Let The Slaughter Of Civilians Continue
U.S. Insists Cease-Fire Must Await Plan to Disarm Hezbollah By JIM RUTENBERG and THOM SHANKER
The United States firmly reiterated its position on Tuesday that there can be no cease-fire in the Middle East until there is a solid plan in place to disarm Hezbollah.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14330.htm

Hizbullah’s attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon By Anders Strindberg
As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism. Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14323.htm

The refugees’ fury will be felt for generations to come By Karma Nabulsi
Israel is seeking to cast itself as the victim even as it expels the people of Lebanon and Gaza from their homes.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14332.htm

Israel ready for massive invasion
Special forces target Hizbullah official as troops plan push in south
www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1835303,00.html

Israeli commandos kill at least 12 civilians in Bekaa Valley:
At least 11 civilians were killed when Israeli air strikes hit the village of Jammaliyeh near Baalbek. Security sources said five family members were found dead in the rubble of their house. Six other villagers were killed and two wounded. One civilian was killed by an air strike in Hermel to the north.
tinyurl.com/gfntq

Man killed on kibbutz as record number of rockets slam into Israel:
An Israeli man was killed Wednesday when a Katyusha struck Kibbutz Saar, north of Nahariya, as Hezbollah marked the resumption of strikes on northern Israel with a record number of some 210 rockets.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745563.html

IDF commandos complete Baalbek raid, reportedly capture five Hezbollah militants :
The IDF reportedly captured five junior Hezbollah militants and killed several others before completing the operation and safely returning to Israel.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745276.html

Heavy equipment used to bury the dead :
The village’s dead were shrouded in white cloth and carried to the cemetery in the bucket of a backhoe. The mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, lost his son, brother and five other relatives. He broke down crying and pulled at the limbs of the dead hanging out of the scoop.
tinyurl.com/kd6mg

Israel sends 10,000 troops into southern Lebanon; commandos destroy hospital:
They said at least seven people were killed as Israeli planes staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital, as well as on hills in eastern and northern Baalbek where Hezbollah’s supporters live.
www.news1130.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w080202A

Stench of death hangs over south Lebanon villages:
In Aynata, a youth showed journalists to places where bodies remained buried beneath the rubble, with no one able to remove them under fire. Locals left signs to mark where they lay.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14324.htm

Britons and Americans are watching two different wars.
The overwhelming emphasis of television and press coverage in the UK was the civilian casualties in Lebanon. Day after day, those were the “splash” stories. The smaller number of civilian casualties from Hizbullah rockets in northern Israel was also covered but rarely made the top headlines or front pages.
commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/julian_borger/2006/08/post_279.html

Gwynne Dyer: End game between Israel and Hezbollah :
The real trick, in terms of keeping American and British public opinion on side, is to blur the sequence of events that led to the war and present it as a desperate Israeli struggle against an unprovoked onslaught by thousands of terrorist rockets.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14326.htm

Fighting ‘has sunk hope of a free Lebanon’:
Walid Jumblatt, leader of the most powerful clan in Lebanon’s Druze community, said on Tuesday the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas had dealt a fatal blow to Lebanese hopes of a strong independent state, free of Iranian and Syrian influence.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14325.htm

‘Some Arab states supporting Israel’ :`
Qatar’s foreign minister accused some Arab states of supporting the Israeli offensive on Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah.
www.gulfnews.com/region/Lebanon/10056888.html

Blair returns to growing backlash on Lebanon :
A senior official at the United Nations joined Labour backbenchers in expressing dismay that Mr Blair had refused to back international calls for an immediate ceasefire.
www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1835542,00.html

EU rebuffs US : Won’t put Hezbollah on terror list:
The EU presidents remarks came as a response to a letter signed by 213 members of the US Congress, sent to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, demanding that the EU follows the US in branding Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14331.htm

Israeli Refusnik interview:
“Our pacifist struggle in a country wanting war”
peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2006/08/israeli-refusnik-interview-our.html

Hizbullah rockets threaten West Bank as Israeli troops pour into Lebanon
The Guardian 8/3/2006
Fighters launch barrage of longer-range missiles · Olmert claims enemy has been largely disarmed -- Hizbullah fighters launched a barrage of more than 180 rockets into northern Israel yesterday as thousands of Israeli troops pushed into new villages in ground battles in southern Lebanon. The rockets - some thought to be Khaibar-1s, four times more powerful than Katyushas - reached as far as the West Bank, landing near the town of Jenin. One Israeli riding his bicycle was killed near Nahariya and another 21 were injured. Forests blazed on the hillsides near the border. Israeli artillery fired wave after wave of shells over the border in response. At least 7,000 Israeli forces were operating on the ground in southern Lebanon in an increasingly intense fight that is now spread over a wide area.

