Archived news and commentary: July 31 - August 6, 2006

2006/07/31 - 2006/08/06
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2006/07/17 - 2006/07/23
2006/07/10 - 2006/07/16
2006/07/03 - 2006/07/09
2006/06/26 - 2006/07/02

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Sunday, August 6, 2006

News and commentary:

"PICTURE KILL"
(Reuters, 2006/08/06)

"Reuters admits to more image manipulation" (Yaakov Lappin, Ynetnews, 2006/08/06)
"News organization withdraws photograph of Israeli fighter jet, admits image was doctored, fires photographer. Reuters pledges 'tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict'
Reuters has withdrawn a second photograph and admitted that the image was doctored, following the emergence of new suspicions against images provided by the news organization. On Sunday, Reuters admitted that one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, used software to distort an image of smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut in order to create the effect of more smoke and damage.
The latest image to face doubts is a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet over the skies of Lebanon, seen in the image firing off "missiles during an air strike on Nabatiyeh," according to the image's accompanying text provided by Reuters. ...
"Reuters terminated its relationship with Hajj on Sunday... An immediate enquiry began into Hajj’s other work," the statement said."

"Another Fake Reuters Photo from Lebanon" (Rusty Shackleford, The Jawa Report, 2006/08/06)
"Another photo by Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj has been shown to be doctored. The photo, which proports to be of an Israeli F-16 firing missiles on Lebanon has been doctored to make the photo seem more sensational.
Here is the original Reuters photo along with its caption. (source)

An Israeli F-16 warplane fires missiles during an air strike on Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, August 2, 2006. (LEBANON)

02 Aug 2006 REUTERS/Adnan Hajj

The F-16 in the photo is not firing missiles, but is rather dropping [ed update: not chaff] flares designed to be a decoy for surface to air missiles. However, a close up of what Hajj calls "missiles" reveals that only one flare has been dropped. The other two "flares" are simply copies of the original." (See also: "Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2006/08/05))

"God’s chosen people" (Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten, 2006/08/05)
Via Bruce Bawer: "Jostein Gaarder, perhaps Norway’s most well known writer abroad, author of the novel Sophie’s World, has an utterly poisonous, twisted, anti-Israel (and, yes, anti-Semitic) diatribe in Saturday’s Aftenposten, supposedly the most conservative and respectable of the three major Norwegian dailies. Here are some excerpts (translated quickly by me) from this op-ed, entitled 'God’s chosen people.'":

"ISRAEL IS HISTORY. We no longer recognize the State of Israel. There is no way back. The State of Israel has raped the world’s recognition and will not receive peace before it lays down its weapons… ...

NO WAY BACK. ... We don’t believe in the concept of God’s chosen people. We laugh at this people’s fancies and weep over their misdeeds. To present themselves as God’s chosen people is not just stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism. …

There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance ...The State of Israel has raped the world’s recognition. ...

We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children more than they have lamented for over three thousand years the forty years in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs just as they once exulted over the Lord’s scourges as “appropriate punishment” for the Egyptian people… ...

We ask ourselves whether most Israelis think that one Israeli life is worth more than forty Palestinian or Lebanese lives.

For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls who write hateful messages on the bombs that will be dropped over civilian populations in Lebanon and Palestine…"

"Advocates of 'proportion' are just unbalanced" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2006/08/06)
"'Disproportion' is the concept of the moment. Do you know how to play? Let's say 150 missiles are lobbed at northern Israel from the Lebanese village of Qana and the Israelis respond with missiles of their own that kill 28 people. Whoa, man, that's way "disproportionate." ...
Twenty-eight dead civilians in a village from which 150 Katyusha rockets have been launched against Israel doesn't seem "disproportionate" to me. What's "disproportionate" is the idea that civilian life should be allowed to proceed normally in what is, in fact, a terrorist launching platform.
But, when an army goes to war against a terrorist organization, it's like watching the Red Sox play Andre Agassi: Each side is being held to its own set of rules. When Hezbollah launches rockets into Israeli residential neighborhoods with the intention of killing random civilians, that's fine because, after all, they're terrorists and that's what terrorists do. But when, in the course of trying to resist the terrorists, Israel unintentionally kills civilians, that's an appalling act of savagery. Speaking at West Point in 2002, President Bush observed: "Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend." Actually, it's worse than that. In Hezbollahstan, the deaths of its citizens works to its strategic advantage: Dead Israelis are good news but dead Lebanese are even better, at least on the important battlefield of world opinion. The meta-narrative, as they say, is consistent through the media's Hez-one-they-made-earlier coverage, and the recent Supreme Court judgment, and EU-U.N. efforts to play "honest broker" between a sovereign state and a genocidal global terror conglomerate: All these things enhance the status of Islamist terror and thus will lead to more of it, and ever more 'disproportionately.'"

