And it gets worse
... last night.. last night... i don't even know where to begin from...
it seems the bombs are getting louder. perhaps they are the new ones from
the US expedited delivery.
they hit everywhere last night. beirut, jounieh, roads leading to the
north.... bridges in the north... the only highway left, leading to the
North, the last escape route to Syria, was hit.
we are all trapped now.. waiting... waiting...
the bombs started around 1am in Dahiye... we had some friends over...
everyone was in a state of panic... we waited a bit and then everyone made a
run for it, to go home. one of my friends lives outside of Beirut towards
the north.. a trip that would usually take about 20 min, he made it in about
5. then the bombing started up again... they hit Ouzai which is the southern
part of Beirut. they kept hitting Dahiye... my bed was shaking all night.
the noise was so loud. definitely not like the kind we were hearing before.
i am so drained, my head is buzzing... lack of sleep, lack of food... i am
pulling myself together, but it is not easy.
- new major bridges hit, ghazir, adma, batroun, mameltain, jbeil (all north
of beirut, all Christian areas)
- ouzai (residential area)
- more dahiye (charity institutions, ngo buildings hit)
- the forest in adma is on fire... there is not way to stop the fire, with
the roads cut
- baalbeck was pounded again (there was a helicopter raid a few nights ago,
they landed on a hospital, many civilians killed, several kidnapped,
including a 15 year old goat header)
- masnaa was hit again (that is the eastern road to damascus)
- they hit the electricity power station in the be'kaa; so many people now
without power there
- and the shelling continues in the south; nabatiye, sour (tyr), etc..
we are running out of FUEL. soon there will be no more electricity. soon the
generators will stop working. people in hospitals will die.
The oil spill is a disaster... It has reached as far into Syria, killing
everything in its path.
more and more civilians killed... more and more civilians massacred...
and the world watches on...
i have gotten many emails saying that there are people supporting us..
people behind us.. people out there making a difference... thank you. i
thank you with all my heart.
but, i do know that the majority of the world is also just going about their
everyday business... oh, another war in the Middle East, not our problem...
switch the channel... move on to something else. "Thank God, it's not me..
anyway those terrorists deserve it." they are caught up in their own
everyday problems.. paying bills, taking care of the family, moving on and
up in the world...
... umm can someone tell them i am not a terrorist. please.
everyday there is a new war, so why should this one be any different? it has
become so easy to say the word "war." it has become so easy to generalize
and stereotype. it is on tv everyday... it is no more a shocking event. it
has become a norm... or standard.. and all it does is continue to breed
hatred and violence...
people are making money off this war. people are going to make money off the
reconstruction. is that what is taking so long for the ceasefire to happen?
are they busy negotiating the spoils of war?
... while we sit here in pain and anxiety and sorrow and loss....
war can not be a way of life.
-- this just in, the customs building at the Masnaa' exit from Lebanon to
Syria was just hit. 12 people dead.
Even worse: just in the news. Israel has just acquired a new fighter plane
from America. It is supposed to be undetectable by radar.
it seems the bombs are getting louder. perhaps they are the new ones from
the US expedited delivery.
they hit everywhere last night. beirut, jounieh, roads leading to the
north.... bridges in the north... the only highway left, leading to the
North, the last escape route to Syria, was hit.
we are all trapped now.. waiting... waiting...
the bombs started around 1am in Dahiye... we had some friends over...
everyone was in a state of panic... we waited a bit and then everyone made a
run for it, to go home. one of my friends lives outside of Beirut towards
the north.. a trip that would usually take about 20 min, he made it in about
5. then the bombing started up again... they hit Ouzai which is the southern
part of Beirut. they kept hitting Dahiye... my bed was shaking all night.
the noise was so loud. definitely not like the kind we were hearing before.
i am so drained, my head is buzzing... lack of sleep, lack of food... i am
pulling myself together, but it is not easy.
- new major bridges hit, ghazir, adma, batroun, mameltain, jbeil (all north
of beirut, all Christian areas)
- ouzai (residential area)
- more dahiye (charity institutions, ngo buildings hit)
- the forest in adma is on fire... there is not way to stop the fire, with
the roads cut
- baalbeck was pounded again (there was a helicopter raid a few nights ago,
they landed on a hospital, many civilians killed, several kidnapped,
including a 15 year old goat header)
- masnaa was hit again (that is the eastern road to damascus)
- they hit the electricity power station in the be'kaa; so many people now
without power there
- and the shelling continues in the south; nabatiye, sour (tyr), etc..
we are running out of FUEL. soon there will be no more electricity. soon the
generators will stop working. people in hospitals will die.
The oil spill is a disaster... It has reached as far into Syria, killing
everything in its path.
more and more civilians killed... more and more civilians massacred...
and the world watches on...
i have gotten many emails saying that there are people supporting us..
people behind us.. people out there making a difference... thank you. i
thank you with all my heart.
but, i do know that the majority of the world is also just going about their
everyday business... oh, another war in the Middle East, not our problem...
switch the channel... move on to something else. "Thank God, it's not me..
anyway those terrorists deserve it." they are caught up in their own
everyday problems.. paying bills, taking care of the family, moving on and
up in the world...
... umm can someone tell them i am not a terrorist. please.
everyday there is a new war, so why should this one be any different? it has
become so easy to say the word "war." it has become so easy to generalize
and stereotype. it is on tv everyday... it is no more a shocking event. it
has become a norm... or standard.. and all it does is continue to breed
hatred and violence...
people are making money off this war. people are going to make money off the
reconstruction. is that what is taking so long for the ceasefire to happen?
are they busy negotiating the spoils of war?
... while we sit here in pain and anxiety and sorrow and loss....
war can not be a way of life.
-- this just in, the customs building at the Masnaa' exit from Lebanon to
Syria was just hit. 12 people dead.
Even worse: just in the news. Israel has just acquired a new fighter plane
from America. It is supposed to be undetectable by radar.
posted by zena at 5:47 PM
145 Comments:
Calm down, try to be positive. Your family needs you, your friends too and many others..Maybe somthing good will come out of all this.. there is always hope, that is how it should be.. this is not the end..it can not be.. and then you are born again..Praying helps, dreaming too.. but try chocolates, they do work, they work for me..
This is the new face of the Middle East.
This is how it is going to look like for the next years to come.
Please, Please ask your leaders to not attack Tel-Aviv.
If you do hit Tel-Aviv with missiles there will be no turning back.
An act like that will eliminate Lebanon and everyone with in it.
No one would come for your help.
please, do not mess with Israel. they have no limits.
Israel has no conscious
Israel has no legitimacy
Israel will be given back to its real people
Zena, habibi, You are NOT trapped, that is exactly what your enemy wants, (enemy of freedom and humanity)
we stand with you
You are not alone
please do not mention details of location as these assholes use it to further hurt you
I feel ashamed to call me a human being watching this war over media in the 21st century human civilization. This is not civilization. This is barbarism...
As a human being, I shrank from my responsibility to play my part to bring this killing of innocents and children. Majority of us do that.
Few of my articles in global media state what I feel about this conflict...but now bombs speak. Human rights is no more right, it's might what was right and what would be right always in human civilization.
I pray to all powerful God that the killings and sufferings come to an end at the earliest.
1. Middle-East Conflict: What They Say and What They Mean
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ranjit_g_060727_middle_east_conflict.htm
2. I don’t understand http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ranjit_g_060728_i_don_t_understand.htm
3. Monopoly is bad, in Geo-politics too http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=31351617&postID=115470292778127120
It saddens me to hear your anguish. Having lived through the civil war I can related to your pain and anxiety. Now that I am abroad, I feel more torn for my family and friends that are left behind.
It's mind buggling for me to understand how a nation like israel that have seen the worst atrocity of human kind during the holocaust, would have the conscious of inflicting the same on others in the name of defending their existence. I imagine it was the same kind of thinking that led the Nazi to carry on the darkest acts of human existence.
I have many jewish friends and have shared meals under the same roof with many of them.. I know that we all belong to the same semite race and thrive for peace.
I am sad to admit that neither my generation or my kid generation will ever experience peace in this part of the world. The kind of leaders that will be able to bridge the gaps between the arabs and the jewish people havn't been born yet.
The arabs are plagued by their feeling of their inferiority pressed on them by the west and the israelis are consumed by their feeling that the world is out their to get them and fighting is the only choice that would garantee their rights to exist.
In both cases, it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
I am ashamed of what kind of legacy I am passing on to my children generation.
they hav no conscious
"the israelis are consumed by their feeling that the world is out their to get them..."
When the world does nothing as Iran stockpiles 12,000 rockets on Israel's northern border for the sole purpose of committing war crimes, and when the world says the Jews are like Nazis for actually taking steps to defend themselves against a group sworn, in its charter, to destroy Israel and all the Jews in the world -- that feeling is justified.
zena
How is your dog doing?
I am just watching the live report by Hala Garani from Beirut
It is paiful, sad , words can not describe the devestation
shame on Israel
Zena, dear, please hang in there....please do not lose hope....please stay strong. This world needs you....this world will come to your aide....soon....it will come....tell yourself it will come....it has to come.
(thank you for telling us the truth, even in these hours)
Israel's behavior is indicative their very last days as they are desperatly destroying everything, it does not matter to them any more, the do not care
we are with you Z! barely being able to go about our daily activites. we are not sleeping right or being happy or breathing well or feeling normal. we are losing our minds.
Israel is the long arm of US, to control the Middle East,
Without the money and weapons of mass destruction from the US, Israel would be nonexistent
Israel is the long arm of US, to control the Middle East,
Without the money and weapons of mass destruction from the US, Israel would be nonexistent
Impeach bush
place Bush and Olmert in the same cell with Saddam
Lets see.... What's great about all of this is that the world say how bad America is, well let me tell you what one headline was in America today: Bikini's worn by the stars, what's hot. WEll if we suck so bad why do our headlines still have topics like this and yours are 100% horrific. Thank your lucky stars that you have terrorist to fight your wars. Me I'm going to go watch the Red Sox play tonight and have a cold beer. Sleep well wit hthe choices your people have made.
I wish I was, then laughing at the Arabs wouldn't be so painful. Want a cold one too or are you out, maybe an Israeli pilot can deliver one via air mail. Go wave a Yellow terrorist flag and he will drop one too you. Sleep well!
Go Red Sox, can you believe that the Yanks took first, we need to play smart to get back in first. The really important things in life.
WOW , I DIDNT GET TPO READ YESTERDAY , FEELING ARE BEING FRAYED. ITS NOT GOOD. I WISH YOU COULD PACKA CAR AND DRIVE UP IN THE MOUNTAINS ANSD BE SAFE. I WISH SO MANY THINGS, I WISH [PLEASE DONT GET ME WRONG] THE TERRORIST WHOEVER THAY ARE , TALIBAN , HAMAS ,M HESBOLLA, GW BUSH AND CO. WOULD ALL JUST BE PUT IN A FIELD AND LET THEM KILL EACH OTHER OFF.I HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH ISRAELIS ,I HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH LEBANESE.I HAVE PROBLEMS WITH BOMBINGS ! KILLING CIVILIANS IS NOT A WAY TO GAIN PUBLIC SUPPORT. THIS LAST CONFLICT AS ITS CALLED , WAS STARTED BY HEZBOLLA. I AM SO UNFAMILIAR WITH THE RELIGIOUS EXTREMEST IN THAT PART OF THE WORLD, ITS ALL TOO MIDDLE AGES TO COMPHREHEND. MY MOST SINCERE THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU , DON/DALLAS
You're right the Boeing 767 piloted by some Arab fanatic makes great fireworks too, we wouldn't be so against the terrorist ans the people supporting them if your brothers didn't attack our people. The trade center, was that an army base, wait it wasn't. So now it's time to pay for being little bomb totting crazies.
rule the world???? give me a break
I am an american and when people ask me where I am from I am ashamed to say so .....
Hey pick the place you want to live, I'll buy the ticket and your shame will go away. What a joke, it's easy for you to say, you live in a third world place or just move to Canada.
I have already left punck
and I do not need your money which is probably made form selling drugs or some othe illegitimate source
Zena, i went back and read responses from todays blog. these idiots ansdshallow excuses for human beings are one of the reasons america is so hated when i travel i try to not let people know im american. the rude comments go against my personal standards. we arev not all pathetic jerks. i knowe im in a minpority but polls show us polarized at almost 50/50 , conservative meaning christian evangelicals , the ones here who try to push their supersticious beliefs onto public policy. and the rest of us . who may or may not choose to push beliefs on others. tahstb the only thing i see in common with muslims , the clerics say kill infedels. why do they want to be back in the middle ages? i know im showing my ignorance but im not around anyone not like myself yes, its boring thats why i love internet. why do so many beatiful women cover there heads with these horrid pieces of fabric and hold them closed with their hand , wouldnt a brooch work just as well. ii have thought lebanon was progressive , is it? i hope it never becomes like afghanastan.under taliban rule , those guys are dangerous! and the world will be better off with them gone. sorry for the rant i just wanted to say to those rude americans , that their arrogance got us into iraq and a predsident who epitomizes arrogance, often im ashamed to be american, especially thsi week. don
The root of this problem is the Arab-Israeli conflict which began in 1948 with the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from THEIR HOMES, to create the state of Israel.
Those refugees have led to formation of Hamas, Hezbollah and others.
Those who were forced from their homes over the next several decades after occupation have formed resistance against Israel.
There are millions of Palestinian refugees.
You need to address the occupation of Arab lands by Israel, the refugee issue and free the prisoners that are held in Israel in contradiction of international law.
Thank you Zena for continuing to write. Your writing keeps us grounded in the reality that there are real people in the Mid East, that you are not actors in a CNN 9 o-clock special.
My heart goes out to the people as well as the wildlife of the burning forests and the oil slicked seas in this needless game of King of the Mountain.
http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/
http://www.boikottisrael.no/liste/
index.html
I am so sad and depressed about what is happening to Lebanon. I live on the west coast of the U.S. but I feel deeply for you and your country, a beautiful country and a spirited people. How can the world stand by uttering lukewarm comments when Israel is destroying a whole country?
Well you’ve called me names and such and thank goodness America is free and you are allowed to leave. My money you’ll be very happy to know is made in the manufacturing of US Naval Ships, both subs and surface ships including the USS New York. Which the bow was made from steel pulled from the ground zero. I’m proud to be an American, I’m proud of my government. Right or wrong Bush or Clinton I stand behind them. That’s America! So call me names, that’s cool it’s freedom of speech. I can live with it, at least I’m a man and true to my country.
PS it doesn’t matter what the package comes in, an Islamic Fanatic is a terrorist. I see no difference in an Arab from Saudi, Palestine or Lebanon. They all try to make the world follow them by terror not wars.
The root of this problem is the Arab-Israeli conflict which began in 1948 with the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from THEIR HOMES, to create the state of Israel.
More Jews were expelled from Arab countries where they had lived for almost 2000 years. Why do we never hear about that "refugee crisis"? Because Israel absorbed the refugees gladly. Why did the Arab countries -- most of which were created in the 20th century themselves -- not absorb the refugees? Because they perceived Israel to be a temporary Crusader bastion that would disappear, and the refugees would return to Judenrein Palestine. And forcing human beings living in squalor is a great propaganda tool in the war of Arab dictatorships against the Jewish state.
wish there were more people like this
http://www.seedsofpeace.org/
site/PageServer
It's easy, you want the destruction to stop. Let the two Soldiers go. ?????? Duh!!!!!
boycott Starbucks with its links to Israel
afraid that your two Soldiers are buried under the rubbles caused by precision bombs
ps: re. Jewish refugees, here's one source.
Absorb the refugees, build civil societies, eliminate racist and genocidal ideologies from Islam, bar terrorist organizations from participating in your fledgling democracies, pour money into educating the youth, give women equal rights, invest in science, technology and culture -- Do all of this instead of nursing your rage at the Jews for doing what every single other nation in the history of humanity has done, and then there will be peace. Invest in yourselves, not in your hatred of the Other. Then there will be peace.
i wish those brave intellectuals who dare to identify themselves as erudites in religion or ideologies that their brain work would finally help making a practical result. as it looks, by investigating they only help initiating violence and conflicts that escape their own reasons. what is CHRISTOPH LUXENBERG doung these days, it was told that he resides in Beirut.? he provoked ulema by implementing linguistis theories to the Holy Qur'an, now when he is supposed to be a brave intellectual and humanist, there is no word of him helping to solve the conflicts. or, was he provoking merely due to his jewish idenitity as well armenins, who cherish a respect for the ancient language .. it is not far away from to be an armen those days to be an arab these days ... mr. CHRISTOPH LUXENBERG, look well who is addressing you!!!!! where is his responsibility??!!! look well, look at THE WORD .. if we have been treataed as if we were ignorant, life has taught us more!
Palestinians & Israeli Jews Call for Boycotting of Apartheid Israel
http://www.bojkotta-israel.nu/
http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/
http://www.boykotisrael.dk/
http://stopthewall.org/news/boycot.shtml
http://www.matzpun.com/
http://www.maiap.org/maiap/petition/index.htm
http://www.bigcampaign.org/
http://www.petitiononline.com/bin
/petition.html
http://psc.za.org/pscsaourdeclaration.htm
Zena,
I'm really sad to see that (1) our family and friends in Lebanon are dealing with this madness, and (2) that some ignorant bastards have hijacked your personal blog to spew their vitriol. Are these the same conservative Christian Bush lovers who are working hard to end evil stem cell research and abortion? It's a sad, sad world when people care more about a microscopic fetus than a real person, just because that person is brown, speaks a different languate, or espouses a different religion. I have to say, your blog has been a real shining light throughout this war, but these people are putting it out.
PS: I can say the same for the anon comment directly above mine.
I’m not Jewish, I’m a Christian
I love Star coffee.... I have one every morning. To bad the Jewish culture will always survive, Bush will not let anything happen to them. Ha Ha Ha, to funny, you say things like that but the rulers make it happen. Say by to Leb and your mud huts.
hey dud, i mean sam
i am sorry if i was rude,
hey man the poor people of lebanon should not pay for the coward act of hezbollah,
believe me i do not support fundementalist, but watching innocent kids die is painful for me and make me lose my manners
i am usually a nice guy and a proud american you see what this has done to all of us
lets have a ceasefire and discuss things
as you can see lebanon has such a weak army that they could not defend themselves
this is really sad
another american
Zena,
I am so sorry that you and all of the people of Lebanon have been subjected to all of this craziness.
I am ashamed of my country's part in this war. Embarrased to say I'm an American. Most of us know that you are not a terrorist. But, I will continue to tell your story to anyone that will listen.
I'm thinking of you and I hope that you are able to stay safe.
Peace to you,
Keri
Peace is a good thing.
to whoever wrote "Death to ..."
please lets think of life and saving life and do not spread hatred
it was definitely not me who wrote that
It's sad to read comments from people who are so comsumed with hate...Hatred only devours the hater! Please go to this article to look at an alternative view: http://www.newconversations.net/library/mirrors.htm
There's something for everyone...
PEACE IS SO MUCH EASIER
GOD BLESS LEBANON - WE WILL COME BACK
That’s weird :)
If the “http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/” web site is promoting boycotting Intel (most of Intel processors are made in Israel), how the hell that information was created and posted to the web? Don’t you need a computer to modify and publish web sites??
you could use amd,
Global Provider of Innovative Microprocessor Solutions
http://www.amd.com/us-en/
Re: you could use amd,
Global Provider of Innovative Microprocessor Solutions
http://www.amd.com/us-en/
Wow, cool!!!
So, can you run windows XP on one of these machines?
I have windows XP
you can look at their site
I am not promoting anybody here
you asked and I answered
another amrican ( a nice one though)
I got to say "jenm", you are sooooo smart, aren’t you
From your profile:
“I'm 40, I'm single, and I'm fabulous! Actually, only one of the above statements are true. I'll let you guess which one it is.”
And your favorite movie is: American Beauty.
Boy, you are such an intellectual.
yes you can can you run windows XP on AMD processors, I just consulted my computer expert family member
hey do not confuse us, there is more than one here,
the comments on intel etc are from me a nice american not the forty blah blah
Please don’t apologize for me, don’t think that your expression is greater or lesser than mine. You say ignorance; I have been reading books left and right so that I could try to understand the hate on both sides. So please don’t speak for me, take your Barbie approach and go shopping.
It’s ignorance in my case, it’s arrogance.
dear zena kp up ur spirits... maybe war is new age business of 21st century,,,
even am afraid now... every time I travel I hear bombs goin around... maybe love will lose this time...
Wait you are ignorant, which is it 40 or 22?
since when were intellects not allowed to enjoy a movie.
move on to another blog if you want to criticize for no reason.
Zena, this is the push for the end. the grab for as much territory as can be had before a cease-fire is called. we hear that Nasrallah is willing to stop the bombings as long as Israel does the same, he is willing to impose a cease-fire as soon as possible. these statements have fueled Israel to grab as much as possible now! so stay safe and know that You And Lebanon will Survive!
Greg
Zena - it might not be much of a solace to you, but our thoughts are with you and the Lebanese people!
Stay strong, there are many people out here who feel as we do.
I hope you're safe!
And forget about the brainless idiots here insulting you - they are so ignorant they're not even worth considering.
RE: Sorry my profile isn't the same as my CV.
so, from which nail polish academy did you graduate?
Ragamuffin said...
And forget about the brainless idiots here insulting you - they are so ignorant they're not even worth considering.
Sam Says: Then why bring it up? You just legitimized our existence. Thanks, all voices can be heard.
hey sam you can move on to
http://www.bloggingbeirut.com/
seems like people do not understand you here
aa
Dearest Zena,
SENDING YOU LOVE.
LOTS & LOTS OF LOVE.
Victoria xxx ooo
So very many of us would like to reinforce our love and support to you. We care so much about the pain and terror that is being forced on you - Zena, you deserve LOVE and you deserve PEACE. You are caught in something that is not intended for you and i want to send you LOVE.
I wish i could take away many things. I am shocked, disgusted and ashamed to see that there are actually people writing comments that are not of support and love to you.????????
I am lost for words - Please don't waste your time reading any comments from these weird internet loners. You know they are not important..to say the least. Wankers.
Zena you are a brave and WONDERFUL women. You shine SO bright even amoungst this you glow through.
Keep strong dear sweetheart. Please close your eyes and feel our love from all over the world, coming to you, please feel our light and energy. LOVE is stronger than anything - please feel that bubble of love and light protecting and comforting you Zena.
im so sorry you are seeing all of these ugly americans , we are not all alike and anyone knows beirut is not full of mud huts, Beirut for all you people who dont get it , was a beatiful international city with the most BEATIFUL BEACHES IN THE WORLD , SO WHEN ANY OF YOU AMERICANS , -AND I AM A AMERICAN - GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE , YOU GUYS SHOULD TRAVEL , AND I MEAN OUT OF THE SOUTH . READ GO , SEE MEET LEARN. IM SORRY FOR ALL THE NEGATIVES zENA, DON/DALLAS
I'm insulting her because she tried to speak for me. I do just fine without her speaking for my country. We are the outsiders but were being blamed for all of this so we have every right to be upset too. Sure were not dying but the crazies right now are trying to figure out how to bomb or kill American interests and or civilians. They're afraid to take on our army in the open. That’s why the bomb markets, roadside bombs, car bombs. It would be nice to face an army of Islam if they could get one to stand up not hide in the shadows and behead civilians. You’re beloved freedom fighters. We showed what the Great Iraq Army was made of, soon to be corpses. Israel beat every real army that they have faces from Syria, Jordan & Egypt. At least Egypt learned that peace is better. Now you’re people are cowards like the rest.
Cowards in the dark killing women and children too. Welcome to the club but you’re guilty too. Admit it and I will forever leave your blog. You can’t I know, so the war of words rages on. Katyusha Rockets kill who? Aimed at what? Anything they can destroy.
Merkova.
I am curious to know a bit about you so i can understand better.
Please do tell us all a bit about yourself, what you do, what you like, do you have family?
True Colors:
Red Blood
White Skin
Blue Eyes
Trust me beauty to me is below the skin, I live in the OC so beautiful is the norm the standard and you are just another face with points of view that mean so little.
I simple said don't say sorry for me, I don't and you shouldn't.
Delete all you want, Hitler, Stalen and Iran all do the same thing. Affraid of the other persons views, now in Iran you can't have pizza. It's some kind of elastic bread or something.....
I am here in NYC crying my eyes out, as I do every day when I read your blog. The problem is that MOST of us feel so HELPLESS. What can we do to stop this from happening?
Trust me there is no toher place on Earth that I want to visit. The history is the bases of the world. Eygpt, Israel, Leb and more but for an American it's asking to be killed. The loons would love to grab one of us to cut our heads off on the web and claim a victory over the American Pigs. So it looks like I'll never get to see that part of the world for as long as terrorists rule the land I'll stay in Sunny South Cali that has some great beaches too and enjoy.
I hate no one but the faceless terrorists that are doing the same thing and worse but get defended by people of a poor country.
Dear Zena--I am in Northern California, and yes, there are many in my country who care, who are trying to do something--all we do seems sometimes so futile, the calls to our representatives, who do not listen, the protests on the streets, which are not covered...
But believe me, our hearts are with you. I wish these thoughts could stop the bombs, and the terror.
http://hrw.org/
Human Rights Watch:
This report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians.
The Israeli government claims that it targets only Hezbollah, and that fighters from the group are using civilians as human shields, thereby placing them at risk. Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack. Hezbollah occasionally did store weapons in or near civilian homes and fighters placed rocket launchers within populated areas or near U.N. observers, which are serious violations of the laws of war because they violate the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. However, those cases do not justify the IDF’s extensive use of indiscriminate force which has cost so many civilian lives. In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack.
By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, Israel has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks on only military targets. The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents; the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes.
This report is based on extensive on-the-ground research in Lebanon. Since the start of hostilities, Human Rights Watch has interviewed victims and witnesses of attacks in one-on-one settings, conducted on-site inspections (when security allowed), and collected information from hospitals, humanitarian groups, and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, inspecting the IDF’s use of weapons and discussing the conduct of forces with IDF officials. The research was extensive, but given the ongoing war and the scope of the bombings, Human Rights Watch does not claim that the findings are comprehensive; further investigation is required to document the war’s complete impact on civilians and to assess the full scope of the IDF’s compliance with and disregard for international humanitarian law.
While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes. Between July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, and July 27, the group launched a reported 1,300 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in Israel, killing 18 civilians and wounding more than 300. Without guidance systems for accurate targeting, the rockets are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward civilian areas, especially cities, and thus are serious violations of the requirement of international humanitarian law that attackers distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Some of these rockets, Human Rights Watch found, are packed with thousands of metal ball-bearings, which spray more than 100 meters from the blast and compound the harm to civilians.
This report analyzes a selection of Israeli air and artillery attacks that together claimed at least 153 civilian lives, or over a third of the reported Lebanese deaths in the conflict’s first two weeks. Of the 153 civilian deaths documented in this report by name, sixty-three of the victims were children under the age of eighteen, and thirty-seven of them were under ten. Israeli air strikes also killed many dual nationals who were vacationing in Lebanon when the fighting began, including Brazilian, Canadian, German, Kuwaiti, and U.S. citizens. The full death toll is certainly higher because medical and recovery teams have been unable to retrieve many bodies due to ongoing fighting and the dire security situation in south Lebanon.
The report breaks civilian deaths into two categories: attacks on civilian homes and attacks on civilian vehicles. In both categories, victims and witnesses interviewed independently and repeatedly said that neither Hezbollah fighters nor Hezbollah weapons were present in the area during or just before the Israeli attack took place. While some individuals, out of fear or sympathy, may have been unwilling to speak about Hezbollah’s military activity, others were quite open about it. In totality, the consistency, detail, and credibility of testimony from a broad array of witnesses who did not speak to each other leave no doubt about the validity of the patterns described in this report. In many cases, witness testimony was corroborated by reports from international journalists and aid workers. During site visits conducted in Qana, Srifa, and Tyre, Human Rights Watch saw no evidence that there had been Hezbollah military activity around the areas targeted by the IDF during or just prior to the attack: no spent ammunition, abandoned weapons or military equipment, trenches, or dead or wounded fighters. Moreover, even if Hezbollah had been in a populated area at the time of an attack, Israel would still be legally obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian casualties resulting from its targeting of military objects or personnel. In the cases documented in this report, however, the IDF consistently tolerated a high level of civilian casualties for questionable military gain.
In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their ten children, and the family’s Sri Lankan maid.
On July 16, an Israeli airplane fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing eleven members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five, and seven.
Others civilians came under attack in their cars as they attempted to flee the fighting in the South. This report alone documents twenty-seven civilian deaths that resulted from such attacks. The number is surely higher, but at the time the report went to press, ongoing Israeli attacks on the roads made it impossible to retrieve all the bodies.
Starting around July 15, the IDF issued warnings to residents of southern villages to leave, followed by a general warning for all civilians south of the Litani River, which mostly runs about 25 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, to evacuate immediately. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled their homes to the city of Tyre (itself south of the Litani and thus within the zone Israel ordered evacuated) or further north to Beirut, many waving white flags. As they left, Israeli forces fired on dozens of vehicles with warplanes and artillery.
Two Israeli air strikes are known to have hit humanitarian aid vehicles. On July 18 the IDF hit a convoy of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates, destroying a vehicle with medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the driver. On July 23, Israeli forces hit two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana.
As of August 1, tens of thousands of civilians remained in villages south of the Litani River, despite the warnings to leave. Some chose to stay, but the vast majority, Human Rights Watch found, was unable to flee due to destroyed roads, a lack of gasoline, high taxi fares, sick relatives, or ongoing Israeli attacks. Many of the civilians who remained were elderly, sick, or poor.
Israel has justified its attacks on roads by citing the need to clear the transport routes of Hezbollah fighters moving arms. Again, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch, independent media sources, or Israeli official statements indicate that any of the attacks on vehicles documented in this report resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons. Rather, the attacks killed and wounded civilians who were fleeing their homes, as the IDF had advised them to do.
In addition to strikes from airplanes, helicopters, and traditional artillery, Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions against populated areas, causing civilian casualties. One such attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed a sixty-year-old woman and wounded at least twelve civilians, including seven children. The wide dispersal pattern of cluster munitions and the high dud rate (ranging from 2 to 14 percent, depending on the type of cluster munition) make the weapons exceedingly dangerous for civilians and, when used in populated areas, a violation of international humanitarian law.
Statements from Israeli government officials and military leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction between civilian and combatant, and is willing to strike at targets it considers even vaguely connected to the latter. At worst, it considers all people in the area of hostilities open to attack.
On July 17, for example, after IDF strikes on Beirut, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi, said, “in the center of Beirut there is an area which only terrorists enter into.”1 The next day, the IDF deputy chief of staff, Moshe Kaplinski, when talking about the IDF’s destruction of Beirut’s Dahia neighborhood, said, “the hits were devastating, and this area, which was a Hezbollah symbol, became deserted rubble.”2
On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that the Israeli air force should flatten villages before ground troops move in to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers fighting Hezbollah. Israel had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon, he claimed, and therefore anyone remaining should be considered a supporter of Hezbollah. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” he said.3
International humanitarian law requires effective advance warnings to the civilian population prior to an attack, when conditions permit. But those warnings do not way relieve Israel from its obligation at all times to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from harm. In other words, issuing warnings in no way entitles the Israeli military to treat those civilians who remain in southern Lebanon as combatants who are fair game for attack.
In addition to recommendations to the Israeli government and Hezbollah that they respect international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch calls on the U.S. government immediately to suspend transfer of all arms that have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or support for such materiel, pending an end to the violations. Human Rights Watch calls upon the Iranian and Syrian governments to do the same with regards to military assistance to Hezbollah.
This report does not address Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure or Beirut’s southern suburbs, which is the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch research. It also does not address Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, which have been reported on and denounced separately and continues to be the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch investigations. In addition, Human Rights Watch continues to investigate allegations that Hezbollah is shielding its military personnel and materiel by locating them in civilian homes or areas, and it is deeply concerned by Hezbollah’s placement of certain troops and materiel near civilians, which endangers them and violates the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch uses the occasion of this report to reiterate Hezbollah’s legal duty never to deliberately use civilians to shield military objects and never to needlessly endanger civilians by conducting military operations, maintaining troops, or storing weapons in their vicinity.
The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is governed by international treaties, as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law. Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 sets forth minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a state party such as Israel and a non-state party such as Hezbollah. Israel has also asserted that it considers itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon, not just to those of Hezbollah. Any hostilities between Israeli forces and the forces of Lebanon would fall within the full Geneva Conventions to which both Lebanon and Israel are parties. In either case, the rules governing bombing, shelling, and rocket attacks are effectively the same.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Amir Buchbut and Itamar Inbari, “IDF: Hezbollah Did Not Intercept an Israeli Aircraft,” available in Hebrew at http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/450/601.html, as of July 28, 2006.
[2] Hanan Greenberg, “Three Reserve Battalions Called Up," available in Hebrew at http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3277527,00.html, as of July 28, 2006.
[3] BBC News Online, “Israel says world backs offensive” July 27, 2006
9:58 AM
jenm, still waiting for your CV...
http://hrw.org/
Human Rights Watch:
This report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians.
The Israeli government claims that it targets only Hezbollah, and that fighters from the group are using civilians as human shields, thereby placing them at risk. Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack. Hezbollah occasionally did store weapons in or near civilian homes and fighters placed rocket launchers within populated areas or near U.N. observers, which are serious violations of the laws of war because they violate the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. However, those cases do not justify the IDF’s extensive use of indiscriminate force which has cost so many civilian lives. In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack.
By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, Israel has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks on only military targets. The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents; the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes.
This report is based on extensive on-the-ground research in Lebanon. Since the start of hostilities, Human Rights Watch has interviewed victims and witnesses of attacks in one-on-one settings, conducted on-site inspections (when security allowed), and collected information from hospitals, humanitarian groups, and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, inspecting the IDF’s use of weapons and discussing the conduct of forces with IDF officials. The research was extensive, but given the ongoing war and the scope of the bombings, Human Rights Watch does not claim that the findings are comprehensive; further investigation is required to document the war’s complete impact on civilians and to assess the full scope of the IDF’s compliance with and disregard for international humanitarian law.
While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes. Between July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, and July 27, the group launched a reported 1,300 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in Israel, killing 18 civilians and wounding more than 300. Without guidance systems for accurate targeting, the rockets are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward civilian areas, especially cities, and thus are serious violations of the requirement of international humanitarian law that attackers distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Some of these rockets, Human Rights Watch found, are packed with thousands of metal ball-bearings, which spray more than 100 meters from the blast and compound the harm to civilians.
This report analyzes a selection of Israeli air and artillery attacks that together claimed at least 153 civilian lives, or over a third of the reported Lebanese deaths in the conflict’s first two weeks. Of the 153 civilian deaths documented in this report by name, sixty-three of the victims were children under the age of eighteen, and thirty-seven of them were under ten. Israeli air strikes also killed many dual nationals who were vacationing in Lebanon when the fighting began, including Brazilian, Canadian, German, Kuwaiti, and U.S. citizens. The full death toll is certainly higher because medical and recovery teams have been unable to retrieve many bodies due to ongoing fighting and the dire security situation in south Lebanon.
The report breaks civilian deaths into two categories: attacks on civilian homes and attacks on civilian vehicles. In both categories, victims and witnesses interviewed independently and repeatedly said that neither Hezbollah fighters nor Hezbollah weapons were present in the area during or just before the Israeli attack took place. While some individuals, out of fear or sympathy, may have been unwilling to speak about Hezbollah’s military activity, others were quite open about it. In totality, the consistency, detail, and credibility of testimony from a broad array of witnesses who did not speak to each other leave no doubt about the validity of the patterns described in this report. In many cases, witness testimony was corroborated by reports from international journalists and aid workers. During site visits conducted in Qana, Srifa, and Tyre, Human Rights Watch saw no evidence that there had been Hezbollah military activity around the areas targeted by the IDF during or just prior to the attack: no spent ammunition, abandoned weapons or military equipment, trenches, or dead or wounded fighters. Moreover, even if Hezbollah had been in a populated area at the time of an attack, Israel would still be legally obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian casualties resulting from its targeting of military objects or personnel. In the cases documented in this report, however, the IDF consistently tolerated a high level of civilian casualties for questionable military gain.
In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their ten children, and the family’s Sri Lankan maid.
On July 16, an Israeli airplane fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing eleven members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five, and seven.
Others civilians came under attack in their cars as they attempted to flee the fighting in the South. This report alone documents twenty-seven civilian deaths that resulted from such attacks. The number is surely higher, but at the time the report went to press, ongoing Israeli attacks on the roads made it impossible to retrieve all the bodies.
Starting around July 15, the IDF issued warnings to residents of southern villages to leave, followed by a general warning for all civilians south of the Litani River, which mostly runs about 25 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, to evacuate immediately. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled their homes to the city of Tyre (itself south of the Litani and thus within the zone Israel ordered evacuated) or further north to Beirut, many waving white flags. As they left, Israeli forces fired on dozens of vehicles with warplanes and artillery.
Two Israeli air strikes are known to have hit humanitarian aid vehicles. On July 18 the IDF hit a convoy of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates, destroying a vehicle with medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the driver. On July 23, Israeli forces hit two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana.
As of August 1, tens of thousands of civilians remained in villages south of the Litani River, despite the warnings to leave. Some chose to stay, but the vast majority, Human Rights Watch found, was unable to flee due to destroyed roads, a lack of gasoline, high taxi fares, sick relatives, or ongoing Israeli attacks. Many of the civilians who remained were elderly, sick, or poor.
Israel has justified its attacks on roads by citing the need to clear the transport routes of Hezbollah fighters moving arms. Again, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch, independent media sources, or Israeli official statements indicate that any of the attacks on vehicles documented in this report resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons. Rather, the attacks killed and wounded civilians who were fleeing their homes, as the IDF had advised them to do.
In addition to strikes from airplanes, helicopters, and traditional artillery, Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions against populated areas, causing civilian casualties. One such attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed a sixty-year-old woman and wounded at least twelve civilians, including seven children. The wide dispersal pattern of cluster munitions and the high dud rate (ranging from 2 to 14 percent, depending on the type of cluster munition) make the weapons exceedingly dangerous for civilians and, when used in populated areas, a violation of international humanitarian law.
Statements from Israeli government officials and military leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction between civilian and combatant, and is willing to strike at targets it considers even vaguely connected to the latter. At worst, it considers all people in the area of hostilities open to attack.
On July 17, for example, after IDF strikes on Beirut, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi, said, “in the center of Beirut there is an area which only terrorists enter into.”1 The next day, the IDF deputy chief of staff, Moshe Kaplinski, when talking about the IDF’s destruction of Beirut’s Dahia neighborhood, said, “the hits were devastating, and this area, which was a Hezbollah symbol, became deserted rubble.”2
On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that the Israeli air force should flatten villages before ground troops move in to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers fighting Hezbollah. Israel had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon, he claimed, and therefore anyone remaining should be considered a supporter of Hezbollah. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” he said.3
International humanitarian law requires effective advance warnings to the civilian population prior to an attack, when conditions permit. But those warnings do not way relieve Israel from its obligation at all times to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from harm. In other words, issuing warnings in no way entitles the Israeli military to treat those civilians who remain in southern Lebanon as combatants who are fair game for attack.
In addition to recommendations to the Israeli government and Hezbollah that they respect international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch calls on the U.S. government immediately to suspend transfer of all arms that have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or support for such materiel, pending an end to the violations. Human Rights Watch calls upon the Iranian and Syrian governments to do the same with regards to military assistance to Hezbollah.
This report does not address Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure or Beirut’s southern suburbs, which is the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch research. It also does not address Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, which have been reported on and denounced separately and continues to be the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch investigations. In addition, Human Rights Watch continues to investigate allegations that Hezbollah is shielding its military personnel and materiel by locating them in civilian homes or areas, and it is deeply concerned by Hezbollah’s placement of certain troops and materiel near civilians, which endangers them and violates the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch uses the occasion of this report to reiterate Hezbollah’s legal duty never to deliberately use civilians to shield military objects and never to needlessly endanger civilians by conducting military operations, maintaining troops, or storing weapons in their vicinity.
The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is governed by international treaties, as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law. Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 sets forth minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a state party such as Israel and a non-state party such as Hezbollah. Israel has also asserted that it considers itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon, not just to those of Hezbollah. Any hostilities between Israeli forces and the forces of Lebanon would fall within the full Geneva Conventions to which both Lebanon and Israel are parties. In either case, the rules governing bombing, shelling, and rocket attacks are effectively the same.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Amir Buchbut and Itamar Inbari, “IDF: Hezbollah Did Not Intercept an Israeli Aircraft,” available in Hebrew at http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/450/601.html, as of July 28, 2006.
[2] Hanan Greenberg, “Three Reserve Battalions Called Up," available in Hebrew at http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3277527,00.html, as of July 28, 2006.
[3] BBC News Online, “Israel says world backs offensive” July 27, 2006
http://hrw.org/
Human Rights Watch:
This report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians.
The Israeli government claims that it targets only Hezbollah, and that fighters from the group are using civilians as human shields, thereby placing them at risk. Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack. Hezbollah occasionally did store weapons in or near civilian homes and fighters placed rocket launchers within populated areas or near U.N. observers, which are serious violations of the laws of war because they violate the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. However, those cases do not justify the IDF’s extensive use of indiscriminate force which has cost so many civilian lives. In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack.
By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, Israel has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks on only military targets. The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents; the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes.
This report is based on extensive on-the-ground research in Lebanon. Since the start of hostilities, Human Rights Watch has interviewed victims and witnesses of attacks in one-on-one settings, conducted on-site inspections (when security allowed), and collected information from hospitals, humanitarian groups, and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, inspecting the IDF’s use of weapons and discussing the conduct of forces with IDF officials. The research was extensive, but given the ongoing war and the scope of the bombings, Human Rights Watch does not claim that the findings are comprehensive; further investigation is required to document the war’s complete impact on civilians and to assess the full scope of the IDF’s compliance with and disregard for international humanitarian law.
While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes. Between July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, and July 27, the group launched a reported 1,300 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in Israel, killing 18 civilians and wounding more than 300. Without guidance systems for accurate targeting, the rockets are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward civilian areas, especially cities, and thus are serious violations of the requirement of international humanitarian law that attackers distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Some of these rockets, Human Rights Watch found, are packed with thousands of metal ball-bearings, which spray more than 100 meters from the blast and compound the harm to civilians.
This report analyzes a selection of Israeli air and artillery attacks that together claimed at least 153 civilian lives, or over a third of the reported Lebanese deaths in the conflict’s first two weeks. Of the 153 civilian deaths documented in this report by name, sixty-three of the victims were children under the age of eighteen, and thirty-seven of them were under ten. Israeli air strikes also killed many dual nationals who were vacationing in Lebanon when the fighting began, including Brazilian, Canadian, German, Kuwaiti, and U.S. citizens. The full death toll is certainly higher because medical and recovery teams have been unable to retrieve many bodies due to ongoing fighting and the dire security situation in south Lebanon.
The report breaks civilian deaths into two categories: attacks on civilian homes and attacks on civilian vehicles. In both categories, victims and witnesses interviewed independently and repeatedly said that neither Hezbollah fighters nor Hezbollah weapons were present in the area during or just before the Israeli attack took place. While some individuals, out of fear or sympathy, may have been unwilling to speak about Hezbollah’s military activity, others were quite open about it. In totality, the consistency, detail, and credibility of testimony from a broad array of witnesses who did not speak to each other leave no doubt about the validity of the patterns described in this report. In many cases, witness testimony was corroborated by reports from international journalists and aid workers. During site visits conducted in Qana, Srifa, and Tyre, Human Rights Watch saw no evidence that there had been Hezbollah military activity around the areas targeted by the IDF during or just prior to the attack: no spent ammunition, abandoned weapons or military equipment, trenches, or dead or wounded fighters. Moreover, even if Hezbollah had been in a populated area at the time of an attack, Israel would still be legally obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian casualties resulting from its targeting of military objects or personnel. In the cases documented in this report, however, the IDF consistently tolerated a high level of civilian casualties for questionable military gain.
In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their ten children, and the family’s Sri Lankan maid.
On July 16, an Israeli airplane fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing eleven members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five, and seven.
Others civilians came under attack in their cars as they attempted to flee the fighting in the South. This report alone documents twenty-seven civilian deaths that resulted from such attacks. The number is surely higher, but at the time the report went to press, ongoing Israeli attacks on the roads made it impossible to retrieve all the bodies.
Starting around July 15, the IDF issued warnings to residents of southern villages to leave, followed by a general warning for all civilians south of the Litani River, which mostly runs about 25 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, to evacuate immediately. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled their homes to the city of Tyre (itself south of the Litani and thus within the zone Israel ordered evacuated) or further north to Beirut, many waving white flags. As they left, Israeli forces fired on dozens of vehicles with warplanes and artillery.
Two Israeli air strikes are known to have hit humanitarian aid vehicles. On July 18 the IDF hit a convoy of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates, destroying a vehicle with medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the driver. On July 23, Israeli forces hit two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana.
As of August 1, tens of thousands of civilians remained in villages south of the Litani River, despite the warnings to leave. Some chose to stay, but the vast majority, Human Rights Watch found, was unable to flee due to destroyed roads, a lack of gasoline, high taxi fares, sick relatives, or ongoing Israeli attacks. Many of the civilians who remained were elderly, sick, or poor.
Israel has justified its attacks on roads by citing the need to clear the transport routes of Hezbollah fighters moving arms. Again, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch, independent media sources, or Israeli official statements indicate that any of the attacks on vehicles documented in this report resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons. Rather, the attacks killed and wounded civilians who were fleeing their homes, as the IDF had advised them to do.
In addition to strikes from airplanes, helicopters, and traditional artillery, Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions against populated areas, causing civilian casualties. One such attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed a sixty-year-old woman and wounded at least twelve civilians, including seven children. The wide dispersal pattern of cluster munitions and the high dud rate (ranging from 2 to 14 percent, depending on the type of cluster munition) make the weapons exceedingly dangerous for civilians and, when used in populated areas, a violation of international humanitarian law.
Statements from Israeli government officials and military leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction between civilian and combatant, and is willing to strike at targets it considers even vaguely connected to the latter. At worst, it considers all people in the area of hostilities open to attack.
On July 17, for example, after IDF strikes on Beirut, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi, said, “in the center of Beirut there is an area which only terrorists enter into.”1 The next day, the IDF deputy chief of staff, Moshe Kaplinski, when talking about the IDF’s destruction of Beirut’s Dahia neighborhood, said, “the hits were devastating, and this area, which was a Hezbollah symbol, became deserted rubble.”2
On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that the Israeli air force should flatten villages before ground troops move in to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers fighting Hezbollah. Israel had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon, he claimed, and therefore anyone remaining should be considered a supporter of Hezbollah. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” he said.3
International humanitarian law requires effective advance warnings to the civilian population prior to an attack, when conditions permit. But those warnings do not way relieve Israel from its obligation at all times to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from harm. In other words, issuing warnings in no way entitles the Israeli military to treat those civilians who remain in southern Lebanon as combatants who are fair game for attack.
In addition to recommendations to the Israeli government and Hezbollah that they respect international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch calls on the U.S. government immediately to suspend transfer of all arms that have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or support for such materiel, pending an end to the violations. Human Rights Watch calls upon the Iranian and Syrian governments to do the same with regards to military assistance to Hezbollah.
This report does not address Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure or Beirut’s southern suburbs, which is the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch research. It also does not address Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, which have been reported on and denounced separately and continues to be the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch investigations. In addition, Human Rights Watch continues to investigate allegations that Hezbollah is shielding its military personnel and materiel by locating them in civilian homes or areas, and it is deeply concerned by Hezbollah’s placement of certain troops and materiel near civilians, which endangers them and violates the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch uses the occasion of this report to reiterate Hezbollah’s legal duty never to deliberately use civilians to shield military objects and never to needlessly endanger civilians by conducting military operations, maintaining troops, or storing weapons in their vicinity.
The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is governed by international treaties, as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law. Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 sets forth minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a state party such as Israel and a non-state party such as Hezbollah. Israel has also asserted that it considers itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon, not just to those of Hezbollah. Any hostilities between Israeli forces and the forces of Lebanon would fall within the full Geneva Conventions to which both Lebanon and Israel are parties. In either case, the rules governing bombing, shelling, and rocket attacks are effectively the same.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Amir Buchbut and Itamar Inbari, “IDF: Hezbollah Did Not Intercept an Israeli Aircraft,” available in Hebrew at http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/450/601.html, as of July 28, 2006.
[2] Hanan Greenberg, “Three Reserve Battalions Called Up," available in Hebrew at http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3277527,00.html, as of July 28, 2006.
[3] BBC News Online, “Israel says world backs offensive” July 27, 2006
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War strongly supports United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for an immediate Middle East ceasefire
Appeal to Kofi Annan
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
The ongoing deadly conflict between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon has resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives and a serious humanitarian crisis.
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War fully supports your call for an immediate cease-fire on humanitarian grounds, and believes that the cease-fire will need to be maintained by a United Nations international force, deployed in a buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel.
The longer a cease-fire is delayed, the greater the loss of life and more massive the destruction of human habitation and infrastructure. Continued fighting also increases the danger of escalation into a wider war in a volatile region where nuclear arms exist. It is a wake-up call for the revival of nuclear disarmament and the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
Only peaceful negotiations, based on a genuine desire for peace and justice, will resolve this humanitarian crisis and the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Negotiations can only begin after a cease-fire is in force.
Yours sincerely,
Ron McCoy and Gunnar Westberg Co-Presidents, IPPNW
sam, have you ever traveled? have you ever left the "oc"? and by traveled, I dont mean to a different part of the U.S.
I am goign to go out on a limb and assume you have not. (and if you have, I am sorry for making that assumption)
there is a lot of beauty out in the world that just may change the way you think. there are no mud huts in lebanon.
lebanon, iraq, saudi...not the same.
this is a blog from zena to express how she is feeling, no reason to bash her for it. how can there be peace when there are people like you spewing hate.
and please stop generalizing.
I am an american. I am also an arab, I am not a terrorist.
peace and love to you sam.
all decent people of the world support you.
Dear Jenm, please do not allow yourself to fall into trap of some shameless Merkova or whatever the heck this creep is and do not dignify him with a response.
From Human Rights Watch web site:
Is Hezbollah’s firing of rockets into Israel lawful under international humanitarian law?
As a party to the armed conflict, Hezbollah has a legal duty to protect the life, health and safety of civilians and other noncombatants. The targeting of military installations and other military objectives is permitted, but Hezbollah must take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and is prohibited from targeting civilians, launching indiscriminate attacks, or attacking military objects if the anticipated harm to civilians and other noncombatants will be disproportionate to the expected military advantage. Hezbollah’s commanders must choose the means of attack that can be directed at military targets and will minimize incidental harm to civilians. If the weapons used are so inaccurate that they cannot be directed at military targets without imposing a substantial risk of civilian harm, then they should not be deployed. Deliberately attacking civilians is in all circumstances prohibited and a war crime.
While Human Rights Watch has not yet conducted a field examination to determine whether any of these attacks aimed to target a military object, preliminary information suggests that rockets fired by Hezbollah may be so inaccurate as to be incapable of being targeted, but are rather used to target a generalized area. As Human Rights Watch said in a 1997 report on Lebanon and Israel, “Katyushas are inaccurate weapons with an indiscriminate effect when fired into areas where civilians are concentrated. The use of such weapons in this manner is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.” That is, their use in civilian areas violates the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks and would be a war crime. Customary international law prohibits such bombardment near or in any area containing a concentration of civilians, even if there are believed to be military objectives in the area.
Zena, I am so touched by your writing. Touched, and furious that this destruction is happening. That you, your family, your neighbors, your country are living a hell that has absolutely nothing to do with you. I'm furious about what this U.S. government and the Israli government, and the Iraqi government, and Hezbollah, and governments on and on are doing to the People and to the Earth, all in the name of oil, land, resources, politics, revenge. Haven't we evolved beyond this as a species?
I could not find a single word on Human Rights Watch about the Hezbollah war crimes being committed day after day during this war -- both in its relentless attacks on civilian targets and in its use of human shields. Why is this?
Don’t you guys have any friends (you so called merkova, ...)?
I guess with your way of thinking and level of intelligence It would be hard to find any frinds.
this is not a blackboard to kill your loneliness or empty your trash can of thoughts
this is zena’s blog
Zena I know you have stopped reading this crap, if you see this message, please modify the options that people sign and post a logical point of view not crap
Immense is my sadness, Zena, and my impotence, and my shame.
I was in Beirut two summers ago, I was shown around the country by my beloved Ziad and his friends, who treated me like a queen, I must say. Their love for their country has certainly had a contagious effect upon me ever since.
I'm sure I'll be back to Beirut and to Baalbeck, and to Beitadine, and to Biblos very soon.
Keep working on the oil spilling awareness, Zena, nobody seems to be covering that side of the catastrophe, why???? I wonder. We suffered "the Prestige" in Spain and only through the hands of thousands of volunteers was it possible to bring life back to our dear Atlantic Ocean. Be all aware, I beg you.
Rosana.
The assumption is wrong but that's not a problem. I haven't seen enough oh the world yet. I truley would love too but the Middle East is out of the question. Thats a sad thing, very sad.
Understand the anger I am expressing. Yes the "mud hut" satement was out of anger and for that I am sorry. I hate the way people think though. It's okay to shoot dumb rockets at civilians but not okay to shoot missles into homes????? Why aren't the Leb's in this very same blog telling the terroorists to stop? The hate isn't against the Jews, it's against the Americans. What some people over there seem to forget is that if Israel is pushed hard against the wall and looks like they may loose. WEll the entire area won't be inhabital for a long time. The glow will be visable from space.
To Zena
Hi Zena, I don’t know what to say but SHAME ON Israel. I just want to let you know that I am an American and I don’t approve my government’s one sided support. I don’t think that this is for the best American interest. The Americans know this and that is why 60% of them do not approve the foreign policy of the governed and the president.
Be strong and don’t lose the hop. I just want to say what Mother Theresa said.
By Mother Theresa
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Peace to Lebanon.
Outsider.
Zena:
I work for Amnesty International in Washington, DC. We've been doing what we can (sending letters to the world's leaders, press releases, etc.), but moving slower than I can stand. We're holding a global ceasefire vigil this Monday, and I'm part of the planning for ours in front of the US State Department. We want to read quotes from civilians during the vigil, to highlight our demand that an immediate ceasefire is necessary to protect civilians, as well as move forward with a peace deal (duh, President Bush). I was wondering if I could read some quotes from your blog? Or, if you have something specific that you would like to be read, please email it to me zodiac@adventure.org . Thank you for your words, we stand in solidarity with you.
Zodiac
sam,
We have condemned attacks by Hezbollah, I am sure if you look around you will see it
I am afraid of fundamentalist in any form (hezbollah, alqaedeh, Zionism, and allow me bush kind of Christianity)
you say your are a well read gentleman, have you read failed states by prof. Chomsky, or heard his interview on the current events?
http://www.chomsky.info/books.htm
Noam Chomsky: U.S.-Backed Israeli Policies Pursuing "End of Palestine"; Hezbollah Capture of Israeli Soldiers "Very Irresponsible Act" That Could Lead To "Extreme Disaster"
Friday, July 14th, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/14/146258
Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon as warplanes launched fresh strikes on Beirut airport, communication networks, Lebanese roads and a power plant. Meanwhile, the US has vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution condemning Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip. MIT professor Noam Chomsky says the US and Israel are punishing Palestinians for electing Hamas, and says Hezbollah's capture of Israeli soldiers subjects Lebanese "to terror and possible extreme disaster" from Israeli strikes. We also get comments from Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani in Jerusalem. [includes rush transcript]
________________________________________
Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon as warplanes launched fresh strikes on Beirut airport, communication networks, Lebanese roads and a power plant.
More than 60 Lebanese civilians have been killed in the offensive which follows the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.
Israeli jets bombed the main highway linking Beirut to Damascus, tightening an air, sea and land blockade of Lebanon.
The Israeli army said Hezbollah fighters fired more than 100 rockets on northern Israel on Thursday, killing two people, wounding 92 others and hitting Haifa, Israel's third largest city. Hezbollah denied firing into Haifa, but Israel described the incident as a "major escalation" of the crisis. The Lebanese army also responded to the offensive with anti-aircraft fire.
Israel has warned that the south of Beirut could be targeted. Israeli jets dropped leaflets on Thursday warning people to stay away from Hezbollah offices. Some areas of the city are now without electricity following an attack on a power station. Israeli jets also struck a pro-Syrian Palestinian group in eastern Lebanon. No casualties were reported.
The escalation has sparked international calls for restraint. The European Union and Russia have criticized Israel's strikes in Lebanon as disproportionate. President Bush said Israel has the right to defend itself, but should not weaken the Lebanese government.
The UN Security Council is due to hold an emergency meeting later on Friday. Lebanon has urged it to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire. The US has already vetoed a council resolution demanding Israel end its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Eight of the last nine vetoes have been cast by the United States. Seven of those were to do with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
• Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of dozens of books, including his latest "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy." In May he traveled to Beirut where he met, among others, Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. He joins us on the line from Massachusetts.
• Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group and a contributing editor of Middle East report. He joins us on the line from Jerusalem.
________________________________________
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: We're joined on the phone right now by Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of dozens of books. His latest is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. In May, he traveled to Beirut, where he met, among others, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. He joins us on the phone from Masachusetts. We welcome you to Democracy Now!
NOAM CHOMSKY: Hi, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Well, can you talk about what is happening now, both in Lebanon and Gaza?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, of course, I have no inside information, other than what's available to you and listeners. What's happening in Gaza, to start with that -- well, basically the current stage of what's going on -- there's a lot more -- begins with the Hamas election, back the end of January. Israel and the United States at once announced that they were going to punish the people of Palestine for voting the wrong way in a free election. And the punishment has been severe.
At the same time, it's partly in Gaza, and sort of hidden in a way, but even more extreme in the West Bank, where Olmert announced his annexation program, what’s euphemistically called “convergence” and described here often as a “withdrawal,” but in fact it’s a formalization of the program of annexing the valuable lands, most of the resources, including water, of the West Bank and cantonizing the rest and imprisoning it, since he also announced that Israel would take over the Jordan Valley. Well, that proceeds without extreme violence or nothing much said about it.
Gaza, itself, the latest phase, began on June 24. It was when Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don't know their names. You don’t know the names of victims. They were taken to Israel, presumably, and nobody knows their fate. The next day, something happened, which we do know about, a lot. Militants in Gaza, probably Islamic Jihad, abducted an Israeli soldier across the border. That’s Corporal Gilad Shalit. And that's well known; first abduction is not. Then followed the escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which I don’t have to repeat. It’s reported on adequately.
The next stage was Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers, they say on the border. Their official reason for this is that they are aiming for prisoner release. There are a few, nobody knows how many. Officially, there are three Lebanese prisoners in Israel. There's allegedly a couple hundred people missing. Who knows where they are?
But the real reason, I think it's generally agreed by analysts, is that -- I’ll read from the Financial Times, which happens to be right in front of me. “The timing and scale of its attack suggest it was partly intended to reduce the pressure on Palestinians by forcing Israel to fight on two fronts simultaneously.” David Hearst, who knows this area well, describes it, I think this morning, as a display of solidarity with suffering people, the clinching impulse.
It's a very -- mind you -- very irresponsible act. It subjects Lebanese to possible -- certainly to plenty of terror and possible extreme disaster. Whether it can achieve any result, either in the secondary question of freeing prisoners or the primary question of some form of solidarity with the people of Gaza, I hope so, but I wouldn't rank the probabilities very high.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Noam Chomsky, in the commercial press here the last day, a lot of the focus has been pointing toward Iran and Syria as basically the ones engineering much of what's going on now in terms of the upsurge of fighting in Lebanon. Your thoughts on these analyses that seem to sort of downplay the actual resistance movement going on there and trying to reduce this once again to pointing toward Iran?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the fact is that we have no information about that, and I doubt very much that the people who are writing it have any information. And frankly, I doubt that U.S. intelligence has any information. It's certainly plausible. I mean, there's no doubt that there are connections, probably strong connections, between Hezbollah and Syria and Iran, but whether those connections were instrumental in motivating these latest actions, I don't think we have the slightest idea. You can guess anything you’d like. It's a possibility. In fact, even a probability. But on the other hand, there's every reason to believe that Hezbollah has its own motivations, maybe the ones that Hearst and the Financial Times and others are pointing to. That seems plausible, too. Much more plausible, in fact.
AMY GOODMAN: There was even some reports yesterday that said that Hezbollah might try to send the Israeli soldiers that it had captured to Iran.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Israel actually claims that it has concrete evidence that that's what was going to happen. That's why it's attempting to blockade both the sea and bomb the airport.
NOAM CHOMSKY: They are claiming that. That's true. But I repeat, we don't have any evidence. Claims by a state that's carrying out the military attacks don't really amount to very much, in terms of credibility. If they have evidence, it would be interesting to see it. And in fact, it might happen. Even if it does happen, it won't prove much. If Hezbollah, wherever they have the prisoners, the soldiers, if they decide that they can't keep them in Lebanon because of the scale of Israeli attacks, they might send them somewhere else. I’m skeptical that Syria or Iran would accept them at this point, or even if they can get them there, but they might want to.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky , we have to break. When we come back, we'll ask you about the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations comments about Lebanon. We'll also be joined by Mouin Rabbani, speaking to us from Jerusalem, Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group. Then Ron Suskind joins us, author of The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest on the phone is Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His latest book is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. I wanted to ask you about the comment of the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. He defended Israel's actions as a justified response. This is Dan Gillerman.
DAN GILLERMAN: As we sit here during these very difficult days, I urge you and I urge my colleagues to ask yourselves this question: What would do you if your countries found themselves under such attacks, if your neighbors infiltrated your borders to kidnap your people, and if hundreds of rockets were launched at your towns and villages? Would you just sit back and take it, or would you do exactly what Israel is doing at this very minute?
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Noam Chomsky, your response?
NOAM CHOMSKY: He was referring to Lebanon, rather than Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: He was.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. Well, he's correct that hundreds of rockets have been fired, and naturally that has to be stopped. But he didn't mention, or maybe at least in this comment, that the rockets were fired after the heavy Israeli attacks against Lebanon, which killed -- well, latest reports, maybe 60 or so people and destroyed a lot of infrastructure. As always, things have precedence, and you have to decide which was the inciting event. In my view, the inciting event in the present case, events, are those that I mentioned -- the constant intense repression; plenty of abductions; plenty of atrocities in Gaza; the steady takeover of the West Bank, which, in effect, if it continues, is just the murder of a nation, the end of Palestine; the abduction on June 24 of the two Gaza civilians; and then the reaction to the abduction of Corporal Shalit. And there's a difference, incidentally, between abduction of civilians and abduction of soldiers. Even international humanitarian law makes that distinction.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what that distinction is?
NOAM CHOMSKY: If there's a conflict going on, aside physical war, not in a military conflict going on, abduction -- if soldiers are captured, they are to be treated humanely. But it is not a crime at the level of capture of civilians and bringing them across the border into your own country. That's a serious crime. And that's the one that's not reported. And, in fact, remember that -- I mean, I don’t have to tell you that there are constant attacks going on in Gaza, which is basically a prison, huge prison, under constant attack all the time: economic strangulation, military attack, assassinations, and so on. In comparison with that, abduction of a soldier, whatever one thinks about it, doesn't rank high in the scale of atrocities.
JUAN GONZALEZ: We're also joined on the line by Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group and a contributing editor of Middle East Report. He joins us on the line from Jerusalem. Welcome to Democracy Now!
MOUIN RABBANI: Hi.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Could you tell us your perspective on this latest escalation of the conflict there and the possibility that Israel is going to be mired once again in war in Lebanon?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, it's difficult to say. I couldn't hear Professor Chomsky's comments. I could just make out every sixth word. But I think that Israel is now basically, if you will, trying to rewrite the rules of the game and set new terms for its adversaries, basically saying, you know, that no attacks of any sort on Israeli forces or otherwise will be permitted, and any such attack will invite a severe response that basically puts the entire civilian infrastructure of the entire country or territory from which that attack emanates at risk. Judging by what we've seen so far, it more or less enjoys tacit to explicit international sanction. And I think the possibilities that this conflict could further expand into a regional one, perhaps involving Syria, is at this point quite real.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the UN resolution, a vote in the draft resolution, 10-to-1, on Gaza with the U.S. voting no and for countries abstaining -- Britain, Denmark, Peru and Slovakia?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I think it would have been news if that resolution had actually passed. I think, you know, for the last decade, if not for much longer, it’s basically become a reality in the United Nations that it's an organization incapable of discharging any of its duties or responsibilities towards maintaining or restoring peace and security in the Middle East, primarily because of the U.S. power of veto on the Security Council. And I think we've now reached the point where even a rhetorical condemnation of Israeli action, such as we’ve seen in Gaza over the past several weeks, even a rhetorical condemnation without practical consequence has become largely unthinkable, again, primarily because of the U.S. veto within the Security Council.
AMY GOODMAN: Mouin, what do you think is going to happen right now, both in Gaza and in Lebanon?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I think it's probably going to get significantly worse. I mean, in Lebanon, it seems to be a case where Hezbollah has a more restricted agenda of compelling Israel to conduct prisoner exchange, whereas Israel has a broader agenda of seeking to compel the disarmament of Hezbollah or at least to push it back several dozen kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border. You know, the Israeli and Hezbollah perspectives on this are entirely incompatible, and that means that this conflict is probably going to continue escalating, until some kind of mediation begins.
In Gaza, it’s somewhat different. I think there Hamas has a broader agenda, of which effecting a prisoner exchange with Israel is only one, and I would argue, even a secondary part. I think there Hamas's main objective is to compel Israel to accept a mutual cessation of hostilities, Israeli-Palestinian, and I think, even more important, of ensuring their right to govern. And I think, at least as far as the Israeli-Palestinian part of this is concerned, Hamas's main objective has been to send a very clear message, not only to Israel, but to all its adversaries, whether Israeli, Palestinian or foreign, to remind the world that political integration and democratic politics for them are an experiment, that they have alternatives, and if they're not allowed to exercise their democratic mandate, that they will not hesitate, if necessary, to exercise those alternatives.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Noam Chomsky, right now industrial world leaders gathered in St. Petersburg for the G8 meeting. What role does the U.S. have in this?
NOAM CHOMSKY: In the G8 meeting?
AMY GOODMAN: No. What role -- they're just gathered together -- in this, certainly the issue of Lebanon, Gaza, the Middle East is going to dominate that discussion. But how significant is the U.S. in this?
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think it will probably be very much like the UN resolution that you mentioned, which is -- I’m sorry, I couldn't hear what Mouin Rabbani was saying. But the UN resolution was -- the veto of the UN resolution is standard. That goes back decades. The U.S. has virtually alone been blocking the possibility of diplomatic settlement, censure of Israeli crimes and atrocities. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the UN vetoed several resolutions right away, calling for an end to the fighting and so on, and that was a hideous invasion. And this continues through every administration. So I presume it will continue at the G8 meetings.
The United States regards Israel as virtually a militarized offshoot, and it protects it from criticism or actions and supports passively and, in fact, overtly supports its expansion, its attacks on Palestinians, its progressive takeover of what remains of Palestinian territory, and its acts to, well, actually realize a comment that Moshe Dayan made back in the early ’70s when he was responsible for the Occupied Territories. He said to his cabinet colleagues that we should tell the Palestinians that we have no solution for you, that you will live like dogs, and whoever will leave will leave, and we'll see where that leads. That's basically the policy. And I presume the U.S. will continue to advance that policy in one or another fashion.
Zena
I have appreciated your blog. I am sorry for you (as well as my self)
that so many people are turning it into a vituperative smorgasbord of political hate.
How do I moderate comments on my blog?
The ability to moderate comments as they are added to your blog can be very handy in certain situations. Perhaps you have very spirited discussions where tempers are prone to running a little high, or perhaps you just want to catch any comment spam before it reaches your page. Whatever your reasons, the comment moderation feature will let you view all comments before they appear on your blog, giving you a chance to approve or reject them as desired.
You can find the comment moderation setting on the Settings | Comments tab, along with all of the other comment settings. It's just a simple yes/no option, and looks like this:
Choosing "yes" drops down an email form. This lets you moderate comments via email without affecting your regular comment notification setting. It is optional, since you can always moderate comments through the Blogger interface.
So set the option to "yes," enter a notification address if desired, save the settings, and wait for your next comment. All incoming comments will now go to a special "Moderate Comments" page, which you can find under the Posting tab:
On this page, you will see a list of all the comments that have been created but have not yet been approved or rejected. (This list excludes any comments made by admin members of the blog.) By default, they will be sorted by the time they were created, but you can also group them by their respective posts, by clicking the "Post Name" sort option at the top.
Each line in the list displays the beginning of the comment, the author's name, and the time it was created. Clicking the triangle to the left will expand the row to show the full text of the comment, along with "Publish" and "Reject" links, which you can use to approve or disapprove the comment. You can also select multiple comments and publish or reject them all at once, by using the check boxes on the left hand side and the buttons at the top or bottom of the list.
This entire process can also be done via email. If you entered an email address for moderation, you will get a message for each comment which will contain "Publish" and "Reject" links, as well as a link to the main moderation page for the blog. For example:
The links provided will prompt you to log in to your Blogger account, if you aren't already logged in. They will only work for new comments, and will not let you change the state of a comment that has already been moderated.
Notes:
Comments that have already been published or rejected are removed from the moderation list. Rejected comments are deleted and cannot be recovered. Approved comments can be deleted in the usual way if you decide you no longer want them.
Only blog administrators will be able to moderate comments. Team members without admin privileges will not have access.
It must be nice to only print what you want to hear, I guess that is why no in the world is trying to really stop the killing. Block us. delete us but be affraid of us, its just fear of what the other side thinks.
Change the blog to Flowers and roses and always me the poor defensless Arab. Or maybe take it off the web, then you can live in your very sheltered bomb shelter.
the comment was for the fowl mouthed hater "Merkova" with his abusive language, not you Mr "sam"
The United States has been terrorizing American Indians, the original inhabitants, for many centuries. They are experts at illegal occupation, look at Iraq. Seems Israel has learned the lessons well.
Please know that not all people in the U.S. agree with Israel, or the anonymous morons who say hateful things here in response to your truths.
George W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice and the others who support illegal occupation and want all of the oil should be brought up on charges of war crimes.
Those of us in this country who "get it" keep all of you who are suffering in our thoughts and prayers. We watch news sources from the Middle East on tv and on the Internet. We are learning the horrid truth of the attempted genocide of the Lebanese and Palistinian People.
I will leave the poor Arab's only whine blog. I'll cry in my pillow about how horrible the world is and that Bush is the Devil. Bad World, Bad America.......
Lets dream of an Arab only world, on wait that nightmare is in a great fiction novel already, isn't it the Koran? Cry all you want it does nothing, whine all you want only Arabs care. In America we'll forget as soon as happy hour starts. I'll toast my first dink to all those who have died for nothing. All of theose whoare affraid to face both sides.
I drink for the world I live in good or bad. At least I was trying to understand it from the side of the people, why waste my time. Drink to the population control. Why use condoms, dumb boms work too.
oh I found merkova's grandpa's:
http://frontpage.fok.nl/
nieuws/66846
sam, I kind of knew from the beginiing that you sounded like one my alcoholic patients and now you proved it
cheers
sam you are dealing with a buch of educated, intelligent, smart people with very strong devotion and love for the country
I wish this would stop soon,
the israelies are going to be buried regrdless of their arms because they are coward and roothless
Sam you are dealing with a bunch of educated, intelligent, smart people with very strong devotion and love for the country
I wish this would stop soon,
the Israelis are going to be buried regardless of their arms because they are coward and rootless
From: Sam
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 3:24 PM
To: 'info@israelemb.org'
Subject: Support & Faith
To Israel and it’s People,
I wanted to take a minute to offer my support both mentally and physically to your country’s cause. No right minded person or people want war or fighting but it sometimes is inevitable especially in your case. With these groups and Countries saying that they will wipe Israel off the face of the earth, well I would do the same. I truly hope that your country grows and thrives, the Jewish people need it. I have grown up listening to different cultures claiming how badly they were treated and oppressed, I have never met a Jewish person would complained. They told their life stories from themselves to their families but not for sympathy but education. The world can never allow what happened in the past to happen again, I still can’t believe that they are denying what happened in the 40’s. As you can probably tell I’m not of the Hebrew Religion, I grew up a Christian but it’s been some time since I’ve attended services. This doesn’t change my heart and my heart goes out to all of you in your time of need.
I want to extend my support with more than just words; if there is anything I can do please direct me to the correct site. If its blood that is needed, tell me where to donate in the LA / OC California area. If it’s food, supplies or items of that nature let me know where to drop them off or ship them to. If money helps then let me know where to send a check or make a donation, I don’t believe in the RED CROSS for this or any other site not approved by your people. My money is to go only to Israel and its people, I will not let one cent slip into the hands of people who are focused on your destruction. If I could fight along side your soldiers I would and be very proud at the same time. It’s time the world comes to understand that the State of Israel will survive and grow under the watchful eye of God and his followers
Again my deepest concern is on your entire community, please let me know what I can do.
Respectfully,
Samuel
Newport Beach, Ca
I am not Jewish, I'm a Christian American.
PS and not a drunk, but thanks. I may just for you and your people.
My friends and I want you to know we have been working non stop here in San Francisco organizing, protesting, pushing the government and media to stop this horror on Lebanon. My father is Lebanese and lives in Beirut, along with a large portion of my family. We are fighting for you here! I know that you may not believe this but we are. We are with you. Thank you for sharing your words. We will continue to resist here in the US. I will not stop resisting!
With Love,
Lamya
an intersting article:
'If Israel is behaving like a psychotic bullying child, Britain and the US are like its mad tattooed parents'
Published: 22 July 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk
Andrew Burgin, SPOKESMAN FOR STOP THE WAR COALITION
We are obviously very opposed to the destruction of Lebanon. We think it's a crime against the people there and we are calling for an unconditional ceasefire. Blair and Margaret Beckett have been utterly shameful. Blair has just done the bidding of his political master, George Bush.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1190596.ece
yalla, balagan....
Dear Zena,
I would like to express you and other people in Lebanon my deepest sympathy. I feel so distressed these days because I can't do anything to stop the israeli war madness. Last year, I spent wonderful two weeks in Lebanon, I was captived by Beirut and whole country and I wanted to come back next year.
Since the beginning of the war, I feel permanent anxiety, I feel so helpless. Every night I have war dreams... I wake up with
At least I put banners of solidarity with Lebanese people on my website. Many warm greetings from Prague, Czech Republic.
Dear Zena,
First off, I appreciate Your (and other Lebaneses´ blogs) very much because I am able to find out first-hand what is going on (instead of tuning to the so-called "balanced" Western media).
I myself know perfectly well how You and Your fellow Lebanese must feel since I am a Bosnian and Your situation is exactly what was happening to us for 4 very long years. It was only after our army was strong enough to inflict a great damage on the serb occupiers that they would back down and start negotiating. I hope You feel a relief much much sooner.
God bless You, your friends,family and Your beautiful country.
Zena ... I am horrified very much, too, by all this violence, killings,not respect other peoples/states/cultures ... that states not REAL work together for REAL GLOBAL welfare and humanity!...Sometimes I won´t think around anymore ... because it hurts such much to see that nothing goes on in direction welfare for all ... the so-called representatives of people don´t react to people´s will ... now for peace in Lebanon and the immediate stop of Israelian war!!!! They don´t act!!! The so-called representatives of all nations ... U.N. ... don´t react in sense of basic international law!!!
All is not to understand, not to believe ...
So much I can feel with you. All my childhood was filled with talks by members of family about horrible events in war ... All my life I was afraid anywhen anywhere begins a war again ...
Always again and again they will find a way to make their wars ... to sow hate and fanatism ...
Most of every people of that world should go up to protest against that war now!!!!! They don´t ... WHY ....????
They should got up against all that destruction!!!!
I am sooo much afraid, too, Zena!
I wish you much strenght in all that horror!!!!!!All your family and all your friends, too!!!!
Feel embraced!
Greetings I send from here to ragamuffin, Don, serafina delarosa and the physicians...
Zena, that was me ... the German femal who wrote already once last time...
you can see the people like "Merkova" whith his discusting language have even driven the peace loving norwegians to anger.
On Saturday evening a man defecated on the steps of Oslo's synagogue, then smashed two windows there.
"He did his business on the steps, went next door and found stones, came back and threw stones at the windows, went next door and found more stones and came back and threw some more," Anne Sender, director of The Mosaic Religious Community (DMT), told Aftenposten.no.
"This is both psychological and quite real," Sender said.
from Aftenposten
look what you have done Merkova, stop your BS and spread of hate
Jewish Shops in Rome Vandalized
Pope Repeats Call for Immediate Cease-Fire in Middle East
Associated Press
Thursday, August 3, 2006; Page A22
ROME, Aug. 2 -- Jewish shops across Rome were vandalized and defaced with swastikas in an apparent neo-fascist attack linked to fighting in the Middle East, officials said, while Pope Benedict XVI issued an impassioned call from Vatican City for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East, saying that "nothing can justify the spilling of innocent blood."
Owners of about 20 shops in the center and outskirts of the Italian capital found door locks filled with glue, shutters nailed closed and swastikas on nearby walls Tuesday morning, said Riccardo Pacifici, a spokesman for Rome's Jewish community.
VIDEO | The latest video about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Mideast Conflict
Violence escalates as Israel responds to militant attacks from Gaza, Lebanon.
Latest Headlines
More Photos, Videos and Panoramas
INTERACTIVE FEATURE
Latest Developments
Interactive map tracks latest headlines, photos and video on the conflict.
PHOTOS
Emerging From Rubble
Traumatized Lebanese emerge from their shelters after nearly three weeks of bombardment.
More photos: Battered Survivors EmergeDeadly Attack in QanaAfter the Bombs Have Fallen Caring for the Injured Protestors Demand Cease-FireBombs Shake Hospital Shelter Americans Evacuate War Zone Foreigners Flee Lebanon Anxiety Grips Civilians Caught in Growing Violence U.S.-Israeli Friendship Mideast Conflict Escalates Israeli Offensive Expands Israel Launches Gaza Operation __________________________
VIDEOS
Deciding to Stay
As cities and villages in southern Lebanon empty, some families choose to stay.
More videos: Sectarian Tensions Paths to Escape Perilous Lebanese Americans Divided Evacuees Land in Baltimore Prisoners and Soldiers Reminders of War in Gaza Life Returns in Gaza __________________________
PANORAMAS
Qana, Lebanon
Rubble remains after weeks of Israeli airstrikes, including one which killed at least 57 civilians, mostly children.
More panoramas: Deadly Qana Attack Bint Jbeil Ordnance Downtown Bint Jbeil Hezbollah Office Destroyed Recovering in Lebanon Hospital Bomb Crater in Lebanon Beirut Suburbs in Ruin Beirut Bridge Destroyed Warplanes Strike Beirut Evacuees Gather Finding Refuge in Beirut Gaza Bridge Destroyed Palestinian Interior Minsitry Family Injured in Gaza Jabalya Refugee Camp __________________________
Live Discussions
Transcript:Crisis Unabated in Middle East
Transcript:No Cease-Fire in Lebanon, Israel
Transcript:Fighting Continues in Israel, Lebanon
Transcript:Live from Syria
Transcript:Post Magazine: Is the Israel Lobby Too Powerful?
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Although not all the shops targeted were owned by Jews, the vandalism was apparently a reaction to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Pacifici said.
Fliers signed by a group calling itself Armed Revolutionary Fascists were left at the shops. They denounced "the Zionist economy" and included pro-Hezbollah slogans, Pacifici said.
"There are still anti-Semites in Italy," Pacifici said. He said Italian Jewish organizations have been flooded with dozens of e-mails blaming Jews for violence in the Middle East.
Mayor Walter Veltroni condemned the vandalism.
Police officials declined to comment on the investigation.
Last month, swastikas were spray-painted on walls in the Old Ghetto -- Rome's ancient Jewish neighborhood -- while hundreds of thousands gathered in the nearby Circus Maximus to celebrate Italy's victory in the World Cup.
The pope, speaking Wednesday to 50,000 pilgrims in sun-drenched St. Peter's Square, said, "Our eyes are filled with the chilling images of torn bodies of so many people, especially children -- I am thinking in particular of Qana."
Benedict was referring to the Israeli attack Sunday in the southern Lebanese town of Qana that killed more than 50 civilians, most of them women and children.
It was the latest in a half-dozen peace appeals by the pontiff that have consistently included calls for an immediate cease-fire. He has spoken out on every public occasion since the fighting began three weeks ago, reminiscent of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who became a rallying point for critics of the Iraq war.
But Benedict has made clear that attempts to reach a settlement should be left to diplomats "because we don't enter politics. . . . Our goal is simply peace, and we will do everything to help attain peace."
The German-born pope has repeatedly stressed his interest in good relations with Jews, and last year visited a German synagogue destroyed by the Nazis. The Vatican is also concerned about the large Maronite Catholic community in Lebanon.
As # 129 comment I would like to thank useful links and hints to find facts about war and humanitrian crimes.
Please Zena and all the good will blog readers ignore the hate spreading ones ... let them realize their own pityful state
Love
and more love
No, no Zena, it's different now. It's been different from the beginning. I'm stuck to the TV screen from the very first day of this hell. I wake up with my thoughts around you there and go to bed with the same. I've never sent so many sms and emails to friends in my life than in the past few weeks. Your tragedy is our too. More than ever before and I'm convinced that I'm not the only one to have this experience. Millions of people on this planet are screeming for justice and feeling the pain. It is a new holocaust what Israel is doing. Even worse, because they have an almighty sidekick which luckily the Nazis didn't have. It's already the people of Israel to be held responsible. If they won't stop their government, the sin will be collective. The crime that the Israeli administration has commited so far will come down to them all. Nobody on Earth can get away with this. It's not THEIR business anymore. It's about all of us. It's about the human race. I mean it.
Luv
Laszlo
In Adelaide (Australia) midday today few will go to the street to say "Hiroshima never again, 1945 hiroshima, 2006 Beirut?..."
You will be with us, we are still more than ever with you
Salam
Everyday, since I first heard you on CNN, I think of you...My heart continues to be with you and your people....
Zena, reading your blog brings home the reality of what we are seeing on our television screens every day. I am sorry that you have been put in this position partly by the (lack of?) political machinations in the West. Your story is being seen by the world and your blog has even been picked up by the British media today - the Daily Mirror which has a circulation of 1,635,843, and a readership of 3,884,000. We are all watching/ reading and hope for your safety. (Sam) I think if you write comments on a blog which is of such a sensitive nature then take a few deep breaths and move on rather than expressing your anger so insensitively you are an intelligent bloke and I notice you've realised your error. Remember that the media in the West is biased and that what we are seeing in the UK is very different to what people are seeing in the US, so we should make up our minds and not let the media do it for us. However isn't it very simple? Killing is wrong?
Story about media reporting:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1836745,00.html
Story about the your blog:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tm_objectid=17514080%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=blogs%2dof%2dwar-name_page.html
Zena - Your patience is tried with the effort to keep this blog up, especially with the illiterate twits here, who think they can speak. If ignorance knew its depth, they would be on their knees in shame.
We just want to be sure to tell you that more and more people can't sleep here. It is hard to live your reality. In a different way it is hard to live the reality of being run by liers and thugs, using our name. Even the CBC is so arrogant - while busily selling out to western powers' propaganda machines - they don't know a dog from a tail.
But many are with you! Hold on, the war is going badly for the arrogant Nazis and their paymasters - who daily stain the name of just jews - , thanks to the determination of the Lebanese people.
Even wise Israelis see it coming: The leaders of their once beloved country are screwing things up to the point of no return, while the US supplies the rope.
The world is fed up with both.
Your strength means everything now. Much is at stake; well beyond the immediate situation.
Thank you for insisting on love and beauty!
It is that energy which powers the universe.
No airwar foolishness can touch it.
We mourn your dead and wounded, as well as the dead and wounded in Gaza and everywhere, including in Israel. They are all victims of these bully fools.
Insist that they suffered for a better world, in the long run. We must all insist. We will win. Love is real.
With respect and love -
http://ecosyn.us/Bush-Hitler/
Hang on Zena...everything will be alright:) And ignore the bunch of throughtless rude Americans that have posted ignorant *stereotypical* comments. If you dont experience anything...you dont understand. That is just how some people are. I've experienced the gulf war. I am not arab, nor american. I feel your pain. Just hang on, and keep posting those great blogs.
we share your agony. being under katyusha attack ourselves for the last (almost) 4 weeks. how can one stop the mad Teheran mullahs from destroying our region? perhaps zilzaling teheran would do the job
I'm far away from you. Still, I can feel your pain. Be still, you're in my prayers.
why don't you " zilzal" Dc that's where the precision bombs come from.
why don't you retarded people get it.
Israel is the long arm of US, to control the Middle East,
Without the money and weapons of mass destruction from the US, Israel would be nonexistent
again let me remind you of the root of the problem, you (Israel) do not need to spread your senseless war to other countries.
You are finished with your attitude.
The root of this problem:
occupation of land that began in 1948 with the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, to create the state of Israel.
Those who were forced from their homes over the next several decades after occupation have formed resistance against Israel.
There are millions of Palestinian refugees.
You need to address the occupation of Arab lands by Israel, the refugee issue and free the prisoners that are held in Israel in contradiction of international law.
both you are brain washed and fail to listen
unfrtunately you have lost the world's support,
with the exception of blood thirsty Bush, condi rice and olmert and the like
a gifr to the person who c/o Teheran mullahs,
this waht they say about you
"Bullying powers have materialized real holocaust in Palestine"
Kuala Lumpur, Aug 3, IRNA
Malaysia-
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Thursday said that the bullying powers have materialized the real holocaust in Palestine.
The president made the remark at the emergency summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Ahmadinejad said that some Western powers paved the way for establishment of the Zionist government in Palestine on the pretext of compensating the losses of the survivors of World War II.
"Thus they usurped the land of a nation, displaced millions of its citizens, took the lives of thousands and captivated thousands of people.
"The claimed holocaust was in practice materialized in the land of Palestine," he added.
The president said that it is obvious that the Zionist regime is fake and without legal and legitimate foundation.
"It later became obvious that the establishment of the regime actually aimed to set up a base in the center of the Islamic region for permanent threats, aggressions and suppression.
"The establishment of the Zionist regime prevented convergence and unity among the regional as well as Islamic nations and governments and the seed of permanent discord was sowed," he noted.
A major part of the current discord in the world of Islam and among Middle East nations are the fruits of the existence as well as the plots and actions of the Zionist regime.
"In principal, the mission of the imposed regime is to threaten, be aggressive and create discord to prepare easily the ground for the hegemony of the big powers.
"In the face of support for the existence and security of this regime, there is the point of unity among Western big powers, who find their interests materialized by defending it," he said.
The president said that what took place in Lebanon in recent weeks and is still continuing shows that the US, Britain and a significant number of Western states consider no boundary to their political, propagandist, financial and arms support for the Zionist regime.
"All claims about defending human rights, the nations right to decide their fate, respect for people's and governments' sovereignty as well as respecting borders are sacrificed for the sake of the Zionist regime.
"This is while, avoiding killing of ordinary and helpless people as well as not using banned weapons such as cluster bombs in support of the Zionist regime has no meaning," added the president.
He said that these states believe that Lebanon should not defend its rights.
"The believe that as manifestation of the resistance of Lebanese people and the present symbol of Muslims resistance, Hizbollah should not defend the land of Lebanon and its people, rather should stay away to let the Zionist regime advance Beirut and enable the regime's supporters to continue any type of aggression," he said.
President Ahmadinejad underlined that defense of the Zionist regime is so significant that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should be sacrificed for the sake of it.
"The UNSC, which is bound to defend legitimate rights in case of the sovereignty of countries and their security as well as promote regional and global security, fails to fulfill its most basic duty and opposes cease-fire.
"Thus does the UN have any reputation, while a few bullying powers make instrumental use of it to achieve their political goals and their own interests. This is a painful disaster for the United Nations," said President Ahmadinejad.
I will continue to pray and support the Lebanese people in their valiant efforts to protect what is their heritage, culture and identity. Not everyone in America supports what Isarel and the US are doing, and as an African American I understand the underhanded politics of this corrupt government. I too see the world sitting back and watching this terrible crime unfold and I ask you what can we do to help you guys? Our own government doesn't even listen to us anymore. How can we take action when Isarel's influence and power is so pervasive throughout this govt.? Maybe this conflict needs to play out on the streets of America for people to do something. War has become to sophisticated and that's very dangerous. When you can push a button from 5,000 miles away and kill thousands on another continent, we forget the human element. I won't forget you...and your family. And I pray to God that you come out of this intact and stronger than ever. Peace be with you.
Today, 2000 people marched in Oslo City from the parlament to the Israeli embassy to protest against the bombing of your beautiful country and the madness of violence and force. Reading your blog for the first time is a hard experience for me, and I do not know what to say, except to comfort you and tell you that still the odds for you being killed by these murderers is very small. This too will pass, and when it does, we will come to your aid. Already, we are planning here in Norway to make an artists initiative to establish ties with people in Beirut, in order to channel money and support into the non-official rebuilding. If you feel up to it, please send an email with suggestions for how we can best be off help to the artist community in Lebanon, be it with money, solidarity or work-force. Do not let fear kill your spirit, and stay strong. My love goes out to you and to your sister, and I hope to someday meet you by the sea in an atmosphere of quiet and peace. Until then, stay strong.
