Israel Lebanon Conflict Thread

[DudeAsInCool]

Report: Hizbullah willing to talk

Hizbullah agreed to allow the Lebanese government to begin negotiations regarding kidnapped IDF soldiers, according to speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier Sunday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told a French news agency that the soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were in "good physical condition."

Read more at the Jerusalem Times

[method77]

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

first move is protest. Speak up.

That scoop.nz article is sad. Really sad.

[DudeAsInCool]

first move is protest. Speak up.

That scoop.nz article is sad. Really sad.

I speak up every day - where have you been?

The public has already spoken - Katrina exposed Bush - the public will vote Democratic in the fall and change the balance in Congress, where the Republicans have a stranglehold on the law. In between that time, money is being raised for the Presidential Election. Problem is people arent sold on Hilary Clinton, and Gore hasnt tossed his hat in the ring yet.

I think Bush can be defeated legally - in my opinion both elections were phony - and the NSA spying is grounds for impeachment - but no one has stepped up to the plate yet.

Protesting in the streets is a waste of time...

[KiwiCoromandel]

Bush's democracy project backfires......

AS CONDOLEEZZA RICE dawdles on her way to the Middle East, Washington is rushing to replenish Israel's arsenal of precision-guided bombs.

In a region burdened with a history of self-serving double standards by the West, this shipment is just another piece in a chaotic policy jigsaw that has plunged the region into crisis in the wake of September 11.

Iraq is a disaster; Afghanistan only marginally less so.

The collapse of these two has provided the launch pad for a new Iranian ascendancy that tears into the ancient schism at the heart of Islam - Sunni versus Shiite.

Listening to no advice, Israel has embarked on one of its most aggressive military campaigns in decades. And America's gift to the region - democracy - has delivered power to US-declared terrorists in the Palestinian territories and to a pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad.

more.........

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/07/23/1153593211326.html

[Shawn]

*disclaimer* This will be my only post in this thread. I value the input of all of you and don't seek to offend. Off the start, yes, I'm pro-Zionist. I think the creation of a Jewish state was a good thing. If a person's mindframe suggests that Britain had no right to develop a new nation in the form of Israel where is their outrage over Canada, U.S.A., Australia or New Zealand? Unearthly atrocities were performed in each and there were no warning pamphlets in advance. I'm also anti-war and anti-imperialism, but I'm pro-kicking the shit out of people that attack you. I supported-support the attack on Afghanistan and see little difference here. *disclaimer*

I feel you are being severely selective with your choice of stories.

[method77]

your opinion is highly respected Shawn and one thing I heve learned by all these discussions over the years is that you just can't change the other person's mind. No matter what.

Try explaining to a Greek that the Turks are right on some points.

[Redneck4sure]

I feel you are being severely selective with your choice of stories.

I feel that way frequently.

[Malicious Intent]

pro-kicking the shit out of people that attack you

That's what Hezbollah says too ;)

This thread is not closed to stories backing Israel. I've tried to post neutral stories, prefferrably from BBC, as much as possible and labelled those I think bias. I've actively been searching for points to back Israel, but everyone is currently saying killing children and destroying entire blocks of residential flats and businesses can not be justified and breaks humanitarian law. I want pro-Israel stories to try and understand why they think this is OK.

Even the US government can only say "well hezbollah shouldn't hide weapons in residential areas". Tell the orphans that.

[KiwiCoromandel]

*disclaimer* This will be my only post in this thread. I value the input of all of you and don't seek to offend. Off the start, yes, I'm pro-Zionist. I think the creation of a Jewish state was a good thing. If a person's mindframe suggests that Britain had no right to develop a new nation in the form of Israel where is their outrage over Canada, U.S.A., Australia or New Zealand? Unearthly atrocities were performed in each and there were no warning pamphlets in advance. I'm also anti-war and anti-imperialism, but I'm pro-kicking the shit out of people that attack you. I supported-support the attack on Afghanistan and see little difference here. *disclaimer*

I feel you are being severely selective with your choice of stories.

no problem shawn mate.....i feel that the pro-zionist line being run by israel, bush, blair, rice, howard and other western leaders.....and the western media.....is severely selective too.....i am merely reflecting another point of view...the point of view of those who live there....one which i happen to agree with....not the point of view of those who stand on the sidelines and wish for that which benefits only their agenda and the views of one chosen section of the community...that is not democracy..that is racism......

[DudeAsInCool]

i disagree with both points of views of the hezzies and israelis because they are clouded in hatred

[Malicious Intent]

i disagree with both points of views of the hezzies and israelis because they are clouded in hatred

*nods*

From the beeb:

Four United Nations observers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in south Lebanon.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "shocked" at the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the post. Israel has expressed "deep regret".

