16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

[malayday]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

blehehe....this is pretty pathetic...thats article posted by dave is not really all that insightfull..im sorry...i like the rational calm thought out one that dig posted...the one after sounds like babbling jibrish...so paranoid...so so paranoid,..another holocaust...heaven forbid?....haha...oh man...crazy genocidal jiahdists..haha...fuk.. this is not even intersting anymore...
its sad that nothing is coming from this..exccept death and destruction..and more jew haters...the anti muslim shit i guess has found its place amongst all...its kind of sad how its the religions that seem to cop it...i mean its nationalistic pride driving these people man not some thing they interpret God to be saying.... nationalism in iraq nationalism in lebenon which will only get fueled by all this...
forget about palestinian pride or nationalism..they have been completely humiliated and emasculated for so long i dont think their new generation comes equppied with any "metaphoric" testes...how can you be nationalistic when you dont have a nation... power to the palestinian people.. 5 babys died there again..."suspected" targets...ha..ahaha...wat a crock of shite...and im so sick of hearing this human shield soundbyte shit..its really unjustifiable...deplorable...pathetic..so please any of the whole 2 people defending this cold blooded murdering dont write some cheap shit like that....

[dig72]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

^^^^ I'm glad you liked what Uri has to say. Read some of his past articles, the man can pretty much tell what will happen in the future with incredible accuracy. His personal experience as a soldier, member of the Knesset and undeniable wealth of knowledge, cannot be ignored. http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html

Below is another recent article of his.

Uri Avnery
Junkies of War
08/05/2006


FOR ME it was a moment of shocking revelation.

I was listening to one of the daily speeches of our Prime Minister. He said: "We are a wonderful people!" He said: We have already won this war, it is the greatest victory in the history of our state. He said: We have changed the face of the Middle East. And more to that effect.