Hey Zena.
Having lived all my life in a country that hasn't been involved in any wars for over 600 years probably makes me uncapable to fully grasp the kind of trials you are going through right now. Anything I say or feel is bound to come out trite or insincere in comparison with your experience, but for what it's worth, you've made me realize that there are people, everyday ordinary people, suffering in Lebanon.
I don't know why this wasn't obvious to me before reading your blog but it probably has to do with the way media keeps flooding us here in the west with pictures, opinions and interpretations. After a while you probably go numb from the sheer amount and the emotions shut down. Almost every day I come in contact with people who makes sweaping comments and assumptions about the middle east and the people that lives there and the fact that this doesn't make me feel more outraged is sickening.
What I want to say is that you're my heroine! Your courage and capacity for humanity in the middle of these horrible atrocities that are being perpetrated against your people, is really humbling to me. Calling the murdering of innocent people for "Collateral damage" is a crime in itself and typical for the military mind.
I'm not a believer, otherwise I'd pray for you. But I hope that you and your family will be safe and that the suffering and madness will end soon.
Regards from Kristofer in Sweden
Dear Zena. My heart goes out to you and the people of Lebanon; raise a toast to your resilient spirit.
I think it is wrong on part of Israel to continue with this uncivilised act of killing innocent civilians.
Some of the comments on your blog reveal the deep chasm that divides us, our thinking, our ideologies, our beliefs. This is not the time or the place to discuss all of the above.
I pray to the Almighty to restore peace and save the beautiful children of Lebanon
Appreciate your efforts and will remember you in my prayers
India
Ok Zena you got to choices to make in this very difficult moment for you.
First choice.Fight the enemy.Whos the enemy?Its up to you find.
Second choice.Get the hell out of there a.s.a.p.
to the message above ending with a.s.a.p.
her enemies are faceless nameless
occupiers like you with no conscious
If you do not have the courage to show your ugly face then take a hike, and visit your usual porno sites
Israel has no conscious
Israel has no legitimacy
i dont know what to say... dont even know what to blog. words are no comfort to u.. they wont bring any change! but one thing is for sure.. the whole world stands in solidarity. i donty care what politics this isreal and usa army play! i don wanna know the history of occcupation. history is meaningless here. i just don understand why an army fighting the so called "terrorist faction" should indulge in killing innocents!
Sam
you write "I’m proud to be an American, I’m proud of my government. Right or wrong Bush or Clinton I stand behind them. .."
The arm is in desperate need, why don't you join them and serve your country
The army,
that was a typo
for your info Sam here is letter from an American soldier in Iraq.
"If you want to impress me, go to Baghdad."
I am a soldier serving in Iraq and till this day we still don’t know why we are here.
I sit and watch television and the bull shit that our leaders are feeding to the people on a daily basis. How can you be a President and spend over 800 billions of dollars destroying and rebuilding another country when we need help in our own country? How do you live with yourself knowing that innocent soldiers are dying every day just for you?
Majority of the troops here don’t even have missions, all they do is check people identification cards going into the PX or Hajji Bazaars or cooks working in airports or laundry room because they have civilian caterers to work in the dinning facilities. We are separated from our family, kids, husbands, wives and friends for a year just for the white house to look good. So our leaders can say “Yes we were the ones that destroyed and rebuild this country spending over 800 billions of dollars and we have veterans that have served their country, lost their legs, arms and their lives to be homeless, eating in shelters and no one gives a dam.
But what’s really gets under my skin is that we are over here fighting for $250.00 extra on our pay check for hazard pay or 225 dollars extra for being away from your families and you pay athletes, entertainers and singers billions of dollars to perform. If it was not for people like us that provide that freedom and give up our lives for that freedom that why are we paid so much less to be in harms way?
Oh yeah, I forgot they raised the life insurance from 250,000 to 400,000 when I die that will really benefit me a lot.
Mr. Bush, why are you wondering why people are getting out of the military regardless of the bonus money that you are throwing their way and why are you forcing soldiers to stay in the army past their time without any say so? I prefer Clinton any day, true he was getting his freak on in the White House, but who hasn’t and if they said they didn’t they would be lying.
This is the worst leadership in the history of leading and to get on national television telling lies about “They are doing so much over here” is pathetic. How would you know if you only visit places that are not in any type of danger? What is going on in Kuwait? Nothing. If you want to impress me, go to Baghdad where there is suicide bombings everyday where soldiers are dying. Not where you can give a concert and feel good about yourself? You should have known that if you and your brother manipulate the voting system that will stop you from doing the same to the world.
To be honest a lot of military personnel do not have any thing good to say about this Commander in Chief, he has proven to the world that he is truly the biggest fraud that the world has seen. "
The bombing-frenzy MUST stop. That much is crucial.
But what's really frightening is how blood-thirsty people have become. Comments on several Israeli (and some Arab) websites on the topic are alarming. The hatred. The killing drive. I could almost taste its redness.
Abstracted from reality, the death toll becomes another number, another statistic. A ratio, 1:8. Nations have been polarized, good vs evil. It's no longer about defending any country. It's been reduced to ideologies, one striving to cancel the other out.
We've forgotten how this even began. Almost as if, who pulled the trigger doesn't matter. The fact that it was pulled has become the excuse to vent out a deeper resentment.
What will this lead to? For either side? What do we do when the blood that is driving this fight runs out?
well said
read the whole article at
http://www.wsws.org/articles/
2006/aug2006/leba-a05.shtml
"In Lebanon, the Israeli state is pursuing the equivalent of what was referred to under Hitler’s Third Reich as lebensraum—the killing or expulsion of populations viewed as inferior in order to repopulate their land.
For Washington, the Israeli offensive has a far broader significance. The destruction of Lebanon is seen as a stepping stone to the launching of new aggressive wars aimed at achieving “regime change” in Syria and Iran. ..."
dear Zena, please do not loose hope that things will turn out fine. hope is the only remedy to the madness that has gripped the world - only hope and faith that ultimately good will prevail.
I have a question. When I see the reports from Lebanon on television, there are usually many men standing around the bomb craters, the destroyed bridges and so forth, looking or or lamenting a bit about it.
If it was my country that was attacked, I would definitely try to strike back, using whatever means might be available.
Why are the men at Lebanon don't grab the arms they have at hand and strike back and wipe the agressors and baby killers from Israel off the map???
Are they cowards (except for those Hezbollah fighters)? Is their country not worth fighting for?
They don't have control over the southern parts of their country but even if their other cities are attacked, they seem to not really care. What are the reasons? Do they like Israel that much? Just wondering.
Do you have an explanation? And what do you think about men that don't liek to defend their country?
I sam from california comes back and reads this:
Carl Cameron Investigates Part 1 - Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?
Author: Carl Cameron
Part I:
BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work.
Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
Fox News has learned that one group of Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently, is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to spy on a group of Arabs who the United States is also investigating for links to terrorism. Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States.
Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity."
The first part of the investigation focuses on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. They repeatedly made contact with U.S. government personnel, the report says, by saying they wanted to sell cheap art or handiwork.
Documents say they, "targeted and penetrated military bases." The DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, and even secret offices and unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel. The majority of those questioned, "stated they served in military intelligence, electronic surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units."
Another part of the investigation has resulted in the detention and arrests of dozens of Israelis at American mall kiosks, where they've been selling toys called Puzzle Car and Zoom Copter. Investigators suspect a front.
Shortly after The New York Times and Washington Post reported the Israeli detentions last months, the carts began vanishing. Zoom Copter's Web page says, "We are aware of the situation caused by thousands of mall carts being closed at the last minute. This in no way reflects the quality of the toy or its salability. The problem lies in the operators' business policies."
Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.? A general accounting office investigation referred to Israel as country A and said, "According to a U.S. intelligence agency, the government of country A conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally."
A defense intelligence report said Israel has a voracious appetite for information and said, "the Israelis are motivated by strong survival instincts which dictate every possible facet of their political and economical policies. It aggressively collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a high priority target."
The document concludes: "Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection objectives."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy here in Washington issued a denial saying that any suggestion that Israelis are spying in or on the U.S. is "simply not true." There are other things to consider. And in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone system and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation that both have been compromised by our friends overseas.
HUME: Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?
CAMERON: It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected — none of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not have know? Almost a direct quote.
HUME: Going into the fact that they were spying on some Arabs, right?
CAMERON: Correct.
HUME: All right, Carl, thanks very much.
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When you live with the devil you should expect to be in hell.
I make sure I will NOT live with
you as you sound the most evil of all
I just saw the face of miri eisin on cnn who looks and talks with hatred and anger
follwed by the beautiful kind face of queen noor
and I am not jew or arab, but i see that it is not too difficutl to see the devil
so i would ask the person who wrote "When you live with the devil you should expect to be in hell. "
to go to texas and suck your boss's d...
Our time zones are 7 hours different and our lives are poles apart, yet I feel the pain of the people of Lebanon because I have a conscience...
I have never even experienced war, never heard a bomb or felt it shake the very foundation of my home, never felt as though my life was in danger.
I have also never physically been to Lebanon but this year I met and fell in love with a wonderful Lebanese man and was introduced to this beautiful, developed, progressive country as he saw it, through his eyes...then the war started.
The strength, resilience and fortitude of this Lebanese Christian ... his faith in God and his ability to remain positive despite it all, his willingness to overcome, start over and rebuild... again, and again is amazing.
I am sickened by the heartless, self-centered comments expressed that are totally missing the point...WAR IS WRONG!!! It solves nothing. If there can be no trust, there can be no peace.
This war is especially wrong when the only people suffering and dying are the poor..., the young..., the innocent... the civilians - on both sides.
I can understand and appreciate the accounts Zena shares since up until a week ago, they were the conversations I shared with Michel. My concerns about electricity, internet access, cell phone access, food, petrol and most importantly his safety were standard topics for our chats and his "we will be fine" often sufficed. Now.... I don't know and it terrifies me.
I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of family members and loved ones around the world that, like me, are praying for the safety of those 'trapped' in Beirut, 'trapped' in Lebanon. We may never see them again and you waste time quarreling about nonsense.
Please GROW UP! Try looking at things from someone else's point of view and have some compassion. If you don't have anything positive or enlightening to say, why not keep the negativity to yourself.
To the people of Lebanon, we in the Caribbean are far away but our thoughts and prayers are with you.
my heart is with everyone in lebanon... i wish i could be there at this time of war, i dont feel right that everyone in lebanon is living in fear and panic and wondering when the next is going to hit, and here i am in safe canada. its not fair what's happening to everyone over there, there goes every body's future over there. i hope to God those asswholes stop bombing our country. i did live in lebanon when those jesw were occupying the south, when there was a bit of war there, but as bad as it is now. God can only help us...
Zena, are you ok babe? Have just been chatting with the Lebanese guys in the store around the corner (Westbourne Park, - Notting Hill...ish).
Love to you - please let us know where you are and how you are if you can.
Strength Love & Light to you.
Victoria xoo
To the proud & patriotoc.
i bring you a gift in word and wrap it in a yellow ribbon to be tied from the antenna of your vehicle. And each time you crawl out of your home and look out at the road that lies ahead of you, please always take notice of the yellow ribbon and always remember these words.
The world is a vast and beautiful space, and you should try to see it for what it is. Look beyond the end of the barrel of your gun. And if that fails to open up the human side of your being, then i suggest you point it straight at yourself and pull the trigger. Because in essence, on the current course that you and your government are choosing, that will be the fate of all mankind.
God bless and Peace be with you.
Stars&Stripes.
Ignorance is bliss.......
Freedom of choice, freedom of speech?????????
Coke of Pepsi?
http://hrw.org/ said...
http://hrw.org/
Human Rights Watch:
===================================
One question only "honorable" Human Rights Watch.
How many human rights did Hezbollah violated that you recorded?
Let me give you a hint 4026 violations!!!!
Another free hint. That is the numbers of rockets that hit Israel city's up to now (including Arab villages and towns)
Even worse: just in the news. Israel has just acquired a new fighter plane
from America. It is supposed to be undetectable by radar.
===================================
Dear Zina
Don't believe in every thing that you read. Why should Israel buy such planes? Does Lebanon have any means or radars that can stop the"normal"planes?
So you as an intelligent person that you are can see that this is only a cheap stunt to sell papers or to inflate more hate.
The words of the prophet in the Torah (Old testament) predicts the complete distruction of Damascus, so, sadly, this is not the end, but just another chapter in this age old conflict
Dear Zena
I heard your interview on NPR in the USA. I honor your courage and passion as an artist and I am grateful for the ceasefire.
As you know music heals and unites. I am working with global partners to unite the world on the International day of Peace September 21. The Peace Day was initiated from a United Nations resolution.
I would like to correspond with you about gathering Lebanese musicians on the International day of Peace for a concert. I could help to arrange global media coverage.
If you feel this would be appropriate considering the pain, suffering and devastation of your land please contact me at Michael @Pathwaystopeace .org
Music heals
Please check out
http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org
http://www.internationaldayofpeace.com/
http://idpvigil.com/
http://www.un.org/events/peaceday/2005/
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