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them," Cohen wrote. "Only a fool - or possibly a Frenchman - could conclude otherwise."
Cohen's moral certainties are on a par with his technical ones. While he condemns rockets fired into Israel, he expresses pleasure about missiles fired by the Israeli government. That the death toll of civilians is far higher from Israel's weaponry does not appear to bother him. On the contrary, he seems glad about the killing spree by the Israeli military.
In a column with bigoted overtones ("Israel is, as I have often said, unfortunately located, gentrifying a pretty bad neighborhood"), Cohen's eagerness to support additional large-scale bombing by Israel is thematic. Consider this passage: "Hezbollah, with the aid of Iran and Syria, has shown that it is no longer necessary to send a dazed suicide bomber over the border - all that is needed is the requisite amount of thrust and a warhead. That being the case, it's either stupid or mean for anyone to call for proportionality. The only way to ensure that babies don't die in their cribs and old people in the streets is to make the Lebanese or the Palestinians understand that if they, no matter how reluctantly, host those rockets, they will pay a very, very steep price."
Such phrasing is classic evasion by keyboard cheerleaders for war: "The" Lebanese. "The" Palestinians. "They will pay a very, very steep price." Meanwhile, in the real world, the vast majority of the victims of the Israeli onslaught are civilians being subjected to collective punishment.
Cohen - like so many others in the American punditocracy - depicts the death of an Israeli civilian as far more tragic and important than the death of an Arab civilian.
There's something really sick about such righteous support for civilian death and destruction.
Osama bin Laden, meet Richard Cohen.
Richard, meet Osama.
Norman Solomon's latest book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," was published in paperback this summer. For information, go to: WarMadeEasy.com.
Applauding While Lebanon Burns
By Norman Solomon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 26 July 2006
Syndicated columnist Richard Cohen declared in the Washington Post on Tuesday that an-eye-for-an-eye would be a hopelessly wimpy policy for the Israeli government.
"Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness," he wrote. "For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy's back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights."
Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like "punch out your lights" as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers.
In mid-November 1998, when President Clinton canceled plans for air attacks on Iraq after Saddam Hussein promised full cooperation with UN weapons inspectors, Cohen wrote: "Something is out of balance here. The Clinton administration waited too long to act. It needed to punch out Iraq's lights, and it did not do so."
The resort to euphemism tells us a lot. So does Cohen's track record of sweeping statements on behalf of his zeal for military actions funded by the US Treasury.
On February 6, 2003, the Washington Post published Richard Cohen's judgment the morning after Colin Powell made his televised presentation to the UN Security Council. "The evidence he presented to the United Nations - some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail - had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them," Cohen wrote. "Only a fool - or possibly a Frenchman - could conclude otherwise."
Cohen's moral certainties are on a par with his technical ones. While he condemns rockets fired into Israel, he expresses pleasure about missiles fired by the Israeli government. That the death toll of civilians is far higher from Israel's weaponry does not appear to bother him. On the contrary, he seems glad about the killing spree by the Israeli military.
In a column with bigoted overtones ("Israel is, as I have often said, unfortunately located, gentrifying a pretty bad neighborhood"), Cohen's eagerness to support additional large-scale bombing by Israel is thematic. Consider this passage: "Hezbollah, with the aid of Iran and Syria, has shown that it is no longer necessary to send a dazed suicide bomber over the border - all that is needed is the requisite amount of thrust and a warhead. That being the case, it's either stupid or mean for anyone to call for proportionality. The only way to ensure that babies don't die in their cribs and old people in the streets is to make the Lebanese or the Palestinians understand that if they, no matter how reluctantly, host those rockets, they will pay a very, very steep price."
Such phrasing is classic evasion by keyboard cheerleaders for war: "The" Lebanese. "The" Palestinians. "They will pay a very, very steep price." Meanwhile, in the real world, the vast majority of the victims of the Israeli onslaught are civilians being subjected to collective punishment.
Cohen - like so many others in the American punditocracy - depicts the death of an Israeli civilian as far more tragic and important than the death of an Arab civilian.
There's something really sick about such righteous support for civilian death and destruction.
Osama bin Laden, meet Richard Cohen.
Richard, meet Osama.
Norman Solomon's latest book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," was published in paperback this summer. For information, go to: WarMadeEasy.com.
xymphora--The next trick (in a series of tricks)
xymphora
The next trick (in a series of tricks)
Bearing in mind that one of the main points of the exercise was to steal Lebanese water from the Litani River (the military operation wasn’t called ‘Summer Rain’ for nothing!), the next Israeli trick will be to build a ‘security strip’ in southern Lebanon, at least until the world can come up with an international ‘peacekeeping force’. Of course, participating in such a force would be a political disaster, as the casualties from Hezbollah attacks would be enormous (as would the number of innocent civilians murdered by the ‘peacekeepers’). As instructed by the Jewish Billionaire’s Club, the usual suspects for the ‘peacekeepers’ will demur, thus leaving the Israeli ‘security strip’ as a permanent feature of south Lebanon (Kurt Nimmo makes the excellent point that the intentional targeting of UN officials – I’m waiting for the inevitable apology of Kofi Annan for having the audacity to point out the obvious truth – is a warning to the international community to stay out). It will be just wide enough to allow Israel to grab the water! Once Israel grabs the water, it will rely on it (filling the settler’s swimming pools), and will never return it, as – and you know the drill already – forcing Israel to return what it has stolen is an ‘existential threat’ to Israel, a trick by anti-Semites who just want to force the Jews ‘into the sea’.
Where have I heard this kind of thing before? Oh yeah, the settlements in the Occupied Territories, originally a ‘temporary’ measure to ensure Israeli ‘security’. The Israeli Ratchet – the idea that Israel’s ongoing quest to steal land from its neighbors never stops, except for a few head fakes like the temporary withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, but continues to build on the lands previously stolen – will continue in Lebanon. Once part of Lebanon is stolen, the environmental stresses caused by the theft of much of its water will lead to further crises, which will entail further Israeli military interventions, in Lebanon and elsewhere (the destruction of Syria is next on the Zionist Plan), and on and on and on. . . . When is the world going to wake up and realize that the logic of Zionism – the idea that Israel, the only country in the world without established borders, has a G-d-given right to a great swath of the Middle East, and won’t stop provoking and agitating and conniving to put itself in a position to steal more of this land – is going to lead to more and more serious problems until the world is embroiled in a World War?
The Truth Will Set You Free: Israeli children sign their missiles ‘with love’
The Truth Will Set You Free "Israeli children sign their missiles ‘with love’
Never have I witnessed such an appalling display of utter contempt for human life. And they're not even ashamed to beam it across the globe, for all the world to see.
THIS is who our tax dollars support - an arrogant, war-like people who indoctrinate their children in the art of murderous and cavalier warfare.
Not in so many words, but even a love ballad would kill the recipient - using flowery words makes it all the more twisted.
Above: Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
Thanks, girls. Lebanese children got your message - loud and clear.
Spread it far and wide.
Americans must learn the truth about ISRAEL - the Ultimate Glorified Killing Machine.
"
Never have I witnessed such an appalling display of utter contempt for human life. And they're not even ashamed to beam it across the globe, for all the world to see.
THIS is who our tax dollars support - an arrogant, war-like people who indoctrinate their children in the art of murderous and cavalier warfare.
Dear Lebanese/ Palestinian/ Canadian/ American/ Muslim/ Christian/ Australian/ or Anyone else who stands in our way,
DIE.
love,
Israeli Kids
Not in so many words, but even a love ballad would kill the recipient - using flowery words makes it all the more twisted.
Above: Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
Thanks, girls. Lebanese children got your message - loud and clear.
Spread it far and wide.
Americans must learn the truth about ISRAEL - the Ultimate Glorified Killing Machine.
"
Gaza offensive 'disproportionate'
BBC NEWS
Gaza offensive 'disproportionate'
The UN's top humanitarian official Jan Egeland has described Israel's month-long military offensive in Gaza as a "disproportionate use of force".
Mr Egeland, who is in Gaza to assess the damage, said he was shocked by the targeting of civilian infrastructure including Gaza's only power plant.
More than 100 Palestinians have died in the violence in Gaza since June.
Israel says its attacks are aimed at freeing a captured soldier and stopping militants firing rockets into Israel.
Mr Egeland said that the bombing of the power plant would affect schools and hospitals more than the militants.
"This is very clear, a disproportionate use [of power]," Mr Egeland told reporters.
"Civilian infrastructure is protected. The law is very clear. You cannot have any interpretation in any other way."
Power shortages
Israel launched its offensive in June after Cpl Gilad Shalit was abducted by militants linked to Hamas's military wing.
More than 100 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have since died in clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.
Many of the dead have been militants, but civilians have also died under Israeli fire and air strikes.
Israel says it is targeting civilian areas because militants use them as cover to launch rockets, and it is striking infrastructure to prevent militants moving Cpl Shalit around Gaza.
But human rights groups say electricity shortages and blockages are threatening medical services and causing businesses to close.
Israel's assault has prompted international calls for restraint, but a UN resolution urging Israel to stop the offensive was vetoed by the US at the Security Council earlier this month.
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, along with the militants who seized Cpl Shalit, have been insisting that the soldier only be handed over in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ruled out any negotiations with the Hamas-led Palestinian government, calling the militant group a "terrorist bloody organisation". Do you live in Gaza? Have you been affected by violence in the region? Send us your experiences using the form below. If you are happy to speak to us further please include contact details.
Name
Your E-mail address
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Comments
Gaza offensive 'disproportionate'
The UN's top humanitarian official Jan Egeland has described Israel's month-long military offensive in Gaza as a "disproportionate use of force".
Mr Egeland, who is in Gaza to assess the damage, said he was shocked by the targeting of civilian infrastructure including Gaza's only power plant.
More than 100 Palestinians have died in the violence in Gaza since June.
Israel says its attacks are aimed at freeing a captured soldier and stopping militants firing rockets into Israel.
Mr Egeland said that the bombing of the power plant would affect schools and hospitals more than the militants.
"This is very clear, a disproportionate use [of power]," Mr Egeland told reporters.
"Civilian infrastructure is protected. The law is very clear. You cannot have any interpretation in any other way."
Power shortages
Israel launched its offensive in June after Cpl Gilad Shalit was abducted by militants linked to Hamas's military wing.
