STOP the ATTACK on Lebanon! Articles 4 of 4-"Yo, Blair!"

MASS RALLY Against the attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, calling for an immediate HALT.
Sat. Aug.12, 06 1 PM at the Israeli Consulate, 180 Bloor St. West Toronto (W. of Avenue Rd., N. of Bloor)
http://www.nowar.ca
Email Canadian PM Harper at: pm@pm.gc.ca


'Yo, Blair!':
Transcript of actual conversation follows article.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1183389.ece

18 July 2006 13:21
Home > News > World > World Politics

'Private' chat heard by world caps disastrous G8 summit for Blair
By Andy McSmith in St Petersburg and Stephen Castle in Brussels
Published: 18 July 2006

Capping a miserable G8 summit for Tony Blair, President George Bush has spurned an offer from the Prime Minister to go to the Middle East as a peacemaker, after deciding that he would rather send the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
The snub was revealed in a private conversation that was accidentally broadcast yesterday. It is the latest in a series of frustrating setbacks that bedevilled Mr Blair, as he spent the weekend trying to reprise the role of world statesman that he played successfully at the Gleneagles G8 meeting last year.
This year's gathering in St Petersburg, which ended yesterday, has seen Mr Blair struggling to make any headway on the two issues, climate change and world trade, that he wanted to push to the forefront of the agenda.
The Prime Minister has also thrown his personal authority behind a proposal to send an enlarged UN force into Lebanon, but yesterday he confessed that it was an "open question"as to whether it will ever happen, with other powerful nations clearly sceptical about the idea.
His unguarded chat with the US President provided a unique insight into the relationship between the two men, from George Bush's opening line - "Yo, Blair. How are you doing?" to his use of a mild expletive to describe the morass in the Lebanon.
They were talking before the start of yesterday's working lunch in St Petersburg's Konstantinovsky Palace, unaware that they were being overheard halfway round the world by a technician who was up early monitoring a live feed for an American TV station. By the time Mr Blair spotted the live microphone, the two leaders had unwittingly shared their private thoughts with the outside world - and revealed who is the boss.
A transcript of their conversation, compiled by Sky News, showed how Mr Bush simply blanked out the Prime Minister's suggestion that he visit the Middle East, telling him: "I think Condi is going to go pretty soon."
Mr Blair tried again, suggesting that the Americans could not afford to have their Secretary of State go into the region and come away empty handed, whereas, he said, "I can go out and just talk." At his press conference later, Mr Blair confirmed that the trip was off.
Mr Bush also revealed his frustration at other governments for not leaning heavily enough on the Syrians, which both leaders suspect of being able to control Hizbollah. "What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit," he remarked.
The rebuff by Mr Bush in this manner was one of several frustrating experiences for Mr Blair during the three-day summit.
Climate change, which Mr Blair sees as the most important long-term problem facing the planet, was mentioned only in passing in a summit dominated by the Middle East crisis and by two powers - the US and Russia - with vast energy-producing interests that they want to protect. But when the Prime Minister reports back to the Commons today, he is expected to emphasise that every head of government in St Petersburg acknowledged that climate change needed to be addressed.
His mild expression of concern about civil rights in Russia was brushed off twice by President Vladimir Putin. First, with a joke at the Prime Minister's expense about the recent arrest of his friend, Lord Levy. Then later with an attack on the UK Government for failing to extradite a Chechen rebel, Akhmed Zakayev, whom the Russians want to put on trial for alleged terrorist offences.
Until yesterday's working lunch, Mr Blair also feared that his efforts to revive talks on a world trade deal had reached a dead end. In his private conversation with George Bush, he is heard saying "maybe it's impossible". But at his press conference later, he said his hopes of success had been restored by the lunchtime discussion, chaired by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which all the protagonists seemed to agree that it was necessary to compromise.
But Mr Blair still risks being humiliated over his call for a peacekeeping force that would go into Lebanon after a ceasefire has been achieved. Mr Blair wants a multinational force much larger than the present contingent of 2,000 Ghanaian and Indian troops on the Lebanon-Israel border. But his hand is weakened by his reluctance to send in any British troops. European foreign ministers backed the principle of an international force, though no clear plan for a mission has yet been tabled.

Squish Your Head!

With apologies and thanks to "Kids in the Hall' for inspiration!

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1183388.ece

18 July 2006 13:15
Home > News > World > World Politics

'Yo, Blair!': Overheard at the G8
Published: 18 July 2006

Bush: Yo, Blair. How are you doing? (Does he regard Mr Blair as an equal? What about 'Yo, Tony'?)
Blair: I'm just...
Bush: You're leaving?
Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy....(inaudible) (Mr Blair is getting anxious that the World Trade Organisation is falling apart because some nations, including the US, are putting domestic interests before a worldwide free trade agreement)
Bush: Yeah, I told that to the man.
Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush: If you want me to.
Blair: Well, it's just that if the discussion arises...
Bush: I just want some movement.
Blair: Yeah.
Bush: Yesterday we didn't see much movement.
Blair: No, no, it may be that it's not, it may be that it's impossible.
Bush: I am prepared to say it.
Blair: But it's just I think what we need to be an opposition...
Bush: Who is introducing the trade?
Blair: Angela (The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, will lead the trade discussion. That is good for Mr Blair. She is on his side.)
Bush: Tell her to call 'em.
Blair: Yes.
Bush: Tell her to put him on, them on the spot. Thanks for the sweater it's awfully thoughtful of you.
Blair: It's a pleasure.
Bush: I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair: Oh, absolutely, in fact (inaudible)
Bush: What about Kofi? (inaudible) His attitude to ceasefire and everything else ... happens. (Change of subject. Now they are on to Lebanon and the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan)
Blair: Yeah, no I think the (inaudible) is really difficult. We can't stop this unless you get this international business agreed.
Bush: Yeah. (Mr Blair is trying to push the idea of a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. That 'yeah' does not sound like a wholehearted agreement)
Blair: I don't know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral. (Meaning: 'Please, George, let me go to the Middle East and be a world statesman')
Bush: I think Condi is going to go pretty soon. (Meaning: 'No')
Blair: But that's, that's, that's all that matters. But if you... you see it will take some time to get that together. (Meaning: 'Oh well, all right, if you don't want me to. Just a thought')
Bush: Yeah, yeah.
Blair: But at least it gives people...
Bush: It's a process, I agree. I told her your offer to... (Meaning: 'Drop it. You're not going.')
Blair: Well... it's only if I mean... you know. If she's got a..., or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over. (Mr Bush is expressing his belief that Syria is pulling Hizbollah's strings, while Mr Blair is hinting the Syrians might be up to no good as well)
Blair: (inaudible)
Bush: (inaudible)
Blair: Syria.
Bush: Why?
Blair: Because I think this is all part of the same thing.
Bush: Yeah.
Blair: What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way... (Here they might be talking about Kofi Annan, or they may mean the Syrian President, Bashir Assad)
Bush: Yeah, yeah, he is sweet. (Mr Bush is probably being sarcastic)
Blair: He is honey. And that's what the whole thing is about. It's the same with Iraq.
Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Blair: Yeah.
Bush: (inaudible)
Blair:(inaudible)
Bush: We are not blaming the Lebanese government.
Blair: Is this...? (at this point Blair taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.)
Bush: Yo, Blair. How are you doing? (Does he regard Mr Blair as an equal? What about 'Yo, Tony'?)
Blair: I'm just...
Bush: You're leaving?
Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy....(inaudible) (Mr Blair is getting anxious that the World Trade Organisation is falling apart because some nations, including the US, are putting domestic interests before a worldwide free trade agreement)
Bush: Yeah, I told that to the man.
Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush: If you want me to.
Blair: Well, it's just that if the discussion arises...
Bush: I just want some movement.
Blair: Yeah.
Bush: Yesterday we didn't see much movement.
Blair: No, no, it may be that it's not, it may be that it's impossible.
Bush: I am prepared to say it.
Blair: But it's just I think what we need to be an opposition...
Bush: Who is introducing the trade?
Blair: Angela (The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, will lead the trade discussion. That is good for Mr Blair. She is on his side.)
Bush: Tell her to call 'em.
Blair: Yes.
Bush: Tell her to put him on, them on the spot. Thanks for the sweater it's awfully thoughtful of you.
Blair: It's a pleasure.
Bush: I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair: Oh, absolutely, in fact (inaudible)
Bush: What about Kofi? (inaudible) His attitude to ceasefire and everything else ... happens. (Change of subject. Now they are on to Lebanon and the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan)
Blair: Yeah, no I think the (inaudible) is really difficult. We can't stop this unless you get this international business agreed.
Bush: Yeah. (Mr Blair is trying to push the idea of a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. That 'yeah' does not sound like a wholehearted agreement)
Blair: I don't know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral. (Meaning: 'Please, George, let me go to the Middle East and be a world statesman')
Bush: I think Condi is going to go pretty soon. (Meaning: 'No')
Blair: But that's, that's, that's all that matters. But if you... you see it will take some time to get that together. (Meaning: 'Oh well, all right, if you don't want me to. Just a thought')
Bush: Yeah, yeah.
Blair: But at least it gives people...
Bush: It's a process, I agree. I told her your offer to... (Meaning: 'Drop it. You're not going.')
Blair: Well... it's only if I mean... you know. If she's got a..., or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over. (Mr Bush is expressing his belief that Syria is pulling Hizbollah's strings, while Mr Blair is hinting the Syrians might be up to no good as well)
Blair: (inaudible)
Bush: (inaudible)
Blair: Syria.
Bush: Why?
Blair: Because I think this is all part of the same thing.
Bush: Yeah.
Blair: What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way... (Here they might be talking about Kofi Annan, or they may mean the Syrian President, Bashir Assad)
Bush: Yeah, yeah, he is sweet. (Mr Bush is probably being sarcastic)
Blair: He is honey. And that's what the whole thing is about. It's the same with Iraq.
Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Blair: Yeah.
Bush: (inaudible)
Blair:(inaudible)
Bush: We are not blaming the Lebanese government.
Blair: Is this...? (at this point Blair taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.)

