_______________________________
WEEKDAY PRESS PICKS FROM
THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
ELECTRONIC LEBANON
AND ELECTRONIC IRAQ
http://electronicIntifada.net
http://electronicIraq.net
http://electronicLebanon.net
_______________________________
NEWS FOR 25 July 2006
NEWS:
1) Israel murders five civilians; 2 children, grandmother in Gaza (PCHR)
2) Four children and the cost of war (CNN)
3) Israel indiscriminately bombs Red Cross ambulances (Guardian)
4) Hizbullah fighters repulse Israeli attack on southern town (DS)
5) Israel preparing occupation government for Lebanon (Jerusalem Post)
6) Israeli orders to destroy 10 buildings for every rocket (AFP)
7) War crimes: Israel hitting civilians with cluster bombs (AFP)
8) More than of Israel's victims are children (Jamail/IPS)
9) Tragedies among families trying to escape Israeli atrocities (Wash Post)
10) Little dissent as Israelis support war (BBC)
11) UK arms exports to Israel double in a year (Guardian)
12) UK party leader calls for Israel arms embargo (Independent)
13) UK public disgusted with Blair's slavishness to US (Guardian)
14) Iraqis Find Rare Unity in Condemning Israel (LA Times)
ANALYSIS & VIEWS:
15) We are defending our sovereignty (Ali Fayyad/Guardian)
16) Why Israel is Losing (Ashraf Isma'il/Counterpunch)
17) "Kidnapped" in Israel or Captured in Lebanon? (Joshua Frank/Antiwar)
18) Morality is not on our side (Ze'ev Maoz/Haaretz)
19) Unpopular Arab regimes volunteer as Israel's guard dogs (Mekay/IPS)
20) Madison's Warning and the Israel Lobby (Michael Scheuer/Antiwar)
Ali Abunimah
**********************************************************
(1) Five Palestinian Civilians Killed in Northern Gaza Strip
PCHR
24 July 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5192.shtml
IOF Spokesman: "The army will start to strike houses under
suspicion in the GazaStrip to prevent militant groups from
accumulating weapons."
Today, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed five
Palestinian civilians, including two children and an
elderly woman, in two separate attacks on Beit Hanoun and
Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. Fourteen other
civilians, including five children and a woman, have been
wounded. IOF have shelled residential areas in the two
towns. In the early morning, IOF warplanes attacked a
house in Gaza City after having ordered its evacuation.
These latest crimes have come in the context of the
continued IOF offensive on the Occupied Palestinian
Territory (OPT), particularly the Gaza Strip, and have
followed a statement by an IOF spokesman that IOF would
attack houses under suspicion to prevent militant groups
from accumulating weapons. PCHR is gravely concerned for
such a statement, for which Palestinian civilians will the
price.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at
approximately 13:25 on Monday, 24 July 2006, IOF
positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel
fired a number of artillery shells at al-Nada tower
buildings in the west of the northern Gaza Strip town of
Beit Hanoun. One of these shells hit building (10), only
20 meters away from Beit Hanoun clinic. As a result, three
Palestinian civilians, including a child, were killed:
1. Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 14;
2. Sadiq Ahmed Nasser, 31; and
3. Sa'di Ahmed Na'im, 30.
In addition, 11 other civilians, including three children
and a woman, were wounded. PCHR's field worker in the
northern Gaza Strip reported that residents of the
affected area started to leave it to avoid being harmed by
the IOF shelling.
At approximately 15:35, IOF resumed shelling residential
areas in the northern Gaza Strip. A number of shells hit
al-'Atatra area near the American International School,
northwest of Beit Lahia. As a result, a Palestinian woman
and her grandchild were killed as they were traveling
their way back home on an animal cart:
1. Khairiya Hashem al-'Attar, 62; and
2. Nadi Habeeb al-'Attar, 10.
Three other civilians, including two children, were also
wounded by shrapnel.
PCHR is deeply concerned over the IOF crimes against
Palestinian civilians. PCHR stresses that an arbitrary
attack that endangers the lives of civilians and their
property, especially if prior knowledge indicates that
civilians could be killed or wounded, or property be
damaged, is a war crime as prescribed by the First
Protocol Additional to the Fourth Geneva Convention.
PCHR believes that the failure of the international
community and the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth
Geneva Convention to take effective steps to stop Israeli
war crimes has served to encourage Israel to commit more
war crimes against Palestinian civilians. Not only do the
legal cover provided to Israel by the US, which purposely
hinders international humanitarian law, and the conspiracy
of silence by Europe, place Israel above the international
law and also encourage IOF to commit more war crimes.
PCHR reminds the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
Geneva Convention of: Their obligations under Article 1 of
the Convention to respect and ensure respect for the
convention under all circumstances.
Their obligations under Article 146 of the Convention to
search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have
ordered to be committed, grave breaches, and bring such
persons before their own courts, noting that such grave
breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147, as
specified in the First Protocol Additional to the
Convention
PCHR calls upon the Swiss Government:
To take a leading role in highlighting and acting to stop
the grave breaches of international law that are currently
taking place in the Gaza Strip, as is its obligation as
the depository of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
To make efforts to mobilise the High Contracting Parties
to the Fourth Geneva Convention to intervene in this
situation and meet their obligations to protect the rights
of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip under
International Humanitarian Law. To call on the Security
Council to send an international protection force for the
Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
PCHR calls upon the High Commissioner for Human Rights:
To issue a statement strongly condemning Israel's grave
breaches of international law in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory (OPT).
To make a visit to the OPT in order to see for yourself
the long term damage that has already been and is
currently being inflicted on the civilian population - a
population who should be enjoying protection under
International Humanitarian Law.
To call a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the
Fourth Geneva Convention in order to ensure that these
states fulfil their obligation under international law to
protect the civilian population of the Occupied
Palestinian Territory.
**********************************************************
(2) Four children and the cost of war
By Cal Perry
CNN
24 July 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/23/perry.tyre/index
.html
TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- The last time I sat down to write
something, it was about the cost of war. As I looked ahead
to the coming days, the last words I wrote were: Who will
die?
Today, I found out.
Standing in front of this 8-year-old boy lying in a
hospital bed, the "conflict in the Middle East" and the
"cost of war" seem endless and suffocating. His pain
cannot possibly be imagined as he shakes uncontrollably in
and out of shock. He has blood coming from his eyes.
His name is Mahmood Monsoor and he is horribly burned. In
the hospital bed next to him is his 8-month-old sister,
Maria -- also burned. Screaming at the top of her lungs is
the children's mother, Nuhader Monsoor. She is standing
over her baby, looking at her son -- and probably thinking
of her dead husband. The smell of burned flesh is
overwhelming.
This story, for the Monsoor family, started out as a
typical one, probably one that most of us have
experienced. They had simply gone on a family vacation to
some lovely sunny beaches, but these beaches were in
southern Lebanon.
The six of them, like thousands of others, were fleeing
the fighting -- trying to get north, waving white flags,
when an Israeli bomb or missile slammed into their car.
(Watch how the littlest victims are suffering -- 2:54.
Viewer discretion is advised.)
The father, Mohammed Monsoor, was killed instantly. His
children all were wounded. His wife, who is now crying
over two of the wounded children, was in the best physical
condition. But as would be the case for any mother and
wife, her life, in many ways, ended the minute the car
exploded into flames.
The other two Monsoor children, Ahmed, 15, and Ali, 13,
are in surgery. Doctors can't tell me if they will make
it. They walk away, their heads shaking. Optimism is not a
word that breathes truth in this place.
There are more than enough stories like this, in hospitals
across southern Lebanon. This hospital, on this day, seems
to be a microcosm of the region. Less than 100 meters from
the front door of the hospital, a car is on fire. Less
than 30 minutes earlier, the car exploded as an Israeli
jet circled overhead. The fog of war has crept into the
hospital, and no one knows where the casualties of that
strike are being treated.
Just days earlier, staff at this hospital were moving
bodies out to make room for more. Like an assembly line of
the dead, unless the bombings stop, they will be doing the
same tomorrow.
The city of Tyre has been enduring stories like this for
more than a week. Buildings are crumpled; those who have
not left are hiding in basements. Those who dare to pack
into cars run the risk of ending up like the Monsoor
family. Some who move north die on the road. Some stay in
basements, and die there. Others hope against hope that
the bombs will fall elsewhere -- missing them.
Politics creeps into the ward like the blood that runs on
the floors. "Clearly he is Hezbollah," says one of the
doctors outside the room -- sarcastically referring to
8-year-old Mahmood, whose screams can be heard from the
hallway. His screams now blend with the wails of his
mother, matching the baby's cries.
The hospital ward begins to teem with members of the
international press. They all have blue flak jackets that
say "press" on the front. They carry microphones, cameras,
radios and satellite phones, and have local guides to
translate.
Today, as I finish I am sitting in the same spot and the
shells are still falling. Hezbollah rockets are firing
toward northern Israel. I can imagine another reporter, in
another flak jacket, standing over an 8-year old Israeli
boy.
I'll finish by asking another question: Are any of us
making a difference?
Tomorrow, I'll let you know.
**********************************************************
(3) Red Cross ambulances destroyed in Israeli air strike on
rescue mission
By Suzanne Goldenberg in Tyre
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1828142,00.html
The ambulance headlamps were on, the blue light overhead
was flashing, and another light illuminated the Red Cross
flag when the first Israeli missile hit, shearing off the
right leg of the man on the stretcher inside. As he lay
screaming beneath fire and smoke, patients and ambulance
workers scrambled for safety, crawling over glass in the
dark. Then another missile hit the second ambulance.
Even in a war which has turned the roads of south Lebanon
into killing zones, Israel's rocket strike on two clearly
marked Red Cross ambulances on Sunday night set a deadly
new milestone.
Six ambulance workers were wounded and three generations
of the Fawaz family, being transported to hospital from
Tibnin with what were originally minor injuries, were left
fighting for their lives. Two ambulances were entirely
destroyed, their roofs pierced by missiles.
The Lebanese Red Cross, whose ambulance service for south
Lebanon is run entirely by volunteers, immediately
announced it would cease all rescue missions unless Israel
guaranteed their safety through the United Nations or the
International Red Cross.
For the villages below the Litani river, the ambulances
were their last link to the outside world. Yesterday, that
too was gone, leaving the 100,000 people of Tyre district
with no way of reaching hospital other than to take to the
roads themselves, under the roar of Israeli war planes.
The fateful call to the Red Cross operations room came
through at about 10pm - well after dark, a time when
almost no Lebanese now dare venture out.
At the Red Cross office in Tyre, three volunteer medics
dressed in their orange overalls, and got into their
ambulance. The plan was to drive halfway, meet the local
ambulance, and transfer the three patients to their
vehicle to return to Tyre.
By Nader Joudi's reckoning, the ambulances had been
stopped for barely two minutes. Two patients had been
loaded: Ahmed Mustafa Fawaz, who had been hit by shrapnel
in the stomach, and his son, Mohammed, 14. The volunteer
attendant was just easing Jamila Fawaz, 80, inside and
setting up a drip when the missile struck. He managed to
get the old woman and the child outside, but there was no
way to reach Mr Fawaz. "It was horrible," Mr Joudi said.
"He was screaming, and we couldn't do anything."
One of the members of the three-man crew from Tibnin
radioed for help when another missile plunged through the
roof. Ambulance crew and patients retreated to the cellar
of a nearby building, then waited to be rescued, trying as
best as they could to help the injured. "Each of us
treated ourselves. There was no light," said Kassem
Shaalan, a medic from Tyre.
By the time patients and ambulance crew reached Tyre, Mr
Fawaz was unconscious after losing one leg, and suffering
severe fractures to the other. His son had lost part of a
foot, and his mother's body was riddled with shrapnel. Mr
Joudi had shrapnel wounds in his left arm, and Mr Shaalan
cuts to the face and leg.
He was adamant that the ambulances, with their Red Cross
insignia on the roof, were clearly visible from the air.
"I don't think there can be a mistake in two bombings of
two ambulances," he said.
Although the air strike marked the first time ambulances
have been hit by Israel in this war, for Mr Shaalan and
the other Red Cross volunteers it was only a matter of
time. After two weeks of strikes designed to choke off
possible supply lines to Hizbullah guerrillas, travel to
many villages was just too dangerous. Coastal villages
even within a few kilometers of Tyre are cut off. In some,
corpses remain trapped in the rubble for days.
But nothing is more perilous than travelling by night, and
no more so than just before midnight that Sunday when
another Red Cross crew set off from Tyre to pick up their
injured colleagues.
"I was trembling," said Ali Deeb, one of the volunteers on
the mission. "It was too dangerous, and helicopters
buzzing, and all through this, I am thinking one thing:
the ambulance that left half an hour before you has
already been injured, and you could be next." Later
yesterday afternoon, two missiles landed in the building
across the road from the Red Cross office.
**********************************************************
(4) Hizbullah fighters defend key Southern town
The Daily Star
25 July 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&
categ_id=2&article_id=74234
Israeli soldiers and paratroopers advanced on the Southern
Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil Monday but were repelled by
Hizbullah fighters, as the death toll rose to over 370
Monday with the deaths of at least seven more civilians
and three Hizbullah fighters.
The political adviser to the UN peacekeeping force in the
South, Milos Strugar, said Monday that the Israeli Army
was "a few kilometers [inside] the UN-demarcated Blue
Line," in the area of Maroun al-Ras.
Speaking to local satellite television station LBCI,
Strugar said the Israeli Army was "reinforcing" its
presence near Maroun al-Ras, but said he could not
predict whether Israel intended to invade Bint Jbeil.
In a statement, Hizbullah said it had shot down an Israeli
helicopter and hit five tanks, inflicting casualties in
fierce battles that erupted as Israeli forces pushed
north. Arab television channels said four Israeli soldiers
had been killed. The Israeli military said two airmen died
in the helicopter crash, which it attributed to a
mechanical problem.
The tank thrust toward Bint Jbeil was one of several
recent Israeli forays along the border in search of
Hizbullah fighters and rocket-launchers.
Israeli Brigadier General Miri Regev said that Bint Jbeil
was a major launching site for Hizbullah rockets.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Lebanon continued to mount.
Two brothers, aged 9 and 11, and their uncle were killed
in their home north of Tyre when Israeli jets destroyed
three adjacent buildings. Several people were buried in
the debris, residents said. Another resident was killed in
a dawn attack on the same village.
Two other civilians were killed when their house south of
Tyre was destroyed, and an attack on a nearby Palestinian
refugee camp killed one person, medical officials said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
In Baalbek, the body of a policeman was recovered from the
ruins of buildings in a quarter repeatedly targeted by
Israeli firepower. He had apparently been killed days
before.
Hizbullah said in a statement that three more of its
fighters were killed, bringing the total to 19.
One Palestinian was killed and five others, including a
baby, were wounded in attacks on the refugee camp at
Rashidiyeh, medical sources said.
Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,
told local Arabic daily As-Safir newspaper in an interview
published Monday that any Israeli land invasion "will not
accomplish any political results, or stop Hizbullah rocket
salvos."
According to Lebanese television reports quoting Israeli
military sources, Israel has warned that it will destroy
10 buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs for every rocket
fired by Hizbullah at Haifa.
Elsewhere, two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances transporting
six wounded civilians from the Southern town of Tibnin
were targeted by an Israeli raid in Qana at dawn Monday.
On the diplomatic front, German Deputy Foreign Minister
Gernot Erler said that "any peacekeeping force involving
EU troops can only be deployed ... with the agreement of
Lebanon and Israel."
"Such a force can only be part of a wider concept," Erler
told Deutschlandradio Kultur. "But anyone who supports the
idea must be prepared, in principle, to help in one way or
another."
Human rights officials have warned that the clashes may be
violating humanitarian law, but experts say prosecutions
are unlikely.
- Additional reporting by Mohammed Zaatari and Leila
Hatoum, agencies.
**********************************************************
(5) IDF preparing for civil administration in Lebanon
By ANSHEL PFEFFER
Jerusalem Post
23 July 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291978631&
pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam acknowledged in a
briefing at Northern Command headquarters in Safed on
Sunday afternoon that the commander of the IDF's civil
administration unit had already begun preparations toward
the possibility of instituting a military administration
in areas captured by the IDF over the last week.
According to Adam, "certain units who will give us
breathing space have been called up, including the
commander of that unit." The unit's activation, however,
would only take place following comprehensive
consultations, he said.
Adam denied reports that there were plans to set up a
large prison camp for captured Hizbullah fighters, saying
the measure would not be needed.
**********************************************************
(6) Israel warns it will hit 10 buildings for every rocket
fired
Agence France Presse
24 July 2006
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=
data/middleeast/2006/July/middleeast_July525.xml§ion=
middleeast&col=
JERUSALEM - The Israeli air force is under orders to blast
10 buildings in south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, for
every rocket the Shiite militant group fires at the
Israeli port of Haifa, army radio said Monday.
"Army chief of staff Dan Halutz has given the order to the
air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the
Dahaya district (of Beirut) in response to every rocket
fired on Haifa," a senior air force officer told the
station.
Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon killed two
people on Sunday in the northern city of Haifa, which has
been hit by dozens of missiles since the latest conflict
started on July 12.
Israel kept up its offensive on Lebanon on Monday, with
its ground forces pushing deeper into the territory and
warplanes carrying out a new blitz of about 40 air raids
overnight.
UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland on Sunday accused
Israel of violating humanitarian law as he toured
bombed-out areas of south Beirut.
"This is destruction of block after block of mainly
residential areas. I would say it seems to be an excessive
use of force in an area with so many citizens," he said.
**********************************************************
(7) Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Agence France Presse
24 July 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060724/wl_mideast_afp/
mideastconflictlebanon_060724205820
NEW YORK (AFP) - Human Rights Watch said that Israel has
used artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon, killing
a civilian, and called on the Jewish state to immediately
cease the practice.
ADVERTISEMENT
The New York-based rights group said researchers on the
ground in Lebanon confirmed that Israel staged a cluster
munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19,
leaving one person dead and injuring 12 civilians,
including seven children.
The report said researchers had also photographed cluster
munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams
stationed at the Lebanese border.
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and
unreliable weapons when used around civilians," Kenneth
Roth, executive directory of Human Rights Watch, said in a
statement. "They should never be used in populated areas."
Researchers interviewed witnesses of the Blida attack who
said Israelis had fired shells which dropped hundreds of
cluster munitions on the village.
Cluster munitions are particularly dangerous because they
have a high level of duds that can explode much later
after the attack.