Well, I told myself, that's Olmert.
I have known him since he was 20-something. At that time, I was a member of the Knesset, and Olmert was the book-carrier (literally) of another member. Since then I have followed his career. He has never been anything but a party functionary, a small-time politician specializing in manipulations, a run-of-the-mill demagogue. On the way changed parties several times and served as a mayor with a grade of D minus, until he climbed on the bandwagon of Ariel Sharon. More or less by accident he was given the empty title of "Deputy Prime Minister", and when Sharon suffered his stroke, something happened that took Olmert too by surprise: he became Prime Minister.
Throughout his career he has remained a complete cynic, basically a right-winger but willing to pretend to be a liberal when faced with leftists.
So, I told myself, this is just another cynical speech. But suddenly a ghastly thought struck me: No, the man believes what he is saying!
Hard as it is to imagine, it seems that Olmert really believes that this is a successful war. That he is winning. That he has radically changed Israel's situation. That he is building a New Middle East. That he is a historic leader, far superior to Ariel Sharon (who, after all, was beaten in Lebanon and who allowed Hizbullah to build up its arsenal of rockets). That the longer he is allowed to go on with the war, the more his stature in history will grow.
Ehud Olmert has obviously cut himself off from reality. He lives in a bubble all by himself. His speeches show that he has a very real problem.
Of all the dangers facing Israel now, this is the most severe. Because this man is deciding, quite simply, the fate of millions: who will die, who will become a refugee, whose world will be shattered.
BUT OLMERT'S problem with megalomania is nothing compared to what has happened to Amir Peretz.
Exactly nine months ago, after his election as Labor Party chairman, Peretz made a speech in Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square in which he revealed his dream: that in the no-man's land between Israel and the Gaza Strip a football field will be built, and a match between the Israeli children of Sderot and the Palestinian children of nearby Bet-Hanoun will take place. An Israeli Martin Luther King.
Nine month's later, a monster has been born to us.
In the Knesset election campaign, Peretz appeared as a social revolutionary. He announced that he would change the face of Israeli society, set new national priorities, cut billions from the military budget and transfer them to education, welfare and measure to reduce the glaring gap between rich and poor. As a veteran peace-lover, he would, of course, achieve peace with the Palestinians and the entire Arab world.
This won him the votes of many citizens, including many who would normally never consider voting for the Labor Party.
What followed is history. He seduced himself, when Olmert offered him the Ministry of Defense. That was still Olmert the cynic. He knew, as we all did, that Peretz was walking into a trap, that as a rank civilian without serious military experience he would be easy prey for the generals. But Peretz did not shrink back. The supreme aim of his life is to become Prime Minister, and in order to become a credible candidate he believed that he must present himself as a security expert.
Since then, Peretz has become a rabid warmonger. Not only does he endorse all the demands of the generals, not only does he act as their spokesman - he has also helped to push Israel into war, and since then he has been demanding that it should continue, enlarge, widen, kill more, destroy more, occupy more. He himself declared, "Nasrallah will never forget the name Amir Peretz!" - like a spoilt child inscribing his name on a tourist attraction.
At the moment, he is trying to be more extreme even than Olmert. While the Prime Minister is afraid of continuing to advance, fearing that too many casualties from the rockets and the battle on the ground might cloud the brilliance of his victory, Peretz wants to reach the Litani River, whatever the cost. There's no other way - if one wants to become Prime Minister, one has to walk over dead bodies.
Thus a monster has been born to us. Rosemary's Baby.
TODAY, THE 25th day of the war, we can draw up an interim balance. What were the aims? What are the results?
"To destroy Hizbullah".
Who would have believed it, but on the 25th day Hizbullah is still standing and fighting. A few thousand fighters against the fifth strongest army in the world. Nobody speaks anymore about eliminating it. Not Olmert, not Peretz, not even Dan Halutz - the third corner of this unholy triangle.
"To weaken Hizbullah".
That is a watered down version of the first aim. It is more convenient, because it cannot be measured. After all, in any war both sides are weakened. People are killed and wounded, arms are destroyed, installations demolished. But while the Israeli army can mobilize another division and another one, and the Americans are rushing more bombs to us, can Hizbullah absorb such losses?
Nobody knows how many fighters the organization has lost. The Israeli army distributes estimates, without being able to prove them. The Lebanese speak about far smaller numbers, and do not have any proof either.
But that is not the main thing. An organization like Hizbullah has no problem in raising more and more volunteers for "holy war". Be their losses as they may, after the war the organization will train as many new fighters as necessary. Their arsenals will also be replenished with new weapons arriving from Iran and Syria. The border is long, it is impossible to seal it.
"To push Hizbullah away from the border".**
That is the crumpled aim, after the two preceding ones were shown to be unattainable. It, too, has not been realized yet, and never will be, because it is also unattainable. Most Hizbullah fighters are local boys of the South Lebanese towns and villages. They will continue to be there, overtly or covertly. No international force can prevent that, and certainly not the Lebanese Army.
The rockets can be moved further away. How many kilometers? Ten? Twenty? That will not remove the threat from Nahariya, Haifa and Tel-Aviv - especially since the range of the missiles is bound to grow with time, when technologically more advanced types arrive.
"To kill Hassan Nasrallah".
For the time being, so it seems, the report of his death was an exaggeration, to quote Mark Twain. True, in a kind of parody of the Entebbe exploit, Nasrallah was pulled out of a hospital in Baalbek, but it was another Hassan Nasrallah. Oops.
In the meantime, the original Nasrallah is flourishing. Compared to the kitschy speeches of Olmert, with their endless clichés and the fist thumping on the table, the Hizbullah leader comes over as a sober speaker, measured and mostly quite credible.
"To return to the Israeli army the power of deterrence".
Nobody has any doubt that the Israeli army is a good, professional army, capable of defeating regular armies. But this war proves that it is not capable of achieving a military decision against an able guerilla organization with determined fighters. If Hizbullah is alive and kicking after 25 days, the deterrence power of the Israeli army has been weakened - whatever happens from now on.
From this point of view, the war has harmed the security of Israel. It has proved that the Israeli rear is exposed, that the Hizbullah fighters are not inferior to the Israeli soldiers, that there is no de-luxe war, that the Air Force cannot win without land forces. Not even in ideal circumstances, when the other side has no anti-air defense to speak of.
Some comfort themselves with the thought that "the Arabs have seen that we are crazy". We react to a small local provocation with an orgy of killing and destruction, destroying whole countries, a sort of national amok. But running amok is not a policy. It does not solve any problem. It is an uncontrollable reflex. It does not allow for straight thinking. It even allows the other side to manipulate us with premeditated provocations.
"Deploying an International Force along the border".
That is a kind of emergency exit, after all the other aims have gone up in smoke.
At the beginning of the war, Olmert himself strenuously objected to such a force, because it would restrict the freedom of action of the Israeli army. Clearly, no international force will dare to come, unless there is a cease-fire in place and an agreement with Hizbullah has been reached. Nobody wants to be exposed to cross-fire. Therefore, this force will also have to serve Hisbullah's interests, for fear of a guerilla war starting against it. Have all the sacrifices been made for this?
"We shall create a new situation in the Middle East".
This aim has indeed been achieved - but not the way Olmert told himself (and us).
The long-range results of the war are not immediately obvious. They belong to the category defined by Bismarck as "imponderables" - things that cannot be measured.
Every day on their TV screens tens of millions of Arabs and hundred of millions of Muslims see the atrocious pictures of crushed babies, the sights of the horrible destruction. These are deeply imprinted in the consciousness of the masses and will leave behind them an accumulation of anger and hatred that is far more dangerous than an arsenal of missiles. In these 25 days, thousands of new suicide bombers have been created. And as the stature of Nasrallah as the hero of the Arab world increases, so the respect for the "moderate" Arab regimes hit new lows - the very regimes that the US and Israel rely on for creating the New Middle East.
AFTER THE 25th day, the 26th will arrive, and so on and on. President Bush, who pushed us into this war to start with, is now pushing us to fight on ("Until the last Israeli soldier," as the saying goes.) Like Olmert, he lives in an imaginary world.
Bush, Olmert and their like can incite and draw the masses behind them, until the call of "the Emperor is naked" finds receptive ears.
One of the most sickening sights of the war is the picture of the international diplomats doing everything they can to enable Olmert & Co. to go on with the war. The UN has long since become an agent of the White House. Hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness are having a field day, while lives are being destroyed and the dead buried on both sides of the border.
Olmert wants to "gain" as many days as possible for continued fighting. What sort of gain is this? We are conquering South Lebanon as flies conquer fly-paper. Generals present maps with impressive arrows to show how Hizbullah is being pushed north. That might be convincing - if we were talking about a front-line in a war with a regular army, as taught in Staff College. But this is a different war altogether. In the conquered area, Hizbullah people remain, and our soldiers are exposed to attacks of the kind in which Hizbullah has excelled from its first day.
So we shall get to the Litani River. Beyond it, there is another river, and another one. Lebanon has an abundance of rivers we can get to.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for these two junkies, Olmert and Peretz, to come down from their "high" and study the map.

