You have to take Debka with a bucket of salt, but they often have some pretty good insights. The Mumbai operation bore some striking resemblances to the Mike's Place assault in Tel Aviv in 2003, which is now acknowledged to have been conceived by Al Qaeda. Based on the evidence, I am rejecting the calls by many pundits and experts that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with this attack.
Both attacks used British Pakistanis. Both attempted to attack Israelis and Americans. Both attempted to land the operatives by sea, seize a major hotel and take as many hostages as possible, while killing everyone in their path.
The Mike's Place attackers, Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were supposed to attack the US Embassy, but that never came off. Both operations utilized attackers who were trained for long periods outside the country they were attacking. Hanif and Sharif were trained in Syria and the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, their trainers were Hamas, so this really was a Hamas-Al Qaeda joint operation. The casualties were much fewer at Mike's Place - 3 dead and 60 wounded.
In May 2007, US forces captured Al Hadi al Iraq, an Al Qaeda operative, in Iraq. He confessed to having trained Hanif and Sharif, cementing the suspected AQ link.
In contrast, the Mumbai attackers utilized 30 attackers in teams of seven or more and attacked seven targets inside Mumbai. The locations to be attacked had been meticulously cased prior to the attacks, to the point of possibly setting up prior bases inside the Taj Majal Palace Hotel.
They were also in contact with handlers outside India (apparently in Pakistan) and seem to have had a support network inside Mumbai working with them during the operation.
Al Qaeda has advanced quite a bit in five years, from bomb vests to commando tactics, careful reconnaissance and attacking from third countries were hallmarks of both operations.
One of the terrorists' names has been released. He is Azzam Amir Kassab, age 21. Nothing more is known about him. He is one of the terrorists seen in a number of photos of the attack.
The terrorists used a very interesting cell structure. Each terrorist was linked to a handler outside of India. He only knew his handler. If caught, he could only give up one person, his handler, who has a code name and isn't even in India anyway.
With 30 attackers and 30 different handlers, the attackers probably met for the first time, like many of the 9-11 attackers, on the day of the attack.
This is an excellent use of the cell structure. In traditional cell structure, you only know the people in your cell. In a cell of three, three people know each other, possibly only by code names. If caught, they can maybe give up the members of their cell, but maybe not. Surely they can't give up anyone else.
At times, they are instructed to meet a courier or a messenger. They meet the person at the assigned place, transfer whatever needs to be transferred, and then part, never to meet again. If caught, there is no way to give up the messengers or couriers, because the cell members don't even know who they are.
I am quite certain that Al Qaeda was heavily involved in this attack. Other groups like SIMI or the Indian Mujaheddin (internal Indian Islamist terrorists) may have also been involved, but at a lesser level. The scale and the nature of the targets seems to rule out LeT or other Kashmiri separatists out of Pakistan, whatever their tenuous links to Al Qaeda.
Anyway, LeT is never shy about claiming responsibility, and they strongly condemned this attack in a statement. As Hamas is all about Palestine, LeT and JeM are all about Kashmir. What do they care about Americans, British and Israelis? Not much. That's Al Qeada's purview.
Since Al Qaeda has also declared total war on the Pakistani government, it makes little sense to blame the Pakistani regime for this attack. Both governments are being attacked by the same group.
The name Maulana Abdul Bari, an Indian Muslim based in Saudi Arabia, keeps coming up. He is suspected of bankrolling the attack. That makes perfect sense to me - Indian Muslims and Saudi Al Qaeda, with a British connection to boot. Saudi Arabia is after all, Al Qaeda's home territory, and traditionally, 80% of AQ's core were Saudis, though that may be changing in recent days.
Pundits and experts says that AQ is down to 100 or so members along the Pakistani-Afghan border, and is in such disarray that they are incapable of mounting any serious operation.
I disagree. Further, I feel that "macro-Al Qaeda" may have up to 70,000 "members and associates" worldwide. Keep in mind that when we discuss Al Qaeda, our theories about traditional hierarchical organizations or even "organizations" period go out the window.
Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
A Voice of Sanity on Hamas
From the Zionist Time Magazine, of all places.
Well, you know, Time is still an intellectual rag when it isn't imitating US News and World Report, and I guess the mass outbreak of stupidity called a US election even sticks in their craw.
Americans being Americans, the MSM being what is, the political parties being what they are, and the Israeli Lobby being an actually existing entity, don't anyone expect any outbreaks of sanity anytime soon. Sadly, McCain beats all Democrats in keeping us safe from terrorists. I guess as long you don't have a uniform on in McCain's 100 Years War in Iraq, maybe he keeps you safer. Maybe. But I doubt it.
The worst terror attack on US soil ever happened on George Bush's watch, and he was rewarded for that "achievement" by consistently receiving sky-high ratings for "keeping us safe from terror". Are you laughing yet? Maybe you ought to be. That's the way US Idiot-Politics works. The MSM and both parties work to keep us as idiotic and ignorant as possible, and in return we voice our stupidity in the ballot box every couple years.
None of it makes sense to any halfway intelligent person, but most Americans aren't halfway intelligent anyway. They are not supposed to be, and they probably don't even want to be. That the Ruling Class of society deliberately conspires to keep them as stupid as possible is particularly infuriating, though not unexpected.
Study shows that ruling elites have opposed educating the masses for centuries if not millenia. Keeping the people as stupid as possible is a core principle of conservatism itself, and an excellent reason to oppose it outright on principle. That America continues on in the footsteps of the Medieval indulgence-buying priests saying Latin Masses is poignant and infuriating, yet makes a sort of sickening sense.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Well, you know, Time is still an intellectual rag when it isn't imitating US News and World Report, and I guess the mass outbreak of stupidity called a US election even sticks in their craw.
Americans being Americans, the MSM being what is, the political parties being what they are, and the Israeli Lobby being an actually existing entity, don't anyone expect any outbreaks of sanity anytime soon. Sadly, McCain beats all Democrats in keeping us safe from terrorists. I guess as long you don't have a uniform on in McCain's 100 Years War in Iraq, maybe he keeps you safer. Maybe. But I doubt it.
The worst terror attack on US soil ever happened on George Bush's watch, and he was rewarded for that "achievement" by consistently receiving sky-high ratings for "keeping us safe from terror". Are you laughing yet? Maybe you ought to be. That's the way US Idiot-Politics works. The MSM and both parties work to keep us as idiotic and ignorant as possible, and in return we voice our stupidity in the ballot box every couple years.
None of it makes sense to any halfway intelligent person, but most Americans aren't halfway intelligent anyway. They are not supposed to be, and they probably don't even want to be. That the Ruling Class of society deliberately conspires to keep them as stupid as possible is particularly infuriating, though not unexpected.
Study shows that ruling elites have opposed educating the masses for centuries if not millenia. Keeping the people as stupid as possible is a core principle of conservatism itself, and an excellent reason to oppose it outright on principle. That America continues on in the footsteps of the Medieval indulgence-buying priests saying Latin Masses is poignant and infuriating, yet makes a sort of sickening sense.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Israeli Lobby and American Society
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated February 13, 2008:
Joachim Martillo has posted a lengthy and excellent opus, Judonia Rising: The Israeli Lobby and American Society, on one of his websites, an encyclopedic analysis of the US Israeli Lobby and its effects on US society. Noam Chomsky offered a critique (see the first comment at the end of the post for details), and afterwards, Joachim rewrote several pages. I have also been asked to offer a critique.
This is a very important work that ought to be read in full by anyone interested in the subject. It deserves to be widely disseminated and commented on, dissected and analyzed.
First of all, I agree with much of what he has written so there is no need to comment on what I agree on. If I don't mention it in what follows, that probably means I agree.
I do disagree with certain things.
Obviously, as a Commie, I have serious issues with the whole Bolshevik Jew killers thing. It's hard to argue that people who reduced the death rate by 70% in Russia were the worst killers to ever set foot in Russia. I'm so tired of debating the Bolshevik Jew killer thing that I don't even want to get into it anymore.
Now, for the rest.
It is incorrect to say that Jewish values include early age of sexual initiation and serial polygamy. Kevin MacDonald notes that US Jews have sex at the latest age of any ethnic group. They also have some of the most stable marriages last time I checked.
It's difficult to lump Abigail Thornton, a rightwing Jewish Republican opposed to civil rights, in with a US Jewish agenda that relentlessly promotes civil rights. Martillo fails to note that the Jewish neocons are actually opposed to civil rights law in the US, either by promoting Supreme Court justices sworn to dismantle it or by cheering on Republicans who have been refusing to enforce civil rights laws for almost 30 years now.
It's very hard to say that Friedmanite freemarketeer neoliberalism is part of the US Jewish agenda, as most US Jewish organizations are agnostic on economics and if anything, promote more state intervention, regulation of business, socialist redistribution programs, socialized medicine and education, etc.
Friedmanism is part of the agenda of the neocons, but the neocon agenda in whole is embraced by only at most 20% of US Jews who vote Republican. This is where the equation of Jewish neoconservatives with US Jews gets dangerous and wrong. US Jews vote up to 80% Dem in recent years.
Neocons are best seen as a rightwing split-off of Republican Jews whose views in whole are rejected by the overwhelming majority of US Jews. However, on Israel, many liberal US Jews are becoming neocons in whole or in part, but the average US Jew is still pretty diverse on Israel. It is better to say that the large US Jewish organizations have gone over to neoconservatism on Israel.
I am still not sure that the US media can be painted as 100% Jewish owned, as there are large media firms still run by old WASP money. Murdoch is apparently Jewish, but that goes way back. Here is a summary from the web on Murdoch's Jewish connection. It sounds reasonable:
Martillo fails to discuss the theory of the Jewified US Gentile, as Albert Lindemann coined the term in his book Esau's Tears, Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews. This is also a theme of Yuri Slezkine's Jewish Century, the theme of which is best described as "we are all Jews now". Many US Gentiles are Jewified via marriage to or deep friendship with ethnocentric Jews.
This aspect of US politics is overlooked in folks trying to "blame it all on the Jew". Americans support Jews and support Israel. We are Jewified. I believe Karl Marx said that in 100 years the US would be a Jewish country. He was correct.
How those Gentiles got Jewified is open to debate.Perhaps they became Judeophiles and Zionists by brainwashing. Well, so what? Most of our political views are due to propaganda of some sort. Any analysis of US Jewry, the Lobby, etc, that does not take into account all of the Gentile support for Israel is bound to fail.
US Jews have plenty of money, but it is mostly in certain parts of economy. They were run out of the banks long ago and the Holocaust finished off the rest of Jewish banking power. Banks are now run by international corporations out of Japan, Hong Kong, Europe and the US. The ones in the US are not noticeably Jewish-owned.
It is true that Jews are important in investment banking. They made serious gains in this area in 1910-1920 but the effort to take over the regular banks was resisted by Gentile ethnic warfare. Jews also tried to take over the stock market at that time but were rebuffed similarly.
All of this is documented extensively in Henry Ford's The International Jew, an excellent book that is often not really anti-Semitic in any way, and at any rate is essential reading for documentation of US Jewish ethnic warfare in the US from 1900-1920. It was during this period that the Jewish Hollywood and media dominances were created.
I do not believe that the US financial or high tech industries are run by Jews at all. US Jews are huge in retail department stores, especially clothing, and also in jewelry, furs and a few other things. They don't really dominate real estate at all.
I also disagree that a US Jewish or Zionist elite is set to take over a rather democratically diminished US. There will be some Jews in such a setup, mostly neoconservatives, but most will be White Gentiles like Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove and Cheney, with some Blacks like Condoleeza Rice and the Powells and some Latinos like Alberto Gonzales.
Increasingly, the US is becoming a caste society based on income alone, and members of any race may join these hard rightwingers in their elitist project. It's all about money, not race, religion or ethnicity.
This undemocratic, quasi-fascist project will be resisted by many, and I assure you that liberal US Jews will be leading the charge to oppose this nightmare. People see Jews leading contrary movements going head to head with each other and think it's all part of an exceptionally devious and convoluted Jewish plot.
