Mideast Violence

[ocelot]

Hezbollah leader vows 'open war' on Israel
Last Updated Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:26:37 EDT
CBC News
The leader of Hezbollah vowed "open war" Friday as Israel tightened its grip on Lebanon, destroying Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut and smashing roads and runways around the city.

Shortly after the headquarters was bombed, the organization's official television station, Hezbollah TV, played a recorded audio address from Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the group's secretary general. It's not clear when the recording was made, but Nasrallah did not mention the missile strike.

"You want an open war, we will go to the open war," he said, according to reports. "We are ready for it. War, war on every level."

Less than an hour before the audiotape aired, witnesses in Beirut reported at least four loud booms in the city's southern Haret Hreik neighbourhood, the site of Hezbollah's headquarters. It was not clear whether the missiles came from Israeli planes or warships.

The attack on the headquarters came amid reports an Israeli woman and a four-year-old girl were killed by a Hezbollah rocket in the northern Israeli town of Meron.

Four Israeli civilians have been killed since the Hezbollah rocket attacks started on Wednesday.

Also Friday, Israeli military officials said one of their naval ships in Lebanese waters had been hit by an unmanned Hezbollah aircraft rigged with explosives, causing a fire and heavy damage and leaving four sailors missing.

A search had been launched for the missing men, the military officials said. Hezbollah has sent unmanned spy drone aircraft over Israel in the past two years.

Earlier in the day, Israeli planes blasted Beirut's international airport and Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon.

The main highway between Beirut and Damascus, Syria, was also bombed. Three people were killed and 55 wounded in the air strikes, police said Friday.

Beirut airport officials said one of three runways was hit by an Israeli missile at mid-morning Friday.

For its part, Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into northern Israel.

More than 55 people were killed on Thursday in the first wave of Israeli strikes against the airport and two Lebanese military bases. Israel's navy is enforcing a blockade of Lebanese ports.

Israel's military campaign was launched in retaliation for an attack by Hezbollah forces on Wednesday in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and taken into Lebanese territory.

Eight other Israeli soldiers were killed in skirmishes along the border.

(CBC) Israel has said it holds Lebanon responsible for the capture of its two soldiers and will continue to intensify military pressure until they are released.

This is the most intense Israeli military action against Lebanon since Israel invaded and occupied Beirut 24 years ago. Israel withdrew the last of its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, easing tensions between the two countries.

The air strikes opened a second front in Israel's conflicts with its neighbours over the capture of its troops. It has been hammering Gaza for weeks in a campaign to force the release of Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old corporal seized by Palestinian militants on June 25.

International concern is mounting that the violence could spread. The European Union has criticized Israel for a "disproportionate response."

The Israeli military said the airport strike and the blockade are intended to cut off supplies to Hezbollah, and that the Lebanese government must move to clamp down on the Beirut-based militants.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the Hezbollah raid an "act of war," and said military action against Lebanon and Hezbollah would intensify until the soldiers are released.

[ocelot]

Intense diplomacy to stop Mideast fighting
Last Updated Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:58:26 EDT
CBC News
Diplomatic efforts are continuing to deal with the fighting in the Middle East and its impact on the region.

The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session Friday morning to consider a request from Lebanon to condemn the Israeli attacks, but was unable to reach agreement on a response to the crisis.

A brief statement called on countries in the region to co-operate with UN efforts to arrange a ceasefire, expected to begin shortly.

During an often fiery debate, Lebanon's ambassador, Nouhad Mahmoud, said Israel had carried out "widespread barbaric aggression" against his country and warned that further Israeli attacks "will not resolve the problem but will further complicate it."

In reply, Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said his country's armed forces were acting "in direct response to an act of war from Lebanon." He said Israel's battle was not against a country, but against groups that he accused of "terrorism."

"Hezbollah, Hamas, together with Syria and Iran comprise the world's new and ominous axis of terror, an infamous club the entry to which is the blood of innocents and the terrorizing of the entire world."