[Bululu]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

Mr, Dave talking about Shebaa farms ,foreign m the inister of Syria on a visit to Beirut declared that these farms are 100% Lebanesse , so I don't think that you know better than the Syrians (you said on earlier post that its theirs) , give it back to the Lebanesse.

[davetlv]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

Yet again you are wrong Bululu

Syria and the Shebaa Farms Dispute
by Gary C. Gambill - May 2001
http://www.meib.org/articles/0105_l1.htm

When Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri told members of the US congressional Foreign Affairs Committee last month that Hezbollah's repeated attacks against Israeli troops stationed in the Shebaa Farms area were as legitimate as "France's resistance to Nazi Germany's occupation," one might have gotten the impression that the visiting premier considers Israeli control of the disputed enclave to be an intolerable affront to the Lebanese nation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hariri's exaggerated analogy was just for show. However, the target audience was not the American congressmen assembled before him, but Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose military continues to maintain an iron grip on Lebanon. For months, Hariri had criticized Hezbollah attacks against Israeli forces, arguing that they scared away much-needed foreign investment in the Lebanese economy. But when Hariri's newspaper openly questioned the wisdom of an April 14 Hezbollah operation that killed an Israeli soldier and prompted the Israeli air force to demolish a Syrian radar station,1 Assad angrily canceled a scheduled meeting in Damascus with the Lebanese premier and refused to receive him for an entire month. Pro-Syrian ministers in Hariri's own cabinet virulently criticized their ostensible superior to his face and Assad's allies in the Lebanese media launched a series of unsavory invectives.

The Shebaa Farms "dispute" is a figment of no one's imagination, but a deliberately-crafted Syrian pretext for sponsoring paramilitary attacks against Israel and a justification for its continuing occupation of Lebanon.

Introduction

The internationally-recognized border between Lebanon and Israel is based on the territorial line between Palestine and the states of Syria and Lebanon drawn by Britain and France in 1923. This same border was established as the Armistice Demarcation Line (ADL) between Israel and Lebanon in 1949.2 Until 1978, neither state occupied any territory in violation of this demarcation line.

When Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 425, which called upon Israel to "withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory" and established the UN Interim Force in Lebanon [UNIFIL] "for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces."3 The official position of the UN has always been that Resolution 425 required Israeli forces to withdraw to the pre-1978 line of separation, that is, to the 1949 ADL.

Until recently, successive Lebanese governments explicitly endorsed this position - the 1949 ADL was considered sacrosanct. In fact, the 1989 Ta'if Accord which established the Second Lebanese Republic explicitly calls for adherence "to the truce agreement signed on March 23, 1949" and implementation of Resolution 425.4

However, as Israel forces began preparations for a unilateral withdrawal to the international border during the Fall of 1999, Lebanese officials abandoned this long-held position under pressure from Syria, which feared that an Israeli pullout would deprive it of a valuable bargaining chip - the ability to subject Israeli forces to costly attacks by Hezbollah and other Syrian-sponsored paramilitary groups in Lebanon, without risking reprisals against its own territory.

Initially, the Syrians were convinced that Israel would not pull out of Lebanon unless doing so would lead to an Israeli-Lebanese peace treaty based on the 1949 ADL. Thus, in December 1999, Lebanese Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss announced that seven villages on the other side of the 1949 demarcation line (Tarbikha, Abil al-Qamh, Hunin, al-Malikiyya, al-Nabi Yusha, Qadas and Saliha) rightfully belonged to Lebanon and that their recovery "remains a Lebanese demand."5

However, it soon became clear that Israel was willing to settle for the mere cessation of hostilities. Since the seven villages mentioned above are internationally recognized as Israeli territory, Israeli officials were confident that the Syrians and their Lebanese client regime would not try to use this claim to legitimize continued Hezbollah attacks. As Israel's preparations for a pullout continued unabated throughout the Spring of 2000, the Syrians realized that a more viable pretext for the continuation of paramilitary attacks was now needed to discourage an Israeli withdrawal.

On April 17, Israel officially informed the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan of its intent to withdraw its forces from south Lebanon "in full accordance" with UN Security Council Resolution 425. Shortly thereafter, Annan dispatched his special Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, and a team of experts to meet with Israeli and Lebanese officials and verify that both sides were in agreement on the conditions required by Resolution 425. Upon arriving in Beirut, the UN team encountered an eleventh hour objection from Lebanese officials. As a UN report later characterized the incident, "the Government of Lebanon informed the United Nations of its new position regarding the definition of its territory."6 This new territorial claim had never before even been mentioned by a representative of the Lebanese government.

The Shebaa Farms

Roed-Larsen was told that, in addition to the areas occupied in 1978, Israeli forces seized a piece of Lebanese territory during the 1967 Six Day War called the Shebaa Farms, a 25 square kilometer area consisting of 14 farms located south of Shebaa, a Lebanese village on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. Since Lebanon was not a participant in the Six Day War, UN representatives were understandably skeptical, pointing out that the 1923 Anglo-French demarcation and the 1949 Armistice line clearly designated the area as Syrian territory.

