BBC History Magazine was forced to remove an online poll after it was targeted by a project aimed at influencing internet opinion in Israel's favour.

The Give Israel Your United Support (GIYUS) website hosts a downloadable desktop tool called Megaphone. The program alerts users to opinion polls and "talkback" features on news sites so they can respond with pro-Israel views. In turn, users can alert GIYUS operators to any opinion polls they think should be targeted.

The Jerusalem-based World Union of Jewish Students launched GIYUS and Megaphone on 19 July, a week after Israel launched air attacks in Lebanon.

The long-running BBC History Magazine poll posed the question: "Do you think holocaust denial should be made illegal in Britain?" Soon after it was targeted by Megaphone, the poll was pulled. The magazine declined to speak to The Register about the episode.

Prior to contacting The Register, our source corresponded with the magazine. Staff writer Robert Attar wrote at the end of August: "I am aware about this situation. I had a look at their site and all they have done is encouraged their members to vote on the polls which seems legitimate to me. It would also be extremely difficult to prevent groups of people voting in this way. As our polls are not used for any scientific or academic purpose I don't see the problem."

Three days after the launch of Megaphone, Amir Gissin, public affairs director of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to pro-Israel or "Hasbara" organisations to urge them to back the new tactic.

Dear friends,

Many of us recognize the importance of the Internet as the new battleground for Israel's image. It's time to do it better, and coordinate our on-line efforts on behalf of Israel. An Israeli software company have developed a free, safe and useful tool for us - the Internet Megaphone.

Please go to www.giyus.org, download the Megaphone, and you will receive daily updates with instant links to important internet polls, problematic articles that require a talkback, etc.

We need 100,000 Megaphone users to make a difference. So, please distribute this mail to all Israel's supporters.

Do it now. For Israel.

Amir Gissin

Director Public Affairs (Hasbara) Department

GIYUS currently claims 24,000 Megaphone users.

Comparing Megaphone to pro-Palestinian blogs designed to rally support, in comments to the Jerusalem Post on 31 August, Gissin said: "Why can they do it, but we need to sit quietly? The Internet is the communications medium of the future. The government is not behind this initiative, but I can only be happy it exists."

One Megaphone alert dispatched in August said: "Ask the UN to re-examine its position on the Qana incident. Remind the UN that Reuters admitted some of the Qana photos are faked, and that Hezbollah manipulates and uses innocent Lebanese civilians as human shields."

Qana was the scene of a devastating airstrike which killed dozens of civilians, including many children. Israel was widely condemned and the UN security council expressed "shock and distress" at the action.

Other interested parties have called for the initiative to try and stay under the radar. Former Israeli consul-general in New York Alon Pinkas told the Jerusalem Post: "Once it is out there that these are organized talkbacks, then anytime anything positive appears on the web, people will say it is manufactured in Israel."

While the loss of the BBC History poll is relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme, it points to a new highly organised mass manipulation of technologies which are supposed to be democratising and encouraging free expression by individuals.

Megaphone has no registration or identity check, so nothing would stop those opposed to Israel downloading Megaphone and using its alerts to voice opinions against its activities, however. Inevitably, a hacked version already exists which replaces Israeli flags with Palestinian ones and alters some of the text.

However it is used, Megaphone is effectively a high-tech exercise in ballot-stuffing. We're calling it lobbyware. ®

Nessie- its one set of standards for you and yours, and another for the world.

Did you see the doctored ambulence photos at zombietime? Did you see all the staged photos that have been documented? Is that the work of people who have truth and justice on their side?

No, Nessie. If its "By any means necessary" on your side, then we are fools if we don't play that game too. Yeah, it'll be "By any means necessary" on our side, too. Are you ready for the consequences?

Hasbara refers to the propaganda efforts to sell Israel, justify its actions, and defend it in world opinion. Using contemporary euphemisms, it is Public diplomacy for Israel, or using a pejorative interpretation, then it is apologia. Israel portrays itself as fighting on two fronts: the Palestinians and world opinion. The latter is dealt with hasbara. The premise of hasbara is that Israel's problems are a matter of better propaganda, and not one of an underlying unjust situation.

(snip)

* * * * *

Continued at:

Hasbara (הסברה) (or hasbarah) is a Hebrew noun that literally means "explanation". [1][2] The term has been used by the State of Israel and by independent groups to describe their efforts to explain Israeli government policies, and to promote Israel to the world at large.

