Analysis: Hizbullah Won't Stop at Shaba (tags)
Israel's announcement of a willingness for peace talks with Lebanon is one of the early fruits of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent visit to the region and her unexpected visit to Lebanon. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's recent visit to Lebanon and upcoming visit to Israel is also crucial here.
How Barack Obama learned to love Israel (tags)
Only if enough people know what Obama and his competitors stand for, and organize to compel them to pay attention to their concerns can there be any hope of altering the disastrous course of US policy in the Middle East.
Drinking Tea with Hizbullah (tags)
n the village of Silaa in southern Lebanon, on the forty-day memorial of the killing of 8 residents by Israeli aerial bombardment, a lunch in commemoration of the dead was provided to the villagers by the Campaign for Civil Resistance. After we completed our visit to the grieving families, we are invited to the muktar's home, to share tea, fruit and conversation. The local representative from Hizbullah joins us. Upon learning that I am from America, he smiles and he entreats me to sit next to him. He asks me what I think and how I feel about the destruction I have seen. The nargillah is brought out and we leisurely smoke and drink tea, enjoying the shaded veranda and an afternoon breeze. We discuss the war, and the role of Hizbullah in civil society. I am told that Hizbullah is not a state within a state, but a state where none exists, for the south of Lebanon has been neglected for decades by the Lebanese government. As for the fighters, he says, who won't fight to protect their families, their homes, and their communities? How, he wonders, are we different from Americans?
Peace with Syria, Lunch in Damascus (tags)
THIS AFFAIR throws some light on the complex relations between Israel and the United States: who is wagging who--does the dog wag its tail or the tail its dog?
Meeting Nasrallah: An Encounter with a Fighter (tags)
You need to reach the American public before American politicians. The public in the US is generally ahead of the politicians. Often public opinion conflicts with policies set in Washington. US politicians are usually elected by a minority of the population and represent two parties that are virtually indistinguishable on fundamental issues. If you can inform the public and get them to understand your position, they will put pressure on the politicians and hopefully prevent them from conducting their most destructive policies. Without internal public pressure, US policy is not likely to change significantly.
Should We Deny Lebanon the Right to Defend Itself? (tags)
Let me finally suggest a further two questions for her. Does HRW characterise Hizbullah's return of fire as a war crime even though its undiminished ability to launch rockets was what finally brought Israel's war machine to a standstill and led to a ceasefire? And exactly how much of a war crime would the firing of those rudimentary rockets be if it turned out that not only did they halt the war but they also prevented its expansion to include Syria and Iran?
The Coming Collapse of Zionism (tags)
The Moral Bankruptcy of Israel's Founding Idea
The Moral Bankruptcy of Israel's Founding Idea: The Coming Collapse of Zionism (tags)
s it only observers outside the conventional mainstream who have noticed that by its murderous assault on Lebanon and simultaneously on Gaza, Israel finally exposed, for even the most deluded to see, the total bankruptcy of its very founding idea?
A sovereign Lebanon and national unity among Hizbullah's priorities.
How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon: The Israel Lobby Works Its Magic, Again (tags)
This sophistry is fooling no one, least of all, of course, Israel's apologists. They will keep up their relentless defamation of an organisation like Human Rights Watch as long as Israel comes under its scrutiny. By trying to appease them, our human rights champions damage only themselves and those they should be seeking to protect.
Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? (tags)
hese central issues -- taken together with the persuasive accounts that Israel and the Pentagon had been planning an attack on Lebanon for at least a year -- make Fisk's implied claims that Syria and Hizbullah started the war to provoke Israel into destroying Lebanon look misleading at best.
An Interview with Noam Chomsky: The Strong Do as They Can (tags)
The maxim of Thucydides again. But it is worth bearing in mind that Israel can go just as far as its protector in Washington permits and supports.
Real Photo Fakers, Real War Crimes (tags)
During Israel's war against the people of Lebanon, our media, politicians and diplomats have colluded with the aggressors by distracting us with irrelevancies, by concocting controversies, and by framing the language of diplomacy. In the fragile truce that is currently holding while Lebanon waits for Israel to withdraw, we are simply getting more of the same.
The Thirty Three Day War: From Mania to Depression (tags)
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Lebanese deaths, and Israeli war crimes, kept off the balance sheet (tags)
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
Hizbullah, Zionism and the Ideology of late Imperial America (tags)
Awakening the Resistance
What would happen if Israel had won the war? (tags)
It is impossible to speak of a Hizbullah victory' when nearly a thousand Lebanese civilians have been killed, thousands more injured, a million people internally displaced; and Lebanon's infrastructure, environment and economy laid to waste as the world watches. The general consensus however is that Hizbullah's and Lebanon's steadfastness after four weeks of merciless Israeli attacks means that Israel has failed to achieve its objectives through military means: crushing/disarming Hizbullah, reinstating its deterrent, and protecting the security of northern Israel. Indeed, Hizbullah's resistance has gained unprecedented support throughout the Arab world, and Nasrallah has emerged as a Nasser-like figure who has restored pride to Arabs everywhere in contrast to the uniformly servile and unpopular Arab regimes.
