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LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
JULY 16/2006

Latest News From miscellaneous sources 16/07/06
Prodi urges Hizbollah to withdraw from South Lebanon-ITAR-TASS
Israel strikes bridges, gas stations in east and south Lebanon-CBS 47
Arab League chief: Peace process 'dead' AP
Lebanese citizens divided over Hezbollah AP
Israel kills 34 civilians in Lebanon strikes-Reuters
Israeli Bombs Fall Near Syria as Ripples Grow-New York Times
US Readies Plans for Lebanon Evacuation-FOX News
European citizens to be evacuated from Lebanon-CNN
Assad pledges Syrian help for Lebanon-Reuters
Bush asks Syria to stop Hizbollah attacks Reuters
US to evacuate expatriates from Lebanon Reuters
Syria could be attacked within 72 hours-IsraPundit - Canada
Eyewitnesses: Syria-Lebanon border attacked-Ynetnews - Israel
Syrian official says no Israeli attack on Syria-Reuters.uk - UK
Bush demands Syria stop Hizbollah attacks-Reuters - USA
Syria Defends Hezbollah as Arab Foreign Ministers Discuss Crisis-FOX News - USA
Israel's War on Hamas and Hizbullah-Media Monitors Network
Report: Israel gives Syria ultimatum-Ynetnews
Bush points figure at Hezbollah, Syria-MarketWatch
Israeli PM approves new strike targets in Lebanon-People's Daily Online
Israel widening war on Hizbollah-Reuters.uk - UK
France moves its citizens out of Lebanon-Jerusalem Post
Lebanon's Government Appears to Be at a Stand Still-New York Times
Bush faces a G8 split over Mideast-DetNews.com
Bush, Peers Worlds Apart on Approach to the Crisis-Los Angeles Times
Israel pounds south Beirut, killing 18 -AP
Hezbollah rockets hit Israeli city- AP
Israel: Iran aided Hezbollah ship attack AP
US prepares to evacuate nationals from Lebanon-Reuters
Hezbollah offices destroyed as thousands flee battered Beirut - London Times
Foreign governments make evacuation plans from Lebanon- AFP
Six hurt as rockets land in Tiberias, 35 km from Lebanon-Haaretz
'It all looks like a single plot'-Haaretz
The framing of Hizbullah -Guardian (UK).
The bohemian corner of Israel that refuses to run from the bombers -The Independent (UK)
Defiant Nasrallah warns: 'We are ready for open war-Daily Star
Arab states take dim view of 'adventurism' by Hizbullah-Daily Star
World leaders voice very different views-Daily Star
Israel pounds key Lebanese infrastructure-Daily Star
Siniora asks envoys of major powers to back cease-fire-Daily Star
Pace and scale of bloody blitz strand families in danger zones-Daily Star
Salameh asserts stability of pound, denies intervention-Daily Star
Syria says fully backs Hizbollah against Israel Reuters
Hizbollah, Israel head for showdown Reuters
Bush: Iran, Syria to blame for Lebanon-Monsters and Critics.com
Oil prices settle at $77 a barrel AP
Airlines Increase Syria Flights To Free Beirut Stranded-Airwise
Hezbollah drone batters Israeli warship- AP
Hezbollah `air power' first flew in 2004 AP
IDF confirms warship hit by explosive-laden UAV - Jerusalem Post
US called on to 'do something' on Mideast -but what? AFP,
Bush's indifference drives conflict -The Guardian (UK)
Frustrated, Toughened, and Disillusioned at Slate.

Israel violated the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions by murdering civilians, the two Israeli soldiers are prisoners of war subject to the Third Geneva Convention
by Dr. Muhamad Mugraby
Today, Lebanon is in a state of war with Israel. The Israeli army has committed wide ranging acts of aggression against Lebanese civilians and civil infra-structure, such as the murder of dozens of Lebanese, including entire families, without being in any proximity to legitimate military targets (no possibility of qualifying as a collateral), and in flagrant violation of the laws of war and particularly the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and the Hague Regulations of 1907, at least in the following ways:
1. Article 3 of the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilians outlawed violence against the persons and lives of all those who do not actively participate in military operations. It prohibits killing, mutilating, torturing or otherwise treating them with cruelty.
2. Article 49 of the same convention requires the prosecution and trial of those military personnel that commit or order the commitment of such crimes.
3. The matter of the two Israeli prisoners of war taken by Hizbullah, in the aftermath of a military battle in which they were in uniform, armed and on a military mission in an armored vehicle, is regulated by the Third Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War. Article 21 of this convention authorizes their internment subject to certain conditions. Their rights as prisoners of war are provided in the said convention. The Israeli Government may seek to insure those rights through the peaceful means authorized by the said convention.
4. The military organization of Hizbullah, in relation to the war with Israel, is an organized resistance movement recognized under the Hague Regulations of 1907, which were ratified by Lebanon on June 12, 1962. Article 1 of the Regulations requires the following conditions for the members of a resistance organization:
a. To follow the command of a commander responsible for his subordinates.
b. To carry or wear a distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, but without the necessity of wearing a uniform.
c. Carrying arms openly when engaged in an operation, but without giving up the element of surprise.
d. Conducting operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
The Israeli government behaves like the parents of a detainee at a police station. Instead of hiring lawyers to secure his rights it attempts to destroy the entire city where he is being detained.
For these reasons, and as there are over fifty Lebanese civilians who have no relationship to the military conflict who have been murdered by the Israeli army, including a large number of infants, we are being faced with horrible acts of premeditated murder which should be exposed, prosecuted, and brought to trial, perhaps under the statutes of the International Criminal Court.
I call on the Lebanese Government to take prompt measures in the exercise of national legal rights which could lead to the restoration of the rule of law internationally and perhaps even help in restoring sanity to the Israeli Government and its allies. I call on the international community to promptly interfere in favor of a full restoration of the rule of law on an international and regional basis, beginning with the prevention of more acts of murder by the Israeli army.

A patriarchal visit to Lawrence
By Rich Barlow | July 15, 2006
LAWRENCE -- It's a long way from Lawrence to Lebanon, from the cascading waters that powered the mill town's industry to the roiling ethnic and religious tides on which Islamic extremists from Hezbollah rode to attack Israeli soldiers this week, spurring the heaviest Israeli bombing of Lebanon in a generation.
It seems to me that the chief religions are not responsible for that, because the politicians are responsible," Patriarch Nasrallah Peter Cardinal Sfeir told reporters at St. Anthony Maronite Catholic Church. ``But we are condemning any attacks, from whatever side it comes from."
He called on the Lebanese people, ``especially those who are Arabs, to put aside their arms and work in favor of peace."
The Maronite Church is one of several Eastern Catholic churches based in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. They accept Roman Catholic doctrine and sacraments as well as papal authority. (As his title implies, Sfeir is a member of the College of Cardinals.) ``We are in complete harmony with Rome and the new pope," said George Kassas , a member of the parish council at St. Anthony.
But the eastern churches allow married men to be priests, and they worship with their own liturgies. The Maronites, who claim a majority of Christians in Lebanon, where Sfeir lives, have about 1.5 million members in the United States, with about 10 Maronite churches in Massachusetts, according to Kassas.
The visit this week of the octogenarian patriarch was part of a month long American tour commemorating the 40th anniversary of the appointment of the first US Maronite bishop.
Sfeir conducted his press conference Thursday in a room off the church sanctuary with relics testifying to both Catholicism and its Maronite version. Stained glass windows depicting John the Baptist and St. Jude shared wall space with one of Our Lady of Lebanon (Mary). In a corner behind Sfeir's shoulder stood a figurine of black-cassocked Charbel , a Lebanese saint.
Sfeir's news conference in Lawrence drew both American reporters and Lebanese television journalists, and Sfeir alternated using English and Arabic for his answers. He also shifted from political comments -- endorsing the two-state solution of a Palestinian nation living peacefully with Israel -- to religious observations.
Asked if Muslim leaders could do more to speak out against Islamic terrorism, he answered, ``We cannot generalize. There are some chief religious Muslims who are perhaps for the terrorists, but many others are not for that. And they are for peaceful solutions."
The unfathomable power of the news cycle arranged for the patriarch to visit not only in the midst of turmoil in his home country, but in the ongoing debate over gay rights in Massachusetts. Legislators on Wednesday put off a decision until Nov. 9 on whether to put a constitutional ban on gay marriage befo re voters.
With the Catholic Church prominently opposed to same-sex marriage, Sfeir did not dissent: ``We have to return back to the beginning of creation. God created man and woman, and this is making a family. Without that, there is no family. And [gay marriage] is against the nature of the human being."Sfeir confidently predicted that the American wing of the church would not be weakened by assimilation. He noted that the Maronites now have two archbishops, in St. Louis and New York. ``It is proof that the Maronite Church will grow with time," he said.
With about 1,600 families, St. Anthony is the denomination's largest church east of St. Louis, Kassas said. But this was the patriarch's first visit to the church; logistics prevented him from stopping here when he previously toured America and Massachusetts. While in Lawrence, Sfeir celebrated several liturgies at the church.
The patriarchal visit ``is absolutely a great blessing for us and an incredible lifting of our spirit," Kassas said.
Despite his confidence that America's talent for blurring ethnic distinctions won't erase Maronite traditions, Sfeir seemed to have picked up an American politician's talent for sidestepping tricky questions. Threading the needle of Middle Eastern politics, he disapproved of Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers while noting the group's claim that it acted in retaliation for Israel's holding of Arab prisoners.
A Lebanese broadcaster asked him, ``If Hezbollah kidnaps Israeli soldiers to release Arab prisoners from Israel, should Lebanese kidnap Syrian solders to release Lebanese prisoners from Syria?"Syria long kept troops in Lebanon and has been implicated in the 2005 assassination of its former prime minister, and the question drew applause from parishioners listening to the press conference.
Sfeir laughed and offered, ``It is another question."Questions, comments or story ideas can be sent to spiritual@globe.com.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

From: Sandra Barakat Azar
Subject: Dear all,
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 2:53 PM
Please assist in disseminating the message below as much as you can, this might assist our beloved people of Ain Ebel
"To whom it may concern,
I am a Lebanese originally from the Christian village of Ain Ebel on the Israeli border. I just received an urgent email from people of my village urging us to seek help and try to get in touch with one of the media on the Lebanese ground. Our village, a Christian village is being used by Hizbollah gorillas to attack Israel. Residents of the village are helpless, gathering and hiding in few of the village's houses because Hizbollah is sending rockets from our streets and the suburbs. Therefore, the Israeli planes are heavily attacking our village. If possible, please try to make this announcement public so that officials may get in touch with Hizbollah and ask them to get out of the residential area. If possible let someone contact the LBC on 09.850.850 and make sure they got the message. I hope they'll take a quick action and get in touch with Hizbollah. For the moment all we can do is pray for everyone in Ain Ebel to keep safe and patient.
GOD bless you all.
Sandra Barakat Azar
Switzerland
Counting on your support
God bless Lebanon
Sandra B. Azar