Ambassadors disagree

There were disagreements between the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, who echoed European Union criticisms of the Israeli military strikes on Lebanon as a "disproportionate response."

Bolton repeated that Israel has every right to defend itself and, like the Israeli ambassador, accused Tehran of meddling in the crisis.

"Iran's extensive sponsorship and financial and other support of Hezbollah is well known and has been going on for decades," he said.

In other developments, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke by telephone to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who agreed to a request to allow UN mediators to attempt ceasefire negotiations, according to an official in Jerursalem.

The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, said Israel's attacks violated international law and had grave consequences for civilians. His officials have warned of growing humanitarian challenges in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been attacking the militant group Hamas for more than a week now.

U.S. President George W. Bush spoke by phone to the Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora, and "reiterated his position" that Israeli attacks should have limited impacts on civilians, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

G8 leaders meeting in St.Petersburg, Russia, this weekend are expected to put the Middle East near the top of their agenda.

[achebeautiful]

I think we are in for a very long period of wartime in this world!

Brace yourselves!

[ocelot]

Support for Hezbollah growing in Mideast
Updated Fri. Jul. 28 2006 6:36 PM ET

DAVID RISING, Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt -- Rising Arab anger over the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah appears to have pushed conservative rulers in the region to refocus their criticism away from the Shiite guerrillas and onto Israel.

The most dramatic turn has come from Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally whose king initially rebuked Hezbollah for carrying out "uncalculated adventures" with a cross-border raid that captured two Israeli soldiers. This week, however, King Abdullah warned that "if the option of peace fails as a result of Israeli arrogance, then the only option remaining will be war."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, an important mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict for the last 25 years, now mixes his condemnation of Hezbollah's move with sharp criticism of Israel's response.

It was "disproportionate, to say the least," Mubarak said in remarks posted Friday on Time magazine's Web site. "Israel's response demonstrated a collective punishment against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. The bloodshed and the destruction caused by the Israelis went way too far."

Much of the initial reaction among Sunni Arab rulers was fueled by a dislike of Hezbollah and wariness of the guerrillas' Iranian backers, but that has been swept aside by a flood public anger at Israel.

Popular opinion in favor of Hezbollah has swelled as newspapers and television stations have shown graphic pictures of the suffering amid climbing civilian casualties.

"Arab states are still worried, especially about Iran and Iraq ... but right now we are talking about the destruction of Lebanon," said Hassan al-Ansari, head of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University. "When people see all the stuff going on they cannot sit idle."

The rhetoric also has focused on the United States and its support for Israel. Media reports have emphasized that Israel is striking Lebanon with U.S.-made warplanes and guided bombs.

During Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region, her statement that the conflict represented the growing pains of a "new Middle East" helped rally Arabs against Israel.

"The Zionist-American plan aims at dismantling resistance and redrawing the map under the banner of a new Middle East where the supreme hegemony is for Israel only," said Mohammed Habib, deputy leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. "All sects (of Islam) are in need of unity to deter the enemy."

Even Jordan's mainstream Al-Arab al Yawm newspaper carried a column saying that what Rice really meant was a Middle East free from all kinds of resistance.

Arab governments also have difficulty condemning Hezbollah without appearing to be condoning Israel's response.

"The problem is, Hezbollah is not an army. It is part of the Lebanese community," al-Ansari said.

Some shifts in position have been more subtle than Saudi Arabia's.

Jordan initially accused unspecified forces of dragging Lebanon into conflict. Its government has recently focused on the rising civilian casualties, which King Abdullah II said were a result of Israel's "aggression."

Mubarak remained critical of Hezbollah, saying "some forces are provoking conflict ... to achieve their private interests." But at the same time he chastised the turn the fight has taken.

"Israel will lose a lot ... from the continuation of the military operation, which is concentrating, sadly, on civilian targets," the Egyptian leader said.

Fatma Hassan Al Sayegh, a history professor at United Arab Emirates University, said Arab governments have had to back away from their initial stance as Hezbollah showed resilience and won support from the public.

