BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: C. Ham
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 07:09 PM

Hezbollah's media empire - which includes the Al-Nur radio station and the Web site moqawama.net - has been an inseparable part of the psychological war. Sometimes, Hezbollah also transmits its messages through other media, such as the Iranian television station Al-Alam. The crown jewel of the empire, Al-Manar, is broadcast in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world, by satellite.

And as documented in the article I linked to earlier, the reports coming out of Lebanon on many mainstream media -- CNN, BBC, NBC, etc. -- is being controlled by Hezbollah press officers. In short, that means that what you see on CNN's reports out of Lebanon is what Hezbollah wants you to see. The reporters admit as much (although you won't see those caveats on the air).

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:42 PM

"While the slanted comments and interviews are bad enough, the degree of pictorial distortion is even worse. From the way many TV stations worldwide are portraying it, you would think Beirut has begun to resemble Dresden and Hamburg in the aftermath of Second World War air raids. International television channels have used the same footage of Beirut over and over, showing the destruction of a few individual buildings in a manner which suggests half the city has been razed.

A careful look at aerial satellite photos of the areas targeted by Israel in Beirut shows that certain specific buildings housing Hezbollah command centres in the city's southern suburbs have been singled out. Most of the rest of Beirut, apart from strategic sites such as airport runways used to ferry Hezbollah weapons in and out of Lebanon, has been left pretty much untouched.

From the distorted imagery, selective witness accounts, and almost round-the-clock emphasis on casualties, you would be forgiven for thinking that the level of death and destruction in Lebanon is on par with that in Darfur, where Arab militias are slaughtering hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs, or with the 2004 tsunami that killed half a million in Southeast Asia."


That is from the article linked to by C Ham. I post that clip because I know none of the Hezbollites will read the actual article. (I suspect that multi-syllabic words may be beyond those who've had more than their glass today--and that is most of 'em.)

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:21 PM

Hezbollah reports becoming less and less believable

By Yoav Stern

If Hezbollah-run media are to be believed, then 35 Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed or wounded in Aita Shaab, militants downed an Israeli helicopter and destroyed a house in which IDF soldiers were hiding, and IDF troops are always hit in the back because they are running away.

All these statements are baseless because - despite the impression Hezbollah has made for straight talk - credibility is not its strong suit.

Hezbollah's reports have become less and less believable in recent days. On Monday, Al-Manar television - the central component of Hezbollah's well-oiled media empire - reported that the organization had destroyed an Israeli ship off the coast of Tyre, which had some 50 sailors aboard - a charge the IDF dismissed completely.

It's not clear what incident, if any, the report was referring to, and the Arab world has been asking questions. Al-Arabiya television asked Mahmoud Kamati, a member of the Hezbollah political bureau, about the Hezbollah claim and he repeated that an Israeli ship had been hit, but said no pictures were broadcast because visibility was poor.

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is a superb tool for the propaganda machine. Nasrallah, 46, is one of the most impressive speakers in the entire Middle East. He is a virtuoso of the Arabic language, although he doesn't forget to spice his comments with a few words in the Lebanese dialect. It nearly always seems as though he is speaking about the most important matters in an offhand way, but he is really getting his listeners to follow his thought process.

"I sometimes take the tape of his comments and watch it, for pleasure," said a Haifa resident who has been forced to go down to the nearest bomb shelter every few hours over the last few weeks. "He is simply an excellent speaker."

Hezbollah's media empire - which includes the Al-Nur radio station and the Web site moqawama.net - has been an inseparable part of the psychological war. Sometimes, Hezbollah also transmits its messages through other media, such as the Iranian television station Al-Alam. The crown jewel of the empire, Al-Manar, is broadcast in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world, by satellite.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:19 PM

"Meanwhile, in a report on the devastating Israeli attack on Sunday on the village of Qana, New York-based Human Rights Watch said its re-examination of showed 28 people had died, half the number initially reported by Lebanese organisations. Thirteen were still missing.

Officials in the Lebanese Red Cross and Civil Defence Corps reached the same conclusion – that only 28 people died. George Kitane, head of Lebanese Red Cross paramedics, said 19 children were among the dead."

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:14 PM

"ps if you do get to meet Abe ...
remember if you come to blows"

Oh, Josh. Relax. I would never fight with a drunk, and since he seldom seems to be in any other condition, rest assured that it would never come to that.