Moron Poster #1 at Rally (according to Indyfoto), originally uploaded by indyfoto.

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STOP WAR INDYFOTO Set

The spOILz of WAR - Blair Profits Exxon, originally uploaded by indyfoto.

WHO's PAYING- WHO's PROFITING?
One Canadian, Ali Mallah, Vice-president of Canadian Arab Federation, has a very personal investment in his desire to see an immediate halt to the bombing in Lebanon- his wife and 2 children, ages 9 and 11, are there visiting family and are now in immediate danger in the South of Lebanon- the area worst hit in the Israeli bombings, and now completely cut off from humanitarian aid and supplies. The children are being brave, and said that they don't want to abandon their grandmother and cousins. Many foreign nationals are remaining for similar reasons.
CNN news reported that the cost of evacuating one American family, only to Cyprus, was $4000.- which the US government CHARGED to the FAMILY's credit card. I wonder if the American families WITH funds are getting out first... and if this has any bearing on the number of people choosing to take the much more dangerous overland route to neighbouring countries. America, one of the richest countries in the world, is the only one I've heard of so far which is putting the cost of the evacuation on the victims' shoulders.
Not that the US doesn't have money to burn...
David Clark, a former UK Labour special adviser at the Foreign Office, wrote in this week's Guardian, "Yet the US remains entirely
complicit in its role as Israel's main strategic ally. In the midst of last
week's onslaught, in which Israeli bombers killed dozens of Lebanese civilians, the Pentagon announced the export of $210m of aviation fuel to help Israel "keep peace and security in the region". Even Britain and other European countries indulge in a form of diplomatic misdirection by focusing one-sidedly on the roles played by Syria and Iran. " Some Lebanese are perplexed by the targeting of their country- after all, they don't have any oil, unlike some of their richer neighbours. The oil companies, however, are reporting record profits, caused by the panic over oil supplies possibly being disrupted, which in turn leads to greater costs for consumers at the pump. Our governments, which add a hefty tax to the already inflated prices, therefore also profit from the mayhem this war is causing. And in the end, unfortunate Lebanon will have to take out loans at high interest rates to pay for the reconstruction of their country, profiting the organizations that will do the lending. No wonder they're all taking their time to resolve this.

I think that Lebanon's government, and the refugees forced to flee their shores, should consider sending ALL of the BILLS to Israel, to be in turn paid by their "special friend", I expect. It's only fair.

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STOP the ATTACK on Lebanon! Articles 3- What British Jews think of Israel

I am Ashamed of the Actions of My Fellow Jews, originally uploaded by indyfoto.

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STOP WAR INDYFOTO Set

18 July 2006 Home > News > UK > This Britain
What British Jews think of Israel
For Britain's 267,000 Jews, liberal by instinct and socially progressive, Israel represents their greatest hope and, at times, their deepest shame. The nation that was forged in the aftermath of the Holocaust was once regarded as a bold experiment in democracy and collective living. Now it stands accused of the same acts of terror with which it condemns its enemies. Linda Grant asks the children of the Diaspora how they see the Promised Land
Published: 18 July 2006

At the end of last week, already deep into the military and political crisis that had suddenly taken hold of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, Lynne Sidkin waited anxiously for news of her 16-year-old son Sam. The previous weekend she had driven him from their family home in Wimbledon to a synagogue car-park in Stanmore to join an excited group of Jewish teenagers who were about to set off for a month in Israel.
A few days later, after a missile hit a hillside in Haifa, Sidkin received a text from the tour organisers, the Federation of Zionist Youth, saying that the kids were all fine and that they would ring later. Matter-of-factly, Sam told her that the place they were supposed to visit the next day had been bombed, so the itinerary was changing and they would be going elsewhere.
"They seemed detached from it, in a way," Sidkin says. "On Sunday night, when we dropped him off, emotions were running high, but there were no tears. The people in Israel can't run away from it and these children are there for a month. I'm anxious, but I'm not going to get on a plane to bring him back."
It seemed strange to me that Sam, an adored only child, long waited for, born of IVF treatment, would be sent off by his parents into the middle of a terrifying crisis at the heart of the Middle East at a time British tourists were being evacuated from Beirut at the prospect of all-out war between Israel and Hizbollah. But a summer in Israel has become a rite of passage for Jewish teenagers; throughout wars, intifada, peace processes and their breaking down, a steady stream have continued to arrive, the numbers fluctuating according to the political situation. This year, before the deteriorating military situation, participation was at an all-time high, with more than 1,300 British teenagers booked to take part - over 50 per cent of all Britain's Jewish 16-year-olds. Some went with the Orthodox youth group Bnei Akiva, some with Habonim, the socialist Jewish scouts (whose most famous alumnus is Sacha Baron Cohen), some with Netzer, the Reform synagogue youth wing, some with the Federation of Zionist Youth.
The Sidkins did not send Sam to Israel for a dose of Zionist indoctrination, but because they subscribe to a widespread view in the Jewish community that, as part of a small and rapidly assimilating ethnic minority in the UK, Jewishness can be reinforced by sending your children to the one place where Jews are everywhere. "Here in south London, Sam is mixing with very different people," Sidkin says. "He's very Anglicised, and one of his best friends is Muslim. This summer, he's going to be with people who feel more strongly about Israel than he does - and we want him to find out about his history. We want him to feel proud of being Jewish and his roots, because that's what I find is important in my own life."
When I asked her where she stood on the political spectrum regarding Israel, and what she thought of the recent events in Gaza and Lebanon, Sidkin replied: "I'm not heavily into politics. I watch the news but I don't have very strong views. You'd have to talk to my husband, but he isn't here at the moment."
As Sam passes through Israel, visiting a Druze [one of Israel's non-Jewish ethnic minorities] village last week, and helping to prepare Ethiopian children for their bar and bat mitzvahs, the British media is on fire with angry opinion and rhetoric, and the rights and wrongs of the escalating crisis have provoked a ferocious expression of opposing viewpoints inside the Jewish community itself. Ten days ago, it took only 48 hours for the organisation Jews for Justice for Palestinians to collect the names of 300 British Jews, including Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh and Gillian Slovo, together with small donations worth £10,000 to pay for a full-page advertisement in The Times condemning Israel's bombing of the power station in Gaza that has deprived the civilian population of water, food and dialysis machines, and which has led some to make comparisons with conditions in the Warsaw ghetto.
Others, while sharing the horror at the fate of the Gazans, are discomforted by the advertisement. Why The Times, asked the columnist Jonathan Freedland, instead of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz? A debate is underway in which one side argues that speaking out against Israel is necessary to avoid the growth of anti-Semitism, while others counter that there can be no excuses for racism.
Reform Rabbi Tony Bayfield, writing in The Guardian, described a deepening dilemma for many British Jews, torn between dismay and despair at Israel's actions and anger at the response to them in the British media. "As I listen to the news, with its details of Israel's return to Gaza, I cringe," he wrote. "I cringe at the continuing involvement of Israeli Jews in the suffering of Palestinians. I cringe because I can't believe that it will advance the cause of peace. I cringe at the seeming hopelessness of it all. But I also become incandescent at the sanctimonious advice and the hypocritical disavowal of any responsibility that is so prevalent in this country and even in certain quarters of the Church."
There is a perception among the general public that most, if not all, Jews support Israel or are not prepared to criticise it in public. Some critics detect a seamless link between US policy, American Jewish lobby groups and political opinion in Golders Green.
Responding to criticism that the Board of Deputies of British Jews should have spoken out against Israeli policy, Jon Benjamin, its chief executive, argues: "We are speaking on behalf of the British Jewish community to the extent that the way Israel is reported in the media impacts on us. I have nothing to say about the attacks on Gaza, but if we saw any upsurge of anti-Semitic attacks because of the way that story had broken, doubtless we would have something to say about that."
Privately, figures in what is known as the Jewish "establishment" have been aghast at right-wing American support for Israel and the campaigns of bombarding dissenting journalists with abusive e-mails. "If you want to characterise British Jewry, as opposed to the American Jewish community," sources say, "it has tended to support those Israeli governments that have made moves towards peace. The natural inclination here is to vote Tory in Britain and support Labour governments in Israel. People know where they want to get to. The South African Jewish community was far less ready to move with the times and US rabbis have been part of [right-wing] demonstrations against Israeli governments. It's not a coincidence that most of the hard-line Gush Eminem [settler] movement speaks with an American accent."