Many around the Arab world seem to have put aside Shiite-Sunni animosities to concentrate on Israel.

"Oh Sunni! Oh Shiite! Let's fight the Jews!" a crowd chanted outside Cairo's Istiqama Mosque on Friday. "The Jews and the Americans are killing our brothers in Lebanon."

The protesters carried photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah alongside those of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose Arab nationalist policies helped lead to the 1967 Mideast War.

Al-Ansari suggested the shift could be a response to what many believe has been a disproportionate Israeli reaction to Hezbollah.

"The Arab governments, they look at it from a rational point of view -- they know it's going to be a big mess at their doors and they have to deal with it," he said. "From the beginning they made their positions clear (but) nobody was expecting the reaction by the Israelis this way."

[achebeautiful]

Israel can't win any popularity contests in the Middle East or much of the world no matter what it chooses to do or how it decides to respond.

Right now the world needs to recognize Hezbollah for who they are, and that is a terrorist organization. They are deserving of absolutely no sympathy. Their goal is to rid Israel from the face of the earth, and for that they will receive a lot of support from the rest of the Middle East.

Anti-Semitism is there with or without strong military action on Israel's part. This is all just a bunch of crap coming from the Middle East.

[achebeautiful]

"The problem is, Hezbollah is not an army. It is part of the Lebanese community," al-Ansari said.

Umm, many of the Lebanese community hate that Hezbollah is there!

And what is there to like about the tactic of using civilian homes and buildings to launch rockets into Israel from! Guerrilla warfare is a mean game, and the world needs to realize that that is what Israel is fighting against here.

So the next time you here in the news that Israel killed more civilians, consider that it is Hezbollah who chooses to hide behind those civilians as a type of warfare.

[ocelot]

I personally think that Israel went too far. I'm against terror just like anybody else but to blow out bridges, airports and other transportation avenues so people couldn't escape to safety is wrong. They even attacked the UN. And by Israel going too far, again support for a terrorism organization is increasing.

Before there was alot of hatred to both Israel and Hezbollah and now there is alot more hatred to Israel and some are siding with Hezbollah that didn't before.

I want terrorism to be defeated but this is not the way to do it. It's like kiling a dandelion, you kill the original flower but because you didn't kill it in the right way. The seeds spread so that there are more dandelions than before. We need to fight terrorism in a way that doesn't enlarge the support of it.

It is also thought that Israel has committed war crimes in its attack on Lebanon. That shows to me that they did something wrong.

[achebeautiful]

That is an interesting and thoughtful observation Leona, and I completely respect your opinion. I do not want to do any injury to your comments, so I will try hard to be careful of my own.

I do not think Israel is going too far at all. The reason they are blowing strategic structures like airports and bridges up is because Hezbollah is situated where they are for one reason and one reason only: to obliterate Israel from the face of the earth. Hezbollah fights in guerrilla warfare, putting civilian lives at risk.

Exactly what do the Hezbollah military look like? Answer: civilians.

Isreal is fighting , as it always has, for its right to exist. I fully support them in their effort.

There is nothing Israel can do to win popular support in this world. The UN is largely a body of nations that are anti-Jewish. The truth is, every country in the Middle east already has a very strong worldview regarding Israel, and it doesn't change like the weather. Isreal can concede right now and strive to make peace, and would still come under not only criticism but also attack.


Why has Israel gone too far? And why are they losing support for it? Why isn't Hezbollah coming under the very same criticism, and losing support for also launching rockets into civilian areas such as hospitals?

If countries like Saudi Arabia are so concerned about all of this, why are they doing nothing to end the terrorism? Criticizing Isreal is not solving anything, and they know it. This is nothing more than a way to publicly state to the world exactly how they feel and have felt all along. Only now, they can blame Israel for why they feel that way.

Everyone needs to determine what their worldview is concerning Israel. That worldview will not toss and turn with every action and reaction from Israel. They are the only true democracy in the Middle East. They are hated by much of the world. Most of their history, most of their existance, and most of their future will be nothing more than fighting for their right to exist.

This isn't about agreeing with every decision that they make. It's about whether or not you support them in their longstanding fight for survival.

Hezbollah.......needs to go.

[achebeautiful]

Here is an opinion piece that I agree with:


Let Israel win the war
~Charles Krauthammer

In fight vs. Hezbollah, it's wrong to expect restraint



What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world and given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?
What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities - every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians - and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world - governments, the media, UN bureaucrats - has completely lost its moral bearings.

The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No.

When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right - legal and moral - to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did Britain respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. The rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents also must die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.

On Wednesday, CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do?

Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead, it attacked dual-use infrastructure - bridges, roads, airport runways - and blockaded Lebanon's ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah. Ten thousand Katyusha rockets are enough. Israel was not going to allow Hezbollah 10,000 more.

Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed.

Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?

Originally published on July 28, 2006

[ocelot]

That's a great article. I agree with so much of the article. I do agree that Israel is doing what they are to hurt Hezbollah. I just think bombing the UN's stuff was wrong and they should of let a little more warning to let civilians escape. I just really feel for the people caught in a war with no escape routes. I still believe that Israel went a little too far or I should say that they should have waited a little bit to do these things.

[achebeautiful]

It is understandable why you feel that way Leona and hard to argue against. While I still maintain my opinion about all of this, I cannot disagree with your position. The song you wrote, "Your Own Crime" (at the Imagine board) creates a side to this that we both agree on....

[ocelot]

Hezbollah rains more than 230 rockets on Israel
Updated Wed. Aug. 2 2006 7:27 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Hezbollah fired a volley of more than 230 rockets at Israeli as 8,000 Israeli soldiers pursued the Shiite militant group's fighters on Lebanese soil.

The rocket attack was the worst yet, one of which was the deepest strike yet. That rocket hit the town of Beit Shean, about 67 kilometres south of Lebanon.

One Israeli died in the barrage, and another 58 people were wounded.

The previous daily record was 166 rockets, fired on July 26.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel's three-week-old offensive will only stop if an international peacekeeping force is deployed in southern Lebanon.

His country's troops were moving methodically across southern Lebanon, trying to sweep guerrillas out of villages.

Israeli military officials said Hezbollah fighters were putting up resistance. While the officials said Israeli could punch through to its objective of the Litani River, they don't want to leave pockets of resistance.

Israel's troops are believed to be about 3 km inside Lebanon right now. The Litani River is about 29 km north of the border.

Late Tuesday, Israel conducted an air raid on the northeastern city of Baalbek, about 130 km north of Israel, killing several people it claimed were Hezbollah fighters.

The Israeli military said it seized five Hezbollah members in the raid and a spokeswoman told Reuters the captured militants had been taken to Israel.

However, in a statement on al-Manar television, Hezbollah said those captured in Baalbek, one of its strongholds, were "ordinary citizens", not militants.

This view was echoed by Hezbollah MP for Baalbek, Hussein Haj Hassan, who denied that those captured were soldiers and challenged Israel to prove otherwise.

"The Israeli army lies again because the Lebanese captured last night were civilian people and they are more than 50 years old and we defy the Israeli army to show them to the media immediately," Hassan told reporters.

Witnesses said Israeli forces partially destroyed the Dar al-Hikma hospital in Baalbek, where chief Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahal said fighting raged for more than one hour, AP reported.

Israeli warplanes also attacked a Lebanese army base in the southern part of the country, killing three soldiers, a security official said.

At least 11 civilians, including five members of the same family, were killed in the bombing.

Here are the current death toll estimates:

Lebanon: 548; 477 civilians, 25 soldiers and 46 Hezbollah fighters
Israeli: 55; 36 soldiers and 19 civilians.

Other developments

France said it will not participate in a meeting at the United Nations Thursday that could send troops to help monitor a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. France says it does not want to discuss sending peacekeepers until a cease fire has been declared and the UN Security Council agrees to a framework for lasting peace.

The UN later said it would again postpone the Thursday meeting, saying it was too soon to talk about deploying peacekeepers without a plan for peace between Israel and Hezbollah.

Pope Benedict XVI also issued a new appeal for peace Wednesday, urging "the international community and those who are more directly involved in this tragedy to lay down conditions as soon as possible for a definitive political solution to the crisis."

The UN World Food Program said Israel had agreed to allow to oil tankers to enter Lebanon to ease a fuel shortage.

The United Nations has warned that the longer a spill of 110,000 barrels of oil is not cleaned up from Lebanon's coast, the more severe the environmental impact will be.

[achebeautiful]

Bearing The Burden
~ By Suzanne Fields

No two wars are alike. Different players in different uniforms representing different constituencies fight for different reasons. When history seems to repeat itself with familiar schemes for gaining power, new scenarios of analysis and justification are nevertheless required.
In ancient wars, the killing fields were usually far away from the places where civilians lived out their domestic lives. But sometimes battles overflowed into the cities and other centers of civilization, and civilians died, too. The Greeks, after all, could not have defeated Troy if they had not sneaked soldiers inside the walls in that infamous wooden horse. We all -- or most of us -- decry the death of a single innocent, but war never spares what we now euphemistically call "collateral damage."
It's a matter of degree with significant distinctions in how each side calculates the death of civilians as a necessary cost of war. Israel has tried, with varying success, to keep their offensive arms away from places where women and children live, often at the price of their own casualties. But that's not always possible, particularly against a foe who mocks the Western concern for life and boasts that his version of Islam welcomes and celebrates death. Hezbollah hides its arms in private homes, inviting attack, and weaves its tunnels beneath the communities of civilian women and children. It's only with incredible chutzpah that anyone blames Israel for bombing those places where the enemy stockpiles its weapons and reserves. Israel aims at places where terrorists hide. Hezbollah aims at women and children where they live.
"We are doing something that no other country would do," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. "We warn the people using Lebanese television, radio and fliers that we spread over the affected areas. We ask the people to leave their homes and get themselves to safety."
There's a growing understanding that Israel is in a fight for survival. The Hamas government, after rising to power by popular election, attacked Israel from Gaza after Israel withdrew from its settlements in there -- giving eloquent lie to assertions that the occupation of Gaza was the reason the Islamists targeted Israel. Reluctant witnesses are forced by unfolding events to acknowledge who started this war. Even the Arab League calls Hezbollah's campaign of violence "dangerous adventurism."The Lebanese know who is to blame for current misery. Michael Young, editorial page editor of the Beirut Daily Star, says Israel must continue its campaign to weaken Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as the means to strengthen Lebanese sovereignty.
Some of our European friends, usually reluctant even to defend themselves and who are always eager to blame Israel first when fighting breaks out, are beginning to understand how absurd their analysis looks when closely scrutinized. The Germans, irony of ironies, are trying to find ways to help Israel, as difficult as that may be.
When his countrymen were giddy with the success of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Harvard-educated naval strategist who organized the stunning operation, is reported to have said that all Japan had accomplished was to awaken "a sleeping giant, and to fill him with a terrible resolve." Whether Yamamoto actually said it or not, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah would hardly characterize Israel that way (the Israel Defense Force never sleeps), but he, like Yamamoto after Pearl Harbor, concedes that a brutal provocation can be answered by a terrible resolve.
The West should be busy taking into account the ferocity of the Islamist provocation, and what it means for the civilized world. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, put things into the correct perspective for us when he vowed last year to "wipe Israel off the map." This goal, he said, must be accomplished amid a "historical war that has been going on for hundreds of years."
The conflict is not limited to Israel, but is "the front line between the Islamic world and the world of arrogance." The aim of Mr. Ahmadinejad and his fellow Islamists is not merely the seizure of the entire Middle East, but Islamic domination of the entire world.
Matthias Kuntzel, a German political scientist who studies the Nazi roots of Arab anti-Semitism, nurtured during World War II, observes that "the men and women of the Israeli military are currently fighting on the front lines against this apocalyptic program." He asks simply: "Should we not at least consider offering our solidarity?" It's a question the rest of us have to answer, whether we like it or not.