Interesting that you think there is a plot to war. If there is it is two-fold.

1) Hezbollah attacked Israel.

2) Israel is going to destroy Hezbollah.

Have a nice day.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:11 PM

"I thought hopitals were meant to be places exempt from being targetted from military action?
garry"

You thought right. However, it seems that Hezbollah had some of its crew in there seeking safety amongst civilians. That is NOT cricket, old chap. It then makes the hospital a place where combat operations are being prepared. And you know what thta means, don't you? Likely not, so allow me to explain. It means that it is a hospital until Hezbollah says it's not a hospital. It was just another Hezbollah base. You see, those cowardly bastards hide amongst the civilian population and do not care who is hurt. Dead non-combatants become good propaganda tools for them. These are the people you support.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:07 PM

"Israeli jets dropped leaflets over southern Beirut late in the day warning residents to evacuate three Shiite neighbourhoods, a possible prelude to even more attacks."

That is from news (Ireland online),

Israeli forces fight with Hezbollah guerrillas
03/08/2006 - 18:53:34

They have been warned. Let's hope they heed the warning. I understand that Hezbollah doesn't give warnings. The Israelis do.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,JOSH..to peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:06 PM

As I said earlier you seem to have lost the plot.....The current carnage in the Lebanon and Israel could have been avoided by a prisoner swap...remember them ...the invasion supposedly statrted over them.
regards
josh
ps if you do get to meet Abe ...
remember if you come to blows ,dont blow up the apartment blocks,hospitals ,houses and bridges....and for good sake leave the lighthouse intact!

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:29 PM

BTW, Josh. Are you friends with the drunk who posts as GUEST,Abe? He fights lots like your Hezbollah friends. Takes cheap shots and then runs back to his crowd. If you see him around some evening when you're looking for 'Zionists' to beat up, tell him that if I ever do get to England I shall make it a priority to meet him. He implied he'd like to 'beat me up', and I think it only fair that he find out just how difficult that might be to do.

Warmest personal regards, arsehole.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:25 PM

"3rd August 2006, 14:00 WST

JERUSALEM

Israel says it captured high-ranking Hizbollah members and killed at least 10 fighters in a midnight commando raid deep in Lebanon yesterday, as up to 10,000 troops stormed across the border in the south.

While Hizbollah said the five men taken from the Hizbollah-run hospital in the eastern town of Baalbek were civilians, Israel said they included commanders."

Makes one wonder what Hezbollah commanders were doing in a 'civilian hospital', huh? HUH? Oh, joooooooooooooooooooooooossssssssh, HUH?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:20 PM

"There are many Jewish people across the world who are appalled at what the Zionists have done in the Middle East and some of the most trenchant critics of Israel are Jewish...."

There are many, many more Jewish, Muslim, Christian etc. across the world who are appalled by the suicide bombers and Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists who are targeting and killing The Israli people.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:20 PM

BTW, Josh:

Your friends in Hezbollah killed some kids in Israel today when they fired over 100 rockets into a civilian area. However, the kids were just Jews, so no doubt that doesn't bother you. PFO.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:18 PM

To Josh:

Eat shit you anti-Semitic sonuvabitch.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:14 PM

To Peace
I think you are losing the plot .....
this accusation of anti semitism is really the last refuge of the arrogant zionist.
There are many Jewish people across the world who are appalled at what the Zionists have done in the Middle East and some of the most trenchant critics of Israel are Jewish....
josh

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 05:09 PM

Informative piece there C.Ham, it reveals where the so called "guests" have been getting their biased information, they too are peddling propaganda for Hezbollah - shame!

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 04:43 PM

A good friend of mine was attacked by Palestinians. His child of three months old was cut to pieces and he was shot in the stomach then left to die. His wife disappeared. This was caused by Hamas.

The above is not true. I just wanted to throw in some fiction, much like zac, tim, kirk, josh, and the other arseholes whose sole purpose is to nail Jews for every wrong that's ever happened in the Middle East.

Dear guys: piss off.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: C. Ham
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 04:34 PM

An excellent article by Tom Gross about the media coverage of this war.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,kirk
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 12:47 PM

FILM OFF
The organisers of the Edinburgh International Film Festival has cancelled the Israeli Embassy's sponsorship of the festival and has returned a cheque that would have helped fund the event.

