Ceasefire too soon?

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

So there is going to be a ceasefire soon - however - the terrorists are not properly dealt with yet - the disarming of hezbollah is something that will not take place if things are settled in this fashion - it seems to me that the 'free world' has dropped the ball as it were in leaving Israel to have to fight this battle on their own.

 

So where is the global resolve to solve these problems? So in any event the issue is in how to get these [all] terrorists to reform their understandings? How shall that happen?

[Guest guest]

 

So there is going to be a ceasefire soon - however - the terrorists are not properly dealt with yet - the disarming of hezbollah is something that will not take place if things are settled in this fashion - it seems to me that the 'free world' has dropped the ball as it were in leaving Israel to have to fight this battle on their own.

 

So where is the global resolve to solve these problems? So in any event the issue is in how to get these [all] terrorists to reform their understandings? How shall that happen?

 

Peace borther! Everything is a planned staging. Nothing is trusted to chance.

We might think there's something out of control - wrong! Very wrong. Everything happens according a well cleverly devised plan. Wait and see!

[Guest guest]

Why a delay in ceasefire, Bhakta Don? Is it because you want Israel to kill more people? Israel started the war to get bacl their soldiers, to dismantle terrorist camps etc., but it seems as if they've suffered a defeat at the hands of hezbulah. A ceasefire is a dignified exit for them.

[Samia]

 

Why a delay in ceasefire, Bhakta Don? Is it because you want Israel to kill more people? Israel started the war to get bacl their soldiers, to dismantle terrorist camps etc., but it seems as if they've suffered a defeat at the hands of hezbulah. A ceasefire is a dignified exit for them.

 

The ceasefire is the only defeat Israel has suffered, once again they will leave their security to the UN. The same UN that promised them Hezbolla would be disarmed years ago.

 

Bhakta Don you ask about global resolve ? Has there EVER been such a thing ? Rwanda ? Sudan ? Heck, Africa Period. The world could cure starvation in a few short years if the people in the towers really cared. If they lack the heart and will to feed they most definatly lack the heart for what needs to be done in this situation.

 

 

[Guest guest]

As the 6am ceasefire takes effect... the real war begins

 

Robert Fisk – The Independent August 14, 2006

 

The real war in Lebanon begins today. The world may believe - and Israel may believe - that the UN ceasefire due to come into effect at 6am today will mark the beginning of the end of the latest dirty war in Lebanon after up to 1,000 Lebanese civilians and more than 30 Israeli civilians have been killed. But the reality is quite different and will suffer no such self-delusion: the Israeli army, reeling under the Hizbollah's onslaught of the past 24 hours, is now facing the harshest guerrilla war in its history. And it is a war they may well lose.

 

In all, at least 39 - possibly 43 - Israeli soldiers have been killed in the past day as Hizbollah guerrillas, still launching missiles into Israel itself, have fought back against Israel's massive land invasion into Lebanon.

 

Israeli military authorities talked of "cleaning" and "mopping up" operations by their soldiers south of the Litani river but, to the Lebanese, it seems as if it is the Hizbollah that have been doing the "mopping up". By last night, the Israelis had not even been able to reach the dead crew of a helicopter - shot down on Saturday night - which crashed into a Lebanese valley.

 

Officially, Israel has now accepted the UN ceasefire that calls for an end to all Israeli offensive military operations and Hizbollah attacks, and the Hizbollah have stated that they will abide by the ceasefire - providing no Israeli troops remain inside Lebanon. But 10,000 Israeli soldiers - the Israelis even suggest 30,000, although no one in Beirut takes that seriously - have now entered the country and every one of them is a Hizbollah target.

 

From this morning, Hizbollah's operations will be directed solely against the invasion force. And the Israelis cannot afford to lose 40 men a day. Unable to shoot down the Israeli F-16 aircraft that have laid waste to much of Lebanon, the Hizbollah have, for years, prayed and longed and waited for the moment when they could attack the Israeli army on the ground.

 

Now they are set to put their long-planned campaign into operation. Thousands of their members remain alive and armed in the ruined hill villages of southern Lebanon for just this moment and, only hours after their leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, warned Israel on Saturday that his men were waiting for them on the banks of the Litani river, the Hizbollah sprang their trap, killing more than 20 Israeli soldiers in less than three hours.

 

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 - but the Israelis appear to have taken no account of the guerrilla army's most obvious operational plan: that if they could endure days of air attacks, they would eventually force Israel's army to re-enter Lebanon on the ground and fight them on equal terms.

 

Hizbollah's laser-guided missiles - Iranian-made, just as most Israeli arms are US-made - appear to have caused havoc among Israeli troops on Saturday, and their downing of an Israeli helicopter was without precedent in their long war against Israel.

 

In theory, aid convoys will be able to move south today to the thousands of Lebanese Shia trapped in their villages but no one knows whether the Hizbollah will wait for several days - they, like the Israelis, are physically tired - to allow that help to reach the crushed towns.

 

Atrocities continue across Lebanon, the most recent being the attack on a convoy of cars carrying 600 Christian families from the southern town of Marjayoun. Led by soldiers of the Lebanese army, they trailed north on Saturday up the Bekaa valley only to be assaulted by Israeli aircraft. At least seven were killed, including the wife of the mayor, a Christian woman who was decapitated by a missile that hit her car.

 

In west Beirut yesterday, the Israeli air force destroyed eight apartment blocks in which six families were living. Twelve civilians were killed in southern Lebanon, including a mother, her children and their housemaid.

