| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:05 am Post subject: Not So Clean Break |
| September 11, 2006 Issue
Copyright © 2006 The American Conservative
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_09_11/taki.html
Not So Clean Break
by Taki
Israel bombed southern Lebanon on July 12 in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah fighters. But the Israelis were said to have planned a military campaign weeks before the soldiers were kidnapped. According to Dr. John Pike, head of the Washington-based think tank Global Strategies, and my friend Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large of the Washington Times and UPI, Israel had briefed Washington about its concerns, and the U.S. had given Israel a green light to attack Hezbollah and push its troops into southern Lebanon. There was an agreement between Israel and Uncle Sam that Iranian nuclear plants would eventually have to be bombed. Once this was done, Iran would most likely order Hezbollah to attack Israel. Thus the U.S. and Israel agreed in secret that at some point before the attack on Iran, Hezbollah would have to be disarmed and that as soon as a pretext became available, Israel should use force.
Elementary, my dear Watson. As everyone who does not live in a cave knows, whenever there is a glimmer of stability in the region, the state of Israel orders a targeted assassination. (Just before the Hezbollah kidnapping, there were targeted assassinations in Gaza.) On June 17, the former Israeli prime minister and chief hawk, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Likud Knesset member Natan Sharansky met with Vice President Dick Cheney. Speaking to the London Spectator recently, Netanyahu suggested that President Bush had assured him Iran will be prevented from going nuclear. I take him at his word. Netanyahu seems to be the main mover in America’s official adoption of the 1996 white paper “A Clean Break,” authored by him and American fellow neocons, which aimed to aggressively remake the strategic environments of Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. As they say in boxing circles, three down, two to go.
The trouble, of course, is that the three are not down. The U.S.-sponsored assault on Lebanon is looking a lot like the ill-fated Iraq invasion. In both cases we were told smart bombs would accomplish miracles. Not so. Stiff resistance on the ground and outrage throughout the world is the result. The Bush doctrine of creating democracy in the Middle East with bombs will go down in history as the cruelest and craziest ever. A war on terror, as Bush calls everything he doesn’t agree with, cannot be won by a democratically elected government acting like a terrorist organization. Killing civilians, especially children, is wrong. As Talleyrand cynically pointed out, “It is worse than a crime, it’s a mistake.”
The truth is that even friends of Israel—and there are many—do not believe for a moment that Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran really threaten Israel’s existence. Only a propagandist like John Podhoretz—“we should have killed many more Sunnis age 15 to 35”—and his bloodthirsty ilk of neocons believe such rubbish, and being a betting man I’d bet the farm that even they don’t. Normal, decent, sophisticated countries that claim the moral high ground, as Israel does, do not kill thousands of civilians and destroy the infrastructure of their neighbors because three soldiers were kidnapped. It was a set-up from day one.
Both sides, needless to say, claim victimhood. The U.S. and its allies invoke 9/11, Madrid, and London. The Arabs underline 1967, 1982, 2003, not to mention Der Yassin in 1948 and last month’s bombing of Qana. Yet we have three Arab territories today where American bombs and policies have played a major role in promoting chaos and mass death: Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. Now we hear that the neocons want Syria and Iran to disintegrate next. Is there no one with any brains left in the White House? Don’t any of them understand that if any means were acceptable to fight one’s enemies, then the people who have bombed children in Israel and killed innocents at the World Trade Center would have been right? Not only were they morally wrong, we are doubly wrong to follow their example.
And speaking of lack of brainpower, isolating the Syrian ambassador to Washington cannot be the smartest thing to do. 18,000 Lebanese lost their lives when Israel attacked that miserable country in 1982, but Americans wonder why there are so many people who would spend six years building tunnels or sending suicide bombers. “We do not talk with terrorists” is the Bush mantra. He keeps repeating it like those mechanical monkeys who say “Howdy” one buys for children at a zoo. The collective punishment dealt out by Israel against innocents in Lebanon is bound to have repercussions. Netanyahu was and always will be a thug. The neocons ditto. The global loathing for the United States and Britain has helped corrupt the minds of a generation of young Muslims. Nightly scenes of slaughter and devastation on their television screens rouse them to blind bitterness against those they hold responsible—Uncle Sam and Israel. Is there no one to knock some sense into the morons who have turned us all into pariahs? This is America’s nadir. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:21 am Post subject: Electronic Lebanon: "Butcher of Qana" finds No Saf |
| From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:07:11 -0700
Subject: Electronic Lebanon: "Butcher of Qana" finds No Safe Haven on Capitol Hill
A rare moment in otherwise Zionist Occupied Washington. Whether Ya'alon
was banished by a US Senator is questionable, and no doubt the senator
will be required to say 100 Hail Israels and do an hour of orchestrated
hoop jumping to make up for what is more likely, his forgetfulness. What
is not mentioned is that Ya'alon is a Visiting Fellow at the Washington
Inst. for Near East Policy, the influential "doublethink tank" founded
by AIPAC.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5551.shtml | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:50 am Post subject: Kucinich visits Lebanon & Israel and finally ‘gets it’- |
| Sent: September 04, 2006
Subject: Kucinich visits Lebanon & Israel and finally ‘gets it’- “This is diabololical!”