More than 100 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have since died in clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.
Many of the dead have been militants, but civilians have also died under Israeli fire and air strikes.
Israel says it is targeting civilian areas because militants use them as cover to launch rockets, and it is striking infrastructure to prevent militants moving Cpl Shalit around Gaza.
But human rights groups say electricity shortages and blockages are threatening medical services and causing businesses to close.
Israel's assault has prompted international calls for restraint, but a UN resolution urging Israel to stop the offensive was vetoed by the US at the Security Council earlier this month.
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, along with the militants who seized Cpl Shalit, have been insisting that the soldier only be handed over in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ruled out any negotiations with the Hamas-led Palestinian government, calling the militant group a "terrorist bloody organisation". Do you live in Gaza? Have you been affected by violence in the region? Send us your experiences using the form below. If you are happy to speak to us further please include contact details.
Name
Your E-mail address
Town & Country
Phone number (optional):
Comments
Look, forget who started it
AlterNet
Look, forget who started it
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on July 25, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/39474/
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
Look, forget who started it
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on July 25, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/39474/
This one's for all my debating partners over the past week...
If the argument isn't compelling that Israel is undermining its own security (not to mention accruing a hell of a spiritual/moral deficit) by barreling into Lebanon and confirming all of Hezbollah's most vituperative rhetoric by killing civilians and destroying the nation's infrastructure, maybe this will help.
Hezbollah didn't even "start it."
Think of Hezbollah's kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers as Israel's Gulf of Tonkin Moment. To wit:
More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.
In other words: The kidnapped Israeli soldiers was a ruse -- a false pretext.
So now that whoever started it isn't in play, the only remaining argument is: How can Israel allow that kind of weapons buildup on its border? The answer is a difficult one but one thing is for sure: this is no cakewalk. The Israelis are having a hell of a time with Hezbollah, which in turn undermines their perceived supremacy in the neighborhood.
From Ha'aretz:
Right now, when the fighting is at its peak, it is necessary to deal with the series of failures that have afflicted the Israel Defense Forces. These failings have not only exposed poor soldiering skills, flawed intelligence and officers' arrogance - but may also affect the way the IDF's enemies come to view it, and influence their decision on whether to embark on war in the future, or to launch their missiles against Israel's home front.
Or try this via Juan Cole:
Israeli Armed Forces effectives returning from the Lebanon’s front, say they are facing an intelligent, well prepared and ruthless guerrilla. The soldiers describe Hezbollah guerrillas hide between civilians and in underground bunkers that are two or three stories deep, evidence that this has been prepared for years. They are hard to beat and show no fear of dying, expressed an Israeli soldier.
As crappy as the Might Makes Right argument is, when your Might isn't even working all that well, you're up the creek as, to quote the Bible, He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. But regardless of whether Israel "wins" this war or not, they will have done massage damage to their security. Again. (Juan Cole)
Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/39474/
Civilians killed as Israelis target ambulances | The World | The Australian
The Australian
Civilians killed as Israelis target ambulances
Martin Chulov, Tyre
July 26, 2006
IT is meant to be a universally recognised symbol of neutrality and a guaranteed passage of protection for the victims of armed conflict.
But at least 10 Lebanese ambulances bearing the emblem of the international red cross have instead become targets in Israeli air strikes that have killed more than a dozen civilian passengers being transported to hospitals in the south of the country.
The latest attack occurred on Sunday night near the small village of Quna, where two ambulances travelling in convoy were fired on by an Israeli Apache helicopter as they sped to the besieged port city of Tyre.
One of the Israeli rockets pierced the centre of the large red cross marked on the roof of one of the ambulances, as if it was used as a target.
Both ambulances' roofs were marked with crosses, blue lights flashed above them and giant International Red Cross flags flew from their rear doors. They were carrying members of the Fawaz family, who had been slightly injured during earlier bombing.
The convoy was struck by two rockets fired from an Apache helicopter, just before midnight, severely injuring all six people on board.
Ahmed Mohammed Fawaz lost his leg below his knee and will likely lose the other. His 14-year-old son Ahmed suffered serious wounds to his abdomen and the back of his head. He writhed in semi-conscious pain yesterday in the Jabal Amal hospital in Tyre as his mother, Jamila, lay unconscious nearby, her black hijab draped over stark white sheets and bandages.
In another ward, Qasin Shalin, the driver of the first ambulance, and the only one of six people to have escaped with light injuries, sat upright in bed, surrounded by the orange-clad men of Lebanon's Red Cross, who have come to be known as the country's bravest civil servants.
Only two of the region's estimated 60 ambulance crews have refused to turn up to work in the past week. One of the missing crews had narrowly escaped a missile themselves.
Mr Shalin was spared more serious injuries by the armoured vest he was wearing and the driver's canopy that protected him from a direct hit.
He remembers nothing after the flash and bang of the missile then the crunch of the crash as his ambulance veered off road.
Hospital officials in southern Lebanon have accused Israel of violating the Geneva convention by failing to respect the red cross symbol by attacking ambulances on at least 10 occasions in the two-week war that has claimed at least 12 more fire trucks and civil defence vehicles travelling between Tyre and the Israeli border.
"What is the purpose of targeting ambulances?" asked the hospital's director of nursing, Abdullah Narwaz.
"This is beyond crazy, this is a lack of humanity."
The Israeli Defence Force has not commented about its targeting of ambulances, but in the past has said militants in the West Bank and Gaza had used them to transport weapons and fighters, in contravention of laws governing armed conflict.
Last week a helicopter attacked an ambulance that had just pulled up outside a house in the village of Aitaroun, next door to where a Sydney family had been holidaying.
The ambulance just blew up and both the driver and his co-worker were killed, said witness Hassane Assef, of Sydney, who was holidaying in the area, and who tried to help the victims of both strikes.
The UN yesterday stopped short of accusing Hezbollah of using ambulances as transport vehicles. However, it suggested that the cowardly tactic of blending in with civilians had contributed to the terrible toll taken on communities in the south, where most of the 391 Lebanese have been killed.
"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland said.
"I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."
**I note that no proof is offered for that statement?**
Civilians killed as Israelis target ambulances
Martin Chulov, Tyre
July 26, 2006
IT is meant to be a universally recognised symbol of neutrality and a guaranteed passage of protection for the victims of armed conflict.
But at least 10 Lebanese ambulances bearing the emblem of the international red cross have instead become targets in Israeli air strikes that have killed more than a dozen civilian passengers being transported to hospitals in the south of the country.
The latest attack occurred on Sunday night near the small village of Quna, where two ambulances travelling in convoy were fired on by an Israeli Apache helicopter as they sped to the besieged port city of Tyre.
One of the Israeli rockets pierced the centre of the large red cross marked on the roof of one of the ambulances, as if it was used as a target.
Both ambulances' roofs were marked with crosses, blue lights flashed above them and giant International Red Cross flags flew from their rear doors. They were carrying members of the Fawaz family, who had been slightly injured during earlier bombing.
The convoy was struck by two rockets fired from an Apache helicopter, just before midnight, severely injuring all six people on board.
Ahmed Mohammed Fawaz lost his leg below his knee and will likely lose the other. His 14-year-old son Ahmed suffered serious wounds to his abdomen and the back of his head. He writhed in semi-conscious pain yesterday in the Jabal Amal hospital in Tyre as his mother, Jamila, lay unconscious nearby, her black hijab draped over stark white sheets and bandages.
In another ward, Qasin Shalin, the driver of the first ambulance, and the only one of six people to have escaped with light injuries, sat upright in bed, surrounded by the orange-clad men of Lebanon's Red Cross, who have come to be known as the country's bravest civil servants.
Only two of the region's estimated 60 ambulance crews have refused to turn up to work in the past week. One of the missing crews had narrowly escaped a missile themselves.
Mr Shalin was spared more serious injuries by the armoured vest he was wearing and the driver's canopy that protected him from a direct hit.
He remembers nothing after the flash and bang of the missile then the crunch of the crash as his ambulance veered off road.
Hospital officials in southern Lebanon have accused Israel of violating the Geneva convention by failing to respect the red cross symbol by attacking ambulances on at least 10 occasions in the two-week war that has claimed at least 12 more fire trucks and civil defence vehicles travelling between Tyre and the Israeli border.
"What is the purpose of targeting ambulances?" asked the hospital's director of nursing, Abdullah Narwaz.
"This is beyond crazy, this is a lack of humanity."
The Israeli Defence Force has not commented about its targeting of ambulances, but in the past has said militants in the West Bank and Gaza had used them to transport weapons and fighters, in contravention of laws governing armed conflict.
Last week a helicopter attacked an ambulance that had just pulled up outside a house in the village of Aitaroun, next door to where a Sydney family had been holidaying.
The ambulance just blew up and both the driver and his co-worker were killed, said witness Hassane Assef, of Sydney, who was holidaying in the area, and who tried to help the victims of both strikes.
The UN yesterday stopped short of accusing Hezbollah of using ambulances as transport vehicles. However, it suggested that the cowardly tactic of blending in with civilians had contributed to the terrible toll taken on communities in the south, where most of the 391 Lebanese have been killed.
"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland said.
"I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."
**I note that no proof is offered for that statement?**
Israeli Offensive Targeting Relief Efforts? - by Aaron Glantz
Aaron Glantz
July 26, 2006
Israeli Offensive Targeting Relief Efforts?
Ambulances appear to be have become a target of the Israeli military in its quest to oust Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Red Crescent Society has reported five "security incidents" since the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah earlier this month sparked a large-scale Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon.
At least 10 ambulances have been hit in Israeli air strikes, resulting in the deaths of more than a dozen civilian passengers – many on their way to the hospital.
The most recent incident occurred Sunday July 23, in a village in southern Lebanon. According to the Lebanese Red Crescent Society, two of its ambulances were struck by munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked by the medical emblem and flashing lights that were visible at a great distance.
"Around 11 o'clock at night, two ambulances of the Lebanese Red Cross were coming from two different villages to a safe-point," the International Red Cross/Red Crescent's Hicham Hassan told OneWorld from Beirut. "One of them was going to deliver three injured people to another to save time. When they stopped to transfer the injured, they were hit by a projectile."