 

An Israeli was killed by Hizballoh's continued Katyusha fire across the border. The guerrilla army - "terrorists" to the Israelis and Americans but increasingly heroes across the Muslim world - have many dead to avenge, although their leadership seems less interested in exacting an eye for an eye and far more eager to strike at Israel's army.

 

At this fatal juncture in Middle East history - and no one should underestimate this moment's importance in the region - the Israeli army appears as impotent to protect its country as the Hizbollah clearly is to protect Lebanon.

 

But if the ceasefire collapses, as seems certain, neither the Israelis nor the Americans appear to have any plans to escape the consequences. The US saw this war as an opportunity to humble Hizbollah's Iranian and Syrian sponsors but already it seems as if the tables have been turned. The Israeli military appears to be efficient at destroying bridges, power stations, gas stations and apartment blocks - but signally inefficient in crushing the "terrorist" army they swore to liquidate.

 

"The Lebanese government is our address for every problem or violation of the [ceasefire] agreement," Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday, as if realising the truce would not hold.

 

And that, of course, provides yet another excuse for Israel to attack the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon.

 

Far more worrying, however, are the vague terms of the UN Security Council's resolution on the multinational force supposed to occupy land between the Israeli border and the Litani river.

 

For if the Israelis and the Hizbollah are at war across the south over the coming weeks, what country will dare send its troops into the jungle that southern Lebanon will have become?

 

Tragically, and fatally for all involved, the real Lebanon war does indeed begin today.

[Samia]

 

As the 6am ceasefire takes effect... the real war begins

 

Robert Fisk

 

 

 

The world will be forced to chose a side sooner or later. Hezbolla will continue to strike from population centers and Israel will continue to eat casualties. One thing I hate more than war itself is the notion in the world today of a feel good war. The reason Israel has been succesful in the past is they struck back without pause. Now they have to deal with all the phoney outrage every step they take.

People seem to easily forget intent and let guilty parties get away with evil.

Sure Israel killed some civilians, that happens in war.

Hezbolla however is givin a pass though because they were unsucessful in their attempts. The only thing that stopped Hezbolla from killing possibly thousands was their technology, not a lack of trying.

Oh well, I guess this little step makes some people feel good about themselves despite the lack of any real resolution.

 

 

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

Israel started the war to get bacl their soldiers, to dismantle terrorist camps etc., but it seems as if they've suffered a defeat at the hands of hezbulah.

 

So you're back here - did you reply to my other postings directed to you in the thread you opened?

 

Also in saying what you have - it is clear that you're rooting for the hezbollah terrorists - isn't that so?!

 

You wrote - "you want Israel to kill more people?" - and - "Israel started the war" - such clear words - with obvious leanings to the wrong side....

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

The world will be forced to chose a side sooner or later. Hezbolla will continue to strike from population centers and Israel will continue to eat casualties. One thing I hate more than war itself is the notion in the world today of a feel good war. The reason Israel has been succesful in the past is they struck back without pause. Now they have to deal with all the phoney outrage every step they take.

People seem to easily forget intent and let guilty parties get away with evil.

Sure Israel killed some civilians, that happens in war.

Hezbolla however is givin a pass though because they were unsucessful in their attempts. The only thing that stopped Hezbolla from killing possibly thousands was their technology, not a lack of trying.

Oh well, I guess this little step makes some people feel good about themselves despite the lack of any real resolution.

 

 

 

 

I agree - cent percent!

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

The ceasefire is the only defeat Israel has suffered, once again they will leave their security to the UN. The same UN that promised them Hezbolla would be disarmed years ago.

 

Bhakta Don you ask about global resolve ? Has there EVER been such a thing ? Rwanda ? Sudan ? Heck, Africa Period. The world could cure starvation in a few short years if the people in the towers really cared. If they lack the heart and will to feed they most definatly lack the heart for what needs to be done in this situation.

 

 

 

You're right - the only resolve we see is the resolve to not be resolved - much like all the unavailing U.N. resolutions... At some point it has to change.

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

"Witnesses said refugees, young and old, cheered and talking of "victory against Israel." Some carried pictures of Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Others handed out leaflets hailing the Shi'ite group's "divine victory" over Jewish state."

 

http://ca.news./s/14082006/6/n-world-refugees-head-south-lebanon.html

 

So very clear now isn't it - even in Lebanon no one went after the hezbollah - one might think that if they are serious as a nation - then why this lack of an effort to put an end to the strangle hold that hezbollah has on the Lebanese people.

 

Just see these terrorists brainwashed their wards with socialism - yes they hide their evil plans within their so-called 'for the people programs' and - it's all been funded by whom?

 

There is nothing divine inducing this ceasefire - I'm sure that God is actually leaving the 'real war' for a later day...

 

On the matter of the picture of their 'leader' - i've been wondering this - for most orthodox muslims - the hanging of pictures is forbidden - from what I hear they won't even hang pictures of family on the wall - [see http://experts.about.com/q/Islam-947/tasveer.htm] - so why are all these middle eastern Islamist leaders having their picture hung on every street corner - it's kinda odd if not narcissistic! Could it be that they are seeking adorations? Could it be a violation of their own rules about idol worship? Is it to intimidate their wards?

 

Why don't we don't see the western leaders slapping up their pictures everywhere in public [except during elections]? [url="http://216.109.124.98/search/cache?p=muslims+and+hanging+photographs&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t340&x=wrt&meta=vc%3D&u=experts.about.com/q/Islam-947/tasveer.htm&w=muslims+hanging+photographs&d=Yy2KpGP9NQBu&icp=1&.intl=ca%5D"]

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

Now they have to deal with all the phoney outrage every step they take.