Kucinich visits Lebanon & Israel and finally `gets it'- "This is
diabololical!"
September 3, 2006
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/12027681.html
Filed under: headline news - Lula @ 8:36 am
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has recently returned from a fact finding
mission to Lebanon and Israel and it is interesting to see the
contrast of the damage done in the recent violence.
"Village after village was reduced to piles of rubble. We saw
thousands of destroyed homes. We also saw bombed out hospitals,
schools, factories, churches, mosques, fire stations, gas stations,
cars, bridges, roads, water systems, electric systems, banana
plantations, and lemon groves," Kucinich said.
"In several villages we stopped and walked through piles of concrete
and dust from what had once been homes. Public areas were littered
with unexploded cluster bombs and land mines. The smell of death was
everywhere. Homes still standing upon closer inspection had holes in
the walls from artillery shells."
After the Israelis suddenly canceled their flight from Beirut to Tel
Aviv , Kucinich found a car to drive from Beirut, through Syria,
Jordan and across the bridge into the West Bank.
The Kuciniches had hoped to visit the affected areas in northern
Israel but were told by Israeli officials that there would not be
much to see because repairs were almost completed.
After viewing the separation wall, Kucinch had a private meeting with
8 representatives from organizations doing work in Jerusalem..
After about 2 hours of dragging out maps of the division between east
and west Jerusalem, the wall route, the settlements, the separation
between Gaza and the rest of the West Bank, and other enlightening
information, he finally stood up, spread his hands across the maps
and said in a voice filled with disbelief, "This is diabolical!"
Needless to say, we all agreed. For someone like Kucinich who has
made some strong statements regarding the issue of Palestine and is
currently working on getting a Department of Peace and Non-violence
started at the Cabinet level (he already has over 60 other
Congressional sign-ons) I was happy that he finally "got it", but not
surprised that he was as uninformed as he seemed to be.
After all of the death and destruction, the people of Lebanon were
determined to deliver a message of peace.
"We do not hate America. We love the American people. We do not like
what your government does. Please tell the American people that we
are not terrorists. We do not hate Israel. We want to be safe in our
village. We want to be left alone. We want peace."
Unfortunately it doesn't seem that Israel feels the same.
"The US State Dept just issued a warning for all Americans to leave
Gaza and northern Israel. For those of us who have been around a
while, we recognize that to mean that Israel is planning
another "operation" and don't want us in the way"
http://benfrank.net/blog/2006/09/03/kucinich_visits_lebanon_israel_and
_finally_gets_it-_this_is_diabololical/print/
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/12027681.html
Aron Russo's "America from Freedom to Fascism" is now available on
bittorrent:
One reviewer has described this documentary as "The movie that will
cause the declaratioin of world-wide Martial Law." "One way or
another, the movie of your life."
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3519240
Dei Jurum Conventus
Ed Ward, MD; http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/arc_ward.htm
Independent writer/Media Liaison for The Price of Liberty;
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/ | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:31 pm Post subject: Israel Said to Fear War Crimes Charges |
| Israel Said to Fear War Crimes Charges
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
.c The Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) - Three weeks after a cease-fire ended Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel is increasingly concerned that government officials and army officers traveling abroad could face war crimes charges, a Foreign Ministry official said Monday.
A special legal team is preparing to provide protection for officers and officials involved in the 34-day conflict in Lebanon, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
More than 850 Lebanese were killed during the conflict, most of them civilians. The human rights group Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian targets.
Israel has said it acted legally and accused Hezbollah of hiding among civilians in Lebanon and deliberately targeting Israeli civilians in rocket attacks. The fighting left 159 Israelis dead, including 39 civilians hit by Hezbollah rockets in Israel's northern cities. The Amnesty report also criticized Hezbollah's attacks on civilians.
The Foreign Ministry official said the legal-defense team, which includes representatives from the Justice and Defense ministries, is maintained by the government to help officials facing the possibility of war crimes charges abroad. It was first assembled to deal with charges related to Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza.
He would not comment on a report in the Haaretz daily that the ministry has urged top officials against making inflammatory statements that might be used against them in legal proceedings.
Israeli Tourism Minister Yitzhak Herzog said he isn't concerned about prosecution of Israeli leaders, but he criticized some officials for excessively belligerent statements during the war that could expose them to legal action abroad.
``Today we have to understand that wars, political situations and military situations include many components, and that one of the components that have to be weighed is international law,'' Herzog told Army Radio.
Israeli fears of prosecution abroad are based on experience. A retired general arriving in London last year who had commanded Israeli forces in Gaza was tipped off by an Israeli diplomat that he was about to be arrested by British authorities over a 2002 air strike that killed a Hamas leader and 14 others, nine of them children. Doron Almog remained on the plane and returned to Israel.
In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a lawsuit in Belgium over his alleged role in a 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. Several former Israeli army chiefs of staff also have been targeted. None of the cases have succeeded.