Defiant Nasrallah warns: 'We are ready for open war'
By Leila Hatoum and Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff-Saturday, July 15, 2006
BEIRUT: Hizbullah's secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned late Friday that his group was ready for "an open war" against Israel, while announcing that resistance fighters had set fire to an Israeli warship off the coast of Beirut. Nasrallah's statement came amid heavy attacks as Israel pounded Lebanon for the third straight day Friday, targeting Hizbullah's power base and killing 15 civilians, raising the death toll since the start of the siege to more than 70 people.
In his first public statement since Israel laid siege to Lebanon on Wednesday, Nasrallah said: "You want an open war. We are going to open war. We are ready for it"Speaking to Al-Manar TV by telephone, Nasrallah warned: "You have chosen war against people who have brains, capacities and expertise. The surprises that I have promised you will start now.
"Look into the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that has pounded the infrastructure, people's homes and civilians - look at it burning. It will sink and with it will sink scores of Israeli Zionist soldiers. This is just the beginning," he added. An Israeli military spokesman admitted that an Israeli naval ship had been hit in Lebanese waters, apparently by a rocket. The spokesman said the damage was not serious and that there were no casualties. Nasrallah also warned of additional attacks in Israel. "We will not say that we will bomb Haifa, we will go beyond and beyond Haifa," he added. "Our homes will not be the only ones to be destroyed, our children will not be the only ones to die ... Those days are over I promise you. You [Israelis] must take responsibility for what your government has done," he said. Responding to a Saudi statement that Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday was "an uncalculated adventure," Nasrallah said: "I will not ask you about your history. We in Hizbullah are adventurous. That has been true since 1982 ... when you said because of our adventures that we are crazy. But we proved that we only brought freedom, liberation, dignity and pride to our country since that time."
Throughout the day Friday, Israeli warplanes and warships took turns attacking Beirut's southern suburbs, specifically the Haret Hreik area, where Hizbullah's headquarters are located. Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station said Friday that the building in which Nasrallah lives had been "destroyed."
"But Nasrallah, his family and his bodyguards are safe and well," it added. The attack on Nasrallah's home came after Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert had approved attacks on new targets in Lebanon Friday. Olmert's security chiefs said they had approved the new targets after Hizbullah stepped up its rocket bombardment of northern Israel.
But Hizbullah maintained that its attacks on northern Israel came "in response to Israeli provocation through the brutal attacks against Lebanon and the attacks on the southern suburbs, which Nasrallah warned Israel against attacking," Al-Manar TV said Friday. Hizbullah issued a statement Friday saying it had attacked several northern Israeli posts, including a military command post in Safad; the Kiryat Shmona settlement; an Israeli Army facility in the Shumara settlement; the Sold settlement near Hola and a nearby ammunition depot and army base; the Capri settlement; and the Jal Allam military post."
Eight Israeli soldiers and two civilians have been killed, with 90 civilians wounded. Most of the residents of Israel's northern settlements have gone to the bunkers, according to an Israeli Army source. Olmert warned that Israel would not halt its offensive until Hizbullah was disarmed. He made the comment during a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israeli government officials said.
Olmert set two other conditions for a cease-fire: the release of the two captured soldiers and a halt to rocket fire. "If these conditions are met, we are ready to cooperate with a delegation from the UN," an Israeli spokeswoman said. At dawn Friday, Israeli warplanes struck four corners of a large square in the southern suburbs. Hizbullah's headquarters are located in the middle of the square. Israeli forces also attacked a bridge in the suburbs that leads to the airport, hitting it in two different locations. They also struck at the Mosharrafiyeh roundabout and the Mar Mikhael roundabout on the Beirut-Damascus Highway.
The air strikes in the southern suburbs left large craters and caused extensive damage to surrounding shops, buildings and a local hospital. Three civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the strikes.Many residents of the southern suburbs fled their homes after the attacks, while others remained in the area, despite leaflets dropped by Israeli airplanes Thursday night warning that the area would be targeted. Similar warnings were dropped over the neighborhoods of Bourj Abi Haidar and Mazraa, witnesses said. Reports from South Lebanon said the residents of Aita Ash-Shaab had been evacuated by Friday. The town was the site of the heaviest clashes between Hizbullah fighters and the Israeli Army, which had attempted to penetrate into Lebanese territory in the area but was turned back by guerrillas, losing six soldiers in the process, according to statements from Hizbullah over the past three days.
Israel's navy also tightened its blockade on Lebanon's ports, sending three warships to water off Tripoli to prevent access to the northern city's port. Other Israeli warships shelled the southern town of Sidon and Beirut's southern suburbs. A building housing a branch of Hizbullah's Nour Radio in the southern suburbs was hit by one warship, which also destroyed a residential apartment. Air raids over the Bekaa led to the destruction of two mobile transmission stations and the disruption of reception in the Bekaa. - With agencies

Arab states take dim view of 'adventurism' by Hizbullah
Compiled by Daily Star staff -Saturday, July 15, 2006
US allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan indirectly accused Hizbullah on Friday of harming Arab interests but also condemned the Israeli assault on Lebanon The remarks came amid fears of a wider regional conflict after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted Friday that Israel was not powerful enough to take on Iran and warned the Jewish state not to attack regional ally Syria. While not naming Hizbullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdul-lah II warned of the risk of "the region being dragged into 'adventurism' that does not serve Arab interests," according to a joint statement published by Amman's official Petra news agency after the two met in Cairo. Similar language was used earlier by Saudi Arabia, which indirectly accused Hizbullah of adventurism in provoking Israel's onslaught on Lebanon and putting all Arab nations at risk. "It is necessary to make a distinction between legitimate resistance [to occupation] and irresponsible adventurism adopted by certain elements within the state," an official Saudi source told the Saud Press Agency late Thursday.
"These elements ... risk putting in danger all the Arab countries and their achievements before these countries have said a word," the source added.
The Saudi position is aimed at preventing the Middle East from sliding into yet another destructive war and at upholding Arab interests, Mohammad al-Zalfa, a member of the appointed Shura Council, said Friday. The Egyptian and Jordanian leaders urged the Lebanese government "to establish its authority over all Lebanese territory" as they condemned and called for an immediate halt to Israeli military escalation in Gaza and Lebanon.
They also highlighted "the need for all parties in the region to be responsible and not contribute to escalation that could drag the region into a dangerous situation."
Heightening fears of an all-out conflict in the region, Ahmadinejad warned Israel against striking Iran and extending
its offensive in Lebanon to neighboring Syria and said such a move would amount to an attack against the Islamic world, the official Iranian news agency reported Friday. "The Zionist regime does not dare to cast a look with bad intentions at Iran," the president was quoted as saying by state television. "If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response," he said in a phone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad. "The Israeli aggressions are a result of the weakness of a puppet regime that is on its way toward disappearing," state television quoted him as saying. In London, Syrian Ambassador Sami Khiyami told the BBC his country wants to stay out of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon and is trying to restrain Hizbullah from firing missiles into northern Israel. "It's really seeking to ease down tensions and to reach a settlement that would stop completely the violence." Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya slammed Israel's "insane war" against Lebanon.
"This war must stop. Lebanon and the Lebanese people must be protected," Haniyya said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul called on all sides in the Middle East to speedily cease fire before it is too late. "Deep instability can occur in the region," Gul warned. - Agencies

For Immediate Release
July 14, 2006
Wrzesnewskyj urges action from Foreign Minister to save Canadians trapped in Lebanon
Ottawa – In response to an extremely worried call from a husband whose wife Waffa Kabloui and son Ahmed Himada, along with hundreds of Canadians, are currently stranded on the ground and trapped in Lebanon, Liberal Associate Critic for Foreign Affairs Borys Wrzesnewskyj demanded that the Canadian government undertake immediate and forceful diplomatic action to bring about a 48-hour ceasefire in Lebanon to give Canadians and other foreign nationals a chance to leave the country unharmed.
“The lives and well being of several of my constituents and the lives of hundreds of Canadians are in jeopardy right now due to Israeli military actions in Lebanon. The bombings of Beirut International Airport, highways, and bridges have trapped them in a war zone. The Canadian government is failing them. I’m calling on Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay to immediately demand of the Israeli government and Hezbollah that they institute a 48-hour ceasefire to allow Canadians and other foreign nationals a chance to escape the carnage. It’s not good enough for Foreign Affairs to tell Canadians currently in Lebanon that they ‘should remain indoors and minimize movement until further notice’ (website of Foreign Affairs, http://www.voyage.gc.ca/main/sos/ci/cur-en.asp?txt_ID=808). Canada has been a strong supporter of Israel, but the present actions of the Israeli military are jeopardizing the lives of Canadians on the ground in Lebanon. Foreign Minister MacKay needs to contact his Israeli counterpart to demand an immediate 48-hour ceasefire to allow our embassy and foreign affairs officials to begin an evacuation of Canadian citizens.” stated Wrzesnewskyj.
Attached photograph of M.P. Borys Wrzesnewskyj with proud mother Waffa Kabloui during the presentation of a community service award to her son Ahmed Himada. Both are currently trapped in Lebanon Wrzesnewskyj.B@parl.gc.ca
For further information: Borys Wrzesnewskyj, M.P. (416) 249-7322 or (613) 853-9001

Santorum, Casey Call for Syrian Sanctions
By Jennifer Siegel-July 14, 2006
Both Senate candidates in Pennsylvania say that the Bush administration should implement additional sanctions against Syria.
Spokesmen for the incumbent, Republican Rick Santorum, and the challenger, Democrat Bob Casey Jr., told the Forward that their respective candidates believe that the White House should fully implement the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. The 2003 law, which Santorum sponsored in the Senate, grants the president the power to slap Damascus with a host of sanctions.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a press briefing Thursday that implementing additional sanctions against Syria at this time could undermine United Nations-led efforts to stabilize the situation in the Middle East.
Rep. Eliot Engel, the New York Democrat who sponsored the law in the House of Representatives, has been calling on the Bush administration to implement the full range of sanctions. In Santorum, however, the White House now has a key congressional ally pressing the issue as well. "Senator Santorum is basically of the same mind as Rep. Engel," said spokesperson Robert Traynham."The senator does believe that Israel has the right to defend itself and that means by any means necessary to ensure that its people are safe, or at least protected from the war on terror. The duty to any sovereign nation is to protect itself and the senator believes that Israel has every right to do that, particularly from countries that harbor terrorism."Casey - who currently commands a significant lead in the polls - also favors implementing the remaining sanctions provided for by the law. Both Santorum and Casey disagree with the claim made by some European Union officials that Israel's response has been "disproportionate," according to their spokesmen. A statement from the Casey campaign said that "Israel has every right to defend itself and to respond to Hezbollah's senseless act of aggression... The United States government and the international community should join with Israel for a speedy and satisfactory resolution." The six sanctions authorized by the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act include bans on most American exports to Syria and Syrian aircraft coming to the United States, both of which have been implemented, as well as a partially implemented measure to freeze certain Syrian assets.
So far, the White House has not reduced diplomatic contact with Syria, banned American businesses from operating in or investing in Syria, or imposed travel restrictions on Syrian diplomats coming to the United States.

