More Time To Bomb

Warning, this video contains images of death and destruction that you may find distressing.



To all the people in Lebanon caught up in this who never asked for it.

Hezbollah Politicians Back Peace Package

Hezbollah politicians, while expressing reservations, have joined their critics in the government in agreeing to a peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.




The agreement - reached after a heated six-hour Cabinet meeting - was the first time that Hezbollah has signed onto a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces.

The package falls short of American and Israeli demands in that it calls for an immediate cease-fire before working out details of a force and includes other conditions.But European Union officials said Friday the proposals form a basis for an agreement, increasing the pressure on the United States to call for a cease-fire.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday they too want an international force dispatched quickly to the Mideast but said any plan to end the fighting - to have a lasting effect - must address long-running regional disputes.

"This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East," Bush said after his meeting with Blair in Washington. "Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region."

By signing onto the peace proposals, Hezbollah gave Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora a boost in future negotiations.

Going into Thursday night's Cabinet session, Hezbollah's two ministers expressed deep reservations about the force and its mandate, fearing it could turn against their guerrillas.

"Will the international force be a deterrent one and used against who?" officials who attended the Cabinet meeting said in summing up Hezbollah cabinet ministers concerns. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the debate.

But afterward, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi announced that the package had been agreed on by consensus in a rare show of unity by a divided administration.

While all sides seemed to be looking for a way to stop the fighting, details of plans taking shape on all sides were still fuzzy. And it was not at all certain Hezbollah would really follow through on the Lebanese government plan that would effectively abolish the militants' military wing. It may have signed on to the deal convinced that Israel would reject it.

But the agreement presents Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with a package she might find hard to ignore when she returns to the region.The plan approved by the Cabinet was an outline that Saniora presented at an international conference in Rome on Wednesday.

It starts out with an immediate cease-fire. Following that would come:

the release of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners;

Israeli withdrawal behind the border;

the return of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.

moves to resolve the status of Chebaa Farms, a small piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon.

The proposal calls for the U.N. Security Council to commit to putting the area under U.N. control until a final demarcation of the border.-

the provision by Israel of maps of minefields laid during its 18-year occupation of the south.

"the spreading of Lebanese government authority over the entire country," meaning the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, with the strengthening and increasing of the small, lightly armed U.N. peacekeeping force currently there.

Source

The "hiding among civilians" myth

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.


But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.

Read the full article Here

Hizbullah support tops 80 percent among Lebanese factions

According to a poll released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hizbullah's fight with Israel, a rise of 29 percent on a similar poll conducted in February.






More striking, however, is the level of support for Hizbullah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hizbullah along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.

Lebanese no longer blame Hizbullah for sparking the war by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers, but Israel and the US instead. The latest poll by the Beirut Center found that 8 percent of Lebanese feel the US supports Lebanon, down from 38 percent in January.

Source

As predicted, the current crisis in Lebanon is having the opposite effect than the one desired. Has the world still failed to learn the lesson that bombing these militia groups just gives them more support and strength from the local communities regardless of the different religious elements within the country . Surely the fact that eighty percent of Christians in Lebanon support Hezbollah's fight with Israel should alone convince the sceptics that the plan is just not working.

Still quite some way to go in winning those hearts and minds it seems ...

British PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for ceasefire

Tony Blair will face fresh pressure over the Middle East crisis today when he arrives in Washington to meet President George Bush. Senior Downing Street aides said the two leaders intended to show the world they were seeking an urgent end to the hostilities in Lebanon, despite the failure of the much vaunted Rome summit on Wednesday to deliver a unified call for a truce.


Israel's Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, added to the pressure yesterday, when he interpreted that indecision as a green light to continue the bloody assault on Lebanon.

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," he told reporters.

The Prime Minister's visit takes place as 42 leading figures in politics, diplomacy, academia and the media put their names to a declaration urging Mr Blair to tell the President that Britain "can no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle-East". Their declaration, printed on the front page of today's Independent, calls on the Prime Minister to "make urgent representations to Israel to end its disproportionate and counter-productive response to Hizbollah's aggression".

