LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETN
JULY 26/2006

News From the Daily Star for July 26/06
Terrified villagers find refuge at hospital - but little else
Israel says ground forces will stay in South
Rice touts resumption of peace process
Olmert insists Jewish state is ready for long fight
Enemy pounds Beirut suburbs, claims capture of Bint Jbeil
Saudi king warns of broader Middle East war, pledges $1.5 billion aid package for Lebanon
UN decries Israeli blockage of aid for Lebanon
Jumblatt urges support for 'our brothers in the South'
Web site opposing Israeli offensive stays online despite best efforts of hackers
Investigators probe possible use of banned weapons
Displaced pay extortion-level prices to flee
Losses from strikes on Lebanese manufacturing at $150 million and counting
Sri Lankan, Philippine nationals happy with their embassies' evacuation plans
Sectarian barriers fall as Lebanon aids the displaced
Exhibition looks back on Beirut's violent past, now made cruelly present
Berri will have to take the lead in building a third Lebanese Republic
News from miscellaneous sources for 26/07/06
A Dichotomy of Lebanese SocietyAgoravox - Paris,France
Seeking clarity through the Mideast violence-Boston Globe - United States
Hezbollah banks on home ground advantage-Asia Times Online
Italy PM says Rome talks to seek Lebanon ceasefire-Reuters
Middle East Lbanon announces who will attend Rome Conference-AKI - Rome,Italy
Lebanon's displaced Shi'ites face frosty welcome-Reuters
Israel to allow aid airlifts to Lebanon - Olmert-Reuters
US ceasefire terms would divide Lebanon- speaker-Reuters
Lebanon's pain seen in a mother's heartbreak-Sydney Morning Herald
NATO belongs in Lebanon-National Post
Saudi king pledges $1.5 billion for Lebanon-Newsweek
Israel will hold Lebanon security strip - minister-Swissinfo
Voices: Lebanon evacuation-Toronto Star
Sectarian divisions deepening in Lebanon-Seattle Post Intelligencer
New troops confront unknown in Lebanon-International Herald Tribune
Aid door to Lebanon closed: UN agencies-Reuters
Iran threatens response if Syria attacked-Ynetnews - Israel
Beckett's call to Syria and Iran-BBC News - UK
Olmert during visit to South: Syria not a partner in diplomatic -Jerusalem Post - Israel
While Lebanon burns-Boston Globe
Our troops rescue Canadians-Hamilton Spectator
WHAT HAPPENED MONDAY-San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA
Rice says basis of peace must be 'enduring principles'-Irish Times - Ireland

Terrified villagers find refuge at hospital - but little else
By Nicholas Blanford -Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
TIBNINE: Wearing only slippers on his feet, it took Youssef Beydoun two-and-a-half terrifying hours to walk from his shell-battered village of Kounine to the relative safety of Tibnine. Here the 78-year-old is one of some 1,600 refugees crammed into Tibnine's government-run hospital, all of them having fled from a cluster of Shiite hill villages to the south. With drinking water running out, no milk, no electricity and declining stocks of food as well as little prospect of imminent escape from Tibnine, the refugees are caught in a vortex of confusion, fear, anger and despair.
"All the time there's bombing; all the houses have been hit. It was very bad. I thought my heart would stop," said Beydoun, a slim, stooped man with a white floppy hat shading his stubbly beard and weather-beaten face from the midday sun. He said he left Kounine after his house was flattened by Israeli bombing, killing his Sri Lankan and Ethiopian maids.
"They are still buried under the rubble," he said.
Tibnine, a mixed Shiite and Christian town famous for its Crusader fortress, looks south across a shallow valley of stony grassland and tobacco fields which gently rises to a crest, marked Tuesday by puffs of gray smoke and dust from shell bursts. Out of sight on the other side of the ridge is Bint Jbeil, the largest Shiite town in the border district and the nexus of Israel's 13-day onslaught against Hizbullah. Bint Jbeil and the surrounding Shiite villages, such as Aitaroun, Kounine, Beit Yahoun and Ainatta have borne the brunt of Israel's air and artillery blitz.