Well said and - it is sad isn't it...

[Guest guest]

Alan Hart at International Institute of Strategic Studies, New Civilisation debate, on Thursday, August 10, 2006.

 

I’m going to suggest to you that what we might now be witnessing is the long beginning of the end of the Zionist state of Israel. In the next 10 minutes or so I will talk my way to an explanation of why I think so; and then I’ll address the question of what the most likely consequences would be. I can see two One State of Palestine for All and real, lasting peace, or Catastrophe for All… and by “All” I don’t just mean Israeli Jews and the Arabs of the region, I mean all of us, everywhere.

 

I thought I would be the first to give voice in public to the idea that Israel might be planting in Lebanon the final seeds of its own destruction, but while I was working on my text for this evening, I came across an interview given by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter’s National Security Adviser. He said: “Eventually, if neo-con policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well.”

 

As Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon unfolded, a great deal of nonsense was written and spoken by pundits and policymakers throughout the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world about why it was happening. The main thrust of the nonsense was that Hizbullah started the war and that Israel was merely defending itself. I think the truth about Hizbullah’s role in triggering the war can be summarised as follows bearing in mind that the border incident of 12 July was one of many since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, and which more often than not, according to UN monitors, were provoked by Israeli actions and/or Israeli violations of agreements. By engaging an IDF border patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two hostages, and firing a few rockets to create a diversion for that operation, Hizbullah gave Israel’s generals and those politicians who rubber-stamp their demands the PRETEXT they wanted and needed to go to war a war they had planned for months.

 

I was reminded of what was said to me on the second of the six days of the 1967 war when I was a very young ITN correspondent reporting from Israel. One of my sources was Major General Chaim Herzog. He was one of the founding fathers of Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence. On the second day of that war he said to me in private conversation: “If Nasser had not been stupid enough to give us a PRETEXT for war now, we would have created one in the coming year to 18 months.”

 

Hizbullah’s purpose in taking Israeli prisoners/hostages was to have them as bargaining chips - to secure the return of Lebanese prisoners Israel had refused to release in a previous prisoner exchange. As former President Carter implied in an article for The Washington Post on I August, it was not unreasonable for Hizbullah to assume that an exchange would be possible because “the assumption was based on a number of such trades in the past.”But on 12 July 2006 the government of Israel was not interested in trades. It did not give a single moment to diplomacy or negotiations of any kind. It did not even consider a local retaliation to make a point. Israel rushed to war. As Defence Minister Amir Peretz put it: “We’re skipping the stage of threats and going straight to the action.”On the subject of Hizbullah’s rockets, (which are hit-and-miss low tech weapons when compared with Israel’s state of the art firepower), it is right to ask Why, really, were they there? What, really, explains Hizbullah’s stock-piling and its bunkering down? The honest answer, which has its context in the whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Zionism’s demonstrated designs on Southern Lebanon in particular, is this: Hizbullah was strengthening itself militarily for the same reason as Eygpt did when President Nasser, with great reluctance after America had refused to supply him, accepted weapons from the Soviet Union. Nasser did NOT upgrade Eygpt’s military capabilities to make war on Israel. He wanted to be able to demonstrate to Israel that attacking Eygpt to impose Zionism’s will on it was not a cost-free option. In other words, Hizbullah had been improving its military capability to deter Israeli incursions and attacks, which was something the Lebanese army was incapable of doing. Am I suggesting that Hizbullah would NOT have let loose its rockets if Israel had not gone for the war option? YES! The notion that, on 12 July 2006, Hizbullah was joined in conspiracy with Iran and Syria to wipe Israel off the face of the earth is nothing but Zionist and neo-con propaganda nonsense to justify Israel’s latest war of aggression and also, perhaps, to justify, in advance of it happening, war on Iran.

 

It’s true that the rhetoric of Iran’s President gave and gives a degree of apparent credibility to Zionist and neo-con spin but only to those who are unaware of, or don’t want to know, the difference between the facts and documented truth of the real history of the Arab-Israeli conflict (as in my book) and Zionism’s version of it.

 

To those who really want to understand why the Zionist state of Israel behaves in the way it does, and is (as described in a recent article courageously carried by The Independent) “a terrorist state like no other”, I say not only read my book, but give special attention to page 485 of Volume One. On it I quote what was said behind closed doors in May 1955 by Moshe Dayan, Israel’s one-eyed warlord and master of deception. He was in conversation with Israel’s ambassadors to Washington, London and Paris. At the time the Eisenhower administration was pressing Israel to abandon its policy of reprisal attacks.

 

Eisenhower was aware that Nasser did not want war with Israel, and that he would, when he could, make an accommodation with it. Eisenhower also knew that Israel’s reprisal attacks were making it impossible for Nasser to prepare the ground on his side for peace with Israel.

