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.



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.


HAVE YOUR SAY
Surely the lives of the innocent should take precedent
Nikki, Warwickshire

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.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5223940.stm

Published: 2006/07/28 16:20:42 GMT

© BBC MMVI

Israel kills Lebanese civilians

Israel kills Lebanese civilians
An Israeli air raid has killed at least 17 Lebanese civilians who were fleeing southern border areas.

Women and children were among those killed when the convoy was hit. "Bodies litter the road," an eyewitness said.

Israel has expanded its campaign launched after Hezbollah militants seized two Israeli soldiers. More than 70 Lebanese have been killed.

Hezbollah has responded with rockets. Several have hit the town of Tiberias in the deepest such attack in Israel.

Three Israeli sailors are missing after their ship was hit by a Hezbollah missile on Friday. The body of a fourth was found, according to Israeli media.

The ship had caught fire after it was hit by an Iranian-made missile, the Israeli military said.



Israeli jets have also fired rockets on the Lebanon-Syrian border.

The exact location of the Israeli action is not clear, but Syria has denied that Israel hit targets in its territory.

"The air force is bombing roads and bridges on the border between Lebanon and Syria to prevent Hezbollah from taking our captured soldiers out of the country," an Israeli army spokeswoman said, quoted by the Agence France Presse news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said the offensive will continue until Hezbollah releases the soldiers and stops firing rockets at Israel.

At least four people have been injured in the Tiberias rocket-fire, which came as Israel deployed Patriot interceptor missiles in the northern port city of Haifa.

In other attacks:

* Israeli planes struck the northern port city of Tripoli, and carried out raids in north and north-eastern Lebanon for the first time

* They targeted the port and a lighthouse in the capital Beirut and destroyed the headquarters of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah amid a series of strikes on the southern suburbs, which are a Hezbollah stronghold

* Three civilians were killed in an Israeli attack in Hermel, on the border with Syria, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said

* Israeli warplanes also targeted sites in the eastern city of Baalbek.

Nowhere to flee

A number of families were fleeing their village of Marwahin on the Israeli border when their convoy was struck by missiles on the coastal road to Tyre, a UN spokesman told the BBC.


ISRAEL IN LEBANON
March 1978: Israel invades to stop Palestinian attacks
1982: Full-scale invasion; Israel occupies Beirut; pro-Israel militias massacre Palestinian refugees
May 1983: Israel pulls back, but keeps "security zone"
February 1992: Israeli air strike kills Hezbollah leader
1996: Israel launches "Grapes of Wrath" raids on Hezbollah; 100 civilians die under Israeli shelling of UN base at Qana
May 2000: Israel withdraws troops from Lebanon
January 2004: Prisoners-bodies swap agreed between Hezbollah and Israel

Local residents told al-Jazeera TV the villagers had been hit after being told to leave Marwahin by the Israelis and then refused shelter by the UN forces.

The main road had been under continuous bombardment, Ahmad Ali Ubayd said.

"Where is the international justice when children, women, and the elderly are killed?" he said.

The Israeli Army said the responsibility for endangering the civilian population rested with Hezbollah, and they regretted civilian casualties while targeting areas used as a launching ground for missiles.

Correspondents say there is nowhere safe to go for many trying to flee the south.

In past hostilities, much of the mainly Shia population of the south has sought refuge in Beirut's largely Shia southern suburbs, which are now under attack too.

A number of bridges, petrol stations and key roads have also been hit, including the main road linking northern Lebanon to Syria.


HAVE YOUR SAY
Violence should always be a last resort, not the first
Stephen Macadam, Rugby, UK

Thousands of foreigners have fled Beirut, leaving its economy in tatters.

Countries including the US and France are making plans to evacuate their nationals from Lebanon.

The presidents of the US and Russia have differed in emphasis in voicing concern about the Mid-East crisis at the G8 summit in St Petersburg.

George W Bush urged Lebanon's Hezbollah to disarm while Vladimir Putin called for a "balanced" use of force by Israel.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/5182564.stm

Published: 2006/07/15 16:40:46 GMT

Israel Accused of Using Illegal Weapons

Israel Accused of Using Illegal Weapons
By Dahr Jamail, IPS News
Posted on July 29, 2006, Printed on July 29, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39628/

The Israeli military is using illegal weapons against civilians in southern Lebanon, according to several reports.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said this week that Israel had used cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon, in clear violation of international law.

The group said cluster bombs killed a civilian and injured 12 others in Blida village in the south of Lebanon last week. Cluster bombs disperse hundreds of tiny shrapnel-filled 'bomblets' that are "unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable", and should not be used in civilian areas, HRW said.

Lebanese doctors, aid workers and refugees are reporting that the Israeli military has used the incendiary weapon white phosphorous in civilian areas, also in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Dr. Bachir el-Sham at the Complex Hospital in Sidon in the south of Lebanon told IPS in a telephone interview that he has received civilian patients injured by incendiary weapons.

"We are seeing people that are all blackened, with charred flesh that is not burned by normal bombs and flames," he said. "I am sure this is a special bomb. They are using incendiary weapons on civilians in the south. We are seeing these patients."

The doctor also told IPS that the Israelis are again using suction bombs, which they used heavily during the Lebanese civil war.

"They are using suction bombs that implode our buildings," he added, "With implosive bombs... instead of the glass blasted out, it is inside the building. These kill everyone inside the building. There are rarely survivors when they use these bombs."

Bilal Masri, assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital (BGUH) had told IPS earlier that "many of the injured in the south are suffering from the impact of incendiary white phosphorous."

Wafaa el-Yassir, Beirut representative of the non-governmental organisation Norwegian People's Aid, told IPS that several of her relief workers in the south had reported assisting people hit by incendiary weapons.

"The most important thing is that we have an investigation for the Israelis' use of banned weapons," she said. "They have used phosphorous in Nabatiyeh and cluster bombs in Dahaya district of Beirut."

She also said that a doctor at the Bint Jbail hospital, in the small city near the southern border of Lebanon where much of the fierce fighting has taken place, had told her agency that he was certain that white phosphorous had been used against civilians there.

Zacharia al-Amedin, an 18-year-old refugee being treated for lacerations from bomb shrapnel said, "I was in a village near Tyre, and the Israelis were dropping incendiary bombs all around us, even though there weren't fighters near us. So many civilians were hit by these weapons."

The Lebanese ministry of interior has officially said that the Israeli military has used this weapon.

President Emile Lahoud said recently on French radio: "According to the Geneva Conventions, when they use phosphorous bombs and laser bombs, is that allowed against civilians and children?"

An Israeli military spokesman told Reuters news agency, "Everything the Israeli defence forces are using is legitimate." International law requires that the military distinguish between combatants and civilians. Incendiary weapons and cluster bombs when used in areas where there may be civilians contravene international humanitarian law.

"We are a country of humans, not animals," Sham said. "Real people are dying here. You must ask this of the world, to please help."

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who reports from Iraq.

Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel

Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel
Friday, 28 July, 2006 @ 6:53 PM

By Robert Fisk,
The Independent
Qlaya, Southern Lebanon, Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?

south in rubble 01_s.jpgFrom this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a "terrorist centre".

To my left smoke rises too, over the town of Khiam, where a smashed United Nations outpost remains the only memorial to the four UN soldiers - most of them decapitated by an American-made missile on Tuesday - killed by the Israeli air force.

Indian soldiers of the UN army in southern Lebanon, visibly moved by the horror of bringing their Canadian, Fijian, Chinese and Austrian comrades back in at least 20 pieces from the clearly marked UN post next to Khiam prison, left their remains at Marjayoun hospital yesterday.

In past years, I have spent hours with their comrades in this UN position, which is clearly marked in white and blue paint, with the UN's pale blue flag opposite the Israeli frontier. Their duty was to report on all they saw: the ruthless Hizbollah missile fire out of Khiam and the brutal Israeli response against the civilians of Lebanon.

Is this why they had to die, after being targeted by the Israelis for eight hours, their officers pleading to the Israeli Defence Forces that they cease fire? An American-made Israeli helicopter saw to that.

In Bint Jbeil, meanwhile, another bloodbath was taking place. Claiming to "control" this southern Lebanese town, the Israelis chose to walk into a Hizbollah trap. The moment they reached the deserted marketplace, they were ambushed from three sides, their soldiers falling to the ground under sustained rifle fire. The remaining Israeli troops - surrounded by the "terrorists" they were supposed to liquidate - desperately appealed for help, but an Israeli Merkava tank and other vehicles sent to help them were also attacked and set on fire. Up to 17 Israeli soldiers may have died so far in this disastrous operation. During their occupation of Lebanon in 1983 more than 50 Israeli soldiers were killed in just one suicide attack.

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; beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillsides and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.