However, Lebanese officials insisted that Syria had officially given the territory to Lebanon in 1951 (why such a "gift" would have been made was never plausibly explained). According to the Lebanese claim, there are no international records of the boundary adjustment since Lebanese and Syrian officials decided not to register it with the UN (why such a decision would have been made has also not been explained). In fact, the officials in Beirut were unable to produce any documents concerning the transfer. One senior government source in Beirut later explained that this was because the border adjustment was "a kind of oral agreement" between the two countries and "nothing was documented specifically."7

Lebanese officials pointed to the fact that a number of residents in the area have land deeds stamped by the Lebanese government, but UN officials remained unimpressed. It is not difficult to see why. A Lebanese newspaper described the land deed of one Shebaa resident as "handwritten and signed on a yellowing piece of paper in pencil and ink."8 Moreover, nearly all of the deeds date back to the 1940's, before the alleged transfer agreement was signed, so they do not attest to Lebanese sovereignty over the area (it is quite common for Lebanese to own land in Syria and vice versa).

Both military and civilian Lebanese maps produced after 1951 locate the Shebaa Farms on the Syrian side of the border. Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 specifically pinpoint several of the Shebaa Farms, including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa and Ramta, all of which are designated as being located inside Syria. Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms. Timur Goksel, a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told the BBC that "on all maps the UN has been able to find, the farms are seen on the Syrian side [of the border]."9

On May 22, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan gently rebuffed the Syrian/Lebanese claim in his report to the UN Security Council and recommended that the line separating the areas of operation of UNFIL and the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights (which would exclude the Shebaa Farms) be used for the purposes of determining Israel's compliance with Resolution 425. His justification for this decision merits a direct quotation:

This UNIFIL-UNDOF line coincides with the border line most commonly found on maps issued by the Government of Lebanon, including those published after 1966. This line has also been accepted by the Government of Lebanon for 22 years in the context of the UNIFIL area of operations. In addition, this same line was approved by the Governments of Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic in their 1974 Disengagement Agreement.

The report called upon the Lebanese government to "resume the normal responsibilities of a State throughout the area," and added that "the Lebanese armed forces should ensure that all national territory falls under the effective authority of the government."10

The Syrians had no intention of permitting the Lebanese government to do either.

The Campaign to "Liberate" the Shebaa Farms

Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in late May 2000 and quickly secured the UN's recognition that it had complied fully with the terms of Resolution 425. Under American pressure, the Lebanese regime grudgingly announced that it would abide by the blue line delineated by the UN. However, Damascus permitted the Lebanese government to deploy only a token force of 500 police and 500 soldiers to areas of south Lebanon evacuated by the Israelis. This force was not allowed either to disarm Hezbollah guerrillas or to take up positions along the blue line.

For several months, Hezbollah refrained from launching any operations against Israeli forces. Then, in September, internal developments in Lebanon necessitated that the Syrians change course. On September 20, the Council of Maronite Archbishops issued an unprecedented statement calling upon Syria to "completely withdraw" its military forces from Lebanon.

Initially, the Syrians reacted by pressing Muslim religious figures in Lebanon to virulently condemn Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir. This clearly backfired -most Christian politicians expressed support for the document, while Muslim politicians began calling for a "national dialogue." Syrian officials decided that the calm in south Lebanon had gone to the heads of the Lebanese. A distraction was needed to refocus attention on Israel.

On October 7, Hezbollah launched a daring attack into the Shebaa Farms area and abducted three Israeli soldiers. All subsequent Hezbollah operations in the Shebaa Farms closely followed major outbursts of Lebanese opposition to the Syrian occupation. Attacks on November 16 and November 26 occurred just days after major demonstrations took place in Lebanon.

A February 16 attack that killed an Israeli soldier came just four days after a Lebanese television station conducted a live interview with Michel Aoun, the country's leading opposition figure in exile, and broadcast the results of a viewer poll showing that over 90% of Lebanese agreed with him. Ironically, just one day before the attack, Prime Minister Hariri confidently reassured a group of investors in Paris that there would be no more outbreaks of violence in south Lebanon. "We have a clear agreement with our Syrian brothers in this matter," said Hariri, "There will be no provocations on our part."11

The Hezbollah attack on April 14 came just days after demonstrations by Lebanese nationalists to mark the anniversary of the Lebanese civil war were called off amid a series of violent attacks against opposition figures (see "Syria's Campaign to Silence Lebanese Muslims" in the April 2001 issue of MEIB).