Hasbara refers to the propaganda efforts to sell Israel, justify its actions, and defend it in world opinion. Using contemporary euphemisms, it is Public diplomacy for Israel, or using a pejorative interpretation, then it is apologia. Israel portrays itself as fighting on two fronts: the Palestinians and world opinion. The latter is dealt with hasbara. The premise of hasbara is that Israel's problems are a matter of better propaganda, and not one of an underlying unjust situation.

(snip)

* * * * *

Continued at:

I've always maintained that the best way to counter bad information is with good information. The more people know, the better it is for us. Thats way when "your" people show up at our events, we smile and let them in (We frown and escort them out when they disrupt, though. Even we have our limits)

Come to our lectures. Please. Come to our talks. Please. Read a book. The more you know, the better it is for everyone.

Information is a good thing. Really. Ask a librarian.

S'just a slightly more automated version of the same shit they've been doing for years via CAMERA, HonestReporting, etc. Right Yiddo?

Hey Tia: you keep paying lip service to "the democracy of the information smorgasbord," and in principle I totally agree with you, but I don't think there is an idea out there to which the zionist screamer network is more fundamentally hostile, and that would include YOU. The entire media system SHOULD be such a smorgasbord, and yet this Megaphone tool is a perfect example of the way the bunch of you work as a single organism to attack any "anti-Israel" content anywhere and scream it down. It doesn't matter that you've got *the* key mind-control machine -- television -- all wrapped up. Oh no, you have to have EVERYTHING locked down just as tight.

The internet as a whole is the greatest such smorgasbord ever, and the criticisms of Israel offered here are just one plate on a buffet table ten miles long, a table groaning under thousands of frantic, lying PRO-Israel plates. Oh but here's a piddly-ass little site that offers a counterbalancing position, one that Joe Average might just stumble into and get his mind inoculated with some counter-Newsspeak, and this

FUCKING.

DRIVES.

YOU.

**NUTS**

It's so obvious. That's why the bunch of you are here all day every day frantically lying, distorting, harassing, slandering, baiting, reiterating your Big Lie talking points -- in short doing anything you can to distract Joe Average from the perspective on offer here: that there are two sides to this story, and the other side has some damn good moral arguments going for it. You don't ever want anyone to notice this. You LIVE to keep that from happening

This is **NOT** consistent with your lip service. It's worthy of an "information" commissar in Stalin's Russia

The internet is a near-perfect 'democratic smorgasbord.' When it comes to any subject that impinges on zionism, you hate that about it. It's perfectly clear. And once again your facile pompous posturing to the contrary just makes me wanna fuckin puke

. Oh no, you have to have EVERYTHING locked down just as tight.

Do you realize, of course, that the same thing exists for other interest groups? The Palestinians interest groups have seminars complete with roleplaying workshops- they have their own media alert system.



I don't subscribe to the one described above. I think the entire system of on-line polls and mass petitions sent via e-mail are less than useful. I think they exist merely to drive up site traffic at any given time, and are ultimately used to pad stats to increase advertising revenue. You see, in my own little way, I can be as cynical as you.

The internet as a whole is the greatest such smorgasbord ever,

It certainly has the potential to be, but as of now, its still a tool of the educated Westerner.

Oh but here's a piddly-ass little site that offers a counterbalancing position, one that Joe Average might just stumble into and get his mind inoculated with some counter-Newsspeak, and this

FUCKING.

DRIVES.

YOU.

**NUTS**

No it doesn't. Its obvious there are only a few of us that play around here- but damn, we are noisy, aren't we?

It's so obvious. .. You LIVE to keep that from happening

At this point, its as much something to do as anything else. And it is a bit of a compulsion. And you and Nessie make me laugh- thats worth something. I tried to stay away- really I did. I told Megafauna I could quit whenever I wanted, and damn, I can quit whenever I want (she made a nice break, didn't she, btw?) I made productive use of my time- I re-read Dante's Inferno (always good to examine society's standards of good and evil from time to time) and I re-read the Great Gatsby. But here I am back again. Even Gehrigs gone. And CT. But I can quit whenever I want. Really I can.

The internet is a near-perfect 'democratic smorgasbord.'