It was not meant to be like this, 15 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of southern Lebanon, clearly visible to the naked eye, white contrails that thump into Israeli's hillsides and border towns.

So is it frustration or revenge that keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours two days ago, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside, and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatiyeh.

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 three wounded inside. 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 pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pious use the cross as their aiming point?

The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brush fires on the hillsides 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, apart from the obviously marked UN position whose inhabitants they massacred, 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 militia, the South Lebanon Army.

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 deep underground the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their fire in the same underground cells in which they languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.

In Marjayoun, next to Qlaya, once the SLA's headquarters, Lebanese troops are trying to prevent Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man Lebanese army patrols are moving through the darkened roads of both towns at night in case the Hizbollah brings yet more Israeli bombs down on our heads.

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 the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion. According to US 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 of an enlarged Nato force throughout Lebanon to disarm Hizbollah and then the retraining of the Lebanese army before its own deployment 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 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? 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 Shia Muslim forces will not do the same again to any Nato "intervention" force? The Americans are talking about Egyptian and Turkish troops in southern Lebanon; Sunni Muslims ruling Shia territory.

The Hizbollah has been waiting and training and dreaming of this new war for years, however ruthless we may regard the 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.

Yesterday's assault on the Israeli army in Bint Jbeil proved that. The problem is that the US sees this slaughterhouse as an "opportunity" rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah supporters in Tehran and help to shape the "new Middle East" of which Ms Rice spoke so blithely this week.

It is Israel which is running out of time in southern Lebanon. Its attacks have for the fifth time in 30 years placed it in the dock for war crimes in Lebanon. The toll of Lebanon's civilian casualties has reached 400. And still the US will not intervene to prevent the carnage, even to call for a 24-hour ceasefire to allow the 3,000 civilians still trapped between Qlaya and Bint Jbeil - who include a number of foreign nationals - to flee.

The only civilian walking those frightening roads to Qlaya was a goatherd, guiding his animals around the huge bomb craters in the tarmac. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and obviously could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he has a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.

The Shame of Being an American

The Shame of Being an American
Saturday, 29 July, 2006 @ 7:38 PM

By Paul Craig Roberts
Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon?

coffins in the south 02_s.jpgIsrael has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians.

Do you know that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel's attacks on civilian residential districts are children? That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN. He says it is impossible for help to reach the wounded and those buried in rubble, because Israeli air strikes have blown up all the bridges and roads. Considering how often (almost always) Israel misses Hezbollah targets and hits civilian ones, one might think that Israeli fire is being guided by US satellites and US military GPS. Don't be surprised at US complicity. Why would the puppet be any less evil than the puppet master?

Of course, you don't know these things, because the US print and TV media do not report them.

Because Bush is so proud of himself, you do know that he has blocked every effort to stop the Israeli slaughter of Lebanese civilians. Bush has told the UN "NO." Bush has told the European Union "NO." Bush has told the pro-American Lebanese prime minister "NO." Twice. Bush is very proud of his firmness. He is enjoying Israel's rampage and wishes he could do the same thing in Iraq.

Does it make you a Proud American that "your" president gave Israel the green light to drop bombs on convoys of villagers fleeing from Israeli shelling, on residential neighborhoods in the capital of Beirut and throughout Lebanon, on hospitals, on power plants, on food production and storage, on ports, on civilian airports, on bridges, on roads, on every piece of infrastructure on which civilized life depends? Are you a Proud American? Or are you an Israeli puppet?

On July 20, "your" House of Representatives voted 410-8 in favor of Israel's massive war crimes in Lebanon. Not content with making every American complicit in war crimes, "your" House of Representatives, according to the Associated Press, also "condemns enemies of the Jewish state."

Who are the "enemies of the Jewish state"?

They are the Palestinians whose land has been stolen by the Jewish state, whose homes and olive groves have been destroyed by the Jewish state, whose children have been shot down in the streets by the Jewish state, whose women have been abused by the Jewish state. They are Palestinians who have been walled off into ghettos, who cannot reach their farm lands or medical care or schools, who cannot drive on roads through Palestine that have been constructed for Israelis only. They are Palestinians whose ancient towns have been invaded by militant Zionist "settlers" under the protection of the Israeli army who beat and persecute the Palestinians and drive them out of their towns. They are Palestinians who cannot allow their children outside their homes because they will be murdered by Israeli "settlers."

The Palestinians who confront Israeli evil are called "terrorists." When Bush forced free elections on Palestine, the people voted for Hamas. Hamas is the organization that has stood up to Israel. This means, of course, that Hamas is evil, anti-Semitic, un-American and terrorist. The US and Israel responded by cutting off all funds to the new government. Democracy is permitted only if it produces the results Bush and Israel want.

Israelis never practice terror. Only those who are in Israel's way are terrorists.

Another enemy of the Jewish state is Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a militia of Shi'ite Muslims created in 1982 when Israel first invaded Lebanon. During this invasion the great moral Jewish state arranged for the murder of refugees in refugee camps. The result of Israel's atrocities was Hezbollah, which fought the Israeli Army, defeated it, and drove it out of Lebanon. Today Hezbollah not only defends southern Lebanon but also provides social services such as orphanages and medical care.

To cut to the chase, the enemies of the Jewish state are any Muslim country not ruled by an American puppet friendly to Israel. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates have sided with Israel against their own kind, because they are dependent either on American money or on American protection from their own people. Sooner or later these totally corrupt governments that do not represent the people they rule will be overthrown. It is only a matter of time.

Indeed Bush and Israel may be hastening the process in their frantic effort to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran. Both governments have more popular support than Bush has, but the White House Moron doesn't know this. The Moron thinks Syria and Iran will be "cakewalks" like Iraq, where ten proud divisions of the US military are tied down by a few lightly armed insurgents.

If you are still a Proud American, consider that your pride is doing nothing good for Israel or for America.

On July 20 when "your" House of Representatives, following "your" US Senate, passed the resolution in support of Israel's war crimes, the most powerful lobby in Washington, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), quickly got out a press release proclaiming "The American people overwhelming support Israel's war on terrorism and understand that we must stand by our closest ally in this time of crisis."

The truth is that Israel created the crisis by invading a country with a pro-American government. The truth is that the American people do not support Israel's war crimes, as the CNN quick poll results make clear and as was made clear by callers into C-Span.

Despite the Israeli spin on news provided by US "reporting," a majority of Americans do not approve of Israeli atrocities against Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah is located in southern Lebanon. If Israel is targeting Hezbollah, why are Israeli bombs falling on northern Lebanon? Why are they falling on Beirut? Why are they falling on civilian airports? On schools and hospitals?

Now we arrive at the main point. When the US Senate and House of Representatives pass resolutions in support of Israeli war crimes and condemn those who resist Israeli aggression, the Senate and House confirm Osama bin Laden's propaganda that America stands with Israel against the Arab and Muslim world.

Indeed, Israel, which has one of the world's largest per capita incomes, is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. Many believe that much of this "aid" comes back to AIPAC, which uses it to elect "our" representatives in Congress.

This perception is no favor to Israel, whose population is declining, as the smart ones have seen the writing on the wall and have been leaving. Israel is surrounded by hundreds of millions of Muslims who are being turned into enemies of Israel by Israel's actions and inhumane policies.

The hope in the Muslim world has always been that the United States would intervene in behalf of compromise and make Israel realize that Israel cannot steal Palestine and turn every Palestinian into a refugee.

This has been the hope of the Arab world. This is the reason our puppets have not been overthrown. This hope is the reason America still had some prestige in the Arab world.

The House of Representatives resolution, bought and paid for by AIPAC money, is the final nail in the coffin of American prestige in the Middle East. It shows that America is, indeed, Israel's puppet, just as Osama bin Laden says, and as a majority of Muslims believe.

With hope and diplomacy dead, henceforth America and Israel have only tooth and claw. The vaunted Israeli army could not defeat a rag tag militia in southern Lebanon. The vaunted US military cannot defeat a rag tag, lightly armed insurgency drawn from a minority of the population in Iraq, insurgents, moreover, who are mainly engaged in civil war against the Shi'ite majority.

What will the US and its puppet master do? Both are too full of hubris and paranoia to admit their terrible mistakes. Israel and the US will either destroy from the air the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Iran so that civilized life becomes impossible for Muslims, or the US and Israel will use nuclear weapons to intimidate Muslims into acquiescence to Israel's desires.

Muslim genocide in one form or another is the professed goal of the neoconservatives who have total control over the Bush administration. Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz has called for World War IV (in neocon thinking WW III was the Cold War) to overthrow Islam in the Middle East, deracinate the Islamic religion and turn it into a formalized, secular ritual.

Rumsfeld's neocon Pentagon has drafted new US war doctrine that permits pre-emptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear states.