Israel Blames Attacks on Syria-Iran Axis
U.S. Slams Abductions, But Calls for Restraint
By MARC PERELMAN-July 14, 2006
Israel is pointing to this week's Hezbollah raid as proof of its contention that Syria and Iran are leading a coordinated terror front, which includes Hamas and Hezbollah.
After two Israeli soldiers were abducted Wednesday by Hezbollah militants operating out of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a warning to Beirut, as well as to Damascus. "Syria has proven that it is a terrorist government in nature," Olmert said. "It is a government that supports terrorism and encourages murderous actions of terror organizations in and out of Syria. Obviously, there will be an appropriate deployment against the government of Syria."
Israeli officials and Jewish organizations had already been blaming Syria for the kidnapping of another Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was abducted June 25 by Palestinian militants operating out of Gaza. With the Hezbollah raid, Jerusalem and pro-Israel forces are also ratcheting up their condemnations of Iran.
"We now in the Middle East have an axis of terror and hatred comprising Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, which is trying to attack Israel and prevent peace in the area," said Israel's consul general in New York, Arye Mekel.
Israel asserts that the kidnappings were the result of a deliberate strategy crafted by Syria and Iran, and implemented by Hamas and Hezbollah, to stoke violence on the Palestinian front. Mekel tracked the coordination back to a little-noticed January 2006 visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Damascus, during which he met Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and two other terrorist groups: Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. At a joint press conference, Ahmadinejad and Assad vowed to fight the plots of "world arrogance and Zionism" in Lebanon and called for "continued resistance" to Israeli "occupation of the holy Islamic lands."
According to Mekel, this "terror summit" served to coordinate anti-Israeli activities just as Hamas won the Palestinian Authority elections. "We know [Hamas leader Khaled] Mashal ordered the kidnapping of Shalit," Mekel said, "and we know Syria and Iran have a vested interest in keeping the Palestinian issue alive, and use the Hamas government as a beachhead."
Jewish groups held rallies Monday in front of the Syrian diplomatic missions in New York and Washington to demand Shalit's release. They accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad of allowing the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, to operate freely in Damascus.
Though the Bush administration condemned Syria and urged it to arrest Mashal, two leading congressional critics of the Assad regime, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who chairs the House's subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, say that Washington has displayed too much restraint in dealing with Syria.
As Israeli forces prepared to enter Southern Lebanon following the abduction by Hezbollah, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemned the kidnappings and urged Syria, which is widely believed to have sway over Hezbollah, "to use its influence to support a positive outcome." She also appeared to send a message to Israel, however, stating that "all sides must act with restraint to resolve this incident peacefully and to protect innocent life and civilian infrastructure."
In Wednesday's raid, Hezbollah militiamen killed seven Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border, in addition to abducting two others. The attack took place during massive Hezbollah shelling against frontier positions and inside the Western Galilee, which also wounded several Israeli civilians.
Mashal held a press conference in a Damascus hotel on Monday that was broadcast on Al Jazeera and Syrian state television, during which he rejected American and Israeli accusations against Syria as desperate attempts to export Israel's crisis and thanked Assad for his support for the Palestinian cause. Both Mashal and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for prisoner exchanges to end the current crisis, fueling Israeli claims that the two terrorist groups were coordinating their activities.
The Hamas spokesman in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, reportedly said that the Hezbollah operation would help Hamas. He did not say whether the two groups had coordinated the attacks, but suggested that there would be "coordination and an understanding" as the crisis continued to unfold.
Observers saw Mashal's press conference as an indication of Syria's belief that it had weathered the diplomatic storm caused by the February 2005 slaying of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, which prompted a United Nations probe that produced circumstantial evidence of involvement at the highest levels of the Syrian government and eventually forced Assad to withdraw his forces from Lebanon.
In addition to the seeming drop in international pressure relating to the Hariri killing, American criticism of Syria's role in allowing insurgents and weapons to flow into Western Iraq has drastically ebbed in recent months.
"The relatively lower recent level of noise about Syria emanating from Washington [and from Paris] likely is an additional reason for Israeli officials to raise their own noise level," said Paul Pillar, who until early this year was the top Middle East analyst at the CIA.
The shift, according to Pillar, was based on an assessment that Damascus is "doing most of what it can do to control the Iraqi border" and that talking publicly about the Hariri probe could discourage Damascus' cooperation with U.N. investigators; he also described the shift as a byproduct of the numerous foreign-policy issues facing the administration, including the unending violence in Iraq and the nuclear showdowns with Iran and North Korea.
"Thoughtful and knowledgeable Israeli officials may realize all that too, but still see it in Israel's interests to do what they can to keep Syria on the diplomatic front burner," said Pillar, now a visiting professor at Georgetown University.
Walid Phares, a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said that "Iran and Syria wanted to shift the attention from their issues — nukes for Tehran and Lebanon for Damascus — back to a Palestinian-Israeli problem in the region."
"It is most likely that the latest flare-up against Israel was requested by Iran and Syria to drag Israel into a confrontation, give Hamas stature and weaken the Palestinian Authority president," Mahmoud Abbas, Phares said.
In contrast to those pointing a finger at Damascus, some observers see the Israeli diplomatic offensive against Syria as a way to maintain Jerusalem's standing in Washington. Joshua Landis, an assistant professor of history at Oklahoma University currently based in Damascus, contends that Israel is seeking to win more leeway for its actions in the Palestinian territories by underlining that it is not dealing with the "Palestinians" but with an international "axis of evil" including Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
"The greatest danger for Israel is that the 'West' and most importantly Washington, will begin to see Israel as a mill stone around Washington's neck," wrote Landis, who runs the Syrian Comment blog, in an email to the Forward. "Now that the pet theory of the neocons — that the road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad — has proven wrong, many in Washington are beginning to come back to the notion that what happens in Israel and Palestine is important to Washington's image in the Middle East and its success in the war on terror. That is why it is all important for [Israel] to keep the focus off 'occupation' and 'legitimate democratic leaders' where the Palestinians will try to put it, and on terror, dictators, and terrorists, where Israel will put it. By focusing on Mashal and not [Palestinian Prime Minister and fellow Hamas leader Ismail] Haniya, on Damascus and not the P.A., and on terrorism and not occupation, [Israel] can remind the U.S. that the two are in the same camp and fighting the same war."
Pro-Israel lawmakers were starting to step up their own efforts to focus negative attention on Syria. Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican, and Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, were planning to write President Bush this week to urge him to enforce the full range of sanctions against Damascus set forth by the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. The administration has only implemented a few measures since the bill was passed into law in December 2003.
"I don't know why the administration is not moving," Engel told the Forward. "I had asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice several times, both publicly and privately, why we are not doing it. Her answer has always been that we want to do it in conjunction with other countries. Well, if there was ever a time to do it, this is it. Now is the time."
Analysts agree that the diplomatic situation of the Assad regime had improved in the last several months. While the U.N. probe is still ongoing and could still implicate the head of the Syrian regime, its outspoken first chief prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis from Germany, has been replaced by low-key Serge Brammerz and the probe is taking place largely out of public view. In addition, the spate of political assassinations in Lebanon has abated since the killing of a lawmaker in December.
Finally, the Bush administration, which repeatedly assailed Damascus for failing to seal its border with Iraq last year, has lessened its criticism because of evidence that Syria was being more cooperative, according to congressional sources and Pillar, the former CIA officer.
Some pro-Israel advocates surmise in private that Washington's softening toward Damascus could further be explained by back-channel discussions over cooperation in Iraq and on terrorism. The administration has been reluctant to implement the provisions of the Syria Accountability Act, ordering a ban on Syrian imports but avoiding more drastic steps such as prohibiting American companies from doing business with Syria and limiting movement of Syrian diplomats in the United States. With reporting by Ori Nir in Washington.

Bush Criticized Over Concern For Lebanese Regime
By Forward Staff-July 14, 2006
The Bush administration is being criticized by some Israeli and Jewish communal officials for calling on Jerusalem not to undermine the democratically elected Lebanese government.
President Bush and several senior administration officials have backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah missile attacks from Lebanese territory and to take steps to prevent the Islamic terrorist group from transferring two captured Israeli soldiers to another country. But they have repeatedly insisted that Jerusalem must show restraint and not undermine the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which the White House views as a positive model for democracy in the region.
One Israeli diplomat, who asked not to be identified, noted that the Bush administration staked out a different position when it came to attacks against America.
“We certainly understand that the address is Hezbollah and less so the government of Lebanon,” said the diplomat, who is involved in Israeli-American relations. “At the same time, I do have to point out that there is some contradiction between what the president said after 9/11 — I don’t make any distinction between the terrorists and the governments that harbor terror organizations — [and what he says now]. He didn’t make the distinction then. And — what can you do — Hezbollah is an organization that is alive and well inside Lebanon and that’s it.”
The Bush administration’s comments on the Siniora government were also criticized by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman told the Forward that they reflected a similarly misguided view that the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, could be counted on to stop Hamas from launching attacks against Israel.
“The administration and Western countries want to shore up the Lebanese government but it is a misguided policy to do so and the same holds true for Abu Mazen,” said Foxman, referring to the Palestinian president by his nom-de-guerre. “They feel it’s better than a vacuum, but you should not support what’s meaningless. And we knew from day one that Abu Mazen would go nowhere and that the Lebanese government would be ineffective.”The Bush administration was praised by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which is made up of 52 groups, including the ADL, for asserting Israel’s right to defend itself. “We appreciate President Bush’s statement that ‘Israel has a right to defend herself,’” the conference’s chairman, Harold Tanner, and its executive vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, said in a statement. “Every nation must defend herself against terrorist attacks and the killing of innocent life.’ The cross-border attack, kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, and barrage of rockets by Hezbollah was a clear case of aggression, to which President Bush gave an unequivocal and principled response.”The raging warfare in Lebanon and Gaza is underscoring what several observers have described as a fundamental conflict between the two major pillars of the Bush administration’s foreign policy: fighting terrorism and spreading democracy. President Bush worked to strike a balance between both principles during his press conference Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Israel has a right to defend herself,” Bush said, in response to a question. “Every nation must defend herself against terrorist attacks and the killing of innocent life. It’s a necessary part of the 21st century.”The president, however, quickly added that Israel “should not weaken the Siniora government in Lebanon.”“We’re concerned about the fragile democracy in Lebanon,” Bush said. “We’ve been working very hard through the United Nations and with partners to strengthen the democracy in Lebanon. The Lebanese people have democratic aspirations, which is being undermined by the actions and activities of Hezbollah.”
Some observers questioned whether the White House could succeed in achieving both aims.
“There is an inherent internal conflict in this and I do not know how the Bush administration will deal with it,” said W. Patrick Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on the Middle East. In a Thursday press conference, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Secretary State Condoleezza Rice blamed the crisis on Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, while also echoing Bush’s remarks about Lebanon’s democratic government and said that the message had been communicated to Jerusalem.
“We’ve had a number of comments and conversations about the need to try and shore up and not destabilize the Siniora government in Lebanon,” Hadley said. “This is a good government that is trying to bring — create a democracy and freedom to Lebanon, has a lot of challenges. This is one more challenge that they do not need. So we talked about how to strengthen and avoid undermining the Lebanese government.”
Rice added: “The strategic issue of giving Lebanese democracy a chance has been communicated to the Israelis. They understand this. They want the Siniora government to succeed, as well, because I think they understand that there’s a good opportunity here for a different kind of Lebanon. So, of course, that’s been communicated.