MAKE BREAD NOT WAR Poster #2 at rally (According to Indyfoto), originally uploaded by indyfoto.

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STOP WAR INDYFOTO Set

While at least two members of the Board of Deputies are known to have signed the Times advertisement, for many Jews on the left, the board's refusal to engage critically with Israeli government policy has given rise to a "not-in-my-name" movement. Jews for Justice for Palestinians was founded in 2002 by Irene Bruegel, Professor of Urban Policy at South Bank University. It is currently chaired by her partner Richard Kuper, a founder of the left-wing publishing house Pluto Press. She had been a member of Women in Black, a women's peace organisation originally founded in Israel in 1988 in response to the occupation, but which now considers itself to be an international movement. In 2001, she took part in a visit to Israel and the West Bank, out of which the International Solidarity Movement was born.
"It was a very diverse group," she says, "and two things struck me. They had a very black-and-white view of Israelis - and almost, in a sense, that needs to be the case if you are an activist. The other was the incredibly warm welcome we got from the Palestinians we met when we said we were Jewish, and we thought it was very important that they knew there were Jews who supported Palestinian rights while still supporting Israeli security. When I got back I felt lost and wanted somewhere I felt safe, and there were no organisations that did that work."
Bruegel had never been involved in Palestinian politics before. Indeed, she had avoided the Middle East as a political issue. Growing up in a Jewish area of north London in a street she describes as 99 per cent Jewish, she is the child of refugees from Czechoslovakia, socialists and anti-Zionists, her father a specialist on the Holocaust. "I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust for all my childhood," she says, "and we had people coming to live with us who had been in camps, so when people justify everything Israel does on the basis of the Holocaust, my father gets very upset."
Her idea was not to start a political organisation, but to form a broad network around a simple statement, which has itself proved extremely divisive. Supporting the "right of Israelis to live in freedom and security within Israel's 1967 borders," it alienated a part of the radical anti-Zionist left that calls for a single, unitary state, while the name alone was off-putting to those who asked where the interest in justice for Israelis was. Others, she now concedes, placed a narrow interpretation on the word "justice", believing that it included support for the Palestinian right of return, effectively ending the Jewish majority and Israel as a state.
Internal divisions have made it difficult for JfJfP to play a pro-active role, with some members wanting to support divestment and the AUT boycott of Israeli academics, and others strongly opposing such moves. Internally, the group is confronted with a choice between being "a powerful alternative to the Jewish lobby", as a recently circulated report proposed, or keeping on board its 1,200 signatories, many of whom would be lost if it did so.
Bruegel also acknowledges the problems that Jews have had working with Palestinian solidarity groups. "Solidarity movements are good at blunting analysis," she says. "There were people at meetings talking about a Palestinian state from the river to the sea, but at least we got them to take down the banners with swastikas. Many of them see no difference between Jews and Israelis; we have to chip away at the edges."
Groups like JfJfP have sprung up across Britain, more or less unnoticed by the media, but they find themselves both distrusted by the mainstream Jewish community and uncomfortable among Muslim and Palestinian groups. Karen Worth, a GP, co-founded the Nottingham Peace Campaign in 2001. "My main view is one of huge sadness and disappointment," she says. "I have an underlying feeling of responsibility. We wanted to make good links with local Muslims and say there are Jews who don't condone what the government does and are also not anti-Israeli, though some of our group are."
As a member of her local Liberal Synagogue, she has tried to raise awareness in the Jewish community of what is happening in Palestine, but "people feel it's so touchy you better not go there, though in the past couple of years there has been more discussion. I have some cousins in B'tselem [the Israeli human-rights organisation], so when they come over we have a meeting. But I don't feel safe or happy to go on some of the anti-war or pro-Palestinian marches either. Recently I went to a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting and it was fairly edgy. There is anti-Semitism and it's hard to know how you fit within the left. It's hard to find a place where you feel comfortable."
Jon Benjamin describes the Jewish community as having a "siege mentality about talking openly about Israel because they know that others who wish Israel harm will take those views and turn them around to use them against Israel's right to exist." The sense of being pressed between two powerful and opposing points of view has led many Jews, whose political opinions are naturally on the left, to feel isolated.
Martin Vogel, the editor of a news website, is, like Irene Bruegel, the son of a Czech Jewish refugee, but his father married a British Catholic and he grew up with no connection to the Jewish community. "It was an upbringing of intellectual debate, particularly around politics," he says. "But a large part of my identity was bound up with the Holocaust. None of my grandparents' family survived, and this made them strongly pro-Zionist, and I only started to think about Israel critically when I was at university studying sociology. A lot of the courses were in the Marxist tradition, and Israel was presented to us as a colonial state, which I don't disagree with. So was America. But what strikes me now is a lazy quasi-humanism in leftist liberal articles which identify with the oppressed without enquiring about the complexities. These articles really crystallised something in me.
"The thesis put forward by Melanie Phillips is very shrill but argued with relentless logic: that Israel is being singled out for special opprobrium, and that that is modern anti-Semitism. What it does is to make me more bloody-minded and possibly less prone to criticise Israel than I should, because it needs my solidarity. You're faced with people who get very moralistic very quickly and the emotional tension increases. They don't get emotionally wrought about Burma. One of the fault lines in those conversations is this idea that suicide bombing is outrageous, but the outrage stops when you get to the borders of Israel. My views don't play well with my friends; they don't even play very well with my wife, who isn't Jewish."

Judaism Rejects Zionism..., originally uploaded by indyfoto.