Galloway wipes the floor with Sky News anchor (tags)
Awesome video!
Bombing Milk Factories, Grain Silos, Churches, Bridges,Bridges, s, Power Stations... (tags)
I wish, one day, that Israeli Jews could crest that ridge, and have their breaths taken away as the magic of Beirut unfolds below them. But they will never see the full beauties of the region they inhabit by dominating others militarily, and denying equal rights to Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
Israel, Not Hizbullah, is Putting Civilians in Danger on Both Sides of the Border (tags)
Giving the lie to the "human shields" theory, HRW says its researchers "found numerous cases in which the IDF [Israeli army] launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians."
Israeli strikes may boost Hizbullah base (tags)
Hizbullah support tops 80 percent among Lebanese factions.
The Lies Israel Tells Itself (And We Tell On Its Behalf) (tags)
And how many of us believe that deliberate barbarity, at least when we do it, is only "apparently" a crime against humanity?
Israel’s Indiscriminate Onslaughts (tags)
Targeting Civilians As Deliberate Strategy
Dershowitz and Grades of Human Beings (tags)
So you see, one reason that you can just bomb the hell out of the Lebanese in general is that they aren't human beings at all. They are "animals."
Lies, Double Standards, and Culpable Fallacies (tags)
"Lebanon is being sold for the price of a word: Terrorism. What a bad joke!" by Beirut artist and blogger Mazen Kerbaj. View more of his work. The following is a list - by no means exhaustive - of lies, double standards, and culpable fallacies perpetrated by US and Israeli officials.
Israeli spies in Lebanon (tags)
Another terrorist cell was caught earlier this year in Lebanon, which was charged with having links to the fundamentalist group Al-Qaeda. The group was also charged with planning the assassination of Hizbullah�s secretary-general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Is Israel Using Arab Villages as Human Shields? (tags)
Notes from northern Israel
Soon after the start of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, Hizbullah abducted a former Israeli colonel from inside Israel. Following tortuous negotiations, in January 2004 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon exchanged 436 Lebanese prisoners and 59 corpses of Lebanese soldiers for one Israeli hostage and three corpses of Israeli soldiers. At the last minute Sharon held back three prominent Lebanese detainees. Since then Hizbullah has talked about getting them released by abducting Israeli soldiers. A recent poll showed that more Lebanese were interested in their release than settling the dispute about the Shebaa Farm with Israel.
Lebanon crisis: Don't let them fool you - ISRAEL STARTED IT (tags)
Ever since the bloody carnage in Lebanon started, the mainstream media has echoed Israel's self-righteous indignation about how they're merely defending themselves - "Israeli sovereignty was violated" when Hizbullah "kidnapped" their soldiers from "across the border." What they conveniently reverse is that Hizbullah confronted Israeli troops on the LEBANESE SIDE OF BORDER.
Is the Arab Spring turning to Dust under Israeli Bombardment? BACKFIRE (tags)
Some press reports suggest, moreover, that a lot of Lebanese, seeing their capital under attack from Israel, are rallying behind Hizbullah. Even many formerly pro-American Christian Lebanese are deeply upset that Bush seemed to say it was all right for the Israelis to bomb their civilian airport and blockade the whole country. If the country goes to new elections, the results could be quite different this time.
Israel Continues Terror (tags)
Israel intensified its attacks against Lebanon on Thursday, blasting Beirut's international airport and the southern part of the country in its heaviest air campaign against its neighbor in 24 years. According to Al-Jazeera TV station, 52 Lebanese civilians were killed in the attacks.
Hizbullah draws massive crowd to mark Israeli withdrawal (tags)
A quarter of a million Hizbullah supporters packed a square in the southern port city of Tyre Friday to mark the anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. A day earlier, the Islamic resistance group had launched a 10-day campaign to collect funds for Palestine, which is facing a crippling Western aid boycott after the election of Hamas.
Condoleezza Rice Makes Surprise Visit to Lebanon (tags)
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to volatile Lebanon under heavy guard Friday to encourage a new democratic government outside Syrian control ,
Nuke em!
Hizbullah: Shebaa Farms Off-limits to Palestinian Fighters, 2 Nov. 01 (tags)
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command is growing increasingly frustrated because of the refusal of Syria and Hizbullah to allow its fighters to participate in attacks on the Shebaa Farms.