Israel Seeks To Eliminate Iran’s Hezbollah Option
By Ori Nir-July 14, 2006
WASHINGTON — In addition to securing the release of its captured soldiers and stopping the ongoing wave of missile attacks, a major goal of Israel’s current operation is to strengthen its hand in dealing with Iran. Israel is fighting in Lebanon with an eye on Iran, Hezbollah’s sponsor, as the Islamic Republic is poised to become Israel’s sole existential threat by acquiring nuclear weapons. “This is about Iran as much as it is about Hezbollah or Lebanon,” said Lieutenant Colonel (reserve) Amos Guiora, the former commander of the IDF School of Military Law and currently a professor at Western Reserve University School of Law.
Iran, which reportedly gives Hezbollah $100 million a year, has been using the Shiite Islamist group as an anti-Israel military proxy for years, mainly by equipping it with thousands of rockets and missiles that can reach deep into Israel. Most of Hezbollah’s stockpile was provided by Iran and delivered through Syria, according to Israeli and American intelligence.
Tehran’s goal in arming Hezbollah, Israeli experts say, was to deter an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Now, by destroying these missiles during its current operation in Lebanon, Israel is attempting to restore its military flexibility and shattered deterrence against terrorism. According to Israeli press reports, Israel’s intelligence community is convinced that Iran approved Hezbollah’s July 12 cross-border attack in which two Israeli soldiers were abducted and seven killed. By igniting the Israeli-Lebanese border, Israeli diplomats said, Iran is trying to divert attention from its standoff with the West over Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Israeli security sources told reporters that hours before the Hezbollah attack, following his defiant meeting with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, stopped in Beirut and met with senior Hezbollah leaders. In that meeting with Hezbollah leaders, Israeli security officials speculate, the green light was given for the terrorist group’s raid into Israel.
Lebanese Cabinet ministers, following a stormy Thursday emergency meeting, publicly accused their two Hezbollah colleagues of staging the operation in the service of Iran and Syria.
Hezbollah is believed to posses about 10,000 projectile weapons, most of them old Soviet-made multiple-rocket Katyusha launchers of two calibers, 107mm and 122mm, which Iran used in its war with Iraq in the 1980s. They have a range of five miles. But the organization also has hundreds of Iranian-made missiles with a 20-mile range and dozens if not hundreds of Iranian Fajr missiles of several types, with longer ranges. Hezbollah reportedly has three types of such Fajr missiles, which Iran’s aircraft industry manufactures with the help of North Korean and Chinese expertise. These have a range of 25 to 45 miles, and perhaps even more. The two missiles that hit the major Israeli port city of Haifa Thursday, 18 miles from the Lebanese border, were Iranian-made Fajr missiles, according to official Israeli reports.
About 2 million Israeli citizens, almost a quarter of the country’s population, live within the 45-mile range of the Fajr missiles. Israel’s main oil refinery, some of its chief industrial plants and several of it most sensitive military bases also sit within the target range. Hezbollah is striving to become a dominant player in Lebanon and in the Muslim world, observers have said. Despite its Lebanese roots, the terrorist organization has for years been trying — with significant success — to play a role in the Palestinian struggle against Israel by arming, recruiting and training Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza. It has even attempted to mobilize Israeli Arab citizens to take part in terrorist attacks against their own country.
By kidnapping the two Israeli soldiers, according to the organization’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah is striving to secure the release of several of its senior leaders who are jailed in Israel. In addition, Nasrallah said, Hezbollah is trying to strengthen the hand of the Palestinian militants who are seeking the release of Palestinian prisoners in return for the Israeli soldier they kidnapped last month and took into Gaza. Since May 2000, when Israel unilaterally ended its 22-year occupation of South Lebanon, Hezbollah has enjoyed tremendous prestige in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world as the only Arab force that has ever succeeded in pushing Israel from occupied territory by force. Its prestige also stems from its vast network of social welfare, education and health care services. Due to its public standing and the overwhelming power of Hezbollah’s army of thousands of committed fighters, the government of Lebanon has been unwilling to confront this large, well-armed militia. Beirut has failed to enforce the 2004 United Nations Security Council resolution that calls for disbanding all militias in Lebanon and extending government control over all Lebanese territory. Hezbollah, “in many ways is stronger than the Lebanese government,” said Hisham Melhem Washington bureau chief of Beirut’s Al-Nahar newspaper. Israeli officials insist that the Lebanese government is responsible for the current escalation because of its failure to dismantle Hezbollah’s mini-state in the south and its political alliance with the organization.

Hezbollah drone batters Israeli warship
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah rammed an Israeli warship with an unmanned aircraft rigged with explosives Friday, setting it ablaze after Israeli warplanes smashed Lebanon's links to the world one by one and destroyed the headquarters of the Islamic guerrilla group's leader.
The attack on the warship off Beirut's Mediterranean coast indicated Hezbollah has added a new weapon to the arsenal of rockets and mortars it has used against Israel. The Israeli army said the ship suffered severe damage and was on fire hours later as it headed home. There were no details on the ship's crew, though Al-Jazeera TV said the Israeli military was searching for four missing sailors. "You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war," Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a taped statement. He vowed to strike even deeper into Israel with rockets.
Israel again bombarded Lebanon's airport and main roads in the most intensive offensive against the country in 24 years. For the first time it struck the crowded Shiite neighborhood of south Beirut around Hezbollah's headquarters, toppling overpasses and sheering facades off apartment buildings. Concrete from balconies smashed into parked cars, and car alarms set off by the blasts blared for hours.
The toll in three days of clashes rose to 73 killed in Lebanon and at least 12 Israelis, as international alarm grew over the fighting and oil prices rose to above $78 a barrel. The U.N. Security Council held an emergency session on the violence, and Lebanon accused Israel of launching "a widespread barbaric aggression."
Despite fears the assault could bring down the Western-backed, anti-Syrian government of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed the campaign would continue until Hezbollah guerrillas, who are backed by Syria and Iran, lose their near-control of southern Lebanon bordering Israel.
Olmert agreed in a phone call with U.N. chief Kofi Annan to allow U.N. mediation for a cease-fire — but only if the terms include the disarming of Hezbollah and the return of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by the Muslim guerrillas Wednesday triggered the fighting. Hezbollah rained dozens of rockets on towns in northern Israel. One rocket hit a home in Meron, killing a woman and her grandson. Some 220,000 people in northern towns hunkered down in bomb shelters.
Nasrallah was not hurt after the Israeli missiles demolished his headquarters among two buildings in Beirut's southern neighborhoods, the militant group said. Three people died in the airstrikes.
The attack on the warship was apparently timed to coincide with Nasrallah's message on the militant group's television station. "The surprises that I have promised you will start now. Now in the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship ... look at it burning," Nasrallah boasted.
Israeli military officials said the drone apparently was developed by Hezbollah. The Lebanese guerrilla group has managed to fly unmanned spy drones over northern Israel at least twice in recent years. "If they kill us all, we will still not give them back the prisoners," said one resident, Nasser Ali Nasser, as palls of smoke rose from fuel depots hit farther south. "We have nothing left to lose except our dignity. We sacrifice ourselves for Sheik Nasrallah," he said.
President Bush, who has backed Israel's right to defend itself, spoke by phone with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora from a G-8 summit in Russia and "reiterated his position" that the Israeli attacks should limit any impact on civilians, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
But the promise fell short of the Lebanese leader's request for pressure for a cease-fire. Israel's campaign appeared to have a two-pronged goal. One was to batter Hezbollah and end its near control of the south on Israel's borders.
"We know it's going to be a long and continuous campaign and operation, but it's very clear. We need to put Hezbollah out of business," Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan told The Associated Press. Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said Hezbollah has rockets that can reach as far as 43.5 miles or more, which would bring more Israeli cities, such as Hadera, within range. The other goal was to seal off Lebanon by repeatedly striking its airport and main roads — including the coastal highway from north to south and the Beirut-Damascus highway, Lebanon's main land link to the outside world. At the same time, Israel was gradually escalating the damage to the country's infrastructure, painstakingly rebuilt since the civil war ended in 1990. Israel holds Lebanon responsible for the capture of its two soldiers in a surprise Hezbollah raid; the Lebanese government insists it had nothing to do with the attack. However, Israel wants it to rein in the guerrillas, a move Lebanon has long resisted. The level of damage inflicted by Israel appeared finely calibrated. For example, a missile punched a hole in a major suspension bridge on the Beirut-Damascus road but did not destroy it, unlike less expensive bridges on the road that were brought down. An Israeli strike hit fuel depots at one of Beirut's two power stations — sending massive fireballs and smoke into the sky — but avoided the station itself.
Throughout the morning, Israeli fighter-bombers pounded runways at Beirut's airport for a second day, apparently trying to ensure its closure after the Lebanese national carrier, Middle East Airlines, managed to evacuate its last five planes to Jordan. One bomb hit close to the terminal building.
Civilian casualties were mounting faster than during Israel's last major offensive in Lebanon, in 1996, an assault also sparked by Hezbollah attacks. In that campaign, 165 people were killed over 17 days, including 100 in the shelling of a U.N. base. "We are on the right and we shall avenge every attack we endure," said Fadi Haidar, an American-Lebanese who swept up the shattered glass outside his store in south Beirut. "I have huge debts and now my store is damaged. ... But as time goes by, they will all realize that Sayyed Nasrallah is right and is working in the interest of Muslims." There was some resentment that Hezbollah had dragged the Lebanese into another bloody fight with Israel. "As long as Hezbollah has its weapons and acts according to its leader's whims, there is pretext for Israel to keep on destroying Lebanon," said Ibrahim al-Hajj, a Christian shop owner in the southern village of Qleia.
**AP correspondents Karin Laub and Josef Federman in Jerusalem, and Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, contributed to this report.

US called on to 'do something' on Mideast -- but what?
by Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government faced familiar calls to intervene as Middle East conflict threatened to boil out of control.
But President George W. Bush's administration had few obvious options, and given past reluctance to dive into regional peacemaking and distaste for pressuring Israel, it was uncertain whether it would use the few diplomatic tools it had.
Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican often critical of the administration, led domestic calls for action.
"In this fragile situation, an escalation of violence could produce a region-wide conflict that engulfs United States and the rest of the world," he said.
"The United States must quickly and actively help stabilize and work to de-escalate this dangerously volatile situation."
Analysts said one logical US strategy would be to lead world powers at this weekend's G8 summit in Russia in heaping pressure on Iran and Syria to halt support for Hezbollah. Damascus and Tehran must pay a price for backing Hezbollah, which catalysed the conflagration by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing eight others, they said. Simultaneously, Washington would prevail on Israel to limit the conflict in Lebanon and avoid targeting civilians and installations like Beirut airport, for instance. But even this tactic is fraught with problems, as the United States is at odds on the issue with several allies, its support for Israel's actions contrasting with criticism from Europe. It is also doubtful whether Syria and Iran could be forced to blink.
"The states that are really involved are two states that we don't really talk to," said Jon Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"This administration is not really interested in appeasing the Iranians and the Syrians, but (anyway), what can it do to really pressure the Iranians and the Syrians?"
Bush spoke by telephone with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and King Abdullah II of Jordan Friday, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. As violence spread, US calls on Israel have become slightly firmer: Rice asked Olmert's government to "exercise restraint" late Thursday. But many in Washington believe Israel is quite justified in its actions after the kidnappings, killings and Hezbollah rocket attacks on its soil. "The Israelis have the right to do everything necessary to preserve their integrity," said Republican Senator John McCain. "Israel is responding to attacks." And even if Washington did intervene -- without any kind of threat, for instance, tied to the billions of dollars of aid Washington sends to Israel -- it is unclear if Olmert would listen.
"My thought is they (Israel) just want us to stay out," said David Aaron, of the Center for Middle East Public Policy. Edward Walker, former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt, said Israel would not cede to pressure without its security burden being lifted. "The only way to rein in Olmert is having a very active US policy that targets Iran and Syria and tries to build an international coalition behind a resolution of this problem," he said. But Republican Senator John Warner warned that Israel's action could harm wider US interest in the region. "While I fully recognize that Israel was the victim of provocative attacks ... I urge the administration to think through very carefully how Israels extraordinary reaction could affect our operations in Iraq and our joint diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue," he said. Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation think tank said that, while justified in striking Hezbollah, Israel could not be allowed to inflame the region.
"What the United States has not done is said (to Israel): 'You will pay a consequence, as well, for an outrageously disproportionate response.'"
Some observers also question, with the United States so stretched in Iraq, how much influence it has to wield. "Because we are so tied down in terms of our responsibilities and our concerns in Iraq, there's very little time for -- not just militarily and economically, but in terms of the brain power of the administration," influential Democratic Senator Joseph Biden said on MSNBC. There is a sense here that things will get worse before Washington acts.
"You are not about to see a strong and effective intervention. The G8 will issue a statement, there will be some hand-wringing, but nobody will have a clear idea what to do," said Alterman. "My experience with the Middle East is that there is a moment when people see themselves perched on the edge of an abyss, and we are not at the moment. "Until we are there, I am not persuaded that we are going to see any other government doing anything dramatic."

