LCCC ENGLISH
NEWS BULLETIN
August 9/2006
Latest New
from miscellaneous sources for August 09/2006
UN Should Tell Israel to Leave Lebanon, Qatari Minister
Says-Bloomberg
US says multinational force must complement Lebanon
troops-Monsters and Critics.com
Israel to decide on big offensive-Financial Times
Israel Prepares for 'Epic
Battle' in UN Security Council Meeting-FOX
News
Lebanese army may help break deadlock-AP
France takes lead role on Lebanon-BBC News,
U.S. says Lebanese forces need help-AP
Israel names new commander for Lebanon
offensive-Reuters
Israel's Last Bridge-Washington Post,
ISRAEL: Hezbollah ballbearing rockets maximise
injuries-Reuters
Diplomacy fails to quell fighting in southern
Lebanon-Monsters
and Critics.com
Israel
wants new force to back Lebanon troops-AP
Battle rages in Lebanon amid UN debate-The Tribune
Lebanon campaign has Israelis in fighting
mood-International Herald Tribune
Analysis: can the Lebanese army police a ceasefire?Times
Online - UK
Israelis, Hezbollah guerrillas fight on-AP
Syria's crucial role: Why Damascus meddles - and matters-International
Herald Tribune
UN halts
convoy to south Lebanon
Latest New
from the Daily Star for August 09/2006
Olmert 'interested' in Siniora's offer to send army south
Arab delegation brings Beirut's troop proposal to Security Council
Terror of war interrupts quiet evening in Shiyyah
Italian NGOs call for cease-fire
Siniora gets ready to do battle for cease-fire
Questions abound over state's relief effort
Egyptian officials, artists bring aid and a message of solidarity
Still standing in Haret Hreik, cultural center looks ahead to continuing work
when conflict ends
Even amid war, Lebanon still maintains an inexplicable allure
Saudi king's historic visit to Turkey comes at crucial hour
Lebanon is 1 of 5 regional wars -By
Rami G. Khouri
Latest New
from miscellaneous sources for August 08/2006
Beirut oil slick devastates the
Mediterranean-Independent, UK
Deadly bombs strike near heart of Beirut-Globe
and Mail, Canada
Southern Beirut bombarded again overnight-Euronews.net, France -
UN rights council to discuss Israel-Houston
Chronicle,
Arabs push for Israeli
withdrawal-Financial
Times
Israel studies Lebanon's plan but prepares deeper offensive-EiTB
Olmert ready to consider Lebanon's
offer
Israel Vows to Widen War on Hezbollah-Los Angeles Times
Israel wants new force to back Lebanese deployment
Israel Shows Video of Hezbollah Fighter
Next Weeks Almanac Digest-Political Gateway
Beirut hit by massive fuel shortage-SABC News
Siniora backtracks on claim of 40 fatalities-Ha'aretz
Arab ministers press for Israeli withdrawal-Scotsman
Lebanon demands full ceasefire-Daily Telegraph
Syria is the key-Jerusalem Post
The Syrian option: The moment of truth
Beirut must demand justice-Guardian Unlimited
Mubarak's son leads solidarity mission to Beirut-Ha'aretz, Israel
Lebanese hospital crisis warning
Lebanon's Proposals Change
Dynamics-Washington
Post
Arab nations demand UN shift to end
war-Independent
Online
Israel threatens invasion deeper
into Lebanon if diplomacy fails-Scotsman
Hit on Bridge North of Tyre Isolates South of Lebanon-New York Times
Lebanon ready to deploy army in south-Guardian
Unlimited
Crocodile tears for Lebanon-Unison.ie - Bray,Ireland
Syria's US Ambassador: Syria Can Play 'Constructive Role' in-Council on
Foreign Relations
Lebanon has been torn to pieces"-Salon - USA
Cyprus warns of ecological disaster of Lebanon's oil spill-People's Daily Online
Disagreement between Europe and US on Lebanon-Israel conflict-People's Daily Online
Bush: Ceasefire must not let Hezbollah keep Lebanon grip-Globe and Mail - Canada
Walid Phares: Lebanon's Government is hostage to
Hezbollah
In an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News I argued that Hezbollah will
continue to receive supplies and support from Iran via Syria through the
Lebanese-Syrian borders, which do not exist. Hezbollah's deadliest and long
range weapons are most likely redeployed in the central and northern Bekaa. On
the other hand, answering a question, I stated that the only player in this
whole equation which is supposed to call on the international community to
intervene and would order the Lebanese Army to deploy, is obviously the Lebanese
Government. Unfortunately the Seniora cabinet has a gun aimed at its head, and