Fears grow as Tyre runs short of food, fuel - and hope
The Guardian 8/3/2006
With food and fuel stocks running perilously low, local and international aid officials in this frontline town were preparing yesterday for a siege. Israel has warned everyone south of Lebanon's Litani river to move north. Some Israeli commanders have said their ground troops may move up to the river in the coming days to hold a huge swath of southern Lebanon until an international force arrives. Tyre is the largest city south of the Litani. Its prewar population has shrunk dramatically as people have fled to Sidon and Beirut. Civilians escaping from shattered villages across south Lebanon pause briefly in Tyre before fleeing further north. "Only 25,000 Lebanese are left in the city. We received over 30,000 displaced people, but when they found there was no food, they left.. "

IDF carving out Lebanon buffer zone to extend 6-8 km, IAF renews bombing Beirut's southern suburbs
Ha'aretz 8/3/2006
Israel renewed its air strikes against Hezbollah strongholds in the battered outskirts of the Lebanese capital in the early hours Thursday. Witnesses said at least four explosions reverberated through Beirut as missiles hit Dahieh, a Shiite Muslim suburb that has been repeatedly shelled by Israel since fighting began three weeks ago. Residents heard the impact of a large explosion about every five minutes starting at 2:30 a. m. , as missiles apparently targeted areas close to Hezbollah's headquarters in Dahieh, a neighborhood to the south of the capital that has been partly flattened by air strikes in previous weeks. It was the first air raid against the Lebanese capital's suburb in almost a week.

Israeli forces storm humanitarian and media organizations in Tulkarem
Palestine News Network 8/1/2006
Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses report that about 15 Israeli troops invaded the town of Tulkarem at dawn Tuesday morning. Sources say that the forces raided the offices of the Center for Palestinian Studies and the Islamic Women’s Center, among other organizations. The Israeli forces seized computers and important documents from the offices, while causing substantial damage to the exteriors of the buildings. Despite the fact that most of the organizations that were raided were humanitarian service providers, Israeli military officials claim that the offices contained files and information associated with the Hamas party.... the Director of the Center for Palestinian Studies, Mohammed Eshteawi, said that the forces infilitrated the building, confiscated its contents, tore pictures off the wall, and proceeded to destroy the Quran.

PM: IDF stays until international force in place
Jerusalem Post 8/3/2006
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Israel's three-week-old offensive in Lebanon will stop only once a robust international peacekeeping force is in place in southern Lebanon. In an interview in his Jerusalem office, Olmert also said the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah must be unconditional - signaling Israel does not favor a prisoner swap. The 60-year-old prime minister also predicted that the outcome of the Lebanon fighting would create "new momentum" for Israel's plan to separate from the Palestinians by withdrawing from much of the West Bank. He had harsh words for Syrian leaders, calling them "reckless," "immature," and promoters of terror.

Syrian FM: Syria Does Not Rule Out Coming Under Israeli Attack
An Nahar 8/1/2006
Syria said Tuesday that it does not rule out coming under attack as Israel presses its three-week-old offensive against Lebanon with US backing. The Israeli assault against its northern neighbor "comes as part of a premeditated plan and a political agenda agreed by the United States, Israel and some other regional parties," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem told reporters after talks with Qatari officials in Doha. "Those parties (will) try to achieve this agenda either by widening the Israeli aggression to include Syria or by imposing resolutions serving Israeli interests through the UN Security Council," he said. "This possibility exists, and Syria has to be wary of these hidden intentions," Mouallem said. "There is an intention to widen the aggression to include Syria," he added.

Man killed on kibbutz near Nahariya as record number of rockets slam into north
Ha'aretz 8/3/2006
wo rockets hit the Maalot area early Thursday. There were no casualties. This was the first time Hezbollah fired rockets during nighttime. After two days in which Hezbollah fired almost no rockets at Israel, some 210 rockets and missiles were launched on Wednesday toward northern communities - the largest number since the beginning of the fighting. One man, Dave Lalchuk, 52, of Kibbutz Sa'ar, was killed and 16 others were wounded, three moderately, in the attacks. Long-range rockets and missiles also fell in the Palestinian Authority west of Beit She'an and in the area of Afula. Some 2,050 rockets have been fired at Israel from Lebanon during the current conflict thus far.