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In Pictures - Today In Gaza Picture Album

- WARNING - graphic pictures

With the worlds focus on Lebanon. it seems the tragedy in Gaza is not being noticed.Here are the latest graphic images depicting the reality and horror of Israel's Invasion and destruction of Gaza.

Map Showing Israeli Bomb Strikes in Lebanon

Click the map to gain more detail...
















Map provided by http://www.alhewar.org

Bolton Is Still Unfit to Serve

The president wants Congress to permanently appoint John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N., but a year on the job shows just how bad Bolton has been.






Bolton's nomination failed to gain Senate passage last year due largely to the opposition of Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), who poignantly asked: "[W]hat message are we sending to the world community when we…appoint an ambassador to the United Nations who himself has been accused of being arrogant, of not listening to his friends, of acting unilaterally, of bullying those who do not have the ability to properly defend themselves? These are the very characteristics that we're trying to dispel in the world community."

Read the full aricle Here.

Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes

Jewish associations have begun to react against the Israeli offensive into Lebanon. Head of the Union of Belgian Jewish Progressives (UPJB) Dr. Jacques Ravedovitch stated that Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.



In an interview with Zaman in Brussels, Ravedovitch said that while former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon committed indirect war crimes, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unquestionably a war criminal.

Dr. Ravedovitch said it is a shame that Jews who were once exposed to the holocaust are doing the same evil things against another nation today. According to Ravedovitch, anti-Semitism is from time to time misused by Israeli statesman, and the recently intensified Israeli offensive into Lebanon has increased hatred for Israel.

Source

Reflective truth

A history of terror: 60th anniversary of Zionist bombing the King David Hotel






91 people died, among them 28 British, 41 Arabs and 17 Jews. One IZL fighter was killed inside the hotel, after the explosives had been set.

Five Myths That Sanction Israel's War Crimes

By Jonathan Cook





Horowitz is keen to bang the square peg of the Lebanon story into the round hole of his claims that the “Jews” are facing an imminent genocide in the Middle East. And to help him, he and the massed ranks of US apologists for Israel ....

...Unless they are challenged at every turn, the danger is that they will win the ground war against common sense in the US

Read the full article Here.

Norway 'Nazi cartoon' irks Israel

Israel's ambassador to Norway has complained to press regulators about a cartoon showing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert as a Nazi concentration camp commander. Miryam Shomrat told the BBC the caricature in Oslo's Dagbladet newspaper went beyond free speech.



Ms Shomrat said it would be open to prosecution in some European countries. Dagbladet's editor said the caricature was "within the bounds of freedom of expression," according to Norway's NRK state broadcaster. Ms Shomrat made the official complaint to the Norwegian Press Trade Committee following the publication of the cartoon on 10 July.

In an interview with the BBC's Europe Today, she said however that her protest could not be compared to the outcry in the Muslim world over the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Lars Helle, Dagbladet's acting editor-in-chief, said the newspaper was taking the complaint seriously. "But I do not fear that Dagbladet will be found guilty," Mr Helle told the NRK.

The cartoon shows Mr Olmert standing on a balcony in a prison camp. He is holding a sniper's rifle and a dead man is seen lying on the ground.

The drawing clearly alluded to the Hollywood film Schindler's List, in which a sadistic Nazi commander shoots Jewish prisoners for fun, according to Dagbladet.

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Refugees Have Only Their Anger

Among hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered across city parks, schools and abandoned buildings in Beirut, new and chilling words have been doing the rounds.


A senior Israeli Air Force official announced on Israeli Army Radio that "Army chief of staff Dan Halutz has given the order to the air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the Dahaya district (of Beirut) in response to every rocket fired on Haifa."

Hezbollah rockets continue to be fired into northern Israel. The rocket fire has led to 17 deaths in Israel so far.