that is Hezbollah. If it had the courage to act, the Government would have
ordered all these measures. The concern is, if no multinational force deploys
fast, that Hezbollah would crumble this Government and form a Government of its
own. Fox News
Press Release from the
Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Toronto – Canada,
Phone & Fax (905) 272 9389
NewsLine - News bulletins around the Clock (905) 270 0565
Web site
http://www.10452lccc.com
E.mail: clhrf@yahoo.com
&
Phoenicia@hotmail.com
August 8/ 2006
For Immediate Release
"Lebanese Diaspora Supports UN Draft Resolution and Warns Against Hezbollah &
Siniora Government's Attempts to Scuttle Immediate Cessation of Hostilities"
The LCCC supports the UN Draft Resolution under consideration by the Security
Council, addressing the Israeli-Hezbollah on going war in Lebanon, reiterates
its previous stances in this regard and calls for the following:
The Siniora government's proposal to send 15,000 Lebanese army troops to the
south as soon as Israeli forces withdraw is a sham, because the Lebanese
government is not simultaneously calling for disarming Hezbollah. Sending
inexperienced reservists of the Lebanese army to the south without first
disarming
Hezbollah is a recipe for civil war, which the Lebanese government has so far
claimed as the reason for not implementing UN resolution 1559 and disarming
Hezbollah.
Lebanese national unity, as Hezbollah backers in Lebanon keep claiming as their
objective, can only be achieved by subscribing to the draft UN resolution
that first and foremost puts an end to the destruction of Lebanon and the
continuous killing of civilians on both sides of the border. Lebanese national
unity
cannot be achieved with the rape of the most fundamental principle of State
sovereignty: The primacy of the State, its institutions, and its legitimate
armed forces over any horde of foreign-paid armed fanatic gangsters parading
themselves as “liberators” and “resistance fighters”.
The immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities has been the demand of
Lebanon’s Siniora government since Hezbollah triggered the hostilities by
crossing the internationally-recognized border and attacking a neighboring
sovereign State. Now that the international community has acquiesced to the
Hezbollah-hijacked incompetent Lebanese government’s demand for an immediate
cessation of hostilities, that government is now imposing new and insurmountable
conditions that can only be explained by Hezbollah’s blackmail of the Siniora
government, given its desperation at witnessing its own demise by a united and
determined international community.
The international community should listen to the cries of pain of the Lebanese
people, and not to a divided Lebanese government, now supported by an equally
divided and impotent Arab League. The Lebanese people want an end to the
destruction of their country and they also want an end to the pretexts and
justifications for 40 years of an ongoing farce of liberation in the south of
Lebanon that has accomplished nothing but the destruction of Lebanon and its
reduction to a beggar of international aid after it had been one of the most
prosperous economies in the world.
The destruction of Lebanon must no longer be used by the so-called Arab world as
a lever to score pitiful victories against Israel. How can Amr Mousse, the
Secretary General of the Arab League, whose own country has an Israeli embassy
in downtown Cairo, be lecturing the dying Lebanese on how to resist the
Israeli aggression? How can the Foreign Minister of the vulgar tyranny he calls
his country, Syria, which occupied Lebanon for 30 years, whose own sieges of
Beirut, Tripoli, Zahle and other Lebanese cities in 1978, 1981, 1984 and 1989
killed by far many more Lebanese than the current Israeli onslaught, which
continues to detain hundreds of Lebanese prisoners in its jails, and which is
the primary suspect in the assassination of scores of Lebanese leaders, now has
the gall to pretend to want to help the Lebanese people? The Lebanese War was
placed under Arab custody for close to 35 years, and that custody has totally
failed. Now is the time to finally place Lebanon in the custody of the civilized
international community, and the draft UN resolution does just that.