Nine people, including six Red Cross volunteers, were wounded, Hassan said. "They were stuck there for about one hour. After making contact with the Israeli authorities, we were able to make arrangements to rescue all the injured, including the Lebanese Red Cross volunteers."
"Mostly the people the Lebanese Red Cross are picking up are civilians," Hassan said. Since the beginning of the crisis, he said, Lebanese Red Cross ambulances have taken 333 wounded people to hospitals and removed 77 dead. Red Cross vehicles have also evacuated 1,746 emergency cases.
During any war, it is always regular people who suffer the most. But is it too much to ask that they not get shot on the way to the hospital?
And it's not just ambulances. Humanitarian aid groups say the nature of the Israeli offensive has impeded other types of relief work as well.
"Israeli forces have declared that all trucks and large transport vehicles are legitimate targets for air and missile attacks," explained Adib Faris, security manager for Catholic Relief Services in Beirut. "So it's difficult to find people willing to drive the trucks, and we're limited in the amount of food we can get to places where the situation is very dire."
In Beirut itself, Catholic Relief Services reports the atmosphere is tense but still peaceful. Thousands of internal refugees are receiving temporary shelter in schools, mosques, and churches.
All together, an estimated 600,000 Lebanese have left their homes. Most of them have fled toward the relative safety of northern Lebanon. About 100,000 have sought refuge in Syria.
In both areas, aid agencies complain, their efforts to help the population are hamstrung by military and political considerations.
"Just the movement of humanitarian personnel is made difficult by the closing of the port and the airport, so just staffing up will be difficult," said Jim Bishop of InterAction, a consortium of 160 U.S.-based nonprofit organizations.
On a trip to Beirut Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a $30 million American aid package for Lebanon. Like other humanitarian workers, InterAction's Bishop praised Rice, but said key questions remained unanswered: "When is it going to arrive in Lebanon and how will it be distributed in the absence of safe passage arrangements?" he asked.
Across the border in Syria, American aid agencies face another hurdle in caring for an estimated 100,000 Lebanese refugees. Syria is on the U.S. government's list of terrorist-sponsors, so any organization wishing to do business there must get special permission. "Some agencies have applied for special humanitarian licenses, but so far they have not been granted," Bishop said.
(OneWorld)
July 26, 2006
Israeli Offensive Targeting Relief Efforts?
Ambulances appear to be have become a target of the Israeli military in its quest to oust Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Red Crescent Society has reported five "security incidents" since the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah earlier this month sparked a large-scale Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon.
At least 10 ambulances have been hit in Israeli air strikes, resulting in the deaths of more than a dozen civilian passengers – many on their way to the hospital.
The most recent incident occurred Sunday July 23, in a village in southern Lebanon. According to the Lebanese Red Crescent Society, two of its ambulances were struck by munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked by the medical emblem and flashing lights that were visible at a great distance.
"Around 11 o'clock at night, two ambulances of the Lebanese Red Cross were coming from two different villages to a safe-point," the International Red Cross/Red Crescent's Hicham Hassan told OneWorld from Beirut. "One of them was going to deliver three injured people to another to save time. When they stopped to transfer the injured, they were hit by a projectile."
Nine people, including six Red Cross volunteers, were wounded, Hassan said. "They were stuck there for about one hour. After making contact with the Israeli authorities, we were able to make arrangements to rescue all the injured, including the Lebanese Red Cross volunteers."
"Mostly the people the Lebanese Red Cross are picking up are civilians," Hassan said. Since the beginning of the crisis, he said, Lebanese Red Cross ambulances have taken 333 wounded people to hospitals and removed 77 dead. Red Cross vehicles have also evacuated 1,746 emergency cases.
During any war, it is always regular people who suffer the most. But is it too much to ask that they not get shot on the way to the hospital?
And it's not just ambulances. Humanitarian aid groups say the nature of the Israeli offensive has impeded other types of relief work as well.
"Israeli forces have declared that all trucks and large transport vehicles are legitimate targets for air and missile attacks," explained Adib Faris, security manager for Catholic Relief Services in Beirut. "So it's difficult to find people willing to drive the trucks, and we're limited in the amount of food we can get to places where the situation is very dire."
In Beirut itself, Catholic Relief Services reports the atmosphere is tense but still peaceful. Thousands of internal refugees are receiving temporary shelter in schools, mosques, and churches.
All together, an estimated 600,000 Lebanese have left their homes. Most of them have fled toward the relative safety of northern Lebanon. About 100,000 have sought refuge in Syria.
In both areas, aid agencies complain, their efforts to help the population are hamstrung by military and political considerations.
"Just the movement of humanitarian personnel is made difficult by the closing of the port and the airport, so just staffing up will be difficult," said Jim Bishop of InterAction, a consortium of 160 U.S.-based nonprofit organizations.
On a trip to Beirut Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a $30 million American aid package for Lebanon. Like other humanitarian workers, InterAction's Bishop praised Rice, but said key questions remained unanswered: "When is it going to arrive in Lebanon and how will it be distributed in the absence of safe passage arrangements?" he asked.
Across the border in Syria, American aid agencies face another hurdle in caring for an estimated 100,000 Lebanese refugees. Syria is on the U.S. government's list of terrorist-sponsors, so any organization wishing to do business there must get special permission. "Some agencies have applied for special humanitarian licenses, but so far they have not been granted," Bishop said.
(OneWorld)
My Way News - Israeli Troops Suffer Heavy Casualties
My Way News
Israeli Troops Suffer Heavy Casualties
Jul 26, 8:51 AM (ET)
By SAM F. GHATTAS
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hezbollah inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops as they battled for a key hilltop town in southern Lebanon for a fourth day Wednesday, with at least 12 soldiers reported killed. Israel has faced fiercer resistance than expected as it advances across the border in its campaign against the Islamic militant group.
Meanwhile, Lebanese officials confirmed that four U.N. observers were killed when an Israeli airstrike struck their post the night before.
Also Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the country is seeking to establish a 1.2-mile-wide strip in southern Lebanon that will be free of Hezbollah guerrillas. It was the first time Israel had given the dimensions of its new "security zone."
The fighting came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel plans to maintain a security zone in the south until either a multinational force is deployed or Hezbollah is pushed back in a cease-fire agreement that also cuts off the supply of its weapons.
Peretz indicated that troops would try to control such a zone from a distance, by artillery fire and airstrikes, rather than patrolling south Lebanon. The remarks were the first indication of the possibility of a longer Israeli involvement than previously had been raised by officials wary of public anger over its 18-year occupation of the area that ended in 2000.
Olmert told a parliament committee Wednesday that Israel will not reoccupy any part of southern Lebanon, participants said, apparently to reassure lawmakers and the public that troops will not return to Lebanon permanently.
At a Mideast conference in Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said that the conference had agreed to work "immediately" for a cease-fire in Lebanon. Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for participants to push for an immediate cease-fire to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Annan also said an international force was vital to a peaceful solution.
Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite TV channel said at least 12 Israeli soldiers had been killed in the fighting for control of Bint Jbail, a town that has symbolic importance to the Shiite Islamic militant group as one of the centers of resistance to the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli military would only say that several soldiers had been wounded in heavy fighting at Bint Jbail. If confirmed, it would be the largest death toll suffered by the Israeli military in a single attack since the offensive began two weeks ago.
The international community also stepped up efforts to get aid to those stranded in the troubled south. A U.N. convoy of 10 trucks carrying food, medicine, sanitation and hygiene supplies left Beirut for the port city of Tyre. The United Nations said it was the first such effort to distribute aid to the south via "safe humanitarian corridors."
A Jordanian military plane landed at Beirut airport Wednesday to evacuate wounded Lebanese, airport officials said. The aircraft, which was the first to land since the airport was closed July 13 after Israeli airstrikes on its runways, also brought a field hospital. Two more planes were bringing medical equipment and military engineers to help repair the airport.
The European Commission also said it was sending an additional $12.6 million in humanitarian aid to Lebanon and $13.9 million to help cover the costs of travel home for foreigners from poor countries fleeing the fighting.
The Israeli bombardment of a UN observation post in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam provoked a sharp exchange between the world body and Israel. Lebanese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said rescue workers were trying to extricate the fourth body from the wrecked building.
Annan said he was shocked by the "apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. observer post in southern Lebanon."
In response, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths, but denied that Israel had struck the post intentionally.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the U.N. post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous."
Olmert called Annan on Wednesday to also express his "deep regret" for the deaths of the U.N. observers. He promised a thorough investigation of the incident and said the results would be presented to Annan.
One of the dead was identified as Chinese U.N. observer Du Zhaoyu, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Israel's ambassador to Beijing was summoned Wednesday morning and asked to convey China's request that Israel fully investigate the incident and issue an apology to the victim's relatives.
"We are deeply shocked by this incident and strongly condemn it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in the statement.
The other three UN observers were from Austria, Canada and Finland.
Wednesday's fighting broke out when Israeli forces tried to advance inside Bint Jbail, where they have been battling Hezbollah guerrillas for four days. There were conflicting reports about the casualty toll.
A senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press Wednesday that Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside Bint Jbail, but had not yet taken the town center.
The Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters had taken cover in a local mosque.
Hezbollah said "violent confrontations" were taking place between its fighters and Israeli forces attempting to advance toward a hospital in Bint Jbail, which holds the largest Shiite Muslim community in the border area. Hezbollah draws its support from the Shiites.
Fighting also has been heavy for days around the border towns of Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras, where Israeli forces are trying to eliminate the guerrillas who have been firing rockets into Israel. The area controls the high ground in the central sector of the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The Israeli defense minister said Tuesday that Israel will carve out a "security zone" in southern Lebanon until an international force "with enforcement capability" is deployed there or Hezbollah and its rocket launchers are pushed back from the border and the group's weapons supply is cut off.
He hinted that Israel might enforce the no-go zone from a distance, saying that "we will continue to control (Hezbollah) with our fire toward anyone who will get close to the defined security zone."
Israel maintained such a zone during its occupation of Lebanon; Peretz became the first Israeli leader to raise the idea of restoring it. He did not say whether Israeli troops would patrol southern Lebanon or keep guerrillas out with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Olmert told parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that the army would control a nearly 2-mile area just inside the border to ensure it is free of Hezbollah guerrillas, lawmakers quoted him as saying. The Israeli public currently overwhelmingly supports the army's broad offensive in Lebanon, but is not likely to support any reoccupation.