The truth is so much more mundane: Jews simply lead movements, and are also disproportionately attracted to fanaticism and extremism in general, in part due to the nature of Judaism itself, as Kevin MacDonald points out.
In related news, Tom Lantos, longtime Congressman from San Mateo, is dead. A Hungarian Jew and a Holocaust survivor, he has been a longtime, very strong supporter of the Israeli government. He led the charge to invade Iraq and promised an Israeli legislator that the US would take out Saddam for the benefit of both countries in 2002.
He helped rally Congressional Democrats to go along with Bush's mad war. Lantos is a good example of some of the very liberal California Jews who represent us Californians. They are superb on most liberal issues and get high marks from most liberal organizations on their voting records.
But on Israel, they are often surprisingly hawkish. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein are good examples, as is Brad Sherman. As a progressive, I would probably vote for them, as the Republican running against them would be just as pro-Israel, if not more, along with being wrong about all the domestic stuff. Politics is so complicated.
As'ad AbuKhalil of the Angry Arab blog has a great article up about George Habash of the PFLP in the Electronic Intifada, who we wrote about previously. The lead photo is really nice too; I would run it here but I'm unsure about rights issues. EI, run by Ali Abunimah, is a great publication with superb views on the conflict.
It's run by reasonable Palestinians, exemplified by Abunimah, and their supporters, and it's as far from Hamas and Islamic Jihad as it is from Zionism. Zionists, mostly Jews, have been running a vicious campaign against Abunimah for years calling him an anti-Semite (What else?) but there's nothing to it.
To what extent the views of EI represent those of the average Palestinian on the street is not known. My worry is that as this conflict festers idiots like Hamas and IJ and bigger idiots like Al Qaeda will gain increasing power in Palestine. They won't achieve their goals, and I would not want them to anyway, but a lot more people, mostly Palestinians, are going to die.
AbuKhalil is wrong about one thing in his piece - that the PFLP hardly exists anymore.
While dwarfed by Hamas and Fatah, it's still a large and powerful organization with at least 80,000 active supporters, plenty of money, a fully armed guerrilla force that carries out regular attacks, a busy propaganda faction with websites, a newspaper and magazines, and up to a dozen above-ground organizations for everything from youth to women to workers.
Islamic Jihad gets way more press, but they are not much bigger than the PFLP. As an example, the PFLP fired 7 missiles on February 5th and 2 rockets on February 6th, all from Gaza and aimed at Sderot and Ashkelon. I think shooting these rockets is idiotic, but it's kind of hard to understand how a nonexistent army can fire 7 rockets in 2 days. They also fought a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza on February 5th.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Updated February 13, 2008:
Joachim Martillo has posted a lengthy and excellent opus, Judonia Rising: The Israeli Lobby and American Society, on one of his websites, an encyclopedic analysis of the US Israeli Lobby and its effects on US society. Noam Chomsky offered a critique (see the first comment at the end of the post for details), and afterwards, Joachim rewrote several pages. I have also been asked to offer a critique.
This is a very important work that ought to be read in full by anyone interested in the subject. It deserves to be widely disseminated and commented on, dissected and analyzed.
First of all, I agree with much of what he has written so there is no need to comment on what I agree on. If I don't mention it in what follows, that probably means I agree.
I do disagree with certain things.
Obviously, as a Commie, I have serious issues with the whole Bolshevik Jew killers thing. It's hard to argue that people who reduced the death rate by 70% in Russia were the worst killers to ever set foot in Russia. I'm so tired of debating the Bolshevik Jew killer thing that I don't even want to get into it anymore.
Now, for the rest.
It is incorrect to say that Jewish values include early age of sexual initiation and serial polygamy. Kevin MacDonald notes that US Jews have sex at the latest age of any ethnic group. They also have some of the most stable marriages last time I checked.
It's difficult to lump Abigail Thornton, a rightwing Jewish Republican opposed to civil rights, in with a US Jewish agenda that relentlessly promotes civil rights. Martillo fails to note that the Jewish neocons are actually opposed to civil rights law in the US, either by promoting Supreme Court justices sworn to dismantle it or by cheering on Republicans who have been refusing to enforce civil rights laws for almost 30 years now.
It's very hard to say that Friedmanite freemarketeer neoliberalism is part of the US Jewish agenda, as most US Jewish organizations are agnostic on economics and if anything, promote more state intervention, regulation of business, socialist redistribution programs, socialized medicine and education, etc.
Friedmanism is part of the agenda of the neocons, but the neocon agenda in whole is embraced by only at most 20% of US Jews who vote Republican. This is where the equation of Jewish neoconservatives with US Jews gets dangerous and wrong. US Jews vote up to 80% Dem in recent years.
Neocons are best seen as a rightwing split-off of Republican Jews whose views in whole are rejected by the overwhelming majority of US Jews. However, on Israel, many liberal US Jews are becoming neocons in whole or in part, but the average US Jew is still pretty diverse on Israel. It is better to say that the large US Jewish organizations have gone over to neoconservatism on Israel.
I am still not sure that the US media can be painted as 100% Jewish owned, as there are large media firms still run by old WASP money. Murdoch is apparently Jewish, but that goes way back. Here is a summary from the web on Murdoch's Jewish connection. It sounds reasonable:
Rupert (actually Keith Rupert) Murdoch's father was Keith Murdoch (died 1952), his mother Elisabeth Joy (nee Greene) and yes her mother, Marie Grace de Lancey Forth was born from a Jewish mother.It's downright bizarre the way so many ethnocentric voraciously attack the notion that Murdoch is Jewish. You would think they want to claim him.
Rupert's paternal grandfather, Patrick John, was a reverend, the maternal grandmother was Marie Grace de Lancey Forth, who was born in Warnambool, Victoria (Australia), HER mother Caroline Jemima (nee Sherson) was born to a Jewish family, hence by "Jewish law", making Rupert Jewish.
Also for the record, it was not unheard of "way back then" for Protestants or Catholics to marry Jews, and I know this as my grandparents are prime example. My grandfather, born in Ireland in 1895 to a prominent protestant family, married a Jewish woman, making my father and all his siblings Jews.
The Jewish ancestry comes purely from the MATERNAL line and has squat to do with the paternal.
It should also be noted that many Jewish families settled in Australia post 1788.
Martillo fails to discuss the theory of the Jewified US Gentile, as Albert Lindemann coined the term in his book Esau's Tears, Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews. This is also a theme of Yuri Slezkine's Jewish Century, the theme of which is best described as "we are all Jews now". Many US Gentiles are Jewified via marriage to or deep friendship with ethnocentric Jews.
This aspect of US politics is overlooked in folks trying to "blame it all on the Jew". Americans support Jews and support Israel. We are Jewified. I believe Karl Marx said that in 100 years the US would be a Jewish country. He was correct.
How those Gentiles got Jewified is open to debate.Perhaps they became Judeophiles and Zionists by brainwashing. Well, so what? Most of our political views are due to propaganda of some sort. Any analysis of US Jewry, the Lobby, etc, that does not take into account all of the Gentile support for Israel is bound to fail.
US Jews have plenty of money, but it is mostly in certain parts of economy. They were run out of the banks long ago and the Holocaust finished off the rest of Jewish banking power. Banks are now run by international corporations out of Japan, Hong Kong, Europe and the US. The ones in the US are not noticeably Jewish-owned.
It is true that Jews are important in investment banking. They made serious gains in this area in 1910-1920 but the effort to take over the regular banks was resisted by Gentile ethnic warfare. Jews also tried to take over the stock market at that time but were rebuffed similarly.
All of this is documented extensively in Henry Ford's The International Jew, an excellent book that is often not really anti-Semitic in any way, and at any rate is essential reading for documentation of US Jewish ethnic warfare in the US from 1900-1920. It was during this period that the Jewish Hollywood and media dominances were created.
I do not believe that the US financial or high tech industries are run by Jews at all. US Jews are huge in retail department stores, especially clothing, and also in jewelry, furs and a few other things. They don't really dominate real estate at all.
I also disagree that a US Jewish or Zionist elite is set to take over a rather democratically diminished US. There will be some Jews in such a setup, mostly neoconservatives, but most will be White Gentiles like Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove and Cheney, with some Blacks like Condoleeza Rice and the Powells and some Latinos like Alberto Gonzales.
Increasingly, the US is becoming a caste society based on income alone, and members of any race may join these hard rightwingers in their elitist project. It's all about money, not race, religion or ethnicity.
This undemocratic, quasi-fascist project will be resisted by many, and I assure you that liberal US Jews will be leading the charge to oppose this nightmare. People see Jews leading contrary movements going head to head with each other and think it's all part of an exceptionally devious and convoluted Jewish plot.
The truth is so much more mundane: Jews simply lead movements, and are also disproportionately attracted to fanaticism and extremism in general, in part due to the nature of Judaism itself, as Kevin MacDonald points out.
In related news, Tom Lantos, longtime Congressman from San Mateo, is dead. A Hungarian Jew and a Holocaust survivor, he has been a longtime, very strong supporter of the Israeli government. He led the charge to invade Iraq and promised an Israeli legislator that the US would take out Saddam for the benefit of both countries in 2002.
He helped rally Congressional Democrats to go along with Bush's mad war. Lantos is a good example of some of the very liberal California Jews who represent us Californians. They are superb on most liberal issues and get high marks from most liberal organizations on their voting records.
But on Israel, they are often surprisingly hawkish. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein are good examples, as is Brad Sherman. As a progressive, I would probably vote for them, as the Republican running against them would be just as pro-Israel, if not more, along with being wrong about all the domestic stuff. Politics is so complicated.
As'ad AbuKhalil of the Angry Arab blog has a great article up about George Habash of the PFLP in the Electronic Intifada, who we wrote about previously. The lead photo is really nice too; I would run it here but I'm unsure about rights issues. EI, run by Ali Abunimah, is a great publication with superb views on the conflict.
It's run by reasonable Palestinians, exemplified by Abunimah, and their supporters, and it's as far from Hamas and Islamic Jihad as it is from Zionism. Zionists, mostly Jews, have been running a vicious campaign against Abunimah for years calling him an anti-Semite (What else?) but there's nothing to it.
To what extent the views of EI represent those of the average Palestinian on the street is not known. My worry is that as this conflict festers idiots like Hamas and IJ and bigger idiots like Al Qaeda will gain increasing power in Palestine. They won't achieve their goals, and I would not want them to anyway, but a lot more people, mostly Palestinians, are going to die.
AbuKhalil is wrong about one thing in his piece - that the PFLP hardly exists anymore.
While dwarfed by Hamas and Fatah, it's still a large and powerful organization with at least 80,000 active supporters, plenty of money, a fully armed guerrilla force that carries out regular attacks, a busy propaganda faction with websites, a newspaper and magazines, and up to a dozen above-ground organizations for everything from youth to women to workers.
Islamic Jihad gets way more press, but they are not much bigger than the PFLP. As an example, the PFLP fired 7 missiles on February 5th and 2 rockets on February 6th, all from Gaza and aimed at Sderot and Ashkelon. I think shooting these rockets is idiotic, but it's kind of hard to understand how a nonexistent army can fire 7 rockets in 2 days. They also fought a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza on February 5th.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Middle East War Report for Wednesday, August 9
Updated January 29, 2008:
*****
Over 160 rockets pounded into Israel today. Rockets hit Haifa, Afula, Kiryat Shemona, Shlomi, the Hula Valley, Nahariyah, Maalot, Carmiel, Safad, Beit Shean, Accra and the Jezreel Valley. 11 Israeli civilians were wounded.
Kiryat Shemona was hit with 80 rockets during the day, making it impossible to carry out the proposed evacuation. Every time the evacuees got on buses, another barrage would come in and they would have to run for the shelters.
