"IDF is Engaged in Indiscriminate Killing" in Gaza--Ha'aretz

Tweet "The Israel Defense Forces has killed 97 people in the Gaza Strip since the fighting began in Lebanon. Most of them were armed, and the rest were civilians - children, women, men, the elderly. The large number of fatalities suggests the IDF is engaged in indiscriminate killing under the cover of the war in the north."

Via Cursor.org

Mass Burial in Lebanon

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"I love the people of America. It's the government I hate. Tell the American people that we received their gift. The missile that they gave to Israel - we have received it, and this is the result," he says, motioning to the coffins.

I thank him, but he says nothing to me - just glares, turns abruptly and walks away.

Israeli Prime Minister--Thoughts Channeled Via Angry Airwaves

Tweet Israeli Prime Minister on Qana. "Olmert: Hezbollah used Qana as base to launch 100s of rockets", so we decided to kill all the women and children who are launching these rockets. I proudly announce to the Israeli nation that we have succeeded in killing a large number of the women and children of the enemy today, and will kill more tomorrow. This is the essence of Zionism. And we shall continue to kill their women and children; this has been the mission of our proud IDF. And if anybody protests, we can easily call those women and children terrorists--whether they are PLO, Hizbullah, Communists, it does not matter. As the only democracy in the Middle East, we have the moral duty to kill their woman and children. I ask the people of Israel to stand behind the Israeli army in its moment of glory as they continue to kill the women and children of Lebanon and Palestine. And I have received the full support of the US administration (and 70% of the American public), and the US Secretary of State assures me that she only hears the "pangs of birth" of the New Middle East with every cry and scream from women and children under the rubble all over Lebanon. Secretary Rice has asked for more cries and screams of women and children in the rubble of destroyed buildings in Lebanon because she strongly feels that the "pangs" are very necessary for the birth of its "New Middle East."

Israeli Missile Strike in Lebanon Kills More than 50

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QANA, Lebanon, July 30 — Israeli missiles hit several buildings in a southern Lebanon village as people slept Sunday, killing at least 56, most of them children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting.

Via Antiwar.com

Al-Maliki Visit to U.S. Draws Ire of Cleric

Tweet BAGHDAD, Iraq // In a sermon yesterday rich with bloody imagery and religious struggle, an influential Shiite cleric condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's trip to Washington this week as a betrayal of Islam and a humiliation to his people at the hands of U.S. and Israeli aggressors.

Sheik Khafaji intertwined the bloodshed in Iraq and Lebanon, calling it a design by Christians and Jews to defeat the Muslim world.

He criticized al-Maliki's speech before the U.S. Congress and asked: "What forced you to eat with the occupiers? Is that your reward? You know more than anybody else that the car bombings, terrorism, explosions and bloodletting in Iraq are under the protection of Zionist-American plans."

Israel Rejects Ceasefire to Allow Aid Flow to Civilians

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

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

"On the diplomatic front, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to arrive in Israel Saturday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. She is bringing with her a package of proposals aimed at ending the violence in Lebanon."

Via Informed Comment

Hezbollah Politicians Back Peace Package--Israel Of Course Said No

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BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah politicians, while expressing reservations, have joined their critics in the government in agreeing to a peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.

The agreement — reached after a heated six-hour Cabinet meeting — was the first time that Hezbollah has signed onto a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces.

The package falls short of American and Israeli demands in that it calls for an immediate cease-fire before working out details of a force and includes other conditions.

But European Union officials said Friday the proposals form a basis for an agreement, increasing the pressure on the United States to call for a cease-fire.

Some US Troops Frustrated

Tweet "I mean, if you compare the casualty count from this war to, say, World War II, you know obviously it doesn't even compare," Fulcher said. "But World War II, the big picture was clear — you know you're fighting because somebody was trying to take over the world, basically. This is like, what did we invade here for?" [because somebody was trying to take over the world--guess who? LJ]

"How did it become, 'Well, now we have to rebuild this place from the ground up'?" Fulcher asked.

He kept talking. "They say we're here and we've given them freedom, but really what is that? You know, what is freedom? You've got kids here who can't go to school. You've got people here who don't have jobs anymore. You've got people here who don't have power," he said. "You know, so yeah, they've got freedom now, but when they didn't have freedom, everybody had a job."

Steffey got up to leave the porch and go to bed.

Via News from Iraq

Death Knell for the UN--Mike Whitney

Tweet "The only "silver lining" to Israel’s lethal rampage is that it signals the death-knell for the enfeebled United Nations. The Bush administration has torpedoed every effort to reach a peace agreement and blocked all resolutions criticizing Israeli aggression. This, of course, is why Israeli-loyalist, John Bolton, was installed as US Ambassador in the first place; to oversee the destruction of the UN and pave the way for a wider regional war. So far, he has succeeded admirably. Working in tandem with Condi Rice, Bolton has delivered a ferocious "one-two" punch that has KO’d the diplomatic work of EU, the Arab League and the bumbling foreign ministers from around the globe. Now, whenever Condi or Bolton speaks, it looks like the entire world stands behind them lending international credibility to Israel’s ongoing depredations in Lebanon."

"Meanwhile, the feckless Kofi Annan is scampering away as fast as possible from his bombed-out outpost on the Lebanese border. The UN’s humiliating retreat is bound to be the final nail in the coffin for the toothless organization. The UN has done nothing to defend Lebanon’s civilians just as it did nothing during Israel’s 18-year reign of terror from 1982 to 2000. While innocent people are being cut down in their homes and cars and the country’s infrastructure is being reduced smoldering heaps of twisted iron and rubble; the so-called "international community" is breezily debating how to punish Hezbollah."

"What a farce. Some one should remind the Secretary General that the Daisy Cutters, cluster-bombs and napalm descending hourly on Beirut are not the work of Hezbollah, but their marauding neighbor to the south."

"The UN is powerless to stop the fighting and Kofi Annan is too frail to call for an emergency meeting of the General Assembly to eject the US from the Security Council. Thus, the institution continues to slip further into disrepute lacking the moral authority to be effective and quickly becoming a "rubber-stamp" for US/Israeli aggression."

Letter from an Israeli Jew to Angry Arab Newservice

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Saturday, July 29, 2006

I [As'ad Abukhalil] received this message:

"Dear sir,

I live in Israel and I am a Jew. We don't all support the policies of Olmert or the policies of the Labor party either. And many of us grieve for the loss of lives in Lebanon and Palestine just as deeply as you grieve for those lives. I am sorry that this is happening to your country and I hope and pray that your family and friends will be safe and I hope that not one more Palestinian must die for the crimes of the state, the Israeli state.

I would like to leave Israel before my son turns of age where he must serve in the military, I will not have my child be a part of an occupying army. I don't want my child to have the guilt of the death of your loved ones or of Palestinians on his heart.

Please know that we are all not like the thugs that visit your blog and say cruel and callous things. I abhor the messages they leave on your blog and they are not representative of Judaism. Zionism is not Judaism. One day the Jews around the world will realize this fact and I hope that when they beg you and Palestinians for forgiveness that you will forgive them for the spiritual malaise that has afflicted them.

In peace and in solidarity,

Yossi"

posted by As'ad @ 2:15 PM link

Destroying the Village in order to Save It--Left I on the News

Tweet It's more than a cliche. It's official U.S. and British policy:

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, saying that today's violence will lead to a better future for the Middle East.

I love the headline on the article:

Bush, Blair stand behind Israel

Yeah, just like they stand behind the troops in Iraq. Way behind.

Even Voice of America Says Israel Bombing Counterproductive

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"Here in the south, Hezbollah is not just a militant group, it is a political party with deep roots in the community. It provides social services, such as schools and clinics. Together with the Shi'ite Amal party, it is the de facto authority here."

"And so it is no surprise that support for what locals call "the resistance" is strong. An elderly woman named Husna expressed a common view as she described the conditions her family is living under."

"The situation is non-existent for us," she said. "We are living in the bunkers, taking cover. We have no food." Then she says, "We are with Nasrallah, and we are with the resistance, even if it means total destruction."

"At a local vegetable market, a man who did not give his name said he thinks Israel is trying to turn Lebanese people against each other."

"And this war, this war is not dividing us," he said. "It's actually quite the contrary, it's uniting us against Israeli terror, against Israel's barbaric actions. When this happens to us, it unites us, it doesn't divide us."

"And to a degree, that is true. Shiite refugees from the south are sheltering in Christian, Sunni and Druze villages to the north. This outpouring of support for their plight has been a remarkable show of cross-sectarian unity in a country that fought a 15-year civil war along religious fault lines."

Via Informed Comment

Oil Spill Hits Lebanon--Dahr Jamail

Tweet "With the oil spill and the war, all of the tourists are gone," he said.
"I came to Byblos from south Beirut since my home was bombed, yet even
here two nights ago the Israelis bombed an Army radar nearby. The same
one they bombed two weeks ago."

The tourist beaches off the coast of Beirut stand empty as well. Pools
of oil slosh up with the waves, staining the beach and the rocks.

"If we tried to fish, the Israelis would kill us," said Hafez, a
Palestinian fisherman. "But nobody would eat the fish anyway even if we
could fish.. Now we wait for a miracle, something to take this oil away
and stop this war."

Israel's Cyber Soldiers

Tweet "In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate."

Resulting in:

"Doron Barkat, 29, in Jerusalem, spends long nights trawling the web to try to swing the debate Israel’s way. “When I see internet polls for or against Israel I send out a mailing list to vote for Israel,” he said. “It can be that after 15 minutes there will be 400 votes for Israel."

Via Angry Arab

Empire: War and Propaganda--John Pilger

Tweet "Watching this unfold in Wahington - I am staying in a hotel taken over by evangelical "Christians for Israel" apparently seeking rapture - I have heard only the crudest colonial refrain and no truth. Hezbollah, drone America's journalistic caricatures, is "armed and funded by Syria and Iran", and so they beckon an attack on those countries, while remaining silent about America's $3bn-a-day gift of planes and small arms and bombs to a state whose international lawlessness is a registered world record. There is never mention that, just as the rise of Hamas was a response to the atrocities and humiliations the Palestinians have suffered for half a century, so Hezbollah was formed only as a defence against Ariel Sharon's murderous invasion of Lebanon in 1982 which left 22,000 people dead. There is never mention that Israel intervenes at will, illegally and brutally, in the remaining 22 per cent of historic Palestine, having demolished 11,000 homes and walled off people from their farmlands, and families, and hospitals, and schools. There is never mention that the threat to Israel's existence is a canard, and the true enemy of its people is not the Arabs, but Zionism and an imperial America that guarantees the Jewish state as the antithesis of humane Judaism."

Summing up:

"I think Orwell got it right in this passage from Nineteen Eighty-Four, a tale of the ultimate empire: "'And in the general hardening of outlook that set in . . . practices which had been long abandoned - imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions . . . and the deportation of whole populations - not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.'"

Republican Senator Takes On Bolton--McDermott Take Note, Please

Tweet "Must have had spinach and Wheaties this morning. Chafee was dogged in questioning John Bolton on his views about Israel-Palestine, about the root causes of the crisis in the Middle East, about Bolton's simple-minded use of the term "terrorism", and about Bolton's views of "shaping the Middle East" as one of the greatest challenges America faces.

"Senator Chafee started off reading a Bolton statement that he made in the past where Bolton essentially blamed terrorism as the fundamental problem in the Middle East. Chafee said to Bolton: "You are a brilliant man. Terrorism is a device. Your statement makes no sense. Explain it."

"Bolton gave a long and convoluted response but also stated: "There is no basis for peace in the Middle East now." He suggested that one of the reasons why the U.S. has resisted calls for immediate cease fire in the region is that it wants to generate a "comprehensive solution". He said "we need to use current circumstances as a fulcrum to move towards a more stable, longer term solution."

"Chafee jumped back: "Can't you go any deeper? This isn't just terrorism. What about the history of terrorism in the region? What are the root causes?"

Then, later:

"Chafee asked John Bolton if he thought that one of the root causes of our problems in the Middle East is our failure to make progress on a viable, contiguous Palestinian state existing peacefully, side-by-side next to Israel."

Via Cursor.org

Huh? NYT Poll Confusing But Not Good NewsAt Any Rate

Tweet "Yet, in the latest poll, 47 percent gave Mr. Bush good marks for handling the situation in Israel, with 27 percent disapproving and 26 percent saying they did not know. That was the highest registration of approval for the president in any of the poll’s performance measures."

Later in article:

"Support for the president’s staunch backing of Israel goes only so far: 39 percent indicated they approved of it, but 40 percent said the United States should avoid saying anything at all about the conflict (Only 7 percent said the United States should criticize Israel, though many respondents cast blame for the conflict on both sides)."

"Progressive" Dems Outflank Repubs on Right (Again)

Tweet "The latest Israeli attack on a neighboring state finds Republicans and Democrats engaged in a grovelling game of leapfrog, trying to see who can jump farther and crouch lower in obeisance to the Light Of The Nations (LOTN). Bush and company are shipping 'em high explosives in quantities the Condor Legion could only dream of. The Democrats, like the Pope, have no legions to send, but also like some of the nastier Popes of old, they yield to none in their devotion to the policing of thought. So the Democrats are trying to outflank the Bushies by attacking their pet Iraqi, prime minister Maliki, who has apparently been so tactless as to suggest that maybe the Israelis shouldn't be bombing Lebanon into the Stone Age."

Found on Democrat Watch via Cursor.org--Author highlights Barney Frank's involvement, but what about John Lewis (former member of SNCC)?

Half of Americans Approve of Israel's Military Attacks in Lebanon

Tweet "PRINCETON, NJ -- According to a new USA Today/Gallup poll, the American public clearly denounces the recent actions of the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon and sympathizes with Israel's position, but stops short of endorsing the extent of military action taken by Israel thus far. While Israel is reportedly amassing ground troops to invade southern Lebanon if its air attacks don't succeed in crippling Hezbollah, American public opinion tilts against a ground invasion."

Bill Clinton Urges Dems To Unite Behind War Criminal Bush

Tweet "The latest evidence of the Democrats' uncivil war was in full view this week when former President Clinton, still the most popular figure in the Democratic Party, told its antiwar forces to cease their attempts to purge Democrats who support the war.

"Clinton went to Waterbury, Conn., Monday to campaign for embattled Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is trailing anti-war insurgent Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. Clinton campaigns for lots of Democrats, only in this case he was speaking up for a Democrat who is despised by his party's pacifist, anti-war forces because of his support for President Bush's war.

"But Clinton's appearance at a packed rally in the Palace Theater had to do with more than just saving Lieberman from a looming defeat. It also had to do with his party's weakened posture on national security and fighting terrorism and, by proxy, with helping his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who, like Lieberman, thinks the United States must continue to support the Iraqis in their struggle for democracy and is opposed to a withdrawal until that mission is accomplished. Like other pro-war Democrats, Sen. Clinton has felt the wrath of anti-war activists who will be an obstacle to her ambitions to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
Bill Clinton does not mince words about what his party's now-dominant antiwar wing wants to do to any Democrat who supports the war -- calling the attempt by leftist ideologues like MoveOn.org to oust Lieberman "the nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life."

"I think the Democrats are making a mistake to go after each other," he said earlier this month at a conference at the Aspen Institute -- lecturing his party's rank and file not to "allow our differences over what to do now in Iraq ... divide us instead of focusing on replacing Republicans." Clinton is not the only Democrat chastising his party's left. Leon Panetta, Clinton's White House chief of staff, also took Democrats to task for going after Lieberman.