I entered the information age kicking and screaming- for the obvious reasons. Now I use and abuse the Internet as much as anyone. But there are problems in using the Internet as a sole source of information. There is a lot of garbage out there, and the mass of Americans don't know how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I see people quoting books they haven't read based on cherry picked lines out of reviews. I see people quoting things as facts, simply because they've seen it repeated so often. I see junk science everywhere.

I can easily see the internet being used the way its used in China-as a tool of the state.

Why are you here- really? Clearly your talent isn't in interacting with people- you should keep a blog where you alone control access. You could autoblock any dissenting opinions. You could just interact with those who agree with you. You'd be in control and in your element. What brings you to an IMC thousands of miles from your home? You've never adequately explained this. Why aren't you haunting a local IMC? Why aren't you volunteering in a local IMC, for that matter?



Tia

Frozen is not dead. Almost but not quite. The pages wont load for comments yet. When they fix it I'll post there.

It's good to know you gave so much self control. Is that why you have trolled IMC's internationally in your fanatical addiction to defending Israel?

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=%22gehrig%22+indymedia&btnG=Google+Search

@%

Cheering for one less intelligent voice? Do you think that will make it easier for people to beleive the unbelievably dumb stuff you post? No, you've just bored someone with your endless stupidity and knee jerk politics to the point wher they've wandered elsewhere. I imagine that you get 86'd from bars alot too, right?

Yid, you have already proven yourself an irrelevant idiot who has meltdowns and threatens posters who refuse to submit to your pro-israel propaganda.

You will never have power here. It burns you up.

Heh.

'Americans don't know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. '

No no no.

It's not wheat from chaff, it's BS ( easily detected by it's bias and unheeding ability to deny and lie in the face of reason, evidence and history ) from the events of the world we very seldom get to see in the MS (o sh*t )M . Anyone who has indeed spent much time in a library, reading something other than prose, would know about the 'smell' between the two.

FWIW & IMOVHO of course.

Unexploded bombs hamper rural recovery

Report, IRIN, 5 September 2006

Hassan, 10, and a friend accidentally detonated a bomblet on their first day back in Aita Ech Chaab in the south (UNHCR/A. Branthwaite)

RAS AL-AIN/ TYRE - Now that war is over, farmers are returning to their land in southern Lebanon only to find their crops destroyed and their livelihoods ruined while unexploded bombs are hampering recovery.

Wafi Al-Khishin fled his banana plantation in Ras Al-Ain, outside Tyre in southern Lebanon, when Isreali air-strikes began in July to stay with relatives some 80 km away in the capital Beirut.

"When we came back, we found much of our land and crops burnt," said Al-Khishin. "And what was not destroyed directly has died because of a lack of irrigation throughout the war."

During the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah - a Lebanon-based Islamic militant group - Israel bombed parts of Lebanon on a daily basis, frequently hitting civilian areas, infrastructure and farmland.

Southern Lebanon, said to be a Hezbollah stronghold, was particularly hard hit by Israeli bombs.

Agriculture is the third largest component of the Lebonese economy, after tourism and industry. Southern Lebanon alone accounts for roughly 30 percent of the country's total agricultural output, now decimated by the war.

Unexploded bombs are preventing many farmers from recovering what they can from their fields.

"Not only have we lost this season's harvest, but the destruction of the land and the continued presence of cluster bombs mean we cannot work even now that the war is over to preserve what has survived from among our trees," said Al-Khishin.

According to a preliminary early recovery report compiled by the Lebanese government, damage caused to the agricultural sector by the conflict is manifold.

"The nature of the damages ranges from the loss of buildings, agricultural infrastructure, equipment and machinery, ruined harvests, the inability to keep export commitments, and the drastic increase in unemployment among workers in all-subsectors," the report reads.

Direct effects of the war caused by military operations include the destruction of proper irrigation channels and sources. "When farmers returned to their land, they found most wells and man-made springs struck by bombs too," said Radwan Waznaeh, spokesperson for the agriculture ministry.

Banana and citrus plants are among the main crops cultivated in the south. "These need frequent irrigation," said Al-Khishin. "Without water through the war, even those trees that have survived have been rendered unusable."

Cluster Bombs

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs remain scattered throughout south Lebanon. Most of them were dropped during the last 72 hours of the conflict, when a cessation of hostilities had already been called for by the UN Security Council.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has condemned Israel's "immoral" use of cluster bombs.