Daniel Machover, a British attorney involved in attempts to prosecute Israeli officers including Almog, said he knew of ``at least two'' teams compiling evidence in Lebanon for use in future legal cases. He said it was ``too early'' to disclose more details.
09/04/06 14:51 EDT | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? |
| ...counterpunch.org
September 5, 2006
Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story?
Time For a Champion of Truth to Speak Up
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
More than a little uncomfortably, I find myself with a bone to pick with one of our finest champions of humanitarian values and opponents of war. During Israel’s attack on Lebanon this summer, the distinguished British journalist Robert Fisk did sterling work -- as might have been expected -- debunking some of the main myths that littered the battlefield almost as dangerously as the tens of thousands of US-made cluster bombs that Israel dropped in the last days of the fighting.
He documented the violations of international law by Israel in Lebanon, offering a personal record of the nature and scale of war crimes as more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians died in Israel’s aerial bombardment of the country, hundreds of thousands more were made refugees, and most of the country’s infrastructure -- its roads, bridges, power stations, oil refineries and factories -- went up in flames. For this he deserves our thanks and praise.
But possibly in an attempt at even-handedness, Fisk has also muddied the picture in relation to the actions of Hizbullah and thereby contributed towards the very mythical narratives he seeks to undermine.
This was done -- in a predictable hiatus in each of his stories that over time developed into a writer’s tic -- by repeatedly accusing the Shiite militia of both provoking the war with Israel and intending Lebanon’s destruction. Uncharacteristicall y, Fisk failed to offer us the evidence on which these conclusions were based.
I take this failing -- maybe small compared to the far grosser distortions presented by other mainstream commentators -- seriously because of Fisk’s past achievements in countering the distortions in almost all Western reporting on the Middle East and the “war on terror”.
Hizbullah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, deserve the fairest hearing we can give them, especially as their voices are systematically excluded from a Western press that identifies with Israel.
I am in no position to challenge Fisk’s expertise and familiarity with Lebanese society and politics. If the Independent’s reporter tells us Hizbullah is no simple puppet of Tehran while noting that its weapons are supplied by Iran (and observing that Israel’s are supplied by the US) I assume he is right. I also accept his reports that on occasion he saw Hizbullah fighters taking shelter behind buildings in south Lebanon’s towns and villages, and his parallel observations that Israeli soldiers did the same as they struggled to invade the border areas.
The problem is in his constantly aired statement that “Hizbollah provoked this war by capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing three others on 12 July” (16 Aug 2006). Left as a simple statement of fact, it could be allowed to pass without comment. But Fisk repeatedly adds a series of further insinuations: that Hizbullah wanted Israel to attack, that it planned the war (not just that it planned for the war), that it knew precisely the scale of destruction Israel would unleash, that it was following Syria’s orders, and that by implication Syria -- and possibly Hizbullah -- wanted Lebanon’s destruction.
Here is small selection of these regular interjections in his stories:
“No, let us not forget that the Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never allow Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly at his press conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in Lebanon … So Syria -- which Israel rightly believes to be behind Wednesday's Hizbollah attack -- is not going to be bombed. It is Lebanon which must be punished” ( July 15, 2006).
“It now appears clear that the Hizbollah leadership -- Nasrallah used to be the organisation' s military commander in southern Lebanon -- thought carefully through the effects of their border crossing, relying on the cruelty of Israel's response to quell any criticism of their action within Lebanon. They were right in their planning. The Israeli retaliation was even crueller than some Hizbollah leaders imagined, and the Lebanese quickly silenced all criticism of the guerrilla movement … Then came [Hizbullah’s] Haifa missiles and the attack on the [Israeli] gunboat. It is now clear that this successful military operation -- so contemptuous of their enemy were the Israelis that although their warship was equipped with cannon and a Vulcan machine gun, they didn't even provide the vessel with an anti-missile capability -- was also planned months ago” ( July 16, 2006).
“Now to the Department of Home Truths. Mr Siniora [Lebanon’s prime minister] did not mention the Hizbollah. He did not say he had been powerless to stop its reckless attack on Israel last week. He didn't want to criticise this powerful guerrilla army in his midst which had proved that Syria still controls events in this beautiful, damaged country” ( July 21, 2006).
“Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists” (July 26, 2006).
“The Hizbollah has been waiting and training and dreaming of this new war for years, however ruthless we may regard the actions” (July 27, 2006).
“So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance -- and so determined its attacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon -- that many people here no longer recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war by crossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others … And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army” (Aug 5, 2006).
“The Hizbollah have, for years, prayed and longed and waited for the moment when they could attack the Israeli army on the ground ( Aug 14 2006).
“It was Nasrallah's men who crossed the Israeli border on 12 July, captured two Israeli soldiers, killed three others and thus unleashed the entirely predictable savagery of the Israeli air force and army against the largely civilian population of Lebanon” (2 Sept 2006).
The implications of these comments are serious, and deserve to be set out clearly and transparently by a reporter who consistently makes them. And yet Fisk has not produced any evidence, let alone reasoned argument, to suggest that Syria, through Hizbullah, planned a war that would offer Israel the chance to destroy Lebanon. I am not saying Fisk is wrong, but I would like to know the basis for his grave claims.