"Defying Terror" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2006/08/06)
"We Americans do not know what it's like to live surrounded by those who long to see our children lying dead, who cannot accept the fact of our survival. Even in this Age of Terror, we live in remarkable safety. And I pray that we will never be threatened by such hateful foes as Israel must face.
But Israel must live with hatred and jealousy on its borders. Its many successes humiliate its neighbors - just as its freedom alarms them.
It's long been a cliche to note that Israel "made the desert bloom" after long centuries of Arab abuse of the soil itself and the destruction of the Biblical landscape of "milk and honey." But the settlers and their children who built Israel did more than irrigate orange groves. They built a civilization where there had been only neglect, decay and oppression.
Above all, the Israelis planted democracy and the rule of law in fields that had been hostile to elementary human decency and dignity for thousands of years.
And on the seventh day, they went to the beach."

"Hezbollah rockets kill 10 in Israel" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/06)
"KFAR GILADI, Israel - Hezbollah guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets across northern Israel Sunday, killing 10 people at a communal farm and wounding eight in the worst attack on Israel since fighting erupted July 12.
One rocket landed near the entrance of the communal farm of Kfar Giladi on the border, killing all 10 victims. Channel Two television reported that nine reserve soldiers were among the dead, and television footage showed a soldier holding his head in grief.
"It was a direct hit on a crowd of people," said Dan Ronen, the chief of the northern police command Ronen told Army Radio the Katyusha barrage was the most intense in 23 days of fighting with Hezbollah. ...
The barrage of at least 80 rockets lasted more than 15 minutes. More rockets were fired as rescue workers tried to treat and evacuate the injured."

"Israeli war deaths go largely unnoticed" (Yaakov Lappin, Ynetnews, 2006/08/06)
"Hours after mother and two daughters are killed in Hizbullah rocket attack, media outlets around world fail to report deaths; meanwhile, British press continues anti-Israel tirade":
"Meanwhile, the British press, which has produced some of the most venomous anti-Israel coverage during the war, has continued its tirade against Israel.
An article in the London-based Guardian, entitled "Militants merge with mainstream," argues that Hizbullah has gained widespread, cross-religious support in the Arab world, and uses terms such as "the Qana massacre" to explain the apparent newfound unity. ...
The article was co-written by Issandr el-Amrani, a freelance journalist in Egypt who referred to Hizbullah as "Lebanese resistance fighters" on his personal blog and who describes reports of Hizbullah members operating out of civilian areas as "Israeli lies." ...
Meanwhile, an article has appeared on the BBC website in which a reporter for the British broadcaster, Hugh Sykes, relays a conversation he has with Lebanese residents.
The article is remarkable as it contains the views of a BBC journalist being given to Lebanese locals, rather than the other way around.
In the piece, written in first person narrative, Sykes tells people in Lebanon that there would be "no point" for Israel to strike Hizbullah targets in Lebanon: ''People keep asking me… ' Beirut - will they bomb Beirut again?' 'What would be the point?" I reply.''"

"Israeli killed by Bondi gang" (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2006/08/06)
Via Tim Blair, who also points out attacks on a Synagogue and a Jewish youth centre. One week in Sydney:
"Police are trying to establish the motive for the stabbing murder of an Israeli left for dead outside a shop in Bondi after a brutal attack by a carload of men.
The 36-year-old victim was set upon by the gang whom witnesses say bashed him with a pole or something similar and left him with multiple stab wounds about 9.45pm (AEST) last night.
When police arrived at the scene outside a convenience store at the intersection of Glenayr Avenue and Beach Road at Bondi Beach, the man was slumped on the footpath.
He was treated at the scene and taken to St Vincents Hospital for emergency surgery but died shortly before 4am (AEST) today."

"A War Crime at Qana?" (Orde F. Kittrie, OpinionJournal, 2006/08/06)
"Hezbollah, Iran and Syria--not Israel--are flouting international law.":
"The Qana tragedy has intensified accusations that Israel's actions in Lebanon violate international law. Every death of an innocent person is extremely regrettable; but there is no evidence Israel has committed any war crimes. In contrast, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria have clearly violated international law in this conflict. Moreover, Israel's conduct compares favorably to how its most powerful accusers have behaved when their own interests have been threatened. ...
Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran--which provides this terrorist group with arms, direction and over $100 million a year--are in continual violation of international law. Their calls for Israel's destruction violate the international genocide treaty's prohibition of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide." Iran's effort to develop a nuclear arsenal that could obliterate Israel, or deter its responses to future Hezbollah attacks, violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iranian (and Syrian) support for Hezbollah violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, requiring states to "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts." Hezbollah began the armed conflict with rocket attacks on Israeli towns and the abduction of Israeli soldiers: unprovoked acts of war violating an internationally recognized border.
Israel is acting in self-defense and avoided killing civilians, even giving advance notice by phone to the occupants of homes targeted for attack as Hezbollah hideouts. While Hezbollah deliberately maximizes harm to Israeli and Lebanese civilians, Israel puts its soldiers at risk to minimize Lebanese civilian casualties."