[achebeautiful]

The Qana Massacre


From Haaretz: Qana bombing body count falls sharply.

Additional questions arose yesterday about the Israel Air Force's strike on a building in Qana on Sunday, even as the number of fatalities in the incident appeared to be much lower than originally published.
The Red Cross announced yesterday that 28 bodies, including those of 19 children, had been found at the site. Additional bodies are expected to be found over the coming days.


From Haaretz: Cry to those using babies by Naomi Ragen. (via At Level Ground)


"They [Hezbollah] are a lousy army. They only win when they hide behind baby carriages."
Please remember this when you hear about the "atrocity" of the Israeli bomb that killed many civilians in Kafr Qana, a place from which Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Unlike previous administrations, Mr. Olmert has my respect when he says: "They were warned to leave. It is the responsibility of Hezbollah for firing rockets amid civilians."

Terrorists and their supporters have lost the right to complain about civilian casualties, since all they have is one goal: this entire war is to target civilians. Every single one of the more than 2,500 rockets launched into Israel, is launched into populated towns filled with women and children. Just today, another explosive belt meant to kill civilians in Israel was detonated harmlessly by our forces in Nablus.

So don't cry to me about civilian casualties. Cry to those using babies and wives and mothers; cry to those who store weapons in mosques, ambulances, hospitals and private homes. Cry to those launching deadly rockets from the backyards of kindergartens and schools. Cry to the heartless men who love death, and however many of their troops or civilians die, consider themselves victorious as long as they can keep on firing rockets at our women and children.

Save your sympathy for the mothers and sisters and girlfriends of our young soldiers who would rather be sitting in study halls learning Torah, but have no choice but to risk their precious lives full of hope, goodness and endless potential, to wipe out the cancerous terrorist cells that threaten their people and all mankind. Make your choice, and save your tears.

That terrorists have been unsuccessful in killing more of our women and children is due to our army, God and prayers, not to any lack of motivation or intention on their part. If you hide behind your baby to shoot at my baby, you are responsible for getting children killed. You and you alone.


From the Washington Times: Public 'won't bend' in uproar over Qana. (via TIA Daily)


The Israeli public, which has been united in support of the government's military actions in Lebanon, stood firm yesterday despite the international uproar over the deaths on Sunday of more than 30 children and several adults in the town of Qana.
"We won't bend," read the headline on a front-page column by the leading political commentator for the Ma'ariv newspaper.

"It's time you understood, the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon," wrote Ben Caspit. "We won't allow anyone to exploit population centers to bomb our citizens. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you are invited not to visit us, and if necessary, we will stop visiting you."

Three weeks into the war, the heavy civilian death toll in Lebanon has not changed most Israelis' perception of the war as an existential conflict over the right to live without the threat of Hezbollah rockets, as well as a proxy battle with an Iranian government bent on destroying the country. ...

In a defiant nationwide address yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the army would continue to hit Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon despite an international chorus calling for an immediate cease-fire.

"There is no cease-fire, and there will be no cease-fire," Mr. Olmert said.

"Citizens of Lebanon, we regret the pain caused to so many of you, the fact that you had to flee your homes and places of residence and the unintentional harm to innocents, but we do not apologize for it.

"We will not give up -- not even for a moment -- our right to protect the state of Israel and defend our lives."


From the Washington Post: 'Disproportionate' in What Moral Universe? by Charles Krauthammer. (via HB List)

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.
In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London Blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.

[ocelot]

I know that Hezbollah is amoung civilians, but is Israel really trying to prevent civilian deaths in Lebanon? I really don't understand why bombing the Christian part of the Beirut is fighting Hezbollah.