However, despite impressive attempts by Syria and its allies in Lebanon to mobilize popular support for "liberating" the Shebaa Farms, public opinion on the matter is decidedly unenthusiastic. Even among Lebanese Shi'ites, who were strongly supportive of Hezbollah's resistance to the Israeli occupation, there is growing opposition to the group's attacks into the Shebaa Farms area. After the February 16 attack, for example, former MP Habib Sadek, the president of the Southern Lebanon Cultural Council, co-signed a statement which said that the Lebanese should not be required to bear the "burden" of the Arab-Israeli conflict alone, criticized the "complete failure of the Lebanese authorities in assuming the minimum of national responsibility in the South" and called upon the government to "rectify Lebanese-Syrian relations."12

In the two Lebanese towns closest to the disputed area, Shebaa and Kfar Shouba, few people consider the Shebaa Farms to be worth fighting for. Local residents deeply resent the Hezbollah guerrillas who have attacked Israeli forces from positions nearby, drawing Israeli retaliatory fire. "The Shebaa farms belong to us, but for the moment they are a trial of strength between Syria and Israel, and we are paying the price," Ismail Dalli, who owns the largest shop in Shebaa, told a reporter for Agence France Press this month.13

The Road Ahead

The renewal of hostilities has proven to be a severe setback for Prime Minister Hariri's efforts to raise money for debt-relief loans and other subsidies from the international community. Earlier this month, Kofi Annan issued a formal recommendation that the UNIFIL force in south Lebanon be reduced in stages from 5,600 to 2,000 peacekeepers over the next 14 months. Lebanese officials vehemently objected, and for good reason - the departure of UN peacekeepers from a tense conflict area is generally perceived in the international business community to be an indication of increased investment risk.

However, the downsizing of UNIFIL is largely the result of the Lebanese government's unwillingness to recognize the UN blue line and its refusal to allow peacekeepers to deploy at key areas along the border, most notably at the Fatima Gate, where

Hezbollah regularly busses in supporters to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers stationed on the other side of the border. In February, most residents of Kfar Shouba signed a petition asking UNIFIL to deploy in their village, but the Lebanese government refused to permit it.

Despite Lebanese objections, on May 16 the UN Security Council endorsed the UNIFIL reduction and subjected the Lebanese government to remarkably unequivocal criticism for its stance on the Shebaa Farms. Afterwards, Security Council president James B. Cunningham stated that members of the council were "deeply concerned by assertions that the Blue Line is not valid in the Shebaa Farms area. This area is governed by UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which are applicable to the occupied Syrian Golan."

The most recent setback came earlier this month, when the US House of Representatives voted 216-210 to approve an amendment to the State Department's authorization bill that will terminate $35 million in American economic assistance unless the Lebanese government deploys its army along the border within six months. Although the American ambassador in Lebanon, David Satterfield, quickly assured Lebanese officials that the State Department opposes "any legislation to terminate assistance," Senate approval of the measure appears likely.

There is very little that Hariri can do about this state of affairs. Syria has permitted Hariri to exert control only over ministries and government agencies dealing with economic and financial matters. The security and foreign policy organs of the state are all under the direct or indirect control of loyal allies of Syria. President Emile Lahoud, who maintains a strong personal dislike of Hariri, is fiercely loyal to the Assad regime (largely because he has little countervailing support within his own Christian community). The Interior Ministry is headed by Lahoud's son-in-law, Elias Murr. Defense Minister Khalil Hrawi has close, long-standing ties to Maj. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, the head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud is a political ally of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ex-militia warlord whose loyalty to Syria is unswerving.

Earlier this month, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz published an editorial calling for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw Israeli forces from the Shebaa Farms. "The Lebanese government will then be unable to escape from deploying its army on the grounds that Israel is still occupying the Shebaa Farms," said the editorial. "The official pretext for Hezbollah to continue holding on to its arms and continue fighting will also be eliminated." This view is gradually becoming more prevalent in the Israeli media.

However, an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa will have little impact on Syrian-sponsored paramilitary attacks against Israeli forces. Lebanese officials and Hezbollah leaders have already begun making claims to a village called Nkhaile on the Israeli side of the blue line. During a press conference on May 22, senior Hezbollah commander Hajj Mustafa pledged to continue fighting for "as long as there is an inch of land under occupation." Asked if Hezbollah will fight to liberate Nkhaile in the event that Israel pulls out of the Shebaa Farms, Mustafa replied, "This is for [consideration] afterward."14

Notes
1 Al-Mustaqbal (Beirut), 15 April 2001.
2 For an in-depth discussion of this process, see Frederic C. Hof, "Defining Full Withdrawal: Re-marking the Lebanese-Israeli Border," Middle East Insight, May-June 2000.
3 UN Security Council Resolution 425, articles 2 and 3.
4 The full text of the Ta'if Accord was republished in Habib Malik, Between Damascus and Jerusalem: Lebanon and Middle East Peace (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1997), pp. 113-123.
5 Hof (2000).
6 United Nations Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolutions 425 (1978 ) and 426 (1978 ), Document S/2000/460, 22 May 2000, p. 3. Italics added for emphasis.
7 The Daily Star (Beirut), 9 May 2000.
8 The Daily Star (Beirut), 29 May 2000.
9 BBC News (London), 25 May 2000.
10 Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolutions 425 (1978 ) and 426 (1978 ), pp. 3, 5.
11 Quoted in Nicholas Blanford, "Hizbullah Hoist by Its Own Petard," The Middle East, April 2001.
12 The Daily Star (Beirut), 24 February 2001.
13 AFP, 23 May 2001.
14 The Daily Star (Beirut), 23 May 2001.

[Bululu]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

I told you , your problem is that you know more than anybody else , even better than the SYRIAN prime minister himself , who should be claiming this land.

[davetlv]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

I take it you never read the article

[thesightless]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

THE APOLOGY. (how many are going unnoticed.) but this wont be a headline, simply because the lie generated more news.

