» Archive: July 2006
Siafu Site
The Montreal magazine Siafu has a brand new web site.
Axis of Evil teams up
Al Jazeera: "Speaking to reporters following an official ceremony welcoming his arrival in Tehran, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stressed Saturday that Venezuela would always stand beside Iran under any circumstances."
Humanitarian Foxhole
Aljazeera: "'It's a kind of humanitarian alibi because in effect there is no real humanitarian access in the south,' said Christopher Stokes of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders. 'The international community is deluding itself, if it believes there is.'"
Israeli Graffiti
In response to the photos of Israeli pro-peace graffiti posted a few days ago, Jon writes:
This is unfortunately a lone wolf, and it will be cleaned up quickly. You will find minimum 10:1 "death to Arabs", "no Arabs, no terror", "Arabs to the gas chambers" to anything anti-war.[Jewish] Israelis overwhelmingly support the attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Virtually the only criticism you will find in Israel is of the 'efficacy' of military operations [both aimed at completely destroying popular movements].
A Ma'ariv poll after the PoW was taken in Gaza showed that more than 82% of Israelis supported the complete 'liquidation' [assassination] of the elected Hamas government.
That the 1948 Palestinians inside Israel are anti-war is unsurprising, but I fear the idea that stakeholding Israelis are against this war is misleading.
Broad Daylight
Eve Poretsky: The Biggest Stick in the Middle East
Israel has spy satellites in the sky photographing every object larger than 70 cm. Israel has pilotless planes photographing rocket crews launching rockets against Israel. Israel has the best air force in the world which can hit a car from a mile up in the sky. Israel has an excellent infantry and very sophisticated tanks--which it produces by itself.Israel has Atom Bombs . . .
AND ALL THIS MODERN EQUIPMENT CANNOT STOP HIZBALLAH AND HAMAS FROM FIRING ROCKETS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT !!!
Sooner or later (I think within one year) most Israelis will absorb this fact and many will conclude that the only way to abolish the threat of the rockets is to reach an agreement with Palestinians. The present government follows Sharon's policy of unilateral withdrawals.
Map: Bombing Lebanon
Via Lebanon Updates, a map of Israel's bombing of Lebanon:
Download a pdf or a large jpeg.
Solidarity in Egypt
8,000 protesters in Egypt try to show support for for Lebanon.
The mosque and indeed the neighbourhood were under siege by the Central Security Forces, state security agents, plainclothes policemen and hired thugs, according to many demonstrators. As some demonstrators tried to leave the mosque's premises, thugs attacked both them and regular worshippers with sticks and batons, trapping them inside the mosque, according to Ahmed Salah, coordinator of the Kifaya's Youth for Change movement. Security forces assaulted some of the demonstrators, and confiscated the leaflets and flags they were carrying.
Charles Harb: "the wanton destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and the ineptitude of the Lebanese government to forcefully deal with the crisis are more likely to weaken the government than strengthen it. Lebanon will come out of this more fractured than united, and grand decisions will be even more difficult to implement."
Meanwhile, in Syria: "The public outpouring in favour of Hizbullah and Nasrallah, however, was colossal in the Syrian street. Syrians remembered that at no point in their history since Gamal Abdel-Nasser created the Egypt-Syria alliance in 1958 had they been so unified and electrified by one man. Almost immediately, war songs began appearing on radio, as did the music of Fayrouz. Large billboards usually reserved for commercial advertisements were now carrying Nasrallah's pictures, and cars all over the country were now adorned with the yellow flag of Hizbullah. Nasrallah's speeches were set as ring tones on mobiles, and posters carrying his picture, that of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and former president Hafez Al-Assad appear everywhere."
Galeano's Polemic
Eduardo Galeano: How Much Longer?
How much longer will the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier be allowed to justify the kidnapping of Palestinian sovereignty?How much longer will the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers be allowed to justify the kidnapping of the entire nation of Lebanon?
For centuries the slaughter of Jews was the favorite sport of Europeans. Auschwitz was the natural culmination of an ancient river of terror, which had flowed across all of Europe.
How much longer will Palestinians and other Arabs be made to pay for crimes they didn't commit?
Hezbollah didn't exist when Israel razed Lebanon in earlier invasions.
Foreign Concept
CalgaryGrit: "foreign affairs are definitely taking on a larger role in this contest than I would have imagined back in March."
"Birth Pangs" and other news from Al-Ahram
This week's Al-Ahram is out.
Omayma Abdel-Latif: "It was primarily thanks to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's insistence that 'there will be no going back to the status quo ante,' that Israel's massacres in Lebanon will continue unabated -- for a few more days at least. Rather than press for an immediate cessation of attacks, Rice has instead suggested, cold-bloodedly, that the crimes against humanity committed by Israel are but the 'birth pangs' of a new Middle East."
Firas Al-Atraqchi: "And just as there are 200,000 civilians internally displaced in Iraq, there are now 500,000 internally displaced in Lebanon with a further 200,000 who have crossed the border into Syria and elsewhere."