....

In other military action:

* The Israeli army said it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Abu Jaafar, in fighting in southern Lebanon

* Earlier the UN said Israeli forces were now in control of the town of Bint Jbeil after fierce fighting and were moving on the village of Yaroun to the south

* Israel resumed air raids on Beirut, with explosions heard in southern suburbs - a Hezbollah stronghold

* Hezbollah fired more Katyusha rockets into Israel, killing a 15-year-old Arab-Israeli girl in the northern Israeli village of Maghar and striking Haifa with a large salvo

* Hezbollah said 27 of its fighters had been killed as of Monday, but the Israeli military said it had killed "some dozens".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

[KiwiCoromandel]

Heavy Israeli toll in fierce fighting.....

Fierce fighting raged in Lebanon on Wednesday as an international conference opened in Rome on how to end Israel's 15-day-old war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

Aljazeera television said 13 Israeli soldiers had been killed during clashes with Hezbollah guerrillas in a south Lebanese village. Israeli medics reported heavy casualties.

Hezbollah sources said their fighters had foiled Israeli attempts to evacuate casualties from Bint Jbeil, 4 kilometres inside Lebanon.

"Our men can hear the screams of their wounded calling for help," one source said.

If confirmed, the death toll would be the heaviest suffered by Israel's army since it launched an offensive against Hezbollah two weeks ago.

more........

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/07/26/1153816236162.html

[KiwiCoromandel]

Israel attack 'deliberate'........

THE United Nations repeatedly asked Israel to stop bombarding its position at Khiyam in southern Lebanon in the hours leading up to the deaths of four international observers, according to a UN military source.

About 20 bombs or shells fell in or close to the base before an aerial bomb penetrated the bunker and killed the observers, the source claimed.

As international anger grew over the killing of non-combatants, officials at the UN Treaty Supervisory Organisation, to which the observers belonged, declined to speculate on the cause, pending an investigation.

But the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately. He said in a statement the post was clearly marked and had been there for a long time.

Israel's UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, expressed "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Israel hit the post intentionally.

"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the Secretary-General, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post," he said. The assertions were "premature and erroneous".

more here.......

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/israel-at...3816254818.html

[KiwiCoromandel]

Claims of heavy losses after new Israeli offensive........

ISRAEL'S army has suffered heavy casualties in a battle with Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon, with reports that at least 12 soldiers were killed. Hezbollah may have lost 30 fighters in the battle.

The fierce clashes took place in the town of Bint Jbeil, a key militia stronghold four kilometres inside Lebanon.

The toll, if confirmed, would be the heaviest for the Israeli army since it launched an offensive against Hezbollah more than two weeks ago.

After an Israeli pledge that it would allow humanitarian aid into Lebanon, the first United Nations aid convoy left Beirut for the southern port city of Tyre yesterday. The 10-truck convoy was carrying 90 tonnes of supplies, enough to feed 50,000 people for three months.

"This is a small convoy," Khaled Mansour, a UN spokesman, said as the convoy left the port at Beirut.

"This is a litmus test for the security controls in place."

A Jordanian military plane landed at Beirut international airport to evacuate badly wounded people from among the 2000 hurt in Lebanon so far. It was the first jet to land at the airport since Israeli planes bombed runways and forced it to close on July 13. Later air strikes hit fuel facilities.

Israel said on Tuesday it would let planes carrying relief supplies land in Beirut.

Israeli forces have been battling for days to take Bint Jbeil, since seizing a village closer to the border last week.

A Hezbollah statement had earlier said that guerillas had confronted Israeli forces trying to advance towards the town from a nearby hill.

The Israeli army estimated it had killed up to 30 guerillas in the battle for Bint Jbeil, home to 4000 people. Israeli media said up to 13 Israeli soldiers had been wounded, but this was not confirmed by the army.

Until the latest fighting, nine Israeli troops had been killed in the ground offensive in southern Lebanon.

Taking Bint Jbeil would provide a morale boost for Israel. Senior officers have described it as the main Hezbollah outpost in southern Lebanon.

Clearing the town could also be part of Israel's plan to establish a no-go zone for the guerillas in southern Lebanon until an international force arrives to take over.

The Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, said on Tuesday that Israel would control a "security strip" along the 80-kilometre border and would fire at anyone who entered.

He did not say how deep the strip would be. Israeli Government sources estimated the zone's width at three to four kilometres.

According to Israeli intelligence estimates, Hezbollah fighters are holed up in a network of tunnels and trenches around Shiite Muslim villages in southern Lebanon. Israel ordered civilians out of 14 of the villages at the weekend.

While fighting continued in Lebanon, Israeli troops have continued on a second front in Gaza, but have failed to stop rocket attacks.