Human Rights Watch said the US use of cluster munitions
was the leading cause of civilian deaths during the
invasion of Iraq in March-April 2003, killing or injuring
more than 1,000 Iraqi non-combatants.
Belgium became the first country to ban use of cluster
munitions in February 2006, followed by a moratorium
declared by Norway four months later, Human Rights Watch
said, noting there was a growing international movement
against their use.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said Hezbollah's attacks on
Israel with imprecise rockets in civilian areas violated
international humanitarian law and most likely constituted
"war crimes."
**********************************************************
(8) Bombings Hit Lebanese Children Hardest
By Dahr Jamail
Inter Press Service
25 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=9404
BEIRUT - About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut
Government University Hospital are children of 15 years of
age or less, hospital records show.
"This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal
Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's
largest, told IPS Monday.
Not only are most of the patients children, but many of
the injured have been brought in serious condition, he
said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in
Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by
Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe."
The fatality rate was high, he said, "because the Israelis
are using new kinds of bombs which can enter shelters.
They are bombing the bomb shelters which are full of
refugees."
Masri told IPS that he believed so many children were
becoming casualties because of the "widespread and
indiscriminate nature of the bombings" and because
"children are least able to run away when the bombings
commence."
This new 544-bed hospital was forced to open its emergency
room six months early due to the current crisis. The
hospital has had to handle "scores and scores" of
casualties, according to the assistant director.
Masri said he had barely slept in the 13 days since the
Israeli bombing of Lebanon began. His hospital, he said,
was functioning with only 25 percent staff because "most
are now unable to get here because so many roads and
bridges are bombed. Those who are here are eating,
sleeping and living here 24 hours a day because if they
leave they fear they may be unable to return."
On Sunday, Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency
relief chief, toured the devastated areas of south Beirut.
He described what he saw as "horrific" and said the
destruction "makes it a violation of humanitarian law."
Egeland said UN supplies of humanitarian aid would arrive
within the next few days, but "we need access," and "so
far Israel is not giving us access."
Aid is now a matter of life and death. Masri said his
hospital would soon begin to run out of medicines and
supplies.
"We are concerned about what is to come because we cannot
continue at this rate," he said. "Already we've had to go
to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies. If the UN
succeeds in opening safe passage from the south, we will
be deluged with patients."
Masri said hospitals in Sidon and other southern cities
are overwhelmed with patients, who are being treated in
the corridors and lobbies.
According to Masri, many of the injured there are
suffering from the impact of incendiary white phosphorus.
The Lebanese Ministry of Interior has officially said that
the Israeli military has used this weapon.
"We don't know why we aren't getting help from the
International Committee of the Red Cross," Masri said.
"The Lebanese Red Cross is helping us the best they can,
but no foreign agencies are helping us. Why not?"
As the IPS correspondent was speaking with the assistant
director, an enraged man was led out by several security
guards. His wounded son had just been discharged.
"I want my son to stay here because we have no place to
go," the man was shouting. "Our home has been flattened.
If we leave here we must go to a refugee camp in a school,
or sleep on the dirt in a park. I demand you allow us to
stay here."
People are furious about the high number of casualties
among children. Mariam Mattar, a 50-year-old mother
sitting on a mattress in a park in central Beirut along
with hundreds of other refugees from southern Beirut, said
no home there was safe.
"We left our house because they are bombing everything in
the civilian neighborhoods," she told IPS. "They are
killing all our children. What human would ever do this
kind of thing?"
They had moved to central Beirut because it was safer. But
living out in the open has meant another kind of hell. "We
are without our shoes even. We are living in the dirt.
Would Israel allow her children to live like this?" she
asked, pointing at her bare feet.
She pulled a little boy towards her and said, "What have
these children done? The other children who didn't escape
are rotting under the destroyed buildings as we speak."
Israeli war planes roared above as several refugees spoke
with IPS.
"We are very afraid from all the bombings," Ramadan, a
12-year-old boy in the park said. "I hope they stop. This
is all we want now."
(Inter Press Service)
**********************************************************
(9) Lebanese Families Find Shelter at Palestinian Camp
Upheaval Takes a Displaced Father, Long Unstable, to the
Breaking Point
By Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post
25 July 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/
07/24/AR2006072400993.html
RASHIDIYA CAMP, Lebanon, July 24 -- From the beginning,
Hassan Madani was already a casualty of war.
For six years, the lanky 35-year-old welder had coped with
a frail state of mind. Then the bombs started falling
nearly two weeks ago, and his family grew worried. They
tried to bring him to the hospital, but the roads snaking
out of their town of Deir Qanun al-Nahr were too perilous.
They tried to soothe his nerves, but he began to break.
In a night of especially fierce bombing, he climbed a
cellular tower and screamed: "Don't hurt me, my son or my
wife." He circled around his disabled son, they recalled.
"God protect you," he muttered. As the war wore on, Madani
tried halfheartedly to kill himself, drawing a black
plastic bag over his head.
"We were worried what he might do," his wife, Sikna Ali
Ahmed, said Monday, her eyes swollen red.
His brother, Adnan, nodded. He recalled a sense of
foreboding. "The war brought us here," he said.
Here is Rashidiya, where Madani's family and more than
1,000 other Lebanese have fled their homes to seek shelter
in a Palestinian refugee camp, its 18,000 inhabitants
themselves exiles for nearly six decades. They began
arriving a week ago by foot, minibus and car, from
villages like Marwaheen, Qlaile and Mansuri. They trudged
through streets shaded by bird's nests of electricity
wires and sought shelter in homes and U.N.-run schools.
Now they wait, abandoned, in a camp whose residents
already feel forgotten.
"It's kind of an irony really. It's almost a joke what's
going on," said Ibrahim al-Ali, a 26-year-old Palestinian
social worker in the camp. "The irony is that refugees are
accepting citizens from their own country."
By the standards of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps,
some of the world's most forsaken locales, Rashidiya is
better than most. Compared with the rest of southern
Lebanon these days, it is a veritable haven, located on
the sea just south of Tyre. In a region where authority
has largely collapsed, its own administration remains
intact. Electricity is still on, and virtually every shop
is open, selling items that are scarce in Tyre: powdered
milk, chicken and medicine. Gasoline is less than
one-third the price of that in Tyre. With six of Tyre's
seven bakeries closed, the one here has doubled its
capacity, providing 3,000 free loaves to families in
nearby villages.
More important, though, the camp remains safe, as safety
goes these days in southern Lebanon.
"A disaster in Lebanon is a disaster for all of us," said
Hajj Rifaa Shanaa, a Palestinian official in the camp,
with a painting of Yasser Arafat behind his desk. "The
only reason they come here is that they look for a place
where there is no bombing."
"In days like these, politics are something else," he
added.
Loss, fear and frustration echo through conversations
among the mainly Shiite Muslim Lebanese in the south, the
community from which Hezbollah draws its support. There is
anger at Israel and the United States, too. But a sense of
abandonment, already manifest in Rashidiya, is perhaps the
most powerful. The sentiments of the Shiites intersect
with the faded, generation-old Palestinian slogans that
adorn the camp's concrete walls and cinder-block homes.
"Today Gaza, tomorrow all of Palestine," one poster reads.
"Revolution continues, until victory," another declares.
"People don't want to feel weakness now," said Ali, the
social worker. "They want to feel strong and stand firm.
But the hard part will start when they go back to their
houses and discover the destruction, the deaths in the
family and of their neighbors.
"That's when the sadness will come," he added.
At the U.N.-administered school, the family of Ali Banjak
sat in a patch of shade under a leafy tree. The women in
the family peeled off leaves of mulukhiya for a dish that,
when boiled, has the texture of spinach. Clothes stretched
across a green rope, drying in the sun. A blue thermos sat
on a ledge, and Banjak listened to a rickety plastic
radio, waiting for the batteries to go out. He had just
shaved in a green-tinted irrigation canal, guiding his
motions in the rearview mirror of a motorcycle parked next
to him.
Tugging on his yellow shirt, then his brown khakis, he
said, "These have been on for 12 days."
People loitered around a sun-drenched playground. Others
sat on desks set along the school walls, painted in the
United Nations' white and blue. On the gate hung a simple
one-page announcement from Dr. Durid Matar, offering
dental appointments for the displaced, "for free as long
as the crisis lasts."
"Waiting and waiting," Banjak said. "Waiting for what?"
Banjak's family lived in Shaitiye, a few miles away. Five
days before, he said, Israeli helicopters fired on the
village. There was no bomb shelter in their house, so
after midnight, he, his wife and two children ran to
another house with a basement. There, 30 people were
packed together, children screaming. They decided to go
elsewhere, sneaking a half-mile over a half-hour.
"It felt further than going on foot from here to Beirut,"
he said.
They finally found a place to hide, a cramped underground
room for drying tobacco.
"I thought if we didn't die from the bombing, we'd
suffocate to death," Banjak said.
By 4:30 a.m., they left again, finding a garage, where
they hid until dawn. "If you die, you die, but if you live
through something like this, you're dead every moment: the
fear of dying every day, every hour, every minute," he
said. Soon after the sun rose, they fled in a white
Renault, leaving the door unlocked and their passports at
home, taking the clothes they were wearing.
He looked at his children, reluctant to show fear. His
8-year-old son played in the corner. His daughter, 7, wore
pink Barbie sandals and twirled the hair of her doll. "The
toughest thing is that you're responsible for them.
They're frightened and scared that death is everywhere. .
. . You feel helpless," he said. "This is the toughest
thing as a father."
"There is only fear," added Mufid Mislamani, a 26-year-old
neighbor. "And fear brought us here in the first place."
Fear forced the Abad family here five days ago. A gas
station was hit in Marwaheen near their house, and they
decided to flee. They worried, too, that they wouldn't
find milk, medicine and food for the 2-month-old baby,
Razan Hatem Obeid.
"There's no safe place," said 25-year-old Fatima Abad.
"Nowhere in Lebanon is safe. But this was the closest to
us."
Nuzha Abad, the 76-year-old matriarch, standing amid a
gaggle of her daughters, nieces, cousins and
grandchildren, interrupted her. "We feel like we're
beggars!" she shouted. "Look at our daughters, look at our
children! Where is the dignity?"
The Palestinian residents have brought food -- figs,
olives, tomatoes, eggplant, okra and bananas -- much of it
cultivated in the small gardens that dot the seaside camp,
guarded by Palestinian militiamen. But Rashidiya is an
exception. There is hardly anything organized to assist
the displaced in the rest of southern Lebanon, rekindling
old but enduring resentments among Shiites of the south
over traditional neglect by a government that once treated
them as second-class citizens.
"For us in the south, for a long time, there's never been
a state," said Banjak, sitting on a yellow cushion adorned
with a floral pattern. "There's no state to protect the
people. There's no state to care for them." His friend,
Mislamani, nodded his head. Billions were spent rebuilding
Beirut, he said, "and there's not one bomb shelter, not
one, in the entire south."
Blasts thundered on the horizon. "They're telling us
they're still here," Banjak said, smiling. "Don't forget
we're here!"
He listened for a moment, then turned more serious. "I
don't want a house. I don't want luxury items -- a car, a
satellite television or those things," Banjak said. "I
want a shelter. I'll sell my house just so that I can
build a shelter."
Down the street was Mohammed al-Asmar's family. A driver,
he lost his car when a gas station was bombed nearby. He
fled on foot with his wife and six children a week ago. On
this day, he was tired, grim and angry.
"War after war," Asmar said. "Me, personally, I've left my
house more than 50 times."
He shook his head. "We're not strong enough to live
through more wars," he said.
A few hours before Asmar spoke, Madani's brother, Adnan,
and his wife, Sikna, were looking for him in the camp.
"We tried to find him," the brother said. "We looked
everywhere."
Madani had walked with his son, Ghassan, 9, to the beach,
a trash-strewn strip of land with two rusted soccer goals.
Tires were buried in the sand near two shabby fishing
boats with peeling paint, lapped by waves. Madani took off
his red leather watch and put it on his son's wrist. He
then tied his son's left hand to his own right with a
white nylon rope a little thicker than a shoelace. Madani
waded 400 yards into the water, past a strip of turquoise
water, then blue, then another strip of turquoise,
recalled those on the beach who saw him.
"Somebody came running toward me," said Hassan Ajami, a
31-year-old fisherman. "Come here! Come here!"
By the time Ajami swam toward Madani, he had drowned his
son and, some witnesses said, was trying to drown himself.
Ajami said he took the boy, whose belly was distended, and
tried to resuscitate him. Others grabbed Madani and pulled
him to shore.
"Why did you kill your son?" Ajami asked him.
It was the question his family struggled with Monday,
stranded in a small concrete shack in a camp not their
own. A ways away, the boy was buried in a plot of sand,
circled with seven concrete blocks. A piece of cardboard
marked the grave.
"He was fine until the war started," Adnan said of his
brother. "We wanted to protect him from himself."
They recounted the days: sleepless nights, relentless
bombing, flight and a fear that never faded.
"He didn't know what he was doing," Adnan said. "Even now,
I don't think he's aware his son is dead."
His wife leaned her head out the door, a dreary brown. She
had been crying, her cheeks still moist.
"He lost everything," she said softly.
**********************************************************
(10) Little dissent as Israelis support war
By Raffi Berg
BBC News
25 July 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5208718.
stm
The withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 was
brought about in part by increasing public pressure to
pull out.
But, just six years on, Israelis stand almost unanimously
behind the decision to wage a new war across the country's
northern border.
According to recent opinion polls, as many as 90% of
Israeli citizens approve of the offensive against
Hezbollah and want it to continue.
"The situation with Hezbollah and Iran created a siege
mentality among the Israeli people," said veteran Israeli
pollster, Rafi Smith.
"Whenever Israel is attacked, people are always more
patriotic and support the government, which is why so many
people support this war."
Voices of dissent are scarce, but despite overwhelming
public approval for the campaign, there is still a small
number of Israelis who have come out against the conflict.
In Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Saturday night, some 2,000
protesters, both Jews and Arabs, held a demonstration
against the war, and - unusually in Israel - the country's
alliance with the United States.
"[Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and Bush have struck
a deal, to carry on with the occupation," demonstrators
chanted.
Others called on Israeli soldiers to refuse to do their
duty.
One of the protesters, Prof Galia Golan, acknowledged that
opponents of the war are in a tiny minority, but said she
expected their numbers to grow.
"It's very hard for an Israeli to demonstrate in time of
war - the people who are dying and fighting are our kids
and neighbours - it's a very difficult thing.
"We saw this in the first Lebanon war of 1982, when it
took the public three weeks to react against the war and I
think we're going to see the same thing now."
'Ceasefire now'
Several anti-war protests have also taken place in other
parts of the country.
In the northern port city of Haifa, which has suffered
dozens of missile strikes, around 50 demonstrators held a
road-side protest on the corner of Lebanon Gate street,
under the watchful eye of the border police.
The protesters, some of them teenagers, waved placards and
shouted slogans such as "Unconditional ceasefire now" and
"Get out of Lebanon", as passing motorists honked their
horns in rebuke and yelled abuse out their windows.
"The Israeli government thinks by bombing Lebanon they
will make peace, but they did it many times before and it
didn't work," said protest organiser Yoav Bar, 51.
"In a few months, no one will admit they were ever for
this war," he predicted.
Across the road, a lone counter-demonstrator held aloft a
sign reading: "State of Israel, exchange these people for
our kidnapped soldiers!"
"I also want an end to the war," the protester,
54-year-old architect Simcha Sherer told me.
"But what can we do, let Hezbollah kill us? These people
are in a minority, but Israel is a democracy and they have
the right to say what they want, even if I don't agree
with them."
Outside one of the city's hotels where foreign media are
encamped, a 20-strong group of women gathered to try to
generate publicity for their anti-war campaign.
The protesters I spoke to said they had received a hostile
reaction from other members of the public, but that they
were determined to make a stand.
"People curse us and call us whores, but it makes me feel
stronger to be with people who believe in peace and want
to pursue it," said 41-year-old teacher Ornat Turin.
"We might be a minority now but the spiral might grow
day-by-day."
'Not 1982'
However, opponents of the war remain outside Israel's
conventional peace camp.
Even the anti-settlement movement Peace Now has not come
out in their support.
"The anti-war protesters are very far on the fringe," said
Gerald Steinberg, professor of Political Studies at Bar
Ilan University.
"Even people who are on the Israeli Left have been very
active in condemning them because they don't seem to care
about the value of Israeli lives."
Prof Steinberg says it is wrong to draw comparisons
between this conflict and the 1982 Lebanon war, against
which the tide of public opinion ultimately turned.
"I think there was some expectation on the part of
Hezbollah and others that the Israeli opposition would
rise up in the way it did in 1982, but this is an entirely
different war and the 1982 analogy is not applicable.
"Israelis understand the stakes, which are the survival of
the State of Israel and the potential for a confrontation
with Hezbollah and Iran in the future, and the stakes are
far too high for that."
**********************************************************
(11) British arms exports to Israel double in a year
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1828246,00.html
Britain has almost doubled the value of arms exports to
Israel, according to official figures released yesterday.
Arms exports to Israel approved by the government totalled
#22.5m last year, almost twice the amount in 2004,
according the latest annual report on strategic export
controls published by four government departments.
The report was released as the Liberal Democrat Leader,
Sir Menzies Campbell, yesterday urged Tony Blair to
suspend any further arms exports to Israel. "In light of
disproportionate military action by Israel in Lebanon and
Gaza the UK government must suspend any further arms
exports to Israel," Sir Menzies wrote to the prime
minister.
He said the government was right to ensure there were no
arms transfers, either direct or indirect, from Britain to
Syria, Iran "or illegal armed groups such as the military
wing of Hizbullah". He added: "The government must now
comply with its own arms export rules and institute an
immediate suspension of all UK arms exports to Israel."
Licences approved for Israel last year included components
for combat helicopters, aircraft radars, air-to-surface
missiles and airborne electronic warfare equipment.
Special licences were also approved for the sale to Israel
of components for military training aircraft, naval
radars, naval communications equipment, and optical
sensors for unmanned air vehicles.
These do not include components made by British companies
in US Apache helicopters and F-16 bombers sold to Israel.
The government provoked a storm of protest in 2002 by
introducing new guidelines on the sale of military
components. It cleared the way for head-up display units
(HUDs, for presenting data without blocking view) - made
by BAE Systems, Britain's largest arms company - to be
sold to the US for use in F-16 planes. Ministers said the
move was dictated by the interests of British arms
companies. British equipment used in American Apache
helicopters supplied to Israel includes missile trigger
systems.
Saferworld, an independent London-based thinktank
campaigning against the arms trade said yesterday that the
Foreign Office's human rights report states: "The UK
opposes the Israeli policy of targeted killings, which are
illegal under international law".
Paul Eavis, director of Saferworld, said yesterday: "The
government must assert a coherent policy towards countries
that display a disregard for human rights".
Lebanon's president accused Israel on Monday of using
phosphorous bombs in its attacks, Reuters news agency
reported from Paris. "According to the Geneva Convention,
when they use phosphorous bombs and laser bombs, is that
allowed against civilians and children?" President Emile
Lahoud asked on France's RFI radio.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said: "Everything the
Israeli defence forces are using is legitimate".
**********************************************************
(12) Calls for weapons embargo on Israel
By Colin Brown
The Independent
25 July 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1195271.
ece
Tony Blair faced new demands to suspend all arms exports
to Israel amid warnings that Tel Aviv was guilty of
"disproportionate" attacks on Lebanon.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, called
for a freeze on all arms export licences after government
figures showed that British arms sales to Israel more than
doubled last year to #22.5m.
Exports included components for military aircraft head-up
displays, components for electronic warfare equipment and
components for naval radar. Arms campaigners have called
for an embargo on military exports to Israel, arguing that
they breach British guidelines aimed at limited arms sales
to volatile regions.
Yesterday, Sir Menzies said a freeze on exports was
justified "in light of disproportionate military action by
Israel in Lebanon and Gaza". He added: "The Government is
right to ensure there are no arms transfers, either direct
or indirect, from the UK to Syria, Iran or illegal armed
groups such as the military wing of Hizbollah ... The
Government must now comply with its own arms export rules
and institute an immediate suspension of all UK arms
exports to Israel."
Asked about the demand yesterday, Mr Blair said: "I'm not
going to make any comment on the Liberal Democrat thing."
* Almost two-thirds of the British public opposes Tony
Blair's "special" relationship with George Bush, according
to a Guardian/ICM poll published today; 30 per cent said
the relationship was balanced while 63 per thought it was
too close. And 61 per cent said Israel's attacks in
Lebanon had been disproportionate.
**********************************************************
(13) Stand up to US, voters tell Blair; 63% say PM has tied
Britain too close to White House
By Julian Glover and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,
1828225,00.html
Britain should take a much more robust and independent
approach to the United States, according to a Guardian/ICM
poll published today, which finds strong public opposition
to Tony Blair's close working relationship with President
Bush. The wide-ranging survey of British attitudes to
international affairs - the first since the conflict
between Lebanon and Israel started- shows that a large
majority of voters think Mr Blair has made the special
relationship too special.
Just 30% think the prime minister has got the relationship
about right, against 63% saying he has tied Britain too
closely to the US.
Carried in the wake of the accidental broadcast of the
prime minister's conversation with President Bush at the
G8 summit, the poll finds opposition to this central
element of the prime minister's foreign policy among
supporters of all the main parties.
Even a majority of Labour supporters - traditionally more
supportive of Mr Blair's foreign policy position - think
he has misjudged the relationship, with 54% saying Britain
is too close to the US. Conservatives - 68% - and Liberal
Democrats - 83% - are even more critical.
And voters are strongly critical of the scale of Israel's
military operations in Lebanon, with 61% believing the
country has overreacted to the threats it faces.
As pressure grows for a change of strategy, the poll finds
that only 22% of voters believe Israel has reacted
proportionately to the kidnapping of soldiers and other
attacks from militant groups in southern Lebanon. Israel
has repeatedly sought to assure the world that its actions
are a legitimate response to threats to its own territory,
including missile attacks on the north of the country.
The finding follows more than a week in which Mr Blair has
come under fire for echoing US caution about the
practicality of an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East
and for allying himself too closely to Israel.
At a press conference in London yesterday Mr Blair
defended his position and expressed sympathy for the
plight of the Lebanese. "What is occurring in Lebanon at
the present time is a catastrophe. Anybody with any sense
of humanity wants what is happening to stop and stop now,"
Mr Blair said. He added: "But if it is to stop, it must
stop on both sides."
This did not amount to switch in policy but a change in
emphasis, in part to answer critics who accuse him of
being indifferent to the plight of the Lebanese. A British
official said: "He wants to make it clear he has the same
feelings as everyone else but the job of government is to
find an answer. The proof of the pudding is if we are able
to find a way through."
Unlike other international leaders, Mr has refused to
describe the Israeli attacks on Lebanon as
disproportionate. But the official said there was a
difference between what Mr Blair said in public and what
Mr Blair and other members of the government said to the
Israelis in private.
Public unease about Israel's approach is reflected in
public attitudes to the Iraq war, with support for the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein falling to a record low since
military action began in March 2003.
Although a solid core of Labour supporters - 48% - still
think the war was justified, overall only 36% of voters
agree - a seven-point drop since the Guardian last asked
the question in October 2004.
Older voters, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and
people living in the south are particularly critical,
suggesting the anti-war movement has a base of support
well beyond student groups and the left.
Support for the war reached 63% in April 2003, in the wake
of early military success. Now a narrow majority of voters
- 51% - believe it was unjustified, the highest proportion
for more than two years.
Amid fears that the armed forces are operating at the
limit of their resources, voters also believe that British
troops are doing more harm than good in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
They are more concerned by the role of British forces in
Iraq than Afghanistan, with 36% saying their presence is
making the situation worse in Iraq against 29% who think
this is true of Britain's more recent deployment in
southern Afghanistan.
But both findings outweigh the proportion of voters who
think British troops are improving the situation on the
ground: just 19% of all those questioned think they are
making progress in Iraq and 23% think this is the case in
Afghanistan. Around a third of voters think that at best
British forces are making no difference one way or the
other in the two countries.
There is also minimal public appetite for fresh foreign
policy commitments, such as a multinational force in
Lebanon. An overwhelming proportion of voters think
current deployments are already overstretching Britain's
military resources: 69% agree; 19% do not.
Conservatives - 78% of whom believe the armed forces are
overstretched - are especially concerned, despite David
Cameron's support for an interventionist policy,
symbolised by his visit to troops in Kandahar yesterday.
. ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults
over 18 by telephone on July 21-23. Interviews were
conducted across the country and the results have been
weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of
the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
**********************************************************
(14) Iraqis Find Rare Unity in Condemning Israel
`The enemy is the same,' a Shiite group says of the Jewish
state and its main supporter, the U.S.'
By Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times
24 July 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-
iraqleb24jul24,1,2987360.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
BAGHDAD -- Though embroiled in a bloody war over the future
shape and identity of their country, Iraq's Sunni Arabs,
Shiites, Kurds and even Christians have unified in
condemning Israel over its fighting in Lebanon against the
Hezbollah militia.
Condemnation of Israel's actions in Lebanon and of the
United States as the Jewish state's backer has emerged as
a rare bridge issue, cutting across political, ethnic and
religious lines.
Demonstrators loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric
Muqtada Sadr marched through the city center of Najaf on
Sunday evening in support of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, chanting "Death to America!" and "Death to
Israel!"
Across the city, more moderate Shiite clerics loyal to
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a statement urging
support for the Islamist militia in Lebanon and condemning
the U.S. and Israel.
"The enemy is the same," said a statement issued by the
Hawza, the network of seminaries in Najaf. "Their aim is
to enslave and humiliate us. What's happening today in
Lebanon is part of a bigger scheme to crush the blessed
[Islamic] nation."
Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni Muslim Arab,
expressed his "extreme concern over the Zionist aggression
against" the Lebanese as well as Palestinians.
"Iraq's stance has been known through history, and the
issue of supporting Arabs and Muslims has never changed,"
he said in a statement.
There were signs that the unconditional U.S. support for
Israel's offensive following Hezbollah's cross-border raid
resulting in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the
death of eight others was ratcheting up anti-American
sentiment.
In a rambling round table with journalists, the Sunni Arab
speaker of Iraq's parliament, Mahmoud Mashadani, continued
his frequent criticism of Israel, Jews, Zionism and the
United States.
Saying that the U.S. seeks to control oil fields in
southern Iraq, Mashadani added, "America didn't come to
the country for our sake. America came with a pure Zionist
agenda."
The Shiite-run Al Furat satellite television channel
launched a nationwide initiative to raise funds for
Lebanese humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. The
channel has been flooded with pledges, with Iraqis living
abroad also calling in to donate.
"The donors are coming from all sects," said Ahmad Kadhim,
a station spokesman. "Shiites, Sunnis and even
Christians."
Many of Iraq's Shiite leaders share Hezbollah's Shiite
Islamist ideology as well as a history of political and
clerical activism against the Middle East's secular
governments.
Meanwhile President Jalal Talabani, a secular pro-U.S.
Kurd, pledged to donate 100 million Iraqi dinars (or about
$68,000) of his personal wealth to help rebuild Lebanon
and called upon Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to "demand the
international community to work on an immediate
cease-fire" during a trip to London and Washington.
Maliki and a delegation of Iraqi Cabinet officers and
lawmakers arrived in London on Sunday, en route to a
meeting with President Bush in Washington on Tuesday.
Some Shiites within Maliki's coalition have demanded that
he cancel the trip to protest U.S. support of Israel, but
the prime minister refused, saying he would push the
Lebanese cause in Washington.
*
Times staff writer Saif Hameed contributed to this report.
****************
ANALYSIS & VIEWS
****************
(15) We are defending our sovereignty
Ali Fayyad, Hizbullah leadership
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1827966,00.html
For nearly two weeks Israel has been waging a war of
terror and aggression against Lebanon. Its stated
justification is the capture by the Islamic Resistance
(Hizbullah) of two Israeli soldiers with the aim of
exchanging them for Lebanese prisoners. The war has
already resulted in the killing of around 400 and wounding
of more than 1,000 Lebanese. Most are civilians (a third
children), crushed in their homes or ripped to pieces in
their cars by Israeli bombs and missiles.
In reality, the Israeli escalation is less about the two
soldiers and more about its determination to disarm the
Lebanese resistance. According to the US, Israel and some
other western states, this would implement UN security
council resolution 1559, which led to the withdrawal of
Syrian troops from Lebanon last year.
Most Lebanese, however, do not regard the resistance
forces of Hizbullah as militias, as referred to in the UN
resolution, let alone any kind of terrorist organisation.
Our resistance accomplished a major national mission by
forcing Israeli troops to withdraw from most Lebanese
territory in 2000 after 22 years of occupation. Since then
there has been intense national debate about how Lebanon
can defend itself in future once the resistance has
achieved the liberation of the remaining occupied Lebanese
land (the Shaba'a farms area) and the release of Lebanese
detainees.
The Lebanese people's support for the resistance was
demonstrated by the fact that Hizbullah and its allies won
more seats in the 2005 elections, following the Syrian
withdrawal, than when Syrian troops were still in the
country. That is why Israel is now targeting civilians.
In the context of the continued occupation, detention of
prisoners and repeated Israeli attacks and incursions into
Lebanese territory, the capture of the Israeli soldiers
was entirely legitimate. The operation was fully in line
with the Lebanese ministerial declaration, supported in
parliament, that stressed the right of the resistance to
liberate occupied Lebanese territory, free prisoners of
war and defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression.
International law also allows peoples and states to take
action to protect their citizens and territory. The
Israeli onslaught is aimed not only at liquidating the
resistance and destroying the country's infrastructure but
at intervening in Lebanese politics and imposing
conditions on what can be agreed.
There is now a clear national consensus on the need to
maintain the military power necessary to prevent Lebanon
from being subjugated by Israel's war machine. Popular
resistance is a way of redressing the huge imbalance of
power, defending Lebanon's sovereignty and preventing
Israel from intervening in Lebanese internal affairs, as
has happened repeatedly since 1948. It is also - as has
been the case in the prisoner-capture operation - dictated
by an entirely local agenda, rather than reflecting any
Syrian or Iranian policy.
The aggression against Lebanon, which has primarily
targeted civilians and failed to achieve any tangible
military objectives, is part of a continuing attempt to
impose Israeli hegemony on the area and prevent the
emergence of a regional system that might guarantee
stability, self-determination, freedom and democracy.
Hizbullah has tried from the start of this crisis to limit
the escalation by adopting a policy of limited response
while avoiding civilian targets; its aims were restricted
to freeing the prisoners of war held in both camps.
However, Israel's systematic destruction of entire
civilian areas in Beirut and elsewhere and perpetration of
scores of horrific massacres prompted Hizbullah to shift
to an all-out confrontation to affirm Lebanon's right to
deter aggression and defend its territorial integrity and
its citizens, just as any sovereign state would do.
Thus far, Hizbullah has had surprising military successes,
while maintaining its position in the face of Israel's
superior fire power, and preserved its capacity to wage a
long-term war. But Hizbullah is still ready to accept a
ceasefire and negotiate indirectly an exchange of
prisoners to bring the current crisis to an end.
This is what Israel has so far rejected, with the support
of the US. For this is also a war of American hegemony
over the Middle East, and the US - supported by the
British government - is fully complicit in the Israeli war
crimes carried out in the past two weeks. It would appear
that the peaceful option will not be given a chance until
Hizbullah and the forces of resistance have demonstrated
their ability to confront Israel's aggression and thwart
its objectives, as happened in 1993 and 1996. That is why
resistance is not only a pillar of our sovereignty but
also a prerequisite of stability.
. Ali Fayyad is a senior member of Hizbullah's executive
committee
**********************************************************
(16) Why Israel is Losing
By ASHRAF ISMA?IL
Counterpunch
25 July 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/
The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of
its much-vaunted military apparatus.
Ironically, there are several reasons for believing that Israel?s destruction of southern
Lebanon and southern Beirut will weaken its bargaining position relative to its
adversaries, and will strengthen its adversaries? hands.
First, Israel has no clearly defined tactical or strategic objective, and so the Israeli
offensive fails the first test of military logic: there is no way that Israel's actions
can improve its position relative to Hamas or Hizballah, much less Syria or Iran.
The logic of power politics also implies that a no-win situation for Israel is a definite
loss, because Israel is the stronger party and thus has the most to lose. In an asymmetric
war, the stronger party always has the most to lose, in terms of reputation and in terms
of its ability to project its will through the instruments of force.
The lack of any clearly defined objective is a major miscalculation by Israel and its
American patron.
Second, Israel cannot eliminate Hizballah, since Hizballah is a grassroots organization
that represents a plurality of Lebanese society. Neither can Hamas be eliminated for the
same reason. By targeting Hizballah however, Israel is strengthening Hizballah's hand
against its domestic rivals, such as the Maronite Christians, because any open Christian
opposition makes them look like traitors and Israeli collaborators.
Consequently, while Hizballah will obviously pay a short-term tactical cost that is very
high, in the long run, this conflict demonstrates that it is Hizballah, and not the
Lebanese government, that has the most power in Lebanon.
The Shia represent an estimated 35-40 per cent of Lebanese society, while Lebanese
Christians are thought to constitute no more than 25-30per cent of the entire population.
Furthermore, the Shia community?s fertility rate is thought to be far higher than that of
the other religious components within Lebanon.
Thus, the current confessional division of power in Lebanon, which grants Christians a
political position that goes far beyond their minority status, is ultimately
unsustainable, which means that the Maronite Christians will lose even more power, and the
Shia and Hizballah will inevitably gain more power.
Third, Israel's failure to achieve anything at all greatly enhances Syria's influence over
Lebanon and its bargaining position relative to the U.S. and Israel itself. No solution in
Lebanon can exclude Syria, and so now the U.S. and Israelis need Syria's approval, which
certainly weakens both the U.S. and Israel.
And even Israel's accusations against Iran, although largely baseless, greatly enhance
Iran's prestige in the region, and may bring about exactly what the Israelis are trying to
prevent. While the Arab states look like traitors, Iran looks like a champion of the most
celebrated of all Muslim causes.
Fourth, Bush's impotence is a clear demonstration that America has lost a great deal of
global power over the last three years. If Bush cannot control Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hizballah, or Israel, then what real power does the world's "hyper-power"
possess? America?s inability to influence any of the actors that are relevant to the
current crisis is yet more evidence that America's foreign policy is a form of global
suicide.
Fifth, the age of great power warfare has been replaced by a world in which great powers
must live and compete with non-state actors who possess considerable military
capabilities. William Lind calls this transformation ?4th generation warfare.?
Consequently, the age of Bismarckian warfare, or what William Lind refers to as "3rd
generation warfare,? is effectively over. ?Bismarckian warfare? is a term that describes
large-scale wars fought by large-scale armies, which require national systems of military
conscription, a significant population base, and enormous military budgets.
Bismarckian warfare seems to have become ineffective in the Arab-Israeli context, because
Israel no longer poses the threat that it once did to the Arab regimes, and the Arab
regimes much prefer Israel to the rising non-state actors growing within their own
borders.
William Lind has also argued that non-state actors such as Hamas and Hizballah can
checkmate the Israelis as long as these Muslim parties never formally assume power. If
Muslim parties were to assume the power of states, then they would immediately become
targets for traditional Bismarckian warfare. However, as long as Muslim movements retain
theirnon-state identity, they are strategically unconquerable.
Sixth, we must more carefully study the reasons why Bismarckian warfare is no longer
effective.
The global diffusion of the news outlets is obviously important for understanding why
Bismarckian warfare has become so ineffective. For instance, Hizballah has its own media
network, and can draw upon the global satellite network to get its message out, and can
also use the global media to take advantage of Israel's targeting of civilians and
civilian infrastructure.
Further, the competition between Arab and Muslim satellite channels is also important,
because each station wants to demonstrate its sincerity by spreading news that is not only
critical of Israel and the U.S., but ultimately undermines people's trust in the Arab
regimes and thereby lends legitimacy to non-state actors.
And although the American media largely supports Israel, the information about the
Americans stranded in Lebanon limits Israel's freedom of action, and makes Israel look
like it cares nothing for the lives of American citizens.
At an even deeper level, the rate and density of global information transfer, and lack of
any centralized control over the global distribution of information, is causing the fabric
of space and time to contract, and so Israel's crimes can much more quickly create a
global backlash.
Time and space, as we experience them, are contracting because the global diffusion of
technical and scientific knowledge is permitting events in one part of the world to
increasingly influence events in other parts of the world, and events that once took years
or even decades to unfold can now occur within mere months or weeks.
As a consequence, the disenfranchised peoples of the world are developing the ability to
affect the lives of the more privileged members of humanity, which means that anything
that Israel does to the Palestinians or Lebanese will have effects upon Israel that are
more direct and more negative than ever before, and that further, these effects will occur
in an accelerated time scale.
Thus, as it becomes self evident that Israeli military power is no longer as effective as
it once was, this will surely accelerate the flow of Jewish settlers out of Israel.
Information regarding emigration of Jews out of Israel is a closely guarded secret, but
using Israeli government statistics, we can infer that immigration to Israel has rapidly
declined over the last several years, and that Israel may even be experiencing a net
outflow of Jewish migrants. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the
number of Jewish immigrants to Israel declined to 21,000 in 2004, which is a 15-year low.
In 2005, the number of immigrants rose slightly to 23,000, which is still dramatically
lower than the 60,000 that immigrated in 2000. Furthermore, Israel became a net exporter
of its citizens in 2003, when9,000 more Israelis left the country than entered, and in the
first two months of 2004, this figure rose to 13,000.
The global micro-diffusion of military technology is also critical, and so military
innovation and its global diffusion will only strengthen grassroots rebellions and allow
them to more effectively resist the instruments of Bismarckian control, as well as the
depredations of the military hippopotami that are the ultimate guarantors of statism and
statist regimes.
For all of these reasons, Israeli attempts to impose terms on Lebanon, or to redraw the
political map of Lebanon, or even to impose a NATO force upon Southern Lebanon, are not
militarily feasible nor politically achievable, and if attempted, will prove ultimately
unsustainable.
As will soon be demonstrated by events on the ground, Israel will not be able to destroy
or even disarm Hizballah. Neither will Hamas, Hizballah, Lebanon, or Syria permit Israel
or America to dictate terms to them. Consequently, if Israel lingers too long in Southern
Lebanon, its presence will be paid for at such a high cost, that it will be forced to
withdraw in ignominy, as it has so many times in the past.
In the end however, Israel's loss of power will make it even more dangerous, because the
more threatened the Israelis feel, the more likely they will launch destructive wars
against the Palestinians and Israel's other adversaries.
Finally, the same can be said of the U.S., with respect to its loss of global power.
Instead of becoming more careful with its use of force, the erosion of America?s global
dominance will likely make the U.S. government more aggressive, as it attempts to
re-assert its former position relative to its adversaries and competitors.
And it is precisely because America and Israel are losing influence over global events,
that an American attack upon Iran in 2007 becomes more likely.
God help us all.
Ashraf Isma?il is an academic whose interests range from international relations,
international economics and international finance, to global history and mathematical
models of geo-strategy.
**********************************************************
(17) Kidnapped in Israel or Captured in Lebanon?
Official justification for Israel's invasion on thin ice
By Joshua Frank
Antiwar
25 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=9401
As Lebanon continues to be pounded by Israeli bombs and
munitions, the justification for Israel's invasion is
treading on very thin ice. It has become general knowledge
that it was Hezbollah guerillas that first kidnapped two
IDF soldiers inside Israel on July 12, prompting an
immediate and violent response from the Israeli
government, which insists it is acting in the interest of
national defense. Israeli forces have gone on to kill over
370 innocent Lebanese civilians (compared to 34 killed on
Israel's side) while displacing hundreds of thousands
more. But numerous reports from international and
independent media, as well as the Associated Press, raise
questions about Israel's official version of the events
that sparked the conflict two weeks ago.
The original story, as most media tell it, goes something
like this: Hezbollah attacked an Israeli border patrol
station, killing six and taking two soldiers hostage. The
incident happened on the Lebanese/Israel border in Israeli
territory. The alternate version, as explained by several
news outlets, tells a bit of a different tale: These
sources contend that Israel sent a commando force into
southern Lebanon and was subsequently attacked by
Hezbollah near the village of Aitaa al-Chaab, well inside
Lebanon's southern territory. It was at this point that an
Israel tank was struck by Hezbollah fighters, which
resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the
death of six.
As the AFP reported, "According to the Lebanese police
force, the two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanese
territory, in the area of Aitaa al-Chaab, near to the
border with Israel, where an Israeli unit had penetrated
in middle of morning." And the French news site
www.VoltaireNet.org reiterated the same account on June
18, "In a deliberated way, [Israel] sent a commando in the
Lebanese back-country to Aitaa al-Chaab. It was attacked
by Hezbollah, taking two prisoners."
The Associated Press departed from the official version as
well. "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli
soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in
southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel,
which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for
them," reported Joseph Panossian for AP on July 12. "The
forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from
moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government
officials said on condition of anonymity."
And the Hindustan Times on July 12 conveyed a similar
account:
"The Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah movement announced on
Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli
soldiers in southern Lebanon. 'Implementing our promise to
free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have
captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon,' a
statement by Hezbollah said. 'The two soldiers have
already been moved to a safe place,' it added. The
Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured
as they 'infiltrated' into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab
inside the Lebanese border."
Whether factual or not, these alternative accounts should
at the very least raise serious questions as to Israel's
motives and rationale for bombarding Lebanon.
MSNBC online first reported that Hezbollah had captured
Israeli soldiers "inside" Lebanon, only to change their
story hours later after the Israeli government gave an
official statement to the contrary.
A report from The National Council of Arab Americans,
based in Lebanon, also raised suspicion that Israel's
official story did not hold water and noted that Israel
had yet to recover the tank that was demolished during the
initial attack in question.
"The Israelis so far have not been able to enter Aitaa
al-Chaab to recover the tank that was exploded by
Hezbollah and the bodies of the soldiers that were killed
in the original operation (this is a main indication that
the operation did take place on Lebanese soil, not that in
my opinion it would ever be an illegitimate operation, but
still the media has been saying that it was inside
'Israel' thus an aggression first started by Hezbollah)."
Before independent observers could organize an
investigation of the incident, Israel had already mounted
a grisly offensive against Lebanese infrastructure and
civilians, bombing Beirut's international airport, along
with numerous highways and communication portals. Israel
didn't need the truth of the matter to play out before it
invaded Lebanon. As with the United States' illegitimate
invasion of Iraq, Israel just needed the proper media
cover to wage a war with no genuine moral impetus.
**********************************************************
(18) Morality is not on our side
By Ze'ev Maoz
Haaretz
25 July 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742257.html
There's practically a holy consensus right now that the
war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our
side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus
is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted
worldview, and double standards.
This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive
force without distinguishing between civilian population
and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to
say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah?s side.
Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah ?started
it? when it kidnapped soldiers from across an
international border does not even begin to tilt the
scales of justice toward our side.
Let?s start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign
state, and occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of
this occupation, we dropped several tons of bombs from the
air, ground and sea, while wounding and killing thousands
of civilians. Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed
between June and September of 1982, according to a
conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had
nothing to do with the PLO, which provided the official
pretext for the war.
In Operations Accountability and Grapes of Wrath, we
caused the mass flight of about 500,000 refugees from
southern Lebanon on each occasion. There are no exact data
on the number of casualties in these operations, but one
can recall that in Operation Grapes of Wrath, we bombed a
shelter in the village of Kafr Kana which killed 103
civilians. The bombing may have been accidental, but that
did not make the operation any more moral.
On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May
12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured
Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd
Lebanese detainees without trial, as ?negotiating chips.?
That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden
to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the
international community. That is true. What we are
forgetting is that ever since our withdrawal from Lebanon,
the Israel Air Force has conducted photo-surveillance
sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace. While these
flights caused no casualties, border violations are border
violations. Here too, morality is not on our side.
So much for the history of morality. Now, let?s consider
current affairs. What exactly is the difference between
launching Katyushas into civilian population centers in
Israel and the Israel Air Force bombing population centers
in south Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli? The IDF has
fired thousands of shells into south Lebanon villages,
alleging that Hezbollah men are concealed among the
civilian population. Approximately 25 Israeli civilians
have been killed as a result of Katyusha missiles to date.
The number of dead in Lebanon, the vast majority comprised
of civilians who have nothing to do with Hezbollah, is
more than 300.
Worse yet, bombing infrastructure targets such as power
stations, bridges and other civil facilities turns the
entire Lebanese civilian population into a victim and
hostage, even if we are not physically harming civilians.
The use of bombings to achieve a diplomatic goal ? namely,
coercing the Lebanese government into implementing UN
Security Council Resolution 1559 ? is an attempt at
political blackmail, and no less than the kidnapping of
IDF soldiers by Hezbollah is the aim of bringing about a
prisoner exchange.
There is a propaganda aspect to this war, and it involves
a competition as to who is more miserable. Each side tries
to persuade the world that it is more miserable. As in
every propaganda campaign, the use of information is
selective, distorted and self-righteous. If we want to
base our information ?(or shall we call it propaganda??)
policy on the assumption that the international
environment is going to buy the dubious merchandise that
we are selling, be it out of ignorance or hypocrisy, then
fine. But in terms of our own national soul searching, we
owe ourselves to confront the bitter truth ? maybe we will
win this conflict on the military field, maybe we will
make some diplomatic gains, but on the moral plane, we
have no advantage, and we have no special status.
The writer is a professor of political science at Tel Aviv
university.
**********************************************************
(19) US Turns to Arab Dictators to Contain Hezbollah
By Emad Mekay
Inter Press Service
26 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/mekay.php?articleid=9405
The United States is using authoritarian Arab leaders, who
fear that Iran could export its revolutionary political
model to their disgruntled populations and are concerned
about Washington's reprisal against them a la Saddam
Hussein in Iraq, as a buffer between the Iran-backed
Hezbollah and Israel, Washington's protege in the Middle
East, analysts here say.
"Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan fear the momentum behind
Iran's regional ambitions, which largely explains their
surprisingly public criticism of Hezbollah, and by
implication Iran," said George Perkovich, vice president
for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in Washington, referring to how the three nations
sided with their former arch-enemy Israel in its attacks
against Lebanon.
"The anti-Israel declamations of Iranian President
Ahmadinejad and Iran's continued support of actors that
refuse to recognize Israel's existence has paradoxically
elevated Iran's standing in the Arab street and alarmed
Sunni Arab rulers who have either recognized Israel or
moved toward it," Perkovich added.
Longtime rulers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have
all met their toughest internal opposition from Islamist
political groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
the Islamic Action Front in Jordan.
Some of these groups have even taken up arms against the
ruling regimes, as is the case with al-Qaeda in Saudi
Arabia and al-Jihad in Egypt. The regimes, with U.S.
backing, have been fighting these movements for years and
are concerned that such groups could draw inspiration if
Hezbollah comes out stronger from its current
confrontation with Israel.
"Hezbollah is also an Islamist movement with ties to
similar organizations in other Arab countries. Both the
Egyptian and Jordanian governments have grown fearful of
the rise of Islamist movements after the Muslim
Brotherhood's electoral gains in Egypt and Hamas' election
victory in Palestine," said Amr Hamzawy of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
"Their strategic interest in containing Hezbollah, and for
that matter Hamas, feeds on the ongoing domestic conflict
with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Action Front,
respectively."
Those motives coincide perfectly with Washington's aim,
and that of Israel, to disarm Hezbollah and push it north
of the Israel-Lebanon border.
This is the mission for the visit by U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice to Rome on Wednesday, where a core
group of international players that includes Arab states
will meet to chart the future of the region in the wake of
the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Rice's visit has the declared purpose of creating "a new
Middle East" where the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah no
longer has potency in its confrontations with Israel and
where the Arab governments will play a central role.
Analysts here agree that the basic theory that Secretary
Rice is taking to the Middle East, where she arrived
Sunday, is to get Arab regimes that are hugely unpopular
with those they rule to work as guard dogs on the Israeli
borders against rocket attacks from deeply rooted
organizations like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Palestinian
territories.
Rice's job, says Juan Williams, a senior correspondent
with National Public Radio (NPR), "is to get the Arab
states to act as a buffer between Hezbollah and the
Lebanese government and Israel and the United States."
And the Arab regimes are already on it.
The White House received Saudi Foreign Minister Saud
al-Faisal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, chief of the Saudi
National Security Council, over the weekend, while Egypt's
intelligence chief Omar Suliman and Foreign Minister Ahmed
Abul Gheit had met earlier with Rice and President George
W. Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
The first target of U.S. instructions to the Arab regime
appears to be Syria.
Explaining the U.S. tactics, Paul Gigot, the conservative
editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, said:
"They're working on Egypt and Saudi Arabia to try to
pressure Syria to stop arming Hezbollah ... the most
important thing is to give Israel the time it needs to
really make progress against Hezbollah, and I think that
is the opening, and I think they're now taking it."
Washington has ostracized Damascus over the past two years
and withdrawn its ambassador, leaving U.S.-backed Arab
rulers like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia as the main channel to take the
message to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"[The administration] is trying to say to Syria ... your
interests are better served in the Sunni Arab camp and the
camp that's pretty much on our side than with the
Iranians," Mara Liasson, the national political
correspondent for NPR, told Fox News Sunday.
"I do know that the United States is clearly looking to
Syria, not Iran, as the target of diplomacy here. Syria is
the weaker power, and while they don't provide the
hundreds of millions of dollars a year that Iran does to
support Hezbollah, they are the conduit for all the
weapons that come from Iran into Lebanon and to
Hezbollah," she said.
The second step prescribed for the Arab regimes is to give
both political and military backing for the secularist
anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah government of Lebanese
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff, said on Sunday
that Rice's mission to the region is to "empower the
Lebanese government" and to rally the Lebanon Core Group,
which includes the Washington-backed Arab trio Jordan,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, in helping the Lebanese
government "control its own territory" and stand between
Israel and Hezbollah.
The plan is to create an international force that may
include Arab elements to help the Lebanese government and
its feeble army replace Hezbollah as guards for Israel's
northern borders.
"I think the strategy for the U.S. is to try to put
together, with our allies, Arab and around the world, an
international force that would go into southern Lebanon,
as Israeli combat operations cease, accompany the Lebanese
army into the south and provide, finally, a strong
buffer," said David Ignatius, a columnist with the
Washington Post.
"That's a very, very difficult proposition. But that's
what we're trying to do."
(Inter Press Service)
**********************************************************
(20) Madison's Warning and the Israel Lobby
By Michael Scheuer
Antiwar
25 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=9400
One of the preoccupations of the authors of the American
constitution was defining the danger posed to the new body
politic by political, social, and economic factions. "By
faction," James Madison, the Constitution's father, wrote
in the justly famous Federalist No. 10,
"I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a
majority or a minority, who are united and actuated by
some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to
the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent
interests of the community."
Now, one must presume that Mr. Madison never imagined that
the two houses of the United States Congress and the
federal executive branch could conceivably combine with
what today is called a "private interest group" - namely
AIPAC - to be exactly the sort of faction that would
threaten both "the rights of other citizens" and "the
permanent interests of the community." And yet today, that
is precisely the spectacle we behold as the Bush
administration and both houses of Congress - Republicans
and Democrats - continue a bipartisan, three-decade-old
policy of supporting Israel without qualm or stint, and
without the least concern about what such support means
for the welfare and security of American citizens and
their families.
In the last week, Americans have seen their president, his
advisers, and their elected representatives behave as a
pack of well-groomed Pavlovian dogs, while exhibiting
equivalent IQ power. Not unlike automatons, Mr. Bush and
Secretary Rice spoke the traditional mantra: "Israel has
the right to defend itself." Then, the popularly elected
protectors of American interests passed resolutions
repeating that mantra with majorities strikingly similar
to those Cold War communist rulers could always count on
receiving from their so-called parliaments. Finally, this
two-branch, AIPAC-funded, mid-term-election-minded faction
agreed on the weekend to very publicly dispatch large
consignments of U.S.-made precision weapons to fill the
recently depleted stocks of the Israeli military. All of
these actions were, of course, played out against a
backdrop of editorial screeches, claiming "Israel is
bravely and nobly fighting America's and/or the West's
war," from the likes of such noted
U.S.-interests-be-damned voices as Ann Coulter, Mr. and
Mrs. Clinton, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page,
William Kristol and the Weekly Standard's crew of
certifiable zanies, and the reliably hysterical
FrontPageMag.com.
Well, I think no one - least of all myself - will deny the
basic truth that Israel has the right to defend itself;
indeed, our own Constitution captures the spirit of the
British jurist Blackstone's argument that the right to
self-defense is "the first law of nature" - advice
Washington too often ignores when the need arises to
protect its own citizens. Moreover, Israel's military
campaign in Lebanon serves the decidedly useful purpose of
graphically portraying for Americans the type of war that
must be waged when a nation has only its intelligence and
military services in its self-defense tool box. Clearly,
Israel has no credible diplomatic, public diplomacy,
ideological, or economic tools to complement or moderate
its use of force. This object lesson is particularly
pertinent for Americans, for the bipartisan faction
outlined above is very close to putting the United States
in the same predicament.
No, the real question of moment is not the red-herring of
Israel's right to defend itself, but rather what possible
U.S. national interest is at stake that requires America
to put its security at risk on Israel's behalf. National
interests, after all, are properly defined as that limited
number of issues that are life-and-death concerns for a
country; they are matters of survival. Access to energy
resources, freedom of the seas, the flourishing of our
domestic democracy, control of borders, internal security,
securing the Soviet nuclear arsenal, economic stability -
these are definite national interests for contemporary
America. These are all items that we must be prepared to
expend time, thought, treasure, and, if necessary, lives
to ensure.
Israel, realistically, does not fall into the category of
a life-and-death national interest. It is, at most, a
national emotional interest, and therein is the problem.
In the past 30 years, and especially during the post-Cold
War Clinton regime, our definition of national interest
has expanded to include a lengthy list of nice-to-have but
unessential ephemera, which are at the moment costing us
lives and treasure. Forcing Iraq and Afghanistan to
reserve parliamentary seats for women and efforts to
install democracy abroad at bayonet point are just two
instances of our bipartisan governing elites' inability to
differentiate nationa-security from national-emotional
interests.
Most Americans, including myself, probably hope that
Israel eventually proves itself a viable, prosperous,
non-theocratic, nuclear-armed state. But it is not
remotely imaginable that Israel is a national-security
interest of the United States that requires the U.S.
government to unquestioningly endorse, fund, and arm all
Israeli actions and thereby earn the same enmity Israel
earns from a billion-plus Muslims. Indeed, it is painfully
clear that such support undermines several of the genuine
national-security interests listed above: namely, the
issues of energy, internal security, and - given the
torrent of bigoted, debate-closing hate speech directed at
professors Mearsheimer and Walt - the free-speech
component of a flourishing domestic democracy.
So, how to explain the extraordinary power of America's
tiny but dominant pro-Israel faction? In the context of
the enduring alliance between the executive branch, the
Congress, AIPAC, and their media acolytes, Alexander
Hamilton's warning in Federalist No. 6 that in the pursuit
of private and selfish interests men are "ambitious,
vindictive, and rapacious" is a good place to start.
**********************************************************
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25 July 2006
NEWS:
1) Israel murders five civilians; 2 children, grandmother in Gaza (PCHR)
2) Four children and the cost of war (CNN)
3) Israel indiscriminately bombs Red Cross ambulances (Guardian)
4) Hizbullah fighters repulse Israeli attack on southern town (DS)
5) Israel preparing occupation government for Lebanon (Jerusalem Post)
6) Israeli orders to destroy 10 buildings for every rocket (AFP)
7) War crimes: Israel hitting civilians with cluster bombs (AFP)
8) More than of Israel's victims are children (Jamail/IPS)
9) Tragedies among families trying to escape Israeli atrocities (Wash Post)
10) Little dissent as Israelis support war (BBC)
11) UK arms exports to Israel double in a year (Guardian)
12) UK party leader calls for Israel arms embargo (Independent)
13) UK public disgusted with Blair's slavishness to US (Guardian)
14) Iraqis Find Rare Unity in Condemning Israel (LA Times)
ANALYSIS & VIEWS:
15) We are defending our sovereignty (Ali Fayyad/Guardian)
16) Why Israel is Losing (Ashraf Isma'il/Counterpunch)
17) "Kidnapped" in Israel or Captured in Lebanon? (Joshua Frank/Antiwar)
18) Morality is not on our side (Ze'ev Maoz/Haaretz)
19) Unpopular Arab regimes volunteer as Israel's guard dogs (Mekay/IPS)
20) Madison's Warning and the Israel Lobby (Michael Scheuer/Antiwar)
Ali Abunimah
**********************************************************
(1) Five Palestinian Civilians Killed in Northern Gaza Strip
PCHR
24 July 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5192.shtml
IOF Spokesman: "The army will start to strike houses under
suspicion in the GazaStrip to prevent militant groups from
accumulating weapons."
Today, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed five
Palestinian civilians, including two children and an
elderly woman, in two separate attacks on Beit Hanoun and
Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. Fourteen other
civilians, including five children and a woman, have been
wounded. IOF have shelled residential areas in the two
towns. In the early morning, IOF warplanes attacked a
house in Gaza City after having ordered its evacuation.
These latest crimes have come in the context of the
continued IOF offensive on the Occupied Palestinian
Territory (OPT), particularly the Gaza Strip, and have
followed a statement by an IOF spokesman that IOF would
attack houses under suspicion to prevent militant groups
from accumulating weapons. PCHR is gravely concerned for
such a statement, for which Palestinian civilians will the
price.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at
approximately 13:25 on Monday, 24 July 2006, IOF
positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel
fired a number of artillery shells at al-Nada tower
buildings in the west of the northern Gaza Strip town of
Beit Hanoun. One of these shells hit building (10), only
20 meters away from Beit Hanoun clinic. As a result, three
Palestinian civilians, including a child, were killed:
1. Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 14;
2. Sadiq Ahmed Nasser, 31; and
3. Sa'di Ahmed Na'im, 30.
In addition, 11 other civilians, including three children
and a woman, were wounded. PCHR's field worker in the
northern Gaza Strip reported that residents of the
affected area started to leave it to avoid being harmed by
the IOF shelling.
At approximately 15:35, IOF resumed shelling residential
areas in the northern Gaza Strip. A number of shells hit
al-'Atatra area near the American International School,
northwest of Beit Lahia. As a result, a Palestinian woman
and her grandchild were killed as they were traveling
their way back home on an animal cart:
1. Khairiya Hashem al-'Attar, 62; and
2. Nadi Habeeb al-'Attar, 10.
Three other civilians, including two children, were also
wounded by shrapnel.
PCHR is deeply concerned over the IOF crimes against
Palestinian civilians. PCHR stresses that an arbitrary
attack that endangers the lives of civilians and their
property, especially if prior knowledge indicates that
civilians could be killed or wounded, or property be
damaged, is a war crime as prescribed by the First
Protocol Additional to the Fourth Geneva Convention.
PCHR believes that the failure of the international
community and the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth
Geneva Convention to take effective steps to stop Israeli
war crimes has served to encourage Israel to commit more
war crimes against Palestinian civilians. Not only do the
legal cover provided to Israel by the US, which purposely
hinders international humanitarian law, and the conspiracy
of silence by Europe, place Israel above the international
law and also encourage IOF to commit more war crimes.
PCHR reminds the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
Geneva Convention of: Their obligations under Article 1 of
the Convention to respect and ensure respect for the
convention under all circumstances.
Their obligations under Article 146 of the Convention to
search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have
ordered to be committed, grave breaches, and bring such
persons before their own courts, noting that such grave
breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147, as
specified in the First Protocol Additional to the
Convention
PCHR calls upon the Swiss Government:
To take a leading role in highlighting and acting to stop
the grave breaches of international law that are currently
taking place in the Gaza Strip, as is its obligation as
the depository of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
To make efforts to mobilise the High Contracting Parties
to the Fourth Geneva Convention to intervene in this
situation and meet their obligations to protect the rights
of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip under
International Humanitarian Law. To call on the Security
Council to send an international protection force for the
Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
PCHR calls upon the High Commissioner for Human Rights:
To issue a statement strongly condemning Israel's grave
breaches of international law in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory (OPT).
To make a visit to the OPT in order to see for yourself
the long term damage that has already been and is
currently being inflicted on the civilian population - a
population who should be enjoying protection under
International Humanitarian Law.
To call a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the
Fourth Geneva Convention in order to ensure that these
states fulfil their obligation under international law to
protect the civilian population of the Occupied
Palestinian Territory.
**********************************************************
(2) Four children and the cost of war
By Cal Perry
CNN
24 July 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/23/perry.tyre/index
.html
TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- The last time I sat down to write
something, it was about the cost of war. As I looked ahead
to the coming days, the last words I wrote were: Who will
die?
Today, I found out.
Standing in front of this 8-year-old boy lying in a
hospital bed, the "conflict in the Middle East" and the
"cost of war" seem endless and suffocating. His pain
cannot possibly be imagined as he shakes uncontrollably in
and out of shock. He has blood coming from his eyes.
His name is Mahmood Monsoor and he is horribly burned. In
the hospital bed next to him is his 8-month-old sister,
Maria -- also burned. Screaming at the top of her lungs is
the children's mother, Nuhader Monsoor. She is standing
over her baby, looking at her son -- and probably thinking
of her dead husband. The smell of burned flesh is
overwhelming.
This story, for the Monsoor family, started out as a
typical one, probably one that most of us have
experienced. They had simply gone on a family vacation to
some lovely sunny beaches, but these beaches were in
southern Lebanon.
The six of them, like thousands of others, were fleeing
the fighting -- trying to get north, waving white flags,
when an Israeli bomb or missile slammed into their car.
(Watch how the littlest victims are suffering -- 2:54.
Viewer discretion is advised.)
The father, Mohammed Monsoor, was killed instantly. His
children all were wounded. His wife, who is now crying
over two of the wounded children, was in the best physical
condition. But as would be the case for any mother and
wife, her life, in many ways, ended the minute the car
exploded into flames.
The other two Monsoor children, Ahmed, 15, and Ali, 13,
are in surgery. Doctors can't tell me if they will make
it. They walk away, their heads shaking. Optimism is not a
word that breathes truth in this place.
There are more than enough stories like this, in hospitals
across southern Lebanon. This hospital, on this day, seems
to be a microcosm of the region. Less than 100 meters from
the front door of the hospital, a car is on fire. Less
than 30 minutes earlier, the car exploded as an Israeli
jet circled overhead. The fog of war has crept into the
hospital, and no one knows where the casualties of that
strike are being treated.
Just days earlier, staff at this hospital were moving
bodies out to make room for more. Like an assembly line of
the dead, unless the bombings stop, they will be doing the
same tomorrow.
The city of Tyre has been enduring stories like this for
more than a week. Buildings are crumpled; those who have
not left are hiding in basements. Those who dare to pack
into cars run the risk of ending up like the Monsoor
family. Some who move north die on the road. Some stay in
basements, and die there. Others hope against hope that
the bombs will fall elsewhere -- missing them.
Politics creeps into the ward like the blood that runs on
the floors. "Clearly he is Hezbollah," says one of the
doctors outside the room -- sarcastically referring to
8-year-old Mahmood, whose screams can be heard from the
hallway. His screams now blend with the wails of his
mother, matching the baby's cries.
The hospital ward begins to teem with members of the
international press. They all have blue flak jackets that
say "press" on the front. They carry microphones, cameras,
radios and satellite phones, and have local guides to
translate.
Today, as I finish I am sitting in the same spot and the
shells are still falling. Hezbollah rockets are firing
toward northern Israel. I can imagine another reporter, in
another flak jacket, standing over an 8-year old Israeli
boy.
I'll finish by asking another question: Are any of us
making a difference?
Tomorrow, I'll let you know.
**********************************************************
(3) Red Cross ambulances destroyed in Israeli air strike on
rescue mission
By Suzanne Goldenberg in Tyre
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1828142,00.html
The ambulance headlamps were on, the blue light overhead
was flashing, and another light illuminated the Red Cross
flag when the first Israeli missile hit, shearing off the
right leg of the man on the stretcher inside. As he lay
screaming beneath fire and smoke, patients and ambulance
workers scrambled for safety, crawling over glass in the
dark. Then another missile hit the second ambulance.
Even in a war which has turned the roads of south Lebanon
into killing zones, Israel's rocket strike on two clearly
marked Red Cross ambulances on Sunday night set a deadly
new milestone.
Six ambulance workers were wounded and three generations
of the Fawaz family, being transported to hospital from
Tibnin with what were originally minor injuries, were left
fighting for their lives. Two ambulances were entirely
destroyed, their roofs pierced by missiles.
The Lebanese Red Cross, whose ambulance service for south
Lebanon is run entirely by volunteers, immediately
announced it would cease all rescue missions unless Israel
guaranteed their safety through the United Nations or the
International Red Cross.
For the villages below the Litani river, the ambulances
were their last link to the outside world. Yesterday, that
too was gone, leaving the 100,000 people of Tyre district
with no way of reaching hospital other than to take to the
roads themselves, under the roar of Israeli war planes.
The fateful call to the Red Cross operations room came
through at about 10pm - well after dark, a time when
almost no Lebanese now dare venture out.
At the Red Cross office in Tyre, three volunteer medics
dressed in their orange overalls, and got into their
ambulance. The plan was to drive halfway, meet the local
ambulance, and transfer the three patients to their
vehicle to return to Tyre.
By Nader Joudi's reckoning, the ambulances had been
stopped for barely two minutes. Two patients had been
loaded: Ahmed Mustafa Fawaz, who had been hit by shrapnel
in the stomach, and his son, Mohammed, 14. The volunteer
attendant was just easing Jamila Fawaz, 80, inside and
setting up a drip when the missile struck. He managed to
get the old woman and the child outside, but there was no
way to reach Mr Fawaz. "It was horrible," Mr Joudi said.
"He was screaming, and we couldn't do anything."
One of the members of the three-man crew from Tibnin
radioed for help when another missile plunged through the
roof. Ambulance crew and patients retreated to the cellar
of a nearby building, then waited to be rescued, trying as
best as they could to help the injured. "Each of us
treated ourselves. There was no light," said Kassem
Shaalan, a medic from Tyre.
By the time patients and ambulance crew reached Tyre, Mr
Fawaz was unconscious after losing one leg, and suffering
severe fractures to the other. His son had lost part of a
foot, and his mother's body was riddled with shrapnel. Mr
Joudi had shrapnel wounds in his left arm, and Mr Shaalan
cuts to the face and leg.
He was adamant that the ambulances, with their Red Cross
insignia on the roof, were clearly visible from the air.
"I don't think there can be a mistake in two bombings of
two ambulances," he said.
Although the air strike marked the first time ambulances
have been hit by Israel in this war, for Mr Shaalan and
the other Red Cross volunteers it was only a matter of
time. After two weeks of strikes designed to choke off
possible supply lines to Hizbullah guerrillas, travel to
many villages was just too dangerous. Coastal villages
even within a few kilometers of Tyre are cut off. In some,
corpses remain trapped in the rubble for days.
But nothing is more perilous than travelling by night, and
no more so than just before midnight that Sunday when
another Red Cross crew set off from Tyre to pick up their
injured colleagues.
"I was trembling," said Ali Deeb, one of the volunteers on
the mission. "It was too dangerous, and helicopters
buzzing, and all through this, I am thinking one thing:
the ambulance that left half an hour before you has
already been injured, and you could be next." Later
yesterday afternoon, two missiles landed in the building
across the road from the Red Cross office.
**********************************************************
(4) Hizbullah fighters defend key Southern town
The Daily Star
25 July 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&
categ_id=2&article_id=74234
Israeli soldiers and paratroopers advanced on the Southern
Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil Monday but were repelled by
Hizbullah fighters, as the death toll rose to over 370
Monday with the deaths of at least seven more civilians
and three Hizbullah fighters.
The political adviser to the UN peacekeeping force in the
South, Milos Strugar, said Monday that the Israeli Army
was "a few kilometers [inside] the UN-demarcated Blue
Line," in the area of Maroun al-Ras.
Speaking to local satellite television station LBCI,
Strugar said the Israeli Army was "reinforcing" its
presence near Maroun al-Ras, but said he could not
predict whether Israel intended to invade Bint Jbeil.
In a statement, Hizbullah said it had shot down an Israeli
helicopter and hit five tanks, inflicting casualties in
fierce battles that erupted as Israeli forces pushed
north. Arab television channels said four Israeli soldiers
had been killed. The Israeli military said two airmen died
in the helicopter crash, which it attributed to a
mechanical problem.
The tank thrust toward Bint Jbeil was one of several
recent Israeli forays along the border in search of
Hizbullah fighters and rocket-launchers.
Israeli Brigadier General Miri Regev said that Bint Jbeil
was a major launching site for Hizbullah rockets.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Lebanon continued to mount.
Two brothers, aged 9 and 11, and their uncle were killed
in their home north of Tyre when Israeli jets destroyed
three adjacent buildings. Several people were buried in
the debris, residents said. Another resident was killed in
a dawn attack on the same village.
Two other civilians were killed when their house south of
Tyre was destroyed, and an attack on a nearby Palestinian
refugee camp killed one person, medical officials said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
In Baalbek, the body of a policeman was recovered from the
ruins of buildings in a quarter repeatedly targeted by
Israeli firepower. He had apparently been killed days
before.
Hizbullah said in a statement that three more of its
fighters were killed, bringing the total to 19.
One Palestinian was killed and five others, including a
baby, were wounded in attacks on the refugee camp at
Rashidiyeh, medical sources said.
Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,
told local Arabic daily As-Safir newspaper in an interview
published Monday that any Israeli land invasion "will not
accomplish any political results, or stop Hizbullah rocket
salvos."
According to Lebanese television reports quoting Israeli
military sources, Israel has warned that it will destroy
10 buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs for every rocket
fired by Hizbullah at Haifa.
Elsewhere, two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances transporting
six wounded civilians from the Southern town of Tibnin
were targeted by an Israeli raid in Qana at dawn Monday.
On the diplomatic front, German Deputy Foreign Minister
Gernot Erler said that "any peacekeeping force involving
EU troops can only be deployed ... with the agreement of
Lebanon and Israel."
"Such a force can only be part of a wider concept," Erler
told Deutschlandradio Kultur. "But anyone who supports the
idea must be prepared, in principle, to help in one way or
another."
Human rights officials have warned that the clashes may be
violating humanitarian law, but experts say prosecutions
are unlikely.
- Additional reporting by Mohammed Zaatari and Leila
Hatoum, agencies.
**********************************************************
(5) IDF preparing for civil administration in Lebanon
By ANSHEL PFEFFER
Jerusalem Post
23 July 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291978631&
pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam acknowledged in a
briefing at Northern Command headquarters in Safed on
Sunday afternoon that the commander of the IDF's civil
administration unit had already begun preparations toward
the possibility of instituting a military administration
in areas captured by the IDF over the last week.
According to Adam, "certain units who will give us
breathing space have been called up, including the
commander of that unit." The unit's activation, however,
would only take place following comprehensive
consultations, he said.
Adam denied reports that there were plans to set up a
large prison camp for captured Hizbullah fighters, saying
the measure would not be needed.
**********************************************************
(6) Israel warns it will hit 10 buildings for every rocket
fired
Agence France Presse
24 July 2006
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=
data/middleeast/2006/July/middleeast_July525.xml§ion=
middleeast&col=
JERUSALEM - The Israeli air force is under orders to blast
10 buildings in south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, for
every rocket the Shiite militant group fires at the
Israeli port of Haifa, army radio said Monday.
"Army chief of staff Dan Halutz has given the order to the
air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the
Dahaya district (of Beirut) in response to every rocket
fired on Haifa," a senior air force officer told the
station.
Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon killed two
people on Sunday in the northern city of Haifa, which has
been hit by dozens of missiles since the latest conflict
started on July 12.
Israel kept up its offensive on Lebanon on Monday, with
its ground forces pushing deeper into the territory and
warplanes carrying out a new blitz of about 40 air raids
overnight.
UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland on Sunday accused
Israel of violating humanitarian law as he toured
bombed-out areas of south Beirut.
"This is destruction of block after block of mainly
residential areas. I would say it seems to be an excessive
use of force in an area with so many citizens," he said.
**********************************************************
(7) Israel using cluster munitions in Lebanon: rights group
Agence France Presse
24 July 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060724/wl_mideast_afp/
mideastconflictlebanon_060724205820
NEW YORK (AFP) - Human Rights Watch said that Israel has
used artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon, killing
a civilian, and called on the Jewish state to immediately
cease the practice.
ADVERTISEMENT
The New York-based rights group said researchers on the
ground in Lebanon confirmed that Israel staged a cluster
munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19,
leaving one person dead and injuring 12 civilians,
including seven children.
The report said researchers had also photographed cluster
munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams
stationed at the Lebanese border.
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and
unreliable weapons when used around civilians," Kenneth
Roth, executive directory of Human Rights Watch, said in a
statement. "They should never be used in populated areas."
Researchers interviewed witnesses of the Blida attack who
said Israelis had fired shells which dropped hundreds of
cluster munitions on the village.
Cluster munitions are particularly dangerous because they
have a high level of duds that can explode much later
after the attack.
Human Rights Watch said the US use of cluster munitions
was the leading cause of civilian deaths during the
invasion of Iraq in March-April 2003, killing or injuring
more than 1,000 Iraqi non-combatants.
Belgium became the first country to ban use of cluster
munitions in February 2006, followed by a moratorium
declared by Norway four months later, Human Rights Watch
said, noting there was a growing international movement
against their use.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said Hezbollah's attacks on
Israel with imprecise rockets in civilian areas violated
international humanitarian law and most likely constituted
"war crimes."
**********************************************************
(8) Bombings Hit Lebanese Children Hardest
By Dahr Jamail
Inter Press Service
25 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=9404
BEIRUT - About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut
Government University Hospital are children of 15 years of
age or less, hospital records show.
"This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal
Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's
largest, told IPS Monday.
Not only are most of the patients children, but many of
the injured have been brought in serious condition, he
said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in
Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by
Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe."
The fatality rate was high, he said, "because the Israelis
are using new kinds of bombs which can enter shelters.
They are bombing the bomb shelters which are full of
refugees."
Masri told IPS that he believed so many children were
becoming casualties because of the "widespread and
indiscriminate nature of the bombings" and because
"children are least able to run away when the bombings
commence."
This new 544-bed hospital was forced to open its emergency
room six months early due to the current crisis. The
hospital has had to handle "scores and scores" of
casualties, according to the assistant director.
Masri said he had barely slept in the 13 days since the
Israeli bombing of Lebanon began. His hospital, he said,
was functioning with only 25 percent staff because "most
are now unable to get here because so many roads and
bridges are bombed. Those who are here are eating,
sleeping and living here 24 hours a day because if they
leave they fear they may be unable to return."
On Sunday, Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency
relief chief, toured the devastated areas of south Beirut.
He described what he saw as "horrific" and said the
destruction "makes it a violation of humanitarian law."
Egeland said UN supplies of humanitarian aid would arrive
within the next few days, but "we need access," and "so
far Israel is not giving us access."
Aid is now a matter of life and death. Masri said his
hospital would soon begin to run out of medicines and
supplies.
"We are concerned about what is to come because we cannot
continue at this rate," he said. "Already we've had to go
to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies. If the UN
succeeds in opening safe passage from the south, we will
be deluged with patients."
Masri said hospitals in Sidon and other southern cities
are overwhelmed with patients, who are being treated in
the corridors and lobbies.
According to Masri, many of the injured there are
suffering from the impact of incendiary white phosphorus.
The Lebanese Ministry of Interior has officially said that
the Israeli military has used this weapon.
"We don't know why we aren't getting help from the
International Committee of the Red Cross," Masri said.
"The Lebanese Red Cross is helping us the best they can,
but no foreign agencies are helping us. Why not?"
As the IPS correspondent was speaking with the assistant
director, an enraged man was led out by several security
guards. His wounded son had just been discharged.
"I want my son to stay here because we have no place to
go," the man was shouting. "Our home has been flattened.
If we leave here we must go to a refugee camp in a school,
or sleep on the dirt in a park. I demand you allow us to
stay here."
People are furious about the high number of casualties
among children. Mariam Mattar, a 50-year-old mother
sitting on a mattress in a park in central Beirut along
with hundreds of other refugees from southern Beirut, said
no home there was safe.
"We left our house because they are bombing everything in
the civilian neighborhoods," she told IPS. "They are
killing all our children. What human would ever do this
kind of thing?"
They had moved to central Beirut because it was safer. But
living out in the open has meant another kind of hell. "We
are without our shoes even. We are living in the dirt.
Would Israel allow her children to live like this?" she
asked, pointing at her bare feet.
She pulled a little boy towards her and said, "What have
these children done? The other children who didn't escape
are rotting under the destroyed buildings as we speak."
Israeli war planes roared above as several refugees spoke
with IPS.
"We are very afraid from all the bombings," Ramadan, a
12-year-old boy in the park said. "I hope they stop. This
is all we want now."
(Inter Press Service)
**********************************************************
(9) Lebanese Families Find Shelter at Palestinian Camp
Upheaval Takes a Displaced Father, Long Unstable, to the
Breaking Point
By Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post
25 July 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/
07/24/AR2006072400993.html
RASHIDIYA CAMP, Lebanon, July 24 -- From the beginning,
Hassan Madani was already a casualty of war.
For six years, the lanky 35-year-old welder had coped with
a frail state of mind. Then the bombs started falling
nearly two weeks ago, and his family grew worried. They
tried to bring him to the hospital, but the roads snaking
out of their town of Deir Qanun al-Nahr were too perilous.
They tried to soothe his nerves, but he began to break.
In a night of especially fierce bombing, he climbed a
cellular tower and screamed: "Don't hurt me, my son or my
wife." He circled around his disabled son, they recalled.
"God protect you," he muttered. As the war wore on, Madani
tried halfheartedly to kill himself, drawing a black
plastic bag over his head.
"We were worried what he might do," his wife, Sikna Ali
Ahmed, said Monday, her eyes swollen red.
His brother, Adnan, nodded. He recalled a sense of
foreboding. "The war brought us here," he said.
Here is Rashidiya, where Madani's family and more than
1,000 other Lebanese have fled their homes to seek shelter
in a Palestinian refugee camp, its 18,000 inhabitants
themselves exiles for nearly six decades. They began
arriving a week ago by foot, minibus and car, from
villages like Marwaheen, Qlaile and Mansuri. They trudged
through streets shaded by bird's nests of electricity
wires and sought shelter in homes and U.N.-run schools.
Now they wait, abandoned, in a camp whose residents
already feel forgotten.
"It's kind of an irony really. It's almost a joke what's
going on," said Ibrahim al-Ali, a 26-year-old Palestinian
social worker in the camp. "The irony is that refugees are
accepting citizens from their own country."
By the standards of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps,
some of the world's most forsaken locales, Rashidiya is
better than most. Compared with the rest of southern
Lebanon these days, it is a veritable haven, located on
the sea just south of Tyre. In a region where authority
has largely collapsed, its own administration remains
intact. Electricity is still on, and virtually every shop
is open, selling items that are scarce in Tyre: powdered
milk, chicken and medicine. Gasoline is less than
one-third the price of that in Tyre. With six of Tyre's
seven bakeries closed, the one here has doubled its
capacity, providing 3,000 free loaves to families in
nearby villages.
More important, though, the camp remains safe, as safety
goes these days in southern Lebanon.
"A disaster in Lebanon is a disaster for all of us," said
Hajj Rifaa Shanaa, a Palestinian official in the camp,
with a painting of Yasser Arafat behind his desk. "The
only reason they come here is that they look for a place
where there is no bombing."
"In days like these, politics are something else," he
added.
Loss, fear and frustration echo through conversations
among the mainly Shiite Muslim Lebanese in the south, the
community from which Hezbollah draws its support. There is
anger at Israel and the United States, too. But a sense of
abandonment, already manifest in Rashidiya, is perhaps the
most powerful. The sentiments of the Shiites intersect
with the faded, generation-old Palestinian slogans that
adorn the camp's concrete walls and cinder-block homes.
"Today Gaza, tomorrow all of Palestine," one poster reads.
"Revolution continues, until victory," another declares.
"People don't want to feel weakness now," said Ali, the
social worker. "They want to feel strong and stand firm.
But the hard part will start when they go back to their
houses and discover the destruction, the deaths in the
family and of their neighbors.
"That's when the sadness will come," he added.
At the U.N.-administered school, the family of Ali Banjak
sat in a patch of shade under a leafy tree. The women in
the family peeled off leaves of mulukhiya for a dish that,
when boiled, has the texture of spinach. Clothes stretched
across a green rope, drying in the sun. A blue thermos sat
on a ledge, and Banjak listened to a rickety plastic
radio, waiting for the batteries to go out. He had just
shaved in a green-tinted irrigation canal, guiding his
motions in the rearview mirror of a motorcycle parked next
to him.
Tugging on his yellow shirt, then his brown khakis, he
said, "These have been on for 12 days."
People loitered around a sun-drenched playground. Others
sat on desks set along the school walls, painted in the
United Nations' white and blue. On the gate hung a simple
one-page announcement from Dr. Durid Matar, offering
dental appointments for the displaced, "for free as long
as the crisis lasts."
"Waiting and waiting," Banjak said. "Waiting for what?"
Banjak's family lived in Shaitiye, a few miles away. Five
days before, he said, Israeli helicopters fired on the
village. There was no bomb shelter in their house, so
after midnight, he, his wife and two children ran to
another house with a basement. There, 30 people were
packed together, children screaming. They decided to go
elsewhere, sneaking a half-mile over a half-hour.
"It felt further than going on foot from here to Beirut,"
he said.
They finally found a place to hide, a cramped underground
room for drying tobacco.
"I thought if we didn't die from the bombing, we'd
suffocate to death," Banjak said.
By 4:30 a.m., they left again, finding a garage, where
they hid until dawn. "If you die, you die, but if you live
through something like this, you're dead every moment: the
fear of dying every day, every hour, every minute," he
said. Soon after the sun rose, they fled in a white
Renault, leaving the door unlocked and their passports at
home, taking the clothes they were wearing.
He looked at his children, reluctant to show fear. His
8-year-old son played in the corner. His daughter, 7, wore
pink Barbie sandals and twirled the hair of her doll. "The
toughest thing is that you're responsible for them.
They're frightened and scared that death is everywhere. .
. . You feel helpless," he said. "This is the toughest
thing as a father."
"There is only fear," added Mufid Mislamani, a 26-year-old
neighbor. "And fear brought us here in the first place."
Fear forced the Abad family here five days ago. A gas
station was hit in Marwaheen near their house, and they
decided to flee. They worried, too, that they wouldn't
find milk, medicine and food for the 2-month-old baby,
Razan Hatem Obeid.
"There's no safe place," said 25-year-old Fatima Abad.
"Nowhere in Lebanon is safe. But this was the closest to
us."
Nuzha Abad, the 76-year-old matriarch, standing amid a
gaggle of her daughters, nieces, cousins and
grandchildren, interrupted her. "We feel like we're
beggars!" she shouted. "Look at our daughters, look at our
children! Where is the dignity?"
The Palestinian residents have brought food -- figs,
olives, tomatoes, eggplant, okra and bananas -- much of it
cultivated in the small gardens that dot the seaside camp,
guarded by Palestinian militiamen. But Rashidiya is an
exception. There is hardly anything organized to assist
the displaced in the rest of southern Lebanon, rekindling
old but enduring resentments among Shiites of the south
over traditional neglect by a government that once treated
them as second-class citizens.
"For us in the south, for a long time, there's never been
a state," said Banjak, sitting on a yellow cushion adorned
with a floral pattern. "There's no state to protect the
people. There's no state to care for them." His friend,
Mislamani, nodded his head. Billions were spent rebuilding
Beirut, he said, "and there's not one bomb shelter, not
one, in the entire south."
Blasts thundered on the horizon. "They're telling us
they're still here," Banjak said, smiling. "Don't forget
we're here!"
He listened for a moment, then turned more serious. "I
don't want a house. I don't want luxury items -- a car, a
satellite television or those things," Banjak said. "I
want a shelter. I'll sell my house just so that I can
build a shelter."
Down the street was Mohammed al-Asmar's family. A driver,
he lost his car when a gas station was bombed nearby. He
fled on foot with his wife and six children a week ago. On
this day, he was tired, grim and angry.
"War after war," Asmar said. "Me, personally, I've left my
house more than 50 times."
He shook his head. "We're not strong enough to live
through more wars," he said.
A few hours before Asmar spoke, Madani's brother, Adnan,
and his wife, Sikna, were looking for him in the camp.
"We tried to find him," the brother said. "We looked
everywhere."
Madani had walked with his son, Ghassan, 9, to the beach,
a trash-strewn strip of land with two rusted soccer goals.
Tires were buried in the sand near two shabby fishing
boats with peeling paint, lapped by waves. Madani took off
his red leather watch and put it on his son's wrist. He
then tied his son's left hand to his own right with a
white nylon rope a little thicker than a shoelace. Madani
waded 400 yards into the water, past a strip of turquoise
water, then blue, then another strip of turquoise,
recalled those on the beach who saw him.
"Somebody came running toward me," said Hassan Ajami, a
31-year-old fisherman. "Come here! Come here!"
By the time Ajami swam toward Madani, he had drowned his
son and, some witnesses said, was trying to drown himself.
Ajami said he took the boy, whose belly was distended, and
tried to resuscitate him. Others grabbed Madani and pulled
him to shore.
"Why did you kill your son?" Ajami asked him.
It was the question his family struggled with Monday,
stranded in a small concrete shack in a camp not their
own. A ways away, the boy was buried in a plot of sand,
circled with seven concrete blocks. A piece of cardboard
marked the grave.
"He was fine until the war started," Adnan said of his
brother. "We wanted to protect him from himself."
They recounted the days: sleepless nights, relentless
bombing, flight and a fear that never faded.
"He didn't know what he was doing," Adnan said. "Even now,
I don't think he's aware his son is dead."
His wife leaned her head out the door, a dreary brown. She
had been crying, her cheeks still moist.
"He lost everything," she said softly.
**********************************************************
(10) Little dissent as Israelis support war
By Raffi Berg
BBC News
25 July 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5208718.
stm
The withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 was
brought about in part by increasing public pressure to
pull out.
But, just six years on, Israelis stand almost unanimously
behind the decision to wage a new war across the country's
northern border.
According to recent opinion polls, as many as 90% of
Israeli citizens approve of the offensive against
Hezbollah and want it to continue.
"The situation with Hezbollah and Iran created a siege
mentality among the Israeli people," said veteran Israeli
pollster, Rafi Smith.
"Whenever Israel is attacked, people are always more
patriotic and support the government, which is why so many
people support this war."
Voices of dissent are scarce, but despite overwhelming
public approval for the campaign, there is still a small
number of Israelis who have come out against the conflict.
In Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Saturday night, some 2,000
protesters, both Jews and Arabs, held a demonstration
against the war, and - unusually in Israel - the country's
alliance with the United States.
"[Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and Bush have struck
a deal, to carry on with the occupation," demonstrators
chanted.
Others called on Israeli soldiers to refuse to do their
duty.
One of the protesters, Prof Galia Golan, acknowledged that
opponents of the war are in a tiny minority, but said she
expected their numbers to grow.
"It's very hard for an Israeli to demonstrate in time of
war - the people who are dying and fighting are our kids
and neighbours - it's a very difficult thing.
"We saw this in the first Lebanon war of 1982, when it
took the public three weeks to react against the war and I
think we're going to see the same thing now."
'Ceasefire now'
Several anti-war protests have also taken place in other
parts of the country.
In the northern port city of Haifa, which has suffered
dozens of missile strikes, around 50 demonstrators held a
road-side protest on the corner of Lebanon Gate street,
under the watchful eye of the border police.
The protesters, some of them teenagers, waved placards and
shouted slogans such as "Unconditional ceasefire now" and
"Get out of Lebanon", as passing motorists honked their
horns in rebuke and yelled abuse out their windows.
"The Israeli government thinks by bombing Lebanon they
will make peace, but they did it many times before and it
didn't work," said protest organiser Yoav Bar, 51.
"In a few months, no one will admit they were ever for
this war," he predicted.
Across the road, a lone counter-demonstrator held aloft a
sign reading: "State of Israel, exchange these people for
our kidnapped soldiers!"
"I also want an end to the war," the protester,
54-year-old architect Simcha Sherer told me.
"But what can we do, let Hezbollah kill us? These people
are in a minority, but Israel is a democracy and they have
the right to say what they want, even if I don't agree
with them."
Outside one of the city's hotels where foreign media are
encamped, a 20-strong group of women gathered to try to
generate publicity for their anti-war campaign.
The protesters I spoke to said they had received a hostile
reaction from other members of the public, but that they
were determined to make a stand.
"People curse us and call us whores, but it makes me feel
stronger to be with people who believe in peace and want
to pursue it," said 41-year-old teacher Ornat Turin.
"We might be a minority now but the spiral might grow
day-by-day."
'Not 1982'
However, opponents of the war remain outside Israel's
conventional peace camp.
Even the anti-settlement movement Peace Now has not come
out in their support.
"The anti-war protesters are very far on the fringe," said
Gerald Steinberg, professor of Political Studies at Bar
Ilan University.
"Even people who are on the Israeli Left have been very
active in condemning them because they don't seem to care
about the value of Israeli lives."
Prof Steinberg says it is wrong to draw comparisons
between this conflict and the 1982 Lebanon war, against
which the tide of public opinion ultimately turned.
"I think there was some expectation on the part of
Hezbollah and others that the Israeli opposition would
rise up in the way it did in 1982, but this is an entirely
different war and the 1982 analogy is not applicable.
"Israelis understand the stakes, which are the survival of
the State of Israel and the potential for a confrontation
with Hezbollah and Iran in the future, and the stakes are
far too high for that."
**********************************************************
(11) British arms exports to Israel double in a year
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1828246,00.html
Britain has almost doubled the value of arms exports to
Israel, according to official figures released yesterday.
Arms exports to Israel approved by the government totalled
#22.5m last year, almost twice the amount in 2004,
according the latest annual report on strategic export
controls published by four government departments.
The report was released as the Liberal Democrat Leader,
Sir Menzies Campbell, yesterday urged Tony Blair to
suspend any further arms exports to Israel. "In light of
disproportionate military action by Israel in Lebanon and
Gaza the UK government must suspend any further arms
exports to Israel," Sir Menzies wrote to the prime
minister.
He said the government was right to ensure there were no
arms transfers, either direct or indirect, from Britain to
Syria, Iran "or illegal armed groups such as the military
wing of Hizbullah". He added: "The government must now
comply with its own arms export rules and institute an
immediate suspension of all UK arms exports to Israel."
Licences approved for Israel last year included components
for combat helicopters, aircraft radars, air-to-surface
missiles and airborne electronic warfare equipment.
Special licences were also approved for the sale to Israel
of components for military training aircraft, naval
radars, naval communications equipment, and optical
sensors for unmanned air vehicles.
These do not include components made by British companies
in US Apache helicopters and F-16 bombers sold to Israel.
The government provoked a storm of protest in 2002 by
introducing new guidelines on the sale of military
components. It cleared the way for head-up display units
(HUDs, for presenting data without blocking view) - made
by BAE Systems, Britain's largest arms company - to be
sold to the US for use in F-16 planes. Ministers said the
move was dictated by the interests of British arms
companies. British equipment used in American Apache
helicopters supplied to Israel includes missile trigger
systems.
Saferworld, an independent London-based thinktank
campaigning against the arms trade said yesterday that the
Foreign Office's human rights report states: "The UK
opposes the Israeli policy of targeted killings, which are
illegal under international law".