US, France narrow differences over Lebanon ceasefire
The Daily Star 8/3/2006
WASHINGTON, Aug 2, 2006 (AFP) - The United States and Francehave significantly narrowed their differences over how to achieve aceasefire in Lebanon and could present a draft resolution to the UNSecurity Council by early next week, a senior US official saidWednesday. "I would say that our point of view and the French point of vieware really converging, to the point now where we are working off asingle text of a draft resolution," State Department spokesman SeanMcCormack said. "We agree on all the major elements. It's now a question of howthose elements fit together and how you memorialize, encapsulatethose elements in texts of UN resolutions," he said. McCormack said Washington hoped to reach an agreement and submitthe resolution at the UN within days, either this week or early nextweek.

Jordanian, Egyptian FMs: Israel-Hezbollah violence could lead to Mideast chaos
Ha'aretz 8/2/2006
Brutal conflicts like the one raging between Israel and Hezbollah will not end until Israel makes peace with the whole Arab world, the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers said Wednesday. The two foreign ministers were the first Arab officials to visit Lebanon since Israel Defense Forces attacks began after Hezbollah abducted two IDF soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid on July 12. The Jordanian and Egyptian ministers, whose countries have peace treaties with Israel, said without a comprehensive peace agreement that includes the Palestinians, chaos threatens the entire region. "We believe that this situation in Lebanon could be repeated if a peace settlement that gives Arabs their full rights and gives the Palestinian people the right to set up their independent state is not reached," said Jordanian FM...

Israel claims to have carried off Hizbullah fighters' bodies
The Daily Star 8/3/2006
BEIRUT: The Israeli Army has announced in the last week that it collected the bodies of several Hizbullah fighters killed in South Lebanon, a claim denied by Hizbullah officials. Media reports circulated with photos of Israeli troops carrying body bags of what they claimed were bodies of Hizbullah fighters killed in combat in Bint Jbeil and Maroun al-Ras after Israel's invasion of those areas. "We are currently occupied with collecting evidence, bodies of Hizbullah terrorists, and various testimonies, while preparing for the next stage," Lieutenant Colonel Itzik Ronen of the Armored Corps' Division 7 said in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot earlier this week. IDF sources said they are storing the bodies of six dead Hizbullah fighters in refrigerated containers for use in a possible prisoner swap.

Olmert riles right-wingers by linking convergence to war
Ha'aretz 8/3/2006
The interview Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave the Associated Press on Wednesday, suggesting that the war in Lebanon could serve as a catalyst for reviving the convergence plan, has enraged settlers and Israeli right-wing supporters. "I'll surprise you," Olmert said. "I genuinely believe the outcome of the present [conflict] and the emergence of a new order that will provide more stability and will defeat the forces of terror will help create the necessary environment that will allow me... to create a new momentum between us and the Palestinians. "He went on to reiterate that "we want to separate from the Palestinians. I'm ready to do it. I'm ready to cope with these demands. It's not easy, it's very difficult, but we are elected to our positions to do things and not to sit idle. "

Settler reservists: Olmert is insane
YNet News 8/2/2006
Right-wing reservists called up for Lebanon operations criticize PM for saying a victory in Lebanon will advance realignment plan in West Bank; 'Hizbullah is protecting Israel against itself,' one settler says -- Settlers in the West Bank called-up to the reserves, were unhappy with comments by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel 's victory in Lebanon will give a new momentum to complete the disengagement from the Palestinians by evacuating most settlements in Judea and Samaria. " Soldiers living in West Bank settlements are torn between defending the country and the fear of being evacuated from their homes. "If we succeed in Lebanon would they evacuate us from our homes. It's a feeling that you are going to war while at the same time endangering your home.. "

Hezbollah 'bombards' northern Israel
AlJazeera 8/2/2006
Some 190 Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel on Wednesday -- Hezbollah fighters have fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel as the group fought up to 6,000 Israeli troops across five fronts in southern of Lebanon. Some 190 Hezbollah rockets - the most fired in a single day so far in the conflict - were fired across the border from Lebanon hitting further south than ever before, police and Israeli radio reports said. Rockets landed near the Israeli town of Beit Shean, about 70km from the border and in the West Bank near the town of Jenin. One US-born Israeli was killed as he fled for a bomb shelter in Kibbutz Saar, a communal farm near the northern border town of Nahariya. 19 Israeli civilians have died during rocket attacks in the last three weeks.

IDF: We assumed building in Qana to be empty
YNet News 8/3/2006
IDF investigation reveals Qana residents warned repeatedly to leave area. IDF sources: Had we known building was occupied by civilians, we would not have attacked it -- The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday evening published its formal investigation regarding the aerial strike on Qana , in which 27 [57 - Ed. ] Lebanese civilians were killed. IDF sources state that their work assumption was that the building was emptied of civilians and was being used as a cover for terrorists. "Had we known the building was occupied by civilians, we would not have attacked it," they said.... the building was struck at 00:25 Sunday by two bombs launched by the IAF. One of the bombs exploded and the other was apparently a dud.