"Voices across the divide" (Yossi Klein Halevi, The Observer, 2006/08/06)
"Last year, the Lebanese people won the admiration of the world by ejecting the Syrian occupier. Now it's time to complete your struggle for independence. And if you are unable to do so, then appeal to the international community for help. By blaming Israel rather than Iran for the crisis, Lebanon sends the message that an armed Hizbollah is a legitimate part of Lebanese politics. And that implicates you in Hizbollah's aggression.
I understand that Lebanese law forbids you to maintain contact with Israelis, and so, for that reason, you cannot address me by name. Fortunately, I have no such restrictions. My hope, Rami Khouri, is for us to get to know each other one day, not as adversaries scoring debating points before a foreign audience but as colleagues and neighbours. Most Israelis and, I believe, most Lebanese too, want nothing more than a restoration of security on our shared border. All the more reason, then, for us to make common cause against the terrorist enemy that threatens us both, and is turning the lives of our two peoples into a nightmare."

"Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target" (Jennifer Copestake, The Observer, 2006/08/06)
[Empasis added.]: "Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution.
There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country. ...
Eleven-year-old Ameer Hasoon al-Hasani was kidnapped by policemen from the front of his house last month. He was known in his district to have been forced into prostitution. His father Hassan told me he searched for his son for three days after his abduction, then found him, shot in the head. A copy of the death certificate confirms the cause of death.
Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam."

"Iran's plot to mine uranium in Africa" (Jon Swain et al., The Sunday Times, 2006/08/06)
"IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.
A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.
Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check.
The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of Iran’s continuing support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel.
It has also emerged that terror cells backed by Iran may be prepared to mount attacks against nuclear power plants in Britain. Intelligence circulating in Whitehall suggests that sleeper cells linked to Tehran have been conducting reconnaissance at some nuclear sites in preparation for a possible attack."

"U.S., France Agree On Plan to Halt Lebanon Fighting" (Colum Lynch and Robin Wright, The Washington Post, 2006/08/06)
"UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 5 -- The United States and France reached agreement Saturday on a draft Security Council resolution calling for "full cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah and outlining initial steps to end their 25-day conflict.
Senior Lebanese and Hezbollah officials immediately challenged the terms, and U.N. and European officials said major changes would almost certainly be needed before it is put to a vote next week. ...
The first of two anticipated resolutions calls for the fighting to stop in place -- for Hezbollah to end all attacks and Israel to halt offensive operations -- but it does not call for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanon for now. The proposal calls for immediate humanitarian aid for Lebanon and for the beefing up of the 2,000-strong U.N. force already there to ensure that no new arms are smuggled into the country, a provision aimed at containing Hezbollah. ...
The resolution emphasizes the "urgent" need for the "unconditional" release of the Israelis, and is "mindful" of the sensitivity about Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel and encourages efforts to settle their status."

Saturday, August 5, 2006

News and commentary:

"Smoke billows from burning buildings..."
(Adnan Hajj, Reuters, 2006/08/05)
"Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs August 5, 2006. Many buildings were flattened during the attack."

"Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2006/08/05)
"OK, now things are getting weird.
This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image. (Hat tip: Mike.)
It’s so incredibly obvious, it reminds me of the faked CBS memos. Smoke simply does not contain repeating symmetrical patterns like this, and you can see the repetition in both plumes of smoke. There’s really no question about it.
But it’s not only the plumes of smoke that were “enhanced.” There are also cloned buildings. (See below.) ...
The photographer who took this picture (probably also the person who doctored it), Adnan Hajj, is rather well-known to LGF readers. In fact, rather well-known to the entire world.
He also took this infamous photograph from Qana of the guy in the green helmet, parading a dead body around for pictures, featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide: Yahoo! News Photo."

"'Hizbullah committing war crimes'" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/05)
"Hizbullah must immediately stop firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.
"Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war."
"Most of the attacks appear to have been directed at civilian areas and have hit pedestrians, hospitals, schools, homes and businesses," the humanitarian organization's website stated. ...
"Several medical and educational institutes have sustained damage from Katyusha attacks." Human Rights Watch researchers visited hospitals in Nahariya and Safed after they were hit.
At Nahariya Hospital, rockets had been landing near the hospital since July 12, a hospital spokesperson said. "There are no military bases around here; nothing military at all," he said. 'I believe they know perfectly well they are firing at a hospital.'"

"Saudi religious leader blasts Hizbullah" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/05)
"A top Saudi Sunni cleric, whose ideas inspired Osama bin Laden, issued a religious edict Saturday disavowing the Shi'ite guerrilla group Hizbullah, evidence that a rift remained among Muslims over the fighting in Lebanon.
Hizbullah, which translates as "the party of God," is actually "the party of the devil," said Sheik Safar al-Hawali, whose radical views made the al-Qaida leader one of his followers in the past.
"Don't pray for Hizbullah," he said in the fatwa posted on his Web site.
The edict, which reflects the historical stand of strict Wahhabi doctrine viewing Shi'ite Muslims as heretics, follows a similar fatwa from another popular Saudi cleric Sheik Abdullah bin Jibreen two weeks into the conflict with Israel."

"Missiles neutralizing Israeli tanks" (Benjamin Harvey, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/05)
"JERUSALEM - Hezbollah's sophisticated anti-tank missiles are perhaps the guerrilla group's deadliest weapon in Lebanon fighting, with their ability to pierce Israel's most advanced tanks. ...
Experts say this is further evidence that Israel is facing a well-equipped army in this war, not a ragtag militia.
Hezbollah has fired Russian-made Metis-M anti-tank missiles and owns European-made Milan missiles, the army confirmed on Friday.
In the last two days alone, these missiles have killed seven soldiers and damaged three Israeli-made Merkava tanks — mountains of steel that are vaunted as symbols of Israel's military might, the army said. Israeli media say most of the 44 soldiers killed in four weeks of fighting were hit by anti-tank missiles.
"They (Hezbollah guerrillas) have some of the most advanced anti-tank missiles in the world," said Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior military intelligence officer who retired earlier this summer.
"This is not a militia, it's an infantry brigade with all the support units," Kuperwasser said.
Israel contends that Hezbollah gets almost all of its weaponry from Syria and by extension Iran, including its anti-tank missiles. ...
"To the best of my understanding, they (Hezbollah) are as well-equipped as any standing unit in the Syrian or Iranian armies," said Eran Lerman, a retired army colonel and now director of the Israel/Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee. 'This is not a rat-pack guerrilla, this is an organized militia.'"

"Members of the Asian Muslim Youth Movement..."
(AFP, 2006/08/05)
"Members of the Asian Muslim Youth Movement stand in military formation in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, yesterday."

"Jihad leader's suicide bomb warning" (Marianne Kearney, The Sun-Herald, 2006/08/06)
"A MUSLIM group has told Israel to stop attacks on Lebanon within 48 hours or it would launch suicide bombing attacks in the Jewish state and any country supporting it, including Australia.
After more than 100 balaclava-clad "jihadis" demonstrated their martial arts skills in Pontianak, on the Indonesian island of Borneo, yesterday, the group's leader said he was preparing to launch bombing attacks against Israeli interests in several countries, including Australia, Britain and the US.
"If, after the 48-hour deadline, the aggressions continue, we can't be held responsible if there are suicide bombings in countries that support the aggressions of the Israeli military, if it is America, Australia or other countries," Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM) leader Suaib Didu said." (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

"'Hezbollah aren't suckers, they know how to fight. You're scared all the time'" (Stephen Farrell, The Times, 2006/08/05)
"Israeli soldiers recount stories of a terrifying week facing the snipers and missiles of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon":
"But on one thing they were unanimous: the prowess of their foe.
“It was hell. They are really well trained. They’re not suckers, they know how to fight,” said one, slumped on the pavement. “You’re scared the whole time over there. We didn’t get any sleep the whole week.” There was not a voice of dissent.
The soldiers told how they had worked their way through the dry, scrubby hillsides towards Taibeh, facing continual attacks from Hezbollah sniper and anti-tank missile positions concealed in houses, farms, underground bunkers and seemingly deserted streets.
To counter this they called in frequent support from 155mm artillery batteries on the Israeli side of the border, which pounded Taibeh sending huge plumes of smoke into the sky.
“We killed ten, and the artillery must have killed thirty or forty,” said a soldier who, like his colleagues, was not allowed to give his name. He had simply lost count of Hezbollah’s attacks. “Many, many, it was very bad because you don’t know where they are coming from. But we succeeded.” ...
A third soldier said: “All the time, they fired missiles at us. They never come face to face, just missiles. When we find them we kill them. It’s just not right, the way we are doing it. Our air force can just bomb villages and not risk our lives fighting over there.”
Another, slugging cola as his friends posed for photos, added: 'It feels good to do the job. And come out alive.'"

Added today:
"Iran: We supplied Zelzal-2 to Hizbullah" (The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/04)
"The Brink of Madness" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2006/08/04)
"Protesters from the Islamic Defender Front..." (Reuters, 2006/08/01)
"Hezbollah supporters place a banner..." (Ramzi Haidar, AFP, 2006/07/30)

Friday, August 4, 2006

News and commentary:

"A Middle Eastern Connection?" (Der Spiegel, 2006/08/04)
"A leak from the investigation into a pair of unexploded bombs found on trains in Germany this week has produced a strange detail -- a bag printed in Arabic. German officials won't confirm anything, but the case has ignited a national debate about rail security.
Two suitcase bombs discovered early this week in western German train stations may be traceable to the Middle East according to Friday reports. Both bombs -- packed in abandoned pieces of luggage and left on separate trains -- were found by officials in lost-and-found centers on Monday and Tuesday. One package allegedly contained a plastic bag printed with Arabic writing. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the bag came from the Lebanese capital of Beirut, but German officials wouldn't confirm the story. "We don't give out details on the results of an ongoing investigation," said Ullrich Schultheis, a spokesman for the German Attorney General's office in Karlsruhe.
Railway officials found one suitcase on Monday aboard a regional train in northwestern Germany and unpacked it at the lost-and-found office of the Dortmund station. The other was found Sunday on a train between Mönchengladbach and Koblenz, and unpacked Tuesday at the Koblenz station. The gas-canister bombs in both cases were professionally-built, according to Jürgen Kleis, head of the team of detectives on the case; other sources added that they were filled with too much gas to explode."

"Iran: We supplied Zelzal-2 to Hizbullah" (The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/04)
"Iran admitted for the first time on Friday that it did indeed supply long-range Zelzal-2 missiles to Hizbullah.
Secretary-general of the "Intifada conference" Mohtashami Pur told an Iranian newspaper that Iran transferred the missiles so that they could be used to defend Lebanon, Channel 1 reported.
The extent of Iran's intimate involvement in Hizbullah attacks is starting to emerge.
According to the defense establishment, the reason Hizbullah has not fired long-range Iranian-made Fajr missiles at Israel is due to Teheran's opposition. Israel now understands that without direct orders from the ayatollahs, Hizbullah is not allowed to use Iranian missiles in attacks against Israel."

"The Brink of Madness" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2006/08/04)
1938 Redux: "Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.
If you think I exaggerate the bankruptcy of the West or only refer to the serial ravings on the Middle East of Pat Buchanan or Jimmy Carter, consider some of the most recent comments from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah about Israel: “When the people of this temporary country lose their confidence in their legendary army, the end of this entity will begin [emphasis added].” Then compare Nasrallah’s remarks about the U.S: “To President Bush, Prime Minister Olmert and every other tyrannical aggressor. I want to invite you to do what you want, practice your hostilities. By God, you will not succeed in erasing our memory, our presence or eradicating our strong belief. Your masses will soon waste away, and your days are numbered [emphasis added].”
And finally examine here at home reaction to Hezbollah — which has butchered Americans in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia — from a prominent Democratic Congressman, John Dingell: “I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah.” And isn’t that the point, after all: the amoral Westerner cannot exercise moral judgment because he no longer has any?"

"Iraqi Shiites chant 'Death to Israel'" (Murtada Faraj, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/04)
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hundreds of thousands of Shiites chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon.
No violence was reported during the rally in the Sadr City neighborhood. But at least 35 people were killed elsewhere in Iraq, many of them in a car bombing and gunbattle in the northern city of Mosul.
The demonstration was the biggest in the Middle East in support of Hezbollah since the Israeli army launched an offensive July 12 after a guerrilla raid on northern Israel. The protest was organized by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political movement built around the Mahdi Army militia has been modeled after Hezbollah.
Al-Sadr summoned followers from throughout the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq to converge on Baghdad for the rally but he did not attend. ...
Al-Sadr followers painted U.S. and Israeli flags on the main road leading to the rally site, and demonstrators stepped on them — a gesture of contempt in Iraq. Alongside the painted flags was written: "These are the terrorists."
Protesters set fire to American and Israeli flags, as well as effigies of President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, showing the men with Dracula teeth. "Saddam and Bush, Two Faces of One Coin" was scrawled on Bush's effigy."

"Amateur hour is over" (Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/04)
"Hizbullah is not simply a terrorist organization. It is the Iranian army. According to press reports, over the past six years, some 3,000 Hizbullah fighters underwent military training in Iran. Iran and Syria are not simply Hizbullah's patrons. They are active participants in this war against the West in which Israel is a frontline state.":
"Then there is Iran, the mastermind of this war. As each day passes, Iran's threats and its actions become more and more extreme. Wednesday, the German newspaper Die Welt reported that Iran sent Osama bin Laden's son Sa'ad, who has been living in Iran since November 2001, to the Syrian-Lebanese border to mobilize Palestinian forces in Syria to fight against Israel.
On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made veiled nuclear threats against Britain, the US and Israel when he said, "Today, the Iranian people is the owner of nuclear technology. Those who want to talk with our people should know what people they are talking to. If some believe they can keep talking to the Iranian people in the language of threats and aggressiveness, they should know that they are making a bitter mistake. If they have not realized this by now, they soon will, but then it will be too late."
This statement was followed Thursday by his address to the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia where he again called for Israel to be annihilated."

"Israel's Lost Moment" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2006/08/04)
"The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war cabinet meetings to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive cabinet debates are broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night" (Haaretz, July 28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence.
His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America's confidence in Israel as well. That confidence -- and the relationship it reinforces -- is as important to Israel's survival as its own army. The tremulous Olmert seems not to have a clue."

Thursday, August 3, 2006

News and commentary:

"Hezbollah leader threatens Tel Aviv" (Sam F. Ghattas, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/03)
"Hezbollah's leader offered Thursday to stop rocket attacks on northern Israel in return for an end to airstrikes throughout Lebanon.
However, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah also vowed to fire rockets into Tel Aviv if Israel strikes Beirut proper. Israeli warplanes have repeatedly bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in southern suburbs of Beirut.
"If you bomb our capital Beirut, we will bomb the capital of your usurping entity... We will bomb Tel Aviv," he said in a taped televised speech.
In issuing the threat, Nasrallah offered his first opening toward diminishing the three-week-old conflict, which has taken more than 500 Lebanese lives and killed more than 50 Israelis.
"Anytime you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city," he said in a taped video statement broadcast on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and carried simultaneously on all other Lebanese and Arab satellite channels.
Speaking directly to Israelis, Nasrallah said, 'The only choice before you is to stop your aggression and turn to negotiations to end this folly.'"

"Generals raise fears of Iraq civil war" (Anne Plummer Flaherty, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/03)
"Two of the Pentagon's most senior generals told Congress on Thursday that the surge in sectarian violence in Baghdad in recent weeks raises the possibility of Iraq descending into civil war.
"Iraq could move toward civil war" if the violence is not contained, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it," he said, adding that the top priority in Iraq is to secure the capital, where factional violence has surged in recent weeks despite efforts by the new Iraqi government to stop the fighting.
President Bush last week approved an increase in the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad as part of a new effort to help Iraqi security forces get a grip on the sectarian tensions."

"Hizbollah rockets kill 7 in Israel" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/03)
"Hizbollah rockets killed seven people in northern Israel on Thursday, in one of the most lethal barrages launched by the Lebanese guerrilla group since fighting began more than three weeks ago.
The deaths, in the cities of Acre and Maalot, raised to 26 the number of people killed by rocket fire from Lebanon during the current conflict.
More than 100 rockets were fired in the late afternoon barrage, killing seven people and wounding dozens, police said. ...
Some 10,000 Israeli troops have pushed into southern Lebanon in the ground offensive against Hizbollah. Israel's Channel 10 television said the army had carved out a "security zone" of 20 Lebanese villages up to six km (four miles) from the border."

"Iranian president: Israel's destruction solution to Mideast crisis" (Ynetnews, 2006/08/03)
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the solution to the Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel, state-media reported.
In a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Malaysia, Ahmadinejad also called for an immediate ceasefire to end the fighting between Israel and the Iranian-back group Hizbullah.
"Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate ceasefire must be implemented," Ahmadinejad said, according to state-run television in a report posted on its Web site."

"Lebanese hospital: Number of casualties from Qana air strike is 28, not 52" (AP/Haaretz, 2006/08/03)
"A Tyre hospital on Thursday revised the number of casualties resulting from Israel's air strike on the south Lebanese village of Qana from 52 down to 28.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch questioned the death toll in the Qana attack. The international group listed the names of 28 known dead from the attack and said that 13 others were missing and might still be buried under the rubble. The discrepancy was attributed to an assumption that only nine of the people who took shelter in the basement of the building survived, but it emerged that at least 22 escaped, the group said."

Added today:
"The media aims its missiles" (Tom Gross, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/02)

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

News and commentary:

"The media aims its missiles" (Tom Gross, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/08/02)
"Large sections of the international media are not only misreporting the current conflict in Lebanon. They are actively fanning the flames.
The BBC World Service has a strong claim to be the number one villain. It has increasingly come to sound like a virtual propaganda tool for Hizbullah, and as it desperately attempts to prove that Israel is guilty of committing "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity," it has introduced a new charge - one which I have heard several times on air in recent days.
The newscaster reads out carefully selected "audience comments," and among these we are told that "Israel's attack on Lebanon" will serve as "a huge recruitment drive for al-Qaida worldwide." But if anything is going to win new recruits for bin Laden and his like, it will not be Israel's defensive actions, which are far less damaging than western TV stations have been trying to convince us, but the inflammatory and hopelessly one-sided way in which they are being reported by those very same news organizations."

"Hizbollah rockets hit Israel after commando raid" (Alistair Lyon, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/08/02)
"Hizbollah fired more rockets into Israel on Wednesday than on any previous day of the 22-day-old war, killing an Israeli and wounding 123, after helicopter-borne commandos launched Israel's deepest raid into Lebanon. ...
Soon after he [Olmert] spoke, one of at least 206 rockets launched by Hizbollah landed just inside the West Bank after flying further than any fired at Israel in the past three weeks.
Israeli police and Hizbollah both said it was the highest number of rockets fired into Israel on one day since the war began. The barrage, which killed one person near the northern city of Nahariya, followed a two-day lull in such attacks."

"Stage-Managed Massacre" (Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine, 2006/08/02)
"Except for one little detail: it is increasingly clear that the Qana “massacre” was a stage-managed Hizballah production, designed precisely to enflame international sentiment against Israel and compel the Israelis to accept a ceasefire that would enable the jihad terrorist group to gain some time to recover from the Israeli attacks. ...
Americans and Westerners are not used to dealing with carefully orchestrated and large-scale deception of this kind. It is time that it be recognized as a weapon of warfare, and an extremely potent one at that. Qana has already largely accomplished what it was supposed to. It will now take its place beside the Danish cartoons, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and all the rest as a useful focal point for Muslim outrage and a magnet for jihad recruitment. The dhimmi Leftist Western press is happy, for it can again show America and Israel as guilty in the world’s site. The mujahedin are happy, for jihad and Sharia will advance still more. The only people who couldn’t possibly be happy with this are the Israelis and others on the front lines of the jihad worldwide.
But who cares about them?" (See also: "Hezbollywood? Evidence mounts that Qana collapse and deaths were staged" (Reuven Koret, israelinsider, 2006/07/31) and "IDF: Qana building fell hours after strike" (Ynetnews, 2006/07/30))

"Last Chance" (Michael B. Oren, The New Republic, 2006/08/02)
"For three weeks now, Israel has presented a textbook case of how not to wage a war. As a result, the European Union is demanding a cessation of hostilities, and the United Nations seems poised to demand a ceasefire; and both will likely pressure the Bush administration to arm-twist the Israelis to comply. An immediate end of the fighting will leave Hezbollah largely intact militarily and with its political prestige greatly enhanced. Syrian and Iranian influence will be immeasurably strengthened. A disaster of regional and perhaps global dimensions appears imminent--unless Israel seizes its last opportunity to regain the initiative and deliver a decisive blow to Islamic extremism. ...
Israel, the Middle East, and the international community cannot afford such a calamitous outcome to the crisis. But to avert it, Israel will have to shift its tactics away from aerial strikes against infrastructure to a massive ground campaign to gain control of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. By clearing the terrorists from the area adjacent to its northern border and by eliminating Hezbollah's most strategic strongholds, Israel will have won a concrete achievement. And though long-range rockets will continue to be launched at Israel from central Lebanon, Israel can address that threat by surgical aerial attacks while ensuring that the more plentiful short-range katyushas will be removed."

"This is just the start of a showdown between the West and The Rest" (Amir Taheri, The Times, 2006/08/02)
"For almost a quarter of a century there has been intense competition within the Islamist camp over who could claim leadership. For much of that period Sunni Salafist movements, backed by oil money, were in the ascendancy. They began to decline after the 9/11 attacks that deprived them of much of the support they received from Arab governments and charities. In the past five years Tehran has tried to seize the opportunity to advance its own leadership claims. ...
Many in the Middle East are alarmed by these shifts of power and dread the prospect of the region entering a new dark age under radical Islamist regimes. For this reason, there seems to be much less hostility towards Israel in the wider Arab world than we might expect in the West. There may be no sympathy for Israel as such but many Arabs realise that the current war is over something bigger than a Jewish state with a tiny territory of 10,000 square miles, less than 1 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s land mass.
This war is one of many battles to be fought between those who wish to join the modern world, warts and all, and those who think they have an alternative. This is a war between the West and what one might describe as “The Rest”, this time represented by radical Islamism. All the talk of a ceasefire, all the diplomatic gesticulations may ultimately mean little in what is an existential conflict."

Added today:
"Hezbollywood? Evidence mounts that Qana collapse and deaths were staged" (Reuven Koret, israelinsider, 2006/07/31)
"'The Jews lose either way'" (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 2006/07/31)

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

News and commentary:

"Protesters from the Islamic Defender Front..."
(Reuters, 2006/08/01)
"Protesters from the Islamic Defender Front (FPI) hold toy weapons while riding motorcycles towards a rally against Israel's attacks on Palestine and Lebanon at the U.S. embassy, in Jakarta August 1, 2006." (Hat tip: LGF, who has more pictures, including a close-up on the mock bomb.)

"Up to 7,000 Israeli Troops Push Into Lebanon" (Craig S. Smith and Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, 2006/08/01)
"Israel sent up to 7,000 troops into Lebanon on Tuesday, marking a significant increase in a ground offensive aimed at pushing the Hezbollah militia back from the border before a cease-fire is declared and a multinational force deployed.
The troops, backed by air support, tanks and armored bulldozers, entered at four different places along the border, moving up to four and a half miles inside to engage Hezbollah fighters and destroy their outposts and infrastructure.
The Lebanese news media reported that at least one helicopter with Israeli commandos landed near Baalbek, in eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold well north of the Litani River, marking a deeper, if limited, invasion. The Hezbollah television station Al Manar said its fighters repelled the Israeli troops. Israeli officials declined comment.
Israel continued its promised 48-hour “partial suspension of aerial activity,” as the army called it, but there were numerous sorties. The air force flew missions in support of ground troops and to hit Hezbollah targets that included, the army said, two groups of fighters who were launching rockets, missile launchers, missile launching sites, “access routes” in the Bekaa Valley that were used to bring weapons from Syria, and 'Hezbollah structures and headquarters.'"

"The Road to Qana" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2006/08/01)
"At Qana, Israel lost the information war beyond all hope of recovery. It's losing the war on the ground, too. After ill-judged claims a week ago that the Israeli Defense Forces had eliminated 40 percent of Hezbollah's military capability, more rockets rained down on Israel last Sunday than on any previous day of the conflict.
The Olmert government chose war but didn't want to pay war's price. The cost of fighting half-heartedly has been Hezbollah's transformation from a middleweight sparring partner into the Middle East's new heavyweight champion. ...
So far, the Olmert government has been a disastrous aberration in Israel's history of wartime Cabinets - and a gift to Hezbollah. Israel needs leadership, not Clintonesque equivocation. President Bill Clinton's weakness led to 9/11. Olmert's weakness led to Qana.
The problem isn't Israel's people - who overwhelmingly support the effort to destroy Hezbollah. And the IDF knows how to do the job. But the Olmert government seems terrified of finishing what it started. Now, with global cries for a cease-fire, it may be too late. This may be the first "shooting war" Israel loses.
War is never a cheap date."

