Hypocrites-in-Chiefs

Throughout the history almost every religion, every philosopher, every thinker, every historian, and nearly every Wiseman has feverishly abhorred hypocrisy and detested it more often and with more passion than any other behavior.

Almost 3,000 years ago, Homer said, "I detest that man, who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks forth another." Jesus of Nazareth had such an abomination of hypocrisy that he said the hypocrites "have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23). Shakespeare also gave some insight into the underpinnings of hypocrisy, "With devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself."

Ironically, the true hypocrites never think of themselves to be hypocritical; therefore, they say one thing and do another with impunity and especially with pride. The same is also true with today’s global leadership, led by the likes of U.S President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the Israeli government.

We carry such short memories, that it wasn’t even couple of months after the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in the massacre of over 1,200 Lebanese citizens, all was forgotten and forgiven. It was during this instance of, often seen, Israeli barbarism new standards of hypocrisy were set by the self-proclaimed saviors of humanity.

• HYPOCRISY: With the complete blessings and support of the U.S and U.K, all hell was set loose on Lebanon and Palestine by the Israelis, because 3 Israeli soldiers were kidnapped. In reality, the so-called moral leaders have never uttered a word over the countless abductions and targeted assassinations of dozens of democratically elected Lebanese and Palestinian legislators and officials. On August 19, 2006, Israel seized Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Naser al-Shaer, a top official of the Hamas militant group, at his home in the occupied West Bank. Not a word is wasted over the illegal and immoral incarceration of countless Lebanese and Palestinian civilians still rotting in Israeli dungeons. Not a single word is said over the collective punishment of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.
• HYPOCRITE: President Bush showed his real colors when he said, “this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom.” And with this racially-charged hypocritical outburst he belittled and generalized over 1.4 billion humans or 1/5 of humanity. But his racist comments beg even more questions. Whose ‘freedoms’ was he referring to? Did he mean Israel’s ‘freedom’ to violate international laws by freely embarking on Lebanese/Arab genocides, or it’s ‘freedom’ to legislate racist laws? Or did President Bush mean the ‘freedom’ of neo-con doctrine of pre-emptive attacks on sovereign nations like the one on Iraq, in which, since the U.S occupation 60,000-500,000 Iraqis and close to 3,500 Americans have been killed? The reality is, in 2006, President Bush openly and unapologetically supported the bloodbath of Lebanese and Palestinians, and still turns blind eye to the daily massacres of Iraqi civilians. If there is anyone who deserves to be known as a ‘fascist’, it’s him, his neo-con hawks, his lackeys like Tony Blair, and the Zionist groupies who blame everyone else but themselves for their indiscriminate and unabashed murders of thousands upon thousands of Muslims in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. Remarkably, it took them only less than 5 years to preside over all of these pogroms. The manner in which these saviors of the world are busy maligning Muslims can be directly collated to Adolph Hitler's deliberate vilification of Jews prior to World War II.
• HYPOCRISY: Israel and Bush Administration arduously justified the destruction of Lebanon and the massacres of its people, under the pretext of, the Lebanese supposedly violated the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) resolution 1559. In reality, the resolution 1559 called upon “all remaining foreign forces [including Israeli] to withdraw from Lebanon.” In a direct violation of the resolution, Israel never vacated the Lebanese territory of Shebaa-Farms. Therefore, it had no legal or moral right to cry foul, especially when it had flagrantly violated 60 other UNSC resolutions relating to Israeli-Lebanese situation alone (see Appendix - A for the complete list). Hypocrites need to be cognizant of the fact that Israel violated UNSC resolution 425 (1978) for twenty two years. The resolution called upon the “Israel immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory”. In an appearance on CNN’s ‘Paula Zahn Now’, the Lebanese consul general to the U.S Mohamad El-Harake shared his frustrations with the American hypocritical support of Israel at the UN Security Council. He said, “Let me tell you one thing before we finish. Israel took 22 years to implement Resolution 524, adopted in '78, to inviting Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. Israel couldn't wait for 1559 adopted on the 2nd of September, less than two years, giving us the possibility of implementing this among ourselves as Lebanese. This is the way Israel wants to see a strong Lebanon?” Hypocrites need to be cognizant of the fact that Israel violated UNSC resolution 425 (1978) for twenty two years. The resolution called upon the “Israel immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory”. In an appearance on CNN’s ‘Paula Zahn Now’, the Lebanese consul general to the U.S Mohamad El-Harake shared his frustrations with the American hypocritical support of Israel at the UN Security Council. He said, “Let me tell you one thing before we finish. Israel took 22 years to implement Resolution 524, adopted in '78, to inviting Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. Israel couldn't wait for 1559 adopted on the 2nd of September, less than two years, giving us the possibility of implementing this among ourselves as Lebanese. This is the way Israel wants to see a strong Lebanon?”
• HYPOCRITES: Some of Evangelical Christians shamelessly support Israel in its brutality because they believe, for the biblical prophecies (The Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 38) to come true and to prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus, Israel will have to annihilate its Arab neighbors. A 2003 Pew Research Centre poll found that 36 percent of Americans believe that the creation of the state of Israel was a step towards the Second Coming of Jesus and that Israel must be supported if this was to come true. In reality, what these religious zealots fail to mention is that the same prophetic literature prophesies a dim ending for the Jews, who will be either converted or killed off in Armageddon.
• HYPOCRITES: American Zionists proudly send their children to Israel to get military training and to kill Arabs. American-media gives a flattering treatment to the American Zionists who join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to fight the Arabs. They are revered as brave heroes. In reality, most of these heroes live in America, but they enlist only with the Israeli military. Not so surprisingly, the same media stereotypes the American Muslims as anti-American, even if they dare to participate in the humanitarian relief efforts for Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.
• HYPOCRITES: During the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, on hourly bases, the vigilant American-media gave the latest count of Katyushas fired on Israel. In reality, Israel rained hundred times more weapons on Lebanon. The American-media never counted the Israeli cluster bombs, missiles, motors, rockets, and shells dropped by the Israelis on the hapless Lebanese civilians.
• HYPOCRITES: The American and Jewish (Amerco-Jewish) news media eulogized and deciphered each shrapnel, every ball bearing, and every patch of grass of Israeli manicured lawns burned by the Hezbollah rockets. In reality, whenever a non-American or non-Israel media outlet showed pictorial proof of the Israeli brutality or Lebanese carnage, the Amerco-Jewish media hypocritically cried bloody-Marie and blamed the non-Amerco-Jewish media for inciting hatred against Israelis and instantly labeled them as anti-Semite.
• HYPOCRITES: Amerco-Jewish news media claims to be fair and balanced. In reality, 90 percent of times, they ever so shamelessly, broadcasted a parade of ultra-Jewish diplomats who expectedly squarely blamed the Lebanese civilians for becoming victims of Israeli weapons. After the infamous 1982 massacres of Sabra and Shatila, the Jewish lobbies setup permanent institutional structures to sanitize its tarnished image and to win world opinion. Israel launched Hasbara project to win the U.S public opinion and trained its diplomats in public relations and communications. To cover-up its outed dirty secrets, Israel hired the largest U.S PR firms like NYPR to court favorable American public opinion. The Jewish propaganda machine put together groups and organizations with catchy names to marshal American support for the Israeli fascist policies. Americans for safe Israel, Christian coalition, Christian Broadcasting Network, American Jewish Congress, Christian Friends of Israel, Jews for Jesus, and AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful foreign lobby) are the most active organizations that remain busy with cloaking Israeli dirty deeds with an image of a pristine nation obsessed with humanitarian works. Then there are organizations like CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America). CAMERA, through its persistent harassment of journalists, ensures that media coverage remains pro-Israel.
• HYPOCRISY: Israel and American government place themselves at the highest pedestal of morality and for the respect of law. In realty, the Human Rights Watch said the responsibility for the massacre in Qana rested "squarely with the Israeli military." Whenever Israelis killed the UN personnel, Red-Cross workers, or Lebanese civilians; the Israelis, Bush Administration, and the American-media nonchalantly dismissed the deliberate killings as accidents; even better, they blamed the Lebanese for bringing Israeli wrath upon themselves.
• HYPOCRISY: Despite displacing 1 million and massacring over 1,200 Lebanese civilians during the first month of Israeli savage attack, it’s the Israelis that were portrayed as the victim by the Israelis, Bush Administration and the American-media. In reality, during the fighting 116 Israeli soldiers and only 43 Israeli civilians were killed. Israel massacred close to 28 Lebanese civilians for each Israeli civilian lost.
• HYPOCRITE: In his comments, on July 31, 2006, President Bush said he wanted more than a ceasefire. "We want there to be a long-lasting peace, one that is sustainable." The reality is President Bush has blood of over 1,200 Palestinians and Lebanese on his hands. The Bush administration has ridiculed and stalled every peace effort, including Security Council ceasefire resolutions that could have saved innocent lives of hundreds of Lebanese civilians. If that wasn’t bad enough, his administration donated $210 million worth of aviation fuel to ensure that Israeli F-16s do not skip a beat in dropping bombs on Lebanese population, and expedited the supply of precision-guided bunker buster bombs for Israel to hasten the Lebanese holocaust. One such Made-in-America precision-guided bomb dropped from an Israeli F-16 massacred 54 Lebanese civilians in Qana, of which half were blossoming children.
• HYPOCRISY: Israel claimed it warned the Lebanese civilians beforehand to leave. In reality, before sending out the warning, Israelis also ensured every route leading out of Southern Lebanon laid in ruins. They also made sure that every escaping vehicle, every civilian convoy flying white flags, every UN personnel carrier escorting the civilians, and every Red-Cross ambulance rescuing the civilians from the Israeli murderous campaign didn’t escape intact. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch said, "Just because the Israeli military warned the civilians… to leave does not give it carte blanche to blindly attack." Israeli fire was also directly responsible for the cold-blooded murders of 257 UN personnel.
• HYPOCRITES: American politicians and Media diligently harp on Israel being the most reliable ally and partner. In reality, the partnership had been largely one way, in favor of Israel. To date, Israel has received well over $110 billion FREE dollars in military and economic assistance from Washington.
• HYPOCRITES: American politicians and Media proudly call Israel to be its closest ally. In reality, Israelis have never shied away from shedding American blood whenever it suited them. On June 8, 1967, while patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, without any warning or justification, for several hours, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked by Israeli air and naval forces. The Americans suffered 34 fatalities and 173 were wounded. To this day, not a single Israeli has been court marshaled or punished for deliberately slaughtering Americans.
• HYPOCRITES: Israel and the U.S complain to no end that Hezbollah is armed by Iran and Syria. In reality, Israel has received 17 billion dollars of arms from the United States in last 10 years alone. In 2002, U.S gave $6 billion free aid to Israel. $2 billion were for Israel to buy American made weapons. $1.5 billion for military ventures to subsidize Israeli domestic armament industry. This amount doesn’t include other forms of military aid, such as free weapons and fuel for IDF.
• HYPOCRITES: Pro-Israeli media repeatedly flashed Israeli propaganda videos showing infrared videos of firings of the so-called Hezbollah rockets as the Israeli spokespeople hammered their propaganda. In reality, the pro-Israeli media consistently failed to provide a neutral and reliable confirmation to support the Israeli propaganda. Experts familiar with Israeli tactics believed the alleged videos of Hezbollah rocket launches were the Oscar-Award winning self-engineered videos of the Israeli psych-ops (an Israeli military unit tasked to control and dominate the dissemination of information in favor of Israel, even through deceit and lies).
• HYPOCRISY: The UN bullied by the U.S conveniently found time during the Israeli invasion to pass a Security Council resolution to threaten Iran with sanctions. In reality, the UN couldn’t muster enough courage to even request Israel to temporarily halt Lebanese genocide, so the Lebanese could have buried the rotting bodies of their loved ones.
• HYPOCRITES: Israel and the U.S call Hezbollah a terrorist organization. In reality, survey after survey show that most of the world views Israel to be a terrorist state. With the exceptions of the U.S, Israel and their lackeys the Britain, no one else calls Hezbollah a terrorist organization, not even the UN or EU does.
• HYPOCRITES: Israel argues, since Hezbollah emerged from and flourishes with the help Southern Lebanese population, therefore, everyone from that area should be considered and dealt as a combatant. In reality, almost every able Israeli adult either serves or has served, or is a reservist in the Israeli military. Therefore, by Israelis’ logic, every Israeli adult associated with the IDF should also be treated as legitimate combatant.
• HYPOCRISY: Israeli government arms the Jewish settlers in occupied settlements with automatic guns and grenades for the supposed self-defense. In reality, the Jewish settlers mount vigilante attacks on the unarmed Palestinians. They destroy crops, uproot trees, and burn the homes of Palestinians who happened to be living there for last hundreds of years.
• HYPOCRITE: The U.S presents itself as a fair and honest broker. In reality, between 1973 and 2001, the U.S used veto 33 times at the UN Security Council to sabotage Israel-specific resolutions. In addition, since the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli war, the U.S has exercised its veto at the Security Council more than 90 times in support of Israel, rendering the UN totally impotent.
• HYPOCRITES: Bush and his poodle Blair never get tired lecturing the whole world on the virtues of democracy. In reality, they demand the Lebanese and Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights by electing only the candidates desired by the Tel-Aviv and Washington. Since the democratically elected Lebanese and Palestinian governments are not run by the puppets of Tel-Aviv and Washington, monetary aid for public (including humanitarian) projects for the Palestinians was cut off, and Israel clamped a virtual blockade of Gaza and Lebanon. The consul general Mohamad El-Harake summarized the Israeli strategy very well to CNN’s Paula Zahn. He said, “It is with Israel always a catch-22 situation. Either you kill each other as Lebanese, or I [will] come to kill you all.”
• HYPOCRITES: For several decades the British and Americans boycotted South Africa for its apartheid practices. In reality, neither the U.K, nor U.S ever utter a peep over illegal Israeli-occupation of Palestinian and Lebanese land, ethnic cleansing, and cold-blooded murders of Lebanese and Palestinians. Ironically, they declare the starvation of the Lebanese and Palestinians at the hands of Israelis as fair and legitimate.
• HYPOCRISY: The U.S allows the private sector to take high-resolution satellite pictures of its own military and nuclear installations. In reality, American laws bar everyone from taking satellite pictures of Israeli military and nuclear installations.
• HYPOCRITES: Upon the whims of Israel, Al-Minar, a Hezbollah T.V channel was banned in the U.S, Europe and India for allegedly spreading its propaganda. In reality, nobody says a word over the specially trained Israeli diplomats in public relations and communications -- like Alon Pinkas (a coordinator of PR efforts and the Israeli Counsel-General in New York) -- regularly winning and dinning with the America reporters and editors to disseminate the Israeli propaganda.
• HYPOCRITES: If anyone, even justifiably, dares to question or oppose the Zionist mantra or their behavior he/she is instantly labeled as “anti-Semite”. In reality, Zionists call every non-Jew a “Gentile”. Those who maybe unaware of the meaning, Gentile means, Heathen, Pagan, or Uncivilized. Social stigmatism/assassination through labeling is the most commonly employed tactic by the Zionists to intimidate and harass their perceived foes.
• HYPOCRITES: West never allows the whole world, especially the Germans, to forget the holocaust. In reality, for the last 60 years when it comes to Israel the West remains blind to making the 5 million Palestinians pay reparations for the holocaust.