Paul Eavis, director of Saferworld, said yesterday: "The
government must assert a coherent policy towards countries
that display a disregard for human rights".
Lebanon's president accused Israel on Monday of using
phosphorous bombs in its attacks, Reuters news agency
reported from Paris. "According to the Geneva Convention,
when they use phosphorous bombs and laser bombs, is that
allowed against civilians and children?" President Emile
Lahoud asked on France's RFI radio.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said: "Everything the
Israeli defence forces are using is legitimate".
**********************************************************
(12) Calls for weapons embargo on Israel
By Colin Brown
The Independent
25 July 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1195271.
ece
Tony Blair faced new demands to suspend all arms exports
to Israel amid warnings that Tel Aviv was guilty of
"disproportionate" attacks on Lebanon.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, called
for a freeze on all arms export licences after government
figures showed that British arms sales to Israel more than
doubled last year to #22.5m.
Exports included components for military aircraft head-up
displays, components for electronic warfare equipment and
components for naval radar. Arms campaigners have called
for an embargo on military exports to Israel, arguing that
they breach British guidelines aimed at limited arms sales
to volatile regions.
Yesterday, Sir Menzies said a freeze on exports was
justified "in light of disproportionate military action by
Israel in Lebanon and Gaza". He added: "The Government is
right to ensure there are no arms transfers, either direct
or indirect, from the UK to Syria, Iran or illegal armed
groups such as the military wing of Hizbollah ... The
Government must now comply with its own arms export rules
and institute an immediate suspension of all UK arms
exports to Israel."
Asked about the demand yesterday, Mr Blair said: "I'm not
going to make any comment on the Liberal Democrat thing."
* Almost two-thirds of the British public opposes Tony
Blair's "special" relationship with George Bush, according
to a Guardian/ICM poll published today; 30 per cent said
the relationship was balanced while 63 per thought it was
too close. And 61 per cent said Israel's attacks in
Lebanon had been disproportionate.
**********************************************************
(13) Stand up to US, voters tell Blair; 63% say PM has tied
Britain too close to White House
By Julian Glover and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,
1828225,00.html
Britain should take a much more robust and independent
approach to the United States, according to a Guardian/ICM
poll published today, which finds strong public opposition
to Tony Blair's close working relationship with President
Bush. The wide-ranging survey of British attitudes to
international affairs - the first since the conflict
between Lebanon and Israel started- shows that a large
majority of voters think Mr Blair has made the special
relationship too special.
Just 30% think the prime minister has got the relationship
about right, against 63% saying he has tied Britain too
closely to the US.
Carried in the wake of the accidental broadcast of the
prime minister's conversation with President Bush at the
G8 summit, the poll finds opposition to this central
element of the prime minister's foreign policy among
supporters of all the main parties.
Even a majority of Labour supporters - traditionally more
supportive of Mr Blair's foreign policy position - think
he has misjudged the relationship, with 54% saying Britain
is too close to the US. Conservatives - 68% - and Liberal
Democrats - 83% - are even more critical.
And voters are strongly critical of the scale of Israel's
military operations in Lebanon, with 61% believing the
country has overreacted to the threats it faces.
As pressure grows for a change of strategy, the poll finds
that only 22% of voters believe Israel has reacted
proportionately to the kidnapping of soldiers and other
attacks from militant groups in southern Lebanon. Israel
has repeatedly sought to assure the world that its actions
are a legitimate response to threats to its own territory,
including missile attacks on the north of the country.
The finding follows more than a week in which Mr Blair has
come under fire for echoing US caution about the
practicality of an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East
and for allying himself too closely to Israel.
At a press conference in London yesterday Mr Blair
defended his position and expressed sympathy for the
plight of the Lebanese. "What is occurring in Lebanon at
the present time is a catastrophe. Anybody with any sense
of humanity wants what is happening to stop and stop now,"
Mr Blair said. He added: "But if it is to stop, it must
stop on both sides."
This did not amount to switch in policy but a change in
emphasis, in part to answer critics who accuse him of
being indifferent to the plight of the Lebanese. A British
official said: "He wants to make it clear he has the same
feelings as everyone else but the job of government is to
find an answer. The proof of the pudding is if we are able
to find a way through."
Unlike other international leaders, Mr has refused to
describe the Israeli attacks on Lebanon as
disproportionate. But the official said there was a
difference between what Mr Blair said in public and what
Mr Blair and other members of the government said to the
Israelis in private.
Public unease about Israel's approach is reflected in
public attitudes to the Iraq war, with support for the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein falling to a record low since
military action began in March 2003.
Although a solid core of Labour supporters - 48% - still
think the war was justified, overall only 36% of voters
agree - a seven-point drop since the Guardian last asked
the question in October 2004.
Older voters, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and
people living in the south are particularly critical,
suggesting the anti-war movement has a base of support
well beyond student groups and the left.
Support for the war reached 63% in April 2003, in the wake
of early military success. Now a narrow majority of voters
- 51% - believe it was unjustified, the highest proportion
for more than two years.
Amid fears that the armed forces are operating at the
limit of their resources, voters also believe that British
troops are doing more harm than good in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
They are more concerned by the role of British forces in
Iraq than Afghanistan, with 36% saying their presence is
making the situation worse in Iraq against 29% who think
this is true of Britain's more recent deployment in
southern Afghanistan.
But both findings outweigh the proportion of voters who
think British troops are improving the situation on the
ground: just 19% of all those questioned think they are
making progress in Iraq and 23% think this is the case in
Afghanistan. Around a third of voters think that at best
British forces are making no difference one way or the
other in the two countries.
There is also minimal public appetite for fresh foreign
policy commitments, such as a multinational force in
Lebanon. An overwhelming proportion of voters think
current deployments are already overstretching Britain's
military resources: 69% agree; 19% do not.
Conservatives - 78% of whom believe the armed forces are
overstretched - are especially concerned, despite David
Cameron's support for an interventionist policy,
symbolised by his visit to troops in Kandahar yesterday.
. ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults
over 18 by telephone on July 21-23. Interviews were
conducted across the country and the results have been
weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of
the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
**********************************************************
(14) Iraqis Find Rare Unity in Condemning Israel
`The enemy is the same,' a Shiite group says of the Jewish
state and its main supporter, the U.S.'
By Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times
24 July 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-
iraqleb24jul24,1,2987360.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
BAGHDAD -- Though embroiled in a bloody war over the future
shape and identity of their country, Iraq's Sunni Arabs,
Shiites, Kurds and even Christians have unified in
condemning Israel over its fighting in Lebanon against the
Hezbollah militia.
Condemnation of Israel's actions in Lebanon and of the
United States as the Jewish state's backer has emerged as
a rare bridge issue, cutting across political, ethnic and
religious lines.
Demonstrators loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric
Muqtada Sadr marched through the city center of Najaf on
Sunday evening in support of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, chanting "Death to America!" and "Death to
Israel!"
Across the city, more moderate Shiite clerics loyal to
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a statement urging
support for the Islamist militia in Lebanon and condemning
the U.S. and Israel.
"The enemy is the same," said a statement issued by the
Hawza, the network of seminaries in Najaf. "Their aim is
to enslave and humiliate us. What's happening today in
Lebanon is part of a bigger scheme to crush the blessed
[Islamic] nation."
Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni Muslim Arab,
expressed his "extreme concern over the Zionist aggression
against" the Lebanese as well as Palestinians.
"Iraq's stance has been known through history, and the
issue of supporting Arabs and Muslims has never changed,"
he said in a statement.
There were signs that the unconditional U.S. support for
Israel's offensive following Hezbollah's cross-border raid
resulting in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the
death of eight others was ratcheting up anti-American
sentiment.
In a rambling round table with journalists, the Sunni Arab
speaker of Iraq's parliament, Mahmoud Mashadani, continued
his frequent criticism of Israel, Jews, Zionism and the
United States.
Saying that the U.S. seeks to control oil fields in
southern Iraq, Mashadani added, "America didn't come to
the country for our sake. America came with a pure Zionist
agenda."
The Shiite-run Al Furat satellite television channel
launched a nationwide initiative to raise funds for
Lebanese humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. The
channel has been flooded with pledges, with Iraqis living
abroad also calling in to donate.
"The donors are coming from all sects," said Ahmad Kadhim,
a station spokesman. "Shiites, Sunnis and even
Christians."
Many of Iraq's Shiite leaders share Hezbollah's Shiite
Islamist ideology as well as a history of political and
clerical activism against the Middle East's secular
governments.
Meanwhile President Jalal Talabani, a secular pro-U.S.
Kurd, pledged to donate 100 million Iraqi dinars (or about
$68,000) of his personal wealth to help rebuild Lebanon
and called upon Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to "demand the
international community to work on an immediate
cease-fire" during a trip to London and Washington.
Maliki and a delegation of Iraqi Cabinet officers and
lawmakers arrived in London on Sunday, en route to a
meeting with President Bush in Washington on Tuesday.
Some Shiites within Maliki's coalition have demanded that
he cancel the trip to protest U.S. support of Israel, but
the prime minister refused, saying he would push the
Lebanese cause in Washington.
*
Times staff writer Saif Hameed contributed to this report.
****************
ANALYSIS & VIEWS
****************
(15) We are defending our sovereignty
Ali Fayyad, Hizbullah leadership
The Guardian
25 July 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1827966,00.html
For nearly two weeks Israel has been waging a war of
terror and aggression against Lebanon. Its stated
justification is the capture by the Islamic Resistance
(Hizbullah) of two Israeli soldiers with the aim of
exchanging them for Lebanese prisoners. The war has
already resulted in the killing of around 400 and wounding
of more than 1,000 Lebanese. Most are civilians (a third
children), crushed in their homes or ripped to pieces in
their cars by Israeli bombs and missiles.
In reality, the Israeli escalation is less about the two
soldiers and more about its determination to disarm the
Lebanese resistance. According to the US, Israel and some
other western states, this would implement UN security
council resolution 1559, which led to the withdrawal of
Syrian troops from Lebanon last year.
Most Lebanese, however, do not regard the resistance
forces of Hizbullah as militias, as referred to in the UN
resolution, let alone any kind of terrorist organisation.
Our resistance accomplished a major national mission by
forcing Israeli troops to withdraw from most Lebanese
territory in 2000 after 22 years of occupation. Since then
there has been intense national debate about how Lebanon
can defend itself in future once the resistance has
achieved the liberation of the remaining occupied Lebanese
land (the Shaba'a farms area) and the release of Lebanese
detainees.
The Lebanese people's support for the resistance was
demonstrated by the fact that Hizbullah and its allies won
more seats in the 2005 elections, following the Syrian
withdrawal, than when Syrian troops were still in the
country. That is why Israel is now targeting civilians.
In the context of the continued occupation, detention of
prisoners and repeated Israeli attacks and incursions into
Lebanese territory, the capture of the Israeli soldiers
was entirely legitimate. The operation was fully in line
with the Lebanese ministerial declaration, supported in
parliament, that stressed the right of the resistance to
liberate occupied Lebanese territory, free prisoners of
war and defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression.
International law also allows peoples and states to take
action to protect their citizens and territory. The
Israeli onslaught is aimed not only at liquidating the
resistance and destroying the country's infrastructure but
at intervening in Lebanese politics and imposing
conditions on what can be agreed.
There is now a clear national consensus on the need to
maintain the military power necessary to prevent Lebanon
from being subjugated by Israel's war machine. Popular
resistance is a way of redressing the huge imbalance of
power, defending Lebanon's sovereignty and preventing
Israel from intervening in Lebanese internal affairs, as
has happened repeatedly since 1948. It is also - as has
been the case in the prisoner-capture operation - dictated
by an entirely local agenda, rather than reflecting any
Syrian or Iranian policy.
The aggression against Lebanon, which has primarily
targeted civilians and failed to achieve any tangible
military objectives, is part of a continuing attempt to
impose Israeli hegemony on the area and prevent the
emergence of a regional system that might guarantee
stability, self-determination, freedom and democracy.
Hizbullah has tried from the start of this crisis to limit
the escalation by adopting a policy of limited response
while avoiding civilian targets; its aims were restricted
to freeing the prisoners of war held in both camps.
However, Israel's systematic destruction of entire
civilian areas in Beirut and elsewhere and perpetration of
scores of horrific massacres prompted Hizbullah to shift
to an all-out confrontation to affirm Lebanon's right to
deter aggression and defend its territorial integrity and
its citizens, just as any sovereign state would do.
Thus far, Hizbullah has had surprising military successes,
while maintaining its position in the face of Israel's
superior fire power, and preserved its capacity to wage a
long-term war. But Hizbullah is still ready to accept a
ceasefire and negotiate indirectly an exchange of
prisoners to bring the current crisis to an end.
This is what Israel has so far rejected, with the support
of the US. For this is also a war of American hegemony
over the Middle East, and the US - supported by the
British government - is fully complicit in the Israeli war
crimes carried out in the past two weeks. It would appear
that the peaceful option will not be given a chance until
Hizbullah and the forces of resistance have demonstrated
their ability to confront Israel's aggression and thwart
its objectives, as happened in 1993 and 1996. That is why
resistance is not only a pillar of our sovereignty but
also a prerequisite of stability.
. Ali Fayyad is a senior member of Hizbullah's executive
committee
**********************************************************
(16) Why Israel is Losing
By ASHRAF ISMA?IL
Counterpunch
25 July 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/
The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of
its much-vaunted military apparatus.
Ironically, there are several reasons for believing that Israel?s destruction of southern
Lebanon and southern Beirut will weaken its bargaining position relative to its
adversaries, and will strengthen its adversaries? hands.
First, Israel has no clearly defined tactical or strategic objective, and so the Israeli
offensive fails the first test of military logic: there is no way that Israel's actions
can improve its position relative to Hamas or Hizballah, much less Syria or Iran.
The logic of power politics also implies that a no-win situation for Israel is a definite
loss, because Israel is the stronger party and thus has the most to lose. In an asymmetric
war, the stronger party always has the most to lose, in terms of reputation and in terms
of its ability to project its will through the instruments of force.
The lack of any clearly defined objective is a major miscalculation by Israel and its
American patron.
Second, Israel cannot eliminate Hizballah, since Hizballah is a grassroots organization
that represents a plurality of Lebanese society. Neither can Hamas be eliminated for the
same reason. By targeting Hizballah however, Israel is strengthening Hizballah's hand
against its domestic rivals, such as the Maronite Christians, because any open Christian
opposition makes them look like traitors and Israeli collaborators.
Consequently, while Hizballah will obviously pay a short-term tactical cost that is very
high, in the long run, this conflict demonstrates that it is Hizballah, and not the
Lebanese government, that has the most power in Lebanon.
The Shia represent an estimated 35-40 per cent of Lebanese society, while Lebanese
Christians are thought to constitute no more than 25-30per cent of the entire population.
Furthermore, the Shia community?s fertility rate is thought to be far higher than that of
the other religious components within Lebanon.
Thus, the current confessional division of power in Lebanon, which grants Christians a
political position that goes far beyond their minority status, is ultimately
unsustainable, which means that the Maronite Christians will lose even more power, and the
Shia and Hizballah will inevitably gain more power.
Third, Israel's failure to achieve anything at all greatly enhances Syria's influence over
Lebanon and its bargaining position relative to the U.S. and Israel itself. No solution in
Lebanon can exclude Syria, and so now the U.S. and Israelis need Syria's approval, which
certainly weakens both the U.S. and Israel.
And even Israel's accusations against Iran, although largely baseless, greatly enhance
Iran's prestige in the region, and may bring about exactly what the Israelis are trying to
prevent. While the Arab states look like traitors, Iran looks like a champion of the most
celebrated of all Muslim causes.
Fourth, Bush's impotence is a clear demonstration that America has lost a great deal of
global power over the last three years. If Bush cannot control Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hizballah, or Israel, then what real power does the world's "hyper-power"
possess? America?s inability to influence any of the actors that are relevant to the
current crisis is yet more evidence that America's foreign policy is a form of global
suicide.
Fifth, the age of great power warfare has been replaced by a world in which great powers
must live and compete with non-state actors who possess considerable military
capabilities. William Lind calls this transformation ?4th generation warfare.?
Consequently, the age of Bismarckian warfare, or what William Lind refers to as "3rd
generation warfare,? is effectively over. ?Bismarckian warfare? is a term that describes
large-scale wars fought by large-scale armies, which require national systems of military
conscription, a significant population base, and enormous military budgets.
Bismarckian warfare seems to have become ineffective in the Arab-Israeli context, because
Israel no longer poses the threat that it once did to the Arab regimes, and the Arab
regimes much prefer Israel to the rising non-state actors growing within their own
borders.
William Lind has also argued that non-state actors such as Hamas and Hizballah can
checkmate the Israelis as long as these Muslim parties never formally assume power. If
Muslim parties were to assume the power of states, then they would immediately become
targets for traditional Bismarckian warfare. However, as long as Muslim movements retain
theirnon-state identity, they are strategically unconquerable.
Sixth, we must more carefully study the reasons why Bismarckian warfare is no longer
effective.
The global diffusion of the news outlets is obviously important for understanding why
Bismarckian warfare has become so ineffective. For instance, Hizballah has its own media
network, and can draw upon the global satellite network to get its message out, and can
also use the global media to take advantage of Israel's targeting of civilians and
civilian infrastructure.
Further, the competition between Arab and Muslim satellite channels is also important,
because each station wants to demonstrate its sincerity by spreading news that is not only
critical of Israel and the U.S., but ultimately undermines people's trust in the Arab
regimes and thereby lends legitimacy to non-state actors.
And although the American media largely supports Israel, the information about the
Americans stranded in Lebanon limits Israel's freedom of action, and makes Israel look
like it cares nothing for the lives of American citizens.
At an even deeper level, the rate and density of global information transfer, and lack of
any centralized control over the global distribution of information, is causing the fabric
of space and time to contract, and so Israel's crimes can much more quickly create a
global backlash.
Time and space, as we experience them, are contracting because the global diffusion of
technical and scientific knowledge is permitting events in one part of the world to
increasingly influence events in other parts of the world, and events that once took years
or even decades to unfold can now occur within mere months or weeks.
As a consequence, the disenfranchised peoples of the world are developing the ability to
affect the lives of the more privileged members of humanity, which means that anything
that Israel does to the Palestinians or Lebanese will have effects upon Israel that are
more direct and more negative than ever before, and that further, these effects will occur
in an accelerated time scale.
Thus, as it becomes self evident that Israeli military power is no longer as effective as
it once was, this will surely accelerate the flow of Jewish settlers out of Israel.