*****
****
15 IDF troops were killed and 37 more were wounded today. This is the worst days so far for IDF casualties.
9 were killed in Dibel when an anti-tank rocket on a building housing IDF troops caused an arms cache to blow up and collapsed the building. 4 were killed when their tank was destroyed in Ayta Al-Shaab. 1 was killed by friendly fire in Taybeh. Another was killed in a mortar attack in Qulayah, near Marjayoun. Qulayah is 3 miles due north of Metulla in Israel and 2 miles southwest of Marjayoun.
At least 17 soldiers were wounded in Dibel and at least another 8 were wounded in Ayta Al-Shaab. Another 12 soldiers were wounded, 2 in Klia, 7 in Taybeh and the rest in unknown locales.
*****
The IDF says they killed at 50 Hezbollah fighters today.
117 Israelis have been killed so far in this war, 80 soldiers, 36 civilians in Israel and 1 civilian in the Diaspora.
The Lebanese death toll still stands at around 1000
****
I would like to take this time to point out, if I have not done so already, a very good blog, No Quarter, written by former CIA analyst Larry C. Johnson.
I know that sounds bad, but he is part of the reality-based community, he has superb knowledge of the Middle East, and he and his co-author(s) have nothing but contempt for the neoconservative madness that reigns in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Johnson runs a counterterrorism consulting firm, but before you get twisted out of shape about that, note that it continues to be focused on Sunni Salafists and Takfiris associated with Al Qaeda.
This is a menace, despite the disgusting lies from Muslim (fundamentalist) apologies that only Muslims can understand Muslims, that there is no such thing as Salafism, or Wahhabism, or Salafi-jihadism, and that all of these are the fervid lies of Western "Orientalists".
This lie that is echoed by Arab ethnocentrists like Angry Arab, who ignorantly and arrogantly insists that any attempt to understand Arabs or the Arab World in any way by anyone who does not have 100% pure Arab blood is a case of "Orientalism".
Despite this ethnocentric BS, outsiders are indeed capable of observing, analyzing and yes (gasp) even understanding Arab and Muslim cultures without converting to Islam or getting Arabic blood transfusions.
For instance, it is not "Orientalism" to note, astutely, that there is a variety of radical Sunni Islam, loosely allied with the ideology of Al Qaeda, that must be fought to the death and destroyed everywhere it menaces its enemies on this planet, no matter how matter Takfiri maniacs are slaughtered in the process. I am serious. If a million dangerous Takfiris need to die, let's get on with it. Hama, Part 2, let's rock and roll.
Edward Said, for all his fine work, did the world a disservice with his ethnocentric lead balloon "Orientalism", and poisoned the minds of a generation of Arab intellectuals.
Larry Johnson understands who the Salafi and Takfiri enemy is and who are the Muslims and Arabs who need to be left in peace.
****
*****
Let us start out with a very important article by journalist Robert Parry, who did some important research on Iran-Contra. A voice of calm reason, we need to listen carefully to him. The topics of this piece have also appeared in a variety of other pieces lately, but this article sums things up pretty well.
First of all, whether or not Hezbollah attacked the Israeli forces inside Israel or inside Lebanon is not really important because this war was planned for months by the US and Israel. On May 23, Bush met with Olmert and Israeli sources say the go-ahead was given to fight the Lebanon War.
All they needed was a pretext. Three days later, a bomb went off in Lebanon, killing 2 Islamic Jihad activists. Hezbollah was furious and responded to the attack with a rocket barrage on Israel. Israel responded with bombardments of Hezbollah positions. This sort of thing has been going on from time to time ever since 2000.
The objective here was to increase the tensions along the border, to provoke the enemy into attacking, and then to use the attack to launch the Destroy Hezbollah War. This is the sort of thing that Israel has done over and over all throughout its history. As this comment here notes:
The objective here was to provoke a situation of tit for tat violence that would escalate the pressure on Hezbollah, the Palestinian guerrillas, Syria and Iran.
At the May 23 summit, Olmert and Bush agreed to make 2006 the year to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue (even though an Iranian bomb is at least 3-10 years away). The way to get to Iran is through Syria and Hezbollah.
Although I do not like to make predictions, a US or Israeli or US-Israeli attack on Iran before the Bush Presidency is up is possible and may even be likely. Both the Americans and the Israelis seem to be determined to pull off this attack. Now whether their plans will actually come through or not is uncertain, but that an attack on Iran is clearly their objective.
The idea here, the piece notes, is to create a wider conflict. The brilliant but erratic Xymphora sketches out the neoconservative plan to transform the Middle East here into 10 steps. Some of them are quite unlikely, but others are already done.
We have seen repeated neoconservative blueprints for these plots in the past decade.
Just take a look at various documents out of Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum, especially this eye-opening document called, Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The US Role, by Pipes and Ziad Abelnour (former Lebanese Phalangist and head of the neoconservative US Committee for a Free Lebanon - web site here).
Listing all of the players in these schemes goes beyond the scope of this post, but the Right Web links above contain lists of many of the relevant plotters and the organizations they are involved with.
The single paper that sums up the whole neoconservative game plan well is A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, prepared for former Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in June 1996.
It is essential that anyone who wants to understand the Middle East madness that has ensued since George Bush came into office read this paper.
In this paper, the invasion of Iraq is plotted. In the same paper, the destruction of Hezbollah is urged. It's not too often that conspirators lay out exactly what they intend to do before hand, and when they do, is important that all concerned citizens read up on these mad plots, understand them, and formulate strategies to resist them.
In fact, reading through any of the papers on the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies page should give a careful reader tremendous insight into the thinking of the current US and Israeli governments.
Reading Securing the Realm shows you the mad vision of "The New Middle East" that these ultra-Zionist psychos contemplate. With that knowledge in mind, we can understand Condoleeza Rice's slip of the tongue when she called the orgy of mad death and destruction in Lebanon as "the birth pangs of the New Middle East".
As I have noted previously, since this pre-planned Lebanon War began (just looking for an excuse to trigger it off), the Bushies have been urging Israel to attack Syria. If you read Securing the Realm, you will note that Syria is targeted for regime change after Iraq. The Israelis have balked, reportedly because they lack an immediate excuse.
However, perusing the rightwing blogs, websites and Israeli comments section in the past few weeks, I have been inundated with calls to attack Syria and also to attack Iran. Turn on Fox News, and one breathless, psychopathic Zionist talking-head nutcase after another urges an attack on Syria, Iran, or both.
Clearly, the "Destroy Hezbollah War" is meant to be a way to get at Iran and/or Syria, either by provoking them into the conflict, or just attacking them for their logical behavior in resupplying their Hezbollah ally. Indeed, Israeli sources note that Bush is praying that Iran and Syria will get overtly involved in the Hezbollah War, in order to give a green light to attacks on them.
It is useful to note that Bush tried a similar "pretext war" against Iraq before he attacked it. Endlessly, with no-fly zones and continuous bombings of Iraqi targets, the US and Britain (British imperialism to be precise, apparently trying to long-lost colonial glory) tried to goad Saddam into a war.
Wisely, Saddam refused to react to the countless smacks to his face by defending himself. Not that it mattered, as he got attacked anyway. Which suggests a similar end for these similar provocations, if it comes down to that endgame. It is clear that the US is determined to attack not only Iran, but also Syria.
At this point, judging by the Iraqi experience, it is not clear what these 2 countries can do to stop these planned attacks, short of complete surrender to US and Zionist hegemony.
Although the Iraq War seems to have set the neocons back a bit, with the ascension to power of rightwing hack Olmert in Israel, Bush apparently saw a kindred spirit who believed that Zionist and imperialist ultraviolence could solve the problems of the region.
It is useful to note here Paul Krugman's brilliant formation of the neoconservatives and Bushies as revolutionaries, based on his analysis of Henry Kissinger's astute dissertation about revolutionary powers. We must also bear in mind Hillary Clinton's comments at a private fundraiser in Los Angeles when she described the Bushies as "relentless and ruthless".
They are! You cannot understand these people until you get that through your head. Have you noticed that when the Bushies have a goal, they just keep pushing it and pushing it, even after failure upon failure, no matter how little support it has, until they finally bash the door down and get what they want? They don't stop, they don't take no for an answer, and they never quit.
You will never understand the Bushies until you figure this out.
Anyway, back to the US-Israeli ratchet game. The day after this fateful May 23 meeting, Olmert stood up and said "a moment of truth" had come for addressing Iran's purported nuclear bomb program.
The very next day, Olmert went to the US Congress and gave a surreal speech in which he described the nonexistent Iranian nuclear bomb as an "existential threat" to the Zionist racist settler-colonial rogue state that is itself armed with 300-400 nuclear weapons.
In this bizarre speech, Olmert was interrupted scores of times by standing ovations by a Congress in deadly thrall to the Zionist outlaw killer state. This does not usually happen when a foreign leader addresses Congress. It is like a surrealist play by Alfred Jarry.
On June 23, the IDF kidnapped 2 sons of a Hamas legislator, who are apparently completely innocent, and despite the cacophonous Zionist screeching that they are "terrorists", they seem to be guilty of nothing more than having a father who is a Hamas leader. A day later, Hamas tunneled out of the Gaza open air prison, attacked a Zionist base, killed 2 IDF soldiers and took 1 more POW.
This was apparently the pretext needed to destroy Gaza and wipe the democratically elected Hamas government out completely. At the time, Palestinian President Abbas had apparently coaxed Hamas into accepting a 2-state solution, formally anyway (they have repeatedly said they would accept such a solution).
The Israeli response, as we have seen over and over whenever any kind of peaceful settlement comes up that seems to curtain the ongoing Zionist colonization project, was massive violence. In the midst of the madness, Israel kidnapped 1/3 of the elected Hamas Parliament, who have nothing to do with military operations at all. These are apparently some kind of sick bargaining chips for the IDF POW.
The tension mounted, and on June 12, Hezbollah attacked, apparently partly in solidarity with the Palestinians, for which they ought to be commended. Israel responded to the attacks, deaths, injuries and POW's with a wild bombardment of Lebanon from one end to the other. Hezbollah responded by launching a Katyusha barrage.
Israel responded with a 10,000-man ground invasion and plans to occupy land all the way up to the Litani River, along with creepy warnings telling all civilians to flee the area.
These warnings are creepy because many times in past, Zionists have told the civilian population to flee, then attacked cities and villages, conquered them and annexed them to the Zionist colonial state, while permanently preventing the natives from returning to their homes and lands.
While we do not have any clear evidence that Israel intends to annex southern Lebanon to the Litani River, or steal the water from the Litani, at this point, we need to consider this out of control madman state as capable of these things, whether or not they actually do it or not.
Parry's article notes that the US-French-Israeli UN plan is apparently designed to fail from the start, thereby creating a pretext called,"Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria) are violating UN resolutions". Recall from the Iraq War what nefarious purposes Machiavellian US imperialists and Zionists use failure to comply with UN resolutions (it's a green light to attack the parties not in compliance).
Specifically, the resolution calls for Hezbollah to completely disarm, hand back the POW's and cease all hostilities. In return, they get zero.
They don't get their 15 Lebanese POW's back, Israel does not have to hand over the Lebanese land they are occupying, colonizing and stealing water from (the Shebaa Farms), and most insane of all, Israel does not even have to leave Lebanon!
Not only does the racist, colonialist, militarist, belligerent Israeli state get to camp out on occupied land again, but they have a right to engage in "defensive" attacks" (Hezbollah has no such right). Any student of Israeli history knows what mad offensive operations Israel has endlessly engaged in the name of self-defensive.
So, while the US is purporting to try to stop a war that the US in fact started, and relieving a humanitarian crisis that the US caused in the first place, the devious machinations here appear to be to force some sort of a showdown (apparently an armed one) with the axis of Hezbollah-Syria-Iran-Hamas in some kind of wild roll the dice endgame.
The reason those four parties are targeted is simple. Those are the last holdouts in the Arab World that not only oppose Zionist racist colonialism, expansionism and apartheid, but are well-armed and willing to stand up to this evil with gun in hand.
Strangely, the US and Israel actually feel that they have the support of so-called "moderate" regimes - regimes that have abjectly surrendered to Zionist colonization and occupation of Arab lands - in taking on the recalcitrant parties above.