But the Israeli officer's announcement came like warning of more collective punishment of civilians for the Hezbollah attacks. The Geneva Conventions seem forgotten. And the attacks seem set to continue. Brigadier General Alon Friedman of the Israeli Army announced on Israeli Army Radio that "the scope continues to grow in recent days...we are advancing." Friedman said Israeli military operations will continue at least another 10 days.

The announcements sounded new alarms of more death and destruction to come - and more refugees. Reports of new fighting were coming in Tuesday, and more violence was bound to add to the swell of refugees. The Israeli military pushed deeper into Lebanon towards the town of Bint Jbail.

Hezbollah has been hitting back. Two Israeli soldiers were killed and at least 17 were injured in fighting there, according to local reports. Hezbollah claims it shot down a U.S.-built Israeli Apache helicopter inside Israel. Thus far, at least 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the worsening conflict. Hezbollah claims it also destroyed five Israeli tanks in the area.

Fierce fighting was reported again in southern Lebanon, with nearly constant gunfire and explosions. And as the Israeli advance continued, Beirut was preparing for yet more refugees. It is estimated that at least 900,000 Lebanese have been displaced already from their homes by the Israeli onslaught.

"The Israelis bombed all around our house, so we left 12 days ago," 50-year-old Supinesh Attar from the southern city Nabatiye told IPS at a refugee camp inside a city park in downtown Beirut. "We had no water or electricity since the beginning of the attack, so we fled for our lives." Attar, sitting on a bench holding a piece of bread he had just been handed by a volunteer, said he was always hungry and did not know where he would go from here. "My family of 12 is scattered all around Beirut. I am the only one in this park."

Sarjoun Namdi, a relief worker at the camp, told IPS that the camp in the park had dealt with between 3,000 and 4,000 refugees. "Each day we have between 600-700 coming, and we try to move them to a safer place," he said as Israeli jets roared above. "This place has bad hygiene, and not enough food and diapers."

Nearby, a relief worker pleaded with a large family to relocate to a school in the area so they could have shelter. The family refused to leave the park for fear they would have no food and water at the new location. Relief agencies continue to struggle to operate effectively in war-torn Lebanon. International relief groups continue their appeal for safe access to southern Lebanon, as tens of thousands of refugees remain stranded there, and countless wounded, with little assistance.

International relief agencies are warning of a humanitarian disaster unless their supplies are allowed through. Aside from being impeded by the violence, they are being held back by the ongoing Israeli air and sea blockage. The widespread destruction of infrastructure by Israeli air strikes is also limiting access. The Lebanese Red Crescent is still continuing to work round the clock to reach the wounded, and to distribute food, water, blankets and mattresses.

The International Committee for the Red Cross has provided some assistance, but remains mostly limited by lack of safe passage to the south. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office is primarily distributing potable water, and other supplies when possible.

Given the limitations of the refugee agencies, the bulk of relief to the displaced and wounded is being provided on a grassroots level. The various refugee camps in schools and city parks that IPS visited were being managed by Hezbollah, local non-government organisation groups, mosques, churches, and just ordinary people.

Source

Indiscriminate bombs for indiscriminate bombing

From Human Rights Watch:

(Beirut, July 24, 2006) – Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today. Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.

“Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “They should never be used in populated areas.”

According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-fired cluster munitions at Blida around 3 p.m. on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. They clearly described the submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.

The cluster attack killed 60-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home. At least two submunitions from the attack entered the basement that the Ali family was using as a shelter, wounding 12 persons, including seven children. Ahmed Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver and head of the family, lost both legs from injuries caused by the cluster munitions. Five of his children were wounded: Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; ‘Ali, 10; Aya, 3; and `Ola, 1. His wife Akram Ibrahim, 35, and his mother-in-law `Ola Musa, 80, were also wounded. Four relatives, all German-Lebanese dual nationals sheltering with the family, were wounded as well: Mohammed Ibrahim, 45; his wife Fatima, 40; and their children ‘Ali, 16, and Rula, 13.

Human Rights Watch researchers photographed artillery-delivered cluster munitions among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a research visit on July 23. The photographs show M483A1 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, which are U.S.-produced and -supplied, artillery-delivered cluster munitions. The photographs contain the distinctive marks of such cluster munitions, including a diamond-shaped stamp, and a shape that is longer than ordinary artillery, according to a retired IDF commander who asked not to be identified.

Israeli bomb kills UN observers

Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in south Lebanon.





UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "shocked" at the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the post. Israel has expressed "deep regret".

More than 380 Lebanese and 42 Israelis have died in nearly two weeks of conflict in Lebanon, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.

The UN in Lebanon says the Israeli air force destroyed the observer post, in which four military observers were sheltering.

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble. "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon," Mr Annan said in a statement from Rome.

Unifil has been operational in the border area since 1978 and is currently 2,000 strong.

Source

Shocking (HT to Dining for the Heads up)

U.S. plan for Lebanon likely to fail, Arab analysts

A vision of a new Middle East emerging from the conflict in Lebanon as outlined by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice drew ridicule on Monday from mainstream Arab analysts and former Arab diplomats.






Several of them said the United States and Israel had little if any chance of achieving their stated goals of disarming the guerrilla group Hizbollah and deploying the Lebanese army or an international buffer force along the Israeli-Lebanese frontier.

"I think it's preposterous. From the beginning this is a plan that cannot be achieved," former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters. In the meantime, by giving the green light to an Israeli offensive which has killed more than 300 civilians and done damage worth billions of dollars, the United States has helped stir up hatred and extremism in a troubled region, they say.

Rice said that on her trip to the Middle East, which began on Monday, she would not try to restore the status quo which existed before a Hizbollah raid into Israel this month. "What we're seeing here, in a sense, is ... the birth pangs of a new Middle East and, whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one," she added.

Maher, who was also ambassador to Washington for many years, said: "In fact what the United States wants to have is a tame Middle East. That's what they call a new Middle East." Mohamed el-Sayed Said, a political analyst who worked in Washington and takes part in "civil society" meetings with visiting U.S. officials, said he was shocked by the latest twist in U.S. policy towards the region.

"What kind of Middle East will be born from this destruction? The only new thing we can get is new determination on the part of Hizbollah or the people of Lebanon to resist Israel and cause it as much pain as possible," he said. The Arab analysts drew parallels with the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the U.S. refusal to back an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, which they said amounted to endorsement of Israel's bombing campaign.

Both policies are associated with the neoconservative school of thought in Washington, which holds that Israel is a natural ally of the United States and that preemptive force must be used to defeat threats in the early stages. Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, an expert on Iraq and Shi'a Islam, said the administration wanted to use the Israeli offensive against Hizbollah "as a wedge to convince Syria to give up rejectionism and detach itself from Iran".

But he added: "Syria is not going to give up its stance toward Israel unless it at the very least gets back the occupied Golan Heights." Hesham Youssef, a close aide to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, said U.S. policy on the Lebanese violence was incoherent because it could not serve U.S. interests. "I don't see where the benefit is for the United States, or even to Israel, because Israel has succeeded in creating a whole generation, if not more, of people who would continue to hate Israel much more than they can imagine," he told Reuters.

Said, who is also deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, said it was out of the question that Hizbollah would go along with the U.S. proposals.

"Why should they accept such a silly thing? They don't have internal pressure inside Lebanon to accept this ... They still have an enormous fighting capability," he said.

Emad Gad, an analyst who specialises in the Arab-Israeli conflict at the Al-Ahram Center, said he took the new Middle East to be a retreat from the democratic Middle East Washington said it wanted to a reliance on traditional allied Arab governments.

"That's because the (old plan) brought Hamas in Palestine, brought a large percentage for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The peoples in the Arab world now are more radical and more hostile to U.S. policies than the regimes," he said.

Source

Didn't you get the memo?

Dershowitz and Grades of Human Beings

Alan "Torture is OK" Dershowitz is annoyed that the Israelis have been accused of killing innocent civilians. He is now arguing that there are degrees of "civilianity." He wonders how many innocent civilians killed by Israel in Lebanon would still be innocent if we could make finer distinctions.



(He should read the Lebanese newspapers and he would get the answer. One third of those killed by the Israelis are children. I'd guess they are all civilian all the time. And then there are the families, like the Canadian women, children and men blown up at Aitaroun. I suppose they are really civilians. Etc. )

Continue reading Here

A great article that states the obvious with a healthy dose of satire (a must read)

The west's moral erosion has undermined the war on terror

It is essential for the US and its allies to abide by the same rules they seek to impose on others. This principle is being flouted






Morality in foreign policy is often subjective. The US administration is confident that it represents the forces of democracy and freedom, and thus feels free to do whatever it judges best to promote these fine things. Israel perceives Palestinians and Arabs as committed to its destruction, justifying any action taken against them. Some in the Muslim world see no prospect of frustrating western cultural, economic and military dominance on western terms of engagement, and so choose other methods - such as suicide-bombing - that better suit their weakness.

Continue

Lebanese Doctor Says 'Phosphorus Weapons' Cause Suffering

CNN video correspondent, Karl Penhaul, follows a family that had been mistakenly caught in an Israeli air strike. The doctor treating the family says that there is phosphorus in the weapons that cause extremely painful burns on it's victims



Shocking

100 More Lives End Violently in Iraq

Outside their Sadr City home, relatives wept as their slender bodies were placed into makeshift wooden coffins and strapped side by side atop a minibus for the perilous trip through Sunni Arab country to the Valley of Peace cemetery in Najaf, where Shiites bury many of their dead.


Their father beat his chest and wailed in misery, his white dishdasha robe covered in his sons' blood.

Read the full tragic details Here

Pakistan 'building reactor for 50 nukes'

Pakistan is reported to be building a nuclear reactor that could produce enough plutonium for up to 50 nuclear weapons a year.





Satellite photographs show what appears to be the construction site for a larger nuclear reactor next to Pakistan's only plutonium production reactor, according to an analysis by experts at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

The new reactor would be a major expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear programme and could intensify the arms race in South Asia, according to the assessment, initially reported by The Washington Post and posted on the instituter's website.

Analysts conclude that the diameter of the structure's metal shell suggests a very large reactor "operating in excess of 1,000 megawatts thermal," according to the report.

"Such a reactor could produce over 200kg of weapons-grade plutonium per year, assuming it operates at full power a modest 220 days per year," the technical assessment said.

Source

Tyre still under heavy bombardment (video)

Israel has kept up its air attacks on southern Lebanon, with the city of Tyre heavily targeted. Fergal Keane spoke to some residents still in the city, and some who have been injured. Some viewers may find images in this report disturbing.



A must watch BBC Video (windows media required)

Other BBC videos on the conflict.

UN appalled by Beirut devastation

Two die in rocket attacks on Haifa

Anti-war Tel Aviv rally draws Jewish, Israeli Arab crowd

More than 2,500 people on Saturday attended a demonstration against the war in Lebanon, marching from Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to a rally at the Cinemateque plaza.




The rally was the first of its kind protesting against the IDF's offensive in Lebanon. Unlike previous anti-war protests in israel, major Arab organizations in Israel - among them Hadash and Balad -participated in the event in large numbers.

They were joined by the left flank of the Zionist Left -former Meretz leader Shulamit Aloni and Prof. Galia Golan, alongside the radical left of Gush Shalom, the refusal to serve movement Yesh Gvul, Anarchists Against the Wall, Coalition of Women for Peace, Taayush and others.

These Jewish and Arab groups ordinarily shy away from joint activity. They couldn't come up with a unifying slogan this time either, except for the call to stop the war and start talking. However, protest veterans noted that in the Lebanon War of 1982 it took more than 10 days of warfare to bring out this many protesters, marking the first crack in the consensus.

The protest drew some new faces, like Tehiya Regev of Carmiel, whose two neighbors were killed in a Katyusha attack on the city. "This war is not headed in the right direction," she told Haaretz; "the captured soldiers have long since been forgotten, so I came to call for an immediate stop to this foolish and cruel war."