Israeli army commanders also have presented a more limited agenda, saying Israeli ground troops would not push deep into Lebanon and the objective is to kill as many Hezbollah fighters as possible and push others away from the border.
A new volley of Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel on Tuesday, killing a teenage girl, and Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, issued a taped television message saying guerrillas would now start firing rockets deeper into Israel.
As the Israeli incursion continued, the senior Hezbollah leader said the guerrillas had not expected such an onslaught when they killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two others during a cross-border raid on July 12.
"The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," Komati told the AP.
AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi in Nabatiyeh and Sheherezade Faramarzi in Beirut contributed to this story.
Israeli Troops Suffer Heavy Casualties
Jul 26, 8:51 AM (ET)
By SAM F. GHATTAS
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hezbollah inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops as they battled for a key hilltop town in southern Lebanon for a fourth day Wednesday, with at least 12 soldiers reported killed. Israel has faced fiercer resistance than expected as it advances across the border in its campaign against the Islamic militant group.
Meanwhile, Lebanese officials confirmed that four U.N. observers were killed when an Israeli airstrike struck their post the night before.
Also Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the country is seeking to establish a 1.2-mile-wide strip in southern Lebanon that will be free of Hezbollah guerrillas. It was the first time Israel had given the dimensions of its new "security zone."
The fighting came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel plans to maintain a security zone in the south until either a multinational force is deployed or Hezbollah is pushed back in a cease-fire agreement that also cuts off the supply of its weapons.
Peretz indicated that troops would try to control such a zone from a distance, by artillery fire and airstrikes, rather than patrolling south Lebanon. The remarks were the first indication of the possibility of a longer Israeli involvement than previously had been raised by officials wary of public anger over its 18-year occupation of the area that ended in 2000.
Olmert told a parliament committee Wednesday that Israel will not reoccupy any part of southern Lebanon, participants said, apparently to reassure lawmakers and the public that troops will not return to Lebanon permanently.
At a Mideast conference in Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said that the conference had agreed to work "immediately" for a cease-fire in Lebanon. Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for participants to push for an immediate cease-fire to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Annan also said an international force was vital to a peaceful solution.
Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite TV channel said at least 12 Israeli soldiers had been killed in the fighting for control of Bint Jbail, a town that has symbolic importance to the Shiite Islamic militant group as one of the centers of resistance to the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli military would only say that several soldiers had been wounded in heavy fighting at Bint Jbail. If confirmed, it would be the largest death toll suffered by the Israeli military in a single attack since the offensive began two weeks ago.
The international community also stepped up efforts to get aid to those stranded in the troubled south. A U.N. convoy of 10 trucks carrying food, medicine, sanitation and hygiene supplies left Beirut for the port city of Tyre. The United Nations said it was the first such effort to distribute aid to the south via "safe humanitarian corridors."
A Jordanian military plane landed at Beirut airport Wednesday to evacuate wounded Lebanese, airport officials said. The aircraft, which was the first to land since the airport was closed July 13 after Israeli airstrikes on its runways, also brought a field hospital. Two more planes were bringing medical equipment and military engineers to help repair the airport.
The European Commission also said it was sending an additional $12.6 million in humanitarian aid to Lebanon and $13.9 million to help cover the costs of travel home for foreigners from poor countries fleeing the fighting.
The Israeli bombardment of a UN observation post in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam provoked a sharp exchange between the world body and Israel. Lebanese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said rescue workers were trying to extricate the fourth body from the wrecked building.
Annan said he was shocked by the "apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. observer post in southern Lebanon."
In response, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths, but denied that Israel had struck the post intentionally.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the U.N. post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous."
Olmert called Annan on Wednesday to also express his "deep regret" for the deaths of the U.N. observers. He promised a thorough investigation of the incident and said the results would be presented to Annan.
One of the dead was identified as Chinese U.N. observer Du Zhaoyu, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Israel's ambassador to Beijing was summoned Wednesday morning and asked to convey China's request that Israel fully investigate the incident and issue an apology to the victim's relatives.
"We are deeply shocked by this incident and strongly condemn it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in the statement.
The other three UN observers were from Austria, Canada and Finland.
Wednesday's fighting broke out when Israeli forces tried to advance inside Bint Jbail, where they have been battling Hezbollah guerrillas for four days. There were conflicting reports about the casualty toll.
A senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press Wednesday that Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside Bint Jbail, but had not yet taken the town center.
The Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters had taken cover in a local mosque.
Hezbollah said "violent confrontations" were taking place between its fighters and Israeli forces attempting to advance toward a hospital in Bint Jbail, which holds the largest Shiite Muslim community in the border area. Hezbollah draws its support from the Shiites.
Fighting also has been heavy for days around the border towns of Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras, where Israeli forces are trying to eliminate the guerrillas who have been firing rockets into Israel. The area controls the high ground in the central sector of the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The Israeli defense minister said Tuesday that Israel will carve out a "security zone" in southern Lebanon until an international force "with enforcement capability" is deployed there or Hezbollah and its rocket launchers are pushed back from the border and the group's weapons supply is cut off.
He hinted that Israel might enforce the no-go zone from a distance, saying that "we will continue to control (Hezbollah) with our fire toward anyone who will get close to the defined security zone."
Israel maintained such a zone during its occupation of Lebanon; Peretz became the first Israeli leader to raise the idea of restoring it. He did not say whether Israeli troops would patrol southern Lebanon or keep guerrillas out with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Olmert told parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that the army would control a nearly 2-mile area just inside the border to ensure it is free of Hezbollah guerrillas, lawmakers quoted him as saying. The Israeli public currently overwhelmingly supports the army's broad offensive in Lebanon, but is not likely to support any reoccupation.
Israeli army commanders also have presented a more limited agenda, saying Israeli ground troops would not push deep into Lebanon and the objective is to kill as many Hezbollah fighters as possible and push others away from the border.
A new volley of Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel on Tuesday, killing a teenage girl, and Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, issued a taped television message saying guerrillas would now start firing rockets deeper into Israel.
As the Israeli incursion continued, the senior Hezbollah leader said the guerrillas had not expected such an onslaught when they killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two others during a cross-border raid on July 12.
"The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," Komati told the AP.
AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi in Nabatiyeh and Sheherezade Faramarzi in Beirut contributed to this story.
Israel on alert 4 days BEFORE the arrest of the two IDF soldiers---Israeli spies captured in Lebanon
www.sana.org
An Israeli spy network arrested in Lebanon
Saturday, July 22, 2006 - 02:50 PM
BEIRUT, July 22 (SANA)
Lebanese intelligence services have arrested a spy network working for Israel since long years ago, Lebanese A-Safir daily newspaper reported Saturday.
" The confession of suspects could lead to the exposure of a number of unactive spy cells working for Israel on Lebanese soil," the paper added in an article.
The paper quoted a well-informed source as saying that activities of this spy network exceeded what Mahmoud Rafa network which already uncovered has done.
" Members of the network, using developed technologies and communication apparatuses, facilitated selection of certain goals in Beirut's southern suburb through putting signs guiding the Israeli aircrafts to those targets," the papers indicated.
" One of the prominent figures in the network confessed that Israel has put itself on the alert 4 days before arrest of the two Israeli soldiers and provided its inactive spy cells with directives and technologies regarding targeting centers and headquarters of Hizbullah party in all Lebanese territories particularly in the Beirut's southern suburb.
Ghossoun /
An Israeli spy network arrested in Lebanon
Saturday, July 22, 2006 - 02:50 PM
BEIRUT, July 22 (SANA)
Lebanese intelligence services have arrested a spy network working for Israel since long years ago, Lebanese A-Safir daily newspaper reported Saturday.
" The confession of suspects could lead to the exposure of a number of unactive spy cells working for Israel on Lebanese soil," the paper added in an article.
The paper quoted a well-informed source as saying that activities of this spy network exceeded what Mahmoud Rafa network which already uncovered has done.
" Members of the network, using developed technologies and communication apparatuses, facilitated selection of certain goals in Beirut's southern suburb through putting signs guiding the Israeli aircrafts to those targets," the papers indicated.
" One of the prominent figures in the network confessed that Israel has put itself on the alert 4 days before arrest of the two Israeli soldiers and provided its inactive spy cells with directives and technologies regarding targeting centers and headquarters of Hizbullah party in all Lebanese territories particularly in the Beirut's southern suburb.
Ghossoun /
Chavez in Russia for arms deals
BBC NEWS
Chavez in Russia for arms deals
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is visiting Russia, where he is expected to sign deals to buy new fighter jets and helicopters.
He will visit Volgograd - formerly Stalingrad - on Tuesday, and later the Urals town of Izhevsk, where Kalashnikov assault rifles are made.
The US has tried to persuade Russia not to supply weapons to Venezuela.
Mr Chavez is visiting several countries, lobbying for a Venezuelan seat on the UN Security Council.
On Monday he signed a series of co-operation agreements with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, covering topics such as technology, energy and agriculture.
Both Mr Lukashenko and Mr Chavez are fierce critics of US policy.
In Belarus they exchanged compliments about each other's strong leadership styles.
"I'm impressed by your knowledge of military affairs," Mr Lukashenko told Mr Chavez as they toured an army museum.
Strategic alliance
The US has labelled Mr Lukashenko "Europe's last dictator".
Mr Chavez said the agreements were just the start of a Belarus-Venezuela strategic alliance.
He will later visit Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali.
The planned arms deal with Russia is worth around $1bn (£542m), correspondents say.
The US has voiced concerns about it, having banned such deals with Caracas for US manufacturers.
Russia plans to deliver 30 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and 30 helicopters to Venezuela.
Venezuela also plans to buy 100,000 Russian-made AK-103 assault rifles and wants to set up factories on its soil to produce Kalashnikovs under licence.
Chavez in Russia for arms deals
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is visiting Russia, where he is expected to sign deals to buy new fighter jets and helicopters.
He will visit Volgograd - formerly Stalingrad - on Tuesday, and later the Urals town of Izhevsk, where Kalashnikov assault rifles are made.
The US has tried to persuade Russia not to supply weapons to Venezuela.
Mr Chavez is visiting several countries, lobbying for a Venezuelan seat on the UN Security Council.
