Listen CCC I think if you step back and look at this situation objectively you will see what is really happening.

- Hizbollah has not been weakened, the opposite is true.

- Iran and Syria have not been drawn into a wider war.

- Across the world, moderate Islamic groups have been further weakened by the polarisation of political thought.

- Peace in the region has been set back at least 15 years.

Why the delay in the Qana building collapse?

I have a crazy hunch that the people who believe a controlled demolition took down the Towers on 9/11 will be decidedly more skeptical about this one:

“The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear,” Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana.

Eshel and the head of the IDF’s Operational Branch, Major General Gadi Eisnkot said the structure was not being attacked when it collapsed, at around 8:00 in the morning.

The IDF believes that Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse.

Another possibility is that the rickety building remained standing for a few hours, but eventually collapsed.

The IDF also says more than 150 rockets have been fired from Qana over the past 20 days. Seeing is believing.

Think about it: You are in a war. Your position is being bombed, because you’ve been shooting rockets from your position to the other side. What would any civilized army do? Send all women, children, & non-combatants away from the area, or at least put them in bomb shelters.

What does the Hezbolah army do? Gather up ‘56 civilians, most of them women and children’ and place them directly next to your rocket launchers.

Where is the outrage for that?

Usually, when I look at footage of a Middle Eastern crowd smashing windows, chanting death to Israel/death to America, or burning flags, I ask myself the question, "Where the women at?" In the case of the apartment building in Qana, I ask myself, "Where the men at?" Did all the women and children have no husbands or fathers? One could become very cynical.

And the beat goes on.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

It could be my lack of language skills, but that's one bizarre conclusion after what Susan wrote, Letsroque

I know all about reading between the lines, and that's basically why I find it bizarre.

That is, in my view, totally not what is being written .. neither on or between the lines.

My interpretation is that the far left tends to say things like "So what you're saying is..." too often.

My interpretation is that the far left likes to read between lines and the actual written word is just so much fluff. A nuisance to consider.

There are not too many rational souls who would say that women and children without menfolk around deserve to die.  I consider myself a rational soul so quite obviously, that was not my point.  But how about this?  Were their husbands and fathers Hezbollah fighters?  Were they out fighting -- sending rockets out from behind the building?  Were these a dispensible group of people that Hezbollah thought might make for good photographic carnage????  Nay!  Hezbollah do something so -- so unfeeling?  So mean?  So dastardly??? 

Or, is it just another case of Israel loving to kill defenseless women and children.  That killing after all is so helpful in both their psychological warfare and their PR war.  Just kinda rallies the world around them and yet at the same time allows the Hezbollah terrorists to keep firing off rockets when you just shoot up the innocent, right?  What is the point from Israel's POV, if that's what you believe? 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I'm not really a leftie though. I tend to the right of centre on most social and economic issues, I am an accountant after all. I tend to the left on many political and environmental issues. One could say I have chips on both shoulders. I like the balance and flexibility it affords me.

Ok so Hezbollah sacrificed these women and children to make a PR point. chilling would turn into laughable if the subject matter wasn't so serious.

James, do you think that's a ridiculous premise = Hezbollah "sacrificing" a shiteload of civilians for the sake of anti-Israel propoganda?  It doesn't seem so to me.  After all, they'll all be shaheeds and that is a good thing.  It's not as if the Islamist terrorists of the world assign a great value on the here and now -- the L'Chaim quotient.  We should all be aware of that fact of life.  Didn't you watch "Paradise Now?" 

Even if it hadn't been intentional on the part of Hezbollah, it certainly could NOT have come as a surprise to them, could it?   

I don't know what happened for sure.  I saw the video of the rockets flying from the other side of a building that (the last I heard) the Israelis said was the target.  It looked as if they might have been coming from behind that building.  

The fact (if it is a fact) that there was a 7 hour delay between the strike and the collapse of the building is curious too.  But since this part of the war is not covered without Hezbollah propogandists staging the story, it is quite impossible to know.  