It would be equally hypocritical to generalize every American and British and their whole media as biased in favor of Israel. U.S Congressman John Martha and the British Member of Parliament George Galloway are shinning examples of fair-minded politicians. Refreshingly, some of British news media, like ‘The Independent,’ provides unbiased coverage; occasionally, American media also exhibit glimpses of unbiased opinion. For example, August 1, 2006, in a ‘Los Angeles Times’’ Op-Ed, Adam Shatz pointed to the Israeli hypocritical humanitarian concerns, he wrote, “When Israel targets densely populated areas in hopes of killing one or a handful of militants, knowing that it may end up killing dozens of civilians, it can hardly claim to be showing concern for humanitarian law or civilian life. And by asking that we judge it by its professed intentions, rather than by its actions, Israel is asking too much of us and far too little of itself.”

Host of political satire John Stewart and the anchor of ABC World News Charles Gibson are also notable exceptions and pleasant examples of honorable and unbiased American journalists.

Maybe Andr Gide had Ehud Olmert and President Bush -- certainly not Tony Blair who merely loves to sit in Bush’s lap and wag his tail -- in mind when he observed, "The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity." Ehud Olmert flattened Lebanon under the pretext of self-defense, and President Bush flattened Afghanistan, Iraq and then helped Ehud Olmert flatten Lebanon under the pretext of self-defense and fighting terrorism. Who will fight the terror of these hypocrites?