We call on the Lebanese people to think for themselves and adhere to the
international community’s efforts to get them once and for all out of the
40-year old cycle
of violence that all their previous governments, all their previous and current
militias, all the Arab world and all their corrupt leaders have failed to do.
Let them remember that all their leaders now posturing themselves as saviors who
just discovered national unity behind Hezbollah, are the same leaders whose
armies and militias and weapons, in collusion with the Syrians, the Arabs, the
Palestinians, the Israelis and God knows who else, shelled, killed, kidnapped,
bombed
to certain death 150,000 Lebanese citizens in 35 years. This record alone should
guide the Lebanese people to making the right choices today and telling
the world and their own leaders what they really want.
The current draft UN resolution is an excellent first step to put Lebanon back
on the track of a definitive peace by extricating it from the insoluble
Arab-Israeli conflict and the polarization of regional conflicts between Iran
and Saudi Arabia. For the Lebanese government of Mr. Siniora to put additional
demands, now that his initial demand for an immediate cessation of hostilities
has been met is nothing short of criminal, self-serving and an assured path
towards more destruction and killing.
For the LCCC
Chairman/ Elias Bejjani
Political Adviser/Charbel Barakat
*The lccc is the Federal umbrella for the following nonprofit municipal,
provincial and federal Canadian registered groups:
Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation, (CLHRF), Canadian Lebanese Free
Patriotic Movement (FPM-Canada), Phoenician Club of Mississauga (PCOM),/Canadian
Phoenician Community Services Club (CPCSC),Canadian Lebanese Christian Heritage
Club (CLCHC),World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU)-Canadian Chapter.
N.B: The above release in its world wide Lebanese Diaspora version was co signed
by 16 groups from the USA, Canada, France, England, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland
Mexico, Argentine and Lebanon
Battles rage in southern Lebanon
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago
Battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas raged Tuesday across
southern Lebanon as diplomats at the United Nations struggled to keep a peace
plan from collapsing over Arab demands for an immediate Israeli withdrawal.
Military planners in Jerusalem, meanwhile, said they plan to push even deeper
into Lebanon to target rocket sites.
Attempts to negotiate a cease-fire have come down to a step-by-step proposal
backed by Washington and Lebanon's insistence — supported by Arab nations — that
nothing can happen before Israeli soldiers leave the country. Arab diplomats and
U.N. Security Council members were to meet later Tuesday at the U.N. in New York
to try to hammer out a compromise.
Lebanon has also put an offer on the table, pledging up to 15,000 troops to a
peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon after Israel pulls back. The plan had
added significance since it was backed by the two Hezbollah members on Lebanon's
Cabinet — apparently showing a willingness for a pact by the Islamic militants
and their main sponsors, Iran and Syria.
Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, on Tuesday called the proposed Lebanese
troop deployment "interesting" and said Israel would favor leaving southern
Lebanon once it considers that Hezbollah is no longer a direct threat.
But the rocky hills of southern Lebanon provided a different picture. Ground
fighting continued to rage in villages and strategic ridges near the Israeli
border, including sites used by Hezbollah for rocket barrages that have reached
deep into Israel.
Fierce skirmishes broke out around the village of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah
stronghold that Israel has tried to control for weeks. An Israeli solider and 15
Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in the fighting, the army said. The militant
group was not immediately available for comment.
Hezbollah TV also reported pre-dawn attacks on Israeli forces near the
Mediterranean city of Naqoura, about 2 1/2 miles north of the border. The report
claimed there were Israeli casualties.
The Israeli army confirmed clashes and casualties in western Lebanon, but did
not say whether it or Hezbollah had suffered losses.
Israel also expanded airstrikes around Lebanon, including the Hezbollah
heartland in the Bekka Valley.
The clashes followed one of the bloodiest days of the four-week-long conflict.
At least three Israeli soldiers and 49 Lebanese died Monday — including 10 in a
rocket attack in a Beirut suburb just hours after Arab League foreign ministers
wrapped up a crisis meeting that threw its full diplomatic weight behind
Lebanon.