Reuters admits doctoring Beirut photo
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL


Talkbacks for this article: 200

In the most recent in a series of online controversies to take on the mainstream media, a series of Web sites discredited a Reuters photograph of the fighting in Lebanon, forcing the news agency to issue an apology and remove the image from their archives.
The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which shows plumes of smoke rising from downtown Beirut after an IAF bombing, appeared to have been doctored to show more intense smoke and destruction over the city.
The Reuters news agency issued a statement acknowledging that "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvenience."
Reuters' head of PR Moira Whittle said that "Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."
"As soon as the allegation came to light, the photograph, filed on Saturday 5 August, was removed from the file and a replacement, showing the same scene, was sent," she added. "The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software."
Web logs, however, are claiming the incident as a victory for Web sites that have waged their own war against the mainstream media since the violence in the North began.
"It's a sad day if these accusations are true," said Jason Fritz, a photographer who discussed the issue on SportsShooters.com, a site for professional photographers. "It is our job as journalists to bring these things up... Every morning, I pick up a copy of the LA Times, and see the outstanding work their photographers are doing on both sides of the border. It is obvious to me that there are moving pictures to be made there, if photographers would spend less time doctoring bad pictures in photo shop, and more time walking the streets of the cities of Lebanon."
The US-based blog LittleGreenFootballs.com first wrote about the controversy and included a series of detailed animations drawing attention to doctored elements of the photograph.
"This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop "clone" tool to add more smoke to the image," wrote Charles Johnson a regular contributor to LittleGreenFootballs.
Many have questioned how a photograph that appears so clearly doctored to so many non-professional photographers made it past the Reuters photo editor who oversaw the photographer's work. Others, however, pointed out that since the violence began, news agencies have had to increasingly rely on freelance photographers and writers to cover the breaking news events in the region.
"Everyone is culpable if this photo wasn't vetted in camera-to-print process. Ultimately though, it rests on the photographer. Editors, while casting a suspicious eye, should not have to examine photos for forgeries and fakes for every image that comes into the system," wrote Fritz.
While Hajj has been suspended, bloggers have demanded that Reuters evaluate past work that he has done for the agencies, which includes some of the more poignant images from the Kafr Kana incident.
On the day that the IAF bombed Kana, images of lifeless babies and women began to flood the media, causing outrage over the attack that Lebanese police said killed nearly 60 civilians. Since then, an official report has revealed that 28 civilians died in the attack.

Continued
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[thesightless]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

someone better say something soon, b/c the nuts are gathering.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20041092-601,00.html

[Bululu]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

Go bomb INDONESIA the sightless before they get to you .

[dig72]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

George Galloway, telling it like it is.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14391.htm

[dig72]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

Noam Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine
By Kaveh Afrasiabi of Global Interfaith Peace
08/07/06 "Information Clearing House" -- --

Do you agree with the argument that Israel's military offensive in Lebanon is "legally and morally justified?"
Noam Chomsky: The invasion itself is a serious breach of international law, and major war crimes are being committed as it proceeds. There is no legal justification.
The "moral justification" is supposed to be that capturing soldiers in a cross-border raid, and killing others, is an outrageous crime. We know, for certain, that Israel, the United States and other Western governments, as well as the mainstream of articulate Western opinion, do not believe a word of that. Sufficient evidence is their tolerance for many years of US-backed Israeli crimes in Lebanon, including four invasions before this one, occupation in violation of Security Council orders for 22 years, and regular killings and abductions. To mention just one question that every journal should be answering: When did Nasrallah assume a leadership role? Answer: When the Rabin government escalated its crimes in Lebanon, murdering Sheikh Abbas Mussawi and his wife and child with missiles fired from a US helicopter. Nasrallah was chosen as his successor. Only one of innumerable cases. There is, after all, a good reason why last February, 70% of Lebanese called for the capture of Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchange.
The conclusion is underscored, dramatically, by the current upsurge of violence, which began after the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25. Every published Western "timeline" takes that as the opening event. Yet the day before, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother, and sent them to the Israeli prison system where they can join innumerable other Palestinians, many held without charges -- hence kidnapped. Kidnapping of civilians is a far worse crime than capture of soldiers. The Western response was quite revealing: a few casual comments, otherwise silence. The major media did not even bother reporting it. That fact alone demonstrates, with brutal clarity, that there is no moral justification for the sharp escalation of attacks in Gaza or the destruction of Lebanon, and that the Western show of outrage about kidnapping is cynical fraud.
Much has been said about Israel's right to defend itself from its enemies who are taking advantage of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, thus causing the latest chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Do you agree?
NC: Israel certainly has a right to defend itself, but no state has the right to "defend" occupied territories. When the World Court condemned Israel's "separation wall," even a US Justice, Judge Buergenthal, declared that any part of it built to defend Israeli settlements is "ipso facto in violation of international humanitarian law," because the settlements themselves are illegal.
The withdrawal of a few thousand illegal settlers from Gaza was publicly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. It has now been formalized by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the support of Washington, as a program of annexation of valuable occupied lands and major resources (particularly water) and cantonization of the remaining territories, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful piece of Jerusalem will be granted to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned, since Israel is to take over the Jordan valley. Gaza, too, remains imprisoned and Israel carries out attacks there at will.
Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, by the United States and Israel as well. Therefore, Israel still occupies Gaza, and cannot claim self-defense in territories it occupies in either of the two parts of Palestine. It is Israel and the United States that are radically violating international law. They are now seeking to consummate long-standing plans to eliminate Palestinian national rights for good.
The United States has refused to call for an immediate cease-fire, arguing that this would mean a return to the status quo ante, yet we are witnessing a "back to the past" re-occupation of parts of Lebanon, and Lebanon's rapid decline to political chaos by the current conflict. Is the US policy correct?
NC: It is correct from the point of view of those who want to ensure that Israel, by now virtually an offshore US military base and high-tech center, dominates the region, without any challenge to its rule as it proceeds to destroy Palestine. And there are side advantages, such as eliminating any Lebanese-based deterrent if US-Israel decide to attack Iran.
They may also hope to set up a client regime in Lebanon of the kind that Ariel Sharon sought to create when he invaded Lebanon in 1982, destroying much of the country and killing some 15-20,000 people.
What will be the likely outcome of this "two-pronged" crisis in Lebanon and the occupied territories, in the near and long-term?
NC: We cannot predict much. There are too many uncertainties. One very likely consequence, as the United States and Israel surely anticipated, is a significant increase in jihadi-style terrorism as anger and hatred directed against the United States, Israel, and Britain sweep the Arab and Muslim worlds. Another is that Nasrallah, whether he survives or is killed, will become an even more important symbol of resistance to US-Israeli aggression. Hezbollah already has a phenomenal 87% support in Lebanon itself, and its resistance has energized popular opinion to such an extent that even the oldest and closest US allies have been compelled to say that "If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire." That's from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who knows better than to condemn the United States directly.
What steps do you recommend for the current hostilities to be brought to an end and a lasting peace established?
NC: The basic steps are well understood: a cease-fire and exchange of prisoners; withdrawal of occupying forces; continuation of the "national dialogue" within Lebanon; and acceptance of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement for Israel-Palestine, which has been unilaterally blocked by the United States and Israel for thirty years. There is, as always, much more to say, but those are the essentials.
Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the author of numerous books, and his latest is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006).
Kaveh Afrasiabi is the founder and director of Global Interfaith Peace, and a former political science professor at Tehran University. He is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press).