 

In conversation with Israel’s three most important ambassadors to the West, Dayan explained why he was totally opposed - whatever the pressure from the West - to the idea that Israel should abandon its policy of reprisal attacks. They were, he said, “a life drug.” What he meant, he also explained, was that reprisal attacks enabled the Israeli government “to maintain a high degree of tension in the country and the army.” What, really, did that mean?Israel’s standing or full-time army was (as it still is and must be) relatively small, not more than about 23,000 souls in all. The other quarter of a million fighting men and women who could be mobilised in 48 hours were reservists from every walk of Israel’s civil society. The real point? Without Israeli reprisal attacks and all that they implied that the Zionist state was in constant danger of being annihilated - there was a possibility that some and perhaps many reservists would not be motivated enough to respond to Zionism’s calls to arms.Put another way, what Dayan really feared was the TRUTH. He knew, as all of Israel’s leaders knew, that Israel’s existence was NOT in danger from any combination of Arab forces. And that was the truth which had to be kept from the Jews of Israel. Dayan’s fear was that if they became aware of it, they might insist on peace on terms the Arab regimes could accept but which were not acceptable to Zionism. Among those present when Dayan explained the need for Israeli reprisal attacks as a “life drug” was the Foreign Ministry’s Gideon Rafael. He reported what Dayan told the ambassadors to Prime Minister Moshe Sharret in my view, and with the arguable exception of Yitzhak Rabin, the only completely rational prime minister Israel has ever had. And we know from Sharret’s diaries what Rafael then said to him: “This is how fascism began in Italy and Germany!”

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I think future historians may say that was how fascism began in the Zionist state of Israel.

 

The idea of Israel as a fully functioning democracy is a seriously flawed one. It’s true that Israeli Jews are free to speak their minds (in a way that most Jews of the world are frightened to do), and to that extent it can be said that Israel has the appearance of a vibrant democracy... But in reality, and especially since the countdown to the 1967 war, it’s Israel’s generals who call most of the policy shots, even when one of them is not prime minister.

 

In June 1967 Israel’s prime minister of the time, the much maligned Levi Eshkol, did NOT want to take his country to war. It, war, was imposed upon him by the generals, led by Dayan. As I explain in Volume Two of my book, what really happened in Israel in the final countdown to that war was something very close to a military coup in all but name.

 

And that’s where we are today the generals effectively calling the shots in Israel, to the applause of the neo-cons.Why, really, did Israel’s generals want to make war on Lebanon? There was obviously much more to it than the collective punishment of a whole people as part and parcel of a stated objective the destruction of Hizbullah as a Moslem David which could hit and hurt the Zionist Goliath.I think there were two main reasons.The first was that Israel’s generals believed they should and could restore the “deterrent power” of the IDF (Israel’s war machine). They believed, correctly, that it had been seriously damaged by Hizbullah’s success in not only confronting the IDF following Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, but eventually forcing it to withdraw, effectively defeated and humiliated… I think it is more than reasonable to presume that for most if not all of the past six years, Israel’s generals were itching to make war on Lebanon to repair that damage to restore the IDF’s deterrent power. Put another way, it was time, Israel’s generals believed, to give the Arabs (all Arabs, not just Hizbullah) another lesson in who the master was.

 

The second main reason for the insistence of Israel’s generals on 12 July this year that war was the only option…?I think it’s also more than reasonable to presume that they saw the opportunity to ethnically cleanse Lebanon up to the Litani River, with a view, eventually, to occupying and then annexing the ethnically cleansed territory. For Zionism this would be the fulfilment of the vision of modern Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion - a Zionist state within “natural” borders, those borders being the Jordan River in the East and the Litani River of Lebanon in the north. Israel gained control of the Jordan River border in its 1967 war of expansion, but prior to its rush to war on 12 July, all of its attempts to establish the Litani border had failed. Since 1982 because of Hizbullah’s ability to cause the occupying IDF forces more casualties than Israeli public opinion was prepared to tolerate.According to those currently calling the policy shots - Israel’s generals and politicians, the neo-cons in and around the Bush administration and their associate in Downing Street - the name of the game is creating a “new Middle East”. It IS happening. A new Middle East is being created.

 

But what kind of new Middle East will it actually be? In my analysis it will be one in which the Zionist state of Israel, having rejected a number of opportunities to make peace with the Palestinians and all the Arab states, will become increasingly vulnerable and, at a point, actually for the first time ever in its shortish history, could face the possibility of defeat.In my view the seeds of that possible defeat have just been sewn in Lebanon. The fact is that Israel’s latest military adventure has been totally counter-productive in that has caused Hizbullah to be admired by the angry and humiliated masses of the Arab and wider Moslem world. That being so, would it really be surprising if, in growing numbers, Arabs and Moslems everywhere begin to entertain if they are not already entertaining something like the following thought: “If 3,000 Hizbullah guerrillas can stand up to mighty Israel for weeks and give it a seriously bloody nose, what would happen if we all joined the fight?” (Do I hear the sound of pro-Western Arab regimes being toppled? Yes, I think so). I imagine that even the thought of Israel being defeated one day will bring joy to very many Arabs and other Moslems. But there ought to be no place for joy because there’s no mystery about what would happen in the event of Israel actually being on the brink of defeat. I want to quote to you now from one of my Panorama interviews with Golda Meir. (It can be found, this quote, on the second page Volume One of my book, in the Prologue which is titled Waiting for the Apocalypse).