The group set a baseline demand for the Security Council: a full Israeli
withdrawal or no peace deal is possible. The message was given in a tearful
address by Lebanon's prime minister, Fuad Saniora, and carried to the United
Nations by Arab League envoys.
Saniora's government voted unanimously to send 15,000 troops to stand between
Israel and Hezbollah should a cease-fire take hold and Israeli forces withdraw.
The move was an attempt to show that Lebanon has the will and ability to assert
control over its south, where Hezbollah rules with near autonomy bolstered by
channels of aid and weapons from Iran and Syria. Lebanon has avoided any attempt
to implement a 2-year-old U.N. resolution calling for the disarmament of
Hezbollah, fearing it could touch off widespread unrest.
But now the prospect of a protracted war with Israel is even more worrisome.
The coming days should offer signs on whether a cease-fire plan has a chance.
The original proposal, drafted by the United States and France, demanded a "full
cessation of hostilities" on both sides and a buffer zone in southern Lebanon
patrolled by Lebanese forces and U.N. troops. But the plan did not specifically
call for a withdrawal. Critics said it would give room for Israeli defensive
operations.
France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, promised Monday to take into
account Lebanon's stance. But he did not say whether France was prepared to add
such language to the text.
Washington and Paris were expected to circulate a new draft in response to
amendments proposed by Qatar, the only Arab nation on the 15-nation Security
Council, and other members, diplomats said. A vote is not expected before
Wednesday at the earliest.
The proposed changes include a call for Israeli forces to pull out of Lebanon
once the fighting stops and hand over their positions to U.N. peacekeepers. Arab
states also want the U.N. to take control of the disputed Chebaa Farms area,
which Israel seized in 1967.
Qatar's foreign minister, Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani, warned of "a civil war in
Lebanon" between Hezbollah and government forces if the Security Council does
not make changes to the U.S.-French draft resolution. "This is what we don't
want to happen and Lebanon won't bear it," he said, speaking on the Al-Jazeera
network.
In Texas, President Bush said Monday that any cease-fire must prevent Hezbollah
from strengthening its grip in southern Lebanon, asserting "it's time to address
root causes of problems." He urged the United Nations to work quickly to approve
the U.S.-French draft resolution.
Israel, meanwhile, sent mixed signals.
Olmert said the government was studying Lebanon's pledge to contribute troops to
a potential peacekeeping force.
But hours earlier, Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlined plans to drive deeper
into Lebanon to try to destroy Hezbollah rocket batteries — which have kept up a
near relentless barrage on northern Israel and forced people in some areas to
only venture out of bomb shelters for supplies.
Peretz said a new Israeli push — expected to be approved by Israel's Security
Cabinet on Wednesday — would extend as far as the Litani River, about 18 miles
north of the border.
The Israeli army said it declared an indefinite curfew on the movement of
vehicles south of the Litani. Humanitarian traffic would be allowed, but other
vehicles would be at risk if they ignored the order, the army said.
Besides Hezbollah's rocket arsenal, Israel also is facing new threats.
On Monday, the Israeli air force shot down a Hezbollah drone for the first time,
sending its wreckage plunging into the sea, the army said. Israeli media
reported that the unmanned aircraft had the capacity to carry 90 pounds of
explosives, nearly as much as the more powerful rockets Hezbollah has been
firing into Israel.
Unlike the rockets, the drone has a guidance system to for accurate targeting.
Associated Press writer Karin Laub in Jerusalem and Lauren Frayer in Beirut
contributed to this report.
Applaud Harper's stand on Israel
Aug. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
Canadians disagree with their politicians
Opinion, Aug. 6.
Israel left Lebanon six years ago. The Israeli army is there now because
Hezbollah crossed the border and kidnapped Israeli soldiers and is presently
launching rockets into Israel without any concern for whose home they may land
on. To now accuse Israel of using force to protect its citizens is preposterous.