What makes his comments all the more strange is that Fisk seems to be at least aware that, quite unrelated to the capture of the two Israeli soldiers, Israel had planned its assault on Lebanon for some time:
“Israel itself, according to reports from Washington and New York, had long planned its current campaign against Lebanon -- provoked by Hizbollah's crossing of the Israeli frontier, its killing of three soldiers and seizure of two others on 12 July” (Aug 14 2006).
“According to Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, Israel's attack had also been carefully planned -- and given the ‘green light’ by the Bush administration as part of its campaign to humble Iran. I think Hersh is right” ( Sept 2, 2006).
So who then is really to blame for “starting” this war?
After hearing an address by Nasrallah on Lebanese TV, Fisk is particularly incensed by Nasrallah’s “hypocritical” comments that he would never have launched his operation to capture the Israeli soldiers had he predicted Israel’s brutal reponse. Fisk’s outrage seems overstated -- and stands in opposition to his observation (cited above) that Israel’s attack “was even crueller than some Hizbollah leaders imagined”.
The reason for Nasrallah’s comments are not difficult to divine. After the destruction inflicted by Israel, doubtless he feels under pressure to distance himself from the catastrophe that has befallen his nation. Isn’t that what politicians -- everywhere and at all times -- do?
But Fisk is equally enraged by Nasrallah’s other, more serious (and partially inconsistent) claim about the war: that Hizbullah knew Israel and the US were looking for an excuse to attack Lebanon and believed it was better to catch them off guard so that Hizbullah could fight at a time of its own choosing.
Even though, as we saw above, Fisk appears to agree with this interpretation of events, he again lambasts the Hizbullah leader for hypocrisy: “I think both sides planned this, and a hint came in another part of Nasrallah's breathtakingly hypocritical address. ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘Israel was going to launch a war at the start of this autumn and the degree of destruction then would have been even greater.’ Well, thanks for telling me, Hassan” ( Sept 2).
Surely, after the apparent inconsistencies in Fisk’s own commentaries over more than a month of reporting, his readers deserve a profounder summation of his views than this. How and why did two hostile sides -- Syria, and Israel and the US -- both plan a war, much at the same time, whose outcome was the certain destruction of Lebanon?
We can speculate about Israel’s interests in doing this. It may have hoped to provoke a civil war in Lebanon, much as it is trying to do in Gaza, to weaken its neighbor. It may have believed that by terrifying the general Lebanese population from the south, it could permanently reoccupy the area. It may also have hoped that, if it were winning such a war, it could drag in Syria and Iran.
But why would Syria want Lebanon destroyed? A fit of pique at being expelled from Lebanon last year according to US designs for a Cedar Revolution? Is that Fisk’s conclusion?
And how does Hizbullah fit into this picture? Is Fisk telling us that Hizbullah is the simple puppet of Syria -- much as pro-war commentators say Hizbullah is controlled by Iran? Did Hizbullah will the destruction of Lebanon too?
Most noticeable is that, in constantly castigating Hizbullah for “starting” the war, Fisk entirely ignores the background to the confrontation: that Israeli war planes and spy drones were almost daily violating Lebanese air space and sovereignty, as well, of course, as the issues of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, Israel’s refusal to hand over the maps of the minefields it laid during its two-decade occupation, and its continuing refusal to negotiate over the land corridor known as the Shebaa Farms.
These central issues -- taken together with the persuasive accounts that Israel and the Pentagon had been planning an attack on Lebanon for at least a year -- make Fisk’s implied claims that Syria and Hizbullah started the war to provoke Israel into destroying Lebanon look misleading at best.
A separate factor may help to explain how Fisk’s judgment may have been clouded. He often mentions in passing his close relations with the family of the late Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed by a car bomb more than a year ago that was widely blamed on Syria. Hariri, a millionaire Sunni businessman, was responsible for much of the private investment in Lebanon that led to its reconstruction and which Israel has now destroyed.
Fisk, rightly, lays the main blame for the damage to Lebanon’s national infrastructure -- and the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians -- at Israel’s door. But he owes it to his readers to be much clearer about how and why he thinks Syria and Hizbullah conspired to offer Israel the chance to wreak such destruction. It’s time for Fisk to tell us the whole story.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book, Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 4:16 pm Post subject: How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon |
| http://www.counterp unch.org/ cook09072006. html
September 7, 2006
How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon
The Israel Lobby Works Its Magic, Again
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
The measure of a human rights organisation is to be found not just in the strides it takes to seek justice for the oppressed and victimised but also in the compromises it makes to keep itself out of trouble. Because of the business that human rights defenders are in, they must be held to a standard higher than we demand of others.
Unfortunately, one of the best -- Human Rights Watch -- has failed that test during the war in Lebanon this summer.
To its credit, HRW has risked much opprobrium for taking Israel to task for systematically breaking international law during its assault on Lebanon . That has culminated in a predictable campaign of harassment by pro-Israel organisations in the US -- as well as by the usual suspects like Alan Dershowitz -- that have accused its researchers of libelling Israel and being anti-Semitic.