"It's very bad in Kounine," said Souad Shibli, 45, an Egyptian nurse whose Lebanese husband is working in Kuwait. "All night there are explosions. We want cars to go to Beirut. Please tell Kofi Annan we must have cars to get us out," she added, her voice becoming more desperate and shrill.
Packed into the entrance of the hospital are dozens of refugees - old rheumy-eyed men, small wide-eyed children, many women, some dressed in full-length black chadors, - all of them anxiously awaiting news of where the next food is coming from or if a way out of Tibnine has been discovered.
"The taxis are charging $100 each to take us to Beirut. Who here has $100?" screamed Majida Bazzi, her arms flailing wildly in her rage. "There's nowhere to escape the bombing. We have no cars. There's no water in the hospital. Nothing."
The stairs leading to the hospital basement are lined with women, sitting on the steps, clutching small children or babies, talking quietly or just staring blankly in silence.
A Lebanese soldier at the hospital says that five babies have been born prematurely in the past few days. The narrow cramped passageways in the basement are filled with people, some standing others sitting, having instinctively headed below ground in case Israeli shells strike the hospital.
The only light is from the feeble yellow glow of flickering candles placed every few meters, shedding just enough light to see the fearful shadowed faces of the refugees in their claustrophobic confines. Two young men squeeze through the passageway, thin mattresses clutched tightly to their chest. But most of the refugees huddled in the basement appear to be sleeping on the cold cement floor.
If Israel hopes that its punishing military campaign will turn Lebanon's Shiites against Hizbullah, whose kidnapping of two soldiers on July 12 sparked the current conflagration, then it would appear they miscalculated, judging from the mood of these furious refugees."God grant your protection for Nasrallah," they chanted, referring to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's leader."You go to Bush and tell him to come here and you will see what we will do with him," yelled Bilal Jumaa, a shopkeeper from Bint Jbeil who has spent the past week in the hospital. The throng gathered around him broke out into loud applause at his words. The refugees naturally considered the hospital as a safe haven from the incessant artillery barrages and air strikes around them, but there have been several near-misses. Several days ago, a missile fired from an Israeli jet exploded close to the Lebanese Red Cross center, adjacent to the hospital, causing some damage.
Earlier Tuesday, artillery shelling set light to the tinder-dry grass on a steep slope below the Red Cross center. Thick black smoke wafted in through the broken windows of the building while the crackle of burning brush was punctuated every few seconds by the ear-splitting sound of more artillery rounds exploding nearby. With the shelling making the roads too dangerous to travel, Wafaa Shuqair, 19, and Ahmad Fawaz, 21, two Red Cross volunteers, took a moment out to smoke a nargileh, ignoring the nearby shellbursts. "When we can't get out, we sit here and smoke a nargileh," Shuqair said with a contented grin.
The Lebanese Red Cross and their counterparts in the International Committee of the Red Cross are probably the only humanitarian workers regularly traveling the deadly roads south of the Litani River. But their ability to help ferry casualties to hospital is limited. Ali Hamadeh, 25, another Red Cross volunteer, said that the center received a panicked phone call the other day from a man who said that his house in Aitaroun had been hit by an Israeli missile and collapsed on top of 30 people inside.
"He couldn't reach them under the rubble and we couldn't get there either because of the bombings," Hamadeh said. "If anyone was badly wounded or hemorrhaging, they will be dead by now."

Rice touts resumption of peace process
Meeting with abbas focuses on 2-state solution
Compiled by Daily Star staff -Wednesday, July 26, 2006
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday there was a need to remain focused on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel despite the crisis in Lebanon. Rice met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shortly after UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland blasted Israel's strike last month on the sole power plant in impoverished Gaza as a "clear" example of disproportionate use of force.