Israel has stepped up air strikes and its forces killed 10 Palestinians, including seven militants and a three-year-old girl in fighting across the Gaza Strip yesterday, medics and witnesses said.

Among those killed in the attacks on Gaza were six loyalists of the governing Hamas militant group and a gunman from the kindred faction Islamic Jihad, which is also dedicated to destroying Israel.

At least 45 people were wounded, including a cameraman for Palestinian television.

source:Reuters

image:Fallout … Israeli soldiers display the bodies of Hezbollah rebels and weapons seized after a battle in southern Lebanon.

[KiwiCoromandel]

Israelis 'using chemical weapons' say doctors.......

Lebanon is investigating reports from doctors that Israel has used weapons in its 15-day-old bombardment of southern Lebanon that have caused wounds they have never seen before.

"We are sending off samples tomorrow, but we have no confirmation yet that illegal weapons have been used," Health Minister Mohammed Khalife said. The Israeli army said it had used only conventional weapons and ammunition in attacks aimed at Hizbollah guerrillas and nothing contravening international law.

Blackened bodies have been showing up at hospitals in southern Lebanon two weeks into the war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas that has seen at least 418 people, mostly civilians, killed in Lebanon and at least 42 Israelis.

Killed by Israeli air raids, the Lebanese dead are charred in a way local doctors, who have lived through years of civil war and Israeli occupation, say they have not seen before.

Bachir Cham, a Belgian-Lebanese doctor at the Southern Medical Centre in Sidon, received eight bodies after an Israeli air raid on nearby Rmeili which he said exhibited such wounds.

He has taken 24 samples from the bodies to test what killed them. He believes it is a chemical.

Cham said the bodies of some victims were "black as shoes, so they are definitely using chemical weapons. They are all black but their hair and skin is intact so they are not really burnt. It is something else."

"If you burnt someone with petrol their hair would burn and their skin would burn down to the bone. The Israelis are 100 per cent using chemical weapons."

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has repeatedly accused Israel of using phosphorus bombs in its offensive.

Human Rights Watch, which has accused the Israeli army of using cluster bombs in populated areas of southern Lebanon, said it had not verified claims that Israel had used phosphorus.

"We are investigating but we haven't confirmed anything yet. We have seen phosphorus used before and we have seen it in the artillery stocks of the Israeli army in the north," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

"Phosphorus shells do have a legitimate use in illuminating the battlefield at night. The offensive use of phosphorus would be a violation of international conventions."

Television footage shows some bodies, such as those of 20 civilians killed when an Israeli missile hit the van in which they were fleeing the border village of Marwaheen, blackened in the way Cham describes. No one knows what killed them.

"We are seeing abnormal burns, different from wars we've seen in the past. The corpses of these victims are shrinking to half their normal size. You think it is the corpse of a child at first but it turns out to be a grown man," said Raed Salman Zeinedine, director of Tyre Government Hospital.

"We've never seen anything like it but what the causes are I don't want to speculate. We have no scientific answer."

The Israel Army said it did not target civilians at all.

"We use only weapons and ammunition which will best hit our targets and cause least collateral damage," said army spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal.

"It could be that a body is burned from fire or the force of an explosion, but between that and suggesting we do something illegal under international law are two different things."

source:reuters

[KiwiCoromandel]

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil.....

Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon.

One day before the Israeli air strikes, the main partners and shareholders of the BTC pipeline project, including several heads of State and oil company executives were in attendance at the port of Ceyhan. They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the plush surroundings of the Çýraðan Palace.

Also in attendance was British Petroleum's (BP) CEO, Lord Browne together with senior government officials from Britain, the US and Israel. BP leads the BTC pipeline consortium. Other major Western shareholders include Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, France's Total and Italy's ENI. (see Annex)

Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was present at the venue together with a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The BTC pipeline totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, both of which have become US "protectorates", firmly integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO. Moreover, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military cooperation agreements with Israel. In 2005, Georgian companies received some $24 million in military contracts funded out of U.S. military assistance to Israel under the so-called "Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program".

more here........

http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/21738/T..._Battle_For_Oil

[Malicious Intent]

Good article Kiwi - I wondered when we were going to get to America's motivation. I thought it was just to make themselves rich. They can't just give public money to themsleves, but they can give it to Israel, who can spend it on war, which pays the weapons industry, who pay the Bush family and friends. That was my guess.

BBC Reports Israel prepares for southern Lebanon genocide - with "permission from the world"...

Important parts:

Following the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli air strike, Australia has withdrawn 12 UN peacekeepers, describing the prospect of sending an international force to Lebanon right now as a "suicide mission"

...

A poll of Israelis published by Israel's Maariv daily newspaper suggests 82% back the continuing offensive and 95% say Israel's action is justified

...