"So long as our land remains contaminated by cluster bombs, it remains impossible for us to work on it," said Al-Khishin. "My father insisted on walking through the farmland to check what has and hasn't been damaged, and to check areas where he has found cluster bombs so our children won't go near them. But it is very unsafe."

The UN's ongoing assessment of locations where cluster bombs have fallen has so far focussed on high priority inhabited areas. OCHA's figure of 435 cluster bomb locations does not include farmland.

According to Tekimiti Gilbert, head of UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC) in Tyre, banana and citrus plantations have been heavily contaminated by cluster bombs. With initial work on clearing cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) now well underway on main roads, UNMACC and other agencies are now turning their attention to farmland.

"The relevant teams started to arrive last week. Ras Al-Ain is among our priorities," said Gilbert, adding that the continued availability of funding is crucial to UXO clearance work.

Fearing for their lives during the war, hundreds of migrant workers, many of them from Syria, fled the country. Most have not returned.

But Al-Khishin and his family remain confident that once the cluster bombs have been cleared, all other problems will be surmountable.

"We have worked this land for generations. We just need the government and agencies to keep their promises to us to do what we cannot do alone - that is clear up the cluster bombs," said Al-Khishin.

"Rest assured, however long it takes, we will get this land back into its best condition," he said. "We farmers will be able to restore the land, and the workers will come back once it's possible to work again."



This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

the graphics were evident/meaning the Ambulance shown had questionable authenticity as to being recently hit.

Your only point?

And an ad hominim is not a rebuttal.



Have you seen my buddy Zombies dissection of the Lebanese ambulence photos that appeared on the MSM and on Indymedia, for that matter?

What do you think of his analysis?

I'm just curious.

http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/



I'd like to clear what someone coming from a , uh, different perspective, has to say about it.

We don't come here for more right wing sewage.

The US Has No Rules for Cluster Bombs

Bombing Without Regrets

By DAVE LINDORFF

Here's a headline you won't see in your local paper:

"U.S. Accused of Using Cluster Weapons Against Civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan"

We all saw the headline about the State Department investigating Israel's use of US-made cluster weapons in Lebanon, because they had been dropping these deadly and indiscriminate munitions in civilian areas of southern Lebanon, with the prospect of killing large numbers of non-combatants including children. This allegedly violated restrictions placed by the U.S. on how the weapons could be used by the Israeli Defense Force.

It turns out, though, that there are no such restrictions on how these same munitions can be--and are being--used by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to a number of sources including military documents and reports from organizations like Human Rights Watch, the U.S., which has refused to sign an international treaty that outlaws cluster weapons, does not even restrict the use of cluster weapons in urban or populated areas. Army and Air force generals have blocked efforts to ban cluster weapons where there are large numbers of civilians present, claiming such a restriction would just lead enemy combatants to locate themselves among civilians.

Well, duh!

Their argument could pretty much be used to oppose restrictions on any kind of weapon in civilian areas. And guess what? That pretty much is the way the U.S. wages war: The hell with civilians! If they happen to be in the way when we drop our bombs, so much the worse for them.

In fact, back in early 2003, when the Australian government agreed to send some troops to join Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" in Iraq, it first had first to assure the troops and the people of Australia that Australian soldiers would not participate in American actions that involved the laying of mines or the use of cluster weapons.

Shock and Awe, the initial aerial bombardment of Baghdad and other cities of Iraq at the start of the U.S. invasion, reportedly led to tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and one reason was the heavy and indiscriminate use of cluster weapons, which disperse hundreds of little fragmentation bombs over a wide area, many of which explode when a person disturbs them. The Christian Science Monitor, which investigated civilian deaths in the first year of the Iraq War, found that the U.S. was killing Iraqi civilians at the astonishing rate of 30 for every enemy fighter. That's a civilian slaughter that would have made even Hitler's SS envious. One reason for this high "collateral damage" kill rate was almost certainly the use of cluster weapons, some of which spread hundreds of their little bomblets over a 20-acre area, with between 5-30 percent of these secondary weapons failing to explode on impact.

There are a number of reports suggesting that the U.S. used cluster weapons extensively later on in carpet bombings that preceded assaults on Al-Qiam, Ramadi, Tal Afar and of course Fallujah, all cities where the civilian casualties were horrific.