Israel hijacks Al-Manar's signal to broadcast its own propaganda
The Daily Star 8/3/2006
(AFP) -- BEIRUT: Israel hacked into Hizbullah's television channel Tuesday, showing pictures of corpses and claiming the group's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was a liar. One of the images shown on Al-Manar TV portrayed the body of a fighter lying face-down, with a text beneath in Arabic reading: "This is the photograph of a body of a member of Hizbullah's special forces. " "Nasrallah lies: It is not us that are hiding our losses," said the text, which appeared during the evening news and stayed on screen for several minutes. A photo of Nasrallah also appeared with the caption: "member of Hizbullah: watch out. " Another photograph of corpses was framed by the words: "There are a large number of corpses like this on the ground and Nasrallah is hiding this truth. "

Peretz: Iran wants to combine nuclear threat with northern front
YNet News 8/2/2006
[Lies of a warmonger - Ed. ] In Channel 10 interview, defense minister says Hizbullah is Iran's commando unit in Lebanon. If events would have taken place in one year things would have been more complicated, he says -- Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Wednesday that Israel 's military offensive against Hizbullah "exposed what Iran really planned. " Speaking to Israel's Channel 10 TV Peretz said if the offensive were to have been launched a year from now it would have been much more complex because "they (Hizbullah) would have been combined with a nuclear threat which is being developed in Iran. " He said Iran would be willing to send troops to Lebanon, which would make it more complicated for Israel to fight Hizbullah. Peretz stressed the importance of the operation.

Palestine Info: “Palestinian captives in Negev wage hunger strike over Qana massacre”
International Solidarity Movement 7/31/2006
Ramallah - Palestinian prisoners in the infamous Israeli Negev prison went on a hunger strike Monday in condemnation of the Israeli massacre in the Lebanese town of Qana as well as the intensified quelling measures the IPA is exercising against them. More than 2,320 Palestinian detainees in that prison heeded calls from their jailed political blocs and returned their meals, adding they were on a hunger strike over the Israeli butchery in the tiny Lebanese village where 60 Lebanese civilians, 37 of them children, sheltering in one of the town’s buildings were buried under rubble at dawn Sunday. Israeli warplanes dropped their heavy bombs and unleashed a number of their missiles at the building; thus, leveling it to the ground. Rescue workers spent a hard time in getting the severed small bodies from under the debris.

Glimpse Into Hezbollah Secretive World
Palestine Chronicle 8/2/2006
It took Hezbollah fighters 18 years of uphill struggle and sporadic attacks to force the Israelis to finally withdraw from almost all of Lebanon. -- SRIFA, Lebanon — When duty calls many Hezbollah members, including school teachers, give up every thing, don their military uniforms and pick up their Kalashnikovs to defend their country. "We don't love killing," Haj Rabia Abu Hussein — known to his soldiers simply as "103" — told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in an interview wired on Tuesday, August 1. "We look at all people as brothers. We deal with people as people, regardless of religion, but we will defend our land, our honor and our dignity. "As he talks, Hussein fingers his Motorola radio, his means of communication with his soldiers farther afield.

Analysis: A buffer with a difference
Jerusalem Post 8/2/2006
A little over six years after Israel's soldiers dashed for the border amid the collapse of the south Lebanon security zone, the IDF is on Thursday, or Friday at latest, set to deploy along a line much the same as that defunct zone's northern edge, dragged deeply back into Lebanon no matter how hard it had tried to stay out. A significant difference, however, is that the zone itself will not be clear of Hizbullah cells, as it was until May 2000. Instead, it will be one of the IDF's tasks, in however many days of fighting the UN Security Council winds up granting Israel, to do whatever it can to reduce Hizbullah's armed presence in that area ahead of the planned deployment of an international armed force there. Israel's argument is that the fewer traces of Hizbullah in the zone, the better the chances for that international force...

Several soldiers injured in Aita al-Shaab battles
YNet News 8/2/2006
Fighters hurt during operation in southern Lebanese village where officer, two fighters were killed Tuesday. Earlier, five soldiers injured, one sustaining serious wounds. Ten terrorists killed in western region. Division 162 commander: So far 350 terrorists have been killed, infrastructures have been significantly damaged -- Day 22 of fighting: Harsh battles continued Wednesday evening in the village of Aita al-Shaab in the western region of southern Lebanon. Several soldiers were injured during an operation in the village, which is close to the Israeli community of Zarit. On Tuesday, three IsraelDefense Forces soldiers were killedin the same village in two fighting incidents against Hizbullahmembers. Another 25 troops were lightly hurt, including an officer.