The cancellation occured after a public outcry following the bombing of the Lebanon and the killing of children at Qana.

The news was welcomed by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop The War Coalition in Scotland.

One of the organisers of the festival spoke about how he ahd almost had his teeth knocked out by the butt of a thuggish Israeli soldier's rifle on the West Bank.
kirk

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,jim
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 10:38 AM

!
The Buddhist statues you mentioned are three thousand miles away in Afghanistan.The last time I checked my atlas that is a long way from Palestine.

I dont think the Zionists who intend to "visit" the Al Asqa mosque will be paying a courtesy call......they will be there to cause maximum trouble just as Ariel Sharon did when he exercised his right with a thousand bodyguards a few years ago sparking the second intifada and hundreds of deaths.

And lastly please do not dump the Taliban onto the people of Palestine.They have enough problems of their own.

Actually the Taliban,and their predecessors, had far more to do with the American CIA than ever they had with the Palestinians..at least the Palestinians never sold any stinger ground to air missiles to Afghanistan!
jim

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 09:57 AM

Zac-You decry the the ability of 'Zionists' to be able to enter the al-Aqsa mosque. The mosque is located on the Temple Mount, the site of the ancient Jewish Temples. From 1948 - 1967 Jews were not permitted by the Jordanians (then in control of Jerusalem) from visiting that place.   Israel since controling the area has not so kept out Muslims.
That Zionists plan to trash the mosque is your projection, perhaps because Muslim groups have destroyed, for instance, Abraham's Tomb, and the Buddhist statues over which they had control. I will stand by you, Zac, if Israelis-or any Jews-willfully destroy any part of the mosque.   I will also be very disappointed.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 08:21 AM

"in the same way that Jewish people across the world have the right of return"


So, with 640,000 Palestinians who fled Israel (and were kept in camps by the Arabs), and 820,000 Jews who were driven out of Arab nations ( and taken in by Israel) , the Arabs owe Israel an addiotional 28% of the land... So Israle should keep the West bank, to make things fair.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,jim
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 08:01 AM

The Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleansed from the land of their birth should have the right of return in the same way that Jewish people across the world have the right of return.

Until they and their children and grandchildren get this right to return there is likely to be no peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.This is at the heart of the problems in the region.....the expulsion of the indiginous population by force and terror.
jim

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 07:14 AM

" A lot more relevant is stuff like where we grew up and where our parents and grandparents and their parents and grandparents lived and died."


So, you will allow that those Israelis whose families have been in Israel for three generations are entitled to the land, and should NOT be removed by the Arabs?

Better let Hamas know- they still need to change their charter.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,neil
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:40 AM

It was reported today on the BBC website that 35 children have been killed this past month in Israeli attacks on Gaza city. This number was totalled by UN officials in Gaza.
This is murder of the innocents...a seven year old was killed by tank fire this morning.
neil

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,Zac
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 06:09 AM

Extremist Zionist groups are likely to "enter" the Holy Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem either today or in the next few days and senior muslim clerics believe they intend to trash it.

The clerics have been to the Israeli High Court to try to exclude the Zionists from entering what is the third Holiest Islamic shrine in the world but were turned down .The decision gives the Zionists the green light for the Zionists to invade and it is likely to cause yet more very serious disturbances between muslims and Zionists.
zac

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,james
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 01:27 AM

To Robomatic
So you think that the Palestinians were the "settlers "who came after the Jews and therefore it was right for them to lose their homes.

Quite frankly that is a bizarre notion!! If you came up with a similar idea in any other part of the world people would question your mental health.

The Palestinians are the descendents of a people who have lived in the Holy Land for at least 2000 years and of course in that time there have been many others who have come to that land to add to the genetic make up of the people including French, Turks and Greeks .

Abram Leon a Jewish socialist who died in Auschwitz stated that even in Roman and biblical times there were more Jewish people living outside the Holy Land than inside. For example he said that there were a million or so in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

It is very noticeable that many of the Israelis who have settled in Israel are of European descent whereas the Palestinians they have expelled are of semitic origin.Bizarre but tragic that extremist Zionists ever managed to get their hands on power and were able to apply their race hate ideas to the real world.

What started as a separist view of Jews in the world has descended into apartheid walls, the stealing of a homeland and the mass murder of innocent children.
james

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 09:06 PM

I agree with that.