Hezbollah `air power' first flew in 2004
By The Associated Press
Hezbollah's remote-controlled attack on a warship Friday marked a first in the militant group's use of "air power" against its powerful enemy, the technologically advanced Israeli military.
The Lebanese militia had launched similar unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, against Israel at least twice before, in November 2004 and April 2005, when they crossed over Israel's northern border on apparent reconnaissance flights, lasting just minutes before they returned to Lebanese territory.
On Friday, however, a Hezbollah drone loaded with explosives slammed into an Israeli navy vessel off Lebanon, causing severe damage and leaving it burning as it turned and cruised homeward, Israeli officials reported. The Arab television channel al-Jazeera said four sailors were missing after the attack.
After Hezbollah's first use of a drone in 2004, its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, warned that the pilotless aircraft were capable of carrying explosives and striking deep into Israel. On Friday, Nasrallah went on the air again, telling listeners the damaged ship could be seen off Beirut. "Look at it burning," he said.
Israel claimed in 2004 that the drone, dubbed by Hezbollah the "Mirsad 1," or "observation post" in Arabic, was Iranian-made. On Friday, however, Israeli officials suggested it had been developed by the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group, as Hezbollah itself has claimed in the past.
Defense analyst John Pike of the Washington-based firm Global Security doubted that claim.
"I think Hezbollah has people capable of rigging explosives to a drone, but I don't think they could develop a UAV on their own," he said. Global Security's website notes that a leading Arab newspaper, London-based Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, once reported that Iran sold eight Mohajer-4 drones to Hezbollah.
Iran fields several types of UAVs, including one, called the Ababil, with a 9-foot-long body, capable of flying for 90 minutes, and able to carry a 90-pound payload. Nasrallah was quoted in 2004 as saying Hezbollah's drones could carry 40 kilograms — 90 pounds — of explosives.
The drone's TV camera makes it relatively easy to mount such an attack, Pike said.
"It's not bigtime rocket science to put explosives on the thing and then use the TV camera to home in on the ship," he said.

Israel says Hezbollah drone damages warship
By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - An unmanned Hezbollah aircraft rigged with explosives slammed into an Israeli warship late Friday, causing heavy damage to the vessel, military officials said.
The attack indicated that Hezbollah has added a new weapon to the arsenal of rockets and mortars it has used against Israeli troops.
The army said the warship suffered severe damage and several hours after the attack, was still on fire as it headed back to Israel. There was no word on casualties, though the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera reported the Israeli military was searching for four missing sailors after the ship was hit by a rocket.
The military officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media. The army spokesman's office would say only that the cause of the attack was still under investigation.
Hezbollah has managed to fly unmanned spy drones over northern Israel at least twice in recent years.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV had reported that guerillas attacked an Israeli warship that had been firing missiles into south Beirut.
"Now in the middle of the sea, facing Beirut, the Israeli warship that has attacked the infrastructure, people's homes and civilians — look at it burning," Hezbollah's leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said.Immediately after Nasrallah's pre-recorded audio tape was aired, Arab television showed nighttime footage of what they said was the Israeli warship burning. But the footage was unclear.

Human Rights Watch
hrw-news@topica.email-publisher.com
July 14, 2006
Subject : Lebanon/Israel: Do Not Attack Civilians
Lebanon/Israel: Do Not Attack Civilians Israel and Hizballah Threaten to Hit Populated Areas
(New York, July 13, 2006) — Hizballah and Israel must not under any circumstances attack civilians in Israel and Lebanon, Human Rights
Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on all sides to scrupulously respect the absolute prohibition against targeting civilians or carrying out
attacks that indiscriminately harm civilians.
"Hizballah and Israel must make protecting civilians the priority, and direct attacks only at military targets," said Joe Stork, deputy director of
the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch said that attacks on civilians, or acts to intimidate civilians, clearly violate international humanitarian law, and may constitute war crimes, even if carried out in reprisal for attacks by an adversary on one's own civilians.
Following Hizballah's capture of two Israeli soldiers from the Israeli side of the Lebanese border yesterday, Israel launched air and artillery attacks
against targets in Lebanon, including Beirut's international airport and bridges and highways south of the capital, and instituted an air, sea, and
land blockade. According to media reports, the attacks have killed at least 55 civilians and wounded more than 100. Hizballah forces have launched
scores of rockets across the border into northern Israel, killing two civilians and injuring approximately 150.
Today, Israeli military officials and Hizballah leaders traded threats to attack areas populated by civilians. The Israeli chief of staff, Brig.Gen.
Dan Halutz, noted in public remarks that senior Hizballah leaders live and work in southern Beirut, and said Beirut could be targeted if Hizballah
continued to fire rockets into northern Israel. "Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], it's as simple as that," Halutz said. A Hizballah statement said, "In case the southern suburb of Beirut or the city of Beirut come under direct Israeli attack, we announce that we will bombard the city of Haifa and its environs." Israeli media reports quoted an unnamed officer of the Israel Defense Forces as saying, "If they attack Haifa and Hadera, it will constitute a reason to severely damage Lebanese
infrastructures, including Hizballah's 20-storey buildings inside Beirut."
This evening some media reported that at least one rocket fired from Lebanon had landed in or near Haifa. Hizballah reportedly denied it had
launched any such attacks. At the time of writing, Israeli media reported that the Israeli Air Force was dropping leaflets in Beirut urging people to
leave areas where Hizballah leaders live or work. International humanitarian law requires that armed forces distinguish between combatants and civilians, and between military objects and civilian objects, at all times. It is also forbidden to carry out indiscriminate attacks or attacks that cause damage disproportionate to the anticipated concrete military advantage.
For more of Human Rights Watch's work on the Middle East, please visit: http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast

CCD applauds Prime Minister Harper's clarity on Middle East crisis
For Immediate Release
Toronto, Canada, Friday, July 14, 2006 - Interviewed by Canadian media en route to London for the G8 conference in Russia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Canadian media that, “Israel has a right to defend itself”. He said countries that have influence in the region must “encourage the recognition of Israel’s right to exist”.
While a reporter tried to make the case that such a military response was disproportionate to kidnapping, the Prime Minister was clear that this is not just a response to kidnapping, but a defence of “Israel’s right to exist” and that the “response was measured”. He was also clear that the blame for current fighting lay squarely with Hamas and Hezbollah.
“For over a decade, no Canadian Prime Minister has expressed such unambiguous support for a sister democracy under attack,” said Alastair Gordon, President of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). “Israel’s obvious right of self-defence has been denied by former government leaders in this country, a right that Canadians would demand for themselves under similar circumstances.
"Canada supported Israel when she pulled out of south Lebanon and Gaza. Now that those lands have been turned into bases from which to wage war, it is only logical that Canada is supporting Israel in removing those threats.”
"The changes to Canada's foreign policy since the election have re-established Canada as a leading voice for liberal Western values," said David Harris, CCD Senior Fellow for National Security. "Canadians look forward to Prime Minister Harper's continuing leadership in the defence of freedom, democracy and the rule of law when he meets with world leaders at the G8 Conference."
CCD commends the Stephen Harper government and in particular Foreign Minister Peter MacKay for bringing a new era to Canadian foreign relations. In only six months since its election in January, this government has taken steps to position Canada as a global leader in a pro-democracy foreign policy, including:
· July 11 - Standing with India in condemnation of the recent terrorist atrocities in Mumbai and Kashmir;
· July 10 - Minster MacKay’s clear statement about the “culture of impunity that prevails in Iran” on the anniversary of the murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi by Iranian authorities;
· July 4 - Denying entry to Canada of an imam with a history of inciting hatred against Jews and Hindus and praising martyrdom as the duty of true Muslims;
· June 21 - Minister MacKay’s expression of “disgust at the fact that Iran would choose to include … [Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, implicated in the murder of Zahra Kazemi] in its delegation to a new UN body intended to promote … human rights”;
· June 19 - Condemnation of Burma’s recent decision to extend the detention of democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi;
· June 16 – Prime Minister’s commitment to upgrade security infrastructure and services in Canada, saying, “Canada can choose to ignore terrorism, but terrorism will not ignore Canada”;
· May 12 - Support for the defence of Canada by Peter MacKay and National Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor by renewal of the North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) Agreement;
· May 2 – Announcement of $15.3 billion in additional spending on Canada’s military over the next 5 years;
· May 1 – Announcement of Air India inquiry to discover why Canada failed to find and convict those responsible for the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history and how to prevent and successfully prosecute future threats;
· April 27 - Resolution of the softwood lumber trade dispute with the United States;
· April 27 – Condemnation of the arrest of Belarus’s opposition leader, Alexander Milinkevich;
· April 17 – Condemnation of Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, following years of official silence by the former government on terror attacks against Israelis;
· April 8 - Designating the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization;
· March 29 – Announcement by Peter MacKay that “Canada will have no contact with the members of the Hamas cabinet and is suspending assistance to the Palestinian Authority” following the election of a Hamas-dominated government to the Palestinian Authority;
· March 13 – Stephen Harper’s visit to Afghanistan to support our troops in the building of peace and democracy in a former terrorist incubator, and to renew our commitment to that mission;
· March 12 - Standing against the tide of ritualized anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations;
· March 8 – Condemnation of bombings in Varanasi, India by Islamist terrorists;
· January to July – Renewal of a mature and constructive relationship with the United States and an end to anti-Americanism as an electoral tool.