What is your version based on all the logic of an accountant who is not a leftist but just uses the language I mistakenly applied to you based on your animus toward Israel and based on experience in the world of left-right debate. That was unfair of me.  Maybe you have another explanation.  Myself, I will always go with Israel first when given a choice between the Hezbollah, Hamas, or Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade view of wha' happened in any given situation. 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Hezbollah terrorists placed a big 'bomb here' sign on this power plant too : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5233358.stm

Another PR coup for hezbollah. Such foresight.

IMO you are so far right that you are on the wrong side of the argument Susan, thats why I think you assumed my leftism.

The seven hour delay thing is not fact so I cannot give a logical explanation on an unverified claim.

Just for the record I want to reiterate that I do not support hezbollah or its aims. They continued to fire rockets into Israel after its withdrawl in 2000 and probably deserve everything they get. But the Lebanese people and its infrastructure are suffering badly and hezbollah is winning over the moderates. Not a commendable stategy by Israel by any means.

"Ok so Hezbollah sacrificed these women and children to make a PR point. chilling would turn into laughable if the subject matter wasn't so serious."

So that possibility is laughable, if not so serious. I guess it is absurd to even consider such a thing. Hezbollah would not do that.  Yeah Sure.  Islamist terrorists will even strap bombs on their women and children and blow them up for crying out loud ! Or has that never happened.

Okay, so I'm so far right I can't yada yada. But you're right.  I don't even know any more the relevance of the monikers. Time was supporting Israel was for those leftie Jews. Now, who knows? Over on the ever popular leftist website Daily Kos, Israel is being reamed.  For me one thing has been a constant through my farthest left and my farthest right stages and that is supporting Israel. My other constant has been a firm belief that the death penalty is the only suitable punishment for the most heinous and most obviously guilty first degree murders but not to get off topic. Only to say, that those are two areas whence I have not deviated in either my Jesse Jackson or George W. for President days.

Let's just try to sort through some basics.

We both agree we do not support Hezbollah. In fact, I would never suggest you do.  In the same way I think it should be clear that anyone I'd take the time to engage on the subject should know I don't approve of selectively murdering women and children.  Likewise, I would not expect reasonable people to support Hezbollah "Party of God" holy warriors.  What I DO find though is that those who are so hypercritical of Israel seem to gloss over Hezbollah and not to have very good alternatives for Israel.  Only condemnation.

Do you believe there are actions Hezbollah would not take such as deliberating allowing women and children to occupy a building/area where the IDF has warned it was going to bomb. You describe it as laughable? True?  Does it seem out of the question or even unlikely that Hezbollah would have stored munitions in a building with women and children?

So before you send me leaping through hoops of other BBC links about oil spills or whatever let's work this out, okay? Let's stay within the Hezbollah occupied south and not the whole of li'l Lebanon just for the moment. Hell, I just got home from the Twin Peaks Festival, I'm trying to do some laundry and make dinner and do not have the time to skip all over the place just yet. Let's stay focused and work our way through one subject so you can illustrate just how bloody wrong I am. From your perspective. If it's so obvious, you should be able to convey it to me. Who knows? I could actually change my mind. It's happened before and the last time was scarcely more than a week ago.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I want to insert another piece concerning the suspicious Qanas building collapse. I am one of the people who refuse to sit back and automaticly accept the Hezbollah Theatre of Jihad. From IsrealiInsider .com:

Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping -- sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days. [ rigor mortis evident in some photos]

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well.

 _______________________________

Wouldn't it be nice if the MSM "reporters" showed some skepticism, raised some points of discrepancy, rather than publishing the proffered staged and guided Hezbollah account as the absolute truth. No, instead it is more unquestioned Peter Arnett style coverage.

Hopefully, Raymond, this is sorted out as time goes by.  But time makes for forgetfulness too.  Mohammed Dura.  Jenin.  Sabra and Shatila. Names and places with different meanings to different people depending on whether you take the initial as-it-happened view or consider the facts after investigation and analysis.