I applaud Stephen Harper for his willingness to stand up for Israel's right to
defend itself against Hezbollah. I would like to believe that we elect our
leaders because we have faith in their ability to make difficult decisions not
because they will spend their time
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
External Document
AI Index: MDE 02/010/2006 (Public)
News Service No: 208
7 August 2006
Sidon, 6th August
Today we went south of Beirut to Sidon, driving past more destruction to the
infrastructure caused by Israeli bombardments. A huge bomb crater pits the road
at one point, and cars are forced to drive carefully in single file over the
makeshift bridge of metal sheets that cover the enormous hole.
Meeting displaced people
Further on, we had to make a detour around a collapsed flyover destroyed by yet
another Israeli air strike. We met internally displaced people from several
villages which we visited a few days ago, including survivors of the Israeli
bombardments in Marwahin, Aitaroun and Srifa.
These refugees people are living in makeshift centres for internally displaced
people, mostly schools and public buildings.
The Story of Aitaroun
Israeli attacks on Aitaroun have included air strikes and artillery fire. One
man told us about the killing on 17 July of 13 civilians, including nine
children and five elderly people. Nine more people were killed on the following
day. Some of those who have survived the attacks on Aitaroun are still in
hospital, and do not know that their relatives have been killed.
No way of knowing
We also spoke to one family from the Hay Mahfara area of Srifa who left on the
first day of bombing, believing they would only be away for a day or two. More
than three weeks later, they do not even know whether their home still exists or
if it has been destroyed, like so many others. One woman, a mother of three
children, told us she has heard rumours that her home has been destroyed, but
also that it is still standing. She has no way of knowing.
Another man told us how his cousins visiting from Brazil were killed in an
Israeli air strike three weeks ago. The entire family was wiped out. Aqil Mara
and his wife Ahlam Jaber, both in their 30s, and their seven-year-old son Hedi
and four- year-old daughter Zainab were all killed in an attack on the
three-storey building where they were staying. Their bodies remained under the
rubble until the following day.
The survivors of Marwahin
We met several survivors of the killing of 25 civilians, most of them women and
children, from the Marwahin village on 12 July, on the first day of the
conflict. After the Israeli army called on villagers to leave hundreds of people
assembled in the main square of Marwahin, home to some 3,000 people, and from
there walked to the base of the UNIFIL (United Nation Interim Force in Lebanon),
near the village seeking shelter but were turned away. Some of the villagers
went back home, too scared to take the road out of the village, and scores of
others decided to leave in a convoy of several pick up trucks and cars.
The convoy was traveling on the costal road towards the town of Tyre but it came
under Israeli artillery fire and had to turn back a couple of times and then
continued. When it reached the vicinity of area of al-Bayada the convoy again
came under fire and the second and third vehicles, a pick up truck and a car,
were hit. The first shell was apparently fired by the Israeli navy, whose boats
ships were besieging the Lebanese coast, followed by at least two missiles fired
by Israeli helicopters. All the passengers of the pick-up truck and two
passengers of the car behind it were killed and several others were injured.
The passengers of the first car said that they were too afraid to stop and
continued on to Tyre, where they later learned of the fate which had befallen
their traveling companions. The passengers of the other vehicles returned back
to the village, where they said that they lived in fear of being killed until
they were able to leave in the following days. Some elderly people remained in
the village and their relatives have not been able to contact them for more than
three weeks because access roads to the village and the electricity network in
the area have been destroyed by Israeli bombardments since the outbreak of the
conflict.
The families of two elderly men said they were worried that the two men may be
dead and asked if we could help to find out what has happened to them. Some of
the villagers from Aitaroun also told us their wives and children are still in
the village but they do not know what has happened to them, and hoped we might
be able to find news of them. However, neither we nor other NGOs or journalists
have any way of helping. No one can go to this or other villages as anyone
travelling on the roads which lead to most of the villages in South Lebanon
would be at risk from Israeli air strikes and artillery fire.
Not able to pull people out of the rubble
A young man whose mother we looked for last week in the village of Ainata, told
us that he is still without news of her since the beginning of the conflict.
Last week, when he heard that we were in the area of his village he asked us to
go to his mother's house to find out what has happened to her. When we reached
the village we found it deserted, many of its houses destroyed, including the
woman's house. We could look into the first two rooms of the house but the
kitchen and bathroom were completely flattened and we could not establish if she
was under the rubble, as this could not be shifted without heavy machinery.