A matter of opinion
By Ari Shavit, Ha'aretz-July 14, 2006
Almost a year. A year less 40 days since the Israel Defense Forces declared Gush Katif - the Israeli settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip - a closed area. A year less six weeks since the IDF appeared in blue uniforms at the entrance to the settlements. The shouts, the mob scenes, the burning tires. The settlers being carried from their homes. The evacuation of the congregations from their synagogues. And those containers. The bulldozers. The erasure of 25 Zionist villages. The closure of the Kissufim checkpoint after the last occupation soldier exited through the gates of Gaza.
Almost a year and we are back inside. Not in the form of settlements but with 155 mm shells. Not in the form of communities but in ground incursions. In the destruction of infrastructures. Cutting off power, cutting off water, setting buildings ablaze. An Israeli-Palestinian mutual bear hug such as we have not seen for a long time: the mortal fear over the kidnapped Israeli versus the mortal fear over the kidnapped Palestinians. The mortal fear of Sderot versus the mortal fear of Beit Hanun. The fire of the Qassams versus the Hellfire. And a blind circle of violence that heightens violence. Killing that heightens killing. A rising feeling that the mire of Gaza has been replaced by the mire of the border of Gaza. A border that has become a place of non-peace. Of non-security. An Israeli-Palestinian border of non-disengagement. With no real possibility of disengagement.
Does the outbreak of violence of the past few weeks attest to the failure of the disengagement? Does it show that the bold attempt to end part of the occupation unilaterally has gone seriously awry? Four people were asked their opinion. Lieutenant General (res.) Moshe Ya'alon, the chief of staff until shortly before the disengagement, spoke passionately by telephone from his current place of residence in Washington. The chairman of Bezeq Telecommunications and former adviser to former prime minister Sharon, Dov Weissglas, wearing light-hearted and colorful summer attire, spoke relaxedly in a comfortable cafe in Ramat Hasharon. MK Yossi Beilin, the leader of Meretz, analyzed the situation in the air-conditioned living room of his home in North Tel Aviv. The chief of the Shin Bet security service until not long before the disengagement, Avi Dichter, now the minister of public security, spoke his piece in his maroon-colored office, located in the gloomy government compound in East Jerusalem.
Lieutenant General (res.) Moshe Ya'alon:
"There is no doubt that the disengagement failed. The failure was to be expected. It stems from the fact that underlying the disengagement was a baseless idea. It did not derive from a thorough strategic analysis but from political distress and from the personal distress of prime minister Ariel Sharon. Accordingly, what we actually had was an internal Israeli game that ignored events outside Israel. What we had was disengagement from reality and disengagement from the truth. The entire process created a false hope that was not based on strategy and was not based on facts.
"In large measure, the disengagement was a media spin. Those who initiated it and led it had no background in strategy, in security, in statesmanship or in history. They were image advisers. They were 'spinologists.' And what those people did was to place Israel into a virtual bubble divorced from reality by means of a huge media spin, which is now unraveling before our eyes.
"The conceptual flaw that underlies the disengagement is the following: the fact that there is no one to talk to on the other side does not mean that we can ignore the other side or the consequences our actions have on it. The fact that not even Fatah is ready to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state and is committed to the 'phased doctrine' does not mean that we can ignore the fact that fleeing under fire is construed as surrender and that it encourages terrorism.
"It is true that because there is no partner, the political process has to be stopped at an early stage with the explicit assertion that there is no partner. It is also true that in this situation there is no choice but to take unilateral measures. But unilateral measures are not only withdrawal. Unilateral measures are also a diplomatic offensive, and perhaps also a military offensive, and an ideological offensive.
"The deep problem is that in its struggle against the Palestinians, Israel is waging a battle of withdrawal and delay. It has withdrawn stage by stage toward a two-state solution, which can?t work because it lacks a Palestinian partner. The basic paradigm of the two-state solution is an irrelevant one. In the present situation, it cannot be implemented. Therefore, what Israel has to do is to undermine this paradigm, not entrench it.
"The unilateral move of disengagement did exactly the opposite. It strengthened the Palestinian narrative and weakened the Israeli narrative. It entrenched the expectation of additional withdrawals in the West Bank without an agreement and without a quid pro quo. It deprived Israel of assets without giving it assets.
"Above all, though, the disengagement created four dangerous precedents. The first is the precedent of withdrawal to the Green Line. This will make things very difficult for us in Judea and Samaria when we come to demand territories that are vital for our security. The second precedent is the evacuation of settlements without anything in return. The result of that precedent is that the evacuation of settlements in Judea and Samaria is now perceived as being self-evident and not as a painful move in return for which Israel receives what it needs for its existence and security. The third precedent is forgoing demilitarization and forgoing supervision of the borders. That precedent did away with a vital Israeli demand, which was part of the Oslo Accords and of every peace agreement that was talked about in the past.
"However, the fourth precedent is the gravest of all: Israel undertook all the concessions entailed in the disengagement without obtaining international recognition that the occupation of Gaza has ended. Despite all we did, we are still perceived as being responsible for the fate of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"When the present confrontation began, in 2000, I argued that if we did not wake up in terms of understanding it, and if we continued with the withdrawal and delay, an existential threat to Israel?s future would be created. That was why I said we had to sear the Palestinian consciousness. That was why I said that the war of terrorism must end with terrorism defeated, with the Palestinians understanding that terrorism does not produce gains.
"In the summer of 2003, we had made great progress toward achieving that goal. Militarily, we suppressed terrorism and induced the terrorist organizations to accept an unconditional cease-fire. Politically, we persuaded more and more international bodies and individuals that [former PA chairman] Arafat was the problem and not a solution. But then came the disengagement and everything went haywire. It caused the loss of all the assets we accumulated in the years of the war.
"The disengagement was a cardinal strategic error. It led to the victory of Hamas. It provided a tailwind for terrorism. It nourished the Palestinian struggle for years to come. It gave the Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida the feeling that Israel can be defeated. That Israel really is a spider-web society, as Nasrallah claims, or a rotten tree, as Ahmadinejad claims. Thus the disengagement did severe damage not only to Israel, it also damaged the U.S. regional strategy of the war against terrorism. It gave extreme Islam the feeling that just as it defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, it defeated us in Gaza and will defeat us in the West Bank and will defeat us also in Tel Aviv. In this way, as it already once undermined a world power, it will now undermine the West by defeating Israel.
"Now we are in the southern Lebanon scenario in the Gaza Strip. A great deal of weaponry has entered Gaza. Standard-issue explosives have entered. Katyushas have entered. There are antiaircraft missiles. Antitank missiles. Grad missiles. As a result of the disengagement and the way it was executed, there are in Gaza Hezbollah agents, Al-Qaida agents and Iranian terrorist agents. There is Iranian know-how and there is Iranian money. Just as I warned, the Gaza Strip is turning into Hamastan, Hezbollahstan and Al-Qaidastan.
"The situation will only get worse with time. The failure of the disengagement will be more and more concrete. We will find ourselves facing a kingdom of terror that is capable of launching into Israel more rockets of greater range and greater effectiveness. The rocket threat will reach Ashkelon and Ashdod and deep into the Negev. It will not be possible to deal with that threat solely by means of aerial attacks. Therefore, if we want to go on living, we may have no other choice than to launch an Operation Defensive Shield in Gaza.
"The advocates of the disengagement claimed it would bring us international support. But the international credit we received was limited and temporary, and it has already run out. The advocates of the disengagement claimed it would improve our security situation. It is true that from the narrow military aspect the present deployment is more convenient for the IDF, but our overall security situation has worsened in the wake of the disengagement. There is no saving in manpower or in money, as was promised. There is no calm and no stability. There is a serious blow to the civilian infrastructure of Sderot and Ashkelon. There is a process of population deserting those areas.
"The fact that we did not stick to our promise that if Qassam rockets were fired after the disengagement we would react with all our force, eroded our deterrence, adversely affected our status in the region and also encouraged Iran. The present operation, too, is not the result of the firing of Qassams. In practice we accepted the firing of the Qassams as though it were rain. We inserted permission to fire Qassams at Sderot into the rules of the game. That restraint was a serious mistake. If firing is permissible from Gaza at Sderot, firing is also permissible from Lebanon into Galilee. There is a serious problem here of loss of deterrence for which we will pay dearly.
"One of the reasons the majority of the Israeli public supported the disengagement was that it was blinded and dazzled and drugged, and also because the public has a true desire to be freed from the burden of the conflict and to divide the land. But we have to understand that even when we try to get the Palestinians off our back they do not get off our back, they stab us.
"We must not deceive ourselves. We live in the Middle East. We cannot entrench ourselves behind fences and walls. That is why there is really no unilaterality. Even when there is no dialogue with our neighbors, there is interaction with them. Every step of ours has implications for them. And whoever projects weakness in the Middle East is like a weak animal in the wild: it is attacked. It is not left alone, it is attacked. Therefore, if we now try to continue the failed disengagement with the convergence, the result will be grave. We will give terrorism a terrible tailwind. We will provide a tailwind for radical Islam across the region. We will create a strategic threat to Jerusalem and to Ben-Gurion Airport and to the population centers of the coastal plain. The Qassams and the Katyushas will no longer be Sderot's problem. They will reach the front door in Tel Aviv."
Attorney Dov Weissglas
"One of the thoughts underlying the strategic perception of Ariel Sharon was awareness of the weakening, the disintegration, the loss of authority and the loss of control in the Palestinian Authority. As a result of this process, there was and is no partner on the other side of the diplomatic table - irrespective of the content of this or the other peace plan. No-partner is not a situation in which there are not two authorized signatories; no-partner means that even if there are two authorized signatories to sign an agreement, there is no prospect that the Palestinians will be able to implement it amid the chaotic collection of organizations, gangs, squads and violent segments of society within which they are acting.
"Accordingly, we adopted the road map, which in my view is one of Israel's greatest achievements since 1967. Because the road map stipulates that there will be no political process before the Palestinian collection of fragments goes back to being one state entity, which liquidates terrorism and functions as a state. The road map protects Israel against the need to enter into political negotiations with an entity rife with factions, leaders and rifles and awash in terrorism and violence.
"In the second half of 2003, it became clear to the prime minister that there was little chance that the Palestinians would implement the road map. Hence, the need for a unilateral move arose. In this sense, the disengagement plan anticipated the process of Palestinian disintegration and did not generate it. The disengagement is the Israeli response to the Palestinian chaos, and what is now happening in Gaza is post-factum proof that the unilateral concept was right.
"Imagine what would have happened if the Gazan waterfall of violent energy had been spilled on the heads of the thousands who lived in the Gaza Strip and traveled on the joint roads and lived just dozens of meters from the homes of the Palestinians. There were 8,000 civilians there, most of them women and children. And there were thousands of soldiers there. If that insane violence had shattered not on the wall that surrounds Gaza but on the settlers and soldiers there, we would have had a disaster. We would have had a bloodbath.
"It is true that in the present situation as well, the violence is erupting from Gaza, mainly in the form of Qassams. I do not make light of that. The Qassams do terrible damage. But reality has shown that the physical damage they do is not great. Therefore the disengagement was the most correct thing to do at the most correct time. It pulled a carpet of targets from under the feet of the insane Gazan terrorism, and dramatically reduced its ability to attack Israelis.
"People say the disengagement led to the rise of Hamas. They claim the disengagement was capitulation to terrorism and encouraged it. That is not correct. No sensible Palestinian draws a connection between the disengagement and terrorism. Who capitulated to terrorism? Terrorism stems from the process of the governmental and societal disintegration, which leads to an increase in internal and external violence; that process has nothing to do with the disengagement.
"The terrorism stems from the fact that many Palestinian forces have cast off all authority, all control and all obedience. They do not obey Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas] and many of them also do not obey [PA Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh. Some of them take orders from Damascus, some from Tehran, some operate on their own. There is a total systemic breakdown in the Palestinian Authority and in the Palestinian society, the almost complete realization of the principle that the law of the jungle prevails.
"The disengagement has nothing to do with this, for good or for ill. I do not see how a specific event in time and place, such as the disengagement, which makes things dramatically easier for the Palestinians, has anything to do, one way or another, with the political change that occurred in the PA, which is the realization of a deep social and religious process lasting many years. People also say we should have done more to help Abu Mazen. That is a captivating slogan. But the devil, as we know, is in the details. Any help to Abu Mazen would have meant a reduction in security. In terms of the checkpoints, arrests, searches and prevention. On the question of the prisoners. And whenever we would have brought about a reduction on these matters, the head of the snake of terrorism would have sprung forth from them.
"For this reason Sharon once told a senior European leader that he was ready to strengthen Abu Mazen in every way, but 'if you imagine that I will agree to the funeral of one Jew in order to strengthen Abu Mazen, you are making a serious mistake.' He raised his voice when he made that remark, in a way that is very uncharacteristic of him.
"The disengagement had a series of goals and it achieved them all. First of all, it entrenched, above all for the United States but also in most of the important countries of the international community, the Israeli political axiom of no negotiations under fire. That no Palestinian state will be established before the eradication of terrorism. It saved lives and accorded security to the soldiers and settlers who lived in Gaza. It aroused hope among the public and made possible the renewal of economic growth. It gave Israel credibility in the international community and dispelled the conventional suspicion that Israel will never budge by so much as a millimeter. It transferred the burden of political progress from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side.
"Now no one can claim that the shabbiness of the Palestinians' internal behavior is due to the occupation. There is no more credence to the Palestinian argument that they cannot function because an Israel tank is stationed in the town square. The disengagement illustrated the fact that Palestinian terrorism, wildness and violence, the absence of any signs of an orderly society, are not related to the Israeli presence. Hence the freedom of action the IDF now enjoys. Not only the United States but the European Union, too, now understands better the essence of the armed threat and therefore there has been a significant increase in the agreement of the international community - in practice and silently as well - with an aggressive and tough Israeli security policy.
"Beyond all this, in successfully implementing the disengagement Israel restored its honor. It proved it is capable of making decisions and executing them in an organized, orderly manner. The disengagement rehabilitated the nation?s confidence in its government and prime minister. It greatly improved the sense of national self-confidence. Tourism was renewed. Capital started to flow into the country again. The balance of personal security also improved greatly. Terrorism in the streets and terrorism on the buses disappeared. The shooting incidents on the roads in Judea and Samaria also declined greatly.
"Therefore I think that those who have reconsidered their support for the disengagement in light of the events of the past few weeks are wrong themselves and are leading others astray. The cost of remaining in certain places as opposed to the benefit of leaving them has to be weighed in cost-benefit terms. Unilaterality is not an answer to everything, but it is a necessity when a wave is approaching you and reality is closing in on us.
"Accordingly, I think the unilateral idea is right also for Judea and Samaria. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are different in a thousand dimensions. The garb the plan has to assume will be different for a thousand reasons, but at bottom the unilateral conception is right. It is the indivisible particle, because there are three options available to us. One is to forgo the first section of the road map, to negotiate under fire and to establish a Palestinian state built on an infrastructure of terrorism. The second it to wait until the Palestinians change and are fit to implement the road map. That will be a very long wait, an indefinite wait.
"The third option is the unilateral move. Everyone who is against the establishment of a terrorist state, who does not think that time is on our side, must reach the conclusion that we have to do something by ourselves. We have to take a unilateral initiative in Judea and Samaria as well. What kind of initiative it should be, its dimensions and stages - all that has to be discussed. It is a question worthy of exhaustive examination.
"Arik Sharon was first and foremost Mr. Security. The pair of words that in his view expressed the point and purpose of Israel's order of priorities is security and peace, in that order. There is no doubt he supported a broad unilateral move in Judea and Samaria, on the assumption that a permanent settlement is not possible and that a unilateral move will benefit Israel's security, international situation and domestic status. However, his greatness lay, among other elements, in the fact that his experienced brain worked incessantly and examined and reexamined the changing circumstances; if he had found the unilateral idea to be bad for Israel's security and unbeneficial, he would have drawn the necessary conclusions. He had no sacred cows.
"In this spirit, I say that as an aspiration the convergence process has to bring about a situation that Israelis will live on one side of the separation fence and the Palestinians on the other side. The fence has to bring into Israeli territory all the large Israeli settlement blocs and obtain the broadest possible international recognition in Israel's right to and presence in those blocs. However, a security response must be found for the new threats that are liable to emerge as a result of the convergence. Should it turn out that transferring the Israelis to one side of the fence and leaving the Palestinians on the other side is liable to cause unreasonable security risks, the matter will have to be considered comprehensively.
"All the decisions on this subject are choices between difficult alternatives. Unilateral action is not an answer to chaos. Chaos is a given. It obliges us to organize the possibilities for action in the right order of choice. What the chaos tells us is that a permanent agreement - which is without doubt the most desirable alternative - is impossible. At this time we have to choose between a bad alternative and a worse alternative. I still believe that the continuation of the existing situation is the worst alternative. However, should it turn out, after a thorough examination, that the unilateral move will produce a worse situation, which will place Israeli lives and Israel's security in even greater danger, the unilateral move should not be implemented. It is my hope that this is not the case."
MK Yossi Beilin
"I hate being in a position of 'I told you so.' But a great many of those who warned against the consequences of the disengagement were right. People on both the right and the left believed a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza would strengthen the extremists, who do not want dialogue and peace. That is exactly what happened. From the point of view of many Palestinians, the withdrawal proved it is possible to achieve with violence what cannot be achieved by negotiation. Ten years of dialogue did not produce the results of four years of intifada.
"No Palestinian bought the spin according to which the disengagement was due to some deep political consideration on the part of Sharon. The disengagement was perceived as capitulation to terrorism. It played into the hands of Hamas, which used it to show that it was the only one that could liberate territories. Did Hamas win only because of the disengagement? No. But the disengagement gave it a tremendous advantage. Certainly the disengagement strengthened Hamas.
"As a result of the disengagement and as a result of the waste of an entire year in which Abu Mazen was in total control in the PA - from January 2005 until January 2006 - many Palestinians formed the impression that the Jews understand only force. Those Palestinians concluded that only the use of force and more force and more force would get Israel out of the West Bank in the same way that Israel left Gaza. Even before the Hamas victory, pragmatic Palestinian leaders asked me in closed meetings what in the world Israel was doing to them, why Israel was rendering them irrelevant. After all, it is very difficult to persuade the Palestinian public to embark on the oath of compromise and negotiations when Israel is giving everything for free, as a consequence of violent pressure.
"Not long ago one of the most senior and most moderate of the Palestinians told me even harsher things. For years, he said, we have been struggling on the Palestinian street for an Israeli-Palestinian peace. We explain that we have to accept the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and an exchange of territories and agree to demilitarization and make a compromise on the question of the refugees, so that in the end there will be a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But if Israel leaves all of Gaza and 90 percent of the West Bank, do you think we will be able persuade any Palestinian to agree to these painful concessions in return for the remaining 10 percent of the area? It is, then, completely clear that the cumulative result of the disengagement and the realignment will not be the hastening of a political process, but a forgoing of a political process. I say this unequivocally: the unilateral withdrawals distance the prospect for peace. We are asking the Palestinians to forgo quite a lot in a peace agreement. They will not agree to that in return for 10 percent of the West Bank.
"The disengagement had two virtues. One was that, as a result, we rule fewer Palestinians. The second was that it created the precedent of the evacuation of settlements on a massive scale. In both of those senses, it succeeded. But if anyone thought it would bring calm, the disengagement failed. If anyone thought it would bring us closer to a political process, it failed. It was the most idiotic way to leave Gaza. The most idiotic. It gave the Palestinians the feeling that there is no reason to make concessions and it gave the Israelis the feeling that withdrawals do not produce quiet. And now both of those feelings are mutually reinforcing each other. The Palestinians say that only force leads to withdrawal and are using force, and the Israelis see that use of force and conclude that withdrawal only heightens the violence.
"I foresaw this. I knew the disengagement would strengthen Hamas and that if it was not followed by negotiations, it would also heighten the violence. As a result, I faced a harsh dilemma over whether to support the disengagement. What tipped the scale is that a party like Meretz could not vote against the ending of occupation, however partial, or against the evacuation of settlements. A party like Meretz has no choice in this matter.
"So I supported the disengagement and wept, supported and wept. I supported it even though I knew it was the most wrongheaded move in the world. Now Olmert is talking about convergence. It?s clear that convergence is the most idiotic way to leave the West Bank. To leave 90 percent of the area? To leave without negotiations? Without a quid pro quo? Without an agreement? Last week I met Olmert and I told him: Benjamin Netanyahu is sitting here. He says the partner is weak and he doesn?t trust him and therefore he is not budging. I think he is wrong but I understand his logic. What I don?t understand, Olmert, is your logic. It?s not a provocation - I really don't understand it. What are you saying? That I have a weak partner whom I do not trust and therefore I am giving him 90 percent of the area for free? It?s clear, you know, what will happen in the territories if we implement the convergence. We will have Hamastan on both sides. While the whole world is fighting Islamic terrorism, we lend a hand to the development of a terror source. And we will make a historic concession of recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and on recognition of our eastern border, and on the removal from the agenda of the refugee problem. So this time it might be a death blow. Anyone who gives up 90 percent of the area and thinks this is an opening to future negotiations is hallucinating. A unilateral withdrawal from 90 percent of the West Bank means that there will be no incentive for a Palestinian leader ever to reach an agreement with us. The convergence means the most dramatic possible diminishment of the chance to reach a peace agreement in our lifetime.
"The convergence is worse than the disengagement from another point of view as well. In the disengagement, at least there was the complete evacuation of the settlements. Not one settler remained in the Gaza Strip. In the convergence, in contrast, the intention is to sweeten the pill for the settlers by allowing 70,000 of them to live in the 10 percent of the territory that will remain in Israel?s hands. That means building 15,000 homes across the Green Line. It means a building boom in the settlement blocs. We will not lend a hand to that. At most we will vote in favor of disengagement in the West Bank; we will not vote in favor of convergence. If the departure from the West Bank is conditional on the building of settlement blocs, we will vote against the convergence. Under no circumstances will we raise our hands to support massive building in blocs.
"Therefore, the convergence plan will not pass. Without Merertz, Olmert has 55 supporters on a clear day. With us, he has 60 and the prospect of support or abstention by the Arab parties. If we vote against the convergence, there is no chance that an Arab party will support it or abstain. On the other hand, if we vote for disengagement, there is a chance that some of them will vote in favor or abstain, in which case Olmert might have a narrow majority. So I say that there will be no convergence. Politically, there cannot be convergence. It is utterly absurd. But there might be disengagement.
"It is possible that in the end I will again support and cry. We are liable to undertake a historic move, which I will support, and which will prevent the attainment of the Zionist goal: a Jewish state living in peace with its neighbors. That could happen. But Ehud Olmert is intelligent. I respect him. So I hope he knows that he bears a heavy responsibility.
"And I insist that before leading us into such a wrongheaded move that he give us an explanation. An explanation of the logic. After all, he knows today that he will not get international recognition for the West Bank line. The Europeans told him explicitly that there is no chance that Europe will recognize his border as a permanent border. And if he said 90 percent as an opening position, he will get to 95 percent, too. In my opinion, he will not be able to get to less than 100 percent. And, if so, why not try an agreement? If you are ready to pay a Beilin price, why not try to get a Beilin quid pro quo?
"Take the worst-case scenario. Take the scenario in which, on the day after the signing, the Palestinian partner leaves for Paris and does not implement anything. You will still have foreign embassies in Jerusalem. You will still have diplomatic relations with Arab states. You will have international recognition of the eastern border. You will have no refugees on your head. So why not do it? For 10 percent? For 530 square kilometers? This is an incomprehensible approach. Incomprehensible. So I say that you can be Bibi. That has logic to it. And you can be Beilin. I certainly think that has logic. But you cannot be Olmert. Olmert's unilateral conception lacks all logic."
Cabinet minister Avi Dichter
"In a meeting in which I took part as head of a district in the Shin Bet more than a decade ago, Yitzhak Rabin asked if it wasn?t bloody well possible to saw off the Gaza Strip and let it float out to sea. We worked on that for many years, but unsuccessfully. So the decision of the political echelon was that if it was impossible to saw off Gaza from us, we would have to saw us from Gaza. That is the disengagement. It is a legitimate strategic decision by the political echelon.
"As head of the Shin Bet, I was asked what would happen after the disengagement and in its wake, and I said there would be a dramatic decrease in the number of terrorist attacks and that most of the operations against us would be Qassam attacks and fence attacks. That is exactly what happened. I was favorably surprised that from last September until the past two weeks, not one Israeli was killed by terrorism originating from the Gaza Strip. Ten months without any Israeli being killed - I think that is an extraordinary achievement.
"The problem that exists is the Qassam rockets. This is a matter for the political echelon: what the political echelon is ready to do to fight the Qassam rockets. When the prime minister stated at a cabinet meeting that Israel has to do everything, but everything, to obtain the release of [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit, I added that Israel must do everything, but everything, to stop the firing of the Qassams. The political echelon has to instruct the IDF to put a stop to the firing of the Qassams, no matter what. The IDF knows how to go about translating such a directive into operational terms. Even if it means turning Beit Hanoun into a ghost town. Because the alternative is turning Sderot into a ghost town.
"Contrary to what people in Israel think, the Palestinians are not terror magicians. They are just murderers who are shooting with the aim of killing Jews. For them the Qassams have become a replacement for ongoing terrorist attacks. But targeted assassination is not a solution to the Qassams. It is a solution against the fomenters of terrorism. But against the launchers of the Qassams a balance of deterrence has to be created similar to what existed in South Lebanon. That has not happened yet because we operated within a ritual of targeted assassinations. Consequently, the deterrence against those firing the Qassams was not effective. Now we have to create effective deterrence. And deterrence is created by pressure. You enter an area not to settle there, not because it is our patrimony. You enter in order to deliver a message. That is what was done in Lebanon: we went in and the population that fled northward created pressure on the government, which pressured Hezbollah to stop firing Katyushas. Hamas will not be able to remain indifferent to thousands of residents fleeing their homes because of the firing of Qassam rockets, for which it is responsible.
"The Qassams are not the result of the disengagement. About 600 were fired before the disengagement. Here, nothing has changed. On the other hand, the disengagement achieved its goal by pulling a whole carpet of targets from under the Palestinians? feet. It limited their ability to attack us, reducing it almost solely to the Qassams.
"But beyond that the goal of the disengagement was to pull up stakes from the Gaza Strip; not to be responsible for the Gaza Strip any longer. To bring about a situation where it is connected to Egypt, not Israel. And we achieved that goal. We handed back 5 percent of the territory of the Palestinian Authority and 40 percent of its residents. We created a situation in which there is one entity which is connected to Egypt, with certain rules of the game, and in Judea and Samaria there is another entity in which we are present everywhere, and where there are different rules of the game. Therefore, what will happen in Judea and Samaria is not a continuation of what happened in Gaza, but its opposite.
"The problem we face is this: there is a railway track of Oslo and a railway track of the road map, but there is no Palestinian engine that will pull any sort of train along that track. One day there will be a Palestinian partner, but today there is none. And without a Palestinian partner, there will be no Palestine. What we have here is a problem that has no solution. And when a problem has no solution, it has to be managed. The disengagement is the mode of managing the problem in the Gaza Strip; the convergence is a completely different technique for managing the problem in Judea and Samaria.
"Even though neither the government nor the Kadima party has a systematic convergence plan, the plan actually has two versions. One version says that the disengagement will be welcomed by the members of the Quartet [the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia], especially the U.S. In this case the convergence is into a small area that includes the large settlement blocs across the Green Line, when a final border is set with the Palestinian Authority with international agreement.
"The second version assumes that it will be impossible to obtain the Quartet?s blessing or agreement for any sort of convergence, in which case Israel would implement a more limited interim convergence into larger blocs and to a line that makes it possible to manage the problem vis-a-vis the Palestinians. In that case, a large part of the area remains in our hands. I prefer the first version, but the second version is the realistic one. I find it hard to see the Quartet giving its explicit blessing to convergence to final borders.
"But in both version A and version B, it is clear that the defense forces? access to all the terrorist areas cannot change. Today there is nothing Palestinian in Judea and Samaria to prevent terrorism. What prevents terrorism is solely blue-and-white forces. So it will be an unreasonable move to gamble on a situation in which we leave territories and things work out by themselves. It is unreasonable for Israel to make a security pullout from Nablus in the hope that the Nablus terrorism will somehow be resolved by itself. Regrettably, in this conflict things are not resolved if someone does not do the resolving. If you let up, you very quickly grow new mutations of terrorism that are liable to strike at us even if we finish building the separation fence. The buffer is not a substitute for our presence in every place. We are preventing terrorism in Judea and Samaria because since April 2002 we have been in every location. In the future, too, we will have to be everywhere, until a responsible Palestinian body is found that can take responsibility. The convergence will change only the deployment of the settlements in the field, not the deployment of the forces.
"We have to think ahead not in terms of a year or two or even five or ten years. We have to ready ourselves for the possibility that organizing for the interim convergence will be for many years. I am talking about a double-digit number of years. A number whose left digit is an unknown.
"I believe that in the end the Palestinian partner will be found, certainly in Judea and Samaria, because the Palestinians have something to lose there. Judea and Samaria is not Gaza. There is no extremist Shi'ite mentality there. But the deployment has to be for decades. Therefore the Jordan Rift Valley must be Israel?s eastern border. There is no other possibility in the unforeseeable Middle East reality. To think that the Palestinian Authority will be our eastern border is unreasonable. In addition, all the blocs adjacent to the Green Line will have to be in our territory, and the blocs that pull toward the Rift Valley. Ofra-Beit El, Kedumim-Karnei Shomron, Ariel. This conception involves the evacuation of fewer settlements, which can be done in dialogue with the leaders of Yesha [Judea-Samaria council of settlements].
"The disengagement was a success, but the convergence will be completely different. In Gaza we carried out a military and civilian disengagement, whereas in Judea and Samaria we will leave the glowing embers behind us. One gust of wind could set them all ablaze."