I found this on Roger L Simon's website this morning.  I'm not saying this Lebanese website has the stamp of irrevocable credibility.  First I've heard of them today.  But I am saying that their understanding of the ways and means of Hezbollah terrorism coincides with my knowledge of the group.  I, for one, would not be shocked should the following prove to be a reality.  Agree with Roger Simon on the news media's coverage.  Regretfully.

Susan 

July 31, 2006

Is Qana another Jenin?

I'm not prepared to say so yet, but if it is, the mainstream media will have disgraced itself beyond words. At the best, they were so initially unquestioning about this event as to have shown themselves to be both incompetent as journalists and contemptibly biased as human beings. Meanwhile, this article from Ynet News is worthing noting. It details a report from a Lebanese Website called LIBANOSCOPIE.

The Lebanese website LIBANOSCOPIE , associated with Christian elements in the country and which openly supports the anti-Syrian movement called the "March 14 Forces," reported that Hizbullah has masterminded a plan that would result in the killing of innocents in the Qana village, in a bid to foil Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's "Seven Points Plan", which calls for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hizbullah.

"We have it from a credible source that Hizbullah, alarmed by Siniora's plan, has concocted an incident that would help thwart the negotiations.

Knowing full well that Israel will not hesitate to bombard civilian targets, Hizbullah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force. In this way, they were planning to take advantage of the death of innocents and curtail the negotiation initiative," the site stated.

 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

bin Laden didn't bring down the towers either!! OMG!!

Also, Paul is Dead, man.  The Walrus was PAUL - don't you see?

Okay, Andrew.  Muy amoozing.  But why not take a step past the sarcasm and into the white light of substance, if you please.  Specifically, what rings false to you?  And I don't just mean from the Lebanese blog but in regard to the notions:

A. Hezbollah allowed women and children to remain in a building conscious of the fact that it would be bombed.

B. Hezbolloh would use civilians in close proximity to munitions in spite of the obvious risk.

Or something that escapes me at first blush?

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I just found this Haaretz article. Don't know how much this can be trusted since it comes from the Eez {{{rah}}} AY leez, but this Qana story is still evolving. Would we allow for the possibility that there are questions that remain to be answered without leaping to the absurdities of comparisons to 9/11 conspiracies? Like with so many reporters on the scene, how did 28 dead become 60 dead? I saw 56 elk while in Snoqualmie and I could tell the difference had there been 28.

For the record, since I know how these things have a tendency to go, let me assure you I'm not saying 28 dead of whom 19 are children is an okie dokie thing. Just saying that if the reporters saw 56-60 dead bodies, then where did the additional 28-32 come from? If there were bodies brought to the scene, we are in a staging circumstance, wouldn't you guess? Help me understand the alternative to the discrepancy.

This article has a logical explanation for the time lapse between the strike and the rescue and recovery operation.

You know, it's just for me that I've been on this story for too many decades now to buy the terrorist version without putting it through a rigorous analysis. Many is the time I've heard the response that "we have to fight with different tools because we don't have American manufactured Apache helicopters." Maybe manipulation is part of the arsenal? Identifying which dead bodies belonged to the Hashem or the Shaloub extended families should not be an impossible task. Then, if the bodies are still around (probably not) let's try to discover who the others were.