The rally, which received wide international press coverage, had a theme unfamiliar from previous demonstrations here. Beside the usual calls for the prime minister and defense minister to resign, this was a distinctly anti-American protest. Alongside chants of "We will not kill, we will not die in the name of Zionism"

there were chants of "We will not die and will not kill in the service of the United States," and slogans condemning President George W. Bush.

Source


Also worth reading Orthodox Jews Demand End to Zionist Atrocities in the Middle East

U.S.: Soldiers Tell of Detainee Abuse in Iraq

Torture and other abuses against detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine, even after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, according to new accounts from soldiers in a Human Rights Watch report released today. The new report, containing first-hand accounts by U.S. military personnel interviewed by Human Rights Watch, details detainee abuses at an off-limits facility at Baghdad airport and at other detention centers throughout Iraq. In the 53-page report, "No Blood, No Foul: Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq," soldiers describe how detainees were routinely subjected to severe beatings, painful stress positions, severe sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme cold and hot temperatures. The accounts come from interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch, supplemented by memoranda and sworn statements contained in declassified documents.

"Soldiers were told that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and that interrogators could use abusive techniques to get detainees to talk," said John Sifton, the author of the report and the senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch. "These accounts rebut U.S. government claims that torture and abuse in Iraq was unauthorized and exceptional ? on the contrary, it was condoned and commonly used."

Read the full article Here

Report: Hizbullah willing to talk

Hizbullah agreed to allow the Lebanese government to begin negotiations regarding kidnapped IDF soldiers, speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri revealed on Sunday.






Berri stressed that prior to any talks on a prisoner swap, a cease-fire must be in place. Earlier, Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told a French news agency that the soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were in "good physical condition."

This was the first time the Lebanese government released any statements about the two soldiers, who were captured by the Hizbullah 12 days ago. He also called on the UN - or any other third party - to mediate a prisoner exchange between the Hizbullah and Israel.

No word had been heard from Goldwasser, 31, and fellow reservist Regev, 26, since they were captured July 12 by Hizbullah guerrillas who attacked their patrol on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border.

Goldwasser's father, Shlomo, 59, said last week that he was desperate for word on his son's condition. "I'm not a politician. I can speak only as a father," he said. "I'm hoping the kidnappers will make demands to prove that my son is OK." The family has previously asked for the guerrillas to let international humanitarian organizations visit Ehud Goldwasser so they can find out their condition.

Israeli officials appealed last Wednesday to a gathering of about 100 diplomats to ask their respective governments to help get information on the captives, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

"It would be very valuable and very welcome to the families. It would be valuable humanitarian information," he said.

"Everything has a price. I don't think there will be some sort of move to free Gilad without a price. That's not the way it works in the Middle East," said Noam Shalit. "There is no reason not to consider this after this incident in order to free someone who was sent by the state to the front lines," he said.

Source

Tsunami death toll rises to 650

A tragic story that has been missed by so many who are focusing on the crisis in the middle east is the tragic deaths of over 650 innocents after the tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Java on Monday.



The tsunami, triggered by an undersea earthquake, struck a 200km (125-mile) stretch of Java's southern coast. Towns hardest hit are showing signs of a return to normal, but many people are still too scared to return home.

Read more on the tragedy Here

America's domestic policy vs America's foreign policy

This week, George Bush used his presidential veto to block a bill on stem cell research, saying he couldn't support the 'taking of innocent human life'. In Iraq, six civilians are killed by a US air strike, while casualties in Lebanon and Israel mount. George Bush (and Tony Blair) oppose UN calls for an immediate ceasefire

An interesting read Here

From Israel to Lebanon

Take a look for yourself
Here

U.S. Rushes Bombs to Israel

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.



Continue reading at the Source

Click here to view the results of Americas bombs (warning ) shocking images

My source ICH and of course a HT to Stefan for sending me the original New york times link