However, no such equipment was available in the village and no one could be
brought in. When we visited the village, during the 48-hour suspension of air
strikes announced by the Israeli authorities, heavy artillery fire continued
around this and other villages in the area. Since then, Israeli bombardments
have resumed in full and movement in and around most villages in South Lebanon
is impossible.
We also met several families from the village of Srifa, which we visited a few
days ago. We did not dare to tell these families about the extent of the
destruction we witnessed in the village, where scores of houses have been
literally pulverized by repeated Israeli air strikes and the bodies of some of
the villagers remain buried under the rubble of their homes.
Israel mission update - 3
Nahariya, 6th August
Today our mission headed further north to the city of Nahariya, which sits about
five miles from the Lebanese border and is one the cities that has been hardest
hit by the rockets. According to the municipality and police officials,
approximately 350 rockets missiles have hit inside the city limits and another
450 in the surrounding area. The municipality told us that two people have been
killed and 68 injured in the city and estimates that over 1,000 houses have been
damaged. Ordinarily Nahariya is a busy tourist town in the summer, but when we
arrive it is virtually deserted.
Visiting Western Galilee Hospital
After a short briefing by the city spokesperson, we headed to the Western
Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. The hospital estimates it has treated 1,300
patients, about 65% of which were for psychological trauma. Others were more
seriously injured including a storekeeper from Nahariya who lost his leg when a
Katyusha fell near his store. The hospital had built an elaborate underground
facility, including everything from a dialysis unit to an underground network of
roads. The deputy director of the hospital told us they built the underground
part of the hospital hoping they would never have to use it. Shortly after the
war began, they were able to move many of the hospital's essential functions
either underground or to safer parts of the hospital. The hills of Lebanon are
clearly visible from the north facing windows.
Hospital within firing range
The hospital, did in fact sustain a direct hit. A rocket hit a patient's room a
few days after the patients on that floor had been moved elsewhere. Although
only one room was hit directly, all the rooms that we saw on the floor had clear
signs of damage. While we were inspecting the damage, the sirens went off for
the first of many times today, and we took the opportunity to look at the
underground facility.
Underground we saw everything from patients getting their regular dialysis
treatments, to a day care centre for the children of employees to people who had
been injured. Some of the injured were older residents who fell while running to
shelters including a 66- year old woman who broke her thigh when she fell down
the stairs while trying to get to the shelter in her building's basement and an
84-year old woman who fell when a bomb exploded near the shelter she was in when
she was trying to get to the shelter's bathroom. We also talked to a 13-year old
boy who was injured in the same incident that killed five people in Acre the day
before we arrived. The boy's mother said she considered that day to be his
birthday, because he was born again since he was only injured and not killed in
the explosion.
Among the other patients we met was a five-year-old boy from the Arab village of
Maj's al-Krum who was injured by the same missile that killed two of his uncles.
He was eating ice-cream in his uncle's car when the bomb hit.
Visiting public shelters
From the hospital we went to visit some of the public shelters, where many of
the cities' residents have spent the past 26 days mostly underground. The
emotions of the people we spoke to ranged from resignation, to indignation, to
barely suppressed rage. In the first shelter we visited, most of the people were
not sleeping in the shelters since there had been fewer rockets at night, but
many spent the entire day there, going out only for an hour a day to shop or run
other errands. There was about 20-40 in the shelter, including around five
children. We were told that the family with children was sleeping in the
shelter. Several people we met told us that families with children were being
much more cautious.
Overwhelming fear
In the second shelter we visited, which was only one block away, the situation
was much different. The shelter was home to around 40 people, including 10
children. Most of them had been living there 24 hours a day since the first
rockets hit Nahariya on the second day of the conflict. Since they were so close
to the border, they told us, that the sirens often go off after the bombs hit or
simultaneously. This made many of them too afraid to step outside. One woman
told us We do everything in fear. We eat in fear, we sit in fear. We shower in
fear. We sleep in fear. All of the people we spoke to in the shelter told us
that their nerves were shot and rubbed raw. The main problem was that they did
not know when it would end.