So where is the outcry against this criminal U.S. use of cluster weapons? Most Americans don't even know about it. The media have largely blacked the story out. The Pentagon won't talk about it. When Agence France Presse back in April 2003 ran photos of US cluster weapons stockpiled for use in Iraq, no major media outlet in the US picked them up. The only report on cluster weapons at the time in Amnerica came from CNN reporter Peter Arnett. But of course, the Iraqis and the Afghanis know all about it.

It seems particularly inappropriate for the U.S. to be using such munitions in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, where we are supposedly there to help the people of the country against alleged "terrorist" forces within their borders. Killing the people of the country you are "helping" would seem to be operating at cross-purposes. But it does explain why every time there is some "mistake" reported, where the U.S. bombs a wedding or an innocent town square, the death toll is so astoundingly high.

It also helps explain why the resistance forces in both countries seem to keep getting stronger, even as we keep killing them at a prodigious rate. Cluster weapons, besides killing lots of civilians, also inevitably make lots of enemies.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's new book is "The Case for Impeachment",

co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.

He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com

He is an independent photojournalist that has done an analysis of photo fraud that I personally think is brilliant, and I have yet to see any one dispute it. I'm waiting. Dispute it, please

http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/



Show us how he is wrong

Members of the public can also help by signing the Foreign Lobby Registration Act, which seeks to provide transparency and accountability for organizations such as AIPAC that work for foreign interests, not those of the United States.

Ten years after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu summoned a group of American policy makers to recommend strategies and policies that would best serve the interests of Israel, the implications of these recommendations outlined in the document entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” are finally becoming a reality. Grant Smith, the director of research at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, spoke on August 29 at the Palestine Center, Washington, DC on the objectives of the Clean Break Plan, the targets it has already archived, and its flaws.

During his critical review, Smith focused on the Plan's six major aims. The first goal was to increase congressional support for Israel. By using unifying Cold War rhetoric and identifying Israel as a country with Western values, policy advisers hoped that members of Congress would more readily agree to support Israel.

The second purpose was to destabilize, contain, and weaken countries in the region that challenge Israel’s existence. Redrawing the map of the Middle East, questioning the legitimacy of Syria and the possibility of weapons of mass destruction within that country, rejecting the concept of land for peace as a bargaining tool, and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq were all recommendations that would strengthen the status of Israel in the Middle East.

The third objective was Israel’s intention to use peace for peace as a bargaining tool in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as attempt to achieve a balance of power within the region. By rejecting the idea of land for peace as a possible resolution to the conflict and finding an alternative leader to Yasser Arafat, Israel would improve its ability to survive. The use of military power in the region to enforce or replace peace would further serve Israel’s interests.

Smith briefly discussed the intent to reform Israel’s economy, as well as the goal to anticipate and plan around the reactions from the United States and the worldwide community. The final objective was to rejuvenate the influence of Zionism that would work in Israel’s favor.

The chief criticism Smith spoke of was the lack of respect and reference for international law and democracy. The Clean Break Plan ignores the basic principles and purpose of both, as well as its key applicability for Israel and all of the Middle East. Following through with the recommendations listed in the Clean Break Plan would negatively affect international law and undermine the reputation of the United States.

Smith drew attention to the ongoing case of the AIPAC spies, now proceeding to trial in Alexandria, Virginia. Rosen and Weissman are two former pro-Israeli lobbyists are charged with illegally receiving classified information on Iran through wiretaps. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), wiretapping is legal for material to which the public does not have access. However, if the two men are found to have completed the wiretaps for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), they could be convicted of espionage.

AIPAC could also be found in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires foreign agents to provide transparency in their activities and financial accounts. If AIPAC is classified as a foreign agent, it will be required to submit detailed statements on political activities and financial transactions, which are crippling in themselves. Under these conditions, the secrecy with which the organization has traditionally (and successfully) worked, could not be sustained. It would limit the ability of the group to lobby effectively, possibly leading to a permanent end to AIPAC activities.

These various scenarios are discussed in Ron Kampeas' article in The Jewish Telegraphic Agency “New Ruling in AIPAC case raises questions about ‘foreign agents’.”

Jewish leaders are vigilant, but are not yet overly concerned since the trial has not yet been scheduled. Although AIPAC refuses to comment, Kampeas quotes a source stating that the organization is not worried about the possible consequences of the case.

Currently, AIPAC is one organization that is not required under FARA to report its activities and finances, allowing it to maintain a veil of secrecy about its work from the American people as well as the government. The Rosen/Weissman case provides the opportunity to plug a glaring legal loophole. Smith argued at the end of his talk that Israel’s manipulation of the United States’ foreign policy can only be stopped by legal recourse.

Members of the public can also help by signing the Foreign Lobby Registration Act, which seeks to provide transparency and accountability for organizations such as AIPAC that work for foreign interests, not those of the United States.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/cnif/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2678

Great analysis on the right wing pro-war, pro-israel media--with links to multiple sources:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/

Here's some great info on right wing nuts:

http://www.infoshop.org/focus/rightwingnuts.php

Here's what gehrig does on Indymedia that's not about nessie, Israel or Zionism:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?K5912506B

yeah I saw it

by Ie that the best 'Carl Rove' ya got? Wednesday, Sep. 06, 2006 at 5:54 PM

the graphics were evident/meaning the Ambulance shown had questionable authenticity as to being recently hit.

Your only point?

Several points;

1. Its a beautiful thing when an independent researcher can figure out things that the Mainstream media has overlooked

2. In spite of this fact, posted details of the hoax were immediately deleted from Indymedia.

3. If Israel had perpetrated the hoax, we'd be hearing about it for the next 60 years

And well we may wonder why this was hidden.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/08/176233.php

US rabbis urge change in IDF war code



maybe this is why.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/176647.php

Yes it's the idiot son, SY and he is sooooo clever, he always fools us.

Some 30 posts were hidden yesterday.

Major cramps in the headset.

WHEN DON'T COME HERE FOR WRITES: "According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs remain scattered throughout south Lebanon."

BECKY: Here is Egeland's actual quote:

JAN EGELAND SAID: "They (the UN team) are shocked by seeing how many unexploded bombs, grenades, mines, and especially cluster bomb bomblets there are." Egeland then estimates around 100,000 SUCH OBJECTS are littered on the surface, most from Israeli forces in the final days of the war."

BECKY: So the ESTIMATE is for unexploded bombs, grenades, mines, and cluster bomb bomblets left by BOTH SIDES--unless Egeland is claiming that only Israeli unexploded ordnance is left or that unexploded Hezbollah ordnance is somehow harmless.

For the record, I have consistently opposed the use of cluster bombs since 1999. But exagerrating the damage is just another form of lying in order to villify Israel.

Number of Arabs killed in the framework of Israeli-Arab conflicts since the creation of Israel (including in the 1948 war for Israel’s independence, all the wars fought between Israel and its neighbors, and the occupation of Palestinians): 60,000.

Number of Algerian Muslims killed by the French in the 1950’s Algerian war for Independence: Between 500,000 to 1 million.

Number of Muslims killed by other Muslims in the 1990’s Algerian civil war: 100,000.

Number of people, including some Muslims, killed by Muslims in Sudan between 1955 and today: 2.6 million- 3 million.

Number of Muslims killed by the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980’s: at least 1 million

Number of Muslims killed by other Muslims in the Afghan civil war of the 1980’s-90’s: 1 million

Number of Muslims killed by the Americans in efforts to overthrow the Taliban: less than 10,000.

Number of Muslims killed by other Muslims since 1977 in Somalia’s civil war: Between 400,000- 550,000.

Number of Muslims in Bangladesh killed by other Muslims from Pakistan since 1977: 1.4 million-2 million

Number of Muslims killed by other Muslims in Indonesia since 1965: at least 400,000.

Number of Muslims in East Timor killed between 1975-1999 by Muslims from Indonesia: 100,000 - 200,000

Number of Muslims killed in Iraq by other Muslims (mostly those in the regime of Saddam Hussein): 1.54 million- 2 million

Number of Iranian Muslims killed in their war with Iraq: 450,000 - 970,000

Number of Lebanese killed by Israelis between 1975-1990: up to 18,000 (this number is included in the first statistic given several lines up, about Arab deaths at Israel’s hands)

Number of Lebanese killed by other Lebanese or by Syrians between 1975-1990: at least 112,000.

Number of Yemenites, Egyptians, and Saudis killed in the Yemen civil war of 1962, and in the Yemen riots of 1984-1986: 100,000 - 150,000

Number of Chechen Muslims killed by the Russians since 1992: 80,000- 300,000

Number of Arabs and Muslims killed in Jordan (includes at least a few thousand Palestinians), Chad, Yugoslavia, Tajikistan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, and Zanzibar in the course of smaller conflicts in the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s: at least 150,000.