APPENDIX - A

Following UN Security Council Resolutions directly name, condemn and/or deplore Israel for its violations. (Source: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_resolutions.html)

Directly or indirectly asks Israel to respect Lebanese territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence:

331, 337, 347, 425, 444, 467, 474, 490, 498, 501, 520, 549, 555, 561, 575, 583, 586, 587, 594, 599, 609, 617, 630, 639, 648, 659, 684, 701, 768, 803, 852, 1052

Deplores Israeli actions or lack of cooperation:

444, 467, 488, 517, 518

Condemns and calls upon Israel to cease military actions in Lebanese territories:

262, 270, 313, 316, 331, 347, 425, 450, 498, 501, 508

Condemns and deplores Israel for violating ceasefire and for military reprisals:

270, 280, 508, 509, 516, 517, 518, 520

Demands Israel to completely withdraw from the Lebanese territories:

242, 279, 313, 427, 501, 509, 517, 520, 587, 1559

Condemns and deplores Israel for violating Security Council resolutions:

248, 252, 256, 280, 337, 347, 444, 446, 467, 517, 520

Condemns and deplores Israel for violating Geneva Convention and Human rights Laws:

237, 248, 256, 280, 316, 347, 446, 450, 512, 513, 515, 518, 520

Deplores Israel for the interference and attacks on the UN Forces on the Israeli-Lebanese border:

427, 434, 467, 587, 1052

Demands Israel to release abducted/kidnapped Lebanese personnel:

316, 317, 347

The Winograd report's moral blindness

05/08/07

Khalid Amayreh

While effectively indicting the Israeli government for "sever failure" in managing Israel's barbaric war on Lebanon last summer, the Winograd Commission report utterly and outrageously ignored the ghastly war crimes the Israeli army committed against Lebanese civilians in the course of the war.

The Winograd report castigated the Israeli government and army for the indecisive end of the war notwithstanding the widespread killings and destruction inflicted on Lebanese civilians and their civilian infrastructure, including schools, ports, power and fuel stations as well as bridges, roads and homes.

In other words, the Winograd report seemed to be blaming the Israeli army and government for not killing more Lebanese and for not destroying more Lebanese homes and probably for not dropping more cluster and uranium bombs throughout Lebanon.

For those who may have forgotten, the wehrmacht-like Israeli army and air-force killed and maimed thousands of Lebanese civilians, utterly destroyed thousands of homes and public buildings, and deliberately and knowingly massacred Lebanese civilians fleeing southern towns and villages during the war.

In the first days of that barbaric war, the Israeli air-force systematically targeted helpless civilians from the villages and hamlets of the South, such as Mirwaheen and Bayada, killing and maiming dozens of children and women. The images of the wanton slaughter were too gruesome to be described by words.

Entire families were exterminated by Israel's American supplied bombs when invading Israeli forces asked civilians to flee their villages. And when the civilians heeded the warnings, Israeli warplanes went into action, bombing the buses and vehicles carrying these hapless refugees northward toward Beirut, reducing dozens to incinerated pieces of human flesh.

The Nazi-like massacres were repeated several times throughout Lebanon, especially in the South and along the coast as Israeli warplanes targeted residential homes under the pretext that a person affiliated with Hizbullah was living there.

And the result was the extermination of entire families including toddlers, children, husbands, wives, grandmothers and grandfathers.

In addition, the Israeli air-force flattened Beirut's southern Dahiya, killing and maiming hundreds, and turning the largely residential area into a huge pile of rubble.

But the most outrageous war crime Israel committed during the war occurred in the closing days of the war when the Israeli chief of staff, Dan Halutz, ordered the air force to drop as many as 3000,000 cluster bomblets in and around residential areas throughout Lebanon.

This Nazi-like carpet bombing had a holocaustic proportions since three million bombs could, theoretically, kill at least three million children. Indeed, the killing and/or maiming of that many people would be at least half a holocaust by "Jewish standards."

The genocidal danger is, of course, far from being hypothetical. Nearly every day Lebanese civilians, including peasants, farmers, shepherds and school children are maimed and killed by these unexploded Jewish presents.

Needless to say, Israeli political and military leaders knew this fact well beforehand, which makes people like Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Halutz bona fide war criminals very much like Nazis political and military leaders.

Shameless and criminal-minded Israeli leaders would never publicly admit that they committed horrible war crimes against innocent civilians.

A few moths ago, Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu in an interview with al Jazeera English channel sought to justify the wanton bombing of Lebanon by citing the British RAF bombing of German cities in the closing months of WWII.

Unfortunately, the pornographically corrupt analogy went unanswered by al-Jazeera's David Frost who conducted the interview with Netanyahu.

The fact that the Winograd committee totally ignored this shameful aspect of the war is more than morally unconscionable. It is actually an unethical and immoral failure of criminal proportions since that committee gave the impression that the killing and maiming of thousands of innocent civilians, was a minor issue.

Which really indicts the Israeli society and mentality for its callous racism toward non-Jews.

It is true that Hizbullah fired dozens of Katyousha missiles on northern Israel, mainly to deter the Zionist state from committing a fully-fledged genocide against Lebanese civilians.

However, it was amply clear that Israel started the massive bombing and that whatever actions Hizbullah carried out were purely defensive.

In any case, the scandalously disproportionate and deliberate bombings of civilian targets, such as the Qana-2 massacre, can never be justified and may only be viewed as a war crime of Nazi-like proportions.

Thus, while the Winograd report may have the semblance of a credible and solemn probing committee, its willful failure to even allude to these grisly crimes committed knowingly and deliberately by the Israeli army should be viewed as a powerful indictment of the committee itself and its chairman, Judge Elyahu Winograd.

Which really shows that criminality and racism are not confined to the Israeli army and the Zionist political establishment, but are intrinsic traits defining and characterizing the entire Israeli society, including its so-called judicial system.

-###-

© 2007 Khalid Amayreh

A terrible, delusional, wasteful misjudgment

May 4, 2007

Blair’s support for Israel last year was wrong. And we said so

Mary Ann Sieghart

Never believe people who protest: “I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’.” Of course they do. There is nothing more satisfying than to be vindicated. So here you go.

Last July I wrote a couple of columns on these pages excoriating Israel for its overreaction to the kidnap by Hezbollah of two of its soldiers. I criticised Tony Blair for not condemning Israel’s disproportionate response and I predicted that his action – or rather inaction – would hasten his demise.

Inevitably, I was deluged with e-mails accusing me of anti-Semitism (as if!), anti-Israeli bias and ignorance. Patronising readers told me that I had no understanding of Israel’s position in the Middle East. My warnings that Israel’s killing of nearly 1,000 Lebanese civilians and displacement of half a million would only add to the ranks of Hezbollah sympathisers and further inflame Muslim opinion against the West were dismissed as prejudice.

So it is some consolation that the Winograd Commission – set up by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, himself – savagely criticised him this week for the failed war against Lebanon. On the decisions made in launching the war, the report says: “We determine that there are very serious failings in these decisions and the way they were made. We impose the primary responsibility for these failures on the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Staff.

“The decision to respond with an immediate, intensive military strike was not based on a detailed, comprehensive and authorised military plan . . . The Government did not consider the whole range of options, including that of continuing the policy of ‘containment’, or combining political and diplomatic moves with military strikes below the ‘escalation level’, or military preparations without immediate military action.”

Mr Olmert “made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one. Also his decision was made without close study of the complex features of the Lebanon front and of the military, political and diplomatic options available to Israel . . . All of these add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence.”

Phew! If that is the interim report, what has the commission saved up for its final statement? I cannot remember ever reading such trenchant criticism of a government in an official report.

What this ought to (but doubtless won’t) do is puncture the delusion held by many in the Jewish community that any criticism of any action by any Israeli government is either anti-Semitic or anti-Israel or both. It simply isn’t.

Only last week I mentioned in passing that, had Jack Straw still been Foreign Secretary last July, he could have moderated Mr Blair’s support for Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon. One reader e-mailed to say that I was either “entirely stupid” or “an anti-Semite happy to plant some anti-Israel poison” or “almost unbelievably ignorant of the facts”. Oh, and apparently, I am a “journalist-idiot” too.

Perhaps this reader would like to put the same charges to Judge Eliyahu Winograd, the commission chairman? Or perhaps he and his ilk could grow up and accept that candid friends of Israel may occasionally be justified in disagreeing, in good faith, with its government? It doesn’t mean that we hate Jews or that we don’t defend Israel’s right to exist.

But the problem does not lie only with paranoid e-mailers. Our own Prime Minister labours under a similar delusion. It is not that he believes criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic; but he is determined that no disapproval of Israeli action will ever pass his lips in public. He has held to this stricture as rigidly as he has to its cousin: unstinting support of US policy.

Mr Blair’s justification is that, by defending these governments in public, he has more “traction” with them in private. Would that this were so. Our Prime Minister met Mr Olmert just before the war and whatever he said at No 10 had zero effect. He warned President Bush that a better plan was needed for post-war Iraq, and what transpired? Sometimes, I suspect, he does not even tell the hard truths in private, since he shrinks from personal confrontations and is happier telling people what they want to hear.

It is not as if Mr Blair was not warned at the time that his position was ill-judged. Colleagues told him that the Israeli bombing of villages in southern Lebanon would strengthen Hezbollah, undermine Lebanon’s democracy, fail to achieve the military objective and weaken Mr Olmert. What is more, his support for the bombing would play into the hands of those who wanted to radicalise Muslim youth.

This was possibly the worst foreign policy misjudgment of his premiership, and it left a scar that remains to this day. Ministers and MPs who were prepared reluctantly to support the case for war in Iraq watched the pulverising of southern Lebanon and felt morally sick at their leader’s refusal to condemn it. Sure, Israel had a right to defend itself, but not at this level of untargeted aggression.

Previously supportive colleagues started to peel away. Because of the summer recess, their misgivings went largely unreported. But it meant that, when the Brownite coup happened last September, many more MPs and ministers were receptive to the idea of Mr Blair going within the year.

Another sad consequence is that the man who might have had so much to offer the Middle East peace process is now discredited there. Mr Blair could have applied the lessons he learnt in Northern Ireland – in particular, that he could not make peace by involving only moderates from the UUP and SDLP. It was the arrival of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams at the negotiating table that made an agreement possible.

The same boldness is needed now in the Middle East. Any negotiation will have to include Hamas as well as Fatah, the ultra-orthodox Shas party as well as Labour. Had Mr Blair remained even-handed last July, he could now be the perfect peacebroker. Instead, he will have to content himself with lecturing conventions of American mortgage brokers. What a waste.

maryann.sieghart@thetimes.co.uk

Israel will again correct failures by going to war

Fri., May 04, 2007

Waiting for the next war

By Shuki Mairovich

The countdown to the next war has begun. Not as a result of the strengthening of the Hezbollah, nor as a result of the fact that it has moved south of the Litani, but rather as a result of the Winograd Committee report. Paradoxically, but in accordance with the history and mood of Israeli society, it is precisely the severity of the report that will bring about the next war.

This is not the first time that Israeli society is repairing the blunders of a past war by means of a new war. People remember Menachem Begin's observation that the first Lebanon War came to heal the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. That will be the case this time, too. The third Lebanon War will be declared as a correction of the Second Lebanon War. The ink on the Winograd report has not yet dried and the psychological preparations for the next war have already begun. The first sign of this appeared in the wake of proliferating complaints that the lack of experience on the part of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, as stated in the panel's conclusions, was a crucial factor in the decision to go to war. Israeli society is characterized by an historical tendency to solve political problems by military means - i.e., via war - and public discourse is preparing for the demand that will come, sooner or later, to bring former generals back to steer the ship of state.

Even before the start of the war in June, 1967, the General Staff threatened the government, which surrendered and went to war. And also at the government meeting on the eve of the start of the first Lebanon War, the military people convinced the government to go to war. This time, the chief of staff did not need to force himself on the government; the government itself was chomping at the bit. These examples testify that the civilian level is incapable of standing up to the military establishment.




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The civilian leadership is not capable of thinking in a civilian way, and it accepts the tendency to go to war absolutely and uncritically. The Winograd Committee's criticism that the government did not examine alternatives to military confrontation shows that this option, in fact, does not exist in our society's lexicon.

Correction of the flaws that the report enumerates will be carried out, to one extent or another, but the important question is what the social mood is which will impel this process. Even now we are seeing the first signs of it: the strengthening of the army and the weakening of alternative civilian thinking. The meaning of further strengthening the army is the start of another war, because military thinking in its very essence negates solutions that are not military. This is the worldview of military people, these are the glasses through which they see reality, and public discourse in Israel adopts this mode of thinking. Just as it was when the Second Lebanon War broke out - when the Israeli public, like its leaders, warmly adopted the military option.

Israel's problem has never been a lack of military preparedness, a lack of leadership or a lack of judgment. Even if there is a leadership, even if the army is prepared and even if the considerations will be military in nature - the army will again determine the agenda, the leadership will accept it and the Israeli public will scurry after it. The only obvious conclusion - to strengthen civilian culture and to lessen the dominance of military culture - will again not be drawn by Israeli society, for the next war is already at the gates.

The author is a lecturer at the Ruppin Academic Center.

Peretz to resign in wake of inquiry: media

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Israel FM calls on prime minister to resign
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May 02 2007 at 12:32PM

Jerusalem - Defence Minister Amir Peretz is to resign in the wake of a damning inquiry that said he failed in his post during the Lebanon war, Israeli media reported on Wednesday citing his aides.

"Mr Peretz is to announce his resignation in the coming hours," army and public radio reported.

"Mr Peretz took this decision as he is ratifying the report's conclusions and is aiming to conform to norms of behaviour required of those who exercise public office," the website of the tabloid Maariv quoted a Peretz aide as saying.

The office of Peretz, the leader of Olmert's main coalition partner Labour, declined to comment on the reports.

Should Peretz resign, he will become the most senior casualty of the Winograd Commission interim report on last year's war against Hezbollah that was issued on Monday.

The report roasted Peretz, a former trade unionist whose military experience was limited to national army service before he assumed his post, saying he "failed in fulfilling his functions."

The resignation of the 55-year-old Peretz would pile the pressure on Olmert to follow suit amid an open mutiny within his party for him to step down.

The Winograd report blasted Olmert for serious failure during the 34-day war that killed more than 1 200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, according to government figures.

The war failed to achieve the Jewish state's main goals of freeing two soldiers seized by Hezbollah in a deadly cross-border raid on July 12 that sparked the hostilities and stopping the Shi'a militia's rocket fire into northern Israel that killed dozens of civilians.

Coalition chair, Kadima MKs discuss move to replace Olmert with Livni

Last update - 16:07 01/05/2007

By Shahar Ilan, Yuval Azoulay and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents

Report: Anti-Zionist Israeli to direct movie for Israel's 60th birthday

Last update - 15:16 29/04/2007

By Haaretz Service

An Israeli director who is a self-proclaimed "anti-Zionist" has been hired by an Israeli television channel to direct a film marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state, Army Radio reported Sunday.

According to the report, Eyal Sivan will be given a NIS 650,000 grant, paid for by Israeli taxpayers, to direct a film for next year's Independence Day, Israel's 60th.

The film will be part of the "Past and Present in Israel" project, meant to promote Israel's "Jaffa" brand citrus fruit. It will be produced by Channel 8 television, together with the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Rabinovitch Fund.

Sivan, who has resided in Paris for the past 15 years, directed the 1999 film "The Specialist," which used footage from Adolf Eichmann's trial to portray the architect of the Final Solution as just a Nazi party bureaucrat, the radio said. The film also attempted to present Sivan's view that Eichmann's Jewish victims could have done more to prevent themselves from being murdered, it said.

In an interview in 2001 in the French newspaper "Le Monde," Sivan famously referred to the UN's 1947 partition plan, which called for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as a "historical mistake." He also said that the rise of anti-Semitism in France is in large part due to the support for Israel by French Jews.

Sivan co-directed with Palestinian director Michel Kleifi the 2007 documentary "Route 181," which deals with life along the seam line, which formed the pre-1967 West Bank border.

According to the radio report, French Jewish academic Alan Finkelkraut called the movie "incitement to murder" for the comparisons it draws between the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government and the experience of European Jews during the Holocaust. Sivan sued Finkelkraut in French court in 2007 over the remark, but the lawsuit was thrown out.

The radio report stated that during the Second Lebanon War last summer, Sivan joined a group of Israeli filmmakers in signing a petition pledging support to Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. The petition read: "We the signatories are absolutely against the brutality and cruelty of the State of Israel as shown in the news from recent weeks."

Damaging Congressional Silence on Israeli Violations in Lebanon

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One Unexploded Bomb Per Person
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Michael F. Brown, Electronic Lebanon, 27 April 2007

UN peacekeeprs detonate unexploded ordnance in the Lebanese town of Hinaya, 25 August 2006. (Mark Garten/UN Photo)

In late January the State Department delivered a potentially explosive report to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The classified report asserts that Israel may have violated the Arms Export Control Act with its use of American-made cluster munitions this past summer in Lebanon.

Multiple contacts to both offices indicate neither Biden nor Pelosi has any intention of pursuing the matter. In contrast, a congressional investigation 25 years ago helped persuade President Ronald Reagan to suspend cluster munitions to Israel for six years. This Congress, however, will not call Israel to account for its actions.

Cluster munitions are a ghastly creation on two levels. First, these bombs blow apart into hundreds of smaller bomblets, thus spreading death over a wide radius. Second, a terrifying percentage of them fail to explode -- at least initially. These "duds" then sit on the ground like mines until the curious child or plowing farmer stumbles across them -- often with devastating results.

As recently as July, the US House of Representatives voted 410-8 for a resolution including recognition of "Israel's longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss" and welcoming "Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties" in Lebanon and elsewhere. The language was an open insult to the hundreds of Lebanese civilians already killed and injured in the previous few days by the Israeli military.

Many at the State Department appear uncomfortable addressing Israel's seeming culpability. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack, normally quite articulate, provided journalists with this circumlocution: "There may likely could have been some violations."

Indeed there were. And a bloody mess it is. Amnesty International asserted in late January that in the previous six months, "Thirty people, eight of them de-mining personnel, have been killed, and more than 180 people have been injured, including 20 mine clearers." Amnesty has called on Israel to turn over maps of where these munitions were used as a means to prevent future loss of civilian life. Israel has yet to provide sufficient information.

Israeli officials have defended the use of cluster bombs and other attacks by contending that they warned civilians to leave southern Lebanon, as though such warnings gave them carte-blanche to do as they pleased. But what if Hezbollah gave similar blanket warnings to Israelis in the north of Israel? Surely it is madness to suggest that a warning provides the liberty to fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel or to litter Lebanese villages and farmland with hundreds of thousands of deadly bomblets. Do the infirm and impoverished with no way out have no rights?

De-mining groups estimate that some 2.6 to 4 million submunitions were fired into Lebanon during the five-week war. Israeli Member of Knesset Ran Cohen stated, "The massive use by the IDF of cluster bombs during the war suggests an absolute loss of control and hysteria." It's a loss of control with munitions mostly produced in the United States.

We already know from the Israeli press that the Israeli military did not use the cluster munitions in keeping with the orders of then-Chief of Staff Dan Halutz. "I don't know if this is surprising," said Halutz, "it is more disappointing."

In fact, it is more than disappointing. It is criminal and a violation of US law.

Yet there is a real danger nothing will come of the State Department's report. Pelosi and Biden may not push hard because they dare not aggravate AIPAC. Silence, however, will harm American standing in the region, damage American commitment to human rights principles, and undercut (once again) American national security interests. Congress ought to grapple seriously with this issue rather than suppress the unpleasant facts about Israel's war crimes in Lebanon.

The failure to hold Israel accountable for its actions against Palestinian civilians (and, for that matter, American civilians) in the occupied Palestinian territories undoubtedly contributed to a climate in which many Israeli military leaders thought they could pummel Lebanese civilians with American-made weapons with no repercussions. So far American officials are proving them right.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, while not addressing the possible AECA violation by Israel, introduced legislation earlier this year to "limit the use, sale, and transfer of cluster munitions." She cited heart-rending examples from around the world of the harm these weapons cause to civilians, including to "Hassan Hammade, a 13-year-old Lebanese boy, [who] lost four fingers and sustained injuries to his stomach and shoulder after he picked up an unexploded cluster bomb in front of an orange tree."

Her legislation would do much to limit future harm to children such as Hassan in Lebanon and other innocent civilians in war-ravaged nations. She and co-sponsors Patrick Leahy, Barbara Mikulski, and Bernard Sanders ought to be commended for this legislative initiative. So, too, should Representatives James McGovern, Darrell Issa, and Betty McCollum for their accompanying legislation in the House.

Pelosi and Biden have shrunk from holding Israel accountable for its actions in Lebanon, but could exhibit some overdue leadership by signaling their support for the new cluster bomb legislation.

Michael F. Brown is a fellow at the Palestine Center. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center.

Related Links

Pelosi's Misguided Middle East Visit, Dr. Marcy Newman (5 April 2007)

BY TOPIC: Cluster Bombs

The Bush/NASA Killer Connection

KPRC Local 2 confirmed that the gunman was a contract worker employed by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., which is headquartered in Pasadena. His identity and the nature of his job were not released. He was described only as a white man between 50 and 60 years old.

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Gunman kills hostage, self at Nasa base

Officials: Gunman Barricaded In Johnson Space Center - With Live Coverage

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April 16, 2007 -- WMR was the first to report on the establishment of a major US airbase in northern Lebanon to facilitate logistics for America's planned long-term stay in the Middle East, including the occupation of Iraq. On July 21, 2006, we reported, "With the carrying out of the Clean Break by Israel and the United States, profits for companies like Halliburton are bound to skyrocket. The Israeli attack on Lebanon is already estimated to have resulted in $2 billion in damage to Lebanon's infrastructure. WMR previously reported that Jacobs/Sverdrup has been promised a lucrative Pentagon contract to build a large U.S. airbase in northern Lebanon.

The editor reported on March 11, 2005: "Washington and Jerusalem media experts spun Hariri's assassination as being the work of Syrian intelligence on orders from President Bashar Assad. However, a number of Middle East political observers in Washington claim that Hariri's assassination was not in the interests of Assad, but that the Bush and Sharon administrations had everything to gain from it, including the popular Lebanese uprising against the Syrian occupation. Lebanese intelligence sources report that even without a formal agreement with Lebanon, the contract for the northern Lebanese air base has been let by the Pentagon to Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, California. Other construction support will be provided by Bechtel Corporation. Jacobs Engineering and Jacobs Sverdrup are currently contracted for work in Saudi Arabia for Aramco, Iraq for the U.S. occupation authority, Bosnia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The Lebanese air base is reportedly to be used as a transit and logistics hub for U.S. forces in Iraq and as a rest and relaxation location for U.S. troops in the region. In addition, the Lebanese base will be used to protect U.S. oil pipelines in the region (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Mosul/Kirkuk-Ceyhan) as well as to destabilize the Assad government in Syria. The size of the planned air base reportedly is on the scale of the massive American Al Udeid air base in Qatar. A number of intelligence sources have reported that assassinations of foreign leaders like Hariri and Hobeika are ultimately authorized by two key White House officials, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams. In addition, Abrams is the key liaison between the White House and Sharon's office for such covert operations, including political assassinations."

Our Lebanese sources as well as the Lebanese daily newspaper Aldiyar now report that a NATO base is to be built soon on the grounds of the largely abandoned airbase at Klieaat in northern Lebanon. The base will serve as the headquarters of a NATO rapid deployment force, helicopter squadrons, and Special Forces units although the cover story prepared by the Lebanese and US governments is that the base will provide training for the Lebanese army and security forces. The base was pushed by elements in the office of the US Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Bush administration had recently warned Lebanon about the presence of "Al Qaeda" teams in northern Lebanon. Before his assassination, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was known to have been strongly opposed to any U.S. military bases in Lebanon, including the proposed airbase in Kleiaat.

America's new Kleiaat airbase in northern Lebanon prepares to host rapid deployment force. Assassinated former Prime Minister Hariri was adamantly opposed to the American base.

Click2Houston.com

Gunman, Hostage Dead In Shooting At JSC

POSTED: 2:27 pm CDT April 20, 2007

UPDATED: 6:13 pm CDT April 20, 2007

HOUSTON -- A gunman shot a hostage and then himself while barricaded inside a building at Johnson Space Center on Friday, KPRC Local 2 reported. A second hostage was found duct-taped to a chair but was unharmed, according to authorities. Officials said the situation started at about 1:40 p.m. when reports of shots fired came in and a man with a gun was spotted inside building 44, which is the communications and tracking development laboratory, an engineering building. Authorities said the man with a revolver barricaded himself in a second-floor office. Capt. Dwayne Ready of the Houston Police Department said a male hostage appeared to be shot when the gunman initially fired two shots in the building. "The report to us was that there were two shots and that's what caused us to respond to this scene, and we're believing that one of the hostages -- the male who's deceased -- was shot during that particular moment," Ready said. Ready said communication was not established with the gunman, despite repeated efforts. SWAT officers moved in when they heard a third shot hours after the standoff began. They found the gunman dead from a shot to the head and a male hostage dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Investigators did not release a motive. Officials said the gunman did not leave a note. The victims' names were not released. KPRC Local 2 confirmed that the gunman was a contract worker employed by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., which is headquartered in Pasadena. His identity and the nature of his job were not released. He was described only as a white man between 50 and 60 years old. NASA is a secured facility that requires approved access. "If you are an employee and have the correct badge and the correct sticker on your car, you can generally drive right in," former astronaut Dr. Bill Fisher said. "If this were a contractor or a NASA employee, that person would have almost unlimited access to the Space Center once you're through the gate. For someone who is not a NASA employee, they have to go through a number of security checks and they would have to get a special badge." JSC employees were initially informed about the gunman via e-mail and asked to shelter-in-place. A second e-mail told employees that the situation was confined to one building and they were allowed to go home, according to Eileen Hawley, with NASA. Johnson Space Center is located on NASA Parkway in Clear Lake. Building 44 was described as "one of the smaller" office buildings on the JSC campus, where Mission Control is based. Space Center Intermediate School, located at 17400 Saturn Lane, was placed in lockdown as a precaution. The lockdown was lifted by 3:45 p.m. Background Of Johnson Space Center Johnson Space Center was established in 1961 as the Manned Spacecraft Center and, in 1973, renamed in honor of the late President and Texas native Lyndon B. Johnson. JSC has served as the nerve center for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, space shuttle, International Space Station and other programs. About 3,000 employees people work at the center; most are engineers and scientists. More than 12,000 contractors from about 50 companies work onsite or in nearby office buildings and other facilities. There are about 110 astronauts based at JSC for training.