Susan

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

Last update - 02:21 01/08/2006 Qana bombing body count falls sharply By Yoav Stern Additional questions arose yesterday about the Israel Air Force's strike on a building in Qana on Sunday, even as the number of fatalities in the incident appeared to be much lower than originally published. The Red Cross announced yesterday that 28 bodies, including those of 19 children, had been found at the site. Additional bodies are expected to be found over the coming days. Regarding the IAF strike itself, it remains unclear at this stage why that specific house, which was located at the northern edge of Qana, was targeted. The Israel Defense Forces' inquiry has yet to establish a connection between residents of the building and Hezbollah operatives who were launching rockets at Israel from the area of the village. The IDF believed the building to be empty, and therefore bombed it. IDF sources said yesterday, however, that the investigation into the incident was still ongoing. The sources added that a large number of Katyusha rockets had been fired at Israel from the area of Qana. According to survivors of the strike, two extended families had taken shelter in the building. The survivors said that the Shalhoub and Hashem families remained in the building because they were unable to afford the cost of traveling north. The families also assumed that the Israeli drones that were patrolling the skies above the village had seen that the building was occupied by numerous children. The survivors spoke of two bombings -- one at 1 A.M., and the second some 10 minutes later. However, what appeared to the survivors as a second bombing may have been the sound of the building coming down. None of the survivors said that the building only collapsed several hours later. Ibrahim Shalhoub described how he and his cousin had left to find help following the strike on the building. "It was dark and there was lots of smoke," he said. "No one could do anything until morning. I could not stop crying; I couldn't help them." The fact that the Red Cross in Tyre was informed of the incident only in the morning is another reason why assistance was late in arriving. The director of the Red Cross office in the city, Sami Yazbek, said that he received word of the incident only at 7 A.M. The ambulances dispatched to the area were further delayed by the damaged roads, Yazbek said.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Amazing! Someone else was asking my question about the men.

Engel: Where Were the Men?
07/31 05:33 PM - The Markup, Videos

NBC's Richard Engel deserves credit for getting some answers to a question that most reporters covering the Qana tragedy have ignored: Where were the men?

ENGEL: According to U.S. intelligence, Israel is getting more effective in confronting these Hezbollah rocket launchers, the batteries of rockets. But to answer your question, are they able to do that with the kind of precision and accuracy and not kill civilians, that is the whole issue at hand right now — this tremendous loss of civilian life yesterday.

We were trying to figure out today where all the men were in this village. If you noticed, all the people in the basement of this three-story building that was hit yesterday by two Israeli airstrikes were women and children, a lot of them young boys. So we went house to house in trying to figure out where all the young men were.

It seems that some of them were fighters, some of them were Hezbollah members that were out — this according to Hezbollah people who didn't want to be interviewed but we convinced them to talk to us.

Others were in another house that was nearby. I'm not sure if that was the initial target, but there was a separate apartment where young men were living that was not hit yesterday.

That's some amazing reporting. Engel went house to house trying to get the answer to an essential question that a lot of his colleagues are not bothering to ask.

Meanwhile, blogging about Qana over at Soccer Dad, Dave Gerstman remembers a 1999 Washington Post editorial about air war accidents that reporters and commentators should re-read:

If the law isn't enough for you, I'd like to point you to a Washington Post editorial from April 1999 called Air War Accidents. Here's the synopsis

A STARK DIFFERENCE divides the atrocities deliberately committed, and still being committed, by the Serbs against the Kosovars from the accidents of NATO air power that have taken additional Kosovar lives. It is a difference of scale: the Serbs have taken thousands of lives and have either deported or uprooted and harassed more than a million Kosovars, practically all of them, while the NATO-inflicted toll is measured in the hundreds. It is also a moral difference: The Serb depredations are vile and unjustified, a violation of fundamental human rights, while NATO's airstrikes are necessary and justified to defend a people under continuing merciless attack. People who ignore these fundamental distinctions are lending themselves wittingly or not to Serbian propaganda and to a general moral obtuseness.

While the scope argument doesn't hold here, the moral one does. (Especially since Hezbollah sets up near civilian buildings, something that didn't apply in the NATO case.)

Words to keep in mind as we continue to learn more details about the Qana strike.

Video of Engel here.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Susan, you know I don't know what's really happening. I don't put anything past anyone really.

I'm so proud of my contribution to this thread.

Thank you, Andrew.  Once again your comment illustrate the folly of not choosing sides.  "I don't put anything past anyone." Maybe you're just weary.  Who can blame you, if so. It's wearying stuff.

But... 