Such attacks reached an obscene pitch after HRW's executive director, Kenneth Roth, observed in publicity material accompanying a recent report that Israel appeared to have treated south Lebanon as a "free-fire zone" and that its strikes had failed to distinguish between civilians and Hizbullah fighters.
Roth, a Jew whose father fled Nazi Germany, was accused in typical hyperbolic fashion of engaging in "the de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism" ( New York Sun), being "an ally of the barbarians" and "reflexive Israel basher" (David Horowitz), and resorting to a "slur about primitive Jewish bloodlust" (Jonathan Rosenblum).
I do not underestimate the damage that such criticism risks doing to the reputations of HRW and Roth. But I also know that no concession to such intimidation can be justified, not if we are to search for the truth or hope to defend the principal victims of violations of international law, the civilian populations of poor and weak nations.
Name-calling, however distasteful, cannot justify HRW distorting its findings to placate the Israel lobby. But that seems to be just what is happening.
The most egregious example is to be found in a post-war interview between the New York Times and a senior HRW researcher, Peter Bouckaert, about a recent report, "Fatal strikes", in which the organisation provides evidence that Israel fired indiscriminately on Lebanese civilians during the fighting.
Rather than concentrating on HRW's findings of war crimes in Lebanon -- the focus of the research -- Bouckaert digresses: "I mean, it's perfectly clear that Hezbollah is directly targeting civilians, and that their aim is to kill Israeli civilians. We don't accuse the Israeli army of deliberately trying to kill civilians. Our accusation, clearly stated in the report, is that the Israeli army is not taking the necessary precautions to distinguish between civilian and military targets. So, there is a difference in intent between the two sides. At the same time, they are both violating the Geneva Convention."
After an observation like that -- stuffed in a brief space with so many double standrads -- HRW should not complain if one day it finds itself short of friends prepared to come to its aid when next the likes of Dershowitz batter it with the anti-Semitism canard. Those who indulge in slurs (against Arabs) can hardly call on our sympathy when they themselves are victims of the same kind of innuendo.
First, how does Bouckaert know that Israel 's failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets was simply a technical failure, a failure to take precautions, and not intentional? Was he or another HRW researcher sitting in one of the military bunkers in northern Israel when army planners pressed the button to unleash the missiles from their spy drones? Was he sitting alongside the air force pilots as they circled over Lebanon dropping their US-made bombs or tens of thousands of "cluster munitions", tiny land mines that are now sprinkled over a vast area of south Lebanon ? Did he have intimate conversations with the Israeli chiefs of staff about their war strategy?
Of course not. He has no more idea than you or I what Israel 's military planners and its politicians decided was necessary to achieve their war goals. In fact, he does not even know what those goals were. So why make a statement suggesting he does?
Similarly, just as Bouckaert is apparently sure that he can divine Israel 's intentions in the war, and that they were essentially benign, he is equally convinced that he knows Hizbullah's intentions, and that they were malign. Whatever the evidence suggests -- in a war in which Israel overwhelmingly killed Lebanese civilians and is still doing so, and in which Hizbullah overwhelmingly killed Israeli soldiers -- Bouckaert knows better. He admits that both violated the Geneva Conventions, a failure he makes sound little more than a technicality, but apparently only Hizbullah had evil designs.
How is it "perfectly clear" to Bouckaert that Hizbullah was "directly" targeting Israeli civilians? It is most certainly not clear from the casualty figures.
It is also not clear, as I tried to document during the war, from the geographical locations where Hizbullah's rockets struck. My ability to discuss those locations was limited because all journalists based in Israel are subject to the rules of the military censor. We cannot divulge information useful to the "enemy" about Israel 's myriad military installations -- its army camps, military airfields, intelligence posts, arms stores and Rafael weapons factories.
What I did try to alert readers to was the fact that many, if not most, of those military sites are located next to or inside Israeli communities, including Arab towns and villages.
At least it is now possible, because some army positions were temporary, to reveal that many communities in the north had artillery batteries stationed next to them firing into Lebanon and that from Haifa Bay warships continually launched warheads at Lebanon . That information is now publicly available in Israel , and other examples are regularly coming to light.
I reported, for example, the other day that the Haaretz newspaper referred to legal documents to be presented in a compensation suit which show that the Arab village of Fassouta , close to the border with Lebanon , had an artiller battery stationed next to it throughout much of the war. A press release this week from a Nazareth-based welfare organisation, the Laborers' Voice, reveals that another battery was positioned by an Arab town, Majd al-Krum, during the war. Arab member of Knesset Abbas Zakour has also gone publicly on the record: "During a short visit to offer condolences to the families of victims killed in Hizbullah's rocket attacks, I saw Israeli tanks shelling Lebanon from the two towns of Arab Al-Aramisha and Tarshiha."
In other Arab communities, including Jish, Shaghour, and Kfar Manda, the Israeli army requisitioned areas to train their troops for the ground invasion of south Lebanon . According to the Human Rights Association, based in Nazareth , army officials justified their decision on the following grounds: "The landscape of Arab towns [in Israel ] is similar to Arab towns in Lebanon ."