As hard as that is to believe, looking at the cringing, terrified, supplicant, pro-US regimes that litter the sands of the Arab World, it is actually possible the Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia may be urging the US and Israel to attack the principled radicals above.
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11:23 PM: The IDF destroyed 500 homes in Bint Jbeil (in other words, they flattened the entire town). But all of those homes were really Hezbollah headquarters and bases. So, just about every home in the town was a Hezbollah headquarters or base, right?
10:51 PM: 25 IDF troops were wounded in extremely heavy fighting in Dibel and Ayta Al-Shaab.
10:39 PM: A large number of IDF tanks started moving into Lebanon, as the start of the mad "expansion of the war" by the crazed rightwing Israeli regime.
10:30 PM: 2 Katyusha rockets landed in Maalot. There were no casualties.
10:01 PM: The IDF attacked a guerrilla training camp in Gaza in the Shajeyah District. 2 Palestinians were killed and others were wounded.
9 PM: Fox News, on the border with Lebanon, has footage of a burned out Merkava tank where reportedly 4 IDF troops were killed. The reporter, Shephard Smith, said they had been watching IDF casualties, killed and wounded, go by all day long. The sound of heavy fighting could be heard in the background. Smith said that today looked to be the worst day so far for IDF casualties.
8 PM: 1 IDF soldier was killed and 2 others were wounded in a mortar attack in Kalia, near Marjaroun.
6:04 PM: The IDF bombarded the studios of Al Manar TV in Beirut. Several other buildings were also hit. Al Manar broadcasts "incitement and war propaganda", so therefore it got hit. In that case, Hezbollah has a right to attack the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz , Ynet, Maariv and Arutz Sheva offices with missiles, correct? Not to mention all Israeli TV stations. Fair is fair.
3:29 PM: The IDF said they killed 20 Hezbollah fighters in very heavy fighting in Bint Jbeil.
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3:01 PM: Several IDF troops are wounded in fighting in southern Lebanon. Fighting is ongoing in Bint Jbeil, Aita Al Shaab, Qantara, Tayba, Aytarun, Debel and Rajmin.
The IDF said they killed 2 Hezbollah fighters in Rajmin. Qantara is 5 1/2 miles west of the border near Metulla and 3 miles west of Taybeh. Rajmin is actually known as Ramyah on most maps. It is located 1 mile north of the Zarit on the border.
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2:50 PM: Heavy fighting was reported in Debil, west of Bint Jbeil.
2:46 PM: Fires continue to burn out of control from Katyusha attacks at Kiryat Shemona and Maalot. A building in Nahariyah sustained a direct hit by a missile but there were no casualties. Several Israelis in the Galilee were wounded.
2:42 PM: 2 rockets slammed into a populated area of Carmiel. There were no casualties.
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2:21 PM: The Khaiber-1 330mm Syrian-made rockets fired on Afula landed mostly in the West Bank near Jenin, in general along the Green Line.
One rocket landed in the Palestinian village of Faqua, which could not be located on a map. Another such rocket hit that town a week ago. There are apparently no casualties from these strikes, although they rained shrapnel all around. They carry a 200-pound warhead, whereas, the Katyushas only carry 40-pound warheads.
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2:17 PM: A Katyusha rocket barrage hit Safad but landed in open areas. Nevertheless, 5 Israelis were wounded.
2 PM: Over 6 Katyushas rained down on Maalot and Kiryat Shemona. There are no casualties but fires are burning in the area.
1:12 PM: A number of IDF soldiers have been wounded in the intense fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in Aita Al Shaab and Taybeh. There are no details on the number of casualties or their nature. In fighting elsewhere, the IDF said they killed 4 Hezbollah fighters.
12:25 PM: Hezbollah fired over half a dozen missiles at Haifa and Nahariyah, but they all landed in open areas. A Khaiber-1 rocket blew up over Haifa before it hit ground.
12:06 PM: Hezbollah fired missiles at a number of targets across southern Lebanon. Missiles hit Haifa, Nahariyah,and Kiryat Shemona. For the second time, Hezbollah fired Khaiber-1 rockets on Israel. This time, the rockets hit in the Gilboa Hills, 1/2 way between Afula and Beit Shean, just north of the West Bank.
12 PM: Hezbollah guerrillas fired anti-tank missiles into a building where Israeli soldiers were hiding in Dibel, killing 9 IDF troops. The missile caused an arms cache to blow up inside the building. A short while later, the building collapsed. 17 troops were wounded. IDF forces had a hard time digging them out for some reason. It is not known if some of the wounded are still trapped there.
AM: The IDF killed 2 Hezbollah guerrillas in Aita Al Shaab, another village the IDF has been in for weeks. Let me know when the mighty IDF takes this measly village?
11:30 AM: The IDF says it killed a top Hezbollah official and 6 members of his family in an air strike on his home in the town of Masjara (I am not sure where that is). If this is ok, then why is it not ok for, say, "terrorists" to rocket homes where Israeli soldiers reside. If their family gets killed too, then so what?
11 AM: Hezbollah fired a Kornet anti-tank missile at IDF forces in Ayta Al-Shaab, killing all 4 crew members. The tank burst into flames and other soldiers were not able to approach it.
10:38 AM: IDF gunships shelled targets in southern Lebanon.
10:02 AM: Palestinian guerrillas opened fire on IDF troops in Jenin. There were no casualties.
9:55 AM: An IDF helicopter fired a missile at 2 Islamic Jihad in a home in Jenin. Both of them were killed in the air strike. Both were wanted for suicide bombings.
9:40 AM: 1 IDF soldier was wounded in fighting in Bint Jbeil. Excuse me, but the IDF is still in Bint Jbeil? They have been there for how long now? A month? Come on, now.
8:22 AM: The IDF arrested 3 Palestinian guerrillas in Nablus and Ramallah. The guerrillas were in Tanzim and the PFLP. This blog strongly supports the PFLP and DFLP in Palestine and urges all progressives to consider doing the same.
8 AM: 1 IDF soldier was killed and 7 more were wounded in a "friendly fire incident in Taybeh.
7:31 AM: The IDF hit what they said was Hezbollah's headquarters in in home in Bint Jbeil. There were reportedly 10 Hezbollah fighters in the home at that time.
7:23 AM: Palestinian fighters threw firebombs at IDF troops in Nablus in two separate attacks. There were no casualties.
Early AM: A number of Katyusha rockets rained down on Kiryat Shemona. There was damage but no injuries. Kiryat Shemona is devastated. 50% of its population has fled and there are plans to evacuate another 10,000 residents.
4:28 AM: There is heavy fighting ongoing in Ayta Al Shaab, which should have been conquered long ago. Hezbollah fighters are using antitank weapons.
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3:59 AM: The IDF bombarded the Ein Al Hilwe refugee camp in southern Lebanon. One shell hit the camp and another hit an amusement park next door. 1 Palestinian was killed and 3 more were wounded. The IDF attacked the offices of the Fatah in the camp.
Can someone please tell me why that office is a legitimate target in this war? The IDF seems to be out to settle scores across the board, as they do in most of their ramped up offensives. Israel claims they hit a Hezbollah fighter in the camp.
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1:15 AM: Palestinian fighters threw rocks at IDF troops near Nablus. The troops responded by firing at the feet of the protesters. 3 Palestinians were wounded.
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Over 160 rockets pounded into Israel today. Rockets hit Haifa, Afula, Kiryat Shemona, Shlomi, the Hula Valley, Nahariyah, Maalot, Carmiel, Safad, Beit Shean, Accra and the Jezreel Valley. 11 Israeli civilians were wounded.
Kiryat Shemona was hit with 80 rockets during the day, making it impossible to carry out the proposed evacuation. Every time the evacuees got on buses, another barrage would come in and they would have to run for the shelters.
*****
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15 IDF troops were killed and 37 more were wounded today. This is the worst days so far for IDF casualties.
9 were killed in Dibel when an anti-tank rocket on a building housing IDF troops caused an arms cache to blow up and collapsed the building. 4 were killed when their tank was destroyed in Ayta Al-Shaab. 1 was killed by friendly fire in Taybeh. Another was killed in a mortar attack in Qulayah, near Marjayoun. Qulayah is 3 miles due north of Metulla in Israel and 2 miles southwest of Marjayoun.
At least 17 soldiers were wounded in Dibel and at least another 8 were wounded in Ayta Al-Shaab. Another 12 soldiers were wounded, 2 in Klia, 7 in Taybeh and the rest in unknown locales.
*****
The IDF says they killed at 50 Hezbollah fighters today.
117 Israelis have been killed so far in this war, 80 soldiers, 36 civilians in Israel and 1 civilian in the Diaspora.
The Lebanese death toll still stands at around 1000
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I would like to take this time to point out, if I have not done so already, a very good blog, No Quarter, written by former CIA analyst Larry C. Johnson.
I know that sounds bad, but he is part of the reality-based community, he has superb knowledge of the Middle East, and he and his co-author(s) have nothing but contempt for the neoconservative madness that reigns in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Johnson runs a counterterrorism consulting firm, but before you get twisted out of shape about that, note that it continues to be focused on Sunni Salafists and Takfiris associated with Al Qaeda.
This is a menace, despite the disgusting lies from Muslim (fundamentalist) apologies that only Muslims can understand Muslims, that there is no such thing as Salafism, or Wahhabism, or Salafi-jihadism, and that all of these are the fervid lies of Western "Orientalists".
This lie that is echoed by Arab ethnocentrists like Angry Arab, who ignorantly and arrogantly insists that any attempt to understand Arabs or the Arab World in any way by anyone who does not have 100% pure Arab blood is a case of "Orientalism".
Despite this ethnocentric BS, outsiders are indeed capable of observing, analyzing and yes (gasp) even understanding Arab and Muslim cultures without converting to Islam or getting Arabic blood transfusions.
For instance, it is not "Orientalism" to note, astutely, that there is a variety of radical Sunni Islam, loosely allied with the ideology of Al Qaeda, that must be fought to the death and destroyed everywhere it menaces its enemies on this planet, no matter how matter Takfiri maniacs are slaughtered in the process. I am serious. If a million dangerous Takfiris need to die, let's get on with it. Hama, Part 2, let's rock and roll.
Edward Said, for all his fine work, did the world a disservice with his ethnocentric lead balloon "Orientalism", and poisoned the minds of a generation of Arab intellectuals.
Larry Johnson understands who the Salafi and Takfiri enemy is and who are the Muslims and Arabs who need to be left in peace.
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*****
Let us start out with a very important article by journalist Robert Parry, who did some important research on Iran-Contra. A voice of calm reason, we need to listen carefully to him. The topics of this piece have also appeared in a variety of other pieces lately, but this article sums things up pretty well.
First of all, whether or not Hezbollah attacked the Israeli forces inside Israel or inside Lebanon is not really important because this war was planned for months by the US and Israel. On May 23, Bush met with Olmert and Israeli sources say the go-ahead was given to fight the Lebanon War.
All they needed was a pretext. Three days later, a bomb went off in Lebanon, killing 2 Islamic Jihad activists. Hezbollah was furious and responded to the attack with a rocket barrage on Israel. Israel responded with bombardments of Hezbollah positions. This sort of thing has been going on from time to time ever since 2000.
The objective here was to increase the tensions along the border, to provoke the enemy into attacking, and then to use the attack to launch the Destroy Hezbollah War. This is the sort of thing that Israel has done over and over all throughout its history. As this comment here notes:
Israel is a freak nation founded on ethnic cleansing and war - that cannot exist without war.I realize that that comment sounds insane, but my years of research have concluded that there is a lot of truth to that. Anyway, on June 10, Lebanese authorities rolled up a Mossad cell in Lebanon that had conducted the assassination of the Islamic Jihad officials.
The objective here was to provoke a situation of tit for tat violence that would escalate the pressure on Hezbollah, the Palestinian guerrillas, Syria and Iran.