On Monday he signed a series of co-operation agreements with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, covering topics such as technology, energy and agriculture.
Both Mr Lukashenko and Mr Chavez are fierce critics of US policy.
In Belarus they exchanged compliments about each other's strong leadership styles.
"I'm impressed by your knowledge of military affairs," Mr Lukashenko told Mr Chavez as they toured an army museum.
Strategic alliance
The US has labelled Mr Lukashenko "Europe's last dictator".
Mr Chavez said the agreements were just the start of a Belarus-Venezuela strategic alliance.
He will later visit Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali.
The planned arms deal with Russia is worth around $1bn (£542m), correspondents say.
The US has voiced concerns about it, having banned such deals with Caracas for US manufacturers.
Russia plans to deliver 30 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and 30 helicopters to Venezuela.
Venezuela also plans to buy 100,000 Russian-made AK-103 assault rifles and wants to set up factories on its soil to produce Kalashnikovs under licence.
Israel / South Lebanon: Israeli Supreme Court endorses hostage-taking - MARCH 1998--Amnesty International
link
News Service 40/98
AI INDEX: MDE 15/21/98
6 MARCH 1998
Israel/Lebanon: Israeli Supreme Court endorses hostage-taking
The Israeli Supreme Court's ruling authorizing the Israeli Government to hold 10 Lebanese detainees as hostages to secure the release of Israeli servicemen missing in action is contemptible and explicitly legitimizes hostage-taking, Amnesty International declared today.
"The decision is intolerable", the organization said. "Those held as hostages include people who were only 16 when they were taken from their village and have now spent up to 11 years in detention, often secret and incommunicado. These are real people, not objects to be used as political pawns."
When armed groups take hostages, it is universally condemned. Yet the Supreme Court of Israel has now characterised human beings, who should have the right to security and freedom from arbitrary detention, as "bargaining chips" which can be exchanged in pursuit of a "vital interest of state".
The Supreme Court ruling, which covers 10 of the 21 Lebanese hostages held by Israeli authorities, was made in November last year, but only made public on Wednesday, reportedly after a long struggle by the lawyer whose original petition was made as far back as 1994.
The Israeli Government has acknowledged that the detainees themselves pose no threat to state security. Their continued detention therefore has no basis in international law.
"They kidnapped us from our villages, from our homes, with bread in our hands, not from battle, with guns in our hands," wrote one detainee to an Amnesty International group.
The families of the detainees are not allowed visits. In March 1996 the mother of Ghassan al-Dirani travelled from Lebanon to the prison hospital where her son, mentally and physically sick, was being held. After two days of pleading, she was still forbidden to see him. "I was in tears, the Red Cross delegate also," she writes. An Israel Defence Forces spokesperson said: "As long as there is no news of Ron Arad [an Israeli missing in action captured in 1986 by Amal, a Lebanese Shi'a militia], there will be no meetings with [Lebanese] detainees in Israel and no information about the detainees will be released."
In violation of the Geneva Conventions, ratified by Israel, two of the detainees, Mustafa al-Dirani and Shaykh 'Abd al-Karim 'Ubayd, have never had access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
At least 150 other Lebanese nationals are detained in Khiam Detention Centre, run by the South Lebanese Army, a militia allied to Israel in the part of South Lebanon occupied by Israel. Some have been there without charge, trial or any legal status since 1986. Since September 1997 they have had no access to the ICRC.
Amnesty International has long expressed its concern to the Israeli authorities over the way in which these detainees have been held. The organization is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Lebanese hostages held in Israel.
News Service 40/98
AI INDEX: MDE 15/21/98
6 MARCH 1998
Israel/Lebanon: Israeli Supreme Court endorses hostage-taking
The Israeli Supreme Court's ruling authorizing the Israeli Government to hold 10 Lebanese detainees as hostages to secure the release of Israeli servicemen missing in action is contemptible and explicitly legitimizes hostage-taking, Amnesty International declared today.
"The decision is intolerable", the organization said. "Those held as hostages include people who were only 16 when they were taken from their village and have now spent up to 11 years in detention, often secret and incommunicado. These are real people, not objects to be used as political pawns."
When armed groups take hostages, it is universally condemned. Yet the Supreme Court of Israel has now characterised human beings, who should have the right to security and freedom from arbitrary detention, as "bargaining chips" which can be exchanged in pursuit of a "vital interest of state".
The Supreme Court ruling, which covers 10 of the 21 Lebanese hostages held by Israeli authorities, was made in November last year, but only made public on Wednesday, reportedly after a long struggle by the lawyer whose original petition was made as far back as 1994.
The Israeli Government has acknowledged that the detainees themselves pose no threat to state security. Their continued detention therefore has no basis in international law.
"They kidnapped us from our villages, from our homes, with bread in our hands, not from battle, with guns in our hands," wrote one detainee to an Amnesty International group.
The families of the detainees are not allowed visits. In March 1996 the mother of Ghassan al-Dirani travelled from Lebanon to the prison hospital where her son, mentally and physically sick, was being held. After two days of pleading, she was still forbidden to see him. "I was in tears, the Red Cross delegate also," she writes. An Israel Defence Forces spokesperson said: "As long as there is no news of Ron Arad [an Israeli missing in action captured in 1986 by Amal, a Lebanese Shi'a militia], there will be no meetings with [Lebanese] detainees in Israel and no information about the detainees will be released."
In violation of the Geneva Conventions, ratified by Israel, two of the detainees, Mustafa al-Dirani and Shaykh 'Abd al-Karim 'Ubayd, have never had access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
At least 150 other Lebanese nationals are detained in Khiam Detention Centre, run by the South Lebanese Army, a militia allied to Israel in the part of South Lebanon occupied by Israel. Some have been there without charge, trial or any legal status since 1986. Since September 1997 they have had no access to the ICRC.
Amnesty International has long expressed its concern to the Israeli authorities over the way in which these detainees have been held. The organization is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Lebanese hostages held in Israel.
Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea
BBC NEWS
Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea
UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.
The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling nearby, diplomats familiar with the initial probe into the deaths say.
The news came as crisis talks seeking to end the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel ended in Rome.
They agreed immediate action "to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire".
The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.
The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop.
Israel is conducting an investigation into the deaths, and has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate".
In southern Lebanon, fierce clashes have continued between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters around the town of Bint Jbail.
Reports say between eight and13 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Israel has not confirmed any deaths, but says there have been 20 casualties.
Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea
UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.
The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling nearby, diplomats familiar with the initial probe into the deaths say.
The news came as crisis talks seeking to end the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel ended in Rome.
They agreed immediate action "to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire".
The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.
The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop.
Israel is conducting an investigation into the deaths, and has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate".
In southern Lebanon, fierce clashes have continued between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters around the town of Bint Jbail.
Reports say between eight and13 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Israel has not confirmed any deaths, but says there have been 20 casualties.
AlterNet: Our Willful Blindness in Lebanon
alternet
Our Willful Blindness in Lebanon
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on July 26, 2006, Printed on July 26, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39471/
On Friday morning, as I traveled north on Interstate 5, I passed two tractor-trailers heading south toward the 32nd Street Naval Station in downtown San Diego. Each vehicle carried about 10 unmarked bombs; each bomb was approximately 15 feet long. Two military helicopters hovered low above each tractor-trailer, providing overhead escort. I wondered where these bombs were headed. They must have been in a big hurry because they usually ship their bombs more covertly.
Israel had just put out an S.O.S. to the United States government to rush over several more bombs. "The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration," according to the New York Times. Although always well-equipped with sophisticated U.S.-made weapons, Israel was evidently running out of munitions to drop on the Lebanese people.
Washington loses no opportunity to scold Iran and Syria for providing weapons to Hezbollah. Yet during the Bush administration, from 2001 to 2005, Israel received $10.5 billion in foreign military financing -- the Pentagon's biggest military aid program -- and $6.3 billion in U.S. arms deliveries. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign military assistance.
The U.S. Arms Export Control Act stipulates that foreign countries receiving weapons from the United States must use them solely for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security. During the last major Israeli incursion into Lebanon, in 1981, the Reagan administration cut off U.S. military aid and arms deliveries for 10 weeks while it investigated whether Israel was using weapons for "defensive purposes."
Last week, both houses of Congress, mindful of the importance of retaining Jewish votes and campaign contributions, passed resolutions stating that Israel was acting in self-defense. The vote in the Senate was unanimous; the House vote was 410 to 8. Walking in lockstep with Bush, neither resolution calls for a ceasefire. The Senate resolution praises Israel for its "restraint" and the House resolution "welcomes Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties."
U.S.-provided Israeli bombs have killed nearly 400 Lebanese, of whom the overwhelming majority were innocent civilians. The bombing has displaced half a million people and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage.
After Israel ordered people in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes, several vehicles filled with evacuating Lebanese civilians were bombed by the Israeli military.
An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a white minibus carrying 19 people fleeing Tairi. Three people were killed and several wounded.
A green Mercedes with a family fleeing Mansuri was struck by an Israeli missile. Three lay dead, while others were severely injured. Eight-year-old Mahmoud Srour's face was burned beyond recognition.
As Zein al-Abdin Zabit evacuated with his wife and four sons, his white Nissan was hit by an Israeli missile. "It's nothing more than revenge, revenge on civilians," Zabit said as he lay in bed with broken ribs.
Human Rights Watch confirmed yesterday that Israel is using artillery-delivered cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon. "Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be used in populated areas."
The use of cluster munitions in populated areas of Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the U.S.-led coalition's major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians, HRW reported. HRW photographed U.S.-produced/U.S.-supplied cluster bombs among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a July 23 research visit.
Independent journalist Dahr Jamail reported that the Lebanese Ministry of Interior has confirmed the Israelis have used the incendiary white phosphorous gas. This is a chemical weapon, much like napalm, that can burn right down to the bone. The U.S. military used white phosphorous in Fallujah, Iraq.
Article 35 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits the use of weapons "of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Cluster bombs and white phosphorous fall into this category.
Bilal Masri, assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital, told Jamail, "The Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs can penetrate bomb shelters," Masri added. "They are bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!" Masri also said that 55 percent of the casualties are children under 15 years of age.
It is a violation of the laws of war to target civilians. "A fundamental rule of international humanitarian law is the obligation to distinguish between civilians and civilian property on one hand and military targets on the other," Nada Doumani, Middle East spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Aljazeera.net. "Under no circumstances can civilians and public and private property be deliberately attacked. All parties in the conflict have to abide by these rules."
Doumani quoted ICRC Director of Operations Pierre Krahenbuhl, who said: "The high number of civilian casualties and the extent of damage to essential public infrastructure raise serious questions regarding respect for the principle of proportionality in the conduct of hostilities."
Nearly every report from the corporate media seeks to find symmetry in this war. When an outlet covers the massive devastation in Lebanon and increasing numbers of Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli bombs, it is careful to juxtapose reports of Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel.
Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief, however, called the "disproportionate response" by Israel to Hezbollah's actions "a violation of international humanitarian law." Egeland, who characterized the devastated areas of Lebanon as "horrific," said Israel is denying access to relief operations.
At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters. Israel's death toll is at least 40, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 23 soldiers killed in the fighting.
On Monday, a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer told reporters that Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation for every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa by Hezbollah.
Last week, several Jewish organizations and Christian Zionists lobbied the White House to support Israel. Bush complied, giving Israel at least another week to continue slaughtering the Lebanese people.
While Bush stood by and watched the humanitarian catastrophe Israel is wreaking in Lebanon, Condoleezza Rice traveled there and met with Fuad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister. Rice's visit was an "important show of support for the Lebanese public and the Siniora government," a U.S. official said Monday. The official told reporters traveling with Rice, "The fact we are going to go right into Beirut after all that has happened is a pretty dramatic signal to Lebanon and their government."
It would be much more dramatic for Bush-Rice to call a halt to the carnage. When Helen Thomas asked White House spokesman Tony Snow why the president opposed a ceasefire, he rudely thanked her for her "Hezbollah view."
Bush could stop Israel in its tracks with a snap of his fingers. But why would he? Israel is doing Bush's bidding -- redrawing the map of the Middle East to facilitate U.S. domination. Bush began that task with Iraq; Israel is following suit with Palestine and Lebanon. Indeed, Bush is hoping Israel's next stop will be Iran or Syria.
A July 21 list of talking points from the White House Office of the Press Secretary referred to a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Max Boot titled, "It's Time to Let The Israelis Take Off the Gloves." The White House release contained this quote from Boot's piece: "Our best response is exactly what Bush has done so far -- reject premature calls for a cease-fire and let Israel finish the job."
That quote was preceded by this language: "Iran may be too far away for much Israeli retaliation beyond a single strike on its nuclear weapons complex. (Now wouldn't be a bad time.) But Syria is weak and next door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the Assad regime. Hard. If it does, it will be doing Washington's dirty work."
We turn a blind eye at our peril.
Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.
Our Willful Blindness in Lebanon
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on July 26, 2006, Printed on July 26, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39471/
On Friday morning, as I traveled north on Interstate 5, I passed two tractor-trailers heading south toward the 32nd Street Naval Station in downtown San Diego. Each vehicle carried about 10 unmarked bombs; each bomb was approximately 15 feet long. Two military helicopters hovered low above each tractor-trailer, providing overhead escort. I wondered where these bombs were headed. They must have been in a big hurry because they usually ship their bombs more covertly.
Israel had just put out an S.O.S. to the United States government to rush over several more bombs. "The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration," according to the New York Times. Although always well-equipped with sophisticated U.S.-made weapons, Israel was evidently running out of munitions to drop on the Lebanese people.
Washington loses no opportunity to scold Iran and Syria for providing weapons to Hezbollah. Yet during the Bush administration, from 2001 to 2005, Israel received $10.5 billion in foreign military financing -- the Pentagon's biggest military aid program -- and $6.3 billion in U.S. arms deliveries. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign military assistance.
The U.S. Arms Export Control Act stipulates that foreign countries receiving weapons from the United States must use them solely for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security. During the last major Israeli incursion into Lebanon, in 1981, the Reagan administration cut off U.S. military aid and arms deliveries for 10 weeks while it investigated whether Israel was using weapons for "defensive purposes."
Last week, both houses of Congress, mindful of the importance of retaining Jewish votes and campaign contributions, passed resolutions stating that Israel was acting in self-defense. The vote in the Senate was unanimous; the House vote was 410 to 8. Walking in lockstep with Bush, neither resolution calls for a ceasefire. The Senate resolution praises Israel for its "restraint" and the House resolution "welcomes Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties."
U.S.-provided Israeli bombs have killed nearly 400 Lebanese, of whom the overwhelming majority were innocent civilians. The bombing has displaced half a million people and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage.
After Israel ordered people in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes, several vehicles filled with evacuating Lebanese civilians were bombed by the Israeli military.
An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a white minibus carrying 19 people fleeing Tairi. Three people were killed and several wounded.
A green Mercedes with a family fleeing Mansuri was struck by an Israeli missile. Three lay dead, while others were severely injured. Eight-year-old Mahmoud Srour's face was burned beyond recognition.
As Zein al-Abdin Zabit evacuated with his wife and four sons, his white Nissan was hit by an Israeli missile. "It's nothing more than revenge, revenge on civilians," Zabit said as he lay in bed with broken ribs.
Human Rights Watch confirmed yesterday that Israel is using artillery-delivered cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon. "Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be used in populated areas."
The use of cluster munitions in populated areas of Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the U.S.-led coalition's major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians, HRW reported. HRW photographed U.S.-produced/U.S.-supplied cluster bombs among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a July 23 research visit.
Independent journalist Dahr Jamail reported that the Lebanese Ministry of Interior has confirmed the Israelis have used the incendiary white phosphorous gas. This is a chemical weapon, much like napalm, that can burn right down to the bone. The U.S. military used white phosphorous in Fallujah, Iraq.
Article 35 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits the use of weapons "of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Cluster bombs and white phosphorous fall into this category.
Bilal Masri, assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital, told Jamail, "The Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs can penetrate bomb shelters," Masri added. "They are bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!" Masri also said that 55 percent of the casualties are children under 15 years of age.
It is a violation of the laws of war to target civilians. "A fundamental rule of international humanitarian law is the obligation to distinguish between civilians and civilian property on one hand and military targets on the other," Nada Doumani, Middle East spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Aljazeera.net. "Under no circumstances can civilians and public and private property be deliberately attacked. All parties in the conflict have to abide by these rules."
Doumani quoted ICRC Director of Operations Pierre Krahenbuhl, who said: "The high number of civilian casualties and the extent of damage to essential public infrastructure raise serious questions regarding respect for the principle of proportionality in the conduct of hostilities."
Nearly every report from the corporate media seeks to find symmetry in this war. When an outlet covers the massive devastation in Lebanon and increasing numbers of Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli bombs, it is careful to juxtapose reports of Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel.
Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief, however, called the "disproportionate response" by Israel to Hezbollah's actions "a violation of international humanitarian law." Egeland, who characterized the devastated areas of Lebanon as "horrific," said Israel is denying access to relief operations.
At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters. Israel's death toll is at least 40, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 23 soldiers killed in the fighting.
On Monday, a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer told reporters that Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation for every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa by Hezbollah.
Last week, several Jewish organizations and Christian Zionists lobbied the White House to support Israel. Bush complied, giving Israel at least another week to continue slaughtering the Lebanese people.
While Bush stood by and watched the humanitarian catastrophe Israel is wreaking in Lebanon, Condoleezza Rice traveled there and met with Fuad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister. Rice's visit was an "important show of support for the Lebanese public and the Siniora government," a U.S. official said Monday. The official told reporters traveling with Rice, "The fact we are going to go right into Beirut after all that has happened is a pretty dramatic signal to Lebanon and their government."
It would be much more dramatic for Bush-Rice to call a halt to the carnage. When Helen Thomas asked White House spokesman Tony Snow why the president opposed a ceasefire, he rudely thanked her for her "Hezbollah view."
Bush could stop Israel in its tracks with a snap of his fingers. But why would he? Israel is doing Bush's bidding -- redrawing the map of the Middle East to facilitate U.S. domination. Bush began that task with Iraq; Israel is following suit with Palestine and Lebanon. Indeed, Bush is hoping Israel's next stop will be Iran or Syria.
A July 21 list of talking points from the White House Office of the Press Secretary referred to a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Max Boot titled, "It's Time to Let The Israelis Take Off the Gloves." The White House release contained this quote from Boot's piece: "Our best response is exactly what Bush has done so far -- reject premature calls for a cease-fire and let Israel finish the job."
That quote was preceded by this language: "Iran may be too far away for much Israeli retaliation beyond a single strike on its nuclear weapons complex. (Now wouldn't be a bad time.) But Syria is weak and next door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the Assad regime. Hard. If it does, it will be doing Washington's dirty work."
We turn a blind eye at our peril.
Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.
Where exactly were those Israeli soldiers when Hezbollah captured them?
Representative Press
This AP news article was run by several news outlets on July 12th like ABC, CBS Forbes, The Boston Herald etc. Here are more examples of articles which mention that the Israeli soldiers were captured on the Lebanese side of the boarder and a map that shows the Lebanese town refereed to in the articles: The two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon Here are two examples from those at that page:
"The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement announced on Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. "Implementing our promise to free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon," a statement by Hezbollah said.
"The two soldiers have already been moved to a safe place," it added. The Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured as they "infiltrated" into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border." [Hindustan Times 7/12/06]
It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. They arrested two Israeli soldiers, killed eight Israelis and wounded over 20 in attacks inside Israeli territory. [Asia Times 7/15/06]
Changing the Story Two Times:
5:41 AM ET, Associated Press Writer Joseph Panossian originally reported "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon"
7:09 AM ET, Associated Press Writer Joseph Panossian had changed his report to read: "The Hezbollah militant group captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes along the Lebanese border on Wednesday."
4:13 PM ET, Associated Press Writer Joseph Panossian had again changed his report, this time to read: "Hezbollah militants crossed into Israel on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. "
On July 12th, Anthony Shadid, Scott Wilson and Debbi Wilgoren, of the Washington Post Foreign Service, did not say which side of the border in their article Hezbollah Captures 2 Israeli Soldiers , "The militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers along the Israel-Lebanon border Wednesday morning, and Israeli officials said seven more soldiers were killed after tanks and troops moved into Lebanon in response to the attack." [as seen in google cache.] But that article was rewritten and on July 13th it read: "The Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah infiltrated the Israeli border Wednesday in a brazen raid, capturing two Israeli soldiers, killing three others and prompting Israeli attacks on the airport in Beirut and bridges, roads, power stations and military positions across the hillsides of southern Lebanon."