[davetlv]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

What is it with lefties and Galloway that they can forgive the fact that the man is a liar, cheat and paid media whore - even when you ignore the issues raised by his case with the Daily Telegraph.

Whislt his tirade on SKY was fun to watch lets not forget exactly who that man is shall we. A liar, a cheat and a paid media whore.

There are numerous better and more honest and principled british politicans you could have quoted Dig in place of this scum bag. (As an example I would look at Tony Benn, whilst i find his views a bit repulsive, he at least is an honest man and on nobodys pay role)

1 Galloway has written: 'If newspaper critics had focused on the incongruity of a left-wing campaigner obtaining support for his campaigning organisations from semi-feudal monarchies and businessmen such as Mr Zureikat, who represented some of the world's biggest companies in Iraq, that would have been a legitimate line of attack ' though my defence would have been that needs must'.
This is an admission that he obtained finance for his political activities from:
(a) the semi-feudal monarchies of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia;
(b) the Ba'athist-connected businessman Fawaz Zureikat.
According to Galloway: 'Around ?500,000 came from the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia gave ?100,000 and... [of the rest] the bulk came from Zureikat'.
His explanation for this? 'My defence would be that needs must'.


2 The Mariam Appeal was set up to help a little girl with leukemia and provide medical aid to Iraq. Galloway has admitted that the great bulk of the money raised for it was used for his political campaigning. 'It was always a political campaign from the very beginning'.


3 He says that he visited Iraq 'maybe 100 times' between 1993 and 2002 (nearly once a month). Despite the sums involved, which would be huge for any sort of left-wing campaign, there is no record of the Mariam Appeal or his other vehicles, the Emergency Committee on Iraq and the Great Britain Iraq Society, organising much of our sort of campaigning activity: demonstrations, pickets, meetings, street stalls, and so on. The 'political campaigning' consisted almost entirely of Galloway's visits to Iraq.


4 Galloway has not disputed reports from journalists who joined him on his flights to Baghdad that when there he spent most of his time with top officials of the dictatorship. To the claim by the Daily Telegraph that he met a junior Iraqi intelligence agent, he replies that he could have no call to do such a thing, since he had good connections with senior leaders of the regime. He says he spent Christmas Day 1999 with Saddam's deputy Tariq Aziz, going to church with him, having lunch at Tariq Aziz's house, and going to a party in the evening.


5 Galloway has claimed that in his contacts with Tariq Aziz he was trying to be helpful to the British government. 'Galloway says the British government was aware of where he spent that Christmas [1999] and with whom. He says he privately told Peter Hain, the then minister at the Foreign Office for Middle East affairs, and suggested opening a channel of dialogue as a means of resolving the Iraqi crisis. ?Hain agreed we should start such a dialogue'. A month later, according to Galloway, Hain had begun briefing journalists that Galloway was ?close' to Tariq Aziz' (Sunday Herald). Hain denies Galloway's account.


6 Galloway has never refuted the allegation that he published the newspaper East with money paid out by the Pakistani governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in order to promote in Britain their political ends on the Kashmir question.