"Israel Is Losing This War" (Bret Stephens, OpinionJournal, 2006/08/01)
"Israel is losing this war.
This is not to say that it will lose the war, or that the war was unwinnable to start with. But if it keeps going as it is, Israel is headed for the greatest military humiliation in its history. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Israelis were stunned by their early reversals against Egypt and Syria, yet they eked out a victory over these two powerfully armed, Soviet-backed adversaries in 20 days. The conflict with Hezbollah--a 15,000-man militia chiefly armed with World War II-era Katyusha rockets--is now in its 21st day. So far, Israel has nothing to show for its efforts: no enemy territory gained, no enemy leaders killed, no abatement in the missile barrage that has sent a million Israelis from their homes and workplaces."

Added in archive:
"Actually, the Middle East Is Our Crisis Too" (Charles Krauthammer, TIME, 2006/07/30)

Monday, July 31, 2006

News and commentary:

"Hezbollywood? Evidence mounts that Qana collapse and deaths were staged" (Reuven Koret, israelinsider, 2006/07/31)
"But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.
The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."
There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well." (See also: "IDF: Qana building fell hours after strike" (Ynetnews, 2006/07/30))

"'The Jews lose either way'" (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 2006/07/31)
"Matthias Küntzel notes that yesterday,

...the Berlin daily the Tagesspiegel published a letter-to-the-editor from Dr. Mounir Herzallah, a Shiite from the South of Lebanon. Dr. Herzallah reports on how Hezbollah-terrorists came to his town, dug a munitions depot and then built a school and a residence directly over it. He writes:
“Laughing, a local sheikh explained to me that the Jews lose either way: either because the rockets are fired at them or because, if they attack munitions depot, they are condemned by world public opinion on account of the dead civilians.” Hezbollah, he says, uses the civilian population “as a human shield and then when they are dead as propaganda.”
Just how indifferent the lives of their fellow Muslims are to the Shiite Islamists was already made clear during the Iran-Iraq War, when Khomeini sent thousands of Iranian children into the mine fields. Still today, this mass murder is defended as “martyrdom” by people like Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah."

"Gitmo Guards Often Attacked by Detainees" (John Solomon, AP/Breitbart, 2006/07/31)
"The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror have attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet parts, utensils, radios and even a bloody lizard tail into makeshift weapons, Pentagon reports say.
Incident reports reviewed by The Associated Press indicate Military Police guards are routinely head-butted, spat upon and doused by "cocktails" of feces, urine, vomit and sperm collected in meal cups by the prisoners. ...
Guards currently stationed at Guantanamo describe a tense atmosphere in which prisoners often orchestrate violence in hopes of unnerving their captors, especially with attacks using bodily fluids.
Though all detainees are foreigners, many are clearly Americanized when it comes to their insults and gestures. Male guards are frequently derided as "donkeys" while female guards are routinely called "bitches" or harassed by references to their breasts or genitalia, the reports said.
In all, nearly a quarter of incidents involved female guards, the reports show.
"They absolutely target female guards," Nicolucci said. "They have a lot of cultural biases about females, and we let them know in our culture that females do everything males do in a professional job environment, and we just hold firm." ...
The bodily fluid attacks are so numerous that guards now frequently wear specialized shields to protect their faces."

"Iran's nuclear threat must be faced" (Daniel Hannan, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/07/31)
"The Iranian Revolution of 1979 will one day be seen as an epochal event, as significant as the French Revolution of 1789 or the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Like those earlier upheavals, it immediately burst out from behind its borders, disregarding all the accepted rules about how states should deal with each other. Like them, it refused to recognise the legitimacy of foreign governments, and sought to replicate itself around the world. ...
But we must first recognise the magnitude of what we are up against. The 1979 revolution introduced many Muslims to the novel idea that there was a conflict between their faith and their secular loyalties.
When Britain made war on Ottoman Turkey in 1915, a Cabinet memo fretted that "attacking the Caliphate might agitate our Mussulmans in Egypt and India".
In the event, of course, British Muslims volunteered happily to fight for the Crown, seeing no tension between their private devotion and their civic duties. Their sons and grandsons were, for the most part, equally patriotic. Yet today, some of their great-grandsons are crossing half the world to take up arms against British troops.
This is the poisonous ideology that we are fighting. Our chief purpose in defeating it should not be to restore the comity of nations, nor to bolster Muslim moderates, nor even to bring freedom to the long-suffering Iranian people - though all these would be happy side-effects. Our main object, rather, must be to forestall a nuclear attack."

 

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

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