 

At a point I interrupted her to say: “Prime Minister I want to be sure I understand what you’re saying… You are saying that if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it?” Without the shortest of pauses for reflection, Golda replied: “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” In those days Panorama went on-air at 8 o’clock on Monday evenings. Shortly after the transmission of that interview The Times had a new lead editorial. It quoted what Golda had said to me and added its view that “We had better believe her.” How, actually, would the Zionist state of Israel take at least the region down with it? It would arm its nuclear missiles, target Arab capitals, then fire the missiles. Such an End-Game to the Arab-Israeli conflict, if it happened, and which I would describe as a self-fulfilled Zionist prophesy of doom, would probably take many years to play out. But the countdown to such a catastrophe would be speeded up if, as Brzezinski put it, “neo-con policies continue to be pursued.” If they are, and if Iran is attacked, I think that a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, would become unstoppable.Is there no way to stop the madness and create a “new Middle East” worth having? Yes, of course, there is, but it requires the agenda of the neo-cons and their associates to be thrown into the dustbin of history, in order for there to be a resolution of the Palestine problem, which I describe as the cancer at the heart of international affairs.Unfortunately, and because of the facts Zionism has been allowed to create on the ground in Israel/Palestine, it’s already much too late for a genuine two-state solution, one which would see Israel back behind more or less its pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem an open city and the capital of two states.The conclusion which I think is invited is this: If the countdown to catastrophe for all is to be stopped, the only possible solution to the Palestine problem is One State for All. That would, of course, be the end of Zionism’s colonial enterprise and of Zionism itself. But in my view that’s what has to happen if there’s to be a “new Middle East” in which there can be security and peace for all, Arabs and Jews..Ladies and gentlemen: I’m not a politician or, any more, a working journalist and broadcaster who must write and speak in way that doesn’t offend very powerful vested interests. I am a reasonably well informed human being who cares and who is free to say what he really thinks. (Which probably makes me a member of a very small club!) And in summary of all that I’ve said this evening, what I really think comes down to this: The equation is a very simple one: No justice for the Palestinians = no peace for any of us.

[Guest guest]

That article will have BDM and his clones yakking for 10 pages minimum...

[Samia]

Nothing to really respond too, it is an opinion piece that lacks any real history of the region.

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

Nothing to really respond too, it is an opinion piece that lacks any real history of the region.

 

Exactly!

[Samia]

 

That article will have BDM and his clones yakking for 10 pages minimum...

 

 

Do you have an opinion or do you just accept any written word ? I would be interested to hear what you have seen for yourself, not just read someone elses pasted opinion.

[Guest guest]

Counterpunch

Published: August 17, 2006 Author: Jonathan Cook

During Israel's war against the people of Lebanon, our media, politicians and diplomats have colluded with the aggressors by distracting us with irrelevancies, by concocting controversies, and by framing the language of diplomacy. In the fragile truce that is currently holding while Lebanon waits for Israel to withdraw, we are simply getting more of the same.

 

One example of the many distractions during the war that neatly reveals their true purpose is the "faked Reuters photograph" affair. The supposed scandal of a Lebanese photographer tampering with a picture to add and darken smoke from an Israeli missile attack -- to little or no effect, it should be noted -- has not only been decried by activists on Zionist websites but amplified by mainstream commentators into a debate about whether we can trust the images of this war.

 

Who benefits from these doubts? If we cannot be sure that this one photograph is genuine, then maybe many more that purportedly show some of the 1,000 Lebanese civilians killed by Israel's bombardment are fake too. Maybe the dead have been airbrushed in as easily as a puff of smoke. Maybe too, were the smoke removed, we would still be able to see that Israel has "the most moral army in the world".

 

The far worse photography scandal, which is not talked about, is that the images of the war we saw over the past month in our Western media were constantly doctored, day in, day out. Not by ordinary photographers who risk their lives, and hope to make their fortunes, conveying the reality of war, but by the senior executives of newspapers and TV stations who ensure we are never presented with that reality. Pictures were binned or cropped if they hinted at what suffering and death truly looked like. Western audiences were not shown the row of charred corpses lying in the street, or the agony of a son pressing a scrap of cloth to the severed arm of his mother as she bled to death, or the crushed baby pulled from the rubble.

 

Our news and picture editors say this is about good taste. They justify their decisions on the grounds that we should not exploit the victims of war by showing pornographic images of their death -- a useful excuse as we can never know what the dead would have chosen. More significantly, however, the exclusion of meaningful images of the human cost of war protects us from understanding the appalling consequences of Israel's military actions, an onslaught sanctioned and supported by our Western media, politicians and diplomats, and indirectly by our taxes.

 

How long would Israel's war have been allowed to continue if American audiences had seen those charred bodies or dead babies? How long would most Western viewers have remained silent if they were exposed to the kind of images shown daily on the Arabic satellite channels? Might we then start to understand why they hate us -- and more usefully why we should hate ourselves?

 

Much the same purpose has been satisfied in the diplomatic arena by the endless debates about whether Israel's offensive was "disproportionate" -- a word that raises a yawn almost the second it is uttered -- rather than whether it was necessary. And by the controversy initiated by the United Nations' Jan Egeland about the "cowardly blending" of Hizbullah fighters among Lebanese civilians, a comment he made while in Jerusalem, not Beirut, based on evidence he has never divulged. It is truly astonishing that the world's representative on humanitarian affairs made most impact in this war -- one in which more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed and in which hundreds of thousands more were made homeless -- trying to hold Hizbullah to account for the thousands of Israeli air strikes on civilian areas of Lebanon. Such is the upside-down logic and morality of our leaders.

 

And we are in the same territory again with the current discussions about how Lebanon and Israel will be rebuilt after the fighting. Reconstruction -- another word that provokes instant boredom -- fits the bill perfectly: both nations, we are told, will need billions of dollars to repair the damage done to their infrastructure. The story of astronomical losses conveys reassuringly to us a sense both of technical problems that will eventually be solved and of the ultimate symmetry and justice in the suffering of these two nations. Both peoples face a terrible financial burden imposed by war, both are equally deserving of our sympathy.