Incidentally, I agree that the death of children is deplorable, regardless whether those deaths are brought about by Israelis, Hamas or Hezbollah. However, while people are making much of the numbers of children who have been killed in this war, those same people might note that Lebanon's demographics show that approximately 30% of its people are under the age of 16. Statistically, the numbers--while terrible to see--are simply what one would expect.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 08:36 PM

There is in fact a good case for arguing that the Palestinians (and the Lebanese) are in fact largely descended from those Jews who managed to stay on in the Holy Land in the First Century AD. Though that isn't too important. Our right to call a place home doesn't depend on what may or may not have happened 2000 years ago, or on our genetic make-up. A lot more relevant is stuff like where we grew up and where our parents and grandparents and their parents and grandparents lived and died.

Disarm the terrorists, yes indeed. All the terrorists.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 08:13 PM

"[t]he heroic fghters of the resistance"

The heroic fighters of the resistance are scum. There is nothing heroic about people who hide amongst the civilian population and fire rockets at civilian centres.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 07:44 PM

Read Dee Brown's heartrending account of the ethnic cleansing of the native Americans [Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee ] to find out how the vast majority of the native American tribes were cleared from the east of America by about 1830.What happened to those people??

The Israeli zionists would like the same solution for their Palestinian problem which is why the Palestinians need world wide support.

I have read "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" I thought it was a good thing that the Jews, the Indians of the story, who were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands for some time, were able to return to their homeland the way the Indians have not. It was a damn shame that the so-called Palestinians, who were the settlers who came after the Jews, could not learn to live in peace with the homecomers, necessitating the UN partition plan which was not honored by the Arabs, and the wars to follow, but unlike Wounded Knee, the 'Indians' of the tale have been able to defend themselves against the aggressers.

Think what a little peace could have done. What a little peace could yet do.

Get Hezbollah out of Lebanon.

Lebanon for the Lebanese! Disarm the terrorists!

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 07:30 PM

1) "This claim that for Israel its a war of existence is so much rot."

Calling a sheep a dog will not make it bark.


2) "The end does not justify the means."

Again, tell THAT to Hezbollah.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 06:28 PM

Yes, James, you don't seem to do irony.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,james
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 06:18 PM

I really don't think the USA was threatened with destruction by the native Americans.

Read Dee Brown's heartrending account of the ethnic cleansing of the native Americans [Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee ] to find out how the vast majority of the native American tribes were cleared from the east of America by about 1830.What happened to those people??

The Israeli zionists would like the same solution for their Palestinian problem which is why the Palestinians need world wide support.

By the way ,how inapprpriate for the US military to name one of its attack helicopters after the "apaches" who were implacable enemies of US military in the south-west of America in the 19th century.
james

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 05:12 PM

Rather the same way the Indian Wars were wars of survival for a United States threatened with destruction by the original inhabitants...

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,hugo
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 05:08 PM

This claim that for Israel its a war of existence is so much rot.The aggression comes from Israel aided and abetted by the world's number one Imperial power..... the USA.
Israel is there in the Middle East as a guard dog, for the benefit of US capitalism although it does have its own agendsa too.

It is there to dominate much of the arab world to help the USA maintain control of the region's oil supplies and to aid America's geo strategic presence in that part of the world.

The talk about Israel's very existence is bull! It is one of the most powerful countries in the world and is fully backed by the wworld's most dominant and aggressive military state.That is one lethal combination.

The USA which has been in the news talking about ceasefires and security is actually supplying monster bombs for use against civilians in the Lebanon and has supplied much of the weaponry used by Israel against the people of Gaza.

The USA rightly is seen by many in the Middle East as a country ruled by a bunch of racist,hypocritical,murdering thugs-who think nothing of unleashing sectarian murder in Iraq and have no qualms about something similar happening in the Lebanon. Over 100000 have ben killed in Iraq since its invasion and Bush should be in the dock for that gigantic crime.

Israel and the Neocons of the White House have acted like the mafiosa wiping out thousands so that the oil and other US Imperial interests can be maintained for a little longer.

Far from being a war for existence the Israeli are intent on expanding up to the Litani river in southern Lebanon and there are many in Israel who want to forcibly expel the Palestinians right out of Israel and the West Bank..................but the stumbling block is Hizbollah and Hamas.
hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 04:38 PM

All I've seen throughout this thread doesn't change the fact that for Israel it's a war over its existence.