Where exactly were those Israeli soldiers when Hezbollah captured them?
On July 12th, the Associated Press reported "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them." This is from the article Hezbollah Captures 2 Israeli Soldiers By JOSEPH PANOSSIAN , 07.12.2006, 05:41 AMThis AP news article was run by several news outlets on July 12th like ABC, CBS Forbes, The Boston Herald etc. Here are more examples of articles which mention that the Israeli soldiers were captured on the Lebanese side of the boarder and a map that shows the Lebanese town refereed to in the articles: The two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon Here are two examples from those at that page:
"The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement announced on Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. "Implementing our promise to free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon," a statement by Hezbollah said.
"The two soldiers have already been moved to a safe place," it added. The Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured as they "infiltrated" into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border." [Hindustan Times 7/12/06]
It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. They arrested two Israeli soldiers, killed eight Israelis and wounded over 20 in attacks inside Israeli territory. [Asia Times 7/15/06]
Changing the Story Two Times:
5:41 AM ET, Associated Press Writer Joseph Panossian originally reported "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon"
7:09 AM ET, Associated Press Writer Joseph Panossian had changed his report to read: "The Hezbollah militant group captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes along the Lebanese border on Wednesday."
4:13 PM ET, Associated Press Writer Joseph Panossian had again changed his report, this time to read: "Hezbollah militants crossed into Israel on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. "
On July 12th, Anthony Shadid, Scott Wilson and Debbi Wilgoren, of the Washington Post Foreign Service, did not say which side of the border in their article Hezbollah Captures 2 Israeli Soldiers , "The militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers along the Israel-Lebanon border Wednesday morning, and Israeli officials said seven more soldiers were killed after tanks and troops moved into Lebanon in response to the attack." [as seen in google cache.] But that article was rewritten and on July 13th it read: "The Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah infiltrated the Israeli border Wednesday in a brazen raid, capturing two Israeli soldiers, killing three others and prompting Israeli attacks on the airport in Beirut and bridges, roads, power stations and military positions across the hillsides of southern Lebanon."
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Israel intends to carve 'security zone' --gee, is anyone surprised at another land grab?
Yahoo! News
Israel intends to carve 'security zone'
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press WriterTue Jul 25, 3:22 PM ET
Israel will carve out a "security zone" in south Lebanon until an international force is deployed there or Hezbollah and its rocket launchers are pushed back from the Israeli border, Israel's defense minister said Tuesday.
Israel maintained such a zone during its 18-year military occupation of Lebanon, and Defense Minister Amir Peretz became the first Israeli leader to raise the idea of restoring a no-go area. He did not say whether Israeli troops would patrol south Lebanon or keep guerrillas out with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Peretz spoke on the 14th day of Israel's military offensive, with no sign that the deadly bombardment it had slowed Hezbollah's rocket attacks. More than 80 rockets hit Israel on Tuesday, killing a 15-year-old girl in an Arab village and wounding two dozen other people.
Israeli leaders vowed to defeat Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told immigrants from France that Israel has "the stamina for a long struggle." His vice premier, Shimon Peres, told parliament there is "no alternative to victory" over Hezbollah, and that the guerrillas are marked for defeat.
But Israeli army commanders presented a more limited agenda.
They said Israeli ground troops, who encircled the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail on Tuesday, would not push deep into Lebanon. They said the objective is to kill as many Hezbollah fighters as possible and push others away from the border.
"We are very much dealing with the villages and towns close to the border, to clear some of the (Hezbollah) infrastructure and posts close to the border," Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan said. "Our aim is not to occupy the territory."
Peretz said Israel would maintain a security zone until either a multinational force "with enforcement capability" is deployed on the border, or Hezbollah is pushed back in a cease-fire agreement that also cuts off the supply of its weapons.
He hinted that Israel might enforce the no-go zone from a distance, saying that "we will continue to control (Hezbollah) with our fire toward anyone who will get close to the defined security zone."
The security zone is an emotionally charged concept that dates to one of the most divisive chapters in Israel's history, its 1982 invasion of Lebanon and its subsequent occupation of parts of the country.
During that time, Israeli troops patrolled the border area in south Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from attacking northern Israel. Israel's 2000 pullout from Lebanon was prompted, in large part, by public discontent over the casualty toll among soldiers in the security zone.
Nehushtan said Israeli forces have killed dozens of Hezbollah fighters and destroyed about 100 to 150 rocket launchers in the past two weeks. He said he did not know how many of Hezbollah's 12,000 rockets had been destroyed, but said the army was eroding the guerrillas' powers of attack.
The Israeli military also came under some criticism at home, with commentators citing a lack of intelligence about Hezbollah positions and arsenals. "Too many surprises awaited our forces," commentator Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
Col. Chen Livni, an Israeli commander in south Lebanon, brushed aside the criticism. "You can't expect zero mistakes at a time of war," he told Israel Army Radio.
Tuesday marked a month since the start of what is now a two-front war against Islamic militants. On June 25, an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas militants in Gaza, prompting an Israeli air and ground offensive there. Two weeks later, Hezbollah attacked Israeli troops in northern Israel, taking two soldiers captive. Israel demands the release of the soldiers as part of any cease-fire deal.
International pressure is building for a truce.
However, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday she wouldn't push for a cease-fire at any price. A truce deal would have to last, Rice said, suggesting she was siding with Israel's demands that Hezbollah be neutralized as part of any deal.
Peres appealed to the Lebanese people to sideline Hezbollah, saying it was a cancer in their midst. "You proved that you could throw the Syrians out of the country, and you can rid your country of the weapons of Hezbollah," Peres said of the Lebanese.
"This could be your great opportunity," Peres said. "You have at your service an army of 80,000 troops. Where are they?"
Israel intends to carve 'security zone'
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press WriterTue Jul 25, 3:22 PM ET
Israel will carve out a "security zone" in south Lebanon until an international force is deployed there or Hezbollah and its rocket launchers are pushed back from the Israeli border, Israel's defense minister said Tuesday.
Israel maintained such a zone during its 18-year military occupation of Lebanon, and Defense Minister Amir Peretz became the first Israeli leader to raise the idea of restoring a no-go area. He did not say whether Israeli troops would patrol south Lebanon or keep guerrillas out with airstrikes and artillery fire.
Peretz spoke on the 14th day of Israel's military offensive, with no sign that the deadly bombardment it had slowed Hezbollah's rocket attacks. More than 80 rockets hit Israel on Tuesday, killing a 15-year-old girl in an Arab village and wounding two dozen other people.
Israeli leaders vowed to defeat Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told immigrants from France that Israel has "the stamina for a long struggle." His vice premier, Shimon Peres, told parliament there is "no alternative to victory" over Hezbollah, and that the guerrillas are marked for defeat.
But Israeli army commanders presented a more limited agenda.
They said Israeli ground troops, who encircled the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail on Tuesday, would not push deep into Lebanon. They said the objective is to kill as many Hezbollah fighters as possible and push others away from the border.
"We are very much dealing with the villages and towns close to the border, to clear some of the (Hezbollah) infrastructure and posts close to the border," Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan said. "Our aim is not to occupy the territory."
Peretz said Israel would maintain a security zone until either a multinational force "with enforcement capability" is deployed on the border, or Hezbollah is pushed back in a cease-fire agreement that also cuts off the supply of its weapons.
He hinted that Israel might enforce the no-go zone from a distance, saying that "we will continue to control (Hezbollah) with our fire toward anyone who will get close to the defined security zone."
The security zone is an emotionally charged concept that dates to one of the most divisive chapters in Israel's history, its 1982 invasion of Lebanon and its subsequent occupation of parts of the country.
During that time, Israeli troops patrolled the border area in south Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from attacking northern Israel. Israel's 2000 pullout from Lebanon was prompted, in large part, by public discontent over the casualty toll among soldiers in the security zone.
Nehushtan said Israeli forces have killed dozens of Hezbollah fighters and destroyed about 100 to 150 rocket launchers in the past two weeks. He said he did not know how many of Hezbollah's 12,000 rockets had been destroyed, but said the army was eroding the guerrillas' powers of attack.
The Israeli military also came under some criticism at home, with commentators citing a lack of intelligence about Hezbollah positions and arsenals. "Too many surprises awaited our forces," commentator Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
Col. Chen Livni, an Israeli commander in south Lebanon, brushed aside the criticism. "You can't expect zero mistakes at a time of war," he told Israel Army Radio.
Tuesday marked a month since the start of what is now a two-front war against Islamic militants. On June 25, an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas militants in Gaza, prompting an Israeli air and ground offensive there. Two weeks later, Hezbollah attacked Israeli troops in northern Israel, taking two soldiers captive. Israel demands the release of the soldiers as part of any cease-fire deal.
International pressure is building for a truce.
However, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday she wouldn't push for a cease-fire at any price. A truce deal would have to last, Rice said, suggesting she was siding with Israel's demands that Hezbollah be neutralized as part of any deal.
Peres appealed to the Lebanese people to sideline Hezbollah, saying it was a cancer in their midst. "You proved that you could throw the Syrians out of the country, and you can rid your country of the weapons of Hezbollah," Peres said of the Lebanese.
"This could be your great opportunity," Peres said. "You have at your service an army of 80,000 troops. Where are they?"
Annan: IAF hit 'apparently deliberate' | Jerusalem Post
Jerusalem Post
Annan: IAF hit 'apparently deliberate'
By AP AND JPOST.COM STAFF
An Israeli bomb destroyed a UN observer post on the border in southern Lebanon, killing two peacekeepers with two others feared dead under the rubble. UN chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.
Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Isarel hit the post intentionally.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous."
The IDF said in response that it deeply regretted the "tragic death" of the UN personnel and vowed to investigate the incident.
The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing "continued even during the rescue operation," Struger said.
Annan said two UN military observers were killed with two more feared dead. The victims included observers from Austria, a Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media. It was not immediately known which were confirmed dead.