"Even as the Lebanon situation is resolved, we must remain focused on what is happening here, in the Palestinian territories, on our desires to get back to ... (the) vision of two states living side by side in peace," Rice told a news conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday an aid package amounting to $250 million to help rebuild the Palestinian territories. The money, ordered by King Abdullah, would also be used as "a nucleus for an Arab fund to help the Palestinians," said a royal decree read on state television.
Ahead of Rice's arrival, more than 2,000 Palestinians had taken to the streets of the main West Bank city in a show of support for Hizbullah and against US policies.
Abbas voiced hope that the soldier would be returned and Israel would be prompted to release Palestinian prisoners.
"We ... will exert maximum effort to revive the peace process and to guarantee the release of the soldier," he said. "We hope that Israel will realize the suffering of 10,000 Palestinian families whose sons and daughters are in Israeli jails."
Abbas also called for an "immediate cease-fire in Lebanon and negotiations with the Lebanese government to regulate the crisis and the catastrophic situation in which the Lebanese people are living."
Israel dropped new leaflets over Gaza on Tuesday, warning that it would escalate its attacks on arms stores and militant leaders due to continued rocket attacks.
A Palestinian official said Abbas told Rice that a more fanatical group might emerge in Lebanon if Hizbullah is cowed, adding that when Israel pushed out Palestinian guerrillas from Lebanon in the 1980s they were replaced by Hizbullah.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya of Hamas dismissed calls by Rice for a "new Middle East" of peace and democracy. "It seems that the new Middle East from the American perspective begins with the destruction of Lebanon and by killing the biggest number of Palestinians," Haniyya said.
"A new Middle East should mean the return of the rights to its people, the establishment of the Palestinian full sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital, would mean the return of refugees, the freedom of prisoners," he said.
Touring the Gaza power plant which was bombed last month, Egeland said of the attack: "This a very clear disproportional use. Maybe this is the clearest of it all."
"Civilian infrastructure is protected ... the law is very clear," he said. The plant provided 70 percent of Gaza's electricity needs.
"This plant is more important for hospitals, for sewage, for water, for civilians than for any Hamas or Islamic Jihad man with some kind of a missile on his shoulder," said Egeland. "He doesn't need electricity as much as a mother trying to care for a child."At the same time, he said rockets being fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel had to stop and with it Israel's incursions into Gaza over the past month. Egeland said fighting on the Lebanese and Palestinian fronts had to stop immediately if a deepening crisis were to be averted.this vicious cycle of bitterness and violence," he said.
"Of course, I am equally concerned that the constant violence inflicted on Israeli civilians be stopped," he said, referring to rocket attacks on Israeli communities by Gaza militants and Hizbullah fighters.
Inspecting the ruined transformers with Egeland, Rafiq Maliha, project manager at the plant, said direct losses amounted to $10 million, rising to more than $15 million-$16 million taking production losses into account.
He said it would take at least eight to 10 months to repair the transformers but that partial production would be restored within four months. - Agencies

Olmert insists Jewish state is ready for long fight
Compiled by Daily Star staff -Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Israel has the stamina for a long fight and is determined to defeat Lebanon's Hizbullah militia, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a group of new immigrants from France on Tuesday. In a speech at Ben Gurion International Airport, Olmert told the new arrivals that "we are a strong people, and we have the stamina for a long struggle."
"We will continue with this campaign to reach all our objectives and to defeat the enemies of the land of Israel and the people of Israel," he said.Earlier in the day, following a meeting in Jerusalem with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Olmert said that his government "will not hesitate to take severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians for the sole purpose of killing them."
Olmert's comments came as Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora headed to Rome to attend the crisis meeting on Wednesday aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the 14-day-old war.
"We must reach a cease-fire and an overall settlement which will allow for the liberation of the whole of Lebanon's territory" from Israeli occupation, Siniora said on Tuesday before departure.