For the Arabs it's a war of aggression to conquer and eliminate Israel.

Everything else is ways and means.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 04:11 PM

"Hezbollah abducted three Israel Defense Forces soldiers during an October 2000 attack in Shebaa Farms, and sought to obtain the release of 14 Lebanese prisoners, some of whom had been held since 1978. On January 25, 2004, Hezbollah successfully negotiated an exchange of prisoners Israel, through German mediators. The prisoner swap was carried out on January 29: 30 Lebanese and Arab prisoners, the remains of 60 Lebanese militants and civilians, 420 Palestinian prisoners, and maps showing Israeli mines in South Lebanon were exchanged for an Israeli businessman and army reserve colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum kidnapped in 2001 and the remains of the three Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers mentioned above, who were killed either during the Hezbollah operation, or in its immediate aftermath."


So, Hezbollah has determined that 610 Arabs are equal to 5 Israelis....

Over 100 to one- so ANY claims of greater Lebonese deaths is pointless.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 04:08 PM

"Since Israeli forces left Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has provided military defense of the area acting as the area's army. Despite no official declaration, the stated policy of the Lebanese Government has supported Hezbollah as the army of South Lebanon.[12] Fouad Siniora said that "the continued presence of Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands in the Chebaa Farms region is what contributes to the presence of Hezbollah weapons. The international community must help us in (getting) an Israeli withdrawal from Chebaa Farms so we can solve the problem of Hezbollah's arms." [11] The United Nations considers the Shebaa Farms to be Syrian territory, not Lebanese and has stated that Israel has withdrawn from all Lebanese territory.

Clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces continued, albeit at a relatively low level, in the years following 2000."





*********************************************************************
"the stated policy of the Lebanese Government has supported Hezbollah as the army of South Lebanon."
*********************************************************************

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 03:03 PM

I only looked at 2004 and 2005- the 2006 references have too many post july dates to pick them out easily.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 03:00 PM

"In January 2005, Hezbollah planted five camouflaged "improvised explosive devices" (IEDs), inches on the Israeli side of the border near Zarit, 15 mountainous miles inland from the Mediterranean coast. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) detected these IEDs and, following procedure, notified UNIFIL. A French UNIFIL engineer duly certified that the devices were indeed IEDs, then "requested" that Hezbollah remove them. Hezbollah, not denying it had planted them, flatly refused, stating that since the mines were (just barely) inside the "Zionist" border, it was up to the "Zionists" to remove them. So the IDF sent in a large armored bulldozer to carry the mines off for disposal. This task required making a sharp 90-degree right turn from an Israeli road onto the narrow border trail where the IEDs were located. Making this sharp right turn, the left front corner of the bulldozer inevitably occupied, for a couple of seconds, about a meter of land on the Lebanese side. During those seconds a Hezbollah fighter directed an anti-tank missile at the narrow, unarmored windshield of the bulldozer. The pinpoint strike, which Israeli sources stated required extraordinary training and skill, killed the bulldozer's driver, Sgt. Maj. Jan Rotzanski, a 21-year-old Russian immigrant from Herzliya."



"Since Israel's withdrawl from Lebanon in 2000, and until the conflict arising in July 2006, Hezbollah has used the period of quiet to secretly arm itself with Syrian and Iranian missiles, which it claims number over 10,000. Placing them, according to many reports (including British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Dr. Kim Howells in an interview on CNN July 22 2006), in civilian locations, including family homes, crowded residential neighborhoods and mosques."

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 02:53 PM

Back in the Spanish Civil War when there was a lot of outcry about the bombing of Guernica Franco's PR people claimed that the desctruction had in fact been caused by the Republicans as a propaganda stunt.
.........................

Thanks for the links bearded bruce - I've been having a look at them and also at this Encylopedia Britannica one - Hezbollah: Information from Answers" So there have been instances of Hezbollah rockets into Israel as recently as last November. As I said, I was surprised not to have come across details of these when I looked for them.

However my feeling that Israel's escalation has been counterproductive is still there - the number of rockets landing on Israel and the number of Israeli civilians already killed since July 13th appears to have been far higher than the cumulative number over a period of many years.

I think everyone must be grateful that the British Government of the day did not respond in this way to a comparable or greater level of sustained IRA violence, with a massive attack on the terrotory ofthe Irish Republic. (Of course one factor militating against that was a rather different attitude taken by the White House - I think Mrs Thatcher could well have been capable of thinking in these terms.)
..................

"That depends on a different argument, namely whether Hezbollah are freedom fighters or terrorists."

It seems to me that the "are they freedom fighters or terrorists?" way of looking at these things is not too herlpful. Terrorism is about the methods adopted by people, not about the objectives of the people concerned or their political status and so forth.

When people engaged in a conflict target civilians, they are engaged in terrorist activities, regardless of whether they are members of Hezbollah or the IRA or the IDF or Merag or the SAS or whatever. Clearly some of the activities carried out by all these organisations fall within that definition, while some do not.

It would be technically correct in a senses therefore to term all of them "terrorists" - but I think it might be better to reserve that term for organisations whose whole ethos and methodology involves terrorist activities, in which category Al Qaeda would be a primary example.

Making this distinction was a key factor in the peace process in Northern Ireland, and in finding ways of resolving a number of other conflicts.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 01:03 PM

josh, old chum,

It was determined that that family on the beach was killed by a Palestinian rocket that msfired, not an Israeli shell.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,josh
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 12:58 PM

I think the above is a bit of wishful thinking!

Across the world people are heartily sick of the Israeli attacks on civilians...and their homes,cars ,apartment blocks,schools ,bridges and civic buildings.

We have seen quite a few attempts by Zionist apologists to rewrite the narrative of the atrocities the Israeli military has committed and it still doesnt wash the blood off the hands of the uniforned killers. For example, after an Israeli warship had blown up a Palestinian family on Gaza beach a month ago, the Zionists rushed into print to deny responsibility despite the warship pounding away off shore. It didnt wash!!
Never again!
josh

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 10:04 AM

Biff Rose speaks the truth

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: bobad
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 09:10 AM

August 2, 2006

Qana

My reader may be wondering what happened to all the coverage from Qana. As usual, when the "liberal" media begin to realize they've been had, the story disappears. But it is never properly corrected. We get a few days of blazing headlines, and round-the-dial TV coverage of an "Israeli massacre", laden with innuendos, and then -- the fade-out. This will not do.

What happened at Qana was, almost certainly, what happened at Jenin in 2002, what happened on a beach in Gaza a few weeks ago, and what has happened on innumerable other occasions. The Israelis are instantaneously accused and convicted of a monstrous and perhaps intentional act of butchery, by people quite incurious about the facts. Their pathological hatred of "Zionism" is all the proof they need. These are people who seldom bother to shed even crocodile tears when Jews are blown to pieces by suicide bombers, or rockets are fired indiscriminately into their homes; but become tremendously excited when the news breaks that some Israeli retaliation may have gone wrong.

It took several months to clarify what had happened at Jenin -- a staged massacre. It will take several months before something like the true story emerges, from Qana. By which time no one will be listening. (The ideologues will continue citing the original lies, regardless.) And yet in both these cases -- Jenin and Qana -- indications of fakery were visible from the beginning.

The Israelis quickly released real-time aerial reconnaissance footage to show the Hezbollah firing rockets from between houses in Qana; then pulling the launchers immediately afterwards into civilian buildings. The Israeli military logged three air strikes around Qana in the course of the evening in question, including one next to the houses that were destroyed. So while it was possible the Israelis had dropped the bombs that killed 54 people -- coincidentally all women and children -- it was, at the worst, unintended "collateral damage" near a valid military target.

The Israelis had extensively leafleted Qana for more than a week before the air strikes, telling civilians to evacuate, and warning just what would happen. Over the same period, Hezbollah pumped 150 Katyusha rockets into northern Israel from in and around this village. Hezbollah are notorious for refusing to allow civilians to evacuate (as U.N. observers have attested), and even preventing their flight at gunpoint. The argument that people "could not get out because the Israelis had wrecked the infrastructure" is rubbish. Once invited by Hezbollah, journalists got into the village quickly, all the way from Beirut. It follows that Hezbollah bears not some, but all of the moral responsibility for civilian deaths at Qana.

But we are still assuming the Israeli air strikes collapsed the houses. That theory begins to crumble, itself, when you look at the times logged for the Israeli air strikes. The houses were first reported to have been destroyed more than seven hours after the air strike next to them (the other strikes were about half a kilometre away). And even if they collapsed by delayed effect, why were women and children allowed to spend the night in a building on the point of collapsing?