ISRAEL ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE HIZBOLLAH MEN THAT CAPTURED ISRAELI SOLDIERS INSIDE LEBANON

Thursday, April 12, 2007

There is more to the Israeli government’s desire to change the status of three Hizbollah prisoners, captured during last years war in southern Lebanon, from ‘prisoners of war’ to ‘illegal combatants’ than meets the eye. All three of them it seems were captured on August 4 in the villages of Aita al-Shaab and Shihine, just inside the Lebanese border with northern Israel.

The Israeli government wants to charge at least one of the men, 23 year old Hussein Suleiman, with aiding in the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Now, readers may recall that it was at Aita al-Shaab, a village that is inside the Lebanese border, where the two Israelis were captured. The problem for the Israelis is; if their Hizbollah prisoners maintain their ‘prisoner of war’ status then the Israelis will have no alternative but to release the men once the deal has been struck to exchange prisoners. Since the Israeli government has insisted that their soldiers were captured inside Israel and not Lebanon, and if Suleiman is released knowing the real story, and then subsequently spills the beans, the Israelis are going to end up with even more egg on their faces than they already have. Imagine the furore there would be if the man that actually had a hand in capturing the Israelis inside Lebanon were able to tell his story.

The only way that the Israelis can prevent this from happening is to change the status of their prisoner to the extremely controversial status of ‘illegal combatant’, a status similar to that of America’s so-called ‘unlawful combatant’ under which ‘law’ the US feels entitles them to keep their prisoners indefinitely and to be tried whenever the US can dream up a charge to try them with. As an ‘illegal combatant’ Suleiman can then be charged with whatever crime the Israelis fancy they can get away with and then keep him locked up indefinitely.

First, however, the Israeli government has to front up to the Israeli courts in order to get Suleiman and the other two prisoners’ status changed. There are three things working in the prisoners favour; first is the obvious and transparent ulterior motives the Israeli government have for wanting to change their status; secondly, the Israeli people are beginning to get more than a bit fed up with the way Olmert and the other right-wing Zionists are handling Israel’s affairs and, third; a change in the status of Hizbollah prisoners may also have an effect on the status of the two Israeli prisoners. Given this, the courts might not necessarily look favourably at the Israeli government’s quest.

Olmert increasingly is on the nose of Israelis as well as the rest of the Arab world.

An Israeli Refusenik’s Good Fight

Features > April 6, 2007

One of Shapira's last flights in the Air Force in September 2003.

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In September 2003, in the midst of Israel’s campaign of targeted assassinations against Palestinian terrorists, a 31-year-old Black Hawk helicopter pilot named Yonatan Shapira terrorized Israel’s military high command without committing a single act of violence.

In the Pilots’ Letter of Refusal that he authored and 26 other pilots signed, these historic words were written: “We, who were raised to love the state of Israel and contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in Air Force attacks on civilian population centers. … These actions are illegal and immoral, and are a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society.” Reading those words to an audience of progressive Jews, he added, “We will continue to serve the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), but not the Israeli occupation forces.”

It wasn’t the first time Israeli soldiers refused to serve—dissident soldiers forged a movement called Yesh Gvul (There Is A Limit) during the first Lebanese war in the early ’80s. Shapira’s letter, however, did mark the first time that pilots, the elite of the military and the darlings of society, defied military orders for reasons of conscience. They were promptly dismissed from the Air Force.

Shapira, the son of an Israeli pilot from an Ashkenazi family, is currently living with his girlfriend in Brooklyn and finishing his thesis for the European Center For Peace and Conflict Studies in Austria. His subjects are the Israeli pilots with whom he conducted countless hours of interviews.

How did the Israeli public react to you and to the other pilot-refusers?

There was a big uproar in the entire country. We had many supporters, and many opponents, of course. Yedioth Aharonoth, the biggest newspaper in Israel, and Channel Two, the popular TV station, presented the statements, the interviews, the filming we prepared with them in advance. It was a scoop.

We had a lot of support within the Air Force. Many pilots who didn’t agree to sign gave us moral support. The opposition, including Zionist leftists, called us traitors. People condemned us, but we were convinced, and still are, that we did the right thing for the country.

And those who ruled the country?

We made them feel afraid, vulnerable and weak, because we broke ranks, because we touched the very nerve of the system. It can’t work without obedience. That’s why the support we got from many pilots disturbed the Air Force and the government.

Following your own refusal, you called upon other pilots to say no to being pilots of the occupation. Didn’t that put you at risk of doing major jail time?

I understood by then that they would not imprison us, or put us on trial, because that would serve our interests. We don’t shoot or attack anyone. Our ammunition is public attention. We would have welcomed being charged with acting against an illegal and immoral occupation.

Tell me about Combatants For Peace, the group of former Israeli and Palestinian fighters that you belong to.

Early in 2005, my brother Zohar made contact with Sulaiman Al Hamri, a former Fatah fighter, in Bethlehem. Some weeks later a meeting took place between Israeli refuseniks and Palestinian ex-prisoners and fighters. We were suspicious of each other at first, but by telling our stories, we created a bond. We agreed that we should meet, dialogue, struggle together against the occupation. One of our actions was to help rebuild a Palestinian house that was destroyed by the army. Last April, we had a public lunch in a schoolyard in Anata, which was cut in two by the wall—60 Israeli and 60 Palestinian former fighters. We were joined by members of the European Parliament, even by members of the Knesset. The army fired a shock grenade over our heads.

Many in the Israeli peace movement supported the war in Lebanon. Why did they support it and you did not?

I think what differentiated us from groups like Shalom Achshav [Peace Now] was that, unlike them, we spent a lot of time in the occupied territories with the Palestinians, and with their suffering. We lost faith in our government and in the army. Many of my friends are against the occupation, but they still have faith in the government. They allowed themselves to be manipulated by the government. What was involved was a combination of basic fears, because we were attacked, and their buying into the idea that we could destroy Hezbollah.

What do you think about Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the former Labor Party leader whose name will forever be linked with the war in Lebanon?

Amir Peretz was a very sad example of someone in whom we had great hope, because he was not from the typical Ashkenazi [European Jewish] leftist background. Unfortunately, he was easy for the army to manipulate. He made an impressive statement before the elections: “There is no difference between a child in Gaza and a child in Sderot.” He was a lefty leader who spoke of peace and social justice, and was one of those responsible for the absolutely crazy war in Gaza, and the war in Lebanon after that. I guess it was smart of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to make him defense minister and ruin him completely.

What is known about the morale of Israeli soldiers who fought in Lebanon?

There was a lot of confusion in the way the war was conducted. Soldiers were fighting a guerrilla war that they were not prepared or trained for. Many had previously manned checkpoints or roadblocks in the occupied territories. Their experience was in policing the West Bank. Pilots complained that their targets were not well-chosen. Moshe Yaalon, the former chief of staff, has said that some of the operations, especially those at the end of the war, when many soldiers were brought in, were carried out to make it appear to the public that we had won a victory.

My brother Itamar was called up and refused to go to war. As a citizen, he felt the best way to protect his country was to try to prevent this war, to demonstrate against it, and to try to convince other soldiers not to go. He was jailed for eight days. Others were put in jail for four weeks. Some soldiers refused, but not publicly. I have a friend who called in to refuse. They told him, “OK, call us next week, and we may ask you to come in and talk with your commander.” He didn’t call, and nothing happened. But he was ready to go to jail.

What accounts for you and your brothers all being public dissidents?

We are just acting on the values we were raised with: democracy, equality, justice, caring about those who suffer. That’s what we were taught at home, that’s what we learned at school. Those values have been eroded by 40 years of occupation. But in the case of my brothers and I, and thousands of refusers and conscientious objectors, they are the values we live by.

Have you been threatened in Israel or the United States for speaking out?

I haven’t been seriously threatened in Israel and certainly not here.

Yes, I received threats in Israel. One veteran right wing pilot said that people like me who disobey orders in wartime should be “put against the wall.” But people these days are for the most part indifferent. And the foreign ministry said that our actions, and the fact that we weren’t punished, shows that Israel is a democracy. Politically, they made it work to their advantage.

What is your perspective on Israel since the war in Lebanon, which many believe Israel lost?

I had the feeling at the end of this war that something good may come out of this loss. We have been trained and educated to think that winning wars is always good, and that’s wrong. Having the strongest army, and being the most aggressive country, will not help us survive forever. To survive, we have to make peace with the Palestinians, with Syria, with Lebanon. I think this current generation of leaders will not lead us to that peace. That will happen only with massive international pressure, and when we have a new generation of leaders less controlled by fears and Holocaust syndromes. I see great potential in many of the young people now graduating high school, some of whom are going to jail instead of going into the army.