Aside from the fact that this effective use of Israeli civilians as human shields by the army outdoes any "cowardly blending" (in the words of Jan Egeland of the United Nations) by Hizbullah in Lebanon , it also makes any attempt at second-guessing the targets of the Shiite militia's rockets futile. Unless Bouckaert was given a private audience with Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, or drove around with a Katyusha rocket team, his talk is pure hot air.
It might be possible to dismiss Bouckaert's comments as the private opinion of one researcher (even if one of HRW's most senior) were it not for the fact that the organisation has stood by his statements in correspondence with me. I have been told that Bouckaert's assertions are justified because "we generally conclude that the use of weapons that can't be targeted / are not precise, eg. are indiscriminate, when fired into civilian areas, are in and of themselves evidence of targeting civilians."
In fact, I know from conversations with Israeli journalists that Hizbullah's rockets were not as inaccurate as HRW would like to assume. Several important military sites were hit by Hizbullah rockets, though none of those incidents were reported and apparently cannot be as long as the military censorship rules apply.
I have also seen the deep scarring and charred brush on a hillside in northern Israel where an important army bunker used by military planners is located -- evidence that Hizbullah knew exactly what was there and successfully aimed many of its rockets at the site.
Is it still possible to presume that Hizbullah is "directly" targeting civilians, as Bouckaert claims? HRW again: "We can conclude that they [Hizbullah] are targeting civilians and not just failing to discriminate sufficiently because the weapons themselves are not capable of being targeted with any real degree of precision, according to our arms division, so they know full well that the likelihood is that the weapons will not hit their target / will kill civilians."
What are we supposed to make of this argument from the world's foremost human rights organisation? HRW is accusing Hizbullah of committing graver war crimes than Israel , even though it killed far fewer civilians both numerically and proportionally, because its rockets are "less accurate". HRW is saying, in effect, that whatever Hizbullah's and Israel 's respective intentions and whatever the respective outcomes of their attacks, Hizbullah must be treated as the greater pariah because its technology is inferior. Whether or not Hizbullah was aiming for military targets is irrelevant, says HRW, because its primitive rockets were likely to hit civilians -- as opposed to Israel , which struck at Lebanese civilians with precision weapons.
And all of this, of course, entirely ignores Israel 's use of as many as 100,000 cluster bombs, leaving an indiscriminate legacy of bomblets across south Lebanon that will kill and maim for months, and possibly years, to come. Is that not "clear" proof that Israel was "deliberately" targeting Lebanese civilians?
HRW's logic appears to be arguing that Hizbullah had no right -- given its inadequate rocket technology -- to defend its country from Israel 's massive bombardment of Lebanon 's civilian population. In other words, it had no right of self-defence because its military arsenal was inferior. It should have sat out the weeks of aerial attacks, refusing to engage Israel until the Israeli army decided it was time to mount a ground invasion. Only at that point, HRW implies, did Hizbullah have the right to strike back.
Such an argument effectively legitimises the use of military might by the stronger party, thereby making a nonsense of international law and the human rights standards HRW is supposed to uphold.
This sophistry is fooling no one, least of all, of course, Israel 's apologists. They will keep up their relentless defamation of an organisation like Human Rights Watch as long as Israel comes under its scrutiny. By trying to appease them, our human rights champions damage only themselves and those they should be seeking to protect.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth , Israel . He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press . His website is www.jkcook.net | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:37 am Post subject: Hizbullah's victory has transformed the Middle East |
| Hizbullah's victory has transformed the Middle East
The defeat of the regional superpower could yet open the way to a wider
settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict
George Galloway in Beirut
The Guardian Thursday August 31, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1861527,00.html
As the smoke clears from the battlefield of the 34-day war in Lebanon,
it would be a mistake to count the cost only in fallen masonry and
fresh graves. All is changed, changed utterly, by the defeat that the
whole of Israel is now debating, from the cabinet through the lively
press to the embittered reservists at the falafel stall. Practically
the only person in the world who claims Israel won the war is George
Bush - and we all know his definition of the words "mission
accomplished".
Reports that the Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, expressed regret
this week at having underestimated Israel's reponse to the capture of
two of its soldiers were misleading. In fact, Nasrallah thanked God
that the attack came when the resistance movement was prepared, as he
was convinced Israel would have otherwise invaded later in the year at
a time of its choosing.
If the fierce thicket of the Iraqi resistance stopped the Bush war
spreading to Syria then the extraordinary Hizbullah victory has surely
made the world think again about an attack on Iran. But the main - and
maybe the most welcome - shift in the 40-year-old paradigm of the
Israeli-Arab conflict is the puncturing of the belief in a permanent
and unchallengeable Israeli military superiority over its neighbours
and the hubris this has induced in Israeli leaders - from the sleek
Shimon Peres through the roughhouse of Binyamin Netanyahu to the
stumbling Mr Magoo premiership of Ehud Olmert. The myth of
invincibility is a souffle that cannot rise twice. Over the past week I
have picked my way through the rubble of Dahia in downtown Beirut, now
resembling London's East End at the height of the blitz, and across the
south of Lebanon in towns such as Bint Jbeil whose centres look as if
they have been hit by an earthquake. Here the litter of banned weapons
lies like a legal time bomb - evidence of war crimes alleged by the UN
and Amnesty International that in a genuine system of international
justice would put Israel in the dock at The Hague. This, together with
the beating Israel has received in international public opinion, is the
collateral damage suffered alongside military humiliation.
Israel announced the capture of Bint Jbeil several times, but in truth
it never held the town - or anywhere else for that matter - throughout
the war. Despite raining down thousands of tons of high explosive on
homes, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, ambulances, UN posts, oil
storage depots, electricity plants and virtually every petrol station
south of Beirut (the bombers seemed to have a crazed thirst for petrol
stations, while telling the world that they were kindly inviting the
residents of south Lebanon to get into their cars and leave their homes
for a little while), the Israelis were given a severe mauling by
Hizbullah fighters when it came to boots on the ground. Paradoxically,
some believe that all this has blown open a window in which it is
possible to glimpse the possibility of a comprehensive settlement of
the near-century-old conflicts which lie behind the recent war. Now
that the status quo ante has been swept away, we may even see an FW de
Klerk moment emerge in Israel (and among its indispensable
international backers).
The leader of the white tribes of apartheid South Africa waited until
the critical mass of opposition threatened to overwhelm the position of
the previously invincible minority, and sold the transfer of power on
the basis that a settlement later, under more severe duress, would be
less favourable. Israel's trajectory is now heading towards such a
moment. A comprehensive settlement now would of course look much like
it has for decades:-
Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in 1967; Respect for the legal
rights of Palestinian refugees to return; The emergence of a real
Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, A contiguous
state with an Arab border, with no Zionist settlements and military
roads, and with Internationally guaranteed Palestinian control over its
land, air, sea and water.
In exchange there would be:-
Arab recognition, normalisation and, in time, acceptance of Israel into
the Middle East
as something other than a settler garrison of the imperial west.
Just as you can't be a little bit pregnant, a settlement can't be a
little bit comprehensive. Attempts - like the one more than a decade
ago in Oslo - to obfuscate, shave and sculpt such a package to the
point of unrecognisability will founder on the new reality. The Arab
world is waking up to its potential power. It has seen:-
the Iraqis confound Anglo-American efforts to recolonise their country,
the unbreakability, whatever the cost, of the Palestinian resistance,
and now the success of Hizbullah.
If there is no settlement there can only be war, war and more war,
until one day it is Tel Aviv which is on fire and the Israeli leaders'
intransigence brings the whole state down on their heads. Nor is it
only Israel that will pay the price for continued conflict: the
enduring injustice of Palestinian dispossession has already poisoned
western-Muslim relations and helped spill violence and hatred on to our
own streets. There is still time to choose peace. But make no mistake,
with the victory of Hizbullah, a terrible beauty is born.
George Galloway is the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow
www.georgegalloway.com
(4) New Yorkers to study curriculum on Israel initiated by Israeli
Consulate
Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2006 10:13:25 -0700 From: Jeffrey Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>
New York has long been one of Israel's most important occupied
territories and the politics and policies of the large American
Federation of Teachers local are generally indistinguishable from those
of the Israel's Likud, so one can see the AFT's Zionist hand in this
sanctification of what probably is already going on. Perhaps some folks
there who are upset with this might prepare a counter curriculum that
covers the Israeli firebombings of the US cultural center in Alexandria
just after statehood, the attack on the USS Liberty, as well as
Israel's known links to the attack on 9-11. That's a subject that
should grab all young New Yorkers. It would be nice if they were forced
to build a wall, say about 25 feet high, in front of the Israeli
Consulate.
20:36 , 09.08.06
Israel Studies New Yorkers to study about Israel
City council approves curriculum on Israel initiated by Israeli
Consulate in New York; curriculum to be integrated into training
program for educators teaching in 1,400 public high schools Yaniv
Halili
NEW YORK - The New York City Council's education committee approved a
curriculum on Israel initiated by the public relations department of
the Israeli Consulate in New York.
The curriculum will be integrated into the training program for
educators teaching in 1,400 public high schools in New York City. The
teachers will be able to register to a 30-hour course dealing with the
history of the State of Israel, its economy, the high-tech industry,
Israeli art and Ethiopian Jews.
The incentive offered to teachers who will take the course: Credit
points for an academic degree.
The teachers responded so positively to the course, that by the third
day of registration all seats were taken. Following the teachers'
request, the consulate decided to add more seats.
Israeli Consul General in New York Aryeh Mekel said that "through the
teachers a generation of leaders will be educated to maintain the
special relations between the United States and Israel."
We are not bringing politics, but are exposing them to Israel as we
know it and as we would like people to know it," he added. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject: UN says Israeli overuse of cluster bombs in Lebanon 'defies |
| http://www.imemc.org/content/view/21559/144/
UN says Israeli overuse of cluster bombs in Lebanon 'defies belief'
IMEMC & Agencies - Wednesday, 20 September 2006, 02:24
Following on a statement by an Israeli commander that the Israeli army fired at least 1.2 million cluster bomblets on Lebanon during the war, the majority of which were fired when hostilities were largely over, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator verified that number and harshly criticized the Israeli use of cluster bombs.