Neocon David Horowitz says that by slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, "Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world," thus equating war criminals with civilized men.

Neocon Larry Kudlow says that "Israel is doing the Lord's work" by murdering Lebanese, a claim that should give pause to Israel's Christian evangelical supporters. Where does the Lord Jesus say, "go forth and murder your neighbors so that you may steal their lands"?

The complicity of the American public in these heinous crimes will damn America for all time in history.

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

Source: Information Clearing House

Israel Refuses Humanitarian Ceasefire

Israel Refuses Humanitarian Ceasefire
Saturday, 29 July, 2006 @ 5:10 PM

Beirut, Lebanon - Following the deliberate targeting of 4 U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, Israel defied the United Nations yet again by rejecting a 3 day break to allow aid to arrive and let the innocent civilians flee.

help lebanon 01_s.jpgIsrael has previously stated that they do not view any of the occupants of the south as civilians, and proceeded to murder entire families with no association to Hizbullah witch hunt.

On Saturday a woman and four children were killed in an Israeli air raid close to the village of Nabatiyeh.

Israel on Saturday rejected a U.N. call for a 72-hour truce to bring humanitarian aid to trapped civilians in south Lebanon as its warplanes continued pounding towns and villages in the area.

un silent and helpless 01_s.jpgU.N. humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland on Friday said that 600 have been killed in Lebanon and appealed for the truce to allow casualties to be removed and food and medicine to be sent into the war zone.

Meanwhile Israeli forces pulled back from positions on the outskirts of the Hizbullah stronghold town of Bint Jbeil and returned to the border town of Maroun al Ras, captured on July 23, security officials said.

Aid to Beirut

Humanitarian aid continued to arrive by sea and air in Beirut Saturday to be distributed to the more than 700,000 refugees who have fled their homes since the beginning of the hostilities.

A U.S. Navy high-speed HSV-2 catamaran arrived at Beirut port from Cyprus bringing blankets, tarpaulins, large medical kits and other materials.

The supplies will be sent to the Chouf mountain east of Beirut, to assist thousands of refugees who fled there, Cassandra Nelson, spokeswoman for the aid organization Mercy Corp told the Associated Press.

Two military planes from Egypt and Jordan also arrived at Beirut airport with medicine, food and medical teams, while a third plane brought 40 tons of food and medical supplies from the United Arab Emirates.

A Turkish military ship docked at Beirut Saturday with seven tons of hemodialysis equipment and medicine destined for dozens of children with kidney failure.

However with secure passages still absent in the south, there is little hope that this much needed aid would reach the hundreds of people stranded there with no running water and dwindling food and medical supplies.

coffins in the south 01_s.jpg
A Lebanese Red Cross rescuer looks at coffins prepared for a funeral in the centre of the southern Lebanon town of Tyre (Soure) July 29, 2006. The coffins will contain the bodies of 40 people killed by Israeli air strikes over the last few days and will be buried in a mass grave.

Sources: AP, Reuters, Naharnet

Lebanese City Stages Second Mass Burial

Lebanese City Stages Second Mass Burial
By Challiss McDonough
Tyre, Lebanon
29 July 2006

McDonough report - Download 1.19MB audio clip
Listen to McDonough report audio clip

The three hospitals in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Saturday held their second mass burial since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Thirty coffins were lowered into a single grave, because the morgues cannot hold any more bodies.

Lebanese soldiers carry the bodies of victims in simple plywood coffins to be laid in a mass grave in the southern port city of Tyre
Lebanese soldiers carry the bodies of victims in simple plywood coffins to be laid in a mass grave in the southern port city of Tyre
Many of the dead buried on Saturday come from villages in the countryside surrounding Tyre. It is too dangerous now for families to return to their towns to bury their loved ones at home, as tradition dictates. The war has forced some 750,000 Lebanese people to flee their homes, and it has also displaced the dead, at least until the bombing is over.

The bodies of two elderly women arrived at the government hospital just hours before the burial, one still wrapped in a bloodstained blanket. Red Cross medics removed them from the ambulance, and wrapped them in sheets of thick black plastic.

They bound the bodies with tape, and wrote the names of the dead women on the tape in black marker. They carried the bodies to a large truck, and stacked them on top of other black-wrapped corpses inside.

Everyone wore surgical masks or respirators to protect against the overpowering stench of decaying flesh. Some of the bodies had been in the truck for more than a week.

The ones on the bottom of the pile were beginning to liquefy. One was covered in maggots.

Dr. Hassan Daher said the morgues have simply run out of room. "We can't preserve them, and there are no places in the refrigerator. That is why we should temporarily bury them. After that, their families will take them home," he said.

This is the second mass burial in Tyre since the bombing started, but Dr. Daher says it will probably not be the last.

Only a few of the families of the dead attended the temporary burial ceremony. Amina Baalbek went to bury her mother, who died in an airstrike three days earlier. Surrounded by her grieving and angry daughters, she said she still has other relatives trapped in their village, unable to get out.

She says, "If [President] Bush had an atom of pity in him, he would arrange for just a three-hour ceasefire, long enough to get those other people out."

The mass burial took place as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to the Middle East to continue talks on a solution to the crisis. Earlier negotiations in Rome broke down, without achieving agreement on a ceasefire. The United States has resisted international pressure to call for an immediate cease-fire, saying the long-term causes of violence in the region must be addressed. Secretary of State Rice has called for a sustainable ceasefire.

The Shi'ite cleric who presided over the burial, Sheikh Akil Zeineddine, has little faith in the U.S. mediation efforts. He noted that Washington expedited a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel after the war started. "They sent a bomb for the Israelis, and they sent some food for us? We don't need their food. Don't send that bomb to kill us, to feed us later, with that. We don't need it. And I send my message to the American people, I love the American people, I respect the American people. Always. Not the government. I'm sorry.... Thirty years, we are under invasion, from the Israelis with American weapons," he said.

The director of the Jebel Amal Hospital, Ahmed Mroue, said the international community must shoulder some of the responsibility for the vast humanitarian crisis in southern Lebanon, and for the ever-growing number of civilian casualties like those being buried in front of him. "I think that the government of America and Europe and... the democratic countries, they have a very big responsibility for what happened here in south Lebanon. Because we are not fighting. We are civilians. We only want to live, no more. We are not Hezbollah. We are not soldiers," he said.

Israel's offensive started when the militant group Hezbollah, which has its strongholds in southern Lebanon, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a July 12th raid in Israel.

At the gravesite, soldiers and doctors, working together, carried the bodies one-by-one from the truck. They laid them in rough-hewn wooden coffins and then nailed the white lids in place.

There were 30 coffins in all, five of them child-sized. Someone had placed a pink flower on top of the smallest coffin, for a baby just one day old.

The coffins were turned so the heads were facing Mecca, and the sheikh began the funeral blessing.

And then, one by one, soldiers carried the coffins over to a long trench, and laid them side-by-side, each with a name and a number handwritten on its white lid.

A bulldozer shoveled piles of earth over them, and they were buried together.

Beautiful Lebanon will rise again

Beautiful Lebanon will rise again

By NADEEM SALEM

AS I write this, I'm watching Lebanon, the country of my parents, burn. Sadly, this is not uncommon with Lebanon. It has burned before throughout its history. The past 30 years alone have seen a civil war starting in 1975 and an Israeli invasion in 1982. The recent attack by Israel has left a beautiful country and a wonderful people decimated.

The mantra from Israel, U.S. government, and Israel's apologists in Congress justifies Israel's obliteration of Lebanon and killing mostly civilians because Hezbollah "started it." Lebanon, the Switzerland of the Middle East, and Beirut, the Paris of the Middle East, defiled again.

How much more punishment must Israel exact on a country and a people who are totally innocent? How much more humiliation must the Lebanese endure? How much more must Beirut burn as the world fiddles? All of this death and destruction, because Hezbollah "started it."

Let me tell you a little of my Lebanon. Although I am a native Toledoan and proudly call Toledo home, I have been fortunate to spend time in Lebanon. In 1963 my parents moved our family there for seven years. Those years instilled in me a love for a country and a people unlike any other on earth.

For 27 years, after returning to the United States, I dreamed of returning to that slice of heaven on the Mediterranean. The sight of Beirut as one approaches by plane is breathtaking. The sight today is heartbreaking, because Hezbollah "started it" and Israel had to teach someone a lesson.

Never mind that this has been going on for years with very different results. Never mind that the Lebanese, along with the international community, have been undergoing reconciliation talks with Hezbollah to specifically meet the obligations under UN resolution 1559. Israel had plans for something bigger and used this latest blunder by Hezbollah to unleash its plan.

Journalist Robert Fisk, who has lived in Lebanon for 30 years, said this about the Lebanese: "They are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore. They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-colored skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite."

Those who travel to Lebanon love it. Yet, as it faces one of its cruelest attacks, and the Lebanese face death and destruction yet again, we leave them to their fate as just a necessary and regrettable by-product of a needed war on "terrorism."

Some cities seem forever doomed. When the crusaders arrived at Beirut on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered every man, woman, and child. As Mr. Fisk has reported, in World War I, Ottoman Beirut suffered a terrible famine because the Turkish army had commandeered all the grain and the Allied powers blockaded the coast, leaving the Lebanese to starve to death.

I agree with Mr. Fisk that the anger and loss the Lebanese suffered was best expressed by Lebanon's greatest poet, Gibran Khalil Gibran. He wrote of the 500,000 Lebanese who died during the 1916 famine: "My people died of hunger, and he who did not perish from starvation was butchered with the sword; they perished from hunger in a land rich with milk and honey. They died because the vipers and sons of vipers spat out poison into the space where the holy cedars and the roses and the jasmine breathe their fragrance."

Today, the Lebanese suffer from starvation again and the sword is in the form of precision bombs, cluster bombs, and missiles fired recklessly from U.S.-supplied helicopters and F-16s.

The Lebanese have seen this before. They've seen their bridges, roads, airports, power facilities all destroyed. They've lived in shelters and have dodged missiles, rockets, and bullets.

As children living in Beirut, we huddled waiting out another Israeli incursion. I recall light fixtures painted blue or wrapped with blue construction paper so we could still have some light in the dark, yet be less visible to the Israelis. I recall the anxiety that a perennially small, militarily weak country endured through these attacks. But I also recall the resiliency of the Lebanese in never cowering to any attack. They didn't cower then and they won't cower now.

Lebanon was a gleaming, stunning country that offered citizens and guests the best in hospitality, adventure, beauty, culture, and recreation. In summertime, Lebanon traditionally opens its doors to larger crowds of tourists. Many are Lebanese expatriates, returning to see family. Many are tourists who keep returning. All who visit are enchanted by Lebanon and the love affair begins for them.

This tourist season promised to be the biggest and the greatest entertainers were to appear in places like Beit Deen and the ancient city of Baalbek. All, however, is lost. Tourists are gone, although many remain stranded and some will never return, as in the case of a Canadian family of eight killed by an Israeli missile.

The Lebanese endured an ugly civil war and an 18-year Israeli occupation partly by listening to songs of Fairouz, the most popular of Lebanese singers and an icon to generations of Lebanese. One of her most popular songs is dedicated to her native city of Beirut; "Peace to Beirut with all my heart, and kisses to the sea and clouds, to the rock of a city that looks like an old sailor's face. From the soul of her people she makes wine, from their sweat, she makes bread and jasmine."

Lebanese all over the world are listening to Fairouz again and longing for that city on the Mediterranean to again rise, as it has done so many times before.

Nadeem Salem is president of the Northwest Ohio American Arab Chamber of Commerce.

Kids appeal to Annan to end conflict

Kids appeal to Annan to end conflict
By a staff reporter

29 July 2006


DUBAI — Children of all nationalities in the UAE have appealed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to intervene in the conflict in Lebanon.

The "Letters for Peace" postcard campaign is being facilitated by the Watani (My Nation) programme that seeks to foster community spirit among UAE residents. Coordinator General Ahmed Al Mansoori said the postcard plan was initiated in response to many requests from parents and children inquiring on how they can help stop the bloodshed in Lebanon.

"The UN is the only body with the moral and legitimate authority to intervene, so it was logical to give children the opportunity to make their feelings known direct to Annan. This endorses their ability to become good citizens."

"Watani is merely the instrument to enable them to do so, funding the production and the postage for the postcards. We all pray that their voices will be listened to," Al Mansoori said.

The pre-printed cards from "Children for Peace in Lebanon" urge Annan to take action in Lebanon, saying, "You are head of the UN, so I ask you to do everything you can to stop the killing in Lebanon. Not only kids are being killed in Lebanon, but faith in justice and hope in tomorrow."

The message continued with "Please help to stop the attacks on Lebanon. We do not understand why innocent children like myself, and their parents, are being killed for no reason. Killing does not make peace and does not make anyone safe."

The cards are available in various locations across Dubai and the UAE. Within the next few days, thousands will be sent to the UN Headquarters in New York.

"This is an appeal from children on behalf of children," said Al Mansoori. "Where adult voices seem to go unheard, we can only hope that children's voices will create a response to the plight of children in Lebanon, and make adults stop listening to each other discussing politics and start hearing the cries of dying children."

U.N., Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Possible War Crimes

U.N., Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Possible War Crimes
By MARC PERELMAN
July 28, 2006

With more than 400 Lebanese civilians killed in recent weeks, the United Nations and leading human rights organizations are stepping up their criticism of Israel, suggesting Jerusalem could face legal consequences for its military actions.

Even before four U.N. observers were killed in an Israeli strike Tuesday, senior officials from the world body were warning Israel and Hezbollah that both sides may have violated international law and committed war crimes. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told the Forward that it was "quite possible" that Israeli soldiers or commanders could face war crimes charges for attacking civilian objects, firing indiscriminately in civilian areas or taking inadequate precautions to avoid civilian causalities.

The warnings drew harsh rebukes from Israel and its supporters. Israel insists that its military actions constitute a "proportionate" response to the threat posed by Hezbollah and that the civilian casualties are largely due to the fact that the Shiite militia is deliberately hiding its operatives and weaponry in civilian areas.

As part of its effort to fend off the mounting criticism, Israel sent Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to Europe this week.

Jan Egeland, the top U.N. humanitarian affairs official, did condemn Hezbollah fighters this week for situating themselves among women and children. But that comment was seen by some observers as an attempt to balance Egeland's assertion a day earlier that Israel had conducted "disproportionate" strikes against civilians.

On Sunday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour told CNN that Israel's actions in Lebanon could lead to the prosecution of its military commanders. She issued a statement last week suggesting that the failure of both sides to spare civilians was a violation of international criminal law.

Although she was careful not to name the parties, Arbour said last week saying that senior civilian and military officials could be brought to justice. "The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control," she said. Her comments prompted a vivid rebuke from Israel's ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who penned an opinion article titled "Arbour Must Go" in the National Post.

The already simmering tensions between Israel and the U.N. exploded Tuesday, after Israel dropped a bomb on a U.N. outpost in south Lebanon, killing four observers. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan quickly accused Jerusalem of intentionally targeting the outpost — an allegation that Israeli officials angrily denied, insisting the incident was not deliberate.

Annan had already been receiving bitter complaints from Jewish groups that were upset over his failure to mention the issue of terrorism in his initial statements about the Lebanese crisis.

Human Rights Watch also alleged that Israel may be guilty of war crimes. Roth pointed to the destruction of about 60% of a nine square blocks area of southern Beirut composed mostly of apartment buildings and the extensive damage to its infrastructure. He also cited Israeli attacks on the village of Srifa, in which 10 houses were destroyed and at least 42 civilians killed, and on a vehicle of villagers fleeing Marwaheen, in which 16 civilians were killed, which took place despite the alleged absence of legitimate military target in sight.

The venue for such prosecutions could be national courts under universal jurisdiction statutes or the recently created International Criminal Court, which has worldwide jurisdiction for war crimes. Lebanon has yet to ratify the treaty and Israel is not a signatory, which means the court could only become involved if the U.N. Security Council refers the matter — an unlikely prospect — or if Lebanon invites the court in to investigate. In that case, Hezbollah would also be subject to its jurisdiction.

Human Rights Watch lobbed more accusations at Israel in a statement claiming that Israeli forces were using artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, a possible violation of the prohibition under international law against indiscriminate attacks.

The Israeli military counters that the use of such weaponry is legal under international law.

Human Rights Watch said its investigators confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 had killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children, and that they had photographed such munitions in the arsenal of Israeli military artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a visit four days later. Roth said that such munitions were inaccurate and their high failure rate caused further danger to civilians. He told the Forward that the organization was reviewing additional pictures showing different types of cluster munitions being deployed by Israeli artillery teams.

Israel and Human Rights Watch have been at loggerheads over their contradictory account of an incident last month in Gaza, during which a Palestinian family was killed. While the Israeli military has maintained that its artillery shelling did not cause the deaths and refused an independent investigation, Human Rights Watch has claimed that the facts are murkier and that an impartial probe is needed.

Lebanese security forces have also accused Israel of using cluster munitions in assaults on Blida and other Lebanese border villages, and earlier this year during fighting with Hezbollah around the disputed Shebaa Farms area. In addition, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and doctors in hospitals in southern Lebanon said this week that they suspected some of the wounds sustained by civilians were caused by phosphorous bombs. The Geneva Conventions ban the use of white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.

Israel says that it is investigating the incidents and a military spokeswoman was quoted by Reuters as saying that the weapons used by the army in Lebanon did not contravene international norms.

Amnesty International, for its part, has denounced "blatant" violations of international law and called on the U.N. to deploy an immediate fact-finding mission to investigate attacks against civilians and other breaches of international law.

War crimes case lodged against Israel

War crimes case lodged against Israel


27 July 2006

BRUSSELS — A Belgian lawyer will lodge on Thursday a complaint in Belgium against Israel for alleged war crimes.

Lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier is representing his clients Ali Abdul-Sater and his wife Farkad El Husseini.

The Belgian couple of Lebanese ancestry was on holiday in Lebanon with their three children when Israel launched its air attacks.

The complaint uses the words "war crimes" as used in the Belgian criminal code, newspaper 'Le Soir' reported.

The code refers to purposeful murder, severe violations of the physical integrity of health, deportation of civilians and the destruction and misappropriation of goods.

According to the Francophone newspaper, each of those elements of law refers to the dramatic events in the Mid-East of the past few weeks.

The complaint — based on the principle of the universal jurisdiction of Belgian courts — primarily targets Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

However, the complaint also states that as head of state, Olmert can enjoy immunity from prosecution.

The complaint also names Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz and the military chief of staff, Dan Halutz.

The newspaper has not ruled out the possibility that more complainants will link up with the case.

Silence on Israel's crimes damaging UK, warns former Blair adviser

Silence on Israel's crimes damaging UK, warns former Blair adviser

London, July 27, IRNA
UK Wall-Israel
A former top foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair is urging the Prime Minister to speak out against the Zionist regimes's indiscriminate killing of civilians in Lebanon and destruction of the country's infrastructure.

"Unhitch us from the Bush chariot," Sir Stephen Wall told Blair, warning him that the silence was damaging Britain's reputation in the Middle East by his complicity.

"I defy any person watching TV not to cry out loud for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Yet our government and that of the US have weasel-worded their way through this tragedy," he said in an article for the latest edition of the New Statesman magazine.

Wall, who was Blair's main adviser on the EU between 1997 and 2004, said that the Prime Minister's sympathy for Israel did not justify his silence or adequately explain the reasons for it.

"The overriding reason for Britain's loss of moral authority is Blair's conviction that he has to hitch the UK to the chariot of the US president," he said.

The former policy adviser said that the government had taken to unprecedented lengths the view that Britain's influence on the US can be exercised only in private.

"It has too readily lost sight of the fact that Britain's interests, and those of the US, are not identical," the career diplomat said.

He suggested that there were times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime minister should have been thinking "less about private influence and more about public advocacy."
"Could the Prime Minister really not speak up for the simple proposition that the slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, the destruction of their country and the ruin of half a million lives were wrong and should stop immediately?" he asked.

Despite Blair's contention that he was seeking a sustained rather than an immediate ceasefire, Wall believed that "one that stopped the horror, even for 24 hours, would be a start."
He recalled when the late US President Ronald Reagan told former Israeli leader Menachem Begin back 1982 that the Israeli onslaught on Beirut threatened to turn into "a holocaust," he was speaking from "anger and conviction."
"Is it the conviction of our government that we should leave it to George W Bush to set the bearings of our moral compass?" the adviser asked.

He believed Foreign Office posts around the Middle East will have been reporting on the cost to Britain's interests of our silence and that cabinet ministers would also have been warning about the price to be paid inside Britain for our apparent complicity.

"Blair has supreme confidence in his own judgment. Let us hope that the reflected light from the TV screens, even now, serves to illuminate the bunker," he said.

America, Bless Her Heart

America, Bless Her Heart - And Replies
posted July 26, 2006

America, God bless her. It’s not her heart, Lord, it’s her mind. She doesn’t mean to be unkind. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

She’s just insane and drunk from too much power, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, arrogance, selfishness, greed and stupidity.

It’s hard, if not impossible, for people – even good-hearted people - to think in morally intelligent ways when their minds have become so infected by all these things.

She’s lost her understanding. She has lost the ability to judge wisely and justly. She can’t see the different degrees of wrong and right. Instead of correcting a wrong with a right, she attempts to correct it with a greater wrong without even realizing it.

She has lost her vision and cannot see into the distance. She cannot see to the left or right. She cannot see where she’s been. She cannot see the details in front of her and she cannot see into the night.

There’s nothing that I can do about it. I’m just a cricket in the high weeds in the midst of a buffalo stampede. There are millions of other crickets just like me but how can we be heard over the thundering hooves of 300 million buffalo?

In the great scheme of things, humanity hasn’t made an inch of progress since the dawn of civilization. We’re still settling our differences with war and killing instead of through respectful talk and peaceful means.

Before America dropped the first atomic bomb and learned that she could rule the world by killing the women and children of her enemies by the hundreds of thousands, it didn’t make much difference.

But now that we’ve moved so deep into the nuclear age with this terrible power to destroy all life on earth, we continue to enforce our imperial will on the world through war and the collateral killing of the innocent, while washing the guilty blood from our hands and claiming that we are just defending ourselves and doing the righteous thing according to God’s will.

We think that because we have more nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction than all the other nations of the world combined, we can have our way with the weaker nations and shape their governments to suit our needs, while claiming that we are just trying to make the world safe for democracy and lasting peace.

We think that because we are the only Super Power, we can maintain alliances with the seven or eight other nations that have nuclear weapons and outlaw any attempts by the weaker nations to develop nuclear weapons.

We think that it is great wisdom for us to extend our nuclear capabilities into space so that we can better defend our nation and our allies against nuclear attack.

We think that no other nation should object to this because it is purely a defensive measure and that the United States, being so good and so loved by God, would never use such an advantage to her advantage and force all the other nations to submit to her desires.

If America could see herself as others see her, she would see why she can’t be trusted to rule the world with her iron fist and the strength of her war machine and her nuclear weapons.

She would see why her word and her moral reasoning can no longer be trusted. But America, blinded by the glow of her own self-righteous goodness, is not ever going to see that.

Look closely at America now. Is she much different in her ways than in those days when she determined that God had given her this land and that the native people that lived here were nothing more than savages and terrorists not worthy of being listened to or allowed to co-exist, even on their own land?

Didn’t that vote of 410 – 8 in the People’s House just last week, when we failed to call for a ceasefire and threw our complete support to Israel, giving her the green light to continue her killing of Lebanese civilians as if she were the one suffering the disproportionate amount of civilian deaths and not the other way around, show the world our true mind?

Too much has taken place over the past month to go into all the details, but apparently this latest increase in speed toward World War III was triggered on June 25 when Palestinian militants killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third at an army post on the Israel-Gaza border.

Apparently the objective of the militants was to trade the captured soldier for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners (including many women and minors) but Israel’s reaction was to attack with missiles and move troops into Gaza, even though she would have still had about 8,000 prisoners left if she had given in to the demands.

The UN Security Council debated a draft resolution demanding an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of detained Palestinian officials which she had captured, but the U.S. prevented it, claiming that the resolution was unbalanced.

On July 12, while Israel was bombing the Gaza Strip, killing 22 Palestinians (the score would be about 100 to 1 within a few days), a group of Hezbollah guerrillas, using a rocket attack against several Israeli towns as a diversion, sneaked across the contested border and captured a couple of soldiers and killed three more, according to press reports, apparently for the purpose of demanding the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners and a Lebanese prisoner to boot.

Israel’s response was to scorch the earth and rain down death and destruction on Lebanon. By July 25 she had killed about 380 Lebanese (mostly civilians) and had suffered about 40 deaths (17 civilians and 23 soldiers). She had also displaced over 700,000 Lebanese from their homes and torn the country’s infrastructure to shreds, wounding about 1,100 and causing billions of dollars in damage.

President George W. Bush and the US Congress, apparently reflecting the mind of the American people, made no effort to stop this fight and prevent the unnecessary overkill of the innocent and the leveling of the country.

Their reasoning was that Israel had the right to defend herself, case closed. Their reasoning was that Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon were terrorist organizations whose method of fighting was to kill innocent civilians for the purpose of wiping Israel off the map and forcing their religion on the world. Case closed.

Their reasoning, apparently, was that the democratic governments of Lebanon and Palestine were not legitimate because they included members of Hamas and Hezbollah and allowed the militant strains of these groups sanctuary within their borders.

And as President Bush indicated in his off-the-cuff remark to Great Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G-8 peace summit, Syria could stop this in a minute if she wanted to. And Iran is to blame too for supporting Hamas and Hezbollah with money to buy weapons.

Apparently America is unwilling to ask for a ceasefire and an end to all this unnecessary killing of the innocents and the continued destruction of these two lands and their democratically elected governments until all the terrorists have been forced to disband and lay down their arms. Case closed.

And so the war goes on and heats up, with the apparent hope by Bush and his homeboys that they can pull Syria and Iran into it and then beat them into the ground with their superior weapons and firepower, and their clever ability to divide and conquer the Arab world through their power, wealth and influence.

Meanwhile our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are boiling nicely and we’re keeping a watchful eye on North Korea, in case she gives us a legitimate excuse to blow her out of the water and finally claim victory in the Korean War.

And when we’ve finished with all of this, we’ve still got Russia and China on our plate, but we’re a people with big appetites and several more courses to go through before we’ve completed our meal of consuming all the bad guys in the name of Jesus and everlasting peace in the world.

It’s not her heart, Lord, it’s her mind. She won’t negotiate with terrorists but she doesn’t understand that the greatest terrorists are the ones that kill the most innocents and that it doesn’t make any difference if the killing is done under the legitimate cover of a uniform or a breech cloth.

If the terrorists are still fighting after half a century, could it be possible that their reasons are not no simple as an abiding hate for our freedoms and their desires to wipe Israel off the map and force the world to give up their religions and accept Islam?

Isn’t there even the vaguest possibility that they might be fighting for one of their own, so that they can have a piece of the ground that their ancestors left them to live on freely and independently like any other nation of people on earth?

We can never know unless we allow them the respect of sitting with us under the pipe of peace and allow them to speak of their true desires and their needs as common people who walk the earth as equals to all other human beings.

Even if America is unable to accept this, with all her intelligence, why is she unable to realize that the faster we race towards nuclear war, the more space we’re going to need to slow down before we hit the wall?

Why is it so hard for America to understand that she has been going too fast in the direction of atomic destruction for too long and should have started slowing down a long time ago?

When we take that last strike and the final war hits us in the face, what difference is it going to make who was right and who was wrong, who started it or who Jesus loves the best?

It’s not her heart, Lord, it’s her mind. Even if she brings about the final destruction of mankind, never let it be said that she knew what she was doing, or that she didn’t go down swinging.

With all her quoting from the Good Book, and the Ten Commandments and her claims of love, she never thought about the hate she was creating, or that it would have a greater destructive force when finally unleashed than all her nuclear bombs.

Naman Crowe
namancrowe@yahoo.com

* * *

Initially I agreed with what Naman had to say, but then my eyes glossed over and I felt the urgent need for a
hot cup of joe.

Oh, and I disagree with the cricket analogy; I would have chosen a social creature like the ant or termite. You know, something that blindly follows the leader - kind of like Republicans.

Anyway, don't sweat it, Naman. It won't be long now until we run out of something like oil, food, or water and the do-do really hits the fan, and I, for one, hope it happens in my lifetime. I may only be able to gloat for a few minutes or maybe a few weeks, but I'll enjoy watching the show.

Ike Conn
ikeconn@yahoo.com

* * *

As the crickets enjoyed the peace and prosperity which was brought on by the Reagan Revolution, they were the lost bugs in high weeds.

While the crickets were in power during the 90’s they went about “Changing their world” by selling technology and influence to the birds who they thought were their friends and refusing to acknowledge and deal with the snakes that they thought were harmless.

Then in September of 2001 the snake bit the buffalo which caused a stampede. The roar of the movement scared off the birds and caused the crickets great fear because their “friends” the birds were no where to be found as the buffalo took care of what was neglected during the time the crickets had control.

As one of the buffalo to the crickets I find nowhere in history that we have stampeded unprovoked and from your view you don’t see how small the prairie has become nor do you understand that the snakes and birds eat crickets.

A proverb for thought.

Jay Reed
Hixson
ascchatt@comcast.net

* * *

Mr. Crowe,

America, as a country and as a people, has no monopoly on hatred. Have you ever studied world history? The only difference in now and thousands of years past is advanced technology.

You see, God knew that if he gave mankind enough rope, that he would eventually hang himself.

Remember, it is not those who quote God’s will, or those who hear God’s will who are His children, but it those that do God’s will. You need to learn to make the distinction. God certainly will.

Michael Helton
mchtlh@aol.com

* * *

I trust (and sincerely hope) your writer, Naman Crowe, is immigrating to Iran. He certainly isn't much of an American.

Nat Hooper
Oxford, Ar.
nhoop616@gmail.com

Israel's thirst for blood in Gaza and Beirut

Israel's thirst for blood in Gaza and Beirut
Gilad Atzmon


Kuklinsky © 2001

Gilad Atzmon looks at Israel's war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon from the perspective of the Israeli national psyche, which rates politicians according to how much Arab blood they spell.

Two weeks ago, Palestinian militants abducted a legitimate military target, an Israeli soldier. Yesterday [Wednesday 12 July], Hezbollah guerrillas mounted a similar, well-orchestrated heroic attack. Both attacks were intended to send a message of resistance: Israel will never succeed in imposing its sickening notion of unilateral "peace".

[More:]

The unilateral disengagement may have put a spell on the Israeli voters as well as some Zionised Western leaders such as George Bush, Tony Blair and Angela Merkel. However, the inhabitants of Gaza and the villagers of southern Lebanon are somewhat less impressed with the Israeli inclination towards peace. In Gaza and in southern Lebanon, it is quite clear that Arab resistance forces will oppose the unilateral Israeli agenda until the end of time. They all know that, to the extent that it takes two to tango, there will never be peace until the Palestinian cause is properly addressed.

In short, the different forms of unilateral Israeli disengagements, from Lebanon, to Gaza to even the West Bank (to come) will not provide Israel with peace. Quite the opposite. Arabs are no fools, they know very well that Israel escaped from Lebanon after being militarily humiliated for two decades. They know as well that Ariel Sharon ran away from Gaza not exactly because he was searching for peace. Palestinians also know that it is just a question of time before the same thing happens in the West Bank. In fact, since 1973 Israel's power of deterrence has been shrinking. Since 1973 Israel hasn't managed to defeat any of its enemies. On the contrary, time after time it is the enemies of Israel who have been able to dictate Israeli political and tactical manoeuvres. In the last two weeks, it has been two relatively small paramilitary organizations using guerrilla techniques who managed to bring Israel to unleash its full military might against innocent civilians both in Gaza and in Lebanon.

Yet, the Israeli reaction to the attacks by Palestinian militants and Hezbollah is rather bizarre. Although both the Palestinian militants and Hezbollah attacked legitimate military targets, Israel's retaliation was clearly aimed at civilians, civil infrastructure and the mass killing of the innocent population. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is not really the way to win a war or confront the particular kind of combat known as guerrilla warfare.

I would argue that, once again, the Israeli government has served us with a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of the collective Israeli psyche. I will try to elaborate on this issue.

Owing to certain historical circumstances, the Israeli army was originally formed to combat Arab armies. It was designed to win conventional war in the battlefield. It was also designed to sap the will of Israel's neighbours through overwhelming air superiority and the threat of nuclear weapons. Since the end of the Cold War, things changed. Israel isn't threatened any more by its neighbouring states. Moreover, in the most recent years it has become clear that it is actually the Palestinian people who will eventually shatter the dream of a Jewish national state.

Strangely enough, Israel has never adopted or revised its military doctrine to fit into the new emerging conditions. Indeed, it retrained large parts of its fighting units as police forces, converting some tanks into police vehicles. Yet, it has never fundamentally revamped its doctrine. Very much like the Wehrmacht at the time of World War II, the Israeli army continues to follow a classic offensive military doctrine. So, instead of winning in the battlefield, the Israeli army is now hopelessly exhausting itself on two fronts fighting relatively small paramilitary organizations. But the situation can get worse. It is quite possible that heroic Palestinian militancy will spread to the West Bank. When this happens, the Israeli army will find itself engaged in a total war just a few kilometres from Israel's most densely populated centres. Seemingly, the so-called "strongest army in the Middle East" is fighting a desperate war it can never win, neither tactically nor morally.

Tactically, we have enough historical examples to conclude that no colonial army has ever won a guerrilla war. The reason is simple: the more destruction a colonial army spreads, the more popular the guerrilla fighters become among their adjacent supportive population. This is absolutely the case in Gaza and in Beirut today. The more carnage there is in Gaza, the stronger Hamas will become. The more bombs that drop over Beirut airport, the more will young men join Hezbollah.

But it goes further. Both the Palestinian militants and Hezbollah were very clever in choosing pure military targets. While, in the past, the Palestinian paramilitary groups were typically associated with suicidal attacks against Israeli civilians, this time it was Israeli soldiers and pure military posts that were targeted. In other words, it is rather impossible to dismiss the fact that Palestinian militants and Hezbollah were actually operating as legitimate paramilitary resistance groups fighting against a colonial army and occupation forces.

However, reading the news from the Middle East, it seems obvious that the Israeli government has no clear agenda to counter the current daring military operations against its army and, if this isn't enough, the Israeli army has no means to counter such guerrilla assaults. Today's merciless collateral damage in Beirut and Gaza proves that, at least militarily, Israel is in total despair. It has neither a political nor a military answer to counter Arab resistance. But here comes the catch: Israel doesn't need an answer as such, it isn't even looking for one.

Israel is a racially orientated democracy. Its leaders are engaged in one thing only: the maintenance of their political power. As far as the Israeli political game is concerned, the rule is very simple: the more Arab blood you have on your hands the more you are suited to get on with your governing job. This rule obviously helped Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu. Olmert and Amir Peretz are still quite far behind. Both the prime minister and his defence minister lack real experience in military and security matters. Hence, they have a lot of catching up to do.

In other words, Peretz and Olmert have to provide the Israeli people with a glorious spectacle of merciless retaliation. They have to prove to their keen voters that they have internalized the literal biblical meaning of "an eye for an eye". Looking at the carnage in Beirut today, it somehow seems as if they are even trying to give the old Hebraic saying a new meaning. As devastating as it may sound, this is exactly what the Israelis want them to do. Within democratic Israel, the biblical call, "pour out your fury upon the goyim", is translated into a Jewish secular pragmatic political practice. This isn't sad. This is a real tragedy. And I wonder whether there is anyone out there who is still spellbound by the unilateral Israeli peace agenda?

Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician and writer, and a proponent of a secular and democratic one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the two peoples live in one state as citizens with equal rights and responsibilities.

Lebanese resistance bares limits of U.S.-Israeli power

Note: This Article is the sole opinion of it writer and not the owner of this web site.

By Sara Flounders

July 27, 2006--Reports on July 22 that the Pentagon is rushing the delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel for use in its criminal offensive in Lebanon confirm the real relationship in this U.S./Israeli war. The utter dependency of the Zionist state on the military equipment, massive funding, political and diplomatic support of the United States has never been clearer.

But news of the shipment also exposes the limits of U.S. and Israeli power.

With these same weapons, U.S. troops have been unable to prevail in Iraq. How can the Israeli war criminals, even with an endless supply of U.S. high-tech weapons, expect to prevail in Lebanon?

Israel is headed into the same quagmire. Like the U.S. in Iraq, Israel is quickly finding that it faces a highly motivated, ever more organized people’s resistance in Lebanon.

U.S.-supplied bunker busters, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, napalm and depleted uranium weapons are wreaking enormous damage on the whole country and causing horrendous suffering for hundreds of thousands of defenseless civilians. Helicopter gunships, jet aircraft and missiles that come from the Pentagon have destroyed seaports, airports, roads, convoys of refugees and essential civilian infrastructure.

However, U.S. and Israeli forces are used to making all-out war against defenseless civilian populations. They are shocked that Hezbollah has been able to secure or build large quantities of land mines and anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft guns, rocket-launching facilities and night-vision equipment. They didn’t know until they opened this brutal offensive that the resistance forces had developed innovative technology, including aerial drones and submersibles.

Numerous news articles are describing how both the U.S. and the Israelis underesti mated the weapons and the level of organization of Hezbollah, which has deep-fortified bunkers, networks of tunnels and well-trained fighters able to handle sophisticated technology. Its fighters even managed to destroy an Israeli warship and several tanks and helicopters, and send missiles into Haifa and other cities deep inside Israel.

The corporate media are full of speculation, threats and charges about where Hezbollah obtained its weapons. They barely mention who has supplied Israel with generations of weapons, tanks, helicopters, jet planes, ships and missiles. The most extreme sources are charging that Iran may have contributed $100 million to Hezbollah, and are treating it as a crime. But even if it is true, it bears no comparison to the $288 million a week in aid that the U.S. supplied Israel in fiscal 2003, for a total of $15 billion in aid that year. Similar levels have occurred every year for more than 50 years. (Jewish Voice for Peace)

The Zionist command didn’t anticipate the sophistication. It’s not that they don’t have sufficient spy satellites, eavesdropping and reconnaissance equipment, and bought agents. It’s once again the arrogance of colonial occupiers.

The end of gunboat diplomacy The biggest surprise was the ability of Hezbollah to hit the INS Hanit, an Israeli Navy missile ship, which was firing at Lebanese targets from off the coast.

The Hanit was built by Northrop Grumman in Pascagoula, Miss., and was considered to be Israel’s most advanced surface ship. The corporate media, while full of endless speculation on who supplied the Hezbollah missile, never raised the issue of who supplied the Israeli ship, at a cost of $260 million.

Yet it matters little whether Hezbollah used a modified Silkworm missile obtained eight to 10 years ago from China via Iran, or an Iranian C-802 rocket transported via Syria, or an explosives-packed aerial drone such as they have used before. Israel, the Pentagon and all the Western powers got the message—they are no longer invincible.

The timing of the missile during a meeting of the G-8 powers could not have sent a clearer message. Any power considering an attack on Iran could do the calculation. The U.S. aircraft carriers, battleships, the hundreds of oil tankers in the narrow Persian Gulf—all are now vulnerable.

The days when the U.S., British or French navy could sail into the harbor and blast at the shoreline until their demands were met had been challenged.

Asymmetric warfare U.S. power and equipment are far greater than any developing country or resistance movement. But today, because of global advances in simple technology that can no longer be kept in a locked box, plus the availability of the Internet and instant communication, imperialism’s total control is slipping.

U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have met the same rude surprises. A simple cell phone or doorbell can set off a roadside bomb and destroy an expensive tank.

The new buzzword in military-speak for the unexpected ability of resistance organizations to challenge an overwhelming military advantage is “asymmetric advantage” or “asymmetric warfare.” This means that even though the Pentagon has formidable military capabilities and is adept at doing horrendous damage, it is not winning.

This has changed the rules of politics in the Middle East. Wherever oppressed people are able to organize themselves, they are able to fight back. Despite overwhelming military superiority, Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon in June 2000 and from Gaza in August 2005 because of the enormous skill of guerrilla forces. Gaza and Qassam rockets

In the early days of the Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000—called the second Intifada—Israeli patrols could still confidently drive around the West Bank and Gaza in jeeps and light arm ored personnel carriers. They des troyed at will small Palestinian Authority police stations and social service centers. They fired on youths armed only with stones and homemade gas bombs in bottles. But these young fighters expressed the will of the whole population to resist.

Now Hamas, Islamic Jihad and popular committees are producing increasingly sophisticated small weapons. Even their hand grenades are designed at standards as advanced as U.S.-produced grenades. All these secret, locally made products are stamped, “Made in Gaza by al-Qassam.”

Locally made anti-tank missiles and mines have broken the ability of Israeli tanks to roll unimpeded into the streets of Gaza, crushing all in their path. In past decades this was such regular Israeli policy that the wide swaths of destruction in Gaza City and other Palestinian cities were called Sharon’s Boulevards after the Israeli general who became prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Now in Gaza hundreds of missiles, with simple guidance systems known as al-Qassam I and II, are fired regularly across the border. There is growing skill and accuracy in the manufacture of these small rockets.

The same youths who used to throw stones at Israeli tanks today are also far more organized. They have education and basic technology skills, along with enormous determination and anger.

Hezbollah was born under occupation Hezbollah (or the Party of God) emerged after 1982 as a guerrilla resistance army with Islamic leadership, fighting against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Originally it appealed primarily to disenfranchised Shiite youth in Lebanon—the most oppressed group. In a war-torn and divided country where corruption was rampant, Hezbollah broadened its support and gained wide political legitimacy for its determined resistance and its well-organized, non-corrupt social services. It helped rebuild the crumbled infrastructure of roads, electricity and potable water.

All of this earned Hezbollah the hatred of the old corrupt ruling families in Lebanon and of U.S. corporate interests, which are tied to the old ruling class. Hezbollah was added to the U.S. State Department’s list of international terrorist groups in October 1997.

This hardly hurt Hezbollah’s popular image. Now Hezbollah holds 12 parliamentary seats. Its civilian branch runs schools, orphanages, hospitals and a television station. And its relentless guerrilla attacks on the Israeli army of occupation, combined with growing anti-war sentiment within Israel, forced a military retreat from Lebanon in June 2000.

In the six years since the Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah has used its time well to prepare for the next Israeli offensive. It built deep underground bunkers, networks of tunnels and a series of camouflaged defense positions. In the hilly terrain Hezbollah built shelters for weapons and ammunition, food supplies and medical stations. Anti-tank mines and missiles line the border region to block Israeli tanks from rolling in, as they have in the past. Each Israeli thrust across the border in the past two weeks, even after heavy bombardment, has resulted in Hezbollah ambushes from behind Israeli lines.

Lebanon’s infrastructure has been so destroyed by the latest Israeli onslaught that Hezbollah’s highly effective social service network of schools, hospitals and clinics is bound to expand and take on added significance.

Hezbollah General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah warned the Israeli people on July 14: “Those times when Israel used to get away with whatever destruction, killing children and freedom of movement on Arab lands, have come to an end. I promise you those times have passed; therefore you must bear the responsibility for what your government has done and has undertaken.”

Militarism and the Israeli lobby U.S. backing and support for Israel is often blamed on the strength and influence of the Israeli lobby, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, D.C. But the Israeli lobby is effective not because of its great connections and resources, but because they serve U.S. corporate interests in the entire region.

The largest and most profitable corporations in the U.S. today, which hold decisive political power in the imperialist state, are the oil corporations and the military contractors. They have a huge financial stake in controlling the resources of the Middle East and in the policy of endless war and instability. The Israeli Army plays a pivotal role in U.S. corporate control of the region.

Northrop Grumman spends seven times and Lockheed Martin four times as much as AIPAC on lobbying. General Electric, Raytheon, Boeing and other military contractors also outspend AIPAC. Their corporate profits are bound up in the more than $2 billion in weapons given to Israel every year. These corporations are as enthusiastic about rushing the latest satellite- and laser-guided bunker buster bombs to Israel, to be used aboard U.S.-supplied F-15 aircraft to blast Lebanon, as they are about supplying the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.

Policy of civil war The ruthless Israeli bombardment and attacks on Lebanon and the bombing of Gaza are based on the desperation of the Israeli military command. They failed in their political plan to reignite a civil war in either place. Instead they have succeeded in uniting the entire population against them. The Western coalition that U.S. imperialism had so carefully arrayed against Iran at the G-8 meeting and in the UN is now divided.

Since the democratic election of Hamas in January 2006, both Israel and the U.S. have used the most extreme measures of sanctions, starvation and threats, trying to push the Palestinian Authority and Hamas into armed conflict. The Bush administration cut off all aid and credits. Israel withheld tax revenue and cut off the pay of social service workers, teachers and police. They strangled the export of agricultural produce and closed border crossings for Palestinian workers, all in an effort to inflame a struggle over scarce resources.

They demanded that the moderate president of the Palestinian Authority, Mah moud Abbas, break with the democratically elected Hamas leadership. Israel staged targeted assassinations, random bombings and round-ups. But the policy failed to decisively divide the Palestinian groups.

When Palestinian resistance units managed to dig tunnels, kidnap an Israeli soldier, and destroy an Israeli tank to bargain for the almost 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, Israel used this as an excuse to bomb Gaza.

In Lebanon the hopes of both the U.S. and Israel were pinned on the Cedar Revolution. In the spring of 2005 demonstrations broke out, mainly in Beirut, demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and blaming Syria for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14 of that year.

The Lebanese government was disbanded and a government much friendlier to U.S. corporate interests was established. Syrian troops were withdrawn. But the hope that this would destabilize Syria and force the disarming of Hezbollah forces did not succeed.

For Israel to now go back into Lebanon is like the U.S. trying to go back into Vietnam. They already know it won’t work, but are driven to try to accomplish by military measures what political pressure has failed to accomplish.

New occupation proposals While continuing to give the Israeli for ces time and additional weapons to blast Lebanon, U.S. Secretary of State Condo leezza Rice has begun a slow trip through the region trying to broker a deal favorable to U.S. and Israeli interests. U.S. “peace” proposals are to disarm the patriotic resistance forces and occupy Lebanon with foreign troops, including the possibility of a NATO, UN or other multinational occupation force to protect Israel’s northern border. Israel would of course be rearmed and resupplied.

Any political solution that does not have the full agreement and participation of the Lebanese people, including the Hezbollah resistance, would be in danger of repeating 1983 in Beirut.

In that year U.S. President Ronald Rea gan sent an international occupation force to assist the Israeli forces and allow them to pull back. On Oct. 23, 1983, a truck bomb at the new U.S. base in Beirut airport killed 241 U.S. Marines and 54 French soldiers. U.S. and other international troops were pulled out.

Israel is a state built on stolen land. The occupied Palestinian population has never stopped resisting. Each U.S.-equipped Israeli offensive since the creation of the state of Israel 58 years ago has caused enormous human suffering, as well as deepened the rage and determination of the attacked and displaced people. Although totally disarmed, isolated and surrounded, the Palestinians have organized themselves again and again to resist, even under the most onerous conditions.

The Lebanese resistance has grown in a similar way.

For both peoples the resistance has taken many political forms, but each time it resurges with more militancy, determination and skill.

Hate Against Hate

Hate Against Hate
Imran Khan - 7/28/2006
Many agree that the killing of eight Israeli soldiers and the capturing of two others was an unprovoked act of war by Hezbollah. But many should also agree that in retaliation, the killing of dozens of innocent civilians in Lebanon by Israel is worse than that action. Eighty Palestinians have lost their lives since Israeli tropes entered Gaza after 1 Israeli soldier was kidnapped there. Israeli soldiers can enter any time Palestinian territory and capture anyone. If abduction of its soldiers is an illegal move, than why did Israel capture hundreds of Palestinians without charges? Retaliatory actions against each other are not new in the Middle East and the problems are rooted back to more than 50 years.

Israel is a major power in the Middle East and the problem doesn't lie in the existence of Israel, but it lies in the philosophy/ideology of Israel 's tactics. From day one of its creation, Israel used force as the basic instrument to rule. Usually victims are innocent civilians. Israel virtually controls everything of the Palestinians and it never hesitated in using the basic necessities of life as a threat to make the Philistines comply with its demands. This attitude made things worst there. Was Israel created for the short-term or do they really want to live in the Middle East for a long, long time. But how long can anyone live with its neighbors by forcing them? Power is not something which will remain forever. In the past, the Romans had the power to control things in the world. Persians had a lot of power in their time. The world saw the power of Muslims hundreds of years ago, and then the rise of Great Briton and France. Until 1990, the Soviet Union was considered a superpower along with the USA. So it is quite possible that Israel will not have power forever, and its neighbors become powerful. What would be the situation then?

It is quite understandable that in every society around the world there would be a few extreme elements. But the majority will never be like that. Every human wants to live a good life with dignity. But if people lead a miserable life and nothing are going in their favor than this will lead them towards extremism. Unfortunately Israel's continued pressing actions have made people to think extremely.

For any person his life is the most precious thing. If to secure our lives we have to give up all our possessions, we will do this because life comes first. But how can someone become a suicide bomber by knowing that he will lose his life by himself. It comes with the belief that the conditions he is living are intolerable. Why is it that predominantly Palestinians and Iraqis become suicide bombers? We just need to analyze their living conditions and this question would not be very difficult to answer. The hate produced more hate.

One thing which is quite astonishing that the government in Lebanon is considered to be "pro American". Still, Israel is trying to destroy its infrastructure and economy, creating huge difficulties for commoners. A common person may not be an "anti-Israeli" but if these actions would made his life difficult than he would be. What would be the outcome? Now Hezbollah has 20% of the seats in the Lebanon Parliament but in the next elections in Lebanon, we could see a government of Hezbollah because the wide-spread hate of the people against Israel. Will it suit Israel? Until now, Israel is facing suicide bombers from Palestine only; but now -- with the actions against civilians in Lebanon -- the violence could also lead the Lebanese on the same path. For example, in response to the IRA bombings of the past, did England ever try to block Ireland . Recall the Kurds bombing incidents. Did Turkey punish all Kurds? No. But these countries tackled the issues with wisdom and respect for the civilian rights. Now the situation is improved in these countries. If the governments of these countries would have used force or power to punish everyone, the situation would have been the same as it is now in the Middle East. Israel can learn many things from history and can make situation better for themselves and for others.

Preside George W. Bush has said that Usama bin Laden and Al-Qaeeda is a group of terrorists who killed our innocent people so we will kill them. And the same has been said by Usama that America is a terrorist nation because it killed our innocent people so they will continue their actions. Israel claims Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations, while Hamas and Hezbollah considers Israel as terrorist country. Who is wrong and who is right? These problems are quite difficult to solve but they can be solved if everyone starts respecting each other and works for justice for all. By calling each other "terrorists" there can be no solution. If Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and others wants to remain in the Middle East, then they all need to sit down to end their differences. They have no other choice but to live together in peace. Otherwise, if they continue fighting each other, there will only be land left after the fighting ends. But land alone does not make a country; rather, people do.

Note: I call this a Marsian look at Earth. just try to immagine for a second.(Joseph)