Also, you had reservists who came back from the war very disillusioned. They protested against Olmert, Peretz and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, demanding that they resign. But at the same time, Israel is becoming more and more nationalistic. A Nazi commander at the Nuremberg trials said, it’s not hard to get people to go to war, just tell them they are being attacked. That’s what happened here. Even the Labor Party, with its “peace agenda” agreed to remain in the government when Olmert made Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the extreme right wing Yisrael Beiteinu [Our Home], deputy prime minister.

What can be done here in the United States to pressure Israel to end the occupation?

First of all, the military aid to Israel has to stop. This coming year [2007??] it will amount to $2.4 billion. Products from the settlements, and official representatives of the Israeli government should be boycotted. AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], which works against the interests of my country, should be replaced by more moderate Jewish organizations.

The majority of Jews in America must start to act and stop worshipping the State of Israel like it was God. Some people say it’s like the worship of the Golden Calf in the Bible. Idolatry.

By Robert Hirschfield

Robert Hirschfield is a New York-based writer who covers Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. He has written for The Progressive, The National Catholic Reporter and Sojourners.

WHY IS HEZBOLLAH ON THE TERRORISM LIST?

franklin lamb- WHO ISN'T BUT SHOULD BE ON IT?

It was a sign of the times last week (March 27) when House Armed Services Committee Staff Director Erin Conaton declared in a memo to committee staffers that the powerful committee was scrapping the Bush Administration shop worn phrase, Global War of Terrorism. Conaton’s boss, Rep. Ike Skelton,( D-Mo) the new Chairman of the Committee commented that “the overused label had become an embarrassment and had lost its meaning”.

Recent research in Lebanon has turned up information previously unavailable which sheds light of the misapplication of the Terrorism label by the Bush administration.

The” T word” is often misapplied as former National Security Advisor Brzezinski reminds us as he tours the country promoting his new book, Second Chance and focusing on the “catastrophic leadership” crisis caused by the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

Another area that would benefit from discarding the “terrorist label” is the Bush administration’s ongoing campaign against Hezbollah. There is considerable doubt among international lawyers whether Hezbollah should ever have been classified as a terrorist organization.

At the urging of U.S. and Israel, Canada classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which limits the group’s ability to raise funds and travel internationally. . A Canadian peace coalition called Tadamon Montreal is working to remove Hezbollah from the Terrorism list in Canada.

Australia and the UK distinguish between Hezbollah’s security and political wings, and other countries like China, Russia, and member states of the European Union and the United Nations have refused US/Israel demands to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization at all.

The process for putting an organization on the “Terrorism list” is as follows: The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the U.S. State Department (S/CT) monitors the activities of groups active around the world considered potentially terrorist to identify potential targets for designation. When reviewing potential targets, S/CT looks not only at the actual terrorist attacks that a group has carried out, but also at “whether the group may be inclined toward future acts of terrorism or retains the capability to carry out such acts”.

As of April 2007, a plurality (39%) of the organizations on the US Terrorism list represent Muslim groups recommended for inclusion by, among others, AIPAC and their friends in Congress. According to former AIPAC Director of Congressional Relations, Steve Rosen, soon to start his trial for passing classified information to Israel, “AIPAC owns the ‘T’ list!”

The US State Department definition of terror is a broad one: “the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends

Suspected terrorist groups are thereby defined as such by the means they use to pursue their objectives. To describe an organization as terrorist is not a comment on its political goal or ends, which may be laudable ones such as national liberation or resistance to occupation.

The common saying that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ is rejected by this student of the subject because it is simplistic and even nonsensical. To whit, a terrorist can also be a freedom fighter struggling for justice and a freedom fighter can fight for freedom by using terrorist means.

Placed on the “T” list in 1999, Hezbollah was taken off the list a couple of years later following Hezbollah’s strong condemnation of the 9/11 attack on America. Hezbollah was returned to the list when Dick Cheney opined that a “presumed Hezbollah operative” probably met with an Al Qaeda representative in South America in 2001. Similar to Cheney’s Saadam Hussein-Al Qaeda ‘contacts’ claim.

Lebanese officials including Lebanese President Emil Lahoud contemptuously dismissed reports of such a meeting as Israeli-sponsored propaganda. According to Lahoud: “The media campaign, which is conducted by Israeli circles, seeks to exploit the September 11 attacks to slander the Lebanese resistance by stigmatizing it with the image of terrorism”. Lebanon continues to reject US/Israeli demands that they freeze Hezbollah’s bank accounts and force it to stop providing social services.

A study undertaken at the American University of Beirut in January- February 2007, benefiting from research and surveys from a variety of international and Israeli human rights organizations, tabulated no fewer than 6,672 acts of Israeli state terrorism directed against Lebanon and Palestine between the years 1967-2007. Not only is Israel absent from the US State Department Terrorism list, Israel appears to determine who is on it.

The case against Hezbollah presented in a draft by AIPAC for the State Department is virtually identical to the one finally issued by the State Department. It claims that Hezbollah bombed Americans at the US Embassy, the Marine barracks in 1983, and held a number of Americans hostage during the 1980’s. Or, as Hezbollah’s rap sheet currently appears on US and Israeli government computers:

“Hezbollah (as of April 3, 2007): Suicide bombings, hijacked 1985 TWA Flight 847; rocket attacks against Israel in 2006.”

(The latter item re the “rocket attacks against Israel in 2006”, is examined in the just released volume, The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons against Lebanon.)

Hezbollah is accused by Israel and the Bush administration of a type of Islamist Terrorism similar to Al Qaeda but used in the context of National Liberation, just like Hamas. Both of which have fought Israel in the Lebanese and Palestinian contexts, respectively.

However, unlike al Qaeda, their enemy, Hezbollah and Hamas are complex social and political movements. They use different types of force, including guerrilla tactics which are legitimate under international law. They are also different from al Qaeda in that their alleged terrorist activity aims to liberate Palestine and Lebanon, as opposed to being part of a ‘global struggle’ against the United States with undefined objectives.

Was Hezbollah involved in the attacks against Americans a quarter century ago? Hezbollah has consistently denied these charges ever since it published its “open letter” announcing its foundation in 1985, years after the first attacks.

The results of an investigation conducted entirely in Lebanon including interviews with some who claim to have been personally involved with the “rap sheet” events do not credit Bush administration claims.

What the record to date shows, pending the Bush administration release of claimed evidence to the contrary, is the following:

1) When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and quickly routed much of the PLO resistance, more than 30 local resistance groups formed. Some were no doubt inspired by the success of the Iranian Revolution three years earlier and took advantage of available political and physical training. Arms were available from the soon to depart PLO, and other sources, sometimes as gifts and sometimes for cash.

For example, in late August 1982, as Fateh was preparing to depart Beirut for Greece and goodbyes were being said, two American researchers in Beirut were given (‘for safe keeping’) 250 brand new Chinese made Ak-47’s wrapped in thick grease and heavy plastic. Not knowing exactly what to do with the gifts in the ‘wild west’ atmosphere of the time, the Americans, doing what came naturally, hastily buried them at night. The weapons were never found by the advancing Israelis but were discovered 15 years later when the Commodore Hotel in Hamra was enlarged and workers dug up that vacant lot to its south! Who has them now is anybody’s guess!

The goal of these new groups in the 1980’s was to drive Israel and its foreign sponsors from Lebanon. The local and regional political situation of the early 1980’s was very tolerant of militant modes of actions and many groups adapted and acted because no single force, power or obstacle stood in their way.

‘Operations’ were sometimes carried out by part of a group without the knowledge, participation or liability or the particular organizations command.

Teams of foreign assassins were active those days including one traced to Israel which tried to assassinate one of America’s most competent Ambassadors to Lebanon, John Guenther Dean on August 27, 1980. The weapons used in the failed attempt were traced to a shipment made from the US to Israel. Dean’s crime was getting too chummy with Yassir Arafat and his deputy Abu Jihad, who were helping Dean to get the American Embassy hostages released from Iran.

Another “operation” during this period was the CIA funded attempt of March 8, 1985 to assassinate Sheik Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. The car bomb killed eighty, mostly women and children and wounded 256. As Bob Woodward points out in his book, Veil, the CIA’s William Casey mistakenly thought Fadlallah was the spiritual leader of Hezbollah. To this day Fadlallah is quite independent of Hezbollah although he is probably Lebanon’s most revered cleric due in no small measure to his scholarship, his three decades of social service work, and his passionate defense of human rights.

2) An exhaustive review, by American researchers, of the nearly 80 Western kidnapping cases, organized by a staggering variety of groups in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 concluded that more than 100 Western detainees were taken, released, killed or exchanged. As for the Lebanese themselves, thousands were kidnapped; many by Israel and their allies and hundreds are still unaccounted for.

According to some who claim to have participated in one way or another, in some of these kidnappings, active groups sometimes declared responsibility and sometimes were silent. Among the groups admitting their actions at various times were: The Organization of Socialist Revolutionary Work, the Armed Revolutionary Factions in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad, the Organization of the Oppressed in the World, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, Holy Warriors for Freedom, the Khaibar Brigade, the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, the Blessed Resistance, the Islamic Liberation Organization, the Organization of the Mujhahideen for Freedom, the Revolutionary Cells, The Organization of the Islamic Dawn, The Organization of Militant Revolutionary Cells.

These were some of the ‘main stream’ groups, there were others, some for whom kidnapping was a cottage industry. Some functioned much like the current US and the UK hired mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan. In some cases contracts were drawn up with individuals willing to “hire out” for certain specific abduction projects. Given the available labor pool there was sometimes intense competition for a contract. For some groups, westerners were snatched for no other reason than the ransom money was good. Often those involved would use the ransom money to start a legitimate business, pay for family needs such as medical care or their children’s tuition fees. Sometimes Western companies paid for the release of their employees and in other cases governments would pay.

The largest payment for hostages during this period was the Arms for Hostages deal worked out by the Reagan administration when it provided missiles and spare parts to Iran to use against Saddam Hussein’s army after the same administration had supplied the Iraqi regime with chemical weapons to use against Iraqi Kurd, Shiites and Iranians.

Lebanese Islamist groups, and others, who in the 1980’s were resisting Israel’s attacks did not feel that their acts were nearly as reprehensible as the US responsibility for what Israel was doing to their people and country.

For example, once it became clear to them that the US Marines had abandoned their initially claimed neutrality as ‘peace keepers’ and instead began the shelling of Lebanon with 2,700 lb. shells from the USS New Jersey, most of these groups felt it their duty to repulse the US attacks.

Interviews with some of these now middle aged resistance fighters in Lebanon, who were active in this period, make plain that these groups felt that their military actions against the foreign forces constituted legitimate self defense, protecting Lebanon’s population from attacks by foreign forces.

While the military legitimacy of fighting the American and French forces was clear to the Lebanese during the early 1980’s, what about bombing the American Embassy? International law has protected Embassies since the 1815 Congress of Vienna, extending protection to foreign plenipotentiaries.

Safe passage for diplomats is not always honored, and as recently as February 2007, the United States government has been accused by Iraq and Iran of unlawfully kidnapping Iranian diplomats

The evidence from the 1980’s suggests that Hezbollah stayed out of the kidnapping game and concentrated on building its organization which they formally announced in an ‘open letter’ on Feb. 14, 1985.

Would the founders of Hezbollah have heard of something on the street, village or family level, of who may have been responsible for some of the high profile western kidnapping cases? One assumes so. Did neighborhood gossip attach an obligation to get involved on behalf of their viewed oppressors, including the US, and rescue their hostages? Should this have been disregarded In order to avoid some future ‘terrorism’ list?

The evidence suggests that Hezbollah is on a “political list” called the “terrorism list” because Israel wants it there, not because there is proof that it engaged in terrorism against Americans 25 years ago.

Using the scare tactic of ‘kidnapping Americans’ and ‘terrorism’ without proof, adds to the international ridicule of Bush’s policies.

In the nearly empty Lebanese Parliament building these days, the gossip is that the Bush administration wants to bargain with Hezbollah to remove it from the ‘T’ list if Hezbollah gives up its objective of liberating Palestine and cancels its opposition to the Bush/Olmert backed Siniora government

Given this kind of Bush administration offer, many view Hezbollah’s spot on the ‘T list’ as a badge of honor . Yet, respect for international law would suggest that the Bush Administration ought to show their ‘evidence’ or remove Hezbollah from the list.

When pressed in early April, 2007 by a former House Judiciary Committee staffer, one lawyer in the State Department Office of the General Counsel commented, “Its not that Hezbollah is terrorist per se, actually we know they are pretty clean, they are ok, but you must realize that they do associate with shady characters to their east, if you know what I mean.”

Hezbollah’s view of the April 17, 1983, Embassy bombing is different from some militias operating during this period. Hezbollah has consistently opposed attacks on foreign civilians. It was one of the first to condemn the 9/11 operation as well as the 1997 attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut at Luxor, Egypt which killed 58 civilians as “bloody and terrible, calling them crimes against Islam. Hezbollah also condemned the Cairo attacks on the Greek tourists, and the Algerian killing of 7 trappist monks in Algerian by claimed Islamists.

Despite Hezbollah’s view, which is based on the Koran’s prohibitions against harming innocent civilians, was the 1983 US Embassy attack terrorism against an internationally protected structure, or had the Embassy become a legitimate military target? In the assertion of one individual, a former member of Islamic Jihad, interviewed by American researchers during the spring of 2007, his group had nothing to do with Hezbollah during the Embassy operation or at any other time. He claims his associates knew in advance (Soviet intelligence passed to Lebanon via Syria) that the eight CIA operatives assigned to Lebanon were holding meetings in the Embassy and using its diplomatic protection for cover to plot assassinations and attacks on Lebanon. The entire CIA contingent was indeed meeting on the 6th floor of the Embassy at the time of the attack. The same source claims that the Embassy was also being used to feed targeting information to the USS New Jersey, visible offshore from the upper floors of the Chancery.

The view that the American Embassy was a legitimate target on April 17, 1983, cannot be summarily dismissed without careful review because principles of International law tend to support it. Once an Embassy is used for aggressive military purposes its protection collapses and it becomes what Donald Rumsfeld calls a “legitimate target of opportunity”.

Where is the proof that has been demanded for more than two decades? Is the only reason Hezbollah is on the ‘terrorism list’ is because Israel wants it there and a desire by some in the Bush administration to settle old scores without proof of who was responsible?

Organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and the Revolutionary Justice Organization are considered by the Bush administration and Israel to be synonymous with Hezbollah. That grouping appears to be a clumsy and inaccurate conclusion designed to support political objectives. No proof has ever been offered to establish that these groups were part of Hezbollah during this period rather than adversaries or competitors.

As one Hezbollah supporter commented:

“In America as you built a resistance to the British invaders and occupiers, were all the groups neatly organized? Were some ‘terrorists’? Did the ones who did operations such as the Boston Tea Party’ give their names and address to the occupiers? Or did some hide their identity and even dress like natives? Did George Washington and his staff know everything that was going on or did some groups just form and decide it was better to work on their own liberation project? That is what it was like here in Lebanon during this period. We should leave that period and concentrate on working together to solve today’s problems in Lebanon and the Middle East. All parties talking and meeting”

In denying Hezbollah involvement in operations targeting American civilians, their leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah has stated:

“The truth of the matter is that there was something other than Hezbollah, called the Islamic Jihad, who kidnapped the hostages. There exist videocassettes, communiqués that bear the signature of the Islamic Jihad. It is independent from the party. It is absolutely incorrect that the Islamic Jihad is a cover name for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah remains on the US and Israel ‘terrorism’ list for purely political reasons and to punish the organization for its resistance to Israeli aggressions against Lebanon and Bush administration plans for the region.”

It is time for the Bush administration to present its case and prove what terrorism Hezbollah has actually used against the American people in the 1980’s in light of US government admissions that since 1999 there is no evidence that Hezbollah has engaged in ‘Terrorism’.

It’s time for the poker players to reveal their cards, or as they say down in Crawford.. ’ y’all show ‘em er fold ‘em!

Franklin Lamb has been in Lebanon researching a book for the past nine months. Hezbollah: a Brief Guide For Beginners is expected in early summer, 2007. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

Israeli cluster bomb slays Lebanese woman

Saturday, April 07, 2007

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

TYRE, Lebanon: A Lebanese woman was badly wounded in the South of the country on Friday in the explosion of a cluster bomblet dropped by Israeli forces during last summer's war, police said. The woman, Abdeh Mohammad Khanafer, 70, was gathering herbs in a field at Aynata village near Bint Jbeil, six kilometers from the Israeli border, when she touched a bomblet that detonated, they said.

She was badly wounded in the face, arms and torso and was rushed to hospital in the port town of Tyre, 80 kilometres south of Beirut. According to the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center, more than 222 people have fallen prey to cluster bomblets in the past six months. Of the victims, 190 have been civilian.

At least 27 people have been killed by them since the conflict ended on August 14, 2006, according to an AFP tally.

The munitions dropped by Israel during its devastating air war against Lebanon included more than a million cluster bomblets, around 40 percent of which failed to detonate on impact, according to the UN.

Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area from a single container.

The bomblets often do not explode on impact, but can do so later at the slightest touch, making them as deadly as anti-personnel landmines. - AFP