 

But let us pause. How precisely are these two nations' material losses equivalent? Israel's derive mostly from the enormous costs of its attacks on Lebanon, the tens of thousands of missiles fired into its towns and villages, that killed mostly civilians, and damage to the tanks, helicopters and warships that were the machinery needed to invade another sovereign country. Most of the rest of the cost will follow from losses in tourism revenue and investment, the consequences of a fall in confidence caused by Israel waging an unnecessary war for the return of two soldiers captured by Hizbullah rather than engage in negotiations. A small share of Israel's lost billions has been inflicted by the aggression of Hizbullah.

 

The material damage done to Lebanon is in a different category altogether. The bombed roads and bridges, the tens of thousands of homes in ruins, the destroyed power stations, factories and petrol stations, the oil slick across much of the Lebanese coast are the direct result of Israel's campaign of precision bombing of Lebanese civilian infrastructure.

 

Think of how your local court might consider the respective claims of these two nations if this were a domestic dispute between neighbors. Would a judge view with any sympathy a claim from a man demanding compensation from his neighbour for the damage done to his expensive sledgehammer after a destructive rampage through the neighbor's home, as well as for the loss of his reputation that followed the attack, as he found himself cast as the neighborhood pariah? Would it make any difference if it could be proved that his neighbor had sworn provocatively at him before he went on his rampage?

 

Incredibly, a similar claim may yet be heard -- and possibly sympathetically -- by the US civil courts if Israeli lawyers succeed in bringing a case for damages against the Lebanese government.

 

But all of this, like the "faked photograph affair", is another layer of distraction. The real issue that should be the most pressing matter at the top of the world's agenda is not an assessment of the mutual crimes against property but the mostly one-sided crimes against human beings -- the massive Israeli war crimes that have been committed throughout the past month in Lebanon, whose effects will continue as cluster bombs blow up returning refugees, and are still being committed every day against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank.

 

This urgent moral case is being quietly overlooked in favor of the material damages story, and for reasons not hard to discern. Because if we concentrated on the tally of war crimes, Israel would come out the undoubted winner in both Lebanon and Gaza.

 

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.

[Samia]

 

 

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.

 

 

 

Are you Jonathan Cook ?

I doubt it so I wont even bother responding with facts to someone who cant even type out their own opinion.

[suchandra]

 

Are you Jonathan Cook ?

I doubt it so I wont even bother responding with facts to someone who cant even type out their own opinion.

 

Type out their opinion? Whats to type? - 154 Israelias killed are 154 too many. Did those 154 souls go back to the spiritual world? They of course have to take birth again. What's the nonsense to present opinions?

This forum 'world review' is about facts and this activist with Gush Shalom has the facts:

 

The death rate at present in this world stands at 106 people - per minute! Each passing 60 seconds finds another 106 people leaving their present body for destinations unknown! Most without having heard or recited the Holy Names even once!

 

 

Thirty three days of war. The longest of our wars since 1949.

 

 

Uri Avnery - August 17, 2006

 

On the Israeli side: 154 dead--117 of them soldiers. 3970 rockets launched against us, 37 civilians dead, more than 422 civilians wounded.

 

On the Lebanese side: about a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number (400?) of Hizbullah fighters dead and wounded.

 

More than a million refugees on both sides.

 

So what has been achieved for this terrible price?

 

"Gloomy, humble, despondent," was how the journalist Yossef Werter described Ehud Olmert, a few hours after the cease-fire had come into effect.

 

Olmert? Humble? Is this the same Olmert we know? The same Olmert who thumped the table and shouted: "No more!" Who said: "After the war, the situation will be completely different than before!" Who promised a "New Middle East" as a result of the war?

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The results of the war are obvious:

 

* The prisoners, who served as casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have not been released. They will come back only as a result of an exchange of prisoners, exactly as Hassan Nasrallah proposed before the war.

 

* Hizbullah has remained as it was. It has not been destroyed, nor disarmed, nor even removed from where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in battle and have even garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its command and communication stucture has continued to function to the end. Its TV station is still broadcasting.

 

* Hassan Nasrallah is alive and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him failed. His prestige is sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, songs are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns the walls.

 

* The Lebanese army will be deployed along the border, side by side with a large international force. That is the only material change that has been achieved.

 

This will not replace Hizbullah. Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every village and town. The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it from one single village. That was simply impossible without permanently removing the population to which it belongs.

 

The Lebanese army and the international force cannot and will not confront Hizbullah. Their very presence there depends on Hizbullah's consent. In practice, a kind of co-existence of the three forces will come into being, each one knowing that it has to come to terms with the other two.

 

Perhaps the international force will be able to prevent incursions by Hizbullah, such as the one that preceded this war. But it will also have to prevent Israeli actions, such as the reconnaissance flights of our Air Force over Lebanon. That's why the Israeli army objected, at the beginning, so strenuously to the introduction of this force.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In Israel, there is now a general atmosphere of disappointment and despondency. From mania to depression. It's not only that the politicians and the generals are firing accusations at each other, as we foresaw, but the general public is also voicing criticism from every possible angle. The soldiers criticize the conduct of the war, the reserve soldiers gripe about the chaos and the failure of supplies.

 

In all parties, there are new opposition groupings and threats of splits. In Kadima. In Labor. It seems that in Meretz, too, there is a lot of ferment, because most of its leaders supported the war dragon almost until the last moment, when they caught its tail and pierced it with their little lance.