B'nai Brith mobilizes Canadians in strong show of support for Israel
From: "JEWISH CANADA" <news@jewishcanada.ca>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
B'nai Brith mobilizes Canadians in strong show of support for Israel -
Meets with Ambassador Designate to Israel to convey thanks
for Canadian Government's stance
TORONTO, July 14, 2006 - More than 1,000-strong gathered today on the streets of downtown Toronto in an Israel solidarity rally to demand the immediate and safe return of missing MIAs Corp. Gilad Shalit, 19, and soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.
"B’nai Brith has been proud to mobilize Canada's grassroots community through this rally, which attracted a range of Jewish and Christian organizations as co-sponsors, as well as the group Mothers of Missing Israeli MIAs. We were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for Israel by so many people, who joined together to call for an end to terror," said Frank Dimant, B'nai Brith Canada's Executive Vice President who addressed the crowd gathered in front on the Consulate General of Israel. "This message resonates on the streets of Toronto and in many cities across the globe where similar such rallies have been held.
"In advance of this afternoon's rally, B'nai Brith officials met with Canada's Ambassador- Designate to Israel, Mr. Jon Allen, and conveyed to him the gratitude and thanks of Canada's Jewish community for Prime Minister Harper's strong and principled stance in support of Israel.
"We welcome the statement by the Government of Canada condemning Hezbollah's attack on Israel and for rightly singling out Iran and Syria as countries that give support to the terrorist group. The Government clearly understands the threat, both at home and abroad, posed by terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and it is this message that emanated today from the streets of Toronto."
To access photos from today’s Toronto rally, click here: http://www.bnaibrith.ca/Vigil2006.html.