Update: Haifa hit by several rockets
As we were leaving Nahariya, we heard that Haifa had been hit with several
rockets. We arrived shortly after the those who had been killed and injured had
already been pulled from the rubble and taken to the hospital. We visited three
of the sites that had been hit, including one building that had collapsed
entirely, and two others that were badly damaged. Again we saw the signs of the
metal marbles that we have seen at all the other sites that had been hit by the
rockets.
We then headed to Rambam Hospital to try to gather information about the
casualties. The hospital reported that three people had been killed and they had
over 60 casualties. The other two hospitals in the city had received over 100
casualties. Most of the casualties, however, were treated for shock and
released, although they were still compiling figures for the other injuries.
While we were there, they had just begun the process of evacuating over 100
patients from the oncology ward into the basement. Unlike Nahariya which had a
purpose built facility, they were simply moving patients into what used to be a
storage are they had air conditioned on an emergency basis. The maternity ward
and the pediatric intensive care had been moved earlier. These facilities all
used to have a view of the ocean facing north. In the past this had provided
patients with what was thought was a restful view to help with the healing
process. With the recent round of missiles hitting the city, the circumstances,
we were told, it had simply become too dangerous.
Walid Phares Interviewed on Lebanon & Jihadists' Aims
By Andrew Cochran
In an excellent article titled, "East and West must beware new Barbarians at the
gates," British journalist Allister Heath interviews Walid Phares about the
implications of the current situation in Lebanon for the jihadist movement. Some
excerpts follow, and you can read the entire article here (also linked on the
"CT Blog Experts in the Media" page):
Walid Phares, the brilliant scholar of terrorism, lived through the worst of
times in Lebanon, the country where he was born. At the height of the civil war,
he would make the perilous journey out of Lebanon in flimsy vessels that were
easy targets for Syria’s long-range missiles. “In the 1980s, we used commercial
ships, with no Navy escort, sometimes under direct artillery action,” he
recalls....
The emergence of current strands of Islamic extremism long predates the creation
of Israel or the Cold War, Phares explains. He peppers the conversation with
Arabic to make his case, which is that today’s jihadist movements see themselves
as a continuation of the Islamic state and strive for its reestablishment within
in its old borders.
The abolition of the Caliphate by Ataturk in 1924 freed jihadists from an
ultimate Islamic authority for the first time since the seventh century. This
unleashed the Saudi Wahhabis, and triggered the creation of Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood. The Afghan battlefield produced a convergence into al-Qaeda, which
soon became a rival school of its own. All these groups compete over the best
way to re-establish the Sunni Caliphate, held up as the solution to the Muslim
world’s problems. Meanwhile, the Iranian revolution saw the rise of a Shia
jihadism; it too seeks leadership of Islam and to wage war against the
infidels...
“Hezbollah’s plan for the Lebanese army is to drag it into a fight with Israel,
to destroy it,” says Phares. “The options are very limited: either Hezbollah
will dominate Lebanon, or the latter will disarm Hezbollah. Anything in between
would be a waste of time. The international community must form a multinational
force to assist the Lebanese army”.
As to the wider war on terror, Phares is angry that the West has ignored
moderate Muslims and reformers, in the West as well as in the Islamic world,
instead treating those who support the jihad as truly representative. “For
decades, the only ‘issue’ debated was the Arab- Israeli conflict”, he says.
There was little study of jihadism, human rights abuses, women’s liberation
movements or the treatment of minorities; worst of all, terrorists were
routinely presented as reformers.
“The vast majority of intellectuals still live on a pre 9/11 planet. They
refuse, even after the rise of democratic movements and dissidents in the
region, to acknowledge that the jihadists are a fascist movement.” This must
change, Phares pleads; the only hope is to support young Muslims who advocate
democracy and social change.
Across the centuries, the jihadists often agreed temporary tactical alliances
with one enemy, better to defeat another, a lesson which France, China and even
Russia appear not yet to have learnt. But Phares’ crucial lesson is that we
should never forget that all jihadist strands, regardless of how much they hate
one another, are ultimately committed to the same aim, which is to wage war
against those with whom they disagree. “The barbarians killed each other more
than they killed Romans,” Phares warned me. “Yet they eventually destroyed the
empire.”