Middle East Conflict

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Mike Wallace's exclusive interview with Iran's outspoken president:
http://www.cbsnews.com/

AUDIO: 60 MINUTES...
Mike Wallace's exclusive interview with Iran's outspoken president:
Audio: http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060813-60min-iran-pres.MP3

Israel Drops White Phosphorus Bombs, Littlest Victims Suffer
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_Israel.htm

7/19/06... Air America "The Majority Report"
Guest: Amy Goodman... Re: Middle East
"Collective Punishment"
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A005I060719E.MP3

Collective punishment is hardly a policy
The Japan Times, Japan - Jul 17, 2006
... Forces in their offensive against the Gaza Strip have violated the principle of proportionality and are to be seen as forms of collective punishment, which is ...

Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1-_JmXQt0&search=israeli%20war

Middle East Crisis 10th Day
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060720-DAY-10A.MP3
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L002I060720-DAY-10B.MP3

"The only way to win, is with a CULTURE WAR!" Abbie Hoffman
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060627-abbie-hoffman.MP3 
Abbie Hoffman
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/abbie.htm

INTERVIEW: (VERY IMPORTANT) IMAD MOUSTAPHA, Ph.D.
Ambassador of Syria to the U.S.A.

We aspire to keep the Syrian community living in the United States updated on current events, social activities,
and recent news. We encourage you to help us build our relations, friendships, and cooperation through the
exchange of ideas and experiences.
http://www.syrianembassy.us/ambassador.htm

CNN WOLF: INTERVIEW: (VERY IMPORTANT)
IMAD MOUSTAPHA, Ph.D. Ambassador of Syria to the U.S.A.
"If we followed Res. 242 this thing would of never happened."

AUDIO:

http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060721-syria.MP3

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July 20, 2006 -- WMR reported that the Israeli military was using poison gas on villages in south Lebanon. According to a former U.S. weapons expert who served in Iraq, the artillery shell in a photo taken in Lebanon (below) is a chemical weapon delivery device. It is being handled by an Israeli Defense Force soldier and Hebrew lettering can be clearly seen on the armored vehicle. Another chemical weapons shell of the same type can be seen lying on the ground to the right. It is not known what type of chemical is in the chemical canister, however, gas dropped by the Israelis in villages in southern Lebanon has resulted in severe vomiting among the civilian population. Media commentators have scoffed that Israel, with its relatively unique history, would ever use chemical weapons or poison gas in any war. It is precisely because of that perception that they are using such weapons. The deniability factor prevents the media from taking seriously the credible reports of banned weapons being used by the Israelis.    Israel using chemical delivery weapons in Lebanon. Fuse and chemical canister can be clearly seen in photo of Israel Defense Force personnel in Lebanon. Drawing of chemical weapon is from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

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Israel is using Depleted Uranium Against the Lebanese
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=55&p=24885&s2=21 

CAN YOU HELP US , PLEASE!
Do you know what kind of weapons causes this damage?

As-Safir Newspaper
Beirut
July 21st, 2006
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=55&p=24885&s2=21 

Special Report on Depleted Uranium

Charred bodies
Bodies of Iraqi soldiers abandoned in the desert. Charred black by fires ignited by depleted uranium projectiles, they look all too familiar to those of us who have seen the A-bomb Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. (Courtesy of Carol Picou, taken February 1991 in southern Iraq)
Click to view larger picture (54K)
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/special/index2.html

DEPLETED URANIUM ALERT!

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU.htm

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Collective punishment is hardly a policy
By CESAR CHELALA
Special to The Japan Times

NEW YORK -- Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip and of Lebanon's southern border is exacting a heavy price on the civilian population in those regions. Isra- el's actions are worsening a humanitarian situation that was already critical, particularly as far as children's health and the quality of their lives are concerned. Despite international laws protecting children's rights, including the Convention of the Rights of the Child, signed by Israel, Palestinian children are still suffering.

Several factors are important in determining children's health in the region; notably the socio-economic situation, actions of the intifada and punitive reactions of the Israeli Defense Forces.

As a result of the current conflict, the Palestinian economy has been devastated. More than half of the population now lives below the poverty line. Poverty has led to acute and chronic malnutrition in children as well as anemia in children and in women of reproductive age.

In June, the World Food Program estimated that 51 percent of Palestinians -- 2 million people -- couldn't meet basic food needs without aid, and warned that the situation in Gaza was becoming critical.

According to a Palestinian Ministry of Health report issued in June, Israeli occupation forces and paramilitary Jewish settlers have killed 951 Palestinian children and youth (under age 18), and have provoked varied degrees of injuries to almost 20,000 people, since September 2000.

In addition, children and youth face major psychological problems resulting from exposure to violence and terror. This impact is not limited to Palestinians. Israeli children also suffer from the continuous threat posed by Kassam missiles fired by Palestinians. Having to flee their homes in terror to avoid being hit by those missiles is going to leave psychological scars.

The situation deteriorated even further last week as Israeli aircraft bombed power plants and other civilian infrastructure. Twenty-two hospitals didn't have electricity, and hundreds of operations had to be postponed. The lack of refrigeration damaged not only food but also drugs and vaccines.

The accessibility and availability of quality primary health-care services has been seriously compromised. Health-care providers face serious constraints to properly treating patients, particularly those with chronic conditions and those in need of physical rehabilitation.

Irregular access to educational facilities has led to more than 15,000 Palestinian children being denied basic education. This situation has been compounded by rocket attacks on school and university buildings, closures of school and universities, and serious restrictions on students' mobility.

It is estimated that almost 45,000 Palestinian children are engaged in child labor to support their families, and that 7.4 percent of these are the sole breadwinners for their families.

The latest Israeli punitive actions have been severely criticized from both within and outside Israel. Gideon Levy, a writer for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz wrote, "A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization." By contrast, U.S. President George W. Bush stated that Israel has the right to defend itself.

Following the latest events, the Swiss Foreign Ministry stated that "A number of actions by the Israeli Defense Forces in their offensive against the Gaza Strip have violated the principle of proportionality and are to be seen as forms of collective punishment, which is forbidden." The Geneva Convention states that it is "prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population."

According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, "a food and health crisis now threatens more than 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." The center states that the Israeli Defense Forces have prevented the free flow of fuel, food and medical supplies. More than 100,000 Palestinians in need of medical attention are not getting it.

Article 54 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly specifies that the occupying power, "to the fullest extent of the means available to it, has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate."

Marjorie Cohn, president-elect of the U.S. National Lawyers Guild and U.S. representative to the American Association of Jurists has indicated that collective punishment also violates Article 50 of the Hague Regulations.

Is there a way out of this escalation of violence that threatens to engulf the whole Middle East? There is, but it requires balanced outside intervention, particularly by the United States, which has maintained unwavering support for actions carried out by the Israeli government. Such intervention is currently lacking.

Peace in the Middle East is now as elusive as ever, and it will remain so as long as innocent civilians are made into peons of a larger political game.
Cesar Chelala, M.D, Ph.D., is an international public health consultant and a winner of an Overseas Press of America award for an article on human rights.
The Japan Times
(C) All rights reserved
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20060718a1.html

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7/21/06 MIDDLE EAST CRISIS UPDATE #1
CNN INTERVIEW: KOFI ANNAN
Annan fears `major humanitarian disaster'
... General Kofi Annan says he fears a possible "major humanitarian disaster" resulting from the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Interviewed on CNN's "Larry King Live ...
AUDIO:
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060721-middle-east-crisis1.MP3

AUDIO: CNN: ANDERSON COOPER 360 -
Inside "Hizbullah the Party of God"
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L002I060721-middle-east-crisis2.MP3

The Party of God Hizbullah: Views and Concepts
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/320/324/324.2/hizballah/ 

DAY 13: AUDIO: "Crisis in the Middle East"
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060723-day13A.MP3

UPDATED:
DAY 13: AUDIO: "Crisis in the Middle East"
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L002I060723-day13B.MP3

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Jonathan Mark

Israel Violates Law on U.S. Weapons in Mideast

Wed Jul 19, 2006 20:57

 

Israel Violates Law on U.S. Weapons in Mideast

- - Israeli Onslaught Will Only Strengthen Hizbullah
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1153338746,71187,

Israel Violates Law on U.S. Weapons in Mideast
Published July 18, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
Israel Violates Law on U.S. Weapons in Mideast
by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS - Israel is in violation of U.S. arms control laws for deploying U.S.-made fighter planes, combat helicopters and missiles to kill civilians and destroy Lebanon's infrastructure in the ongoing six-day devastation of that militarily-weak country.

The death toll, according to published reports, is over 200 people -- mostly civilians -- while the economic losses have been estimated at about 100 million dollars per day.

"Section 4 of the (U.S.) Arms Export Control Act requires that military items transferred to foreign governments by the United States be used solely for internal security and legitimate self-defense," says Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco.

"Since Israeli attacks against Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and population centers clearly go beyond legitimate self-defense, the United States is legally obliged to suspend arms transfers to Israel," Zunes told IPS.

Frida Berrigan, a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute in New York, is equally outraged at the misuse by Israel of U.S.-supplied weapons.

"As Israel jets bombard locations in Gaza, Haifa and Beirut, killing civilians (including as many as seven Canadians vacationing in Aitaroun), it is worth remembering that U.S. law is clear about how U.S.-origin weapons and military systems ought to be used," Berrigan told IPS.

She pointed out that the U.S. Arms Export Control Act clear states that U.S. origin weapons should not be used for "non-defensive purposes."

"In light of this clear statement, the United States has an opportunity to stave off further bloodshed and suffering by demanding that its weaponry and military aid not be used in attacks against Lebanon and elsewhere, and challenging Israeli assertions that it is using military force defensively," she added.

That would demonstrate the kind of "utmost restraint" that world leaders called for at the G8 Summit of the world's most industrialized nations, which just ended in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The 25-member European Union has said that Israel's military retaliation against Lebanon is "grossly disproportionate" to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers last week by the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, which is a coalition partner of the U.S.-supported government in Beirut.

Israel has accused both Syria and Iran of providing rockets and missiles to Hezbollah, which has used these weapons to hit mostly civilian targets inside Israel.

Israel's prodigious military power -- currently unleashed on a virtually defenseless Lebanon -- is sourced primarily to the United States.

Armed mostly with state-of-the-art U.S.-supplied fighter planes and combat helicopters, the Israeli military is capable of matching a combination of all or most of the armies in most Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The air force has continued to devastate Beirut and its suburbs with no resistance in the skies during six days of incessant bombings, causing civilian deaths and infrastructure destruction.

"The Israeli Air Force now flies only U.S.-origin fighters, a mix of F-15s and F-16s, and the rest of the service's fleet is almost completely of U.S. origin," says Tom Baranauskas, a senior Middle East analyst at Forecast International, a leading provider of defense market intelligence services in the United States.

While in earlier years Israel bought from a variety of arms suppliers, with the French in particular being strong sellers to Israel of such items as Mirage fighters, over the past couple of decades the United States has developed into Israel's preponderant arms supplier, he added.

"The U.S. domination as Israel's arms supplier can be seen in the Congressional Research Service's (CRS) annual study of arms sales," Baranauskas told IPS.

He said the latest CRS survey shows a total of 8.4 billion dollars of arms deliveries to Israel in the 1997-2004 period, with fully 7.1 billion dollars or 84.5 percent coming from a single source: the United States.

A major factor in this trend was the rise in U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) -- outright U.S. grants to Israel -- which now totals about 2.3 billion dollars a year paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

By U.S. law, Baranauskas said, 74 percent of FMF assistance to Israel must be spent on U.S. military products. This U.S. assistance has now become the main source of financing for Israel's major arms procurements, especially its fighter planes.

From a historical perspective, he said, U.S. assistance to Israel during 1950-2005 has been staggeringly high: Foreign Military Financing (FMF) amounting to 59.5 billion dollars; 27 billion dollars in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) mostly government-to-government arms transactions; and eight billion dollars in commercial arms sales by the private sector.

Berrigan of the Arms Trade Resource Center said the United States is undoubtedly the primary supplier of Israeli firepower.

In the interest of strengthening Israel's security and maintaining the country's "qualitative military edge" over neighboring militaries, the U.S. Congress provides Israel with annual FMF grants that represent about 23 percent of its overall defense budget. Israel's 2006 military budget is estimated at 7.4 billion dollars.

According to the Congressional Research Service, FMF levels are expected to increase incrementally by 60 million dollars a year to a level of 2.4 billion dollars by 2008 compared with 2.2 billion dollars in 2005.

"Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid every year since 1976," Berrigan said.

Additionally, the United States provides Israel with billions of dollars worth of weaponry.

She pointed out that recent military sales to Israel include propulsion systems for fast patrol boats worth more than 15 million dollars from MTU Detroit Diesel; an eight-million-dollar contract to Lockheed Martin for high-tech infrared "navigation and targeting" capabilities for Israeli jets; and a 145-million-dollar deal with Oshkosh Truck Corp to build more than 900 armour kits for Israeli Medium Tactical Vehicles.

In December of last year, Lockheed Martin was awarded a 29.8-million-dollar contract to provide spares part for Israel's F-16 fighter planes.

Berrigan also said that Israel has one of the world's largest fleets of F-16 fighter planes, made in Fort Worth, Texas and also in Israel by Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Israel has a total of over 378 F-16s, considered one of the world's most advanced fighter planes -- besides 117 F-15s, 94 Skyhawks, 110 Phantoms -- all supplied by the United States.

Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service

The article is also posted:
www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0718-07.htm

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- - Israeli Onslaught Will Only Strengthen Hizbullah

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
The Daily Star (Lebanon) - 18 July 2006
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1153338746,71187,
 

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More: http://cryptogon.com/2006_07_16_blogarchive.html#115319409589933810

DREAM, DREAM, DREAM. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM!
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR! "LET THE DREAMS BEGIN"
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060718-moon-song.MP3

This is Not Iraq or Lebanon
This is Waco, Texas 1993
http://www.apfn.net/waco-pogo.htm
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/wacopg.htm

 

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Why is Israel destroying its neighbour?
By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News
Israel is waging a war of extermination in Lebanon. Without regard to the civilian population, it is seeking to destroy Hezbollah, much as it has attempted over the past six months to destroy Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It wants to root out these movements altogether.

Its strategy in Lebanon seems to be to empty the south of its population, driving the Shiites out of their traditional homeland in much the same way as it continues its pitiless onslaught on Gaza.

Why this Israeli savagery? By their cross-border raids and the capture of three Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah and Hamas humiliated the Israeli army and dented its deterrent capability. In Israeli eyes, this cannot go unpunished. It is determined to bring home to the Arabs the tremendous cost of daring to attack Israel.

The Israeli army has a score to settle with Hezbollah which, by guerrilla harassment, drove it out of Lebanon in 2000, ending its 22-year occupation of the south. With this success, Hezbollah demonstrated to the whole Arab world - and to the Palestinians in particular - that Israel was not invincible. Now Israel is trying to set the record straight.

No doubt some Israeli hawks, such as the chief of staff Dan Halutz, regret the "unfinished business" of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon when, having killed 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, it failed to secure the political reward of bringing a submissive Lebanon into its orbit.

This time, too, Israel may find that its war aim of destroying Hezbollah and Hamas is unattainable.

Hezbollah's leader, Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah - Israel's "Enemy Number One" - has repeatedly warned Israel to expect "surprises". The missile attacks on Haifa, Israel's third largest city and the disabling of one of Israel's most advanced warships were certainly painful surprises. They carried the war into Israel's home territory.

The greatest "surprise" Hezbollah might still have up its sleeve would be to survive the present crisis, bloody but unbowed. The longer Hezbollah holds out, the greater Israel's problems with the international community and the greater the pressure of Arab opinion on those Arab regimes that have so far stood shiftily on the sidelines. Israel has always relied on brute force to ensure its security. This doctrine rests on the belief that the Arabs will never be strong enough, or capable enough, to challenge it. This is a fundamentally racist attitude.

Muscle-flexing

But beneath the bluster and the muscle-flexing lies a deep-seated paranoia and insecurity, reflected in the conviction, shared by many of Israel's citizens, that the Arabs want to kill them and that they face a permanent existential threat. This dark view of their environment - something of a self-fulfilling prophecy - goes some way to explaining the extravagantly disproportionate nature of Israel's attacks and its blatant disregard for international legality and any semblance of morality.

Israel is able to behave in this way because it has been given extraordinary immunity by the United States. A striking aspect of the crisis is, indeed, America's total political, diplomatic and strategic support for Israel.

America's gross bias has paralysed the UN Security Council, the G-8 and the European Union. So great is American pressure that none of these bodies has been able to insist on an immediate end to the Israeli onslaught.

Terrorism is usually defined as the indiscriminate killing of civilians in pursuit of political goals. Is this not what Israel is doing in both Lebanon and Gaza? By any objective standard, Israel is guilty of state terrorism.

But killing Arabs in this wanton manner and smashing their countries must inevitably have negative consequences for Israel's own security. Israel's terrorist behaviour legitimises the terrorism of its enemies. And America's uncritical support for Israel legitimises terrorism against the United States itself. That is what 9/11 was all about, although to this day the United States has not faced up to why it was attacked. The US and Israel are sowing the wind and will reap the whirlwind.

Washington's unconditional backing for Israel highlights the fact that this is not simply a war between Israel and Hezbollah. By seeking to bomb Lebanon into submission, Israel intends to strike a blow at the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis, which has challenged US-Israeli dominance in the region. The key issue is whose will is to prevail in this vital part of the world.

If the conflict had been a purely local one, Israel might have agreed to an exchange of prisoners, as both Hezbollah and Hamas demanded, and as has taken place a number of times in the past. But the war has a wider dimension.

The US has given Israel a free rein because it is confronted with the probability of two highly disagreeable developments: a nuclear-armed Iran and a humiliating defeat in Iraq. It urgently needs to regain the initiative in the wider Middle East and has persuaded itself - or been persuaded by Israel's friends inside and outside the administration - that Israel can help it do so.

The situation is complicated by a further layer of conflict. The Arab oil producers in the Gulf dread an upset in the regional power balance. Israel's indifference to Arab life risks convincing many young Arabs that long-term coexistence with Israel is not possible. Arab intellectuals are increasingly expressing the view that Israel is a colonial state, which must eventually disappear.

At their summit meeting in Beirut in March 2002, all the Arab states declared their readiness to establish normal peaceful relations with Israel within its 1967 borders. But Israel rejected the offer. It must surely be time for Israel to think again. The offer may still be on the table.

Only by withdrawing from Palestinian territories, respecting Lebanon's sovereignty and returning the Golan to Syria will Israel live in peace.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10053855.html

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The Most Dangerous Alliance in the World

Norman Solomon
After getting out of Lebanon, writer June Rugh told Reuters on Tuesday: “As an American, I’m embarrassed and ashamed. My administration is letting it happen [by giving] tacit permission for Israel to destroy a country.” The news service quoted another American evacuee, Andrew Muha, who had been in southern Lebanon. He said: “It’s a travesty.

There’s a million homeless in Lebanon and the intense amount of bombing has brought an entire country to its knees.”

Embarrassing. Shameful. A travesty. Those kinds of words begin to describe the alliance between the United States and Israel. Here are a few more: Government criminality. High-tech terror. Mass murder from the skies. The kind of premeditated action that the U.S. representative in Nuremberg at the International Conference on Military Trials -- Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson -- was talking about on August 12, 1945, when he declared that “no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.”

The United States and Israel. Right now, it’s the most dangerous alliance in the world.

Of course, Israeli officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Hezbollah and Hamas. And Hezbollah and Hamas officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Israel. Plenty of real crimes to go around. At the same time, by any measure, Israelis have done a lot more killing than dying. (If you doubt that, take a look at the website of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and its documentation of deadly events.)

In American media, the current mumbling about the need for “restraint” is little better than window-dressing for bomb-dropping. The prevalent dynamic is based on a chain of rarely spoken lies, however conscious or unconscious: none more important than the lie that a religion can make one life worth more than another; render a human death unimportant; elevate certain war-inflicted agonies to spiritual significance.

“Israel has overwhelming military superiority in both southern Lebanon and Gaza,” the New York Times noted in mid-July. A pattern is deeply entrenched in U.S. media and politics: the smaller-scale killers condemned, the larger-scale killers justified with endless rationales.

Stripping away the righteous rhetoric, media manipulation and routine journalistic contortions, what remains in joint U.S.-Israeli policy is the unspoken assumption that might makes right. Myths spin around as convenient. Israel ceremoniously “withdraws” from Gaza, only to come back with missiles and troops however and whenever it pleases. The West Bank also continues to be a place of subjugation and resistance. And, as W.H. Auden observed, “Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.”

The Israeli leaders who launched this month’s state-of-the-killing-art air assault on Gaza and Lebanon had to know that many civilians would be killed, many others wounded, many more terrorized. The smug moral posturing that Israel’s military does not target specific civilians is moldy political grist -- and, in human terms, irrelevant to the totally predictable carnage.

“There are terrorists who will blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives,” President Bush said on July 13. Of course he was referring to actions by Hezbollah and Hamas. We’re supposed to pretend that Israel does not also “blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives.”

Israel calls itself a Jewish state, and its leadership often claims to represent the interests of Jewish people. Killers who terrorize often claim to be acting on blessed behalf of others of the faith. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus... By now, such demagoguery ought to be transparent.

In the 40th year of Israel’s unconscionable occupation of Palestinian territories, Israeli leaders have their agenda. What’s ours?

It should include clearly opposing the most dangerous alliance in the world.

In the United States, evading the “might makes right” core of the alliance is easy. The dodge makes dropping bombs on Lebanon and Gaza that much easier for the Israeli government. As usual, you can hear it in the weasel-worded statements from even the better politicians on Capitol Hill. You can read it in New York Times editorials. Instead of saying that aggressive war by Israel “is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy,” the message is that aggressive war by Israel is accepted and embraced as an instrument of policy.

Most of all, you can hear it in the silence.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/the-most-dangerous-allian_b_25483.html

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Lebanon's Expendable People: the deliberate killing of innocent people to achieve political objectives
by Mike Whitney

July 20, 2006
uruknet.info

The most shocking thing about Israel’s assault on Lebanon is the dispassionate precision with which the bombardment has been carried out. From bridge to granary, from granary to power plant, from power plant to factory, from factory to mosque, from mosque to hospital, from hospital to apartment building; each decimated with the calm disdain of a surgeon removing a cancerous tumor. We get no sense of rage in Israel’s behavior, just the calculated savagery of men who see their duty as systematically decapitating an entire civilization and leaving it in ruins.

The destruction of Lebanon is the work of robots not men; unfeeling, remorseless bundles of skin and bone.

No one could have done what these men did in just seven days and be a part of the same human family as you and I.

So far, there is no indication that the captured Israeli soldiers have been hurt or mistreated. The leveling of a once-bustling and prosperous metropolis has been executed while the victims are still safely tucked away in some unknown hiding place. There’s no purpose for Israel’s rampage, the terms for release could have been negotiated in a "prisoner swap" as they have many times before. The bombing is purely a gratuitous act of violence intended to destroy a nation that just recovered from 18 years of Israeli occupation. Now Lebanon has been returned to the Stone Age.

Why?

Have the soldiers been tortured or abused as they would have been in American or Israeli care?

I hope not. I hope they are being treated well. I hope they are set free and allowed to walk southward through the scattered-rubble and body parts so they can appreciate what their leaders have done in their names. I hope they are released so that Hezbollah can claim a moral victory over the forces of inhumanity and cynicism that have infected the seats of government in Tel Aviv and Washington.

Whatever chance there may have been for peace is gone now. We have to be realistic. The next generation of Muslims will despise us and everything we stand for. No capital or city will be safe. The US and Israel are sowing dragon’s teeth throughout the Middle East and their bloody harvest will come in the decades ahead. Cheney was right, this war could last 50 years and not end in our lifetime.

Lebanon was the last straw. It proves that everything Bin Laden said was true: "They have come to take your land and your resources; they have come to shame your women and disgrace your culture; they have come to humiliate you in front of your children and heap ignominy on your religion."

Where was he wrong?

Author and writer Pepe Escobar said it best: "The effect of the Israeli bombing barrage will be to draw newer, thicker waves of moderate Muslims toward political-and radical–Islam. The perception in the Arab street- as well as for most of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims-has been reinforced: the U.S./Israel axis seems to hold a license to kill Arabs with impunity." (Pepe Escobar, "Leviathan Run Amok" Asia Times)

Escobar’s right. The lives of Muslims mean nothing. They’ve become the "expendable" people whose security simply doesn’t matter. Their wholesale slaughter appears regularly on the evening news while heart-wrenching stories are spun about the suffering of Israeli fathers and mothers who lost loved ones in retaliatory attacks.

Don’t Muslims have mothers and fathers? Is it so important to demonize them that they must be stripped of every trace of humanity including parents?

Where will these "expendable" people go as the world’s resources continue to dry up and their homelands are increasingly besieged?

Indonesia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan; where will they all go? Will they be shunted off to refugee camps or live as prisoners in their own land; be shot like dogs or stand and fight until the end?

How many will chose to join the growing ranks of jihadis and resistance groups plotting and planning to strike back in any way they can? How many will figure that it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees?

Lebanon has paved the way for a century of war. It’s been ravaged and its people evacuated to settle scores with Hezbollah and create a buffer zone on Israel’s northern flank. The ruined lives are of no consequence. The city will be rebuilt by loans from the World Bank and IMF and the work will be contracted by Halliburton and Bechtel. We’ve seen it all before; the utter destruction of a society so that it can be placed in the hands of the global corporatists. Lebanon will be no exception.

Now that Israel’s northern flank has been "pacified" Olmert can turn his eyes eastward towards Damascus where the ophthalmologist Bashar Al-Assad will have to be toppled to secure pipeline routes from northern Iraq to Haifa. That way Israel will become a major player in this century’s resource wars and a leader in the region.

The geopolitical chess match is unfolding just as it was written years ago by neoconservatives who were dismissed at the time as radicals and lunatics. No one is laughing now. The 12 villagers who were massacred in Srifa yesterday by Israeli bombs aren’t laughing nor are the parents of the 11 children who were vaporized by an Israeli missile while taking a swim in a canal at Oasmia refugee camp.

This is the calculus of human misery; the deliberate killing of innocent people to achieve political objectives. It is no different than terrorism. Bush and Olmert are two men who have absolute confidence in the ability of violence to shape behavior. They are not concerned about the rivers of blood that feed their dreams. After all, those people are "expendable."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=WHI20060720&articleId=2782 

Bush, Blair ignore Lebanon proposal for ceasefire
http://story.malaysiasun.com/p.x/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/a02a1f01551dc491/

TURKEY: 500,000 Flee War-Torn Lebanon
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&trh=20060721&alt=&syf=butun 

George Orwell's 1984
WAR IS PEACE ~ FREEDOM IS SLAVERY ~ IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/1984.htm

SEE:
http://www.abouyounes.com/Lebanon18-07-2006.htm

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U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact

Summary Benefits to Israel of U.S. Aid Since 1949 (As of November 1, 1997) Foreign Aid Grants and Loans $74,157,600,000 Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid) $9,047,227,200 Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments $1,650,000,000 Grand Total $84,854,827,200 Total Benefits per Israeli $14,630 Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of U.S. Aid to Israel Grand Total $84,854,827,200 Interest Costs Borne by U.S. $49,936,680,000 Total Cost to U.S. Taxpayers $134,791,507,200 Total Taxpayer Cost per Israeli $23,240 Special Reports: Congress Watch: A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billion—and Counting Congressional Research Report on Israel: US Foreign Assistance by Clyde Mark (213K pdf file) U.S. Aid To Israel: The Strategic Functions U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the 'Strategic Relationship' The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel More: http://www.washington-report.org/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm

Israel & The States
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/

New York Times: Interactive map updated daily

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Press Release

Greens, Calling for Palestinian Rights, Urge Divestment from Israel GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES http://www.gp.org  Monday, November 28, 2005 Contacts: Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org   Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org   Mohammed K. Abed, Wisconsin Green Party, 608-332-9900, mkabed@wisc.edu   Justine McCabe, International Committee, 860-354-1822, justinemccabe@earthlink.net   WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Green Party of the United States has endorsed a statement calling for a comprehensive strategy of boycott and divestment that would pressure the government of Israel to guarantee human rights for Palestinians. The resolution, introduced by the Wisconsin Green Party and passed in the Green Party's National Committee, seeks reversal of Israel's current policies. The text is appended below. "Israel's treatment of Palestinians -- those who are Israeli citizens as well as those in the territories -- is comparable in many ways to South African apartheid, and has resulted in a cycle of violence and lack of security for both Israelis and Palestinians," said Mohammed Abed, a member of the Green Party of Wisconsin.  "A stable and just resolution of the conflict requires the full realization of the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis." Greens allege that the 'peace process' will ensure neither peace nor human rights, and have called the Gaza Disengagement Plan a smokescreen to buy time and accumulate political capital for the Sharon government while it pursues a plan to force Palestinians into disconnected reservations on less than half the West Bank. The Green Party is already on record as supporting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to receive compensation for their losses; immediate Israeli withdrawal from all lands acquired since 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (see news.independent.co.uk...); maintenance of Jerusalem as a shared city open to people of all faiths; suspension of U.S. military and foreign aid to Israel; complete dismantling of the Israeli separation wall; and serious consideration of a single secular, democratic state as the national home of both Israelis and Palestinians. Greens have affirmed the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis. "The Green Party is on the side of the many Israeli and Palestinian organizations working together to achieve a just resolution through nonviolent means," said Ruth Weill, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. "As proven in South Africa in the 1980s, divestment and boycott are an effective means to achieve justice for the oppressed." Greens note that direct U.S. aid to Israel has been conservatively estimated at nearly $105 billion since 1949, which does not include recently proposed assistance such as the $1.2 billion package for developing the Negev and Galilee. "American taxpayers' money is subsidizing Israel's treatment of its Palestinian citizens and of Palestinians in the occupied territories," said Peter LaVenia, chair of the Albany, NewYork Greens. Reference: news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article329199.ece RESOLUTION Adopted by the Green Party of the United States, November 21, 2005 1. The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized.  To maximize the effect of the Green Party's support for divestment and boycott of Israel: 2. The party calls on all civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program. Further, the party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state level boycotts. 3. The party urges the Campus Greens network to work in cooperation with other campus organizations to achieve institutional participation in this effort. 4. The GPUS National Committee directs the Green Peace Action Committee (GPAX) to encourage the larger anti-war movement to promote the divestment/boycott effort. 5. The GPUS National Committee directs the International Committee to work with our sister Green parties around the world in implementing an international boycott. MORE INFORMATION Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org   1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404 Washington, DC 20009. 202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN Fax 202-319-7193 Green Party International Committee  http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/  Green Party Peace Action Committee http://www.gp.org/committees/peace/   University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/links.htm   http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_11_28.shtml

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A Handful of Neocons Are Instigating a Wider War Will Americans join Iraqis, Lebanese, and Palestinians as neocon victims?

by Paul Craig Roberts

What explains the indifference of the Bush administration to the slaughter of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza? As of the morning of July 19, Israeli bombardments of Lebanese civilian residential districts and public infrastructure have murdered 300 Lebanese, wounded 1,000, and displaed 500,000. The Lebanese prime minister said that Israel's attack has caused "unimaginable losses" and that his government will seek compensation from Israel.   In Gaza, Israel has murdered scores of Palestinian civilians in the past few days. In Iraq, the civilian daily death toll has risen above 100.   These dead are not Hezbollah militia. They are not Hamas militia. They are not al-Qaeda or Sunni insurgents. They are civilians. Frustrated by Hezbollah, Israel is lashing out at hapless civilians, knowing that the U.S. will protect Israel from UN Security Council condemnation. Frustrated by Sunni insurgents, the U.S. has instigated sectarian strife. Bush has stonewalled the UN, our European allies, and the Lebanese prime minister, all of whom are calling and pleading for Bush to pressure the Israelis to stop their cowardly slaughter from the air of Lebanese civilians. The Guardian reports that Bush gave Israel the green light to attack Lebanon and has given Olmert another week to pound Lebanon.   U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice has announced that she will go to the Middle East to resolve "the crisis" when it is appropriate. Apparently, the appropriate time is not when people are dying and a country, which had only just recovered from the last Israeli invasion, is again being bombed into rubble. How many more war crimes must Israel commit before Bush and Condi Rice put aside their indifference? On July 19, the Israelis turned their air attack on the Christian area of Beirut. The Lebanese Christians can thank the American evangelical Rev. John Hagee, who has thrown his 18,000 member Texas church behind Israeli aggression. Bush cannot claim public support for his indifference.   As of noon July 19, 800,000 people had participated in CNN's Quick Vote, with the result that 55 percent oppose Israel's attack on Lebanon.   This result is despite the fact that U.S. television reporting explains the news from the Israeli perspective. Similarly, in Israel a survey published by Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth showed 53 percent of Israelis polled said Israel should hold negotiations to secure the release of the Israeli soldier captured in Gaza, while 43 percent backed a military operation.   A poll taken by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that 28 percent of Israelis believe Israel should immediately stop bombing Lebanon, compared to 7 percent who believe that the bombing should continue until the captured soldiers are freed, and 14 percent who believe bombing should continue until Lebanon agrees to disarm Hezbollah ¨C    a task that Israel's invasion has made more impossible than ever.   If these polls are reliable, one can conclude that the U.S. and Israeli populations are more moral, and more concerned with human life, than are the leaders of the two countries.   Neither can Bush claim that he is supporting Israel because he is Israel's friend. If Bush were Israel's friend, he would not have given a green light to Israel's aggression, which will create more hatred of Israel. As a number of Israeli writers have pointed out, Israel has shown tooth and claw to its Arab neighbors for decades to no avail.   Writing in Ha'aretz, Yitzhak Laor notes that Israel's problems are not the result of insufficient bombing and destruction of Arab populations. Yet, once again Israeli militants are "enlarging the circle of hostilities, including harming civilians. What Israel's 'strategists' have to offer is the destruction of yet another country."   More- http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=9354 UN Resolutions On Lebanon United Nations Security Council Resolution 270 (PDF) AUGUST 26, 1969 1. Condemns the premeditated air attack by Israel on villages in southern Lebanon in violation of its obligations under the Charter and Security Council resolutions ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 347 APRIL 24, 1974 1. Condemns Israel's violation of Lebanon's territorial integrity and sovereignty and calls once more on the Government of Israel to refrain from further military actions and threats against Lebanon ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 March 19, 1978 Calls upon Israel immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 426 MARCH 19, 1978 Approves the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 425 (1978), contained in document S/12611 of 19 March 1978 ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 427 MAY 3, 1978 1. Approves the increase in the strength of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon requested by the Secretary-General from 4,000 to approximately 6,000 troops ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 450 JUNE 14, 1979 1. Strongly deplores acts of violence against Lebanon that have led to the displacement of civilians, including Palestinians, and brought about destruction and loss of innocent lives ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 459 DECEMBER 19, 1979 10. Reaffirms its determination, in the event of continuing obstruction of the mandate of the Force, to examine practical ways and means in accordance with relevant provisions of the Charter of the United Nations to secure the full implementation of resolution 425 (1978) ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 483 DECEMBER 18, 1980 7. Reaffirms its determination, in the event of continuing obstruction of the mandate of UNIFIL, to examine practical ways and means to secure the full implementation of resolution 425 (1978) ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 481 JUNE 19, 1981 2. Condemns all actions contrary to the provisions of the above-mentioned resolutions that have prevented the full implementation of UNIFIL's mandate, causing death, injury and destruction to the civilian population as well as among the peace-keeping force ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 555 OCTOBER 12, 1984 4. Reiterates that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon should fully implement its mandate as defined in resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978) and all other relevant resolutions ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 586 JUNE 18, 1986 1. Decides to extend the present mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon for a further interim period of six months, that is, until 19 January 1987...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 587 SEPTEMBER 23, 1986 Noting with regret that the Force, whose mandate has been renewed for the twenty-first time, has so far been prevented from fulfilling the task entrusted to it...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 599 JUNE 31,1987 1. Decides to extend the present mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon for a further interim period of six months, that is, until 31 January 1988 ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 617 JULY 29, 1988 The Security Council, Recalling its resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978), 501 (1982), 508 (1982), 509 (1982) and 520 (1982), as well as all its resolutions on the situation in Lebanon ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 768 JULY 30, 1992 1. Decides to extend the present mandate of UNIFIL for a further interim period of six months, that is until 31 January 1993 ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 799 DECEMBER 18, 1992 Having learned with deep concern that Israel, the occupying Power, in contravention of its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, deported to Lebanon on 17 December 1992, hundreds of Palestinian civilians from the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 938 JULY 28, 1994 1. Decides to extend the present mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon for a further interim period of six months, that is until 31 January 1995 ...   United Nations Security Council Resolution 1288 JANUARY 31, 2000 1. Decides to extend the present mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon for a further period of six months, that is until 31 July 2000... More: http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/un-resolutions.html Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' By Duraid Al Baik, Foreign Editor Dubai: A doctor at a Palestinian hospital has accused Israel of using a type of chemical ammunition which causes burns and injuries in soft tissue and cannot be traced by X-ray. Chemical or depleted uranium could have been used in producing the new type of ammunition according to Dr Jomaa Al Saqqa, head of the Emergency Unit at Gaza's main medical facility, the Al Shifa Hospital. In a telephone interview, Al Saqqa told Gulf News that operation Summer Rain was not just the code name of a military operation launched by Israel against Gaza since June 26. "It is a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200," he said. He said he was not yet sure about the kind of chemical being used because the Israeli Army had bombed the only criminal laboratory in Gaza on the first day of the assault. Dr Saqqa who has been working in the Al Shifa Hospital for almost 10 years said he had never seen such wounds before. At the beginning of the Summer Rain operation I noticed that people's wounds looked strange. I thought it was just because the attack was from a close distance or that the temperature of bullets penetrating the bodies of injured or killed people were so high they were causing burns. I later found out that all wounds referred to the hospital since the start of the operation were very similar. "I also noticed that despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body." Al Saqqa urged the international health authorities to come to Gaza and check the wounds of people in Al Shifa Hospital. "The situation is very bad because out of the 200 injuries there are 50 children who are suffering badly because of their internal wounds caused by the new kind of ammunition," he said. Gulf News contacted the spokesman for the Israeli Army but he was not available for comment http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/07/11/10052824.html "The Abbi Hoffman Staire" "THE CULTURE WAR" AUDIO: "The only way to win, is with a CULTURE WAR!" Abbie Hoffman http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060627-abbie-hoffman.MP3 Stop The War http://www.stopthewar.co.uk/ DEPLETED URANIUM ALERT! [Click on banner to go to page]

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