As reports of the attack emerged, Annan rushed out of a hotel in Rome following a dinner with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon," Annan said in a statement later.
Annan said in his statement that the post had been there for a long time and was marked clearly, and was hit despite assurances from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would not be attacked.
"I call on the goverment of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop," Annan said in the statement.
Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible."
US Ambassador John Bolton said the Security Council was informed that four officers were killed, but he had no other information.
"We're obviously very sorry about that. We're attempting to get information where we can to confirm the nature of the incident," Bolton said.
Since Israel launched a massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerrillas July 12, an international civilian employee working with UNIFIL and his wife have been killed in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas in the southern port city of Tyre.
Five UNIFIL soldiers and one military observer have also been wounded, Struger said.
Annan: IAF hit 'apparently deliberate'
By AP AND JPOST.COM STAFF
An Israeli bomb destroyed a UN observer post on the border in southern Lebanon, killing two peacekeepers with two others feared dead under the rubble. UN chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.
Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Isarel hit the post intentionally.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous."
The IDF said in response that it deeply regretted the "tragic death" of the UN personnel and vowed to investigate the incident.
The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing "continued even during the rescue operation," Struger said.
Annan said two UN military observers were killed with two more feared dead. The victims included observers from Austria, a Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media. It was not immediately known which were confirmed dead.
As reports of the attack emerged, Annan rushed out of a hotel in Rome following a dinner with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon," Annan said in a statement later.
Annan said in his statement that the post had been there for a long time and was marked clearly, and was hit despite assurances from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would not be attacked.
"I call on the goverment of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop," Annan said in the statement.
Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible."
US Ambassador John Bolton said the Security Council was informed that four officers were killed, but he had no other information.
"We're obviously very sorry about that. We're attempting to get information where we can to confirm the nature of the incident," Bolton said.
Since Israel launched a massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerrillas July 12, an international civilian employee working with UNIFIL and his wife have been killed in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas in the southern port city of Tyre.
Five UNIFIL soldiers and one military observer have also been wounded, Struger said.
Never Again? Never Again for Who?
The Truth Will Set You Free
The media magician's sleight-of-hand has transformed the original casus belli of two captured IOF soldiers into "defense from Hezbollah rocket attacks." Nevermind the fact that there were no rocket attacks until Israel's widespread bombings of Lebanon had commenced. Most of the world's media uses the term "Lebanese militia" rather than Hezbollah when describing southern Lebanon's right to defend itself. This initial report by Forbes accurately reported Israel's provocation that resulted in the capture of the IOF soldiers:
Thanks to the Internet bypassing traditional media filters, CNN has been compelled to report on Israel's use of outlawed white phosphorus in Lebanon:
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Never Again? Never Again for Who?
The blog Lebanon Updates has a wealth of resources and daily news. This map shows the intensity of the Israeli blitzkrieg that has hit every corner of Lebanon from 7/12 through 7/24. It shatters the myth that Israel is defending itself from southern Lebanon rocket attacks: this is a war on all the peoples of Lebanon.
The media magician's sleight-of-hand has transformed the original casus belli of two captured IOF soldiers into "defense from Hezbollah rocket attacks." Nevermind the fact that there were no rocket attacks until Israel's widespread bombings of Lebanon had commenced. Most of the world's media uses the term "Lebanese militia" rather than Hezbollah when describing southern Lebanon's right to defend itself. This initial report by Forbes accurately reported Israel's provocation that resulted in the capture of the IOF soldiers: "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them.That fact has been missing in action ever since, just like some of the missing body parts depicted in this slide show:
The forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity."
Thanks to the Internet bypassing traditional media filters, CNN has been compelled to report on Israel's use of outlawed white phosphorus in Lebanon:
TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- As battles have raged between Israel and Hezbollah in recent days, many Lebanese casualties have been rushed to hospitals with severe burns. Steadily, more and more people in southern Lebanon have accused Israel of packing its bombs with phosphorus.
Mohammad Khalifeh, Lebanon's health minister, said there are high suspicions Israel is using a new type of weapon, resulting in wounds not seen before in hospitals. He said the weapons may contain phosphorus. "There is no evidence but high clinical suspicions, and this is still under investigation,"At one hospital in Tyre, Dr. Wahid Najir said he believes the Israeli military has used chemicals to burn those hit. "This is the effect of phosphorus," he said, speaking of a 9-year-old boy with severe wounds to his face. "This is phosphorus of course."
The boy's family was traveling in a vehicle when it was struck.
International rules of war forbid the use of weapons that cause indiscriminate suffering, but make no specific reference to phosphorus. --From CNN's Karl Penhaul (Posted 1:53 p.m.)
The United States has used phosphorus in military actions in Iraq.
Every violation of international law committed by the U.S. in Iraq is now standard issue for the Israeli Death Forces. Never again?
B'Tselem International Humanitarian Law requires protection of civilians from the harms of war
B'Tselem
23 July 2006: Lebanon and Northern Israel
International Humanitarian Law requires protection of civilians from the harms of war
B'Tselem views with concern the many civilian casualties in Lebanon and in northern Israel over the past week. B'Tselem's mandate is limited to human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The organization is therefore not documenting human rights violations in this conflict.
However, the organization reiterates that international humanitarian law (IHL) obligates all parties taking part in hostilities to refrain from launching attacks against civilians or against civilian objects.
IHL requires that the combating sides direct their attacks only against specific military objectives, take cautionary measures to prevent injury to civilians, and refrain from disproportionate attacks, i.e. attacks directed against legitimate targets, but that are likely to cause excessive harm to civilian. Furthermore, IHL clearly forbids the intimidation and terrorising of civilians, as well as collective punishment.
Over the past week, Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians in its attacks against targets in Lebanon . There is a concern that at least some of them were disproportionate attacks, which constitute war crimes. In addition, Israel has launched deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon , such as bridges, the Beirut international airport , the electricity supply and fuel reservoirs. There is a concern that such attacks are intended to put pressure on the Lebanese Government and not to obtain a specific military advantage. If this is the case, these attacks constitute collective punishment and a grave violation of IHL. Moreover, even if these targets constitute legitimate military objects, or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes, Israel must respect the principle of proportionality and refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to civilians.
At the same time, Hezbollah has been launching numerous deliberate attacks against Israeli civilians in the north of the country, which have killed and injured many civilians. Targeting a civilian population is classified as a grave breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime.
B'Tselem calls on its own government to respect the principles of IHL. The organization calls on the international community to ensure that all parties respect these same principles.
23 July 2006: Lebanon and Northern Israel
International Humanitarian Law requires protection of civilians from the harms of war
B'Tselem views with concern the many civilian casualties in Lebanon and in northern Israel over the past week. B'Tselem's mandate is limited to human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The organization is therefore not documenting human rights violations in this conflict.
However, the organization reiterates that international humanitarian law (IHL) obligates all parties taking part in hostilities to refrain from launching attacks against civilians or against civilian objects.
IHL requires that the combating sides direct their attacks only against specific military objectives, take cautionary measures to prevent injury to civilians, and refrain from disproportionate attacks, i.e. attacks directed against legitimate targets, but that are likely to cause excessive harm to civilian. Furthermore, IHL clearly forbids the intimidation and terrorising of civilians, as well as collective punishment.
Over the past week, Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians in its attacks against targets in Lebanon . There is a concern that at least some of them were disproportionate attacks, which constitute war crimes. In addition, Israel has launched deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon , such as bridges, the Beirut international airport , the electricity supply and fuel reservoirs. There is a concern that such attacks are intended to put pressure on the Lebanese Government and not to obtain a specific military advantage. If this is the case, these attacks constitute collective punishment and a grave violation of IHL. Moreover, even if these targets constitute legitimate military objects, or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes, Israel must respect the principle of proportionality and refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to civilians.
At the same time, Hezbollah has been launching numerous deliberate attacks against Israeli civilians in the north of the country, which have killed and injured many civilians. Targeting a civilian population is classified as a grave breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime.
B'Tselem calls on its own government to respect the principles of IHL. The organization calls on the international community to ensure that all parties respect these same principles.
Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group - Yahoo! News
Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Mon Jul 24, 6:12 PM ET
Human Rights Watch said that Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon, killing a civilian, and called on the Jewish state to immediately cease the practice.
The New York-based rights group said researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that Israel staged a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19, leaving one person dead and injuring 12 civilians, including seven children.
The report said researchers had also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams stationed at the Lebanese border.
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," Kenneth Roth, executive directory of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "They should never be used in populated areas."
Researchers interviewed witnesses of the Blida attack who said Israelis had fired shells which dropped hundreds of cluster munitions on the village.
Cluster munitions are particularly dangerous because they have a high level of duds that can explode much later after the attack.
Human Rights Watch said the US use of cluster munitions was the leading cause of civilian deaths during the invasion of Iraq in March-April 2003, killing or injuring more than 1,000 Iraqi non-combatants.
Belgium became the first country to ban use of cluster munitions in February 2006, followed by a moratorium declared by Norway four months later, Human Rights Watch said, noting there was a growing international movement against their use.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said Hezbollah's attacks on Israel with imprecise rockets in civilian areas violated international humanitarian law and most likely constituted "war crimes."
Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Mon Jul 24, 6:12 PM ET
Human Rights Watch said that Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon, killing a civilian, and called on the Jewish state to immediately cease the practice.
The New York-based rights group said researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that Israel staged a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19, leaving one person dead and injuring 12 civilians, including seven children.
The report said researchers had also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams stationed at the Lebanese border.
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," Kenneth Roth, executive directory of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "They should never be used in populated areas."
Researchers interviewed witnesses of the Blida attack who said Israelis had fired shells which dropped hundreds of cluster munitions on the village.
Cluster munitions are particularly dangerous because they have a high level of duds that can explode much later after the attack.
Human Rights Watch said the US use of cluster munitions was the leading cause of civilian deaths during the invasion of Iraq in March-April 2003, killing or injuring more than 1,000 Iraqi non-combatants.
Belgium became the first country to ban use of cluster munitions in February 2006, followed by a moratorium declared by Norway four months later, Human Rights Watch said, noting there was a growing international movement against their use.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said Hezbollah's attacks on Israel with imprecise rockets in civilian areas violated international humanitarian law and most likely constituted "war crimes."