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Israel and Zionism have now become virtual arguments between strangers on internet chatrooms - an alternative war in which the missiles being lobbed are URLs mined from Google supporting the thesis of either side. Reading these hysterical and abusive fights with their mutual accusations of "Nazi!", one is struck by how few of the participants, particularly those from America, have ever been to the country they feel so passionately about, either for or against. What differentiates most British Jews from the rest of the population is that they have actually visited Israel, and often have relatives there, often because before the Second World War families fleeing Europe took whatever visa they could get and found themselves flung out across the globe - in Britain, America, Argentina, South Africa or Mandate Palestine. Others emigrated to Israel out of ideological conviction or because they liked the place, or married Israelis.
Netanya, where Hamas killed 29 people during a Passover celebration in the Park Hotel, is a favourite holiday or retirement spot for British Jews. When there is a suicide bomb in Tel Aviv or a Katushya missile strike on Haifa, British Jews are reaching for the telephone to make sure that relatives and friends are safe, rather than arguing about root causes.
On the other hand, few have been to the West Bank - let alone Gaza - and many are unaware of the true extent of conditions there under occupation. The Portland Trust, founded by Sir Ronald Cohen of the hedge fund company Apex, together with a number of other very wealthy Jews who prefer to remain nameless, has offices in Tel Aviv and Ramallah and a brief to promote peace by building the Palestinian private-sector economy. The trust is currently involved in setting up the structures for loan guarantee schemes to Palestinian banks from the US and Europe. But its policy is that to be effective it has to operate below the radar of media attention, and it is reluctant to answer questions about its work.
A few years ago, having written a book about my mother's dementia and the role of memory in Jewish life, I was invited to speak at a series of fundraising lunches of the women's group WIZO (Women's International Zionist Organisation). My mother had been a member, and as far as I understood it, the group consisted of ladies who held coffee mornings to raise money for Israel, a product of the suburbanisation of Jewish post-war life. I became aware that deep beneath the surface of the Jewish middle class there was anger at Israeli government policy, which was uncomfortable about expressing itself in a public forum, lest it give aid to the country's enemies and be used as a pretext for deligitimisation of the state itself. Behind closed doors, when an elderly lady raised her hand and asked: "Why is Ariel Sharon sending Jewish boys to become murderers in Gaza, when Israeli children are living below the poverty line?" a number of others applauded.
WIZO was founded in 1918 by Rebecca Sieff, a member of the Marks & Spencer dynasty, and Vera Weizmann, wife of Chaim Weizmann, the man who negotiated the Balfour declaration - the document that led ultimately to the establishment of the Jewish state. By the 1970s, WIZO had become a quasi-feminist organisation, campaigning in Israel against domestic violence and rape, and doing leadership training among minorities such as the Bedouin.
Its work opened the eyes of generations of British women to the reality of life in Israel outside the tourist sites - in particular, the ways in which the continuing conflict has affected families. Recently, it has been working to counteract the effects of the stringent cuts in welfare enacted when Benjamin Netanyahu was finance minister in the last Likud government. And yesterday, WIZO was setting up emergency dormitories for families fleeing the northern border towns.
If anyone knows what is really going on inside the Green Line, and how relentless militarisation affects a society, it is Lorraine Warren, the WIZO chairman, Michele Vogel, the president, and Ruth Sotnick, honorary president. "We feel resentment of the criticism of Israel, because we don't think it's completely justified," they say, over lunch in their offices. "We know more about Israel than many, we have a day-care project in Sderot [the Israeli town that has been the target of Qassam missiles] and we don't have any projects on the settlements. We know about the impact of a million Russian immigrants and the situation of Bedouin women and the Ethiopians. We want to help our fellow Jews in Israel. If the situation in the territories was better, it would be better for Israelis. But the billions of aid given to the Palestinians has been squandered. We help out when our people are in need of help, and we don't hear of the Arab states doing the same. The reason why Hamas has done so well is that they're the WIZO of Palestine."
Donating money to help Israel has been part of Jewish life in Britain for more than 100 years, through the medium of the Jewish National Fund. But alternative organisations have grown up with more radical social programmes. The New Israel Fund, founded in the 1990s, grants donations to a wide range of Israeli non-governmental organisations, both Jewish and Arab. NIF's donors are, according to its chief executive, Alan Bolchover, "educated, quite knowledgeable people who read Ha'aretz online, people with family in Israel, soft left with traditional values of the state as it was originally founded. Certain individuals are driven by the fight for Arab-Israeli equality, others are reacting to religious orthodoxy and for equal opportunities for all Israelis.
"Many of them thought that Sharon going on the Temple Mount was antagonistic, but in 2002 there was a lot of anger, the feeling that Israel was very badly treated in the press. I'm utterly convinced that the majority don't want to continue with the occupation; the question is where you draw the border. As far as the Board of Deputies is concerned, there is a leadership of the community which comes together to form an opinion and people don't like this because Jews are naturally anti-establishment. I'm of the view that the Board of Deputies tries to be democratic, but whether it is, is another matter."
The most visibly identifiable section of the Jewish population, the Charedi, chooses not to send representation to the Board of Deputies. Living in closed communities, rarely interacting with the mainstream Jewish population, let alone with non-Jews, the Charedi turn out to be the most divided on Israel and on Zionism.
A few months ago, Rabbi Abraham Pinter, white-bearded, dressed in a black coat and black hat, was trying to get across Oxford Street when he was waylaid by an activist from BiG, the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign, who tried to hand him a leaflet, but he refused it.
As he prepared to cross the road, he heard a man at the BiG stall say to his colleague: "What did you expect?" He turned back to face a woman on the stall who was dressed in hijab. Did British people assume that because she was dressed as a devout Muslim, she must be a terrorist? And wasn't such an assumption racist? She agreed. He pointed to the activist. "Well, he's a racist, because he too judges people's political views on how they dress."
I met Rabbi Pinter in his house in a cul-de-sac in Stamford Hill where every house is owned by a Charedi family. The headmaster of the Yesodey Hatorah school, he was also for many years a Labour member of Hackney council.
The 40,000-strong UK Charedim, out of nearly a million worldwide, are divided between those who believe that the whole land of Israel from Jordan to the sea was granted to the Jews by God and cannot be given away by peace treaties, and those who hold that the Jewish state can only be established with the arrival of the Moshiach (Messiah). A much smaller, fringe sect, the Neturei Karta, numbering about 500 in Britain, holds similar theocratic views but believes that the Holocaust was retribution by God for Zionism, have praised the Iranian Prime Minister for calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map", and have attracted hostility even from the non-Zionist Charedi for their extremism.
"I stand in the middle," Rabbi Pinter says. "I am not a Zionist, but I see Zionism in a very practical way. I have a love of Israel because of Judaism, even if Israel was still a British protectorate, so Israel's safety and wellbeing is important to me. My children are there, and a big part of my income goes to them.
"A lot of people in the non-Charedi community need Israeli for their link to Judaism and I don't need Israel for that. If it were up to me, I would go back to the 1967 borders and divide Jerusalem, but most of the Charedim wouldn't."
I asked him what he felt when he saw pictures on the news of Palestinian children killed by rocket fire. He said: "I find it hard to cope with some of these things, and the quicker we're out of Gaza the better. But a lot of the Holocaust survivors have a different way of looking at it. If you get into the kitchen, you'll get hot. You can't expect to shoot Qassams from a block of flats and not get retaliation. I don't take that point of view - but a lot of people here do."
The debate about Israel is about to heat up in the pages of The Jewish Chronicle, whose newly appointed editor, David Rowan, was previously in charge of The Guardian's comment pages. After the bombing of the power station in Gaza, the JC had an interview with the Israeli novelist and peace activist David Grossman on its front page.
Rowan insists that, while he is Jewish, he is a journalist first. "The JC needs to be the place where the debate takes place, but doesn't instinctively support one side or another. We need to be fair to all parties and there are some very strongly held views. The danger is in trying to guess what makes the readership comfortable and shaping the news to it. I don't want to make it a pro- or anti-Israel paper, but I want it to reflect the depth of feeling and not to exclude any constituency unless they are completely barking or dangerous or destructive.
"Israel at the moment has a pretty lousy image. There's a debate about whether that image needs changing and we've had a lot of good letters in response, saying it's not PR, it's killing children on the ground that's the problem. We need to give space to articulate that viewpoint. We can't be in the untenable position of 'Israel right or wrong'.
"There are people who say we should have the debate in private, that Israel has enough enemies in the mainstream press without the JC, but we can't answer for the shortcomings of other newspapers."
There is a famous Jewish saying: "Two Jews, three opinions." Another joke tells of the rabbinical speaker giving a lecture on Judaism. "The essence of Judaism is disputation," he says. A hand goes up in the audience: "I beg to differ."
For some - like the characters in Mike Leigh's hit play Two Thousand Years - Israel has been a heartbreaking disappointment, an exercise in idealism turned badly wrong. For others, it is still seen as a bolthole if anti-Semitism returns to Europe; a place of potential refuge (and this is particularly true of French Jews). Still others think its creation was an error that must be corrected. But it is highly unlikely that the Diaspora will come to regard it with disinterested objectivity any time soon. Most want to be proud of Israel and are anguished that they are not.
Linda Grant's most recent book, The People on the Street: a writer's view of Israel, is published by Virago (£9.99). Her novel set in Israel, When I Lived in Modern Times won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000
Jewish Britain: the facts
* According to the 2001 Census, there are 267,000 Jews in Britain. In 1995, the Board of Deputies put the number at 285,000. Fifty years ago, there were more than 500,000.
* About 70 per cent of the Jewish community is affiliated to one of the country's 350 synagogues, in the following proportions: 47 per cent traditional Orthodox, 12 per cent Reform, 4 per cent Liberal, 4 per cent ultra-Orthodox, 2 per cent Sephardi, 1 per cent Masorti.
* Of the total British Jewish population, 72 per cent live in Greater London. There are large communities in Greater Manchester (Salford in particular), Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds and Gateshead. Stockbridge in Hampshire also has an unusually large Jewish community.
* Barnet council has the highest proportion of Jews on any British council (14.2 per cent).
* The British Jewish population is relatively old; 24 per cent of British Jews are over 65, compared to the national figure of 16 per cent. This is largely due to the fact that so many younger Jews are now "marrying out".
* This year marks the 350th anniversary of the return of the Jews to Britain under Oliver Cromwell. Jews had been expelled from England under Edward I in 1290.
* A recent poll by The Jewish Chronicle named Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs as Britain's greatest-ever Jew, beating competition from such 19th-century hotshots as Benjamin Disraeli and Moses Montefiore.
* Jews in Britain have more volunteers working in organisations designed to benefit their members than any other minority. The Jewish population sustains more than 2,000 such institutions - charitable, educational, religious and welfare - whose combined annual income is about £500m.

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material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more
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STOP the ATTACK on Lebanon! Articles 2 -Palestinians in Lebanon,Lebanese flee,Israel's Arabs

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http://mondediplo.com/2006/07/03refugees
Middle East in crisis
Lebanon: the other Palestinians

As the world focuses its attention on the grave crisis in Lebanon and Gaza (see “A long week in Gaza City”), which risks being transformed into a regional conflict, it is time to listen to the Palestinians in Lebanon - in particular those still living in the refugee camps.

By Marina Da Silva

The current crisis in Lebanon has revived the debate about disarming Hizbullah and returned attention to the Palestinians, who mostly live in Lebanon’s refugee camps, forgotten by history and left out of negotiations. Now they are being pushed to the centre of the political stage and are trying to assert a right of return which they have never renounced.
Khadda, who lived in the biggest camp in Lebanon, Ein al-Hilweh, on the edge of Saida, so dreaded the tensions and armed conflicts in it that she left the camp, risking the cohesion of her family. Her husband, who runs a small shop, has stayed, and her children go back every weekend. She said: “The refugee camps, and Ein al-Hilweh in particular, are always described in the national and international press as no-go areas that harbour criminals and Islamic extremists. But we are the camp, more than 45,000 of us, and we cherish our identity and our history. It’s not those tearaways, at most a couple of hundred, who are the products of insecurity and political stalemate.” Even more than the violence, Khadda is weary of the sense of suffocation, of the poverty clearly visible in the narrow, filthy streets and crumbling houses, fertile ground for Islamic radicalisation.
The turning point came in 1982 with Israel’s invasion and the forced departure of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its fighters. The PLO had provided work for nearly 65% of the Palestinians, as well as funding for health and education (also open to destitute Lebanese). Lebanon’s Palestinians then felt forgotten by the Oslo agreements of 1993: the PLO concentrated its diplomatic efforts on the West Bank and Gaza, which also received international aid. The budgets allocated to Lebanon by international NGOs, Unrwa (1) and other UN agencies were drastically reduced. The refugee camps that bore the brunt of war and economic hardship have been passed over.
The Islamist movements, mainly Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), have touched the poorest sections of the population by providing much-needed aid. Hamas benefited from popular anger after Israel deported 415 Palestinians close to the movement from the occupied territories to southern Lebanon in December 1992; Hamas benefited again when Israel began targeted assassinations of Palestinian Islamist political leaders: Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in March 2004 and Abdelaziz al-Rantissi a month later, both in Gaza. Their portraits are everywhere. Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections in January has added to its strength.
Um Fadi, who is close to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was surprised “like everyone else” at the Hamas victory, but she was pleased with the result, a vote “against corruption and for Palestinian rights, including the right of return”. Ein al-Hilweh is not like it was when her children were born there: in those days the camps were the symbol of Palestinian political life and of building a society in exile. “Today,” she said, “the population is hostage to political factions settling internal scores. Often there are deaths and people are afraid. But they don’t want to leave, because the camp still symbolises our long wait for return and the struggle for our rights.”
On 1 May a member of Fatah was killed by a militant member of Usbat al-Ansar (League of Partisans), a Salafist group thought to have links with al-Qaida. The death was the latest in a long list of casualties. These confrontations, political as much as criminal, often go beyond internal rivalries: they are part of a strategy of tension orchestrated by the various organisations’ secret services and meant to confuse. Ein al-Hilweh retains its symbolic status as a political camp where all Palestinian parties are recognised and respected, a real capital of the Palestinians in exile.
Sensitive situation
“The situation is sensitive,” said Abu Ali Hassan, a former leader of Ein al-Hilweh who is now at Mar Elias, a small, mainly Christian camp in Beirut, where he is in charge of relations with the Lebanese political parties. “The disarmament of the Palestinian organisations, called for by resolution 1559 of September 2004, at the instigation of France and the United States, constitutes one of the issues in Lebanese political life (2). The national unity government in Beirut has formed a committee to negotiate the disarmament of the bases outside the camps and control the arms inside them. We’re working towards creating a united delegation and ensuring that this issue isn’t dealt with just from a security point of view, but that the outcome will advance our political rights and improve the humanitarian situation in the camps.”
Abbas Zaki, from Fatah, heads the PLO representation in Jnah, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. He believes that its reopening in May was a strong political signal: “The government doesn’t want to deal with this issue by force; it’s mainly armed Palestinians in a dozen bases spread out across the Beqaa valley and in the coastal town of Nahme, 15km south of Beirut, who cause problems.” The statement by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, in Paris last October, that Palestinians living in Lebanon had to “obey the law” and that they were there as “guests” was not welcomed.
Lebanese newspapers regularly report infiltrations of Palestinian militants from Syria into the western Beqaa, which have led the Lebanese army to seal off some 40 illegal crossing points between the countries and to tighten its control of Palestinian factions that are linked to pro-Syrian organisations based in Damascus, such as the PFLP-GC, Fatah-Intifada (a splinter group of Fatah, led by Abu Musa) and Al-Saiqa (the Palestinian wing of the ruling Ba’ath party in Syria).
“Because we’ve led the armed resistance to Israel and are still active and influential, we’re seen as obstacles to peace”, said Nabil, who heads the people’s committee in the camp at Beddawi, below Tripoli, in the north. Beddawi has less crowded houses, rebuilt roads and sewers, and is further away from the battle zone. It might seem peaceful, but to Nabil ,war remains a threat: “Israeli planes still fly regularly over Lebanon, north to south and back again, with total impunity. Sabra and Shatila will remain forever in our memory. We were massacred while we were under the protection of international forces. The arms in the camps are there to ensure our protection” (3).
The arms question conceals the Palestinians’ living conditions and their banishment. According to Unrwa’s March figures, there are 404,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, of whom 220,000 live in a dozen camps around the country. These include: in Beirut, Mar Elias, Burj al-Barajneh, Sabra and Shatila, and Dbayeh; in the south, near Saida, Ein al-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh; also in the south, near Tyre, al-Buss, Rashidieh, Burj al-Shemali; in the north by Tripoli, Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi; and Wavel in the Beqaa valley. There are also small illegal ghetto-camps, not recognised by Unrwa and therefore without aid.
The Lebanese army keeps up pressure around the camps, particularly those in the south which provide shelter for some 100,000 refugees; access to these is restricted and requires a permit.
Fatah remains the most powerful organisation here, while in the camps in Beirut, northern Lebanon and the Beqaa, the pro-Syrians have maintained a significant presence. Everywhere the increasing strength of the Islamist movements is noticeable: some think it now puts Fatah and Hamas on an equal footing.
According to Unrwa, 60% of Palestinian refugees live in poverty and as many as 70% are unemployed. Until recently there were 72 jobs they were unable to practise outside the camps; they were not allowed to bring construction material into the camps; and they cannot leave or re-enter Lebanese territory without a visa, which lasts for only six months.
In June 2005 the Lebanese minister of labour, Trad Hamade, who is close to Hizbullah, signed a memorandum in favour of Palestinians born in Lebanon and registered at the interior ministry, which partly lifts the ban on doing certain jobs. But this does not change anything for qualified Palestinians, who still cannot practise medicine, law or architecture. There is total silence about a 2001 law that forbade Palestinians to buy houses or property in Lebanon, which has led to legal confusion, particularly on inheritance.
Samira Salah heads the PLO’s department for Palestinian refugee affairs and coordinates the campaign for the rights of refugees in Lebanon and the right of return, in accordance with UN resolution 194. She sees Hamade’s measures as a step forward, though they will not change anything in real terms: “Proposals were already made in 1995 indicating that a Palestinian born in Lebanon had the right to work, on condition he had a permit; but this permit is still almost impossible to obtain and the minister’s proposal doesn’t include social security or insurance.”
The campaign for Palestinian rights was started in April 2005 by a collective that brings together 25 Palestinian associations, the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s refugee affairs department and members of civil society. The campaign includes workshops and training, and seeks to gain the support of the Lebanese population to create a broad movement of political pressure. Under the slogan “Civil rights until we return; together with the Lebanese we will resist settlement and naturalisation of refugees”, the campaign has four main demands: the right to work, to own property, to security and to free association. These are not new but they have never been answered.
There are now some 4 million refugees, about 60% of the Palestinian community, who were originally forced into exile in their hundreds of thousands when the state of Israel was created; 90% live in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries. Lebanon’s Palestinians crystallise the most sensitive issues in both Lebanese and regional politics. They are a reminder that any move in the Arab-Israeli conflict is linked to a resolution of the refugee problem.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1183355.ece
18 July 2006 13:40
Home > News > World > Middle East

Thousands of Lebanese flee to Beirut from unstable south
By Jerome Taylor
Published: 18 July 2006

As foreign powers mobilised to evacuate their citizens, tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians were fleeing the country's southern areas last night, following six days of near-continual bombardment by Israeli artillery and air power.
Officials said more than 58,000 people had been displaced by the fighting and 14,000 have headed to the relative safety of Beirut, despite the fact that Lebanon's capital has been attacked every day since Thursday.
Thousands of people from Beirut's southern Shia suburbs, a stronghold of Hizbollah and a major target for Israeli bombing raids, have also fled into the city centre to avoid the daily air strikes that have killed an average of 33 Lebanese civilians a day.
Speaking from the cramped and increasingly squalid Sanayeh Gardens - one of Beirut's oldest parks, used as a refugee camp during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon - Ali Sharara, 21, said, "My brother and I have been here more than two days. My mother and sisters are in Ashrafieh, I don't know where exactly. I can't believe they [the Israelis] are doing all this for two captives. This is just an excuse."
Another refugee, Hussein Ajami, said: "We've been sleeping outside on the grass. They keep telling us about schools that have opened their doors, but when we get there we find them already full."
The reappearance of so many refugees in Lebanon is a stark and depressing reminder of the country's 15-year civil war which killed more than 100,000 people and created a refugee crisis. Many of the sites that once housed refugees from the civil war and Israel's previous invasion of Lebanon are fast filling up again.
There are also fears that the arrival of so many refugees may upset Beirut's delicate sectarian balance. Most of the new arrivals are Shia Muslims who are having to find shelter and support in Beirut's Sunni and Christian areas.
The government's struggling Interior Ministry began trying to set up gathering points where families and refugees could try and find shelter. Hizbollah supporters were also out in force organising refugee centres.
As foreign powers mobilised to evacuate their citizens, tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians were fleeing the country's southern areas last night, following six days of near-continual bombardment by Israeli artillery and air power.
Officials said more than 58,000 people had been displaced by the fighting and 14,000 have headed to the relative safety of Beirut, despite the fact that Lebanon's capital has been attacked every day since Thursday.
Thousands of people from Beirut's southern Shia suburbs, a stronghold of Hizbollah and a major target for Israeli bombing raids, have also fled into the city centre to avoid the daily air strikes that have killed an average of 33 Lebanese civilians a day.
Speaking from the cramped and increasingly squalid Sanayeh Gardens - one of Beirut's oldest parks, used as a refugee camp during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon - Ali Sharara, 21, said, "My brother and I have been here more than two days. My mother and sisters are in Ashrafieh, I don't know where exactly. I can't believe they [the Israelis] are doing all this for two captives. This is just an excuse."
Another refugee, Hussein Ajami, said: "We've been sleeping outside on the grass. They keep telling us about schools that have opened their doors, but when we get there we find them already full."
The reappearance of so many refugees in Lebanon is a stark and depressing reminder of the country's 15-year civil war which killed more than 100,000 people and created a refugee crisis. Many of the sites that once housed refugees from the civil war and Israel's previous invasion of Lebanon are fast filling up again.
There are also fears that the arrival of so many refugees may upset Beirut's delicate sectarian balance. Most of the new arrivals are Shia Muslims who are having to find shelter and support in Beirut's Sunni and Christian areas.
The government's struggling Interior Ministry began trying to set up gathering points where families and refugees could try and find shelter. Hizbollah supporters were also out in force organising refugee centres.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1183353.ece
18 July 2006 13:42
Home > News > World > Middle East

Israel's Arab citizens caught in a war they never wanted
By Donald Macintyre in Majd el Krum
Published: 18 July 2006

Hassan Nasrullah, the leader of Hizbollah, has spoken of having more "surprises"in store for Israel after the deluge of rockets which culminated in the killing of eight Israeli civilians in Haifa in a single attack on Sunday.
But few residents of northern Israel can have been as "surprised" as those in the Arab village of Majd el Krum when it was hit by a volley of six Katyushas.
"We never saw anything like this," said Inas Ayub, 25. "There was no warning and we never expected anything like it."
Mrs Ayub lives next door to the fortunately empty house her brother-in-law Mahmoud is building for his son, part of whose roof and top floor was blown away by a direct hit from a Hizbollah rocket. She described how she was sitting inside her house with her two sons, one-year-old Mohammed and Liaan, three, when "I heard a very loud explosion. It was very strong. I took my sons downstairs. I started to scream because I saw that all the windows were broken and the front yard was full of rubble. Then I fainted."
This experience - though traumatic for the Ayub family - is trifling compared to the death and destruction in Lebanon they were seeing on their television screen yesterday. But it is especially vexing for the Muslim inhabitants here who, while reluctant to talk politics, mainly proclaim their neutrality in a war in which they have no part.
As the vulnerability of the village to a repeat of last Thursday's Katyusha attack was underlined by a volley of rockets on Karmiel three kilometres away, Mrs Ayub said that Hizbollah appeared not "to make a difference between Jews and Arabs. But we all eat from the same plate."
Najib Sjeer, 63, a former deputy superintendent of schools, echoed the frequent complaints about discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens by saying there were no warning sirens in the village and no shelters in the schools. While the village had not been caught up in a war since 1948, he added: "There are no public shelters. We have no protection.
"We are a part of Israel but Israel does not see us as part of the country," he said.
Mr Sjeer did not directly apportion blame for the war but declared: "Israel has planned to destroy Hizbollah for a long time and now they have found an excuse. This is not about the two soldiers who were kidnapped. Basically this is to destroy south Lebanon. If you shoot at a bus with 20 civilians you are not just going after Hizbollah."
Mr Sjeer insisted that the village would not be deterred from its normal life by the rocket volley. "Yesterday we had a big wedding here, and it would have been a disaster if there had been a rocket. But we have faith here. If it happens it won't be because of Nasrallah or Olmert or Peretz. Everything is from Allah."
Aslan Hammoud, 18, returned home yesterday from hospital having had three pieces of shrapnel removed from his shoulder after being wounded by a Katyusha which landed across the road from his family's home and pet shop. Part of the rocket was still embedded in the car park opposite the house. His father Mahmoud, 43, explained that as one of the relatively few residents to have built his house with an official permit, the family does have a secure room in the basement, but none of the family had been in it when the Katyusha landed without warning.
Mr Sjeer, like Mrs Ayub, said he did not believe that Hizbollah distinguished between Jewish and Arab villages. "They don't ask for people's ID cards before firing," he said. But Mahmoud Hammoud was convinced there was a reason why there had so far been no repeat of the Katyusha attack here. "This is a Muslim town and that is why I believe they have stopped shooting in this direction."
Maybe. But yesterday a Katyusha landed on Abu Snen, an Arab village seven miles away.

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SPEAKER Naomi Binder Wall - Member, Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation. Monday July 17, 2006 Steelworkers Hall Toronto

Mass Rally/ Protest
- Sat. July 22, 06 1 PM
- Israeli Consulate, 180 Bloor St. West Toronto
(W. of Avenue Rd., N. of Bloor)
www.nowar.ca

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Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
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STOP the ATTACK on Lebanon! Articles 1- MUST READ -David Clark report, Hizbullah here?,Simon Tisdall article, World Looks On, Brink of Chaos,

Mass Rally/ Protest
- Sat. August 12, 06 1 PM
- Israeli Consulate, 180 Bloor St. West Toronto
(W. of Avenue Rd., N. of Bloor)
www.nowar.ca

Ali Mallah ,Vice-president of Canadian Arab Federation, also has a very personal investment in his desire to see an immediate halt to the bombing in Lebanon- his wife and 2 children, ages 9 and 11, are there visiting family and are now in immediate danger in the South of Lebanon- the area worst hit in the Israeli bombings, and now completely cut off from humanitarian aid and supplies. The children are being brave, and said that they don't want to abandon their grandmother and cousins. I hope they continue to be safe. Many foreign nationals are remaining for similar reasons.

I saw on CNN news that the cost of evacuating one American family, only to Cyprus, was $4000.- which the US government CHARGED to the FAMILY's credit card. I wonder if the American families WITH funds are getting out first... and if this has any bearing on the number of people choosing to take the much more dangerous overland route to neighbouring countries. America, one of the richest countries in the world, is the only one I've heard of so far which is putting the cost of the evacuation on the victims' shoulders.

Not that the US doesn't have money to burn...

David Clark, a former UK Labour special adviser at the Foreign Office, wrote in this week's Guardian, "Yet the US remains entirely
complicit in its role as Israel's main strategic ally. In the midst of last
week's onslaught, in which Israeli bombers killed dozens of Lebanese civilians, the Pentagon announced the export of $210m of aviation fuel to help Israel "keep peace and security in the region". Even Britain and other European countries indulge in a form of diplomatic misdirection by focusing one-sidedly on the roles played by Syria and Iran. "

David Clark 's full article and many others on this crisis follow!

'guardian-weekly' features/ 2006.7.23

Comment / In a state of denial / The Olmert government, Hizbullah and Hamas are
united in rejection of any moves toward peace. David Clark reports

Whatever else can be said for or against Israel's escalation of military action
against Lebanon, there is little prospect that it will achieve its stated
objectives. If Israel couldn't defeat Hizbullah after 18 years in which its army
occupied large swaths of Lebanese territory, it is not going to succeed with air
strikes and blockades, or even another occupation. The same point applies even
more forcefully in the case of Gaza. Every time Israel applies the iron fist in
an effort to beat the Palestinians into submission, their resistance simply
re-emerges in a more extreme and rejectionist form. Far from fearing Israel's
wrath, Hizbullah and Hamas must be rather pleased at their success in provoking
it into the sort of overreaction from which they have always benefited.
Nor does it seem plausible that military action will enable Israel to secure the
release of its captured soldiers. The civilian victims of Israel's
indiscriminate retaliation have no real influence over the militias that hold
them, while the militias themselves are untroubled by the spectacle of public
suffering. On the contrary, they thrive on it. In the case of Lebanon, it is
possible that acts of collective punishment, such as the destruction of Beirut
airport and the  killing of yet more civilians, might divide Hizbullah and its
supporters from the rest of the country, but only at the risk of triggering
another civil war and creating a vacuum that Israel's enemies in Syria and Iran
will find easier to exploit.
In view of all this, it is valid to ask what Israel thinks it is doing. Indeed,
this question is implicit in the statements of world leaders at the G8 and
elsewhere who have called on Israel to use force proportionately, avoid civilian
casualties and refrain from acts that might strengthen Hamas or destabilise
Lebanon's fragile political settlement. No one quibbles with Israel's right to
defend itself, but doesn't it understand how irresponsible and immoral it is to
deliberately escalate the conflict in this way?
The problem is that the premise of the question is false. It assumes that Israel
shares our view that a de-escalation followed by negotiation is the best route
to a settlement. It assumes, therefore, that when Israeli ministers complain of
having "no partner for peace", they actually want one. A much more sensible
approach would be to credit them with having the intelligence to know exactly
what they are doing and to work backwards from there.
If so, it might become apparent that far from wanting a partner with which to
negotiate, the Israeli government is acting with the specific intention of
forestalling that possibility. There is nothing particularly new in this. The
extremists on both sides have always formed a kind of tacit alliance, with the
supporters of "greater Israel" and "no Israel" understanding their joint
interest in preventing any moves towards a compromise peace. That is the main
reason why Israel encouraged the growth of Hamas as it emerged in the 1980s.
Unwilling to negotiate with the secular nationalists of Fatah, even as they were
moving towards support for a two-state solution, the Israeli authorities thought
it would be a clever idea to promote their Islamist rivals.
In the case of the current crisis, it is no accident that it occurred precisely
when the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was gaining the upper hand in the
latest round of that struggle. By using the threat of a referendum to force
Hamas to accept the existence of Israel as the basis for a final settlement,
Abbas had created the most promising opening for peace in six years. Faced with
the loss of political initiative, Hamas militants understood that the only way
to prevent it would be to trigger another cycle of violence. In turn, the
Israeli government, whose interests were also threatened by the Abbas
initiative, recognised that it had an equally good reason to oblige. The effect
of Hizbullah's intervention and Israel's overreaction has been to put peace even
further down the agenda.
The plain truth is that Israel thinks that it can get more by imposing a
solution through force than by negotiation and is not interested in any kind of
peace process. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, pays lip service to the
road map, but he has already received American endorsement for his fallback
position, artfully dubbed "unilateral convergence". George Bush has described it
as a "bold idea". Armed with the knowledge that he will continue to enjoy
American patronage if the road map fails, Olmert has set out to ensure that it
does just that. Bush's diplomacy has been truly inept.
It's high time western governments grasped the fundamental truth that Israel is
pursuing an agenda that conflicts directly with their own. In the context of the
fight against terrorism and the need to promote international cooperation, the
West's interest must be to remove the Palestinian question as a source of
grievance among mainstream Muslims in a way that guarantees justice for the
Palestinians and security for Israel. A settlement of this kind is perfectly
feasible and has been outlined in countless documents and initiatives over the
years, most recently in the Geneva accords. But the main reason it has proved
elusive is that Israel is not, and never has been, prepared to make the
territorial compromises required. It still believes that it is entitled to the
victor's spoils by annexing large tracts of Palestinian land.
This situation will persist as long as the West remains in denial about the
reasons for the ongoing conflict and until the Israeli political establishment
is forced to pay a price for its obstinacy. Yet the US remains entirely
complicit in its role as Israel's main strategic ally. In the midst of last
week's onslaught, in which Israeli bombers killed dozens of Lebanese civilians,
the Pentagon announced the export of $210m of aviation fuel to help Israel "keep
peace and security in the region". Even Britain and other European countries
indulge in a form of diplomatic misdirection by focusing one-sidedly on the
roles played by Syria and Iran.
The key to resolving the situation in Lebanon lies, as it did throughout the
1970s and 1980s, in finding a solution to the Palestinian question. A viable and
successful Palestinian state would rob Hizbullah and its sponsors of the conceit
that they are defending helpless Muslims and make it easier for those in the
region who oppose them to gain the upper hand. Mahmoud Abbas is the only leader
currently working for the kind of negotiated two-state solution that the Middle
East and the wider world desperately need. But he is being let down by the West
at the moment when he had earned the right to expect better. The Palestinian
president needs a partner for peace. If Israel will not play that role, the
international community must.

David Clark is a former Labour special adviser at the Foreign Office

For You Eyes Only, originally uploaded by indyfoto.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56709485@N00/sets/72157594208421837/
STOP WAR INDYFOTO Set

Hizbullah: force that claims 12,000 rockets and grassroots support / Brian
Whitaker in Beirut and Robert Tait in Tehran

Hizbullah will not only take war to Haifa, but "beyond Haifa, and beyond beyond
Haifa", its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech last week - and
some experts are prepared to believe him.
"When they say things, they mean it. They don't bluff," said Nicholas Noe, a
Cambridge researcher who is editing a book of Mr Nasrallah's speeches.
Mr Nasrallah's address last Friday ended with the news that Hizbullah had hit an
Israeli naval vessel off the Lebanese coast, which might be relatively
insignificant in military terms, but had a huge psychological impact. "No Arab
state has done that since [former Egyptian president Gamel] Nasser did it in
1967," Mr Noe said.
Few experts doubt the militant Shia organisation's standing. Mark Perry of the
Beirut-based Conflicts Forum said in a recent interview: "Hizbullah is the
second or third most competent military force in the region, after Israel and
Iran."
Unusually, Hizbullah announces its intentions in advance. It said it was
planning to capture Israeli soldiers, and did so. It also stated openly, before
the current conflict began, that it had 12,000 rockets - more than 700 of which
have now been fired. Most experts believe that the real figure is higher.
A more important question is how many rockets are usable. Unlike national
armies, Hizbullah does not keep them in arsenals. They are dispersed in houses,
caves and other hiding places: hence the Israeli tactic of blasting roads and
bridges in the hope of preventing the rockets being transported to firing
positions.
Most of the rockets are 107mm and 122mm Katyushas with a short range, but
according to Israeli sources Hizbullah also has Fajr-3 missiles with a 40km
range and Fajr-5 rockets, which can reach 70km. The Hizbullah television station
recently broadcast pictures of new, long-range missiles known as Zelzal-1 and
Zelzal-2. There have been claims that these could strike as far as Israel's
nuclear plant in the Negev desert.
No one really knows how many Hizbullah fighters there are, said Amal
Saad-Ghorayeb, who has written a book on the organisation. "Because it's a
populist grassroots movement, every household [in the Hizbullah areas] has
family members who could be easily mobilised . . . I think the Israelis are
fully aware that demolishing Hizbullah is virtually impossible," she said.
Iran denied this week that it was supplying Hizbullah with weapons to use
against Israel and dismissed accusations that its troops had helped the group
launch recent attacks. But a foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi,
appeared to warn that Iran would act if Israel expanded its operations to
include Syria, Tehran's close ally. "Expanding the front of aggression and
attacks . . . would definitely face the Zionist regime with unimaginable
damages," Mr Asefi said.


'guardian-weekly' international/2006.7.23

'Is Hizbullah here? Only children here,' cries one father / Clancy Chassay in
Tyre and Brian Whitaker in Beirut

Twelve-year-old Nour lay heavily bandaged and fighting for her life in a
hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Monday. She is one of many
child victims of Israeli air strikes on the Mediterranean port.
"We are praying for her," said Fatima, a laboratory technician doubling as a
nurse at Jabal Amal hospital. Ali, the doctor treating Nour, said he did not
know if she would survive. "She has large burns all over her body; she is losing
a lot of fluids. Her life is now in God's hands."
More ambulances streamed into the hospital. Whatever the Israelis' intended
target, a bomb had fallen on a small canal next to the Qasmia refugee camp, home
to 500 Palestinians. Its victims were 11 children taking a swim. Seven were
injured, three critically. Three have not been found.
Ismael, the father of one, sat on the edge of the crater, weeping. "Children!
Children!" he roared through his tears, "Children here! My son here." He stood
and looked down into the crater: "Is Hizbullah here?
Ahmed Mrouwe, the hospital's director, said that more than 200 wounded had been
brought into the hospital, one of three in the area. "We have received 196
wounded and 25 dead; the majority of them are children and women."
Monday was the one of the bloodiest so far in Lebanon, with 41 dead. In Sidon,
south of Beirut, an Israeli air strike on a road bridge hit two vehicles,
killing 10 civilians and wounding at least seven, medical sources told Reuters.
They said both vehicles had been crossing the Rmeileh bridge, heading to Beirut.
Leaflets dropped from Israeli planes have been urging residents in
Hizbullah-controlled areas of the south to leave.
Canada said seven of its nationals had been killed in an Israeli strike while
holidaying in the southern Lebanese village of Aitaroun. It was targeted again
on Monday night with six killed, local television reports said.
Early morning attacks left two men dead in the port of Beirut, and eight
Lebanese soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on an army position near
Tripoli in the north.
An annex of the hospital in Tyre had been bombed the day before. The attack came
as doctors were tending to victims of a strike on a 12-storey residential
building, which also housed the civil defence offices, in Tyre. That attack left
21 dead, including several children. Dr Mrouwe said nine people in one family
had been killed; only the father had survived.
Asked how it compared with 1996 when Israel launched an attack on the south,
killing scores of civilians, Dr Mrouwe said: "It's incomparable. In 1996 the
majority [of casualties] were fighters. This time we have yet to receive any
fighters."
In Beirut, where the Israelis are also dropping leaflets from the air urging
residents to leave suburbs controlled by Hizbullah, schools are being
overwhelmed as families set up temporary homes in classrooms. Hundreds of others
are sleeping out in the open.
Before the war began, more than half a million Shia were believed to be living
in Dahiyeh, the suburb most heavily targeted by the Israelis. The Lebanese
authorities opened dozens of schools last weekend but these are now overflowing.
The Chakib Arslan school in Verdun was considered suitable for up to 180 people,
but now holds 850. Most had only brought what they were wearing or could carry.
As the sound of three bombs shook the school, a teenage girl burst into tears.
Faten and her 16 relatives are living in a classroom. "Our house was not safe,"
she said. "Hizbullah told us to go and we left four days ago. We have $100
between us and my father needs medicine. We can't get it for him."
Rami, a volunteer, said: "Sometimes the families buy food. Most of the time the
government doesn't help much but it sends a little food." The relief effort is
being run by several organisations and political groups, and includes Christians
and Muslims. "It began with a sit-in, in solidarity with Gaza, but then turned
into relief work," said Ghassan Makarem of Helem, a Lebanese gay and lesbian
organisation. "It's a mix of NGOs, leftist groups, Palestinian youth groups, and
others," he said.
Outside Beirut, though, there is no such help and people are having to fend for
themselves. Many cannot leave because roads are impassable, and those who do
escape face the risk of being attacked.

'guardian-weekly' international/2006.7.23/

Only Washington can rein in Israel / World briefing / Simon Tisdall

Israel's assault on Lebanon, following Hizbullah's cross-border raid last week
and weeks of unremitting bloodshed in Gaza, has brought demands for
international action to contain the crisis and mediate an end to the fighting.
But the US, with its unmatched influence over Israel and as self-appointed
guardian of the Middle East peace process, has so far appeared reluctant to
intervene. Lebanon's appeal for the UN security council to step in and call a
ceasefire is supported by most Arab governments and by Lebanon's former colonial
master, France, which is the current security council president.
But the council has been vainly trying to agree on a resolution on Gaza, with
the US using its veto in defence of Israel. A consensus on the more complicated,
fast-moving crisis engulfing Lebanon is thus unlikely.
Other international bodies with pretensions to global peacemaking, such as Nato
and the EU - part of the Middle East "quartet" - are reduced to the role of
concerned bystanders. Russia tabled the issue at last weekend's St Petersburg G8
summit, but it only served to underscore international divisions.
President George Bush's administration has warned of the dangers of
destabilising Lebanon. But it has otherwise made no serious attempt to curb
Israel's offensive.
Mr Bush's non-committal statements have been widely interpreted as unqualified
support for Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert's effort not only to free
captured Israeli soldiers but also to inflict as much damage as possible on
Hizbullah and Hamas in the process. That will strengthen regional perceptions
that this US administration, unlike those of Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr, is
unable or unwilling to play the honest broker.
Analysts suggest there is another reason for Washington's diffidence: US
influence and standing in the region is at a historic low ebb, partly because of
Iraq. "The worsening conflict in the Middle East is a blatant reflection of the
weakness of the American partner," Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli cabinet
minister, told Ha'aretz newspaper.
US leverage with many of the regional protagonists is poor or non-existent. The
US has in effect cut diplomatic relations with Syria and encouraged talk of
regime change in Damascus. It regards Palestine's elected Hamas government, like
Hizbullah's political wing, as a wholly terrorist grouping and refuses to deal
with either.
Even traditionally pro-western governments such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi
Arabia, no friends to Hizbullah or Hamas, have been alienated by the US war on
terror and hectoring pro-democracy policies since 9/11.
The Bush administration alone can rein in Israel. Its reluctance to do so may
mean that Washington will not be trusted in the longer term to forge a just and
lasting regional settlement.


'guardian-weekly' file 'gw-international/2006.7.23/1.1.txt
Lebanon:  World looks on as Israel bombards its weak neighbour / Guardian
Reporters

Western leaders remained paralysed on Monday as Lebanon suffered one of its
bloodiest days since Israel began its bombardment last week.
For the second time in 48 hours western governments declined to intervene as
Israeli forces, on the sixth day of aerial attacks, killed 47 people and wounded
at least 53. Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed militia, also stepped up its attacks,
launching 50 rockets against Israel, the highest number in a single day. The
death toll since Israel began its attack has risen to 244 in Lebanon and 24  in
Israel.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, dismissed hopes of a quick resolution
to the conflict, vowing that his military would continue operating at full
intensity. He said Israel would not stop until two of its soldiers captured by
Hizbullah are freed; the Lebanese army is deployed to protect Israel's northern
border; and Hizbullah is forced to disarm.
He said both Hizbullah and Hamas, the Palestinian group, were working with the
support of "the axis of evil that stretches from Tehran to Damascus. When
missiles rain on our cities, our response will be to wage war with greater
determination, courage and sacrifice," he said.
After the failure of last weekend's G8 summit in St Petersburg to step in, EU
foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday also settled for a bland
statement that exposed divisions between European governments. EU foreign
ministers called on Israel not to resort to "disproportionate action", but
criticism of Israel in an original draft was diluted after pressure from Britain
and Germany, Israel's closest EU allies.
France and Italy have evacuated 1,600 Europeans by ship to Cyprus. The British
government airlifted 41 of its nationals out of Lebanon and announced plans to
evacuate 12,000 UK nationals and 10,000 people with dual nationality by sea. The
US sent an aircraft carrier in preparation for an evacuation of many of its
25,000 citizens in Lebanon.
The US and Britain insisted at the summit that criticism of Israel be removed
from a joint communique. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said that the
security council should delay any action until the UN envoy now in the Middle
East, Vijay Nambiar, returned this week to New York. Mr Nambiar said: "We hope
that we will be able to see our way toward . . . a de-escalation of the crisis."
Tony Blair and the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, called for the 2,000-strong
UN observer force on the Israel-Lebanon border to be expanded. But the US is
lukewarm about the proposal and Israel described it as premature.
The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, flew to Beirut, the
highest-level international presence since the crisis began. He called on Israel
and Hizbullah to implement an immediate ceasefire on humanitarian grounds and
for the release of the Israeli soldiers.
The Iranian foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, said that an end to the
fighting and an exchange of hostages would be acceptable and fair. Iran is the
main backer of Hizbullah, which is holding the two Israeli soldiers prisoner.
After meeting Syrian officials in Damascus, he said: "A reasonable and just
solution must be found to end this crisis. A ceasefire and then a swap is
achievable."
Exasperation with the international response was expressed by the Lebanese prime
minister, Fouad Siniora. In an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News he said:
"Until now I am very disappointed, but I can tell you there is still time to
make a real decision in the UN. Stop this massacre that is happening in Lebanon
because the more they inflict casualties the worse it becomes."
In a private conversation picked up by a microphone at the St Petersburg summit,
George Bush and Mr Blair  singled out the Syrian president, Bashir Assad, as the
figure stoking violence in the Palestinian territories and Iraq as well as in
Lebanon. They claimed that Mr Assad was trying to destabilise the region and
block the introduction of democracy.
President Vladimir Putin argued that attacking Syria and Iran by name in the
final communique, would be counter-productive. But Mr Bush disagreed, saying
"the root cause of the instability was Hizbullah and its relationship with Syria
and Iran".
A mass exodus from Beirut was gathering pace, but escape routes from Lebanon
were closing. The capital's airport has been repeatedly bombed, its sea routes
blockaded, and the main highway into Syria is impassable.
On both sides of the border the crisis has fuelled a powerful sense of deja vu.
For the Beirut residents frantically hoarding food, candles, batteries and
petrol, the atmosphere recalled the country's 15-year civil war, and the 18-year
Israeli occupation they thought had ended in 2000.
For some in Israel the historical parallel was with the run-up to the war of
1967, and the prospect of direct military conflict between Israel and
neighbouring countries. The country is still reeling from the double assault on
its military prestige by separate attacks from Hizbullah and Hamas, which
captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, a month ago.
"This reminds me of a period before the 1967 war that was also characterised by
mutual humiliations," said the Israeli historian Tom Segev. "From a military
point of view the abduction of the soldiers should not have happened, but
instead of admitting this the army uses it as a pretext to destroy the delicate
political balance that exists in Lebanon  . . . [Hizbullah leader Hassan]
Nasrallah is a nasty guy. He's a bit like Saddam. So it's similar to the Iraq
situation. We find it easier to relate to war in Lebanon than in Gaza."

guardian-weekly' features/2006.7.23/
Editorial / Middle East: On the brink of chaos

Once again the history of the Middle East is being written in Muslim and Jewish
blood while outsiders look on: fighting within the region is at its worst for at
least a decade. It could, then, have been a stroke of good fortune for the Group
of Eight nations to be meeting at the same time as a downward spiral of
retaliation and counter-strike took hold in Israel and Lebanon. In a sane world
the summit would have allowed the heads of the most powerful countries to
persuade all sides into respecting a ceasefire. Instead, the G8 meeting in St
Petersburg remained divided. Its emergency communique, issued last Sunday after
long wrangling, merely called for "utmost restraint" and an end to attacks, and
for the UN security council to consider a monitoring force on the border between
Israel and Lebanon.
The time for calling for restraint has passed, since too many on both sides show
no signs of exercising any. Last Sunday's deadly Hizbullah rocket attack on
Haifa, in particular, elevates the conflict to a point where the danger cannot
be overestimated. The most plaintive event, in the midst of civilians of all
faiths being killed, was the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, appearing
on CNN last weekend to plead for his country's future. Lebanon's government
bears the signs of collapsing into a failed state. To expect it to successfully
disarm Hizbullah's militants, while Israeli jets inflict collective punishment
and undermine its fragile economy, is unrealistic.
Israel's leaders must be aware of the dangers they face. The road they are going
down is one that Israel travelled before, and it ended in 1982 in disaster. It
is also worth remembering that the chaos began with the kidnapping of an Israeli
soldier by allies of Hamas. Then, last Wednesday, Hizbullah captured two more.
Israel's disproportionate response has now brought the area into chaos. It has
acted as though the politics of the region do not exist; instead it has reacted
directly to each kidnapping and each missile. Israel has the right to defend
itself, a task made harder by the hidden arsenal of Hizbullah, and it should
object to any one-sided calls for restraint. But it cannot control its enemies'
responses: it can only control its own.

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