South Lebanon: Cluster Bomb Removal

clipped from www.youtube.com Last year's Israeli-Lebanese conflict may be over but civilians still face the danger of indiscriminatory attack - from cluster munitions scattered across Lebanon. Since February 2007, the FSD has been working to clear cluster bombs in a project funded by the European Commission's Humanitarian Office "ECHO". The Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) estimate that over 1 million unexploded cluster munitions litter approximately 34 million square metres of land.

I can't help asking, which swine invented such infernal stuff, and which ones spread it in populated areas where children should be able to play around unworriedly?
Is there really anybody who would dim-wittedly answer, "terrorism has to be fought by terrorism"? (Sorry for using the word "swine"; but I wanted to avoid a real dirty word.)

Nasrallah hails Israeli war report

clipped from english.aljazeera.net Nasrallah hails Israeli war report Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has said that he "respects" Israel for recognising that it was defeated by his guerrilla army during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Hassan Nasrallah has never before lavished such praise on his Israeli enemies [AFP] 'Defeat and victory' Referring to the Israeli report, Nasrallah said he was pleased that Israel had agreed with his analysis that Israeli had effectively lost the war by failing to decisively defeat Hezbollah's fighters. "The first important outcome of this commission is that it has finally and officially decided the issue of victory and defeat ... This commission spoke about a very big defeat," he said. "Today the climate in the whole of the Zionist entity is that this war was a failure."

FISK: Marwahin, 15July'06: The anatomy of a massacre

clipped from news.independent.co.uk Twenty-three of them were to die within the next 15 minutes. The tragedy of these poor young people and of their desperate attempts to survive their repeated machine-gunning from the air is as well-known in Lebanon as it is already forgotten abroad. War crimes are easy to talk about when they have been committed in Rwanda or Bosnia; less so in Lebanon, especially when the Israelis are involved. But all the evidence suggests that what happened on this blissfully lovely coastline two and a half months ago was a crime against humanity, one that is impossible to justify on any military grounds since the dead and wounded were fleeing their homes on the express orders of the Israelis themselves. While no friends of Israel, the Sunni community in Lebanon - especially the few thousand Sunnis of Marwahin who are so close to the frontier that they can see the red roofs of the nearest Jewish settlement - are no threat to Israel.

British MP: Israel employed Nazi tactics in Lebanon

Turner said, “There had been plenty of words of condemnation of suicide bombers, but few on the Israeli attacks in Gaza, in particular the attacks on civilian installations.”

clipped from www.ynetnews.com British MP Andrew Turner of the Conservative Party “Those were the tactics of the Nazis in 1939 and 1940 – attacking fleeing civilians from the air,” “Human Rights Watch condemns both sides pretty unequivocally for breaches of international law and of internationally recognized human rights. It condemns Hizbullah for taking hostage and using the soldiers as pawns to negotiate the release of prisoners held in Israel…and it condemns Israel over the lawlessness of its attacks on south Lebanon, for the extraordinarily high level of civilian casualties that followed. asked in response: “Is the honorable gentleman seriously comparing Israel’s defending itself to the genocide of the Holocaust? “What a stupid intervention; of course I’m not comparing it to the Holocaust; if the honourable lady was a little more careful in the way in which she listened to other honourable members instead of parading her prejudices, she would have heard what I said, which was that Israel attacked fleeing civilians;

MAY FIRST 2007 Recall the Predictions

Virtual predictions of the present situation made on MAY FIRST 2007 made by Hamas in the Jerusalem Post.

May. 1, 2007 22:51

"It's possible that Olmert will try to evade responsibility for Israel's defeat in Lebanon by waging war on the Gaza Strip," PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas told reporters in Gaza City. "Olmert is facing a serious crisis and this could be his way to salvage himself."

"President Abbas is very interested in the latest developments in Israel," he added. "He is concerned that the crisis will negatively affect the peace process. We are also concerned that Olmert might embark on a military adventure in the Gaza Strip to cover up for his failure."

Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip said they did not rule out the possibility that Israel would try to compensate for its "defeat" in Lebanon by "stepping up its military aggression" against the Palestinians.

This is the first time that Israel openly admits that it was defeated in war," he said. "The war against Lebanon was completely unjustified

"The Israeli government has been taken hostage by Israeli extremists like Avigdo

clipped from www.jpost.com

Web

Marwahin: Lest we forget the innocent children

Human Rights Watch states that "war crimes" include "making the civilian population or individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities the object of attack".

clipped from news.independent.co.uk UNIFIL, which turned the refugees of Marwahin away on 15 July, stated that when they were removing the children's bodies, their soldiers came under fire. Human Rights Watch is still investigating the killings of civilians at Marwahin and other locations and wrote of them before the war ended. "The Israeli military," it said in its initial report, "did not follow its orders [to civilians] to evacuate with the creation of safe passage routes, and on a daily basis Israeli warplanes and helicopters struck civilians in cars who were trying to flee, many with white flags out the windows, a widely accepted sign of civilian status ... On some days, Israeli war planes hit dozens of civilian cars, showing a clear pattern of failing to distinguish between civilian and military objects." International law makes it clear that it is forbidden in any circumstances to carry out direct attacks against civilians and that to do so is a war crime. six of the children were between the ages of one and 10.

What's behind the calls for the U.S. It's All About Israel

clipped from www.antiwar.com The Israelis clearly intend to crouch behind their nuclear shield as they expand their sphere of influence, and this has been especially true since the implementation of the "Clean Break" scenario espoused by the Likudniks and their American co-thinkers. Growing Israeli influence in Kurdistan, recent incursions into Lebanon, and the purported ability of Israeli agents to penetrate Iran's borders attest to the success of their strategy. While American soldiers in Iraq take bullets from Sunni insurgents – and, increasingly, radical Shi'ite militias – the Israelis have been quietly (and not so quietly) taking the spoils of our Pyrrhic "victory." It is also radically heretical in the West, where discussion of Israel's unquestioned hegemony in the region – and in the politics of policy formulation in the U.S. and Western Europe – is prohibited. Which is why I've been practically alone, until recently, in challenging the prevailing orthodoxy.