At the May 23 summit, Olmert and Bush agreed to make 2006 the year to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue (even though an Iranian bomb is at least 3-10 years away). The way to get to Iran is through Syria and Hezbollah.
Although I do not like to make predictions, a US or Israeli or US-Israeli attack on Iran before the Bush Presidency is up is possible and may even be likely. Both the Americans and the Israelis seem to be determined to pull off this attack. Now whether their plans will actually come through or not is uncertain, but that an attack on Iran is clearly their objective.
The idea here, the piece notes, is to create a wider conflict. The brilliant but erratic Xymphora sketches out the neoconservative plan to transform the Middle East here into 10 steps. Some of them are quite unlikely, but others are already done.
We have seen repeated neoconservative blueprints for these plots in the past decade.
Just take a look at various documents out of Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum, especially this eye-opening document called, Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The US Role, by Pipes and Ziad Abelnour (former Lebanese Phalangist and head of the neoconservative US Committee for a Free Lebanon - web site here).
Listing all of the players in these schemes goes beyond the scope of this post, but the Right Web links above contain lists of many of the relevant plotters and the organizations they are involved with.
The single paper that sums up the whole neoconservative game plan well is A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, prepared for former Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in June 1996.
It is essential that anyone who wants to understand the Middle East madness that has ensued since George Bush came into office read this paper.
In this paper, the invasion of Iraq is plotted. In the same paper, the destruction of Hezbollah is urged. It's not too often that conspirators lay out exactly what they intend to do before hand, and when they do, is important that all concerned citizens read up on these mad plots, understand them, and formulate strategies to resist them.
In fact, reading through any of the papers on the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies page should give a careful reader tremendous insight into the thinking of the current US and Israeli governments.
Reading Securing the Realm shows you the mad vision of "The New Middle East" that these ultra-Zionist psychos contemplate. With that knowledge in mind, we can understand Condoleeza Rice's slip of the tongue when she called the orgy of mad death and destruction in Lebanon as "the birth pangs of the New Middle East".
As I have noted previously, since this pre-planned Lebanon War began (just looking for an excuse to trigger it off), the Bushies have been urging Israel to attack Syria. If you read Securing the Realm, you will note that Syria is targeted for regime change after Iraq. The Israelis have balked, reportedly because they lack an immediate excuse.
However, perusing the rightwing blogs, websites and Israeli comments section in the past few weeks, I have been inundated with calls to attack Syria and also to attack Iran. Turn on Fox News, and one breathless, psychopathic Zionist talking-head nutcase after another urges an attack on Syria, Iran, or both.
Clearly, the "Destroy Hezbollah War" is meant to be a way to get at Iran and/or Syria, either by provoking them into the conflict, or just attacking them for their logical behavior in resupplying their Hezbollah ally. Indeed, Israeli sources note that Bush is praying that Iran and Syria will get overtly involved in the Hezbollah War, in order to give a green light to attacks on them.
It is useful to note that Bush tried a similar "pretext war" against Iraq before he attacked it. Endlessly, with no-fly zones and continuous bombings of Iraqi targets, the US and Britain (British imperialism to be precise, apparently trying to long-lost colonial glory) tried to goad Saddam into a war.
Wisely, Saddam refused to react to the countless smacks to his face by defending himself. Not that it mattered, as he got attacked anyway. Which suggests a similar end for these similar provocations, if it comes down to that endgame. It is clear that the US is determined to attack not only Iran, but also Syria.
At this point, judging by the Iraqi experience, it is not clear what these 2 countries can do to stop these planned attacks, short of complete surrender to US and Zionist hegemony.
Although the Iraq War seems to have set the neocons back a bit, with the ascension to power of rightwing hack Olmert in Israel, Bush apparently saw a kindred spirit who believed that Zionist and imperialist ultraviolence could solve the problems of the region.
It is useful to note here Paul Krugman's brilliant formation of the neoconservatives and Bushies as revolutionaries, based on his analysis of Henry Kissinger's astute dissertation about revolutionary powers. We must also bear in mind Hillary Clinton's comments at a private fundraiser in Los Angeles when she described the Bushies as "relentless and ruthless".
They are! You cannot understand these people until you get that through your head. Have you noticed that when the Bushies have a goal, they just keep pushing it and pushing it, even after failure upon failure, no matter how little support it has, until they finally bash the door down and get what they want? They don't stop, they don't take no for an answer, and they never quit.
You will never understand the Bushies until you figure this out.
Anyway, back to the US-Israeli ratchet game. The day after this fateful May 23 meeting, Olmert stood up and said "a moment of truth" had come for addressing Iran's purported nuclear bomb program.
The very next day, Olmert went to the US Congress and gave a surreal speech in which he described the nonexistent Iranian nuclear bomb as an "existential threat" to the Zionist racist settler-colonial rogue state that is itself armed with 300-400 nuclear weapons.
In this bizarre speech, Olmert was interrupted scores of times by standing ovations by a Congress in deadly thrall to the Zionist outlaw killer state. This does not usually happen when a foreign leader addresses Congress. It is like a surrealist play by Alfred Jarry.
On June 23, the IDF kidnapped 2 sons of a Hamas legislator, who are apparently completely innocent, and despite the cacophonous Zionist screeching that they are "terrorists", they seem to be guilty of nothing more than having a father who is a Hamas leader. A day later, Hamas tunneled out of the Gaza open air prison, attacked a Zionist base, killed 2 IDF soldiers and took 1 more POW.
This was apparently the pretext needed to destroy Gaza and wipe the democratically elected Hamas government out completely. At the time, Palestinian President Abbas had apparently coaxed Hamas into accepting a 2-state solution, formally anyway (they have repeatedly said they would accept such a solution).
The Israeli response, as we have seen over and over whenever any kind of peaceful settlement comes up that seems to curtain the ongoing Zionist colonization project, was massive violence. In the midst of the madness, Israel kidnapped 1/3 of the elected Hamas Parliament, who have nothing to do with military operations at all. These are apparently some kind of sick bargaining chips for the IDF POW.
The tension mounted, and on June 12, Hezbollah attacked, apparently partly in solidarity with the Palestinians, for which they ought to be commended. Israel responded to the attacks, deaths, injuries and POW's with a wild bombardment of Lebanon from one end to the other. Hezbollah responded by launching a Katyusha barrage.
Israel responded with a 10,000-man ground invasion and plans to occupy land all the way up to the Litani River, along with creepy warnings telling all civilians to flee the area.
These warnings are creepy because many times in past, Zionists have told the civilian population to flee, then attacked cities and villages, conquered them and annexed them to the Zionist colonial state, while permanently preventing the natives from returning to their homes and lands.
While we do not have any clear evidence that Israel intends to annex southern Lebanon to the Litani River, or steal the water from the Litani, at this point, we need to consider this out of control madman state as capable of these things, whether or not they actually do it or not.
Parry's article notes that the US-French-Israeli UN plan is apparently designed to fail from the start, thereby creating a pretext called,"Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria) are violating UN resolutions". Recall from the Iraq War what nefarious purposes Machiavellian US imperialists and Zionists use failure to comply with UN resolutions (it's a green light to attack the parties not in compliance).
Specifically, the resolution calls for Hezbollah to completely disarm, hand back the POW's and cease all hostilities. In return, they get zero.
They don't get their 15 Lebanese POW's back, Israel does not have to hand over the Lebanese land they are occupying, colonizing and stealing water from (the Shebaa Farms), and most insane of all, Israel does not even have to leave Lebanon!
Not only does the racist, colonialist, militarist, belligerent Israeli state get to camp out on occupied land again, but they have a right to engage in "defensive" attacks" (Hezbollah has no such right). Any student of Israeli history knows what mad offensive operations Israel has endlessly engaged in the name of self-defensive.
So, while the US is purporting to try to stop a war that the US in fact started, and relieving a humanitarian crisis that the US caused in the first place, the devious machinations here appear to be to force some sort of a showdown (apparently an armed one) with the axis of Hezbollah-Syria-Iran-Hamas in some kind of wild roll the dice endgame.
The reason those four parties are targeted is simple. Those are the last holdouts in the Arab World that not only oppose Zionist racist colonialism, expansionism and apartheid, but are well-armed and willing to stand up to this evil with gun in hand.
Strangely, the US and Israel actually feel that they have the support of so-called "moderate" regimes - regimes that have abjectly surrendered to Zionist colonization and occupation of Arab lands - in taking on the recalcitrant parties above.
As hard as that is to believe, looking at the cringing, terrified, supplicant, pro-US regimes that litter the sands of the Arab World, it is actually possible the Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia may be urging the US and Israel to attack the principled radicals above.
******
11:23 PM: The IDF destroyed 500 homes in Bint Jbeil (in other words, they flattened the entire town). But all of those homes were really Hezbollah headquarters and bases. So, just about every home in the town was a Hezbollah headquarters or base, right?
10:51 PM: 25 IDF troops were wounded in extremely heavy fighting in Dibel and Ayta Al-Shaab.
10:39 PM: A large number of IDF tanks started moving into Lebanon, as the start of the mad "expansion of the war" by the crazed rightwing Israeli regime.
10:30 PM: 2 Katyusha rockets landed in Maalot. There were no casualties.
10:01 PM: The IDF attacked a guerrilla training camp in Gaza in the Shajeyah District. 2 Palestinians were killed and others were wounded.
9 PM: Fox News, on the border with Lebanon, has footage of a burned out Merkava tank where reportedly 4 IDF troops were killed. The reporter, Shephard Smith, said they had been watching IDF casualties, killed and wounded, go by all day long. The sound of heavy fighting could be heard in the background. Smith said that today looked to be the worst day so far for IDF casualties.
8 PM: 1 IDF soldier was killed and 2 others were wounded in a mortar attack in Kalia, near Marjaroun.
6:04 PM: The IDF bombarded the studios of Al Manar TV in Beirut. Several other buildings were also hit. Al Manar broadcasts "incitement and war propaganda", so therefore it got hit. In that case, Hezbollah has a right to attack the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz , Ynet, Maariv and Arutz Sheva offices with missiles, correct? Not to mention all Israeli TV stations. Fair is fair.
3:29 PM: The IDF said they killed 20 Hezbollah fighters in very heavy fighting in Bint Jbeil.
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3:01 PM: Several IDF troops are wounded in fighting in southern Lebanon. Fighting is ongoing in Bint Jbeil, Aita Al Shaab, Qantara, Tayba, Aytarun, Debel and Rajmin.
The IDF said they killed 2 Hezbollah fighters in Rajmin. Qantara is 5 1/2 miles west of the border near Metulla and 3 miles west of Taybeh. Rajmin is actually known as Ramyah on most maps. It is located 1 mile north of the Zarit on the border.
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2:50 PM: Heavy fighting was reported in Debil, west of Bint Jbeil.
2:46 PM: Fires continue to burn out of control from Katyusha attacks at Kiryat Shemona and Maalot. A building in Nahariyah sustained a direct hit by a missile but there were no casualties. Several Israelis in the Galilee were wounded.
2:42 PM: 2 rockets slammed into a populated area of Carmiel. There were no casualties.
*****
2:21 PM: The Khaiber-1 330mm Syrian-made rockets fired on Afula landed mostly in the West Bank near Jenin, in general along the Green Line.
One rocket landed in the Palestinian village of Faqua, which could not be located on a map. Another such rocket hit that town a week ago. There are apparently no casualties from these strikes, although they rained shrapnel all around. They carry a 200-pound warhead, whereas, the Katyushas only carry 40-pound warheads.
****
2:17 PM: A Katyusha rocket barrage hit Safad but landed in open areas. Nevertheless, 5 Israelis were wounded.
2 PM: Over 6 Katyushas rained down on Maalot and Kiryat Shemona. There are no casualties but fires are burning in the area.
1:12 PM: A number of IDF soldiers have been wounded in the intense fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in Aita Al Shaab and Taybeh. There are no details on the number of casualties or their nature. In fighting elsewhere, the IDF said they killed 4 Hezbollah fighters.
