Israel Lebanon Conflict Thread

[Malicious Intent]

All Lebonese are killers and thugs?a+

[DudeAsInCool]

there is no moral highground in bombing innocent people. they are all killers and thugs

my pt is that Israel didnt start it this time; Hezbelloh did

[DudeAsInCool]

Another message of peace from the USA:

Weapons

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

Read more at the NYTimes

[DudeAsInCool]

PS--Send help soon - I'm being held captive by New Zealand terrorists--they've even made me wear their militant caps!

[KiwiCoromandel]

Thousands march against Israeli attacks..........

Thousands of demonstrators marched through London and hundreds more gathered in Amsterdam and Chicago to protest against Israeli attacks in Lebanon and the refusal of the US and British governments to condemn them.

Police said around 7,000 people joined the London protest as it snaked from the banks of the Thames to Hyde Park, first in brilliant sunshine and then in torrential rain.

Many carried red and white Lebanese flags and placards condemning "Israeli crimes in Lebanon."

"We are all Hizbollah. Boycott Israel" read one. "Axis of evil: Bush, Blair, Olmert," read another, referring to the political leaders of the United States, Britain and Israel.

"Having seen the devastation on our TV screens in recent days, it's impossible to view the Israeli response as anything other than a gross overreaction said Yasmin Ataullah, spokeswoman for the British Muslim Initiative, one of the groups behind the rally.

Hundreds more protesters took to the streets of Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle and Sheffield.

In the United States, several hundred demonstrators gathered in bright sunshine in downtown Chicago for a rally to protest Israeli military actions in Lebanon and Gaza.

Protesters carried banners proclaiming "The Right to Fight Or The Might to Smite", or "Not with our money, not in our name."

"I'm outraged as an American, I'm outraged as a human being at what is happening to the people of Lebanon," said Dale Lehman, a 60-year-old Jewish resident of Chicago.

Nader Ismail, a computer engineer of Palestinian origin resident in Chicago for a decade, said he had come to protest the "collective punishment inflicted on the Lebanese civilian population by Israel."

"All Israel is doing is feeding anger across the Middle East and they won't get peace that way," he added. "The only way they can achieve peace now is to sit down at the negotiating table."

A small counter-protest of perhaps a half dozen people demonstrated in support of Israel over the road from the main rally.

The main Chicago rally was organised by the American Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said this was the only rally planned in the United States for Saturday, but comes a day after an interfaith prayer service in Detroit.

Later on Saturday CAIR planned a children's candlelit vigil in Tempe, Arizona for Lebanese civilians killed since Israeli military operations began, Hooper said.

In Amsterdam, around 700 people gathered near Dam Square to condemn the Israeli assault, which has killed 349 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, in the past 11 days.

"We will win against the biggest terrorists in the world," said Ali Nasraka Afyouni, a 23-year-old who left southern Lebanon for the Netherlands seven years ago.

The protest came two days after around 2,000 pro-Israeli demonstrators gathered in Amsterdam.

A similar show of solidarity with Israel is planned near London Sunday evening and will be addressed by Britain's chief rabbi.

"Israel has the right to defend itself against unprovoked attacks on sovereign soil," said Henry Grunwald, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Much of the anger on Saturday's London protest was directed at the British government for its refusal to openly condemn Israel's actions and call for an immediate ceasefire.

"We're disgusted by the way the US and Britain have isolated themselves from the rest of the international community," Ataullah said.

Speaking in Beirut, Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells made the strongest criticism yet of Israel by a British government minister.

"These have not been surgical strikes. It's very, very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used," he told reporters.

source:2006 Reuters

[KiwiCoromandel]

PS--Send help soon - I'm being held captive by New Zealand terrorists--they've even made me wear their militant caps!

good morning my friend....you`re looking good...glad to see the kiwibeanies got there...i was going to warn you to be careful when you opened the package dude..but i can see that you are still in one piece mate....now, where were we??....

[DudeAsInCool]

good morning my friend....you`re looking good...glad to see the kiwibeanies got there...i was going to warn you to be careful when you opened the package dude..but i can see that you are still in one piece mate....now, where were we??....

i sure hope that white powder they came wasn't ANTHRAX

[KiwiCoromandel]

..in the interests of building good international relations....and because dude looks so damned good in one.....i will send a free kiwibeanie to any beatking member who wants one......PM a postal address to me...... :) :)

[DudeAsInCool]

In other news:

J’lem gay parade called off due to war

Open House announces cancellation of parade, which was scheduled for August 10, but says other gay pride events will take place as planned. ‘We are determined to fight for our right to march in Jerusalem this year,’ organization’s director says

Ynet

The Open House Organization announced Friday that the World Pride parade, which was scheduled to take place on August 10 in Jerusalem, has been called off due to the war in Lebanon.