IDF: We'll control security zone by Thursday
YNet News 8/2/2006
Some 200 soldiers of elite units raid Baalbek area Tuesday night. Senior officer says in press briefing that 15 similar operations have been carried out inside Lebanon so far. Hospital raided by forces serves as Hizbullah's 'outpatient clinic,' place for meeting with members of Iranian Revolutionary Guards -- In a press briefing Wednesday, a senior officer at the General Staff spoke about the operation in which 200 soldiers of elite units raided the Baalbek area in Lebanon. Ten terrorists were killed in the operation around the hospital in Baalbek, all of them armed and wearing bullet-proof vests. The officer was asked whether the operation at the hospital was aimed at locating intelligence information on the kidnapped soldiers, who may have been treated there before being moved elsewhere, but he refused to answer the question.

Morning Roundup: Israel Stages Commando Operation in Baalbeck Capturing and Killing a Dozen People
An Nahar 8/2/2006
Israel launched its deepest ground attack into Lebanon with Israeli commandos raiding a Hizbullah-run hospital and air strikes killing at least seven civilians in the city of Baalbeck on Wednesday. In the south, three Lebanese soldiers were killed in an airstrike on their base after Israel intensified its air raids on the country following a 48-hour partial suspension. The Israeli military said that its forces entered Baalbeck, hit a number of fighters, captured several more and brought them back to Israel. It said all the soldiers returned to their base without suffering casualties, but refused to identify the guerrillas who were captured. Hizbullah implicitly confirmed that some people had been seized at the hospital and spirited away by helicopter, but denied they belonged to the group.

Lebanon values IDF damage to infrastructure at $2 billion
Ha'aretz 8/2/2006
Three weeks of Israeli bombardment has so far inflicted $2 billion worth of damage on Lebanon's infrastructure, Transport and Public Works Minister Mohammed al-Safadi said on Wednesday. "Our preliminary valuation is about e2 billion," he told Reuters. "That's roads, bridges, ports, the airport, until now. "Israel has given the go-ahead for two tanker ships to deliver desperately-needed fuel to Beirut and the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Wednesday. Relief agencies say filling stations, water pumping sites and electrical power centers inLebanon are running out of supplies amid an Israeli blockade of the country. "We have negotiated for two tankers, now off Cyprus, to go into Beirut and Tripoli ports," WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told Reuters.

Kiryat Shmona discussing the possibility of evacuating residents
Ma'an News 8/2/2006
Bethlehem -- The Kiryat Shmona municipality on the Israeli border with Lebanon is studying the feasibility of evacuating all its residents because of Hezbollah bombardment of the area. The evacuation was discussed in a meeting between Israeli army leaders and the Kiryat Shmona mayor, Hayim Berbiya'i. [end]

An Nasser Salah Addin Brigades launch projectile at Netiv Ha'asara, north of the Gaza Strip.
Ma'an News 8/2/2006
Khan --Ma'an- An Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility on Wednesday for launching a Nasir-2 homemade projectile at the Israeli village of Netiv Ha'asara, north of the Gaza Strip. In a statement received by Ma'an, the Brigades confirmed that the shelling comes in retaliation for the destruction of the home of Brigades leader in Jenin, Yousif Nazzal. The Brigades also promised further attacks. [end]

Fischer: Conflict costing 0.7-0.9% GDP loss monthly
Globes 8/2/2006
The Governor of the Bank of Israel called on the government not to raise taxes. -- Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer has predicted that the conflict in northern Israel will cause a loss of 0. 7-0. 9% in GDP, if it lasts for a month. He estimates that the war has caused weekly damage of NIS 750 million-1. 08 billion; that is to say, the aggregate loss of GDP over three weeks of fighting is NIS 2. 25-3. 25 billion. Fischer made his comments at a press conference today, in which he reviewed the impact the conflict is having on the economy. He said that the capital and foreign currency markets have stabilized at pre-conflict levels, despite the falls during the first days of fighting. Foreign investors’ confidence in the economy had remained firm, he added.

Saudi Shias stage pro-Hezbollah protest
AlJazeera 8/2/2006
Public protests are banned in Saudi Arabia -- More than 2,000 Saudi Muslim Shias are reported to have joined a protest march in the country's Eastern Province to denounce Israel's military onslaught against Lebanon, the second rare protest this week. Residents said up to 2,000 people took part in a march late on Tuesday in the eastern city of al-Qatif while hundreds more marched in the neighbouring town of al-Awamiya. A Shia website carried photographs of the protesters, which included Saudi women and children, bearing pictures of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the group's yellow flag. It said Lebanese expatriates also took part. The website quoted the protesters as saying: "Not Sunnis, not Shias - it's one Islamic unity. Oh beloved Hezbollah, destroy Tel Aviv!"