Taken from here

[dig72]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

By Robert Fisk

08/07/06 "The Independent" -- -- So the great and the good on the East River laboured at the United Nations Security Council - and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"

And there it all was again, the warmed-up peace proposals of Israel's 1982 invasion, full of buffer zones and disarmament and "strict respect by all parties" - a rousing chortle here, no doubt, from Hizbollah members - and the need for Lebanese sovereignty. It didn't even demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces, a point that Walid Moallem, Syria's Foreign Minister - and the man the Americans will eventually have to negotiate with - seized upon with more than alacrity. It was a dead UN resolution without a total Israeli retreat, he said on a strategic trip to Beirut.

A close analysis of the American-French draft - the fingerprints of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, were almost smudging the paragraphs - showed just who is running Washington's Middle East policy: Israel. And one wondered how even Tony Blair would want to associate himself with this nonsense. It made no reference to the obscenely disproportionate violence employed by Israel - just a sleek reference to "hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides" - and it made only passing reference to Hizbollah's demand that it would only release the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July in return for Lebanese and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Security Council said it was "mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at settling the issue [sic] of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel". I bet Hizbollah were impressed by the "mindful" bit, not to mention the "sensitivity" and the soft, slippery word "settle" - an issue which can be "settled" in maybe 20 years' time. Then came the real coup de grâce. A demand for the "total cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks" and the "immediate cessation" by Israel of "all offensive military operations". Bit of a problem there, as Hizbollah spotted at once. They have to lay down their arms.

Had the council demanded an immediate resolution on the future of the Shebaa farms, the Israeli-occupied territory which once belonged to mandate Lebanon - and for whose "liberation" the Hizbollah have fought - the whole fandango might have stood a chance. After all, Shebaa is the only raison d'être that the Hizbollah can produce for continuing their reckless, ruthless, illegal war across the UN blue line in southern Lebanon. But the UN document wished only to see a delineation of Lebanon's borders "including in the Shebaa farms area". There was even a wonderful paragraph - Number 9 for aficionados of UN bumf - which "calls on all parties to co-operate ... with the Security Council". So the Hizbollah are to co-operate, are they, with the austere diplomats of this august and wise body? Isn't that exalting a guerrilla army a little bit more upmarket than it deserves?

No one was fooled and few disagreed with Syria's Walid Moallem when he said the UN's draft resolution was "a recipe for continuing the war". As both the Hizbollah and the Israelis did yesterday, the former killing 13 Israelis and the latter bombing houses in Ansar - once an Israeli POW camp - which destroyed five more Lebanese civilian lives. Mohamed Fneish, a Hizbollah government minister - who scarcely represents all Lebanese but talks as if he does - thundered away about how "we" [presumably the Hizbollah, rather than the Lebanese] will abide by it [the resolution] on condition that no Israeli soldiers remains inside Lebanese land."

There were more Israeli air attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs yesterday - though heaven knows what is left there to destroy - ensuring that even more Shia Muslim civilians will remain refugees. Fearful that the Israelis will bomb their trucks and claim they were carrying missiles, the garbage collectors of this city have abandoned their vehicles and the familiar 1982 stench of burning rubbish now drifts through the evening streets. Petrol is now so scarce that a tank-full yesterday cost £250.

About the only gift to Lebanon in the UN resolution was the expressed need to provide the UN with remaining Israeli maps of landmines in Lebanon. But Israel has again dropped lethal ordnance all over southern Lebanon. Oh yes, and as usual, the UN draft on these ambitious, hopelessly conceived ideas "decides to remain actively seized of the matter". You bet it does. And so, as they say, the war goes on.

What the UN wants...

* A full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations;

* Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:

* Strict respect by all parties for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Israel and Lebanon;

* Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;

* Delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including in the Shebaa farms area;

* Security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Lebanese armed and security forces, and of UN-mandated international forces;

* Full implementation of the relevant provisions ... that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon;

* Deployment of an international force in Lebanon;

* The Secretary General to develop, in liaison with key international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions ... and to present those proposals to the Security Council within 30 days;

* The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), upon cessation of hostilities, to monitor its implementation and extend assistance to ensure humanitarian access to civilians and the safe return of displaced persons;

* The government of Lebanon to ensure arms or related material are not imported into Lebanon without its consent and requests UNIFIL, conditions permitting, to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;

* The Secretary-General to report to the Council within one week on the implementation and provide any relevant information in light of the Council's intention to adopt a further resolution

[runningman]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

wow you guys are going at it.. need some popcorn soon..

[thesightless]

Re: 16 civilians and 20 soldiers..vs. 357 officially killed

im sitting back watching this. someone come up with a thought here rather than linking articles non stop.... and dont quote noam... everyone knows he is a monkey. he has something to say about everything, and yet his 'expertise' is macro economics...


and i only posted the indonesia thread because i am still waiting for a voice of reason to come up within the middle eastern culture. right there is a prime exazmple of someone hijakcing the religion by using the word jihad, and yet, there isnt one single cleric outside of north america who voices against them hijacking a religion. if someone started using the word crusade, the pope and other christian sect eladers would be like ''shut up stupid'' ... cant deny that, they did it when that asshat pay robertson called for chavez to be killed....