They did not call for an immediate ceasefire, vowing instead to work with the "utmost urgency" for a sustainable truce.

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said.

Mr Ramon - a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - said "everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror".

He said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in.

...

He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there could be considered a Hezbollah supporter.

"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," Mr Ramon said.

...

[After all the fighting] Hezbollah's ability to inflict damage appears undiminished - on Wednesday they fired some 150 rockets into Israel, more than on any other day of the conflict.

BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5219360.stm

Guess they may as well just nuke it then!

[Malicious Intent]

Very interesting discussion between CNN who ask all those unanswered questions and an expert on Middle East politics.

Best article I've read so far on bringing prespective to the situation.

Lebanon 101: Behind the headlines

[method77]

nice one

[method77]

Voices from the conflict

[DudeAsInCool]

Happy to report that when I drove down Wilshire Boulevard today that I passed a group of protestors - Jews agains the war, who were demanding a pull out of Lebanon now...

[KiwiCoromandel]

The Bush world of huge self-delusion.......

Once again the Bush Administration is floating on a wave of euphoria. Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon has liberated the utopian strain of neoconservatism that had been traduced by Iraq's sectarian civil war. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has propelled herself forward as chief cheerleader.

"What we're seeing here," Rice said, "are the birth pangs of a new Middle East." At every news conference she repeats the phrase "a new Middle East" as though its incantation is magical.

Her jaunt to the region was intended to lend the appearance of diplomacy in order to forestall it. As explained to me by several senior State Department officials, Rice is entranced by a new "domino theory": Israel's attacks will demolish Hezbollah; the Lebanese will blame Hezbollah and destroy its influence; and the backlash will extend to Hamas, which will collapse.

From the Bush Administration's point of view, this is a proxy war with Iran (and Syria) that will inexplicably help turn around Iraq. "We will prevail," Rice says.

The Administration has traditionally engaged in promiscuous threat conflation - al-Qaeda with Saddam Hussein, North Korea and Iran in "the axis of evil", and now, implicitly, the Shiite Hezbollah with the Sunni Iraqi insurgency. By asserting "we" before "will prevail", Rice is engaging in US national interest conflation.

According to the Rice doctrine, the US has deserted its historical role as ultimate guarantor of Israel's security by acting as honest broker among all parties. Rather than emphasising the importance of Lebanese sovereignty - presumably a matter of concern to an Administration that had made it exhibit A in the spread of democracy in "a new Middle East" - Rice has played it down or ignored it in favour of uncritical endorsement of Israel's offensive.

Rice's trip was calculated to interpose the influence of the US to prevent a ceasefire and to give Israel at least another week of unimpeded military action.

To the Bush Administration, the conflagration has appeared as deus ex machina to rescue it from the Iraqi quagmire. That this is patently absurd does not dawn on those who remain in thrall to the same pattern of thought that imagined the invasion of Iraq would be greeted with flowers in the streets of Baghdad. Denial is the basis of repetition.

This week has seen the publication of Fiasco, by Thomas Ricks, the military correspondent of The Washington Post, devastating in its factual deconstruction. The Iraqi invasion, he writes, was "based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history". The policymaking at the Pentagon was a "black hole", and resistance by the staff of the joint chiefs to disinformation linking Iraq to September 11 was dismissed. After the absence of a plan for postwar Iraq, blunder upon blunder fostered the insurgency.

In one of its most unintentionally ironic curiosities, the Bush White House has created an Office of Lessons Learned. But the thinking that made possible the catastrophe in Iraq is not a subject of this office.

The delusional mindset went underground only to surface through the crack of the current crisis. There are no lessons learned about the blowback from Iraq; about Iraq's condemnation of Israel and its sympathy for Hezbollah; or about the US unwillingness to deal with the Palestinian Authority that made inevitable the rise of Hamas; or the counterproductive repudiation of direct contact with Syria and Iran.

Indeed, Rice is ushering in "a new Middle East", one in which the US is distrusted and even hated by traditional Arab allies, and its ability to restrain Israel while negotiating on behalf of its security is relinquished and diminished.

source:AP

[KiwiCoromandel]

Tide turning in the Arab world........

AT THE onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the US and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 18 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organisation, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, are now scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the US and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a "new Middle East" that they say have led only to violence and repression.

more here......

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/07/....html?from=top5

[DudeAsInCool]

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 18 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organisation, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements

.

There wouldnt be anyone dead if it was not for this so-called folk hero. He's no hero to me - he's a cold-blooded kidnapper and killer thug.

[method77]

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 18 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organisation, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, are now scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

another great move from the US and Israel goverments.

All I can say is, "look what you've done now!"