Information regarding emigration of Jews out of Israel is a closely guarded secret, but
using Israeli government statistics, we can infer that immigration to Israel has rapidly
declined over the last several years, and that Israel may even be experiencing a net
outflow of Jewish migrants. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the
number of Jewish immigrants to Israel declined to 21,000 in 2004, which is a 15-year low.
In 2005, the number of immigrants rose slightly to 23,000, which is still dramatically
lower than the 60,000 that immigrated in 2000. Furthermore, Israel became a net exporter
of its citizens in 2003, when9,000 more Israelis left the country than entered, and in the
first two months of 2004, this figure rose to 13,000.
The global micro-diffusion of military technology is also critical, and so military
innovation and its global diffusion will only strengthen grassroots rebellions and allow
them to more effectively resist the instruments of Bismarckian control, as well as the
depredations of the military hippopotami that are the ultimate guarantors of statism and
statist regimes.
For all of these reasons, Israeli attempts to impose terms on Lebanon, or to redraw the
political map of Lebanon, or even to impose a NATO force upon Southern Lebanon, are not
militarily feasible nor politically achievable, and if attempted, will prove ultimately
unsustainable.
As will soon be demonstrated by events on the ground, Israel will not be able to destroy
or even disarm Hizballah. Neither will Hamas, Hizballah, Lebanon, or Syria permit Israel
or America to dictate terms to them. Consequently, if Israel lingers too long in Southern
Lebanon, its presence will be paid for at such a high cost, that it will be forced to
withdraw in ignominy, as it has so many times in the past.
In the end however, Israel's loss of power will make it even more dangerous, because the
more threatened the Israelis feel, the more likely they will launch destructive wars
against the Palestinians and Israel's other adversaries.
Finally, the same can be said of the U.S., with respect to its loss of global power.
Instead of becoming more careful with its use of force, the erosion of America?s global
dominance will likely make the U.S. government more aggressive, as it attempts to
re-assert its former position relative to its adversaries and competitors.
And it is precisely because America and Israel are losing influence over global events,
that an American attack upon Iran in 2007 becomes more likely.
God help us all.
Ashraf Isma?il is an academic whose interests range from international relations,
international economics and international finance, to global history and mathematical
models of geo-strategy.
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(17) Kidnapped in Israel or Captured in Lebanon?
Official justification for Israel's invasion on thin ice
By Joshua Frank
Antiwar
25 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=9401
As Lebanon continues to be pounded by Israeli bombs and
munitions, the justification for Israel's invasion is
treading on very thin ice. It has become general knowledge
that it was Hezbollah guerillas that first kidnapped two
IDF soldiers inside Israel on July 12, prompting an
immediate and violent response from the Israeli
government, which insists it is acting in the interest of
national defense. Israeli forces have gone on to kill over
370 innocent Lebanese civilians (compared to 34 killed on
Israel's side) while displacing hundreds of thousands
more. But numerous reports from international and
independent media, as well as the Associated Press, raise
questions about Israel's official version of the events
that sparked the conflict two weeks ago.
The original story, as most media tell it, goes something
like this: Hezbollah attacked an Israeli border patrol
station, killing six and taking two soldiers hostage. The
incident happened on the Lebanese/Israel border in Israeli
territory. The alternate version, as explained by several
news outlets, tells a bit of a different tale: These
sources contend that Israel sent a commando force into
southern Lebanon and was subsequently attacked by
Hezbollah near the village of Aitaa al-Chaab, well inside
Lebanon's southern territory. It was at this point that an
Israel tank was struck by Hezbollah fighters, which
resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the
death of six.
As the AFP reported, "According to the Lebanese police
force, the two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanese
territory, in the area of Aitaa al-Chaab, near to the
border with Israel, where an Israeli unit had penetrated
in middle of morning." And the French news site
www.VoltaireNet.org reiterated the same account on June
18, "In a deliberated way, [Israel] sent a commando in the
Lebanese back-country to Aitaa al-Chaab. It was attacked
by Hezbollah, taking two prisoners."
The Associated Press departed from the official version as
well. "The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli
soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in
southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel,
which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for
them," reported Joseph Panossian for AP on July 12. "The
forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from
moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government
officials said on condition of anonymity."
And the Hindustan Times on July 12 conveyed a similar
account:
"The Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah movement announced on
Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli
soldiers in southern Lebanon. 'Implementing our promise to
free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have
captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon,' a
statement by Hezbollah said. 'The two soldiers have
already been moved to a safe place,' it added. The
Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured
as they 'infiltrated' into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab
inside the Lebanese border."
Whether factual or not, these alternative accounts should
at the very least raise serious questions as to Israel's
motives and rationale for bombarding Lebanon.
MSNBC online first reported that Hezbollah had captured
Israeli soldiers "inside" Lebanon, only to change their
story hours later after the Israeli government gave an
official statement to the contrary.
A report from The National Council of Arab Americans,
based in Lebanon, also raised suspicion that Israel's
official story did not hold water and noted that Israel
had yet to recover the tank that was demolished during the
initial attack in question.
"The Israelis so far have not been able to enter Aitaa
al-Chaab to recover the tank that was exploded by
Hezbollah and the bodies of the soldiers that were killed
in the original operation (this is a main indication that
the operation did take place on Lebanese soil, not that in
my opinion it would ever be an illegitimate operation, but
still the media has been saying that it was inside
'Israel' thus an aggression first started by Hezbollah)."
Before independent observers could organize an
investigation of the incident, Israel had already mounted
a grisly offensive against Lebanese infrastructure and
civilians, bombing Beirut's international airport, along
with numerous highways and communication portals. Israel
didn't need the truth of the matter to play out before it
invaded Lebanon. As with the United States' illegitimate
invasion of Iraq, Israel just needed the proper media
cover to wage a war with no genuine moral impetus.
**********************************************************
(18) Morality is not on our side
By Ze'ev Maoz
Haaretz
25 July 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742257.html
There's practically a holy consensus right now that the
war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our
side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus
is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted
worldview, and double standards.
This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive
force without distinguishing between civilian population
and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to
say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah?s side.
Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah ?started
it? when it kidnapped soldiers from across an
international border does not even begin to tilt the
scales of justice toward our side.
Let?s start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign
state, and occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of
this occupation, we dropped several tons of bombs from the
air, ground and sea, while wounding and killing thousands
of civilians. Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed
between June and September of 1982, according to a
conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had
nothing to do with the PLO, which provided the official
pretext for the war.
In Operations Accountability and Grapes of Wrath, we
caused the mass flight of about 500,000 refugees from
southern Lebanon on each occasion. There are no exact data
on the number of casualties in these operations, but one
can recall that in Operation Grapes of Wrath, we bombed a
shelter in the village of Kafr Kana which killed 103
civilians. The bombing may have been accidental, but that
did not make the operation any more moral.
On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May
12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured
Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd
Lebanese detainees without trial, as ?negotiating chips.?
That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden
to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the
international community. That is true. What we are
forgetting is that ever since our withdrawal from Lebanon,
the Israel Air Force has conducted photo-surveillance
sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace. While these
flights caused no casualties, border violations are border
violations. Here too, morality is not on our side.
So much for the history of morality. Now, let?s consider
current affairs. What exactly is the difference between
launching Katyushas into civilian population centers in
Israel and the Israel Air Force bombing population centers
in south Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli? The IDF has
fired thousands of shells into south Lebanon villages,
alleging that Hezbollah men are concealed among the
civilian population. Approximately 25 Israeli civilians
have been killed as a result of Katyusha missiles to date.
The number of dead in Lebanon, the vast majority comprised
of civilians who have nothing to do with Hezbollah, is
more than 300.
Worse yet, bombing infrastructure targets such as power
stations, bridges and other civil facilities turns the
entire Lebanese civilian population into a victim and
hostage, even if we are not physically harming civilians.
The use of bombings to achieve a diplomatic goal ? namely,
coercing the Lebanese government into implementing UN
Security Council Resolution 1559 ? is an attempt at
political blackmail, and no less than the kidnapping of
IDF soldiers by Hezbollah is the aim of bringing about a
prisoner exchange.
There is a propaganda aspect to this war, and it involves
a competition as to who is more miserable. Each side tries
to persuade the world that it is more miserable. As in
every propaganda campaign, the use of information is
selective, distorted and self-righteous. If we want to
base our information ?(or shall we call it propaganda??)
policy on the assumption that the international
environment is going to buy the dubious merchandise that
we are selling, be it out of ignorance or hypocrisy, then
fine. But in terms of our own national soul searching, we
owe ourselves to confront the bitter truth ? maybe we will
win this conflict on the military field, maybe we will
make some diplomatic gains, but on the moral plane, we
have no advantage, and we have no special status.
The writer is a professor of political science at Tel Aviv
university.
**********************************************************
(19) US Turns to Arab Dictators to Contain Hezbollah
By Emad Mekay
Inter Press Service
26 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/mekay.php?articleid=9405
The United States is using authoritarian Arab leaders, who
fear that Iran could export its revolutionary political
model to their disgruntled populations and are concerned
about Washington's reprisal against them a la Saddam
Hussein in Iraq, as a buffer between the Iran-backed
Hezbollah and Israel, Washington's protege in the Middle
East, analysts here say.
"Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan fear the momentum behind
Iran's regional ambitions, which largely explains their
surprisingly public criticism of Hezbollah, and by
implication Iran," said George Perkovich, vice president
for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in Washington, referring to how the three nations
sided with their former arch-enemy Israel in its attacks
against Lebanon.
"The anti-Israel declamations of Iranian President
Ahmadinejad and Iran's continued support of actors that
refuse to recognize Israel's existence has paradoxically
elevated Iran's standing in the Arab street and alarmed
Sunni Arab rulers who have either recognized Israel or
moved toward it," Perkovich added.
Longtime rulers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have
all met their toughest internal opposition from Islamist
political groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
the Islamic Action Front in Jordan.
Some of these groups have even taken up arms against the
ruling regimes, as is the case with al-Qaeda in Saudi
Arabia and al-Jihad in Egypt. The regimes, with U.S.
backing, have been fighting these movements for years and
are concerned that such groups could draw inspiration if
Hezbollah comes out stronger from its current
confrontation with Israel.
"Hezbollah is also an Islamist movement with ties to
similar organizations in other Arab countries. Both the
Egyptian and Jordanian governments have grown fearful of
the rise of Islamist movements after the Muslim
Brotherhood's electoral gains in Egypt and Hamas' election
victory in Palestine," said Amr Hamzawy of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
"Their strategic interest in containing Hezbollah, and for
that matter Hamas, feeds on the ongoing domestic conflict
with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Action Front,
respectively."
Those motives coincide perfectly with Washington's aim,
and that of Israel, to disarm Hezbollah and push it north
of the Israel-Lebanon border.
This is the mission for the visit by U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice to Rome on Wednesday, where a core
group of international players that includes Arab states
will meet to chart the future of the region in the wake of
the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Rice's visit has the declared purpose of creating "a new
Middle East" where the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah no
longer has potency in its confrontations with Israel and
where the Arab governments will play a central role.
Analysts here agree that the basic theory that Secretary
Rice is taking to the Middle East, where she arrived
Sunday, is to get Arab regimes that are hugely unpopular
with those they rule to work as guard dogs on the Israeli
borders against rocket attacks from deeply rooted
organizations like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Palestinian
territories.
Rice's job, says Juan Williams, a senior correspondent
with National Public Radio (NPR), "is to get the Arab
states to act as a buffer between Hezbollah and the
Lebanese government and Israel and the United States."
And the Arab regimes are already on it.
The White House received Saudi Foreign Minister Saud
al-Faisal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, chief of the Saudi
National Security Council, over the weekend, while Egypt's
intelligence chief Omar Suliman and Foreign Minister Ahmed
Abul Gheit had met earlier with Rice and President George
W. Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
The first target of U.S. instructions to the Arab regime
appears to be Syria.
Explaining the U.S. tactics, Paul Gigot, the conservative
editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, said:
"They're working on Egypt and Saudi Arabia to try to
pressure Syria to stop arming Hezbollah ... the most
important thing is to give Israel the time it needs to
really make progress against Hezbollah, and I think that
is the opening, and I think they're now taking it."
Washington has ostracized Damascus over the past two years
and withdrawn its ambassador, leaving U.S.-backed Arab
rulers like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia as the main channel to take the
message to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"[The administration] is trying to say to Syria ... your
interests are better served in the Sunni Arab camp and the
camp that's pretty much on our side than with the
Iranians," Mara Liasson, the national political
correspondent for NPR, told Fox News Sunday.
"I do know that the United States is clearly looking to
Syria, not Iran, as the target of diplomacy here. Syria is
the weaker power, and while they don't provide the
hundreds of millions of dollars a year that Iran does to
support Hezbollah, they are the conduit for all the
weapons that come from Iran into Lebanon and to
Hezbollah," she said.
The second step prescribed for the Arab regimes is to give
both political and military backing for the secularist
anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah government of Lebanese
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff, said on Sunday
that Rice's mission to the region is to "empower the
Lebanese government" and to rally the Lebanon Core Group,
which includes the Washington-backed Arab trio Jordan,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, in helping the Lebanese
government "control its own territory" and stand between
Israel and Hezbollah.
The plan is to create an international force that may
include Arab elements to help the Lebanese government and
its feeble army replace Hezbollah as guards for Israel's
northern borders.
"I think the strategy for the U.S. is to try to put
together, with our allies, Arab and around the world, an
international force that would go into southern Lebanon,
as Israeli combat operations cease, accompany the Lebanese
army into the south and provide, finally, a strong
buffer," said David Ignatius, a columnist with the
Washington Post.
"That's a very, very difficult proposition. But that's
what we're trying to do."
(Inter Press Service)
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(20) Madison's Warning and the Israel Lobby
By Michael Scheuer
Antiwar
25 July 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=9400
One of the preoccupations of the authors of the American
constitution was defining the danger posed to the new body
politic by political, social, and economic factions. "By
faction," James Madison, the Constitution's father, wrote
in the justly famous Federalist No. 10,
"I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a
majority or a minority, who are united and actuated by
some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to
the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent
interests of the community."
Now, one must presume that Mr. Madison never imagined that
the two houses of the United States Congress and the
federal executive branch could conceivably combine with
what today is called a "private interest group" - namely
AIPAC - to be exactly the sort of faction that would
threaten both "the rights of other citizens" and "the
permanent interests of the community." And yet today, that
is precisely the spectacle we behold as the Bush
administration and both houses of Congress - Republicans
and Democrats - continue a bipartisan, three-decade-old
policy of supporting Israel without qualm or stint, and
without the least concern about what such support means
for the welfare and security of American citizens and
their families.
In the last week, Americans have seen their president, his
advisers, and their elected representatives behave as a
pack of well-groomed Pavlovian dogs, while exhibiting
equivalent IQ power. Not unlike automatons, Mr. Bush and
Secretary Rice spoke the traditional mantra: "Israel has
the right to defend itself." Then, the popularly elected
protectors of American interests passed resolutions
repeating that mantra with majorities strikingly similar
to those Cold War communist rulers could always count on
receiving from their so-called parliaments. Finally, this
two-branch, AIPAC-funded, mid-term-election-minded faction
agreed on the weekend to very publicly dispatch large
consignments of U.S.-made precision weapons to fill the
recently depleted stocks of the Israeli military. All of
these actions were, of course, played out against a
backdrop of editorial screeches, claiming "Israel is
bravely and nobly fighting America's and/or the West's
war," from the likes of such noted
U.S.-interests-be-damned voices as Ann Coulter, Mr. and
Mrs. Clinton, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page,
William Kristol and the Weekly Standard's crew of
certifiable zanies, and the reliably hysterical
FrontPageMag.com.
Well, I think no one - least of all myself - will deny the
basic truth that Israel has the right to defend itself;
indeed, our own Constitution captures the spirit of the
British jurist Blackstone's argument that the right to
self-defense is "the first law of nature" - advice
Washington too often ignores when the need arises to
protect its own citizens. Moreover, Israel's military
campaign in Lebanon serves the decidedly useful purpose of
graphically portraying for Americans the type of war that
must be waged when a nation has only its intelligence and
military services in its self-defense tool box. Clearly,
Israel has no credible diplomatic, public diplomacy,
ideological, or economic tools to complement or moderate
its use of force. This object lesson is particularly
pertinent for Americans, for the bipartisan faction
outlined above is very close to putting the United States
in the same predicament.
No, the real question of moment is not the red-herring of
Israel's right to defend itself, but rather what possible
U.S. national interest is at stake that requires America
to put its security at risk on Israel's behalf. National
interests, after all, are properly defined as that limited
number of issues that are life-and-death concerns for a
country; they are matters of survival. Access to energy
resources, freedom of the seas, the flourishing of our
domestic democracy, control of borders, internal security,
securing the Soviet nuclear arsenal, economic stability -
these are definite national interests for contemporary
America. These are all items that we must be prepared to
expend time, thought, treasure, and, if necessary, lives
to ensure.
Israel, realistically, does not fall into the category of
a life-and-death national interest. It is, at most, a
national emotional interest, and therein is the problem.
In the past 30 years, and especially during the post-Cold
War Clinton regime, our definition of national interest
has expanded to include a lengthy list of nice-to-have but
unessential ephemera, which are at the moment costing us
lives and treasure. Forcing Iraq and Afghanistan to
reserve parliamentary seats for women and efforts to
install democracy abroad at bayonet point are just two
instances of our bipartisan governing elites' inability to
differentiate nationa-security from national-emotional
interests.
Most Americans, including myself, probably hope that
Israel eventually proves itself a viable, prosperous,
non-theocratic, nuclear-armed state. But it is not
remotely imaginable that Israel is a national-security
interest of the United States that requires the U.S.
government to unquestioningly endorse, fund, and arm all
Israeli actions and thereby earn the same enmity Israel
earns from a billion-plus Muslims. Indeed, it is painfully
clear that such support undermines several of the genuine
national-security interests listed above: namely, the
issues of energy, internal security, and - given the
torrent of bigoted, debate-closing hate speech directed at
professors Mearsheimer and Walt - the free-speech
component of a flourishing domestic democracy.
So, how to explain the extraordinary power of America's
tiny but dominant pro-Israel faction? In the context of
the enduring alliance between the executive branch, the
Congress, AIPAC, and their media acolytes, Alexander
Hamilton's warning in Federalist No. 6 that in the pursuit
of private and selfish interests men are "ambitious,
vindictive, and rapacious" is a good place to start.
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