 

At the head of the critics are marching--surprise, surprise--the media. The entire horde of interviewers and commentators, correspondents and presstitutes, who (with very few exceptions) enthused about the war, who deceived, misled, falsified, ignored, duped and lied for the fatherland, who stifled all criticism and branded as traitors all who opposed the war--they are now running ahead of the lynch mob. How predictable, how ugly. Suddenly they remember what we have been saying right from the beginning of the war.

 

This phase is symbolized by Dan Halutz, the Chief-of-Staff. Only yesterday he was the hero of the masses, it was forbidden to utter a word against him. Now he is being described as a war profiteer. A moment before sending his soldiers into battle, he found the time to sell his shares, in expectation of a decline of the stock market. (Let us hope that a moment before the end he found the time to buy them back again.)

 

Victory, as is well known, has many fathers, and failure in war is an orphan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

From the deluge of accusations and gripes, one slogan stands out , a slogan that must send a cold shiver down the spine of anyone with a good memory: "the politicians did not let the army win."

 

Exactly as I wrote two weeks ago, we see before our very eyes the resurrection of the old cry "they stabbed the army in the back!"

 

This is how it goes: At long last, two days before the end, the land offensive started to roll. Thanks to our heroic soldiers, the men of the reserves, it was a dazzling success. And then, when we were on the verge of a great victory, the cease-fire came into effect.

 

There is not a single word of truth in this. This operation, which was planned and which the army spent years training for, was not carried out earlier, because it was clear that it would not bring any meaningful gains but would be costly in lives. The army would, indeed, have occupied wide areas, but without being able to dislodge the Hizbullah fighters from them.

 

The town of Bint Jbeil, for example, right next to the border, was taken by the army three times, and the Hizbullah fighters remained there to the end. If we had occupied 20 towns and villages like this one, the soldiers and the tanks would have been exposed in twenty places to the mortal attacks of the guerillas with their highly effective anti-tank weapons.

 

If so, why was it decided, at the last moment, to carry out this operation after all--well after the UN had already called for an end to hostilities? The horrific answer: it was a cynical--not to say vile--exercise of the failed trio. Olmert, Peretz and Halutz wanted to create "a picture of victory", as was openly stated in the media. On this altar the lives of 33 soldiers (including a young woman) were sacrificed.

 

The aim was to photograph the victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. The operation could only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into force. In spite of the fact that the army used helicopters to land the troops, the aim was not attained. At no point did the army reach the Litani.

 

For comparison: in the first Lebanon war, that of Sharon in 1982, the army crossed the Litani in the first few hours. (The Litani, by the way, is not a real river anymore, but just a shallow creek. Most of its waters are drawn off far from there, in the north. Its last stretch is about 25 km distant from the border, near Metulla the distance is only 4 km.)

 

This time, when the cease-fire took effect, all the units taking part had reached villages on the way to the river. There they became sitting ducks, surrounded by Hizbullah fighters, without secure supply lines. From that moment on, the army had only one aim: to get them out of there as quickly as possible, regardless of who might take their place.

 

If a commission of inquiry is set up--as it must be--and investigates all the moves of this war, starting from the way the decision to start it was made, it will also have to investigate the decision to start this last operation. The death of 33 soldiers (including the son of the writer David Grossman, who had supported the war) and the pain this caused their families demand that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

But these facts are not yet clear to the general public. The brain-washing by the military commentators and the ex-generals, who dominated the media at the time, has turned the foolish--I would almost say "criminal"--operation into a rousing victory parade. The decision of the political leadership to stop it is now being seen by many as an act of defeatist, spineless, corrupt and even treasonous politicians.

 

And that is exactly the new slogan of the fascist Right that is now raising its ugly head.

 

After World War I, in similar circumstances, the legend of the "knife in the back of the victorious army" grew up. Adolf Hitler used it to carry him to power--and on to World War II.

 

Now, even before the last fallen soldier has been buried, the incompetent generals are starting to talk shamelessly about "another round", the next war that will surely come "in a month or in a year", God willing. After all, we cannot end the matter like this, in failure. Where is our pride?

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Israeli public is now in a state of shock and disorientation. Accusations--justified and unjustified--are flung around in all directions, and it cannot be foreseen how things will develop.

 

Perhaps, in the end, it is logic that will win. Logic says: what has thoroughly been demonstrated is that there is no military solution. That is true in the North. That is also true in the South, where we are confronting a whole people that has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese guerilla will encourage the Palestinian guerilla.

 

For logic to win, we must be honest with ourselves: pinpoint the failures, investigate their deeper causes, draw the proper conclusions.

 

Some people want to prevent that at any price. President Bush declares vociferously that we have won the war. A glorious victory over the Evil Ones. Like his own victory in Iraq.

 

When a football team is able to choose the referee, it is no surprise if it is declared the winner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in

The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org

 

[Samia]

 

Type out their opinion? Whats to type? - 154 Israelias killed are 154 too many. Did those 154 souls go back to the spiritual world? They of course have to take birth again. What's the nonsense to present opinions?

This forum 'world review' is about facts and this activist with Gush Shalom has the facts

 

 

Whoa! calm down there .

This forum is for discussion of world events,

discussion

n 1: an extended communication (often interactive) dealing with some particular topic; "the book contains an excellent discussion of modal logic"; "his treatment of the race question is badly biased"

2: an exchange of views on some topic; "we had a good discussion"; "we had a word or two about it"

 

There is no point in responding to cut-and-pastes because they require no thought. Want to post a news story and your feelings about the story, you would get a response then.

 

Again you post an opinion piece, I could cut and paste several opinion pieces that state the direct opposite, instead I prefer to excersise my mind and discuss the events with my own words

 

You claim that these Soldiers face rebirth and state it as a fact ? Do you know each one personally ?