Khaeld Amayreh: "Palestinian resistance groups have given their consent to an Egyptian proposal stipulating a general ceasefire as well as the release of the captured Israeli soldier in return for an Israeli commitment to free an undisclosed number of Palestinian political and resistance prisoners, including children, women and veteran detainees. Also to be freed are Palestinian lawmakers and government ministers held hostage by Israel for four weeks, ostensibly to coerce Hamas into freeing the captured soldier."
Lucy Fielder: "Israel's bombardment of densely populated, mainly Shia areas in the south and southern areas of Beirut had at the time of writing claimed 418 lives, the overwhelming majority civilians, injuring around 1,500 people. Hizbullah had killed 41 Israelis... Taxi drivers have put their prices up because of the danger and need for long journeys on winding, sometimes unmade, side roads. A trip in a shared taxi that cost 5,000 Lebanese pounds (about $3) per person can now cost as much as $100, well out of reach for many poor southern Lebanese."
Graham Usher: "Two weeks and 400 deaths on neither goal have been accomplished. On the contrary, the higher the body count climbs the more modest the aims become. An Israeli Foreign Ministry official quoted by AFP on 24 July said Israel's 'main objective today' was neither the defeat of Hizbullah nor the depletion of its firepower. It was to 'dissuade Hizbullah from renewing its attacks on the border and retrieve the two soldiers'."
Serene Assir: "Ever since 1976, Israel has been the sole largest recipient of US aid. As it stands, should one count military aid, economic assistance and federal loan guarantees, US funding to Israel tops $5 billion per annum. According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine, US aid to Israel comprises an astonishing one-third of the total American foreign aid budget."
Theatre and Controversy
This Magazine: The Dangers of Playing It Safe
Theatres are flirting with the possibility of irrelevancy, because they are afraid to be relevant and make any decisions that could possibly be construed as controversial--afraid of losing subscribers, of imaginary mobs descending on their auditoriums, of angry columnists lambasting them, of perturbed donors putting their cash elsewhere.... And while producers, directors and playwrights are self-censoring because they worry about rocking the boat, they have failed to notice that it is politely and silently sinking.When the US says that the UN can choose to be "relevant" or pundits say a political party needs to make itself relevant, they mean aligning with powerful interests. In art (according to This, anyway) it's the other way around: it's not relevant if it's not calling cherished (by, I'd add, powerful people and groups) things into question.
Israeli Graffiti
"In war, there are no winners"
"Stop the war"
[Via Orthodox Anarchist]
And now for some non-war coverage, dude
Daniel Cassidy has an etymological history of the the word 'dude'.
Ha'aretz bits
Ha'aretz "A Canadian-Israeli professor has been held by Israeli authorities for 18 days without access to a lawyer, on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence agents."
Hezbollah's "Empire": "The numerous services granted by Hezbollah, such as the water system it built in the southern neighborhood of Beirut, which supplies water to about one-half of its residents, have essentially supplanted the Lebanese government, which is not present along the border with Israel and does not come close to matching Hezbollah in providing services to residents along the southern border. Hezbollah is believd to be currently providing services to more than 200,000 people."
Ha'aretz: "There were three reasons behind the decision not to ask the U.S. for additional aid. First, the failure last year to obtain any special aid for the disengagement from Gaza − which initially stood at NIS 1.15 billion. This failure showed that the Americans − with their own enormous budget deficits − were in no hurry to pass further aid for Israel, even when the cause was justified."
Avnery et alia
Uri Avnery: "But our ministers have officially decided that that is the aim. There is not much novelty in that: successive Israeli governments have adopted a policy of killing the leaders of opposing groups. Our army has killed, among others, Hizbullah leader Abbas Mussawi, PLO no. 2 Abu Jihad, as well as Sheik Ahmad Yassin and other Hamas leaders. Almost all Palestinians, and not only they, are convinced that Yassir Arafat was also murdered. ¶ And the results? The place of Mussawi was filled by Nasrallah, who is far more able. Sheik Yassin was succeeded by far more radical leaders. Instead of Arafat we got Hamas."
Norman Solomon: "Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like 'punch out your lights' as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers."
Jonathan Cook on debating one D. Horowitz: "The best estimates, though no one knows for sure, are that Hizbullah deaths are not yet close to the three-figures range."
William Blum: "In a conflict between a thousand-pound gorilla and a mouse, it's the gorilla which has to make concessions in order for the two sides to progress to the next level."
Foreign Fighters in Lebanon
CTV.ca : "A Canadian-born pilot serving in Israel died Monday after the helicopter he was flying crashed in northern Israel near the Lebanese border."
[h/t: Jon Elmer]
Chronology
Sharat G. Linlays out a timeline of the current crisis, starting with the year leading up to the Hamas election victory.
Scenes from Beirut
George Bisharat: "No one in Beirut believes that Israel's primary objective is to free its captured soldiers. Israel still holds Lebanese prisoners it abducted years ago, and could have negotiated an exchange, as it has done in the past. Indeed, Israel initiated hostage-taking in Lebanon, kidnapping noncombatant Hezbollah leaders in 1989 and 1994. As recently as 2004, Israel and Hezbollah reached an agreement, brokered by Germany, for the exchange of prisoners and the remains of fallen soldiers."
Why Israel is Losing
Ashraf Ismai'l: "The logic of power politics also implies that a no-win situation for Israel is a definite loss, because Israel is the stronger party and thus has the most to lose. In an asymmetric war, the stronger party always has the most to lose, in terms of reputation and in terms of its ability to project its will through the instruments of force."
Update: Reader Steve V points out a more concrete counterpart to the above assessment by BillMon: "The problem is that a cease fire agreement that doesn't result in the complete, verifiable disarming of Hizbollah (which hardly seems likely at this point) would give a truly enormous boost to the group's status and prestige. It would amount to a virtual recognition of Hizbollah as a sovereign entity. (A prisoner swap to retrieve the two Israeli POWs would give it an even bigger boost.) A cease fire deal without disarmament would also leave Israel vulnerable to the group's rockets, if and when a bigger war with Iran and/or Syria breaks out."
Both very worth reading.
10 : 1
Your daily death toll:
At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hizbullah fighters and between 600,000 and 700,000 others have fled their homes.Israel's death toll stands at 36, with 17 people killed by Hizbullah rockets and 19 soldiers killed in the fighting.
Independent
Update: Should have mentioned the obvious, which is that Canada is on the wrong side of this image. I bet a few others are, too.
[via Angry Arab New Service]
At this stage, it is not clear what will happen next.
Angry Arab News service compares 1982 and the present day in terms of Israel's prospects for "victory".
Back then: people just raised the white flags, and some even welcomed the invading Israeli troops, before turning against them in one year, due to your typical savagery of Israeli occupation methods and techniques. Furthermore, Hizbullah seems to have learned from PLO experience: they remained invisible, and thus did not create a thuggish rule that Israel would later exploit in its favor. People of South Lebanon were not looking for a "rescuer" this time around. But they now want a rescuer from Israeli aggression NOW.
Signing Bombs and PR
The Jerusalem Post has a discussion of the photos of Israeli girls signing bombs.
"An official close to Israel's public relations campaign said that there was 'no way' to spin the incident in a positive light. 'Some people are simply irresponsible,' said the official."
Mexico's [Ongoing] Electoral Fiasco
James K Galbraith: Doing maths in Mexico
The thunder from America, citadel of democracy, was overwhelming. Nothing mattered more than to see the vote annulled, a new election held. The subsequent installation of Viktor Yuschenko as President of Ukraine was widely celebrated as a great triumph for democracy.But that, of course, was in another country. Two weeks have now passed since the presidential vote in Mexico, pitting Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the party for a Democratic Revolution (PRD) against Felipe Calderón of the ruling National Action party (PAN). The candidate who trailed, López Obrador, has explicitly charged that the count was cooked. He has challenged the result in court. No final resolution is due before September.
Yet the stalwarts of democracy outside Mexico are silent. Bush has congratulated Calderón, not waiting for the court to rule. Reuters and Bloomberg echo the confidence of the elites that Calderón will win in court - never mind whether he won at the polls.
Significant News: 100+ Iraqis Killed Each Day
Patrick Cockburn: "The number of Iraqi civilians being murdered or killed in the current fighting has been revealed for the first time by the United Nations. It is far higher than previous estimates. More people are dying here - probably more than 100 a day, now maybe 150 - in the escalating sectarian civil war between Shia and Sunni Muslims and the continuing war with US troops than in the bombardment of Lebanon."
A good explanation of dynamics inside Lebanon and Palestine
Asia Times Online: "They are being aggressive with Israel so Israel can respond with similar aggressiveness - killing whatever dreams Arabs peacemakers have in mind. The same formula applies inside Israel, where many do not want room for moderation in Israeli-Arab relations. "
Dyer
Gwynne Dyer: "Can good come from evil? Is it possible that out of the current carnage in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and northern Israel could come a sober recognition on all sides that victory is impossible and that compromise is necessary? It would be nice."
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch has a Q&A about what's allowed under international law. It's a little strange, though, in that it mentions certain facts, and omits any mention of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza or the thousands of Lebanese being held prisoner by Israel.
News from the Front
New York Times: "The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday."
WSWS: "Harman repeated a phrase she has used before, arguing that Israel should use the opportunity to “drain the swamp” in both Lebanon and Gaza. She also referred to the “cancer in the south of Lebanon.” These racist formulations are meant to justify the wholesale slaughter of civilians on the grounds that this is necessary to undermine Hezbollah and Hamas." [Try that replacing 'Lebanon' with 'Israel' and wonder why it sounds more offensive --doj]
Robert Fisk: "Nine days ago, the Israeli army ordered the inhabitants of a neighboring village, Marwaheen, to leave their homes and then fired rockets into one of their evacuation trucks, blasting the women and children inside to their deaths. And this is the same Israeli air force which was praised last week by one of Israel's greatest defenders - Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz - because it 'takes extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties'."
WSWS on Israel and Lebanon
The World Socialist Web Site has some pretty extensive analysis of the situation, with new articles every day.
Letters to the CAW
[The following exchange of letters was sent to the Dominion by CAW member Joe Emersberger, in the hopes that it would stimulate discussion among the CAW membership and beyond --doj]
read more...Beirut Diary part 2: War crimes, a moment of humanity, and Harper's shame
by Spencer Osberg
Special to Shunpiking Online
Halifax native Spencer Osberg is a journalist with the English-language Daily Star of Beirut and a former intern with shunpiking magazine
HAAN, Germany (Friday, 21 July 2006: 17:20:45) - AS I WRITE, the dust from Beirut rubs into the prints of my fingers from the keys of my laptop. I'm in Haan now, near Duesseldorf, Germany.
Whatever I've seen happening in Beirut, the situation in South Lebanon is so much worse, and seems to have garnered little to no attention in international media. I recorded an interview a German-Lebanese man who I met outside the bus in Syria, just over the Northern Lebanese border. We were waiting for our passports, left at the border post on the Lebanese side after our bus convoy fled an Israeli attack on the road a few hundred metres behind us. [I will call him Rami, as he asked me not to use his name as he is afraid of retaliation on his family members who remain in Lebanon. He spoke in German and my girlfriend translated] He'd come to Lebanon two weeks ago to visit his family in the village of El Qlaile, close to the city of Tyre in South Lebanon. He said the first week was great, getting to see everyone again, his mom had just had a heart operation and was recovering, and then the bombing started.
read more...Photos of Demos
The Marxist-Leninist Daily has photos of demonstrations from around the world against the ongoing bombing.
US arming Isreal
Aljazeera: "Citing American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Times said on Saturday that the decision to ship the weapons quickly came after relatively little debate within the White House.
"The report said that the news threatens to anger Arab governments and others who could perceive Washington as aiding Israel in the manner that Iran has armed Hezbollah.
"Some military officers said the request for expedited delivery was unusual and indicated that Israel has many targets it plans to hit in Lebanon."
Video from Lebanon
Live from a Beirut Hotel:
From http://lebanonlive.blogspot.com, Lucie, in the Bekaa Valley.:
From ABC:
Three Photos
A woman looks out a new hole in the side of her home.
Protests in Sydney, Australia.
Israeli tanks prepare to enter Lebanon.
Beirut Diary #1: Israeli actions in Lebanon
by SPENCER OSBERG
Special to Shunpiking Online
Halifax native Spencer Osberg is a journalist with the English-language Daily Star of Beirut and a former intern with shunpiking magazine
BEIRUT (Sunday, 16 July 2006: 06:26:33) - I'M NOT SURE you are reading, hearing and seeing on TV in Canada about what's going on here, but I hope this e-mail report will be informative and help fill out the perspective.
I live in the neighbourhood of Fern el Chabeek, East Beirut, about 5 km from the edge of the southern suburbs of Beirut City. Yesterday (Saturday) Israeli warplanes and warships began sporadic bombardment of the city around 3 p.m., mostly focused on neighbourhoods in the southern suburbs, but also striking bridges and a lighthouse in West Beirut. What this means is that every half hour or so, we would hear a large explosion which would shake us in our chairs and rattle the windows. This gradually increased in frequency to bombs every 10 minutes or so, with periods of continuous bombardment, which lasted until about 5:00 a.m. this morning (Sunday), climaxing for the last two hours with explosions that defy my ability to describe, shattering the air and our eardrums, shaking our apartment building and lighting up the night sky. That's roughly 15 hours of bombing the same area of Beirut.
What must be pointed out is that the Southern Suburbs of Beirut are some of the poorest and most densely packed residential areas in Lebanon. Yes, as the Israelis claim, the offices of Hizbullah are located in these areas, and Hizbullah is the effective local government, but the thousands and thousands of people who live here are anything but "terrorists." They are shopkeepers, students, taxi drivers, mothers, fathers and children. The Israelis dropped leaflets over the city two nights ago warning people to leave, and many did, but many others had nowhere to go.
read more...The whole world watching
While the media is mainly concentrated on the conflict in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, events are taking place in...
Afghanistan: "Nato's provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan were sending out conflicting signals, Gen Richards told a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London. "The situation is close to anarchy," he said, referring in particular to what he called "the lack of unity between different agencies".
Somalia: "Somali Islamist leader has ordered a "holy war" to drive out Ethiopian troops, after they entered the country to protect the weak interim government."
Uganda: "Ugandan government negotiators at peace talks in Sudan have refused to sign a ceasefire agreement with the the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels."
Burundi: "The Forces nationales de libération (FNL), Burundi's remaining active rebel group, has continued to attack civilians even as it continues ceasefire negotiations with the government in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania.
"These attacks have occurred as talks between the FNL, led by Agathon Rwasa, and the government continue in Dar es Salaam, with South African mediation. Another FNL faction, led by Jean Bosco Sindayigaya, announced in January it had suspended hostilities as most of its demands had been met with the democratic elections in August 2005."
North Korea: "Hundreds are dead or missing in North Korea after days of heavy rain, according to state media.
"Torrential rain has swept through the Korean Peninsula in recent days, causing flooding and landslides both sides of the border."
Luckily, there seems to be some good news in Latin America, and for China's environment.
Ancient History
Alexander Cockburn: Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel
Memory is supposed to stop in its tracks at June 28, 2006.Let's go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I'm talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we're really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32.
That's just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Israel, Racism, and the Canadian Media
Dan Freeman-Maloy: "The Palestinian operation, according to most Canadian media, was unprovoked -- it could not have been provoked by the Israeli attacks leading up to the operation, though in June alone these had already killed 49 Palestinians. Nor could it have been provoked by the imprisonment of 359 Palestinian children, 105 Palestinian female adults and another 9000 Arab males (mostly Palestinians) in Israeli jails, or by the mass starvation of Gaza. As a June 30 editorial in the Globe and Mail put it, 'the onus for resolving the confrontation lies with Hamas,' and while Palestinians must quietly endure tank shelling, air strikes and starvation, 'Israel is within its right to respond to terrorism and violence.'"
Gaza
(From Day to Day: Life in Occupied Palestine, a photo essay by Jon Elmer)
New York Times: "The Israeli Defense Forces continued their assault on the cluster of cinderblock homes that make up the Mughazi refugee camp near the border with Israel. By day's end, 4 Palestinians had been killed by tank fire and 3 had died of wounds sustained Wednesday, bringing the death toll from two days of fighting to 16. Two were under age 18, said Assad Rayan, an administrator at Al Aksa Hospital in Deir al Balah."
B'Tselem: "B'Tselem's initial investigation indicates that, during an incursion by Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 17 July 2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used residents as human shield."
UPI: "More than 100 civilians were killed in Gaza in June, the United Nations reports, many following the Israeli offensive that began after the June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier. Three days later, an Israeli assault destroyed Gaza's only power plant. More than a million residents are still without electricity for large chunks of the day and night. Qassam rocket attacks into Israel have continued, though, for the last month, without any casualties, the United Nations says."
WSWS: "To date, 70 percent of Palestinian deaths have been in the north around Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. Beit Hanoun was occupied on Sunday until Israeli troops withdrew Tuesday, after which it was subjected to renewed bombardment. On July 19, the IDF made a major incursion into parts of central Gaza, taking over buildings and bulldozing farmland."
Fisk on Beirut
Robert Fisk: A farewell to Beirut
How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I've watched this place die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they look like Irish lace, its people massacring each other.I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses.
Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.
500,000 Lebanese displaced
Juan Cole has many updates and timely analysis.
The Tyee has a reading list.
Daily Star: "Rubble, smoke and tangled webs of dangling electrical cables now reside in an area that formerly housed over 500,000 Lebanese, the aftermath of Israeli air strikes that have ravaged Beirut's southern suburbs and show no sign of ending."
Chicago Tribune: "Fears mounted Thursday that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in southern Lebanon as Israel sustained its intense bombardment of the area and U.S. Marines landed on the beaches near Beirut to help speed the evacuation of Americans from the war-zone."
Daily Star: "three Israeli bombs fell on the southern suburbs of the capital and additional ordnance hit the northern city of Baalbek, leaving both areas ablaze. No casualty count was available."
Daily Star: "'Our losses will probably be close to $1 billion in lost revenues if the fighting continued for a long time,' Paul Ariss, the president of the restaurant owners association, told The Daily Star."
To Lebanon with...
Israeli girls writing messages on artillery shells near Lebanon. AP photo.
40 million US evangelicals support Israel?
BBC: "John Hagee is the pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and a long-time fervent supporter of Israel. In common with many American evangelicals, he believes that God gave the land to the Jewish people and that Christians have a Biblical duty to support it and the Jews."
War Crimes
BBC: War crimes could have been committed in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, a senior UN official has said.
Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians... Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable.
Time Magazine, August 14, 1982
[via Angry Arab News Service]
Lebanon and Israel: Analysis at a glance
Graham Usher in Al Ahram: "It is all eerily similar to the hubris that accompanied the first weeks of Israel's 1982 invasion. Then too there were predictions that the PLO would be vanquished 'within a week.' The PLO fought for over 100 days. Hizbullah is an indigenous movement, with a solid Shia constituency which views it as their only protector. The idea that Hizbullah can somehow be 'removed from Lebanon' is an Israeli fantasy."
Lucy Fielder in Al-Ahram: "With its carefully planned capture of two Israeli soldiers, Hizbullah sought an escalation that would prove what it sees as the logic of force, says Amal Saad-Ghoreyeb, a professor of politics at the Lebanese American University. It seeks to show once and for all that Israel remains Lebanon's enemy and that the state is powerless to protect the long-suffering Shia of the south, in particular. Israel's actions play into their hands. 'This disproportionate response to a military strike will simply show that Israel remains a serious threat and will seize any opportunity to attack Lebanese territory,' she said."
Omayma Abdel-Latif in Al-Ahram: "'Hizbullah will not disappear anytime soon, despite the Israeli decision to terminate it. But unless a major achievement is made, it is likely that it will be weakened,' according to Harb. 'Some in the Lebanese government would want to use any future ceasefire or truce in order to settle scores with Hizbullah and finish it off. But as long as the Israeli bombing continues, anti-Hizbullah voices will remain hushed,' he added."
Rasha Saad in Al-Ahram: "According to Israeli press reports, the Israeli navy was surprised by the existence of such missiles in the Hizbullah arsenal and failed to counter the attack. Israeli sources also claim that as a result of the Israeli army's intensifying operations in Lebanon, Tehran ordered most of its people operating in Lebanon to leave. Some advisers, all members of the Revolutionary Guard, remain. These are mainly responsible for instruction in the use of long-range rockets, the operation of Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles and also in planning and combat operations training. For its part, Iran totally rejects accusations of any involvement in the Hizbullah operation. 'There are no [Iranian] guards there. Shipment of [Iranian] missiles to Hizbullah is also not correct,' Asefi said."
Arab News: "An Israeli Army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. 'There is a possibility -- all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open,' Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli Army spokesman said."
Arab News Editorial: "Israel's systematic destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure has completely disrupted normal life in the south of the country, as it was supposed to do. Devastated roads and communications mean the free movement of goods and people has come to a halt. Shop shelves have emptied rapidly, power and water supplies have been disrupted and hundreds of thousands of people are facing a humanitarian disaster of massive proportions."
My friend is a refugee
Comment: "It really saddens me, the number of people who seem to feel that, with barely a year to make a start, the Lebanese should somehow have managed to totally neutralize Hezbollah. Sure, if they'd had 5 years or more free of Syria to work on it -- that would be another story. But this fast? What kind of miracle workers do these guys think live in Lebanon?"
Letter from Beirut
"Rasha": "Although I am unable to see it, I am told left, right and center that there is a rhyme and reason, grand design, and strategy. The short-term military strategy seems to be to cripple transport and communications. And power stations. The southern region has now been reconfigured into small enclaves that cannot communicate between one another. Most have enough fuel, food and supplies to last them until tomorrow, but after that the isolation of each enclave will lead to tragedy. Mayors and governors have been screaming for help on the TV."
So what is Israel doing?
Billmon: "it is clear to me that the Israelis, through their own actions (plus some help from their clueless allies in the Cheney administration) have put themselves in trap they can't escape. They've reached a strategic dead end, one that doesn't even leave them enough maneuvering room to turn and go back. A return to the pre-Oslo status quo -- full military reoccupation of the territories -- is out of the question. The peace process (a pointless squirrel wheel, but one that at least kept the squirrels, both Palestinian and Israeli, busy going through their paces) is dead. The Palestinian Authority is shattered; Fatah's legitimacy and President Abbas's credibility flushed down the toilet. And Hamas -- the only viable alternative -- has been officially defined as Public Enemy Number One by the Israelis, the Americans and the Europeans."
Zerb on Media Coverage of Lebanon
Antonia Zerbisias: "Dismembered and scorched kids litter the landscape and the Globe and Mail runs a five-colour front page photo of Laureen Teskey Harper weeping over her great uncle's grave at Bralin while husband Prime Minister Stephen Harper tries to comfort her. No doubt she felt real sadness but the photo was as manufactured a photo opp as ever there was."
Tadamon! Coverage from Lebanon
Montreal's Tadamon! (Arabic for "solidarity!") is a recently-initiated Canada-Lebanon solidarity organization. Having just sent a delegation from Montreal to Beirut, they've found themselves in the thick of things.
Independent journalist Stefan Christoff has reports in the Mirror and was interview for a story in the Hour.
Russia is Back
Asia Times: "Today we not only have the means to defend ourselves but also - and this is far more important - something to defend. To an increasing degree, we are beginning to understand that Russia can only be a sovereign democracy; otherwise, we will be left with neither democracy nor Russia." [Quoting Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov]
Journalism vs. Propaganda revisited
Ha'aretz: "A group of Israeli journalists on Thursday renounced their membership in the International Federation of Journalists, after the organization's General Secretary refused to retract his condemnation of the Israel Defense Forces' bombing of the Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station in Beirut."
How Israelis Can Say: Enough
The current war, then, not only cannot provide a real answer to Israel's problems, but also is being carried out by the same echelon of officers that was defeated in Lebanon, and with whom the accounts for that war have yet to be settled. Books were written, a protest movement arose, an investigative commission about one massacre was conducted, a defense minister who eventually became prime minister was convicted... another generation of impassioned youngsters is growing up around us and screaming over the Internet: "Stick it to them." Afterward, as they sit in the burning vehicles, perhaps in Syria, and the phrase "land mine" returns to the erased dictionary of the past, when they cry out "We want to go home," they won't have the sense to bequeath the recoiling from war to the next generation. That's because on television there still will be the same generals, with the same conception, with the same short and limited range of strategic understanding, and they will win the same enthusiasm from the public that just wants to "stick it to them."
Buckets of Wells
Two lines from Paul Wells:
"Jack Layton's NDP has so far shown little ability to capitalize on Liberal weakness. And the resentment of leftish voters who think he caused Liberal weakness is Layton's biggest problem." [original emphasis]
"Conservatism opens itself to ridicule when it becomes false nostalgia in pursuit of a world that never existed. A prime minister exposes himself to trouble when he treats every file the way Zinedine Zidane treated one opponent."
Nash and Zizou
Anti-war commie and NBA MVP Steve Nash has publicly supported Zidane.
Lebanon, Israel: More perspective
"Militarism and occupation cannot extinguish the force of Islamic nationalism. Billions in American tax dollars are funding the Israeli troops and bombs."
Tom Hayden remembers being there the last time Israel invaded Lebanon.
"The stakes in the Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas war are significantly higher than most observers understand. If Hezbollah and Hamas win—and winning just means surviving, given that Israel’s objective is to destroy both entities—a powerful state will have suffered a new kind of defeat... The balance between states and 'fourth generation warfare' forces will be altered world-wide, and not to a trivial degree."
So says conservative William S. Lind.
Clerks II. So scabrous right now.
Some excerpts of reviews of Clerks II:
Justin Chang, Variety.com:
"If Clerks II doesn't have quite the scabrous kick of its predecessor, the chance to revisit a classic premise must have renewed the writer in Smith, whose banter here often achieves a sharpness and quality."
Damon Wise, Empire
"A tender, scabrous and very, very funny comedy that picks up 12 years after the original."
Emanuel Levy:
"What was scabrously funny and charmingly amateurish in the 1994 black-and-white Clerks is now less so on every level in the color bigger-budgeted sequel, an almost unnecessary follow-up to a zeitgeist film that was a personal and aesthetic manifesto."
W, as they say, TF?
Lebanon Snapshots
"We are Sunni. We are not with Hezbollah. But now they are martyrs for this country. God will bless them. The U.S. only has to say stop and Israel would end this war. It's not about Hezbollah. What Israel is doing is shameful."
Rabble has snapshot interviews with people in Lebanon.
When you drink Soy Milk...
Paraguayan farmers aren't happy about the growth of the soy industry, or at least not with the way it's growing: by taking their land.
Paraguay is the fourth-largest producer of soy in the world. As this industry has expanded, an estimated 90,000 poor families have been forced off their land. Campesinos have organized protests, road blockades and land occupations against displacement and have faced subsequent repression from military and paramilitary forces. According to Grupo de Reflexion Rural (GRR), an Argentina-based organization that documents violence against farmers, on June 24, 2005, in Tekojoja, Paraguay, hired policemen and soy producers kicked 270 people off their land, burned down fifty-four homes, arrested 130 people and killed two.
Kim Jong-Il's take?
Kim Myong-chol, apparently an "unofficial" spokesperson for the North Korean government, lays out their case for Pyongyang's missile tests in Asia Times.
The North Korean situation always strikes me as a bit strange, possibly because you never hear some of the most obvious points:
1. North Korean nukes are useless to North Korea, except as a deterent against invasion. If they were to use them, the entire country would be instantly vapourized by the US. It's called mutually assured destruction, and the concept has been around for a long time, though in this case the destruction of one side would be more assured than the other. What it does do is give them a way to prevent a US invasion and force the US to negotiate.
2. What do the North Koreans want? Above all else, the ability to do their thing within their borders, and outside of their borders without intervention from the US. As Myong-chol puts it, "live and let live". A non-aggression pact.
On the power side, the US's use it or lose it approach to global power means that it has to maintain its prerogative of intervening in states that aren't, in the word of one analyst, "responsive" enough to its needs.
On the public rhetoric side, North Korea's human rights record makes this a difficult conceit for folks in the west from across the political spectrum. Anyone casual observer of US foreign policy will know that this consideration has nothing to do with it.
However, I would tentative add:
3. The single most significant moral justification for the Stalinist unity in North Korea is the (real, omnipresent) threat of US military intervention. Remove that, and two things happen: the legitimacy of authoritarianism will begin to erode (though I'd imagine it would take a long time) and so would the legitimacy of the US's ability to dictate who is and isn't a legitimately sovereign nation.
It's for that second reason that the US will never sign a non-aggression pact with North Korea, unless of course Kim Jong Il's "brinksmanship" is as good as Mr. Myong-chol believes it is.
The other possible result is the success of US policy, the most likely result of which will be a "successful" invasion like that in Iraq. However, it will be much harder to carry out and many more people will likely be killed before a US puppet regime can be installed.
Wikipedia has some interesting reading on North Korea's relations with the "international community".
Documented Fraud in the Mexican Election
Narc News: "Video, audio and photographic evidence of election fraud surges daily. It is the dominant news story in Mexico. Obrador released a similar video of election officials in PAN-controlled Querétaro changing the vote tallies to create more votes for its candidate. The PAN does not deny the facts. It simply claims that those cases amounted to normal, allowed, functions by election officials. The public temper rises with every such justification."
The article goes on to detail Bush's backpedalling with regard to his official recognition of Calderón as the winner. Now that it looks like Mexico will implode unless they actually count the votes and account for all the ballot-box-stuffing that has been caught on film, it seems more and more likely that it will turn out, officially and in actuality, that López Obrador actually got more votes.
Are Canadian journalists going to ask Harper similar questions? Given that they never reported that he recognized Calderón in the first place, the odds aren't great.
Your media analysis exercise for the day
1. Pick up a copy of today's Globe and Mail
2. Try to find where, in the 11 articles on the situation in Lebanon, it is mentioned how many civilians have been killed (currently estimated at over 200) in the bombings to date.
I can't say that I've read all of the articles closely yet, but the closest thing I've seen so far to a figure is a mention, in the 15th paragraph of a story on page A11, that 10 civilians were killed yesterday while the bridge they were driving over was bombed.
The subject of the article? The evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon.
Antiwar in Israel
WSWS: "Despite a barrage of pro-war propaganda in the Israeli media, however, visible opposition has begun to appear. Some 2,000 people marched in Israel's commercial capital of Tel Aviv on Sunday to demand prisoner exchange negotiations with the Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and an end to the offensive against Lebanon."
One-sided Analysis
Tanya Reinbart: "Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army's war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government."
Ramzy Baroud: "The capture of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit is an act of self-defense. According to international law and the Geneva Conventions, he can be considered a prisoner of war, but not according to CNN, Fox News and the increasingly spineless BBC, which presents the soldier as a victim, who was 'kidnapped' by Palestinian 'militants' who are 'affiliated' with the Hamas government."
Former CIA analyst Kathleen Christison: "A government that imprisons a 15-year-old girl -- one of several hundred children in Israeli detention -- for the crime of pushing and running away from a male soldier trying to do a body search as she entered a mosque is not a government with any moral bearings. (This story, not the kind that ever appears in the U.S. media, was reported in the London Sunday Times. The girl was shot three times as she ran away and was convicted to 18 months in prison after she came out of a coma.)"
What he said: Lerner on Israel in Gaza and Lebanon
Rabbi Michael Lerner: "The people of the Middle East are suffering again as militarists on all sides, and cheerleading journalists, send forth missiles, bombs and endless words of self-justification for yet another pointless round of violence between Israel and her neighbors. For those of us who care deeply about human suffering, this most recent episode in irrationality evokes tears of sadness, incredulity at the lack of empathy on all sides, anger at how little anyone seems to have learned from the past, and moments of despair as we once again see the religious and democratic ideals subordinated to the cynical realism of militarism."
Harper in Lebanon
Canadian Press: "Harper... offered his condolences to the families of seven Canadians killed in an Israeli bombing raid in Lebanon, but said he was not going to be critical of Israel for defending itself."
Wow.
Really, wow.
More: Angry Arab News Service has photos, and From Beirut to the Beltway, which I'm told is usually pretty "pro-West" is also covering the situation. Thanks to Kamal for the links.
Also check B'Tselem, the "Israeli information centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories".
Death toll as of Monday morning:
- Israel: 4 dead, "about 300" wounded
- Lebanon: "at least 117" dead, "about 300 wounded"
We know from the past few years that for the purposes of proportionality, one Israeli life is worth roughly four Palestinian lives. That said, one Israeli prisoner of war appears to be worth even more than tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian counterparts. In fact, an Israeli prisoner seems to be worth starting a war.
What the CBC ain't saying
A handful of countries are responding to the Isreal/Gaza/Lebanon situation with a little more insight and caution than Canada as this Norwegian paper suggests.
According to the paper "To punish Lebanon for that means that they haven't understood Lebanon's situation," Støre told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). "It's not the state of Lebanon that's behind (the abductions).
"Both France and Russia have already condemned Israel's bombing of Lebanon, while the US is urging Israel to show restraint."
Harper, meanwhile, refuses to offer any criticism, making him the world leader who is currently the most unconditionally supportive of Israel's bombing campaign.
The Madcap Laughs
It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm much obliged to you for making it clear
That I'm not here.
And I never knew we could be so thick
And I never knew we could be so blue
And I'm grateful that you threw away my old shoes
And brought me here instead dressed in red
And I'm wondering who could be writing this song.
I don't care if the sun don't shine
And I don't care if nothing is mine
And I don't care if I'm nervous with you
I'll do my loving in the winter.
And the sea isn't green
And I love the queen
And what exactly is a dream
And what exactly is a joke.
Syd Barrett (1946-2006)
"Ex Gratia" for Afghanistan
The Canadian Press ran a story the other day about how Afghanis (or of the families of Afghanis) who are injured, killed or have property damaged by Canadian forces have no legal recourse for compensation.
Instead, they are limited to "ex gratia" payments, which are doled out by the Canadian government based on "moral considerations" (among which rule of law apparently doesn't have a place).
Pragmatists will argue that it is impossible to conduct a war in which one is expected to pay for the damage one inflicts on civilians.
Quite right.
Mexico's Electoral Fiasco
John Ross: Anatomy of a Fraud Foretold
The Politics of Zidane
Dave Zirin: Why I Wear My Zidane Jersey
Counterpunch Twofer
Happy, uh, Dominion Day!
Two good ones from CP. CounterPunch, that is.
Alex Cockburn discusses how Gates, Buffet et alia < a href="http://counterpunch.org/cockburn07032006.html">could better aid the third world with their billions.
Julia Olmstead talks about the promise of using biofuel to replace foreign oil, and how it would require using "nearly double the amount of land" currently used for crops in the US, and plant it all in corn.