The Iniquities of War
By Leila Diab, Palestine Chronicle 8/2/2006
      The formation of the Lebanese government is representative of a parliamentary republic with a centralized, multi religious and multi party existence.
     "I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny. I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization. I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of America." --Kahlil Gibran
     As the bombings and massive destruction of Lebanon’s cities, towns and Palestinian refugee camps are decimated beyond belief, the world only watches from a distance. Lebanon, once known as the banking center of the Middle East, has once again collapsed making it virtually impossible for the Lebanese people to take pleasure in their own democratic freedoms in their once sovereign country.
     And once again, the asymmetrical coverage or imbalance of facts in Middle East history will be distorted in the mainstream media. Some might even say that history repeats itself, while others maintain that history has never reconciled or fixed its iniquities of wars and human atrocities. All that remains in Lebanon today are the iniquities of war and human atrocities.
     For centuries, the vestiges of Lebanon’s rich history has been shaped by many cultural influences and traditions, including Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Crusader, Ottoman Turkish, French and now American. However, in Lebanon today, the culture is distinctively Lebanese, as east mingles with the western world. But some might venture to say, does the western world really want to mingle with the east, preserve peace, freedom and democracy in the Middle East or simply exert its continued power to dominate and control other Middle Eastern nation's democratic lifestyles. Is might always right? Well, today, the American and Israeli government seem to think that yes, might is right. However, people of conscience from all over the world say, no, to this question.

Prosecuting Israel
By Francis A. Boyle, Palestine Chronicle 8/2/2006
      Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of Bush Jr. Neocons, who view Syria as low-hanging fruit ready to be taken out.
     The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a "subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.
     The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.
     The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Defense Minister Peretz, Chief of Staff Halutz and Israel's other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.
     Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as "low-hanging fruit" ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression.

US - Israeli UN Resolution Hypocrisy
By Stephen Lendman, ZNet 8/2/2006
      Two nations stand out above all others as notorious serial abusers of UN resolutions - the US and Israel. Over the last half century, the US has used its Security Council veto many dozens of times to prevent any resolutions from passing condemning Israel for its abusive or hostile actions or that were inimical to Israeli interests. It's also voted against dozens of others overwhelmingly supported by the rest of the world in the UN General Assembly. By its actions and with 6% of the world's population, the US has thus arrogantly ignored the will of nearly all the other 94% to support its client state even when Israel had committed war crimes or crimes against humanity the rest of the world demanded it be held to account for. In the words of one UK observer using a baseball analogy: "Only the USA could have a World Series and not invite the rest of the world."
     The Israeli record on UN resolutions over that same period is far worse. With full US support for its actions, it's flagrantly and with little or no pretense routinely ignored over five dozen UN Resolutions condemning or censuring it for its actions against the Palestinians or other Arab people, deploring it for committing them, or demanding, calling on or urging the Jewish state to end them. Israel never did or intends to up to the present, including the mass slaughter and destruction it's now inflicting on the people of Lebanon and the Palestinians in their Territories that Israel illegally occupies and attacks whenever it wishes. It does so with impunity using any contrived pretext it can get away with to deny the Palestinians any chance ever for a viable sovereign independent state and to avoid a political solution with them it won't ever tolerate.
     UN Resolutions As Examples of US and Israeli Hypocrisy
     Consider now three UN Resolutions as examples of gross hypocrisy - one Israel and its US paymaster and benefactor support and two others both countries do not so they ignore them. In September, 2004, the Security Council passed UN Resolution 1559, cosponsored by the US and France, that called on Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon and stop intervening in the Lebanese political process.

The Total Destruction of Srifa: Mangled Bodies in the Wake of Israeli Bombs and Missiles
By Lara Marlowe, CounterPunch 8/2/2006
      "The Ones Who Are Buried Alive Are Usually Safe From the Dogs"
     Srifa, Lebanon.
     It was an unseemly end for 80- year-old Manaheel Jabr, flung over a bloodstained walll, grey hair falling around her shrunken black face, a collapsed ceiling pinning her down at the waist.
     "It's the grandmother," one of the onlookers gasped when the civil defense bulldozer finally pierced a hole in the rubble of what was until two weeks ago a three-storey house.
     Mrs Jabr's corpse presented a terrible dilemma to the Lebanese Red Cross yesterday. Should they cut her in two, put the pieces in a body bag and take her to the hospital morgue, or leave her behind, in the hope that more powerful equipment could lift the concrete slab from her back and would reach her before the dogs did?
     It was late afternoon and the 48-hour "pause" in aerial bombardment promised by Israel was drawing to a close. The Red Cross's plan to retrieve 89 bodies across the war zone was about to end in failure. The Israelis, with whom the Lebanese Red Cross communicates via the International Red Cross, granted safe passage to only two of the six villages that the rescue workers wanted to visit yesterday, Srifa and Bint Jbail. And the convoy bound for Bint Jbail had to turn around because of bombing.
     That left only Srifa, the site of the most dramatic devastation I have seen in this war. The entire Hay el-Birki neighbourhood - 18 buildings by some accounts - was flattened at 2 am on July 19. "The F-16s [ fighter bombers] came from the west, the Apaches [ attack helicopters from the east," said a local Hizbullah official who identified himself as Abu Hadi.
     It seemed amazing that bombs and missiles could chop buildings into so many million of grey concrete pieces, a bed of rubble many meters deep, with only the occasional slipper or coffee pot to remind one that human beings lived here.