For a loooooong time, I've been warning that ignoring the motivations, words and actions of the Islamists in favor of microscopic focus on Israel or the US alone presents a dangerously skewed picture of the whole.  Here's what a Libyan "reformist" thinks about Hezbollah, Iran and stuff of note.

Libyan Reformist Author in Essays Critical of Hizbullah

Dr. Muhammad Al-Huni, a Libyan intellectual and author who resides in Italy (and who is close to Sayf Al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi), recently wrote a series of articles, dated July 16, July 22, and July 26, 2006, for the liberal website Elaph.com. In them, he criticized Hizbullah and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and accused them of serving Iran and Syria's interests.

The following are excerpts from his articles:

July 22: Hizbullah is "A Militia That is Separate From Lebanese Society... Financed by Iran"

"Hassan Nasrallah promises the [Muslim] nation victory, and he promises surprises in the field that will bring about this victory... Among those of my generation, few believe these promises, since our generation has had experience with similar legends, like Nasser's Al-Tafir and Al-Qahir missiles and Saddam's cardboard missiles. All of these Arab leaders achieved victory only over their own people, and brought nothing but more defeat and downfall to these [Arab] masses - who are psychologically, economically, and morally ruined by the never-ending mill of oppression, dictatorship, and corruption...

"First of all, we need to admit that Israel withdrew, in 2000, from all of the Lebanese lands recognized by the international community. The issue of the Shab'a farms is nothing but the trap that the Syrian regime set for Lebanon in order to embroil it in a conflict in the Middle East and in order to give Hizbullah the task of fighting, in its [i.e. Lebanon's] name, for its own interests and for the interests of Iran, which wants to be a global and regional power...

"Hizbullah does not have anything to lose. This is a militia that is separate from Lebanese society, with a separate economy that is financed by Iran. For this reason, the Lebanese people's suffering does not interest Hizbullah and has no effect on it. Likewise, Hizbullah is not a country, with representatives in international circles, and thus it is has no obligation to international norms and conventions.

"Since it is the mullahs of Iran who finance Hizbullah, we need to treat this militia as a mere instrument, and we need to examine Iran, which is using it. Iran refused to give an answer to the European proposal [concerning its nuclear program] before August 22. It announced this from the start, and this proves that the planning for Hizbullah's action was Iranian planning with thought behind it, since Iran wanted to create a difficult situation in the Middle East so that... it could conduct negotiations from a stronger position...

"It is likely that Iran... whose president, Ahmadinejad, says that the destruction of Israel and wiping it off the map are its supreme goal - has supplied Hizbullah with non-conventional weapons and with missiles [capable of] carrying these weapons to the major cities in Israel. If this scenario is correct... then it will be a tragedy for the entire region, and the dead will be counted in the millions, not in the thousands..."

July 26: The Dreams of Ahmadinejad, Hamas, and Nasrallah "Bring Nothing but Massacres and Unbalanced Wars"

"In southern Libya... there was a dervish by the name of 'Abdallah bin Mas'ud, who had disciples and students. One morning Sheikh bin Mas'ud gathered together his disciples and said to them: 'I dreamt that the infidels' weapons have "gone cold" - meaning they are no longer deadly - and thus I have decided that we will attack the French Army's fortress with cold arms.' Many of the dervishes who were his students went after him, armed with knives, scythes, and swords, and attacked the French fortress in Sabha, the capital of the south. The French destroyed them all, to the last man...

"The latest dream [of this kind] was that of the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who said in a speech that was broadcast on Iranian television in Mashad that Iran's joining the group of nations with nuclear technology derives from the Iranian nation's struggle, which is making a step forward towards the coming of the awaited mahdi (Al-Watan magazine, May 5, 2006). So Iran needs to manufacture a nuclear bomb before that time, in order to help the mahdi eliminate the infidels and the polytheists...

"[Ahmadinejad] found people who believe him in the Hamas movement, and especially Khaled Mash'al... The awaited mahdi is coming, so why then defile the struggle with negotiations with Israel or with recognition of it? It may be that Mr. Mash'al hasn't noticed that he [himself] will be among those doomed to perdition, since he isn't a Shi'ite.