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Words and Music: Anonymous - From http://www.mia.org.il
"The sword is worse than death, famine is harder than the sword, captivity is worst of all..."
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra 8b)
Timeline of Recent Events
JUNE 25 – Corp. Gilad Shalit, 19, was abducted by Hamas operatives and their terrorist allies who infiltrated Israeli territory in the area of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom. Lt. Hanan Barak, 20, of Arad and Staff-Sgt. Pavel Slutzker, 20, of Dimona, were both killed in this terrorist raid.
Eliahu Pinhas Asheri, 18, of Itamar, was kidnapped by terrorists from the Popular Resistance Committees while hitchhiking to Neveh Tzuf, where he was studying. His body was found on June 29 in Ramallah. He had been shot in the head.
JULY 12 – Hezbollah terrorists attacked two IDF armoured jeeps patrolling the border with Lebanon, killing three soldiers and kidnapping two. Four more soldiers were declared missing and presumed dead after their tank hit a mine and exploded. An eighth soldier was killed when IDF troops entered Lebanon to try to retrieve the bodies of the tank crew.
The two kidnapped soldiers are Ehud Goldwasser, 31, of Nahariya, and Eldad Regev, 26, of Kiryat Motzkin.
JULY 13 - Monica Seidman, 40, of Nahariya was killed and more than 70 others were wounded by Hezbullah-fired Katyusha rockets, which struck civilian-populated areas throughout northern Israel.
Haifa is hit by Hezbollah rockets
RELEVANT FACTS
The Government of Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, but since that withdrawal, Palestinian terror groups have used this territory to fire rockets and launch attacks targeting Israeli civilians.
Similarly, even after Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah has continued to wage terrorist operations against Israel.
In 2005, there were 2,990 terror attacks against Israeli targets. The firing of Kassam rockets increased in 2005, with 377 rocket attacks, following 309 in 2004. Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last summer there have been over 700 such attacks.
The much-vaunted electoral victory of Hamas in January 2006 represented a step backward in the ongoing struggle for peace in the Middle East. Hamas is a terrorist group that refuses to recognize the Jewish State and calls for its destruction. Hamas, while at the helm of the Palestinian Authority, has continued, either through direct operations or by “sub-contracting” out to Popular Resistance Committees, to encourage attacks against Israel.
The Canadian Government has played a leading role in isolating Hamas on the world stage and for recognizing that terrorist groups like Hamas pose a real danger not just in the Middle East but also here at home. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are outlawed here in Canada and in many countries around the world. Canada’s Foreign Minister, the Honourable Peter McKay, has stated:
“Canada strongly condemns Hizbollah’s attack on Israel, which has included the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the launching of Katyusha rockets and mortar bombs into Israeli towns. These actions only exacerbate tensions in the Middle East, threaten the lives of civilians, and risk a deteriorating humanitarian situation.
"We urge Hizbollah to immediately and unconditionally release the Israeli soldiers. We call on the Lebanese government to do its utmost to restore order within its border and to fully implement Security Council resolution 1559. We also call on Syria and Iran, both long time supporters of Hizbollah, to cease all financial and other assistance to the organization."
Hezbollah has a long history of abducting Israeli soldiers and targeting civilians.
On October 7, 2000, three Israeli soldiers were abducted by the Hezbollah terror organization. A private citizen Elhanan Tannenbaum, 54, was also abducted. The three Israelis were Sgt. Adi Avitan, 22, Staff Sgt. Benyamin Avraham, 21, and Staff Sgt. Omar Sawaid, 27. They were taken alive while patrolling the southern (Israeli) side of the UN-recognized Israeli-Lebanese border. On January 29, 2004 the bodies of these three soldiers were returned to Israel as part of a prisoner exchange deal struck by the Government, which demonstrated once again the great premium Israel places on returning its sons home, a sensibility which has always been exploited by its enemies. Tannenbaum was freed in the same exchange, the only captive ever returned alive by Hezbollah.