'You go a bit crazy when you see little body after little body coming up out of the ground'
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian 8/2/2006
      Huge numbers of children are being killed, injured or displaced in south Lebanon. Why are so many suffering in this conflict?
     Three days ago, next to the gutted and destroyed house in Qana, seven bodies lay covered with bedsheets, a blanket and a prayer mat. One small arm stretched out from under the sheets; thin, the arm of a little girl, a piece of cloth like a bracelet wrapped around the wrist. As bodies were loaded on the stretcher, I saw another dead girl; she was dressed in a black shirt with a coloured scarf wrapped loosely around her head. Her face was swollen.
     In some ways I was relieved. The rumour we had heard in the hotel in Tyre was that at least 40 people, half of them children, had been in the house in Qana when it was bombed by Israeli planes, and here I was an hour later, with Red Cross workers and others running up and down, and all I could see was the bodies of two girls and five adults.
     It's weird, the things that make you feel better in the south of Lebanon, but seven dead instead of 40 gave me a sense of relief.
     But even as I stood there registering that emotion, hellish scenes were unfolding. Four medics carried a little boy by on an orange stretcher: he was perhaps 12 years old, dressed in black shorts and a white T-shirt with a coloured motorcycle on it. His arms were stretched behind his head, but apart from the bruises on his face and the swollen lips, he looked OK. For half a second I told myself, as I tell myself every time I see death, that he was just sleeping, and that he would be fine. But he was dead.
     Then came two more boys in the arms of the rescuers. One of them, the younger, around eight years old, had his arms close to his chest, his nose and mouth covered with blood. The elder, around 10, had dirt and debris in his mouth. Their slight bodies were put on a blanket, the head of the younger boy left resting on the shoulder of the elder, then four men carried the blanket off, stopping twice to rest as they took them away. The bodies of the boys were piled with other corpses in the back of an ambulance.
     Two more small dead boys followed them. The medics were running out of stretchers, so they piled the corpses of the boys on one orange stretcher. One of the kids was slightly chubby; he was wearing a red T-shirt and shorts. His head rested on the lap of the younger, who was about six years old; both had the same exploding lips, covered with blood and dirt. It was obvious to everyone that these boys were not sleeping.

NATO Force to Benefit Israel, Not Lebanon
By Robert Fisk, Palestine Chronicle 8/2/2006
      How come anyone believes that the next foreign army to arrive in the Lebanese meat-grinder is going to be any more successful?
     Every foreign army--including the Israelis--comes to grief in Lebanon.
     So, how come George Bush and Blair, after their inevitable disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq, believe that a Nato-led force is going to survive on the south Lebanese border? The Israelis would obviously enjoy watching its deployment--it will be time for the West to take the casualties--but Hizbollah is likely to view its arrival as a proxy Israeli army. It is, after all, supposed to be a "buffer" force to protect Israel--not, as the Lebanese have quickly noted, to protect Lebanon--and the last NATO army that came to this country was literally blasted out of its mission by suicide bombers.
     How blithely the US and British governments have erased the narrative of the old Multinational Force--the MNF--which arrived in Beirut to escort Palestinian guerrillas out of Lebanon in August of 1982 and then, after the massacre of up to 1,700 Palestinian guerrillas at the Sabra and Chatila camps by Israel's proxy Lebanese militia, returned to protect the survivors and extend the sovereignty of the Lebanese government.
     Does that sound familiar? And they also came to train the Lebanese army--one of the missions being foisted on the new Bush-Blair army--and they failed. Blown up by suicide bombers at their Beirut headquarters with the loss of 241 American lives, the US Marines retreated into the ground, digging earthworks beneath Beirut airport.
     And there they lived until the newly-trained Lebanese army broke apart in February 1984, at which point, President Ronald Reagan decided to "redeploy" his troops offshore. Like other famous historical redeployments. Napoleon's redeployment from Moscow, for example, or Custer's last redeployment--it represented a national disaster, a colossal blow to US prestige in the region and a warning that such Lebanese adventures always end in tears. The French left shortly afterwards. So did the Italians. A company of British troops had been the first to scuttle out.