"It appears that Hassan Nasrallah [also] believed this prophecy, since he says that there is nothing called Israel on the world map, that he does not recognize the international community, and that he attributes no importance to the U.N. The awaited mahdi is about to come. He will wipe out Israel and the Sunnis, the Christians, and the Druze of Lebanon, and he [i.e. Nasrallah] will be the Imam's viceroy in all of Greater Syria...

"These dreams and prophecies are madness, that bring nothing but massacres and unbalanced wars with foreign [forces]... If it were only these leaders who became possessed with this madness, then things would not be as bad as they are. But the majority of the public have been swept after them.

"The large public that supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and believed that he would redistribute the Arab wealth to all of the Arabs was surprised at the reality on the day that Saddam was defeated, although they did not admit it. This is a public that believed, relying on the analysis of the Al-Jazeera channel's experts, that Saddam Hussein would deliver a humiliating defeat to the United States. When Baghdad fell, this public came up against the bitter reality, but to this day it has not owned up to the truth. It pins all its hopes on the defeat of Israel, and seriously believes that Mr. Nasrallah will defeat it...

"In a short time, the public will understand that they have seen another mirage - but then it will look for another leader to give them what they are missing... [another] fantasy..."
 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Might Hezbollah put women and children at risk?  From a Lebanese Shiite...

30 July 2006

A Lebanese Shia explains how Hezbollah uses human shields

Judeoscope

In a letter to the editor of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel a Lebanese Shia explains how after Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon, Hezbollah stored rockets in bunkers in his town and built a school and residence over it.

I lived until 2002 in a small southern village near Mardshajun that is inhabited by a majority of Shias like me. After Israel left Lebanon, it did not take long for Hezbollah to have the say in our town and all other towns. Received as successful resistance fighters, they appeared armed to the teeth and dug rocket depots in bunkers in our town as well. The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and a residence over these bunkers! A local sheikh explained to me laughing that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be fired at them or if they attacked the rocket depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians. These people do not care about the Lebanese population, they use them as shields, and, once dead, as propaganda. As long as they continue existing there, there will be no tranquility and peace.

Dr. Mounir Herzallah
Berlin-Wedding

(translated from the German by David Ouellette)

For an exceptional look at the Shia Islamists’ disregard for the life of their brethren, see Ahmadinejad’s World by German investigative writer Matthias Küntzel.

German Original:

Ich wohnte bis 2002 in einem kleinen Dorf im Süden nahe Mardschajun, das mehrheitlich von Schiiten wie mir bewohnt ist. Nach Israels Verlassen des Libanon dauerte es nicht lange, bis die Hisbollah bei uns und in allen anderen Ortschaften das Sagen hatte. Als erfolgreiche Widerstandskämpfer begrüßt, erschienen sie waffenstarrend und legten auch bei uns Raketenlager in Bunkern an. Die Sozialarbeit der Partei Gottes bestand darin, auf diesen Bunkern eine Schule und ein Wohnhaus zu bauen! Ein lokaler Scheich erklärte mir lachend, dass die Juden in jedem Fall verlieren, entweder weil die Raketen auf sie geschossen werden oder weil sie, wenn sie die Lager angriffen, von der Weltöffentlichkeit verurteilt werden ob der dann zivilen Toten. Die libanesische Bevölkerung interessiert diese Leute überhaupt nicht, sie benutzen sie als Schilder und wenn tot als Propaganda. Solange sie dort existieren, wird es keine Ruhe und Frieden geben.

Dr. Mounir Herzallah
Berlin-Wedding

 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

...and because a "pitcher" is worth how many words? English words too!

Susan

From Indonesia, where Israel so affects their day-to-day lives.

Small girl from Karachi altering the usual "I Hate

India" face paint for the time being anyway.

No "Seeds of Peace" summer camp for these Indonesian boy

with their toy guns outside the American Embassy in Jakarta.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin