http://www.ghaliboun.net/eindex.php

A sovereign Lebanon and national unity are high among Hizbullah's priorities in post-war Lebanon, Ali Fayad of Hizbullah's politburo tells Omayma Abdel-Latif in Beirut

Recently prominent Lebanese writer Onsi Al-Haj wrote in his column in the daily Al-Akhbar newspaper; "One month after the "Israeli" war, the onus is now on Hizbullah. The party has one of two options: either it turns its achievement into a source of threat and intimidation for the rest of Lebanese society, or utilizes it to rebuild national unity. It is a historic opportunity before Hizbullah, and we call upon it to make the utmost of it; not out of pity for Lebanon, but out of the heroism of the brave."

Al-Haj's words truly captured what many described as one of the biggest challenges that confront Hizbullah which not only fought the most powerful army in the Middle East to a standstill but emerged victorious in the eyes of millions of Arabs, its enemies, and undoubtedly its Lebanese constituency.

Hizbullah's moment, both domestically and regionally, has arrived. But with it comes the heavy burden of introspection. Signs of this were apparent when a week ago Hizbullah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised interview that had Hizbullah known beforehand of the human cost of the operation of capturing the two "Israeli" soldiers they would not have embarked on the operation. Many read this statement to mean that Hizbullah was acknowledging its miscalculation, which Nasrallah denied in an interview with As-Safir newspaper.

While the defensive war against "Israel" may have ended, at least for now, the Islamic resistance movement continues a battle of a different kind on a number of fronts domestically. There is the issue of reconstruction, where the party wants to preserve the social fabric of the southern villages that constitute the bulk of its constituents. Meanwhile, the political battles in which the party is engaged with other Lebanese forces -- particularly those belonging to the 14th March alliance -- are not any less important than the actual conflict fought with the "Israelis". Thus far, Hizbullah has avoided entering into a war of words that could exacerbate sectarian tension and has been working towards preserving national unity. …

More at http://www.ghaliboun.net/eindex.php

Interesting to see a diff. perspective

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=-HlaVpqUXF0& eurl= Part 1

http://www.youtube. com/watch? search=&mode= related&v= ma3rapgzaPY Part 2

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=eHTe1gUit0s& mode=related& search= Part 3

Israel After Halutz

State of Chutzpah

By URI AVNERY

Jerusalem.

IN EVERY language there are some words that cannot be properly translated into any other. It seems that they express something intimately connected with the speakers of that language and rooted in their history, traditions and reality. Such words become international expressions, appearing in other languages in their original form.

For example, the German word "Schadenfreude". Or the English word "gentleman" and the American word 'business". Or the Russian word "pogrom" (originally meaning devastation). Or the Japanese word "kamikaze" (divine wind, the title given to suicide bombers). Or the Mexican "manana" and the similar Arabic "bukra" (both meaning tomorrow. The difference between them? The joke says: Bukra is not so urgent.) And, lately, the Palestinian "intifada".

The most prominent Hebrew addition to this international lexicon is "chutzpah", a word that has no equivalent in any other language. Some English words may come close (impertinence, cheek, insolence, impudence), but none conveys the full meaning of this Hebrew-Yiddish expression. It seems that it reflects something that is especially characteristic of Jewish reality, which was transferred to the State of Israel, which defines itself as a "Jewish State".

* * *

THE PRESIDENT of Israel is supposed to symbolize the common denominator of all our citizens. Therefore it is proper for him to symbolize this trait, too.

And indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more quintessential chutzpah than the behavior of His Excellency, President Moshe Katzav. He is the supreme symbol of Israeli chutzpah.

Katzav has been accused of the sexual harassment of several women who worked for him in the President's office, as well as in his earlier public offices. At least three of them accused him of rape.

Such accusations are, of course, far from a conviction. The investigation is still going on.

The President, like any other citizen, must be presumed innocent until found guilty in court. It is quite possible that in the end he will not even be indicted, or--if this happens--that he will be acquitted, though perhaps only for lack of proof.

But that is not the point. The point is that the President of the state, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion. It is sufficient that there be reasonable grounds for suspecting the President--such as a criminal investigation--for him to resign his office. If he is later acquitted, so much the better.

Let it be clear: I have nothing against Moshe Katzav personally. On the contrary, I have praised him on TV for his readiness, in spite of belonging to the Likud, to listen to Arab citizens. I once brought to him a delegation of leaders from the West Bank, and he treated them with the utmost courtesy.

But as a citizen of Israel I am ashamed. The affair in which he is involved dishonors the office and, indirectly, the entire state. "Citizen Number 1" has become the butt of jokes.

One thing can be said in his favor: in his chutzpah, too, he symbolizes the state, or, at least, the ruling elite.

THE KING of chutzpah, its very personification, is the Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.

If he had a gram of shame, the minimum of decency, he would have resigned the day after the cease-fire. There is no need for an inquiry to decide the obvious: that he is guilty of a long line of disasters that have caused the death of a thousand human beings, including almost 200 Israelis--men, women, old people and children.

It can be debated of what exactly to accuse Olmert: the starting of an unnecessary and hopeless war (as I believe), or "only" the incompetent conduct of the campaign from start to finish. But any one of these is enough for a decent person to go home and wait there for the results of the inquiries.

But Olmert does not even dream of doing that. He continues as if nothing has happened. In the US this is called "stonewalling". He stands there naked like the emperor in the children's story. All the promises he made only a few months ago, during the election campaign, have dissipated like smoke in the wind. He has no political plan left. He has not even the ability to carry out any plan, if he had one. He has no time to think about anything, except his political survival.

Winston Churchil once said about a former British Prime Minister: "The right honorable gentleman sometimes stumbles on the truth, but he always hurries on as if nothing has happened." Olmert, similarly, hurries on his way.

He objects to the investigation of the war through the instruments prescribed by law. He tries to set up a whitewash investigation by an unquestioningly loyal group chosen by himself. He goes on using every opportunity to make another of his banal, cliché-laden speeches, which do not contain a single word of truth, or even of interest.

That is chutzpah. Not chutzpah in the harmless, jocular sense often signified by this word, but a dangerous, rude and aggressive chutzpah. In practice, the state remains without leadership. It is unable to take bold decisions in a situation which demands them. His personal survival overshadows everything else, from the problem of the prisoner exchange to the daily killing of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

It must be stated again and again: the state is not private property. It is not some booty that belongs to whoever has succeeded in laying his hands on it, accidentally or not. It is a national treasure entrusted by the citizens to a particular politician, which must be given back by him if he is proven unable or incompetent to exercise his duties. Any other attitude is chutzpah.

* * *

NO NEED to waste words on the chutzpah of Amir Peretz. It speaks for itself.

He bears personal responsibility for all the blunders of the war, from the unthinking decision to start it, up to the last military decision. From the boastful beginning to the bitter end he showed a shocking inadequacy. A decent person would have resigned the moment the guns fell silent. His refusal is chutzpah.

The chutzpah of Peretz is almost bizarre. He achieved political power on the basis of his explicit promise to carry out basic social reforms. Not only did he ignore this promise, he did the very opposite. His effort to continue now as if nothing has happened and even to present himself as a social leader is pathetic.

* * *

BUT EVEN these three champions--Katzav, Olmert and Peretz--pale in comparison with Dan Halutz.

Together with likeminded people I demonstrated opposite the Ministry of Defense when he was sworn in as Chief-of-Staff. It was clear to us that such a person, who had behaved as he did behave and who had said what he did say was not fit to lead the Israeli army. But even we did not foresee in our wildest imagination that in such a short time, and in such an extreme manner, he would confirm our darkest forebodings.

From a purely military point of view, Halutz is the greatest failure in the annals of the Israeli army. From a human point of view, he justified the prophecy that he has a brilliant future in the court of The Hague. From a political point of view, his understanding equals that of a primary school pupil (if the pupil community will excuse me.)

The boastfulness of the Air force, the arrogance of an incompetent general, the brutality of a person who is able to bring tragedy to hundreds of thousands without batting an eyelid--all of these were exposed during the war.

As has been published, he told the government on the sixth day of the war that from that moment on there was no possibility of achieving anything more. Said so and did not demand to stop, said so and went on with the killing and destroying, day after day, night after night. On the eve of the cease-fire he sent his soldiers into a militarily senseless, completely unnecessary offensive, in which the lives of 33 of his soldiers were sacrificed.

But Dan Halutz does not resign. It doesn't even enter his mind. This week, at a meeting of former generals, accusations and even insults were slung at him, and he did not budge.

A decent person would have resigned at once. It is clear that an officer who has failed in this manner, who is so much distrusted by the army, cannot carry out the general overhaul demanded now--the replacing of the entire general Staff, and especially the replacing of all the commanders who were in charge of the campaign. Can a person who refuses to bear the responsibility for this entire bungled campaign demand that his subordinates shoulder theirs?

When chutzpah is the norm in the army--what chance is there for its rehabilitation?

* * *

I KNOW, there are several arguments for keeping the champions of chutzpah in office. There are no obvious alternatives. The bad may be replaced by worse. Olmert's resignation may lead to new elections, in which the more extreme Right may win. His resignation may also lead to the inclusion in the government of Avigdor Liberman, compared to whom the Frenchman Le Pen and the Austrian Haider are bleeding-heart liberals. Who can guess who and what might come after Halutz?

All these arguments are valid, but they must give way to one simple demand: Chutzpah must not be allowed to reign. The acceptance of personal responsibility by the directors of the government and the army is an essential feature of a healthy society. It is a simple moral imperative, like the categorical imperative of Kant, an imperative that does not allow for any compromise.

The Talmud warns against "chutzpah towards heaven" (God). We must warn against chutzpah towards civil society, the sovereign on earth.

Nasrallah: Israeli media more fair than Lebanese

By JPOST.COM STAFF

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Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with Al Jazeera that, despite being an enemy, many Israeli media reports about the organization during the war were more favorable than those broadcast by Lebanese media.

In the interview, which was aired on Tuesday, Nasrallah also calls British Prime Minister Tony Blair a murderer, claiming he was complicit in the deaths of Lebanese citizens during the war.

The Dream Philosophy of Paranoids

Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism

By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism (Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism, September 2006). To judge by the witnesses (David Cesarani, Lord Janner, Oona King, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Melanie Phillips) and sources (MEMRI, Holocaust Education Trust) cited in the body of the report, much time and money could have been saved had it just been contracted out to the Israel Foreign Ministry. (The report's statement that "we received no evidence of the accusation of anti-Semitism being misused by mainstream British Jewish community organizations and leaders" perhaps speaks more to the selection of the witnesses than the reality.)

The single novelty of the report, which mostly rehashes fatuous allegations already disposed of in Beyond Chutzpah, is the new thresholds in idiocy it breaks. Consider the methodology deployed for demonstrating a new anti-Semitism. The report defines an anti-Semitic incident as any occasion "perceived" to be anti-Semitic by the "Jewish community." This is the school of thought according to which it's raining even in the absence of any precipitation because I feel it's raining. It is the dream philosophy of paranoids, especially rational paranoids, for whom alleged victimhood is politically serviceable. The report includes under the rubric of anti-Semitic incidents not just violent acts and incendiary speech but "conversations, discussions, or pronouncements made in public or private, which cross the line of acceptability," as well as "the mood and tone when Jews are discussed." The wonder is that it didn't also tabulate repressed anti-Semitic libidinal fantasies. In the category of inherently anti-Semitic pronouncements the report includes "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" (only comparisons of contemporary Arab policy to that of the Nazis are permissible) and "theories about Jewish or Zionist influence on American foreign policy" (even if Jewish and Zionist organizations boast about this influence).

Much of the evidence of pervasive British anti-Semitism requires real strains in credulity. * The lone item listed under the ominous subheading "The Blood Libel" is a Syrian television series "that would be possible for viewers in the UK to seeif they had suitable satellite receiving equipment." It also notes the unreferenced "case of a Jewish university lecturer who was subjected to an anti-Semitic tirade from a student in the middle of a lecture and subsequently asked to explain to the university authorities why he ha upset the student." Is it anti-Semitic to wonder whether this is a crock? And then the report cites the warning of the London Assembly Conservative Group that "there is a risk that in some political quarters 'views on international events can, almost subconsciously, lead to subtly different attitudes to, and levels of engagement with, different minority groups.'" The new anti-Semitism business must be going seriously awry when British conservatives start sounding like Lacan. Finally, it is anti-Semitic for student unions to advocate a boycott of Israeli goods because this "would restrict the availability of kosher food on campus." Maybe Israel can organize a "Berlin airlift" of gefilte fish.

Although claiming that, in the struggle against anti-Semitism, "none of those who gave evidence wished to see the right free speech eroded," and "only in extreme circumstances would we advocate legal intervention," the report recommends that university authorities "take an active interest in combating acts, speeches, literature and events that cause anxiety or alarm among their Jewish students," and it registers disquiet that "classic and modern anti-Semitic works are freely available for ordering on the Amazon.com website," and that "the United States in particular has been slow to take action" in closing down "anti-Semitic internet sites." It is at moments like this that even the least patriotic of souls can take pride in being an American.



* The police data on an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in itself proves little because, as the report concedes, the spike might be due to more incidents being reported and a coarsening of British life generally, as well as the "spillover" from the Israel-Palestine conflict. In addition, there is little evidence of "organized," "politically motivated" anti-Semitic attacks; there is no evidence that perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks were disproportionately Muslim; and most of the suspects in the incidents were adolescents. For 2005 the report cites a couple incidents that were "potentially" life-threatening. It cites no comparative data for other minorities in Britain, although tacitly acknowledging that "the level of prejudice and discrimination by Jews in Britain remains lower," a considerable understatement . On a related note, it deplores that "less than one in ten [anti-Semitic] incidents reported to the police resulted in a suspect becoming an accused" , but cites no comparative data indicating whether this ratio is aberrant.

Norman Finkelstein's most recent book is Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history (University of California Press). His web site is www.NormanFinkelstein.com.

Another rather typical "zionist" tactic is to change subjects when they realize that they are losing. Sometimes this is done by a personal attack or an attack by association. Other times it involves burying a comment or an article in long cut and paste nonsense. Other times it is through lies, false postings, propaganda, pro-israel cut and paste screeds that no one reads, etc. Zionists lie because they have to: Truth and history are not on their sides.

OK so everyone has figured out that you don't like Norman Finklestein because he speaks truth to the zionist lies.

We'll be waiting for the threats and spam from Yiddy.

Here's a bit of Yid's spamming tantrums and meltdowns (and this is just yesterday's hidden comments!)

http://la.indymedia.org/news/?keyword=&author=&comments=yes&display=f&year=&month=&day=&medium=&language_id=&category=0&sort=&limit=30

Thanks for confirming that yid/ not a dhimmi are one in the same. Another chip off of the veneer.

Oh, and your ad himinem is not a rebuttal

Another rather typical "zionist" tactic is to change subjects when they realize that they are losing. Sometimes this is done by a personal attack or an attack by association. Other times it involves burying a comment or an article in long cut and paste nonsense. Other times it is through lies, false postings, propaganda, pro-israel cut and paste screeds that no one reads, etc. Zionists lie because they have to: Truth and history are not on their sides.

OK so everyone has figured out that you don't like Norman Finklestein because he speaks truth to the zionist lies.

We'll be waiting for the threats and spam from Yiddy.

Here's a bit of Yid's spamming tantrums and meltdowns (and this is just yesterday's hidden comments!)

http://la.indymedia.org/news/?keyword=&author=&comments=yes&display=f&year=&month=&day=&medium=&language_id=&category=0&sort=&limit=30

Yid is one of our resident zio-nut spammers.

He lies and threatens frequently (alot of meltdowns)

Yid, I have to go but you may havbe permission to play in the sandbox whil I'm gone.

Shalom, Jiffa!

Another typical "zionist" tactic in addition to posting articles under other peopes names is to then re-write what had been said as an pro-Israel statement of some sort. Many of the most virulent "zionists" refuse to use the same name twice and, for instance,we have come to refer to this one, a particular dull example of the species as "scapegoated jew." "Scapegoated Jew is more concerned with hating people who don't rabidly defend Israel's terror than having an original thought or comment. He really illustrates what we are stuck dealing with. Loud, aggressive and ignorant haters.

Another typical "zionist" tactic in addition to posting articles under other peopes names is to then re-write what had been said as an pro-Israel statement of some sort. Many of the most virulent "zionists" refuse to use the same name twice and, for instance,we have come to refer to this one, a particular dull example of the species as "scapegoated jew." "Scapegoated Jew is more concerned with hating people who don't rabidly defend Israel's terror than having an original thought or comment. He really illustrates what we are stuck dealing with. Loud, aggressive and ignorant haters.

Watch for Schtarker Yid's spastic spam-fest today...

You won't be permitted to turn this into Hebrew power hour or zionist lie-propagandist fest. We get that on the mainstream media skippy.

Dismissed.