Re: A tribute to ALL the Civilian Victims in Lebanon!
so you don't feel anything for the innocent in Lebanon?
Re: A tribute to ALL the Civilian Victims in Lebanon!
Of course not, according to him, every innocent Lebanese murdered by Israeli terrorists in justified.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
News report video from ITV of Israeli terrorists attacking an ambulance.
Waiting for justifications from the Israeli slave dogs on this forum.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
*
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
Good news report by COA News on Hizbollah’s social services in South Lebanon.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
Hezb all the way! poor israelis can't keep up with the fighting :) tsk tsk tsk.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
maybe thats why arabs lost every single war they fought against the israelis
U.S rushes more bombs to Israel
BY REUTERS
Aviation chiefs are expected to decide later on Thursday whether the US broke international rules when using a British airport as a staging post for transporting weapons to Israel.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has insisted she will lodge a formal complaint if the US failed to follow procedures with two flights carrying bunker-busting bombs - raising speculation of a rift in the Transatlantic “special relationship”.
She is already believed to have informed her counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, that an unauthorised stopover for refuelling and crew rest at Prestwick could be a “serious” issue.
The dispute is threatening to embarrass Prime Minister Tony Blair on the eve of his visit to Washington for talks with President George Bush concerning the deteriorating situation in Israel and Lebanon.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said it was responsible for policing international regulations governing transport of hazardous material in Britain.
“We’re looking into the issue at the moment,” he said. “We expect to make a decision later today.”
Flights such as that by the two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes - which were carrying GBU28 laser-guided bombs - usually require “specific exemptions” from hazardous material rules, according to the spokesman.
It is understood that any formal complaint by Britain would be pursued through “diplomatic channels” - either in a letter from Mrs Beckett to Ms Rice or with representations from the UK’s ambassador.
The problem is the apparent breach of procedure rather than the fact that the flights are taking place.
On Wednesday night, the Foreign Secretary took the unusual step of publicly criticising America, saying she was “not happy” and had let the administration know it was an “issue that appears to be seriously at fault”.
Re: U.S rushes more bombs to Israel
It appears that the Israelis are frighten to launch a ground attack as they are fearful of Hizbullah.
The U.S wants Israel to prevail, no surprise there.
Interesting…Israel lost 9 soldiers in one day!
Israel pounds south Lebanon
By Nadim Ladki
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israel pummelled south Lebanon with air and artillery strikes on Thursday, but opted against launching a major invasion in pursuit of Hizbollah guerrillas. A rocket fired into northern Israel by the guerrillas struck a factory on Thursday, causing a possible toxic leak, but there was no immediate word of casualties, Israeli security sources said.
In Lebanon, bodies lay in the streets in some isolated border villages, where the fighting has trapped terrified civilians, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
“In every fight, we are sheep for the slaughter,” said Hafez Ebeid, 65, who had fled his border village of Marwaheen to the relative safety of Sidon, the biggest city in the south.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s security cabinet decided to stick with a strategy of air strikes and limited ground incursions rather than mounting a full-scale invasion.
“At the moment the army is not bound by time, it can act as long as needed,” a political source said after the meeting.
It convened a day after nine Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon, the army’s heaviest one-day loss in the 16-day-old war. Israeli forces have been trying to push Hizbollah back from the border and end rocket attacks since the Shi’ite group captured two soldiers in a raid on July 12, but the army is wary of getting bogged down by guerrilla warfare in south Lebanon.
The United States has given Israel a green light to pursue its assault on Lebanon by refusing to call for an immediate cease-fire or to let the U.N. Security Council do so.
France said it was disappointed an international conference in Rome on Wednesday had failed to call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged U.N. Security Council foreign ministers to meet early next week to work on a cease-fire resolution.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited Beirut and Jerusalem this week, said she would return to the Middle East if she thought she could clinch a lasting peace in Lebanon. Her comments, made on arrival in Malaysia for a regional security conference, underlined Washington’s intention not to press Israel to stop fighting until Hizbollah guerrillas backed by Iran and Syria have been brought under control.