“The outrageous fact is that nearly all of these munitions were fired in the last three to four days of the war,” David Shearer, the United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, told a news conference in Beirut Tuesday.
The United Nations coordinator added, "Most bomblets were fired by the time the conflict had been largely resolved in the form of Resolution 1701", adding, “We know these (cluster) munitions have a failure rate and it seems to me extraordinary that they were fired off in the last hours of the war into areas where civilian populations were known to be going,” Shearer said.
“For a humanitarian person, it defies belief that this would happen.”
Meanwhile, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland has called Israel “completely immoral” for using cluster bombs in residential areas.
Shearer, the UN humanitarian coordinator, said that Israeli authorities have not given any explanation as to why they fired so many cluster bombs just as the war was clearly drawing to a close, nor have they responded to a UN Request for the map coordinates of the cluster bomb strikes to hasten clearance efforts.
It is estimated that 30-40% of the cluster bombs which were fired by Israel failed to explode on impact, and remain a tremendous hazard for civilians who have returned home. Since the war's end, at least 15 civilians have been killed in encounters with unexploded cluster bombs, and 83 wounded, of whom 23 are children.
Only about 17,000 of the unexploded bomblets have been defused so far, and the United Nations says it could take up to 30 months to destroy most of the unexploded sub-munitions. The British-based LandMine Action group has said clearing the south could take a decade.
Clearance efforts have so far focused on villages, schools and playing areas, but will soon shift towards farmland, which provides 70 percent of household incomes in the south, said Shearer.
“The cluster munitions are stopping farmers from getting out to their fields and resuming their farming activities,” he said.
The statements from the United Nations officials verified the statement of the Israeli commander who resigned last week, who said at that time that the army he commanded had “covered towns with cluster bombs", admitting “what we did is insane and monstrous”. Over 1,000 civilians were killed during the 34-day Israeli invasion of Lebanon in July, many of them by U.S.-supplied cluster bombs fired by the Israeli military. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:11 pm Post subject: |
| From: "Adibsk"
Subject: Shooting without a target Zionist racism, not only in time of war
Zionist racism, not only in time of war
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/762427.html
Shooting without a target
By Haaretz Editorial
Monday, September 18, 2006
"cluster bombs
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/762427.html
Shooting without a target
By Haaretz Editorial
During the final days of the war, when it became clear that the Israel Defense Forces had no solution to the ongoing launchings of Katyusha rockets, a decision was made to "flood" the area with cluster bombs, delivered by artillery shells and rockets. This was non-target specific shooting, based on the assumption that the bomblets would cover a large area, possibly destroy Hezbollah rocket launchers and cause as many casualties as possible among its fighters.
A soldier who fired 155mm artillery shells delivering cluster bombs told Haaretz that he was ordered to "flood" the area with these bombs, without having a specific target. A commander of a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) told Haaretz that his order was to "saturate the area." These statements were published in stories by Meron Rapoport on September 8 and 12. More than a million cluster bomblets were dropped in southern Lebanon. Each M-26 rocket fired by an MLRS contains 644 cluster bomblets, capable of covering an area the size of a football field.
Firing at undefined targets is a problem in and of itself. The dilemma it entails is reflected in statements by soldiers who fired cluster bombs during training and recognized that this type of weapon should be used only in a war against a regular army, for the purpose of hitting arms supply convoys or missile batteries - not against civilian areas. But beyond this dilemma, the committee investigating the war should find out whether anyone considered what would happen to the thousands of cluster bomblets that failed to explode, and were therefore transformed into mines spread throughout southern Lebanon.
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The cluster bomb is not a banned weapon, but it is described as an "indiscriminate" weapon, which should not be used against targets in civilian areas because, inter alia, it continues to kill once the war is over. Since the cease-fire went into effect, 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by duds that exploded unexpectedly. Since the percentage of unexploded cluster bomblets ranges from 5 to 30 percent, according to various assessments, southern Lebanon is now an area littered by thousands of bomblets that have not yet exploded.
Questions regarding the IDF's conduct during the war have many implications, both moral and practical. Israel's ability to rally international support depends in part on the distinction it makes between innocent civilians and the enemy. While Hamas and Hezbollah attack civilians as part of their strategy, Israel declares that it does not do so, and that it makes an effort to avoid harming civilians. The decision to drop cluster bombs on villages, with no specified targets; the decision to use these bombs over a large area, making it impossible to know in advance who will be there; and the well-known fact that a large percentage of these munitions will not explode on impact, and will therefore be transformed into mines in an area to which civilians will return, are all further testimony to the flawed decision-making of those who managed the war.
Now, Israel can do little except accede to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's request and assist in marking the areas hit by the cluster bombs, so that there will be no further casualties among Lebanese civilians, who have already been hurt by the war. Significant portions of southern Lebanon have now become minefields. Annan's condemnation was not without basis. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