 

Anyway, feel free to have an opinion, it is kind of nice to think for and express yourself

 

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[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

Whoa! calm down there .

This forum is for discussion of world events,

discussion

n 1: an extended communication (often interactive) dealing with some particular topic; "the book contains an excellent discussion of modal logic"; "his treatment of the race question is badly biased"

2: an exchange of views on some topic; "we had a good discussion"; "we had a word or two about it"

 

There is no point in responding to cut-and-pastes because they require no thought. Want to post a news story and your feelings about the story, you would get a response then.

 

Again you post an opinion piece, I could cut and paste several opinion pieces that state the direct opposite, instead I prefer to excersise my mind and discuss the events with my own words

 

You claim that these Soldiers face rebirth and state it as a fact ? Do you know each one personally ?

 

Anyway, feel free to have an opinion, it is kind of nice to think for and express yourself

 

<!-- google_ad_region_end=def -->

 

Would you say that I do that? Post op pieces - without any of my own thoughts?

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

...secretary general...called on "all parties to respect strictly the arms embargo".

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5267736.stm

 

The talk is that Israel has violated the ceasefire but - the truth is - there is no ceasefire.

 

Hezbollah doesn't wish to disarm - in fact - this latest IDF incident was in response to more weapons being moved from Iran through Syria - to arm hezbollah further.

 

Is it any wonder that as of yet - few nations - have come forward to engage in the international force - why aren't they stepping up?

 

Well i think it may be a security issue - the issue being - how many of the Lebanese troops are either hezbollah members or otherwise sympathetic to hezbollah? Who can expect an international force - to patrol under those circumstances?

 

We hear that biased U.N. sec. Annan yapping about Israel's so-called violations [of the ceasefire] - but where are his DIRECT animadversions of hezbollah for refusing to disarm AND - for rearming - through Iran and Syria?

[suchandra]

 

...

Hezbollah doesn't wish to disarm

 

Amazing news: Hezbollah doesn't wish to disarm! In other words, same situation like the past 40 years, if things go on like this another Hundred Years' War without solution. "Because I'm a dog a have to fight the cat, and because I'm a cat I have to fight the dog."

Nice animal kingdom!

[Bhakta Don Muntean]

 

"Because I'm a dog a have to fight the cat, and because I'm a cat I have to fight the dog."

 

...and - the cat and the rat make peace over a corpse...

 

So suchandra dasa - what do you propose to solve the middle east conflicts and please don't say that you'll tell them all to chant as your solution - nor should you present any other 'utopian' programs - only practical observations and recommendations.

 

Please tell us what must be done - to create peace - with groups like hezbollah hamas and their like-minded sponsor nations - like Iran and Syria? You may say that a resolution of the Palestinian conflict would do that but that isn't so because these groups and nations are calling for an end to the state of Israel and - as indicated through the well known written words of the president of Iran - even the western nations are a target - why we may ask - just read again his letter to George Bush.

 

How shall these noted groups and nations become pacified on their present course?

 

You mention cats and dogs - but - the truth is that simplistic analogy doesn't fit these circumstances...

[suchandra]

 

...and - the cat and the rat make peace over a corpse...

 

So suchandra dasa - what do you propose to solve the middle east conflicts and please don't say that you'll tell them all to chant as your solution - nor should you present any other 'utopian' programs - only practical observations and recommendations.

 

Please tell us what must be done - to create peace - with groups like hezbollah hamas and their like-minded sponsor nations - like Iran and Syria? You may say that a resolution of the Palestinian conflict would do that but that isn't so because these groups and nations are calling for an end to the state of Israel and - as indicated through the well known written words of the president of Iran - even the western nations are a target - why we may ask - just read again his letter to George Bush.

 

How shall these noted groups and nations become pacified on their present course?

 

You mention cats and dogs - but - the truth is that simplistic analogy doesn't fit these circumstances...

 

The circumstance might be complex but many say that Israel and all those Muslim countries in neighborhood are more or less in war since the very foundation of the State of Israel.

Muslims are well aware that they are more in number - how to expect there will be a normal living side by side with people who follow such a primitive religious system which cant even be called religion? For example in material sense, Australia is made for Australian creatures, if animals like rabbits are mixed into their nature's situation the whole organic equilibrium collapses like WTC. Same happened when at the Galapagos islands goats could aggrandize unchecked and in order to maintain the original biological balance they all had to be removed. This is of course the material platform. As long people are stuck on the material bodily concept of live there wont be living side by side as long they aren't forced to stay in their territory.

People feel threatened wherever Muslim communities start to grow fast and build a state within the state. There're 30 Mio Muslims all over Europe and they demand to be treated according Human Rights Convention respectful. Meanwhile 95% non-Muslims believe that the Muslim strategy is to produce 5 times more children than any other people only for that reason to ultimately take over due their superior number. Since there isnt anymore a solution on the material plane to have a peaceful living on earth there's only one solution: Lord Chaitanya's strategy to convert Muslims. Basically Lord Chaitanya made Muslims to reject Islam like nobody else. Haridas Thakur (chief of this Universe, Lord Brahma) took birth in a Muslim family only for that reason - to teach the world how to forswear of being a militant Muslim rascal by chanting Hare Krishna.

Otherwise Bush is presently in pretty bad shape :

 

 

 

We... I made my position clear about this war on terror and I... by the way, the enemy made their position clear, yet again, when they... when we are able to stop them.