“I am willing and ready to go back to the Middle East at any time that I think we can move towards a sustainable cease-fire that can end the violence,” Rice told a news conference.
WARNING TO SYRIA, IRAN She earlier warned Iran and Syria they face further isolation if they try to “torpedo”** U.S. efforts to end the fighting on Israel’s terms.** “This needs to be between Lebanon and Israel,” she said en route from Rome to Malaysia
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
Time won't help Israel disarm Hizbullah
By Augustus Richard Norton
Thu Jul 27, 4:00 AM ET
Israel's war with Hizbullah shows no sign of relenting, despite the extraordinary human and economic costs on both sides of the border.
More than 400 Lebanese have been killed, at least 17 Israeli civilians have been felled by rockets that threaten the northern third of Israel, Lebanon's infrastructure has been decimated, and many poor Lebanese (mostly Shiite Muslims) are now homeless.
Both belligerents are attacking indiscriminately. Hizbullah's weapons are notoriously inaccurate and more likely to kill innocent civilians than soldiers. And Israel has targeted noncombatants in southern Lebanon as though the area were a free-fire zone. Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz as much as admitted his contempt for noncombatant immunity when, according to Israeli army radio on July 24, he ordered the destruction of 10 multistory buildings in the Shiite-inhabited suburbs of Beirut for every rocket hitting Haifa.
With the Bush administration providing diplomatic cover, Israel is playing for time. Israel's premise is that the longer its war continues, the more it will wear down Hizbullah. The Israeli military is fighting intense battles to capture border villages with a view to re-creating a buffer zone. Hizbullah fighters, honed by two decades of Israeli occupation, are defending their soil fiercely.
Despite international demands for a cease-fire, and the anguished pleas of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that conditions need to be "right" before the US will endorse one. But the idea that time favors Israel's goal of disarming Hizbullah is dubious for five reasons:
•Hizbullah is wellprovisioned with weapons, and it is unlikely that the group could be completely disarmed. Southern Lebanon is filled with hills, valleys, and caves, not to mention villages where weapons can easily be cached. Moreover, Hizbullah enjoys widespread support in the south. The Shiite Muslims who predominate there revere Hizbullah for pressuring Israel to withdraw in 2000.
•Hizbullah precipitated the war by crossing into Israel to capture two soldiers, and many Lebanese are furious that Hizbullah provoked Israel. Israel has hoped to reinforce Lebanese alienation from Hizbullah, but Israel's prolonged and vengeful response is fostering new hatred for Israel and its US protector. Recently, an-Nahar, the respected Beirut paper and no fan of Hizbullah, featured a cartoon showing Dr. Rice trying to quell Lebanon's war fires with an eye dropper.
•An international force is no magic solution whether it deploys independently or in conjunction with the Lebanese army. Many soldiers in the army are Shiites, and they are more likely to applaud Hizbullah than to disarm it. As for the international soldiers, what will happen when Israel, with a robust record for recidivism, raids Lebanon, kidnaps or kills Lebanese, or attempts to prevent Lebanese from returning to their homes in a unilaterally imposed buffer zone? Hizbullah draws many of its members from the south. Will they be excluded from their own villages? The record of intervention in Lebanon reveals that even the well-intentioned may become part of the problem.
•For both the US and Israel, Hizbullah is an extension of Iranian influence. Yet, it is likely that Iran is going to be a major beneficiary of Israel's new war in Lebanon. To the extent the Shiites feel they were singled out for attacks, Iran will be seen as a stalwart coreligionist ally. And given the extraordinary destruction in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut, Iran will have a further entree by providing materiel assistance and financial aid.
•Support for Hizbullah is growing in the Arab world with every day that it confronts Israel. In Iraq, the parliament has spoken out forcefully against Israel's campaign, and last week Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a powerful ~~I~~fatwa~~/I~~ (religious opinion) condemning the attacks on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure and calling on all Shiite clerics to take action. Rice had to scratch Egypt off her itinerary because of swelling support for Hizbullah there. In Arab countries with a large Shiite community, sectarian sentiment is being fueled by the fighting in Lebanon.
Rather than continuing dawdling diplomacy it would be prudent for the US to embrace a cease-fire. Demilitarizing Hizbullah, and perhaps integrating its militia wing into the Lebanese army, is a tough challenge with a cease-fire, but impossible if the war continues. Instead of the victory promised the White House by Israel, this war is fostering the results that it was supposed to defeat.
• ~~I~~Augustus Richard Norton is professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University. ~~/I~~
It's all so obvious...
Invade Gaza and Lebanon, kill innocents, mainly children, air an 'al CIA da' tape. Say the EU and US are backing you, stage a false flag op in europe or us...blame 'al CIA da' get support from the sheeple then take the war to Syria and Iran and so on and so on.
Butchers.
Re: It's all so obvious...
I have a thread open in that honor.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
I think simply put is best rather than too much twaddle.
Mods..This should have really been a sep. thread to put the point across for debate on the the specifics. This will just all get lost in the background and then a false flag will surprise everyone when it comes!
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
Mods..This should have really been a sep. thread to put the point across for debate on the the specifics. This will just all get lost in the background and then a false flag will surprise everyone when it comes!
I am sorry but there are too many threads for "debates" everyone is opening, it has to be contained.
Re: It's all so obvious...
Butchers.
Oh Bhai sahib, you give too much credit to USA and too little responsibility to "Arab warriors". Tali do haath say bajti hai (it takes two to tango).
There are people on both sides who cross the line. However one thing to remember is:
For existing powers peace is necessary and war is the last resort.
For powers wanna-be's war is necessary to upset the hold of power elites.
Re: It's all so obvious...
Of course it does. One is the Israeli terrorist with the missle and one is the child in the ambulance. Wow, antiobl you finally made some sense for first time in your life. Too bad it shows how much you support the killing of civilians by Israeli terrorists.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
American designed Sunni-Israeli alliance fails, Sunni masses support Hizbullah
WASHINGTON - Hopes by the George W Bush administration for the emergence of an implicit Sunni-Israel alliance against an Iranian-led “Shi’ite crescent” have faded over the past week as Arab public opinion has become increasingly united by outrage over the Jewish state’s continuing military campaign in Lebanon and Washington’s refusal to stop it, according to Middle East experts.
Fueled by saturation television coverage of the destruction and suffering wrought by Israel’s attacks, popular sentiment in both Shi’ite and Sunni communities has moved strongly behind Shi’ite Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has become a symbol of resistance to Israeli and US power, these analysts agree.
“Resistance rises above sectarianism,” said Graham Fuller, a former top Middle East analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Rand Corporation. “Sunni masses by and large are not concerned whether Iran, Syria’s rulers, or Hezbollah are Shi’ites; they applaud them for their steadfastness and willingness to fight and even die.”
The growing Sunni-Shi’ite unity in support of Hezbollah defies hopes by Bush administration officials and their Israel-centered neo-conservative supporters in Washington that fears of an Iranian-led Shi’ite axis stretching from Lebanon across Syria to the new Shi’ite-dominated government in Iraq would provoke Sunni-led states to form a de facto alliance with Israel.
Those hopes were bolstered when, in a break with traditional Arab solidarity over any confrontation with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt denounced Hezbollah for “adventurism” in abducting two Israeli soldiers along the Israel-Lebanon border, the incident that precipitated the current violence and destruction.
Their statements, which were welcomed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as evidence of the emergence of a “new Middle East”, were also cited as evidence, particularly by neo-conservatives, that Iran, believed to be Hezbollah’s most important source of arms and external funding, had displaced Israel as the Sunnis’ greatest threat.
The theory was most eloquently expressed by Michael Rubin, a hardline neo-conservative at the American Enterprise Institute. “Across Lebanon and the region, Arab leaders see Hezbollah for what it is: an arm of Iranian influence waging a sectarian battle in the heart of the Middle East,” he wrote in a July 19 column in the Wall Street Journal titled “Iran against the Arabs”.
“An old Arab proverb goes, ‘Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; and me, my brother and my cousin against the stranger,’” he went on. “Forced to make a choice, Sunni Arabs are deciding: the Jews are cousins; the Shi’ites, strangers.”
But most regional specialists now dismiss this analysis, at least at the popular level. If anything, they say, the impact of Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon has confirmed its status as the “stranger”, while Hezbollah’s resistance has elevated it and those who support it to “cousin”, if not “brother”, to Sunni Arabs.
“In fact … there is more of a rapprochement between the Sunni and Shi’ite,” said Jean Francois Seznec, a specialist on the Persian Gulf region at Columbia University, who noted that Shi’ite Hezbollah and Iran both support Sunni Hamas in the Palestinian territories and that Sunnis in Syria could be expected to rally behind the Alawi Assad regime if Damascus, which also supports Hezbollah, is drawn into the current conflict.
“The real split here is between the Sunni autocrats and their very own citizens,” wrote Fuller in an article for Global Viewpoint. “These Sunni regimes are terrified that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and even Sunni Hamas are all creating inspirational models of independent mass resistance against reigning US and Israeli power in the region.”
That Sunni leaders now feel compelled to follow public opinion was made evident by several developments this past week, beginning with Egypt’s rejection of Washington’s proposal to hold Wednesday’s emergency international conference on Lebanon at Sharm el-Sheikh. As a result, the conference, at which Rice found herself completely isolated in rejecting calls for an immediate ceasefire, was held in Rome instead.
Tuesday’s angry and unusually harsh denunciation by Saudi Arabia of what it called “unremitting Israeli aggression”, which also warned Washington in particular of unpredictable “repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one” if a ceasefire is not quickly achieved, was also taken as a major reversal of its previous views.
“The Saudis thought they could get a ceasefire and be the heroes,” said Marc Lynch, a Middle East specialist at Williams College who follows the Arab media closely. “When it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen and public opinion was getting really mobilized, then they did a 180-degree turn. That is very significant.”
Finally, Thursday’s appearance on Al-Jazeera of a new video by al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he implicitly called for unity between Sunnis and Shi’ites against the “Zionist-Crusader alliance”, suggested that the most radical Sunni jihadis were not only eager to identify themselves with Hezbollah’s resistance, but also see the current crisis as an opportunity for broadening their base.
“Just as Iraq served al-Qaeda’s strategy by supplying an endless stream of images of ‘heroic mujahideen’ fighting against ‘brutal Americans’ - and became less useful as images of dead Iraqi civilians began to complicate the picture - the Lebanon war offers an unending supply of images and actions which powerfully support al-Qaeda’s narrative and world view … without the complications posed by [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi’s controversial anti-Shi’ite strategy in Iraq,” wrote Lynch on his blog.
“In that regard, al-Qaeda’s open support for Hezbollah might even help to heal the Sunni-Shi’ite breach which Zarqawi worked hard to open [in Iraq] against [Osama] bin Laden’s and Zawahiri’s advice,” he said.
Even before the current Israel-Lebanon crisis, al-Qaeda had been trying to undo the damage caused by Zarqawi’s anti-Shi’ite campaign. In his most recent audio message released on July 1, several weeks after Zarqawi’s death, bin Laden referred to Shi’ites as “cousins” and called for al-Qaeda of Mesopotamia, as Zarqawi’s group is known, to make US forces and their collaborators - rather than the general Shi’ite population - its primary target.
“The Sunni-Shi’ite divide is real, and it’s not just being invented by the neo-cons, but if you look at mainstream public opinion, a lot of the Sunni-Shi’ite stuff that the neo-cons and the press are picking up on is the invention of the [Sunni-led] regimes, especially in the Gulf, where Sunni leaders really are afraid of Iran and their Shi’ite populations inconveniently happen to live on the oilfields,” Lynch told Inter Press Service.
“For the Arab regimes, playing on Sunni-Shi’ite differences is really a divide-and-conquer [strategy] to prevent the rise of a unified movement against them. But the fact is you’re now seeing even very Sunni movements like the Muslim Brotherhood rallying to Hezbollah as the fighter against Israel, while these corrupt, impotent, pro-American governments aren’t doing a thing.”
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
July 28, 2006
Changing Reaction
**Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah **
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.
An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.
Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.
Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world.”
Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.
The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish.
“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, “then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”
The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.
American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.
Egypt’s opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.
An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.
After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.
“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr. Negm said in an interview. “I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: ‘Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!’ ”
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.
“Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states,” she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.
In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a “new Middle East.” That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.
A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.
Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.
Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah’s rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.
Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.
“It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine,” he said. “Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine.”
Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.
But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. “Everyone will be asking, ‘Where is Al Qaeda now?’ ” said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.
Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.
“Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rabbani said. “In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
Let It Bleed
Leaders at the Rome summit on the Mideast are ignoring the real bottom line: Hizbullah is winning.
By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
July 26, 2006 - Worthy-sounding meetings of ministers, like the International Conference for Lebanon held in Rome today, rarely get very much done. The participants here were high-powered, to be sure: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the prime minister of the country in question, Fouad Siniora, plus a slew of Europeans and Arabs (but no Israelis or Hizbullahis). Instigated by Washington, it was all for show.
The assembled dignitaries expressed their “determination to work immediately to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire” in the war that started two weeks ago today when the Hizbullah militia crossed the border to capture two Israeli soldiers, and Israel responded with a massive counterattack the length and breadth of Lebanon. But, at American insistence, the ceasefire would have to be one that’s “lasting, permanent and sustainable.” Which means the flames searing Lebanon, threatening Israel and endangering the most volatile region in the world will go on for weeks, if not months, to come. The consolation prize: a promise of “immediate humanitarian aid.”
Imagine, if you will, that arsonists have set your apartment block on fire. You call 911 and plead for help. The dispatcher tells you of her “determination to work immediately with the utmost urgency” to douse the flames, but only if plans can be agreed on for the new building to be erected when the decrepit old one has gone up in smoke. She’s stalling, hoping the arsonists will be eliminated by the conflagration. And she’s got a great vision for the way that block should look some day. That’s what counts. Not your furniture, or for that matter, your family inside … No wonder Siniora looked distraught as the conference closed.
But as irrational as the politicians who make policy may be, the professionals in their entourages often understand reality quite well. And in the corridors of today’s conference I met several men and women who, on background or off the record (meaning they were afraid of losing their jobs if caught talking too frankly) laid out a picture of the situation in the Middle East right now that was convincing, frightening, and seems to have escaped the notice of Dispatcher Rice altogether.
The bottom line: Hizbullah is winning. That’s the hideous truth about the direction this war is taking, not in spite of the way the Israelis have waged their counterattack, but precisely because of it. As my source Mr. Frankly put it, “Hizbullah is eating their lunch."
We’re talking about a militia—a small guerrilla army of a few thousand fighters, in fact—that plays all the dirty games that guerrillas always play. It blends in with the local population. It draws fire against innocents. But it’s also fighting like hell against an Israeli military machine that is supposed to be world class. And despite the onslaught of the much-vaunted Tsahal, Hizbullah continues to pepper Israel itself with hundreds of rockets a day.
]The United States, following Israel’s lead, does not want an immediate ceasefire precisely because that would hand Hizbullah a classic guerrilla-style victory: it started this fight against a much greater military force—and it’s still standing. In the context of a region where vast Arab armies have been defeated in days, for a militia to hold out one week, two weeks and more, is seen as heroic. Hizbullah is the aggressor, the underdog and the noble survivor, all at once. “It’s that deadly combination of the expectation game, which Hizbullah have won, and the victim game, which they’ve also won,” as my straight-talking friend put it.
Neither U.S. nor Israeli policymakers have taken this dynamic into account. If they had, they’d understand that with each passing day, no matter how many casualties it takes, Hizbullah’s political power grows. Several of my worldly Lebanese and Arab friends here in Rome today—people who loathe Hizbullah—understand this problem well. Privately they say that’s one of the main reasons they are so horrified at the direction this war has taken: they fear not only that Lebanon will be destroyed, but that Hizbullah will wind up planting its banner atop the mountain of rubble.
When I heard Condi talking in pitiless academic pieties today about “strong and robust” mandates and “dedicated and urgent action,” I actually felt sorry for her, for our government, and for Israel. As in Iraq three years ago, the administration has been blinded to the political realities by shock-and-awe military firepower. Clinging to its faith in precision-guided munitions and cluster bombs, it has decided to let Lebanon bleed, as if that’s the way to build the future for peace and democracy.
Re: All things Hezbollah vs Israel (merged threads)
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/279019_robert27.html
Door slams hard on any who would criticize Israel
Thursday, July 27, 2006
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON JR.
P-I COLUMNIST
When it comes to Israel, there seems to be precious little room for free discussion.
To suggest anything critical of the country puts one at risk of being labeled the worst kinds of things.
Seen through another prism, it is like a white person being called racist for wondering why black kids can memorize rap lyrics but won’t put the same effort into English 101.
Or like folks being deemed hostile to immigrants because they question why undocumented workers line up downtown for day-labor jobs.
Or being called a homophobe for suggesting that gays and lesbians are off base when they equate the push for legalized gay marriage to the civil rights movement.
Such issues, molecularly charged, are ripe for debate.
Yet none of these topics, from where I sit, comes close to setting off the kind of reflexive and negative reaction touched off by questioning Israel.
Doing so invites being called anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, damning labels that are hard to remove. Then the door slams on honest discourse.
After Rachel Corrie of Olympia was fatally run over by an Israeli military bulldozer, numerous Jewish and pro-Israel thinkers told me she had it coming. They said she was abetting terrorists – a disputed claim.
Corrie wanted to bear witness to Palestinian suffering.
Such suffering doesn’t negate the horror of Palestinian suicide bombers who spill the blood of Israeli civilians.
But even raising the plight of Palestinians invites vilification.
Are we to pretend Palestinian suffering isn’t so bad?
Corrie’s critics didn’t want to hear about how the global community has criticized Israel’s use of bulldozers for military force. Israel, they said, has to do what it must to protect itself.
Israel has a right to protect itself from groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah that have vowed to destroy it.
Israel has a right to exist. But that right appears to come with an implied moral authority that seemingly supersedes everything – and everyone – else.
Other parties in the Middle East conflict have rights, too.
Palestinians have a right to a viable state, and a lot of Jews agree with that. Innocent people in Lebanon, site of recent Israeli missile strikes, have a right to live and not be bombarded with disproportionate force that can be seen as military-supported terror.
If people on all sides of the crisis could look beyond the vitriol and polemic, they would find plenty of blame to go around. They would also come across a lot of people wanting to see an end to the bloodshed.
Honest dialogue is hard to come by, though, when people can’t speak freely.
People can’t even share the same space.
Consider what happened over the weekend in the Seattle area. There were two rallies that touched on the Middle East conflict. The local Jewish community organized one, and the local Arab American community held the other. There was not much cross-pollination between the rallies, says Rob Jacobs, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
It was a missed opportunity.
Jacobs says such efforts to create necessary dialogue run into an “impenetrable wall” on how best to achieve peace and security.
I’m hungry to understand how the Jewish community feels and why the slightest mention of Israel so often sets off an invisible, ultra-sensitive trip wire.
Even a passing reference to Israel, in a context outside of the Middle East conflict, can touch an explosive chord. This, perhaps, speaks to the psychic resonance of the Holocaust as well as Israel’s ongoing struggle since birth.
In a recent column, I wrote about how Sonics fans, upset with the sale of the team, were weighing a boycott of Starbucks as a way of sending a message to Howard Schultz, the chairman of the coffee company and an outgoing Sonics owner.
I mentioned the silly reasons people cite for boycotting Starbucks, including that its stores play Sheryl Crow and that the company is a friend of Israel.
Referring to Israel “only incites people who oppose Israel or harbor ill-will toward Jews,” fired back Anthony Wartnik, a longtime King County Superior Court judge whom I respect. “Perceived anti-Semitic reporting can only anger the Jewish community. This type of journalistic license must be condemned.”
Perceived anti-Semitic reporting? Condemned?
Ardent supporters of Israel seem to want the kid-gloves treatment.
I don’t think that approach is the answer.
If people can’t talk about Israel in full honesty – for better or worse, at home or abroad – this maddening crisis will not end.