12:25 PM: Hezbollah fired over half a dozen missiles at Haifa and Nahariyah, but they all landed in open areas. A Khaiber-1 rocket blew up over Haifa before it hit ground.
12:06 PM: Hezbollah fired missiles at a number of targets across southern Lebanon. Missiles hit Haifa, Nahariyah,and Kiryat Shemona. For the second time, Hezbollah fired Khaiber-1 rockets on Israel. This time, the rockets hit in the Gilboa Hills, 1/2 way between Afula and Beit Shean, just north of the West Bank.
12 PM: Hezbollah guerrillas fired anti-tank missiles into a building where Israeli soldiers were hiding in Dibel, killing 9 IDF troops. The missile caused an arms cache to blow up inside the building. A short while later, the building collapsed. 17 troops were wounded. IDF forces had a hard time digging them out for some reason. It is not known if some of the wounded are still trapped there.
AM: The IDF killed 2 Hezbollah guerrillas in Aita Al Shaab, another village the IDF has been in for weeks. Let me know when the mighty IDF takes this measly village?
11:30 AM: The IDF says it killed a top Hezbollah official and 6 members of his family in an air strike on his home in the town of Masjara (I am not sure where that is). If this is ok, then why is it not ok for, say, "terrorists" to rocket homes where Israeli soldiers reside. If their family gets killed too, then so what?
11 AM: Hezbollah fired a Kornet anti-tank missile at IDF forces in Ayta Al-Shaab, killing all 4 crew members. The tank burst into flames and other soldiers were not able to approach it.
10:38 AM: IDF gunships shelled targets in southern Lebanon.
10:02 AM: Palestinian guerrillas opened fire on IDF troops in Jenin. There were no casualties.
9:55 AM: An IDF helicopter fired a missile at 2 Islamic Jihad in a home in Jenin. Both of them were killed in the air strike. Both were wanted for suicide bombings.
9:40 AM: 1 IDF soldier was wounded in fighting in Bint Jbeil. Excuse me, but the IDF is still in Bint Jbeil? They have been there for how long now? A month? Come on, now.
8:22 AM: The IDF arrested 3 Palestinian guerrillas in Nablus and Ramallah. The guerrillas were in Tanzim and the PFLP. This blog strongly supports the PFLP and DFLP in Palestine and urges all progressives to consider doing the same.
8 AM: 1 IDF soldier was killed and 7 more were wounded in a "friendly fire incident in Taybeh.
7:31 AM: The IDF hit what they said was Hezbollah's headquarters in in home in Bint Jbeil. There were reportedly 10 Hezbollah fighters in the home at that time.
7:23 AM: Palestinian fighters threw firebombs at IDF troops in Nablus in two separate attacks. There were no casualties.
Early AM: A number of Katyusha rockets rained down on Kiryat Shemona. There was damage but no injuries. Kiryat Shemona is devastated. 50% of its population has fled and there are plans to evacuate another 10,000 residents.
4:28 AM: There is heavy fighting ongoing in Ayta Al Shaab, which should have been conquered long ago. Hezbollah fighters are using antitank weapons.
****
3:59 AM: The IDF bombarded the Ein Al Hilwe refugee camp in southern Lebanon. One shell hit the camp and another hit an amusement park next door. 1 Palestinian was killed and 3 more were wounded. The IDF attacked the offices of the Fatah in the camp.
Can someone please tell me why that office is a legitimate target in this war? The IDF seems to be out to settle scores across the board, as they do in most of their ramped up offensives. Israel claims they hit a Hezbollah fighter in the camp.
****
1:15 AM: Palestinian fighters threw rocks at IDF troops near Nablus. The troops responded by firing at the feet of the protesters. 3 Palestinians were wounded.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Middle East War Report for Monday, August 7
Updated November 30, 2008:
****
Excellent reading for the day - from Norman Birnbaum of the Nation Magazine. The Nation has been pummeled lately by the Angry Arab blog (some of the best coverage on this Lebanon War can be found there) for not being radical enough on the pro-Arab and anti-Israel scale, but let us note that many of the editors and writers are Jewish, and most are at least Soft Zionists.
It is not a perfect world. Nevertheless, this piece, Is Israel Good For the Jews? is superb and highly critical of Israel while lacking in anti-Semitism. He alludes to what has been obvious to me for some time now. As Xymphora has pointed out, Israel and the US now form the leading edge of one of the most dangerous rightwing movements in our world today.
An out-of-control Israeli state in the grips of a mad neoconservative "double-down" philosophy, allied with unreconstructed reactionary US imperialists and fanatical end-times Christians, is not a state than any liberal, not to be mention any liberal Jew, should feel comfortable supporting. He makes the very daring suggestion that US Jews ought to slowly "disengage" from the Israeli settler-colonial madman rogue state.
More articles like this!
****
****
Zionist History Lesson of the Day:
The New Historians of Israel, who have done us a favor by pointing out how Israel was born in sin, are nevertheless advancing a dangerous argument.
Benny Morris, drifting to the Right as Zionism mandates (Face it, there is a certain deep disconnect with the notion of a "Zionist Left"), says in his fairly dishonest attack on the Walt-Mearshimer paper on the Israeli Lobby in The New Republic, And Now For Some Facts, says that the only reason the Zionists took up arms in the 1930's and 1940's was because of Arab intransigence.
In saying so, Morris elides the settler-colonial nature of the Zionist movement, present from the very start. This is the line that the original Zionist settlers just wanted to "immigrate" to Israel to live in peace with the Arabs in Palestine.
Ralph Shoenmann's great The Hidden History of Zionism makes it clear that from the very start, the intent was to disperse, dispossess and replace the Arabs of Palestine. The Arabs figured this out early on. Here is a quote from the King-Crane Commission of the US in 1919, when the Arabs were already up in arms about the Zionist project:
A few years after that, the first Jewish guerrilla groups took up arms. The die was set and the war was on. It has continued without much letup, year and year out, ever since. 86 years. I figure that this recent mad neoconservative gamble we are witnessing is to seize the moment and end the Israeli-Arab War once and for all, or at least set the Arabs back a bit. It will fail, mark my words.
Abraham Foxman, head of the disgusting Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an Israel-firster who combines domestic liberalism with far-right neoconservatism, is a prototype of the curious, dissonant state of US Jewry. The ADL was formed after a an accused Jewish rapist and murderer, Leo Frank, was lynched out of a Georgia jail in 1915.
In this telling picture, Foxman's hand looks like a claw. I do not think that Mr. Foxman is a good or decent person, despite his supposed anti-racist bonafides.*****
*****
100 Israelis have been killed so far in this Lebanon War, 61 soldiers, 38 civilians in Israel and 1 civilian in the Diaspora. Another 6 Israelis have been killed during the same period in Gaza, Sderot (a town in Israel near Gaza) and the West Bank.
It is interesting that the "terrorists" are killing 1.5 soldiers for every civilian killed, while the Israeli "non-terrorists" have killed about 5 civilians for every armed fighter. It is also interesting that the Hezbollah "terrorists" have killed 36 civilians, while the Israeli "non-terrorists" have killed around 880 civilians.
Faced with bizarre figures like that, we may as well just toss out categories like "terrorists" altogether for the time being in this war. The pro-Israeli crowd argues that Hezbollah is trying to kill Israeli civilians. Well, they are doing a comparatively inept job of it.
Whereas, the IDF is supposedly not deliberately targeting civilians (but see my post here for more on that). Well, in life and in war, "trying" doesn't really count. Results count. And by imperialism's definition of terrorism, it is Israel who is the terrorist in this conflict and Hezbollah who is fighting a relatively cleaner war.
*****
4 IDF soldiers were killed and 20 more were wounded.
10 Israeli civilians were wounded.
****
Another 57-69 Lebanese civilians were reportedly killed today (the figures vary). A reported massacre with 40 dead in Houla has been reduced to 1 killed. 925 Lebanese have been killed so far, and another 75 are missing.
Of those, I believe that around 200 are Hezbollah fighters, messengers and truck drivers, and 29 more are Lebanese military. That leaves about 770 dead civilians.
The IDF said they killed 44 Hezbollah fighters today.
****
Hezbollah fired an infernal 160-rocket barrage on Israel today, with 70 of them landing in Kiryat Shemona (referred to by locals cynically as "Kiryat Katyusha"). 10 Israelis were wounded in the barrage.
The casualty figures for these barrages are dropping dramatically because 70-80% of the Jewish population of many northern towns have fled and many of those remaining are heading to bomb shelters when they hear the sirens.
*****
*****
The IDF bombed the town of Qasmiyeh, killing 7 civilians. This town could to be located on a map. Another 6 or 7 civilians were killed in bombardments of 6 other villages. Air raids across the Bekaa Valley killed 1 civilian. Another air raid hit Masnaa, a town on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
*****
Israeli air strikes have now succeeded in isolating the city of Tyre. Israel is apparently getting ready for the outrageous move of attacking, conquering and occupying Tyre. Tyre is a large coastal city that is still full of civilians. Local medical crews are preparing for what they view as the inevitable Israeli invasion.
Occupying Tyre would be quite a handful. In addition to the usual Hezbollah forces, there are many Palestinians in local refugee camps who have vowed to fight any Israeli attempt to take the city. I also feel that the Lebanese military will not stand idly by if Israel attempts to conquer Tyre. It will be interesting to see how such an audacious Israeli operation plays out.
*****
*****
For the first time, the IDF attacked Al-Shiyah, a district of Beirut on the edge of where Beirut meets its southern suburbs. Many Christians live here and many Shia refugees have fled here into what they thought was safety in the open arms of the Christians who reside there. 15 civilians were killed in that attack and many more were wounded.
These attacks on Christian districts, as well as attacks on Sunni districts, in my opinion, are apparently a result of Israel's efforts to install a civil war in Lebanon. Now that 87% of Lebanese are supporting Hezbollah, imperialism and Zionism need to instill some rifts to break up that kind of patriotic solidarity.
Although I find it difficult to believe that human beings could actually conspire to start vicious civil wars in other countries (perhaps because I retain shreds of decency), apparently elites do this sort of thing all the time.
Hence, it is time to seriously consider the notion that Israel (and the US) are trying to start a civil war in Lebanon, as Jonathan Cook argues here, in The Deadly US-Israeli Shell Game at the UN. Cook, reporting out of Nazareth during this conflict, is an essential source about this war and I recommend any of his articles.
The Cook piece above also expertly takes apart the latest UN proposal to supposedly end the conflict. An analysis of that UN proposal goes beyond the scope of this post, and I direct you to the article. It ought to be enough, though, to note that Israel had a hand in writing this "US-French" UN resolution from the start. The resolution may as well have a sticker on it called "Made in Israel".
Some may be shocked at the French role in alliance with US imperialism and Zionism in Lebanon. Those folks need to look at history. History shows us that Lebanon was a French colony and that France still considers it more or less as such. For all their blather about opposing US imperialism's war in Iraq, it is sadly an accurate analysis that France remains a belligerent, violent imperialist state.
Recent French actions in Haiti (conspiring to overthrow President Aristide and instill a murderous regime that has killed 3,000 innocent Haitians) and in Lebanon (being one of the main parties behind the UN Resolution 1559 that set the stage for this war) along with recent French shenanigans in former colonies in Africa, suggest that France is still an imperialist country, mostly regarding its former colonies.
Apparently, psychologically, France has not given up its colonies or its colonial mindset, despite the 25,000 dead Frenchmen in Algeria in the Algerian Civil War. Lesson? Imperialism and colonialism die hard! The only cure for colonialism, of either the lingering, nostalgic variety or the active, in-your-face kind, remains the same as always, lots of dead and wounded colonists and colonial troops.
Those upset by such violent reactions are advised to kick the colonial addiction.
*****
Fighting was also reported at Shama, east of Al Bayada and behind enemy lines and at Taybeh, just inside the border.
Israel is still stuck in many of the same border villages after 3 weeks of fighting. This is the worst performance for the Israeli military in any of its major wars so far. It is wrong to call it a defeat, but surely they have not achieved any of their stated objectives. Furthermore, Hezbollah has fought more successfully against Israel (in some ways) than any Arab army.
8:58 PM: Hezbollah launched a Misrad-1 Iranian unmanned drone over Israel but it was shot down over the ocean off the coast of Haifa. There are conflicting reports about whether or not it was carrying any explosives on it when it was shot down. This marks a significant escalation.
Night: There was heavy fighting in the village of Dibel. Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF armored vehicle, destroying it, while killing 1 IDF soldier and wounding 5 more.
6:55 PM: A Qassam missile was fired from Gaza into the Negev, but landed in an open area and did not cause any damage or casualties. Qassams are much inferior to the Katyushas that Hezbollah is using.
6:18 PM: A rocket scored a direct hit on a school in Kiryat Shemona. The school was in flames. There were no casualties.
5:51 PM: 4 Katyushas landed in Accra. There are no casualties or damage.
5:15 PM: A Katyusha slammed into a home in the Kiryat Shemona area , wounding a number of Israelis.
4:58 PM: A Katyusha landed in an open area near Kiryat Shemona. No casualties or damage.
4:06 PM: IDF forces apprehended a Palestinian guerrilla in the village of Azzoun, east of Qalqilya. He was wanted in a number of attacks.
3:30 PM: 30 Israeli commandos landed via helicopter on a hilltop in Ras al-Biyada, south of Tyre, behind enemy lines. When last heard from, they were engaged in ferocious fighting with Hezbollah forces with no word on casualties.
3 PM: Fires are burning out of control near Tiberias.
*****
3 PM: Regarding the 57-69 Lebanese civilians killed so far today: There were originally said are said to be 40 Lebanese civilians - shepherds and their families hiding in a home - who were killed during the ferocious bombing and shelling of Houla earlier in the morning.
Most were said to be buried under rubble. The "non-terrorist" IDF is said to be attacking everything that moves in the area. The previous day they attacked a donkey that strolled into town. Later reports indicated that only one person was killed.
*****
2:40 PM: Heavy fighting is continuing in Bint Jbeil, where the IDF took casualties in the morning. 2 IDF soldiers were killed and 2 more were wounded when a Hezbollah ATGM hit a Merkava tank and destroyed it. Another IDF soldier was wounded in the fighting, which lasted for several hours throughout the afternoon.
An amazing photo that shows a Merkava-2 tank, (Merkavas come in Merkava-2, Merkava-3 and Merkava-4 iterations) in flames, possibly after being destroyed by a Hezbollah attack. The photo was found on the Internet with no date or explanation. We don't know if Hezbollah killed this tank - it may have been killed by Palestinians.
2:30 PM: Lebanese sources report that the latest mad Israeli raids, in response to the killing of 3 whole Israeli citizens, killed many civilians (the final figure is between 57-69 killed). Once again, we see the Israeli Super Bully mindset in action, in this case the supposedly Judaic 20-1 theory (you kill one of ours, we kill 20 of yours). Why do they hate us, anyone?
2 PM: Israeli ultra-racist, fascist legislator Effie Eitam, a former IDF general, threatened to "dismantle Lebanon" unless Lebanon dismantled Hezbollah. Such charming people, these Judeo-fascists. Regarding dismantling Lebanon, what have they been doing so far?
1:30 PM: IDF and Shin Bet forces killed a senior Islamic Jihad guerrilla in Silat Al-Hartia, near Jenin.
1 PM: Another rocket barrage landed in Kiryat Shemona. A building was hit and 3 Israelis were wounded.
1 PM: Israel apparently tried to kill Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyeh with some sort of a poison in an envelope. 7 Palestinians were hospitalized, with 1 in serious condition, after they opened an envelope addressed to Haniyeh.
12:30 PM: Turkey canceled a major arms deal with Israel and is now refusing to allow US planes to land in Turkey on the way to delivering weapons to Israel. Both of these moves are to protest Israel's wars in Lebanon and Palestine. Looks like Israel's only Muslim friend is not such a close friend after all.
12:15 PM: 5 more Katyushas hit Tiberias. There were no casualties.
12 noon: 7 more rockets rained down on northern Israel, hitting Kiryat Shemona, Tiberias, and the Golan Heights. 1 Israeli was wounded in Kiryat Shemona.
11:30 AM: 1 IDF soldier was killed and 7 more were wounded as fierce fighting continued in Bint Jbeil. The IDF said they killed 14 Hezbollah fighters in the fighting here. The wounded were evacuated under withering fire. I thought this town was "pacified"?
11:30 AM: 2 rockets hit Nahariyah. One hit a building and 1 Israeli was wounded.
11 AM: An Israeli Arab from the village of Musmus, near Wadi Ara, attacked a security guard in Afula with a knife. He was apprehended and the security guard was not injured. Looks like some of the Arab Israelis are starting to join their Palestinian and Lebanese brethren in this war against Israel.
11 AM: 16 rockets rained down on the Galilee, 12 on Kiryat Shemona and 4 more on Safad. A Katyusha rocket scored a direct hit on a building in Safad, wounding 1 Israeli.
8:40 AM: The IDF conducted 4 air raids on the Bekaa Valley, 5 more on the southern Lebanon town of Nabiteyeh, and 8 attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs.
8:15 AM: Palestinian guerrillas opened fire on an IDF patrol near Nablus but there were no casualties.
8 AM: IDF forces said that they killed 30 Hezbollah fighters in battles in southern Lebanon.
Early AM: Hezbollah attacked IDF forces attempting to move into the border towns of Aita Al Shaab, Debel and Rub Thalatheen in the early AM. Fierce fighting is ongoing at the border village of Aita Al Shaab. Debel is about 1 1/2 miles northeast of Aita Al Shaab and 3 miles northeast of the border at Shetula. Rub Thalatheen cannot be located.
Early: Israeli settler-colonist Jews fired on Arab natives in a drive by shooting near Habla, close to Qalqilya, killing 1 Arab and wounding 1 more.
7 AM: IDF forces arrested another Hamas MP in Ramallah for no legitimate reason at all. Hamas MP's do not have anything to do with the Hamas military wing in any way. Israel is now holding 1/3 of the Hamas government as some sort of sick bargaining chips for the POW's that Hamas is holding.
*****
5:35 AM: Hezbollah said that they attacked a house where IDF troops were hiding on the outskirts of Houla, a town on border 1 1/2 miles west of the Israeli town of Manara, killing 4 IDF troops, including an officer. Israeli media is reporting an ambush of an IDF unit in this town and heavy fighting resulting from that attack. They are reporting 5 wounded in this fighting.
The usual way that Hezbollah is attacking these homes the IDF is holed up in is to fire an anti-tank missile at the home (see my review of Hezbollah's antitank missile arsenal here). The missile has a dual warhead. It is so potent that it blasts right through the walls of the home. After the missile is inside the structure, a second warhead detonates. The effect is much like artillery.
Due to this tactic, IDF troops are not spending much time in any one home and end up moving around a lot.
****
****
Israel is threatening to hit "Lebanese infrastructure and government symbols" in response to a Hezbollah rocket barrage that killed a whopping 3 Israelis. This is yet another example of the Israelis' much vaunted 10-1 or 100-1 mindset (as reiterated proudly by Revisionist Zionist Ruven Koret of Israelinsider).
This mindset goes along the lines of "you kill 1 of ours and we kill 10 or 100 of yours". At the same time, extreme victimology and vulnerability are typically voiced ("They are trying to exterminate us!"). I suppose what is going on here is the classic victim and vulnerable-paranoid mindset of the bully we have all met in life, from the 8th grade playground to the corporate office.
*****
****
Excellent reading for the day - from Norman Birnbaum of the Nation Magazine. The Nation has been pummeled lately by the Angry Arab blog (some of the best coverage on this Lebanon War can be found there) for not being radical enough on the pro-Arab and anti-Israel scale, but let us note that many of the editors and writers are Jewish, and most are at least Soft Zionists.
It is not a perfect world. Nevertheless, this piece, Is Israel Good For the Jews? is superb and highly critical of Israel while lacking in anti-Semitism. He alludes to what has been obvious to me for some time now. As Xymphora has pointed out, Israel and the US now form the leading edge of one of the most dangerous rightwing movements in our world today.
An out-of-control Israeli state in the grips of a mad neoconservative "double-down" philosophy, allied with unreconstructed reactionary US imperialists and fanatical end-times Christians, is not a state than any liberal, not to be mention any liberal Jew, should feel comfortable supporting. He makes the very daring suggestion that US Jews ought to slowly "disengage" from the Israeli settler-colonial madman rogue state.
More articles like this!
****
****
Zionist History Lesson of the Day:
The New Historians of Israel, who have done us a favor by pointing out how Israel was born in sin, are nevertheless advancing a dangerous argument.
Benny Morris, drifting to the Right as Zionism mandates (Face it, there is a certain deep disconnect with the notion of a "Zionist Left"), says in his fairly dishonest attack on the Walt-Mearshimer paper on the Israeli Lobby in The New Republic, And Now For Some Facts, says that the only reason the Zionists took up arms in the 1930's and 1940's was because of Arab intransigence.
In saying so, Morris elides the settler-colonial nature of the Zionist movement, present from the very start. This is the line that the original Zionist settlers just wanted to "immigrate" to Israel to live in peace with the Arabs in Palestine.
Ralph Shoenmann's great The Hidden History of Zionism makes it clear that from the very start, the intent was to disperse, dispossess and replace the Arabs of Palestine. The Arabs figured this out early on. Here is a quote from the King-Crane Commission of the US in 1919, when the Arabs were already up in arms about the Zionist project:
Indeed, the King-Crane commission from the US, led by King and Crane, two US congressman, reported that over 90% of the residents of Syria and Palestine were indeed violently against the Zionist program, but this was noted yet set aside nonetheless.You see? Even at that early date, the Arabs were furious about the Zionist project. The British should have stopped it right there. Instead, looking at the oncoming headlights careening towards them on the wrong side of the road, the Commission said to go ahead and drive right into the oncoming vehicle. The next year, there were violent Arab riots in Palestine and a number of settlers were killed.
A few years after that, the first Jewish guerrilla groups took up arms. The die was set and the war was on. It has continued without much letup, year and year out, ever since. 86 years. I figure that this recent mad neoconservative gamble we are witnessing is to seize the moment and end the Israeli-Arab War once and for all, or at least set the Arabs back a bit. It will fail, mark my words.
Abraham Foxman, head of the disgusting Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an Israel-firster who combines domestic liberalism with far-right neoconservatism, is a prototype of the curious, dissonant state of US Jewry. The ADL was formed after a an accused Jewish rapist and murderer, Leo Frank, was lynched out of a Georgia jail in 1915.In this telling picture, Foxman's hand looks like a claw. I do not think that Mr. Foxman is a good or decent person, despite his supposed anti-racist bonafides.
*****
100 Israelis have been killed so far in this Lebanon War, 61 soldiers, 38 civilians in Israel and 1 civilian in the Diaspora. Another 6 Israelis have been killed during the same period in Gaza, Sderot (a town in Israel near Gaza) and the West Bank.
It is interesting that the "terrorists" are killing 1.5 soldiers for every civilian killed, while the Israeli "non-terrorists" have killed about 5 civilians for every armed fighter. It is also interesting that the Hezbollah "terrorists" have killed 36 civilians, while the Israeli "non-terrorists" have killed around 880 civilians.
Faced with bizarre figures like that, we may as well just toss out categories like "terrorists" altogether for the time being in this war. The pro-Israeli crowd argues that Hezbollah is trying to kill Israeli civilians. Well, they are doing a comparatively inept job of it.
Whereas, the IDF is supposedly not deliberately targeting civilians (but see my post here for more on that). Well, in life and in war, "trying" doesn't really count. Results count. And by imperialism's definition of terrorism, it is Israel who is the terrorist in this conflict and Hezbollah who is fighting a relatively cleaner war.
*****
4 IDF soldiers were killed and 20 more were wounded.
10 Israeli civilians were wounded.
****
Another 57-69 Lebanese civilians were reportedly killed today (the figures vary). A reported massacre with 40 dead in Houla has been reduced to 1 killed. 925 Lebanese have been killed so far, and another 75 are missing.
Of those, I believe that around 200 are Hezbollah fighters, messengers and truck drivers, and 29 more are Lebanese military. That leaves about 770 dead civilians.
The IDF said they killed 44 Hezbollah fighters today.
****
Hezbollah fired an infernal 160-rocket barrage on Israel today, with 70 of them landing in Kiryat Shemona (referred to by locals cynically as "Kiryat Katyusha"). 10 Israelis were wounded in the barrage.
The casualty figures for these barrages are dropping dramatically because 70-80% of the Jewish population of many northern towns have fled and many of those remaining are heading to bomb shelters when they hear the sirens.
*****
*****
The IDF bombed the town of Qasmiyeh, killing 7 civilians. This town could to be located on a map. Another 6 or 7 civilians were killed in bombardments of 6 other villages. Air raids across the Bekaa Valley killed 1 civilian. Another air raid hit Masnaa, a town on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
*****
Israeli air strikes have now succeeded in isolating the city of Tyre. Israel is apparently getting ready for the outrageous move of attacking, conquering and occupying Tyre. Tyre is a large coastal city that is still full of civilians. Local medical crews are preparing for what they view as the inevitable Israeli invasion.
Occupying Tyre would be quite a handful. In addition to the usual Hezbollah forces, there are many Palestinians in local refugee camps who have vowed to fight any Israeli attempt to take the city. I also feel that the Lebanese military will not stand idly by if Israel attempts to conquer Tyre. It will be interesting to see how such an audacious Israeli operation plays out.
*****
*****
For the first time, the IDF attacked Al-Shiyah, a district of Beirut on the edge of where Beirut meets its southern suburbs. Many Christians live here and many Shia refugees have fled here into what they thought was safety in the open arms of the Christians who reside there. 15 civilians were killed in that attack and many more were wounded.
These attacks on Christian districts, as well as attacks on Sunni districts, in my opinion, are apparently a result of Israel's efforts to install a civil war in Lebanon. Now that 87% of Lebanese are supporting Hezbollah, imperialism and Zionism need to instill some rifts to break up that kind of patriotic solidarity.
Although I find it difficult to believe that human beings could actually conspire to start vicious civil wars in other countries (perhaps because I retain shreds of decency), apparently elites do this sort of thing all the time.
Hence, it is time to seriously consider the notion that Israel (and the US) are trying to start a civil war in Lebanon, as Jonathan Cook argues here, in The Deadly US-Israeli Shell Game at the UN. Cook, reporting out of Nazareth during this conflict, is an essential source about this war and I recommend any of his articles.
The Cook piece above also expertly takes apart the latest UN proposal to supposedly end the conflict. An analysis of that UN proposal goes beyond the scope of this post, and I direct you to the article. It ought to be enough, though, to note that Israel had a hand in writing this "US-French" UN resolution from the start. The resolution may as well have a sticker on it called "Made in Israel".
Some may be shocked at the French role in alliance with US imperialism and Zionism in Lebanon. Those folks need to look at history. History shows us that Lebanon was a French colony and that France still considers it more or less as such. For all their blather about opposing US imperialism's war in Iraq, it is sadly an accurate analysis that France remains a belligerent, violent imperialist state.
Recent French actions in Haiti (conspiring to overthrow President Aristide and instill a murderous regime that has killed 3,000 innocent Haitians) and in Lebanon (being one of the main parties behind the UN Resolution 1559 that set the stage for this war) along with recent French shenanigans in former colonies in Africa, suggest that France is still an imperialist country, mostly regarding its former colonies.
Apparently, psychologically, France has not given up its colonies or its colonial mindset, despite the 25,000 dead Frenchmen in Algeria in the Algerian Civil War. Lesson? Imperialism and colonialism die hard! The only cure for colonialism, of either the lingering, nostalgic variety or the active, in-your-face kind, remains the same as always, lots of dead and wounded colonists and colonial troops.
Those upset by such violent reactions are advised to kick the colonial addiction.
*****
Fighting was also reported at Shama, east of Al Bayada and behind enemy lines and at Taybeh, just inside the border.
Israel is still stuck in many of the same border villages after 3 weeks of fighting. This is the worst performance for the Israeli military in any of its major wars so far. It is wrong to call it a defeat, but surely they have not achieved any of their stated objectives. Furthermore, Hezbollah has fought more successfully against Israel (in some ways) than any Arab army.
8:58 PM: Hezbollah launched a Misrad-1 Iranian unmanned drone over Israel but it was shot down over the ocean off the coast of Haifa. There are conflicting reports about whether or not it was carrying any explosives on it when it was shot down. This marks a significant escalation.
Night: There was heavy fighting in the village of Dibel. Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF armored vehicle, destroying it, while killing 1 IDF soldier and wounding 5 more.
6:55 PM: A Qassam missile was fired from Gaza into the Negev, but landed in an open area and did not cause any damage or casualties. Qassams are much inferior to the Katyushas that Hezbollah is using.
6:18 PM: A rocket scored a direct hit on a school in Kiryat Shemona. The school was in flames. There were no casualties.
5:51 PM: 4 Katyushas landed in Accra. There are no casualties or damage.
5:15 PM: A Katyusha slammed into a home in the Kiryat Shemona area , wounding a number of Israelis.
4:58 PM: A Katyusha landed in an open area near Kiryat Shemona. No casualties or damage.
4:06 PM: IDF forces apprehended a Palestinian guerrilla in the village of Azzoun, east of Qalqilya. He was wanted in a number of attacks.
3:30 PM: 30 Israeli commandos landed via helicopter on a hilltop in Ras al-Biyada, south of Tyre, behind enemy lines. When last heard from, they were engaged in ferocious fighting with Hezbollah forces with no word on casualties.
3 PM: Fires are burning out of control near Tiberias.
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3 PM: Regarding the 57-69 Lebanese civilians killed so far today: There were originally said are said to be 40 Lebanese civilians - shepherds and their families hiding in a home - who were killed during the ferocious bombing and shelling of Houla earlier in the morning.
Most were said to be buried under rubble. The "non-terrorist" IDF is said to be attacking everything that moves in the area. The previous day they attacked a donkey that strolled into town. Later reports indicated that only one person was killed.
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2:40 PM: Heavy fighting is continuing in Bint Jbeil, where the IDF took casualties in the morning. 2 IDF soldiers were killed and 2 more were wounded when a Hezbollah ATGM hit a Merkava tank and destroyed it. Another IDF soldier was wounded in the fighting, which lasted for several hours throughout the afternoon.
An amazing photo that shows a Merkava-2 tank, (Merkavas come in Merkava-2, Merkava-3 and Merkava-4 iterations) in flames, possibly after being destroyed by a Hezbollah attack. The photo was found on the Internet with no date or explanation. We don't know if Hezbollah killed this tank - it may have been killed by Palestinians.2:30 PM: Lebanese sources report that the latest mad Israeli raids, in response to the killing of 3 whole Israeli citizens, killed many civilians (the final figure is between 57-69 killed). Once again, we see the Israeli Super Bully mindset in action, in this case the supposedly Judaic 20-1 theory (you kill one of ours, we kill 20 of yours). Why do they hate us, anyone?
2 PM: Israeli ultra-racist, fascist legislator Effie Eitam, a former IDF general, threatened to "dismantle Lebanon" unless Lebanon dismantled Hezbollah. Such charming people, these Judeo-fascists. Regarding dismantling Lebanon, what have they been doing so far?
1:30 PM: IDF and Shin Bet forces killed a senior Islamic Jihad guerrilla in Silat Al-Hartia, near Jenin.
1 PM: Another rocket barrage landed in Kiryat Shemona. A building was hit and 3 Israelis were wounded.
1 PM: Israel apparently tried to kill Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyeh with some sort of a poison in an envelope. 7 Palestinians were hospitalized, with 1 in serious condition, after they opened an envelope addressed to Haniyeh.
12:30 PM: Turkey canceled a major arms deal with Israel and is now refusing to allow US planes to land in Turkey on the way to delivering weapons to Israel. Both of these moves are to protest Israel's wars in Lebanon and Palestine. Looks like Israel's only Muslim friend is not such a close friend after all.
12:15 PM: 5 more Katyushas hit Tiberias. There were no casualties.
12 noon: 7 more rockets rained down on northern Israel, hitting Kiryat Shemona, Tiberias, and the Golan Heights. 1 Israeli was wounded in Kiryat Shemona.
11:30 AM: 1 IDF soldier was killed and 7 more were wounded as fierce fighting continued in Bint Jbeil. The IDF said they killed 14 Hezbollah fighters in the fighting here. The wounded were evacuated under withering fire. I thought this town was "pacified"?
11:30 AM: 2 rockets hit Nahariyah. One hit a building and 1 Israeli was wounded.
11 AM: An Israeli Arab from the village of Musmus, near Wadi Ara, attacked a security guard in Afula with a knife. He was apprehended and the security guard was not injured. Looks like some of the Arab Israelis are starting to join their Palestinian and Lebanese brethren in this war against Israel.
11 AM: 16 rockets rained down on the Galilee, 12 on Kiryat Shemona and 4 more on Safad. A Katyusha rocket scored a direct hit on a building in Safad, wounding 1 Israeli.
8:40 AM: The IDF conducted 4 air raids on the Bekaa Valley, 5 more on the southern Lebanon town of Nabiteyeh, and 8 attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs.
8:15 AM: Palestinian guerrillas opened fire on an IDF patrol near Nablus but there were no casualties.
8 AM: IDF forces said that they killed 30 Hezbollah fighters in battles in southern Lebanon.
Early AM: Hezbollah attacked IDF forces attempting to move into the border towns of Aita Al Shaab, Debel and Rub Thalatheen in the early AM. Fierce fighting is ongoing at the border village of Aita Al Shaab. Debel is about 1 1/2 miles northeast of Aita Al Shaab and 3 miles northeast of the border at Shetula. Rub Thalatheen cannot be located.
Early: Israeli settler-colonist Jews fired on Arab natives in a drive by shooting near Habla, close to Qalqilya, killing 1 Arab and wounding 1 more.
7 AM: IDF forces arrested another Hamas MP in Ramallah for no legitimate reason at all. Hamas MP's do not have anything to do with the Hamas military wing in any way. Israel is now holding 1/3 of the Hamas government as some sort of sick bargaining chips for the POW's that Hamas is holding.
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5:35 AM: Hezbollah said that they attacked a house where IDF troops were hiding on the outskirts of Houla, a town on border 1 1/2 miles west of the Israeli town of Manara, killing 4 IDF troops, including an officer. Israeli media is reporting an ambush of an IDF unit in this town and heavy fighting resulting from that attack. They are reporting 5 wounded in this fighting.
The usual way that Hezbollah is attacking these homes the IDF is holed up in is to fire an anti-tank missile at the home (see my review of Hezbollah's antitank missile arsenal here). The missile has a dual warhead. It is so potent that it blasts right through the walls of the home. After the missile is inside the structure, a second warhead detonates. The effect is much like artillery.
Due to this tactic, IDF troops are not spending much time in any one home and end up moving around a lot.
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Israel is threatening to hit "Lebanese infrastructure and government symbols" in response to a Hezbollah rocket barrage that killed a whopping 3 Israelis. This is yet another example of the Israelis' much vaunted 10-1 or 100-1 mindset (as reiterated proudly by Revisionist Zionist Ruven Koret of Israelinsider).
This mindset goes along the lines of "you kill 1 of ours and we kill 10 or 100 of yours". At the same time, extreme victimology and vulnerability are typically voiced ("They are trying to exterminate us!"). I suppose what is going on here is the classic victim and vulnerable-paranoid mindset of the bully we have all met in life, from the 8th grade playground to the corporate office.
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