Read More

[Malicious Intent]

British Foreign Office Issue Scathing Attack on Israel's Tactics:

THE British government issued a fierce condemnation of Israel's bombing campaign in Lebanon last night as world leaders desperately sought a last-minute deal to avert a ground war.

As Israeli tanks massed on the border and troops made sporadic raids on Lebanese villages, Foreign Office minister Kim Howells

claimed Israel was not inflicting "surgical strikes" but waging war on "the entire Lebanese nation".

...

"I very much hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon," he said. "The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes.

"And it's very, very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used.

"You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation."

His comments underlined growing frustration at the failure to agree a lasting ceasefire to end the conflict - and hinted at a split between the Foreign Office and Tony Blair, who has taken a more emollient line towards Israel.

[method77]

Another message of peace from the USA:

Weapons

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

Read more at the NYTimes

do the majority of americans agree?

[Malicious Intent]

Israel 'seizes' Hezbollah village

Israeli forces say they have seized the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras, an apparent base used by Hezbollah to fire rockets into Israel.

Exchanges of fire can be still be heard in the village, said by Hezbollah to be the scene of an "epic battle".

Israeli planes reportedly bombed Beirut and the city of Sidon early on Sunday, the 12th day of the campaign.

Thousands of people have been trying to leave southern Lebanon and the United Nations warns of a humanitarian crisis.

Its humanitarian chief is en route to Beirut, as the UN seeks to secure safe routes out for fleeing civilians.

The UN's Jan Egeland said half a million people needed assistance - and the number was likely to increase.

One-third of the recent Lebanese casualties, he said, appeared to be children.

As concerns about hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians grew, Israel eased restrictions on Lebanon's blockaded ports to allow aid into the country.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5206966.stm

[Malicious Intent]

Not exactly a neutral article, but here are some interesting comments. The writer highlights that this is not a new battle, even in a very isolated sense.

The media starts the timeline when Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers, which is crazy by anyones standards. Isreal was bombing the area and killing civilians unapologetically in the days beforehand:

Memory is supposed to stop in its tracks at June 28, 2006.

Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32.

That’s just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.

As I say, not neutral, but interesting. I wonder how many times Isreal has been attacked in that time...

The really funny part is that one side shooting missiles indescrimately are called "the military" and the other side are called "terrorists".

[Malicious Intent]

According to this article, the war was planned and details made public in 2004, including discussions with international leaders. It is certainly holding true so far.

n his talks, the officer described a three-week campaign: The first week concentrated on destroying Hizbullah's heavier long-range missiles, bombing its command-and-control centers and disrupting transportation and communication arteries. In the second week, the focus shifted to attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers or weapons stores. In the third week, ground forces in large numbers would be introduced, but only in order to knock out targets discovered during reconnaissance missions as the campaign unfolded. There was no plan, according to this scenario, to reoccupy Southern Lebanon on a long-term basis.

Source: http://www.arabamericannews.com/newsarticl...?articleid=5877

[DudeAsInCool]

do the majority of americans agree?

No. People universally are pretty much disgusted with Bush...his poll ratings are about as low as they can go. I havent talked to one person who thinks this is good...and that includes lots of civilians not connected to Hollywood liberal types

[DudeAsInCool]

The really funny part is that one side shooting missiles indescrimately are called "the military" and the other side are called "terrorists".

They're all terrorists. You have the US backing Israel; Lebanon and Iran ponying up for the Hezby team--its sick. Nothing will ever get accomplished by firing missiles at each other.

[DudeAsInCool]

Ted Koppel in the NYT: "The United States Is Already At War With Iran"

New York Times | For What It's Worth | Posted Saturday July 22, 2006 at 11:27 AM

Ted Koppel has one of his semi-regular op-eds today in the New York Times, except it is less op-ed than a reported piece based on a conversation Koppel had with a senior Jordanian intelligence official, who warned Koppel about Iran's growing power in the Middle East. "The United States is already at war with Iran," Koppel begins. "But for the time being the battle is being fought through surrogates."

Koppel goes on to note that "over the past couple of months alone, he told me, Hamas has received more than $300 million in cash, provided by Iran and funneled through Syria" and "the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets...in Hezbollah's arsenal were largely provided by Iran." Here's the important passage:

When Sheik Qaouk talked about Israel and Hezbollah, his organization's ambitions were not framed in purely defensive terms. There is only harmony between Hezbollah's endgame and the more provocative statements made over the past year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president. Both foresee the elimination of the Jewish state.

Are the Israelis over-reacting in Lebanon? Perhaps they simply perceive their enemies' intentions with greater clarity than most. It is not the Lebanese who make the Israelis nervous, nor even Hezbollah. It is the puppet-masters in Tehran capitalizing on every opportunity that democratic reform presents. In the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be so incautious as to hold a free election, it is the Islamists who benefit the most.

[method77]

No. People universally are pretty much disgusted with Bush...his poll ratings are about as low as they can go. I havent talked to one person who thinks this is good...and that includes lots of civilians not connected to Hollywood liberal types

OK but he is helping the killings by providing weapons to Israel. You know, kill kids.

Isn't it about time you all do something about that maniac or are you going to just wait for his term to finish while he is killing, stealing and threatening all other countries?

5 REASONS to Stop US Military Aid to Israel

[KiwiCoromandel]

It amazes me that when a couple of soldiers from the Israeli army get kidnapped, it is front page news across the Western world, but it all no doubt looks very different on the ground in the territories where the Israeli army is actually an army of occupation protecting one group of settlers against another group, those actually losing their village lands and livelihoods.

The thing about the Holy Land is that it has always been the home of a diverse mix: Jewish, Orthodox Christian and Moslem key among them, but including also some very small communities like the Druze and Samaritans.

The State of Israel claims to be a democracy, but not as we know it. For starters, tens of thousands of people born in Israel, and their children, live as stateless people barred from of Israel and stuck in the refugee camps established for them in neighbouring territories like the tiny sandpit called Gaza, the West Bank, in the Lebanon and in Syria.

These people, barred from living in their homeland and not entitled to vote in Israeli elections, elected their own Palestine Legislative Council earlier this year but Israel has now arrested most of the senior ministers without charge which means the Palestine Authority no longer exists and the Palestinians in Gaza/West Bank are disenfranchised both in Israel and in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories as well.

One of Israel's first big "incursions" into its democratic neighbour, Lebanon, was in 1968 when Israeli commandos blew up thirteen airplanes at Beirut airport. That 1968 action, the media said at the time, was to show how tough Israel is against Palestinian terrorism, although to be sure many of the Lebanese civilians caught at the airport would have wondered how blowing them up was very tough.

Israeli forces regularly attack Lebanese villages and having been doing so for decades. Ironically, the Hizbollah Party which is now one of Lebanon's bigger parliamentary parties, was originally formed in the 1980s as a resistance force to the Israel occupation of Lebanon at that time - the occupation, we were told then, would end Palestinian terrorism.

Lebanon is a state of minorities: Multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religioned. In my view, Lebanon is to Israel what Federal Bosnia is to the Serbian and Croatian nationalist militants: A threat to racist ideology.....

[KiwiCoromandel]

Israeli jets bomb Lebanese cities......

Israeli warplanes have struck at suspected Hezbollah sites in Sidon and the capital Beirut.

In Sidon, 14 people were injured and a mosque was destroyed in the first strikes on the southern port city.

The UN's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland has been touring shattered districts of Beirut, and said the devastation was "a violation of humanitarian law".

more........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5207152.stm

[KiwiCoromandel]

Israel 'presses US on bomb sale'......

Reports from the US suggest Washington has been asked to speed up a shipment of precision bombs sold as part of a deal with Israel last year.

According to a report in the New York Times, Israel made the request after it began its air assault on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon 12 days ago.

The weapons, including five-tonne laser-guided bombs, are part of a sale signed last year.

Unnamed US officials say the request to speed up delivery is unusual.

The disclosure is likely to anger Arab governments because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding Israel at such a sensitive time.

Precision-guided missiles are playing a key part in Israel's military strategy, which has included attempts to destroy bunkers it says are used by Hezbollah.

Israel is one of the largest customers for US armaments.

It also receives several billion dollars a year in direct and indirect aid from Washington.

source:reuters

[method77]

It amazes me that when a couple of soldiers from the Israeli army get kidnapped, it is front page news across the Western world, but it all no doubt looks very different on the ground in the territories where the Israeli army is actually an army of occupation protecting one group of settlers against another group, those actually losing their village lands and livelihoods.

The thing about the Holy Land is that it has always been the home of a diverse mix: Jewish, Orthodox Christian and Moslem key among them, but including also some very small communities like the Druze and Samaritans.

The State of Israel claims to be a democracy, but not as we know it. For starters, tens of thousands of people born in Israel, and their children, live as stateless people barred from of Israel and stuck in the refugee camps established for them in neighbouring territories like the tiny sandpit called Gaza, the West Bank, in the Lebanon and in Syria.

These people, barred from living in their homeland and not entitled to vote in Israeli elections, elected their own Palestine Legislative Council earlier this year but Israel has now arrested most of the senior ministers without charge which means the Palestine Authority no longer exists and the Palestinians in Gaza/West Bank are disenfranchised both in Israel and in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories as well.

One of Israel's first big "incursions" into its democratic neighbour, Lebanon, was in 1968 when Israeli commandos blew up thirteen airplanes at Beirut airport. That 1968 action, the media said at the time, was to show how tough Israel is against Palestinian terrorism, although to be sure many of the Lebanese civilians caught at the airport would have wondered how blowing them up was very tough.

Israeli forces regularly attack Lebanese villages and having been doing so for decades. Ironically, the Hizbollah Party which is now one of Lebanon's bigger parliamentary parties, was originally formed in the 1980s as a resistance force to the Israel occupation of Lebanon at that time - the occupation, we were told then, would end Palestinian terrorism.

Lebanon is a state of minorities: Multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religioned. In my view, Lebanon is to Israel what Federal Bosnia is to the Serbian and Croatian nationalist militants: A threat to racist ideology.....

excellent stuff Kiwi

The current leadership of Lebanon has managed to keep it under control because they have helped the Lebanese people think of themselves as Lebanese and not religiously. Too bad Isreal and the US don't like that.

[KiwiCoromandel]

image:Photographers flee a bombing raid on Beirut.......

[KiwiCoromandel]

Christian town opens arms to Moslem refugees.....

by Henri Bou-Saab:www.scoop.co.nz correspondent in The Republic of Lebanon.....

It is now the middle of summer in my village in Mount Lebanon, Dhour el-Choueir.

It is beautiful here, high up above the Sea, the heavy heat of Beirut on the coast cannot reach us..

It is Friday afternoon.

Normally I would be down in that heat at my business, trying to find some customers to buy the beautiful Brazilian bathroom accessories that I sell.

But not today.

Not yesterday, either.

Not since the Israel air force decided to destroy Beirut’s brand new world-class international airport runways. There have been bombings in the very ancient Christian fishing village north called Byblos, bombs in the mainly Maronite Catholic Beirut suburbs of Hadaath and Ashrafi’eh and in the mixed Christian and Muslim village of Zahle as well.

Factories are being destroyed. Businesses blown up from the safety of the super jets.

Lebanese are keeping away from trucks after a truck carrying medical supplies was blown up .

Rita, my wife, works for pharmaceutical and medicine distribution company GlaxoSmithKline. The company is still distributing medicines, but Rita also has not been going into her office and she and our children, Christopher and Bryan, are here with us at my parents home in the Mountain.

So here I am stuck at home and not going into the office because trucks go past my office. The office is also close to the port and the air force bombed our world-class international seaport which is very close to my office in the Antellias suburb.

The history of Antellias is very interesting.

The Armenian Christians set up their church headquarters here after the destruction of the Armenian people by the Turkish Army in the 1920s.

In the 1920s, the communities of this Mountain - Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox but mostly Marounite Catholic - we accepted the Armenian Orthodox and Armenian Catholic refugees escaping from their suffering in Turkey. And in 1948, Lebanon accepted the Palestine refugees that even to this day are still not allowed to return to their homeland, which is Israel and Israel should be responsible for them, but instead refuses to take responsibility for their needs.

But as much my family’s life has been turned upside down I know that what has happened to us is nothing, nothing compared to what’s happening in the South of my country.

The majority of people in South are Shii’aa. They are Muslim.

So far, most of the 300 Lebanese civilians that lost their lives in this total destruction of my country have been Shii’a and tens of thousands of these civilians are escaping to find refuge in other parts of the country.

My village has opened its arms to the refugees from the South. We are not just doing this because our church leaders told us to, but because we want to.

We want to help with shelter and with food. People are doing what they must do.

We open our churches to our Muslim brothers and sisters.

I am afraid that if the Israeli Airforce continues this war for a very long time then many more Lebanese Christians especially will join the other Lebanese Christians that have already left the country to go to America and Brazil and Canada and Argentina.

Not because we don’t love our country but because we get pushed into making a choice between what to do for our children, what is really best for them.

I don’t want to go. We don’t want to.

But whatever happens I will never fight against the Muslims just because that is what the Israeli Government wants me to do.

Israel wants a war between Muslims and Christians.

They can murder our civilians by the hundreds as they have already, but they can’t force us to kill each other on their behalf.

Never.

I promise you that.

source:www.scoop.co.nz

[DudeAsInCool]

Isn't it about time you all do something about that maniac or are you going to just wait for his term to finish while he is killing, stealing and threatening all other countries?

5 REASONS to Stop US Military Aid to Israel

We're stuck with the jerk. What do you expects us to do?