Now look at the media pictures. Immediately you see several fishy things. For one, bodies displayed to media are removed, successively, from a single neat hole in the ruins. There is no evidence of a rescue mission having been mounted, or of a continuing search for bodies elsewhere under the rubble. The battered bodies do not resemble those which are seen after most real explosions and building collapses: their wounds do not look recent. All the blood and gore seems to be on just one body.

Moreover, as bloggers such as "Eureferendum" have demonstrated, by juxtaposing press photos from various newspapers, the men showing off the bodies -- and identified in captions as "Lebanese rescue workers" -- are the same as had been present at previous alleged atrocities. They are obviously not rescue workers, but Hezbollah propaganda agents.

The way they are handling and displaying the bodies is entirely inconsistent with rescue work. For instance, they hold up a dead child's head for the cameras; they point to a pacifier still strung around his neck. But notice: the child's body is covered in plaster dust, but the pacifier is clean. Such evidence of staging is glaring, everywhere.

Obvious questions: Did all or any of the victims die at this site? Was the event staged to produce exactly the effect on
"world opinion" that was achieved? And in a symbolic location, last used to a similar purpose in 1996?

I do not see how full-time journalists, specializing in the Middle East, can excuse themselves for not asking such questions immediately. I do not see why they cannot spot with their own eyes, what bloggers can spot in their photographs and reporting, thousands of miles away.

We know all about Hezbollah. It is for the journalists now to explain what they were doing, playing the clowns in an Hezbollah circus.

*

Update: Since this was written, I see the Lebanese Red Cross has reported the number of bodies at the site was 28, not the 54 or 57 that our press and TV took on faith from Hezbollah. And, persons presented as survivors adjusted the time of the incident to coincide better with the proximate air strike the Israelis logged. I have no idea what actually happened. But in the absence of a credible investigation, nobody else has, either; and the dramatic media presentation of the story "as told by Hezbollah" must be assigned to the annals of anti-Israeli propaganda, not journalism.

David Warren

Ottawa Citizen

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 09:01 AM

"Ten militants were killed and five were captured in and around the hospital during the operation, Halutz said. The IDF also destroyed a large supply of missiles during the raid."

So, missiles are now standard Lebonese hospital equipment?

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 08:22 AM

"I've been hunting around for the actual dates when Hezbollah has fired rockets across the border over the period preceding this latest war, and I couldn't find any within the last couple of years. That surprised me, because my impression from the media had been that there had indeed been some kind of constant bombardment. The latest case I have seen a specific mention of was back in 2002."

A reasonabale request.


Nov 21, 2005

May, 2005


"And Hezbollah instituted some major changes in tactics: No longer would it confine itself largely to firing Katyusha rockets at small border towns in northern Israel; Hezbollah acquired rockets that can reach Haifa, the industrial center of northern Israel. "

March, 2005


http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/sib/2_05/hez_rocket.htm


Should I take another 5 minutes and look for more???

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,JOSH
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 06:51 AM

Israel is a small country but it has one of the most pwerful military forces in the world
with all the latest technology,jet warplanes,attack helicopters,tank brigades and heavy artillery.
Its soldiers are highly trained and motivated.
It is even a nuclear weapons power.

It is getting military support from the world's strongest superpower and is the recipient of huge quantities of military and economic aid from the USA .

Without that aid it would have gone bankrupt years ago.
JOSH

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 06:36 AM

Just in case some of the guests hadn't noticed, Israel is a small country, with modern weapons.
If the artillery is withdrawn from the lebanese border- ie is out of range of it- then it's in range of the Eygptian, Syrian or Jordanain border.

Subject: RE: BS: Gaza Strip 28/9 June 2006
From: GUEST,hugo
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 05:09 AM

A country that forces 700000 people out of their homes as refugees and indiscriminately bombs children cannot expect to be seen as the victim in this conflict.

It has invaded to grab yet more land and to ethnically cleanse its population and has attacked just about anything that moves including fleeing civilians,ambulances,Un observers and the elderly.

I think it will end badly for the Israelis because they have lost the psychological advantage and the Lebanese resistance led by Hizbollah has put up a stiff fight.

What happens when more Israelis are taken prisoner??
hugo