Who Are the Real Terrorists?
By Oren Ben-Dor, Palestine Chronicle 8/2/2006
      What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?
     As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
     While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
     What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
     Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two- state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
     The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.

Omission vs. Repetition
By Kaminer Ray, ZNet 8/2/2006
      Cause and Effect in Israel's Wars
     “Israel didn’t start this war. Hezbollah did.” -- New Mexico Governor and former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson
     This is the stark framing of the current war between Israel and Lebanon that remains unquestioned. The US speeds up bomb shipments to Israel, who continues to drop them haphazardly, but Hezbollah started it, so Israel’s “response,” no matter how “disproportionate,” is slightly more justifiable.
     Cause and effect allows us to lay blame and take sides in conflicts. With Pearl Harbor as a cause, the dropping of not one but two atomic bombs on Japan is acceptable to the popular mind. In the same vein, the war in Afghanistan, undertaken without any evidence as to Afghanistan’s complicity or guilt, was justified by the conventional wisdom that September 11th was the cause. The long history of American intervention in other countries includes a long history of CIA provocation that has disguised US intervention as a reaction, a defensive operation.
     ....On June 24th, one day prior to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier by "Palestinian militants", Reuters reported that "elite [Israeli] commandos mounted Israel's first arrest raid into the Gaza Strip . . . since the Jewish state withdrew a year ago," detaining medical student Osama Muamar and his brother Mustafa, a university student. Israel said the two men were Hamas militants, though Hamas denies this and no evidence was presented. All that is firmly known is that Israel invaded sovereign territory and seized two civilians.
     The next day, June 25th, Hamas "militants" seized an Israeli soldier, and Hezbollah followed with its raid into Israel. As violence escalated, the story from June 24th disappeared, for whatever reasons. The conventional storyline holds June 25th as the starting point of the current fighting.

Palestinians and Israelis unite against war in Lebanon and destruction of Gaza
Ma'an News 8/1/2006
      Bethlehem - Ma'an - Palestinian and Jewish residents of the Galilee have united to form a group campaigning against the actions of the Israeli government in Lebanon and Gaza. A statement issued by the group declared "We... do not believe the government of Israel and the military, who maintain that war is being waged in self-defense and for the purpose of releasing the captured soldiers."
     Attacking the idea that the war was a spontaneous reaction to hostilities, the residents continue,
     "We do not believe them because it is now common knowledge that the military steps were planned a long time ago. We know that about a month before the Hezbollah attack on the army patrol, a military exercise was conducted as a rehearsal for an attack on Lebanon. Similarly, the kidnapping of the ministers and Parliament members of the Palestinian Authority was planned weeks ahead of the capture of the soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas.
     "We do not believe the government of Israel and the generals because there is a huge gap between the declared aims of the war and Israel's actual military operations. What is the connection between the declared aims of this war and the destruction of Beirut? How are the declared aims of the war served by the demolition of a baby-food plant? Or by the destruction of the city of Nabatiyeh? Or the bombardment of Gaza's power station? Or the destruction of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and Gaza? Or turning over half a million Lebanese civilians into refugees?"

In the Gunsight: Syria
CounterPunch 7/31/2006
      A Nice Little War
     It is the old story about the losing gambler: he cannot stop. He continues to play, in order to win his losses back. He continues to lose and continues to gamble, until he has lost everything: his ranch, his wife, his shirt.
     The same thing happens in the biggest gamble of all: war. The leaders that start a war and get stuck in the mud are compelled to fight their way ever deeper into the mud. That is a part of the very essence of war: it is impossible to stop after a failure. Public opinion demands the promised victory. Incompetent generals need to cover up their failure. Military commentators and other armchair strategists demand a massive offensive. Cynical politicians are riding the wave. The government is carried away by the flood that they themselves have let loose.
     That is what happened this week, following the battle of Bint-Jbeil, which the Arabs have already started to call proudly Nasrallahgrad. All over Israel the cry goes up: Get into it! Quicker! Further! Deeper!
     A day after the bloody battle, the cabinet decided on a massive mobilization of the reserves. What for? The ministers do not know. But it does not depend on them anymore, nor on the generals. The political and military leadership is tossed about on the waves of war like a boat without a rudder.
     As has been said before: it is much easier to start a war than to finish one. The cabinet believes that it controls the war, but in reality it is the war that controls them. They have mounted a tiger, and can't be sure of getting off without being torn to pieces.