Siniora, accompanied by Finance Minister Jihad Azour and Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, left on board a UN helicopter that was to take them to Cyprus, after which they would board a plane for Rome. Israeli air strikes have made Lebanon's airports unusable.His participation at the Rome conference was announced after Rice made a surprise visit to Beirut on Monday to discuss Israel's war on Lebanon. Representatives from 18 countries - including the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union - are to attend the Rome conference.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Tel Aviv hopes the conference in Rome would characterize Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.
In an interview on Tuesday in Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper, Tzipi Livni urged Europeans attending the conference to label Hizbullah a terrorist organization - something they have resisted in the hope Hizbullah will evolve into a peaceful political party."There are those who think that it can become a political party, without any more weapons. We'll see," she said.
"Better would be if, from the Rome conference, and from you Europeans, there was a condemnation that [Hizbullah] is a jihadist terrorist group, as the United States maintains."Livni also played down any hopes of a cease-fire before Hizbullah's military positions are dismantled.
"We expect from the conference in Rome an economic plan for Lebanon, an aid package perhaps, and, above all, a signal that the situation has changed, that the world will no longer accept a weak Lebanese government [that is] hostage to a Hizbullah armed with missiles," she said. Meanwhile, Siniora has promised to consider with other members of his government Rice's plan aimed at ending Israel's war on Lebanon, The Washington Post said Tuesday.
Presented Monday during a surprise visit to Beirut, Rice's cease-fire plan was rejected by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is acting as an intermediary, because it did not include a prisoner swap with Israel. In an interview with Al-Arabiyya satellite channel Berri said Rice's plan would cause civil strife.
"The single basket presented by Rice yesterday cannot be implemented in Lebanon without creating internal strife and this is very dangerous," Berri said. He was referring to demands that any cease-fire had to involve Hizbullah's withdrawal from Israel's border and deployment of an international force in the frontier region. "I insist on two stages and I am willing to discuss the second stage in a national dialogue after a cease-fire," said Berri. Lebanese and US officials quoted by The Washington Post said Rice's plan called for the deployment of an international force, possibly led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in a buffer zone inside Lebanon for 60 to 90 days.
The international force would after that time begin training the Lebanese Army to disarm and control Hizbullah, the officials said. While Berri rejected the plan, US officials said Siniora had promised to explore it more closely with his Cabinet.
"He was receptive to our ideas. He gave us enough to keep going. There were no show-stoppers," said a US official traveling with Rice. "We came away convinced that Siniora and the US are on the same page, working toward the same ends."
"Any peace is going to have to be based on enduring principles and not on temporary solutions," Rice said. - Agencies

PIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH LEBANESE PRESIDENT EMILE LAHOUD
'Hezbollah Freed Our Country'
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, 70, tells DER SPIEGEL about how the current conflict is affecting his country, the role of the Lebanese army and his relationship with Shiite militia Hezbollah.
Norbert Schiller
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud claims Israel is destroying his country and Hezbollah has his respect.
SPIEGEL: Mr President, you are the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army. Lebanon finds itself in the middle of a war, but it is being fought by a militia in the south of the country. Where is the regular army?
Lahoud: I myself built up this army following the civil war and integrated all the religious groups: Muslims, Christians and Druze. This army is there to secure internal peace, but it is not an army to fight a war.
SPIEGEL: United Nations Resolution 1559 demands that the army should control the whole country -- up to the border with Israel.
Lahoud: It (the army) does that. But it wasn't the army that freed the occupied south of the country, rather it was the resistance which achieved that. Without this resistance Lebanon would still be occupied today.
SPIEGEL: You're talking about Hezbollah. But Israel's withdrawal happened six years ago. Why has the state still not fulfilled the task set by the UN?
Lahoud: Naturally the strongholds of the resistance are not known. Despite the hail of bombs, the Israelis have been unable to produce one single photo of a destroyed resistance base, because they don't know where they are. Army bases, on the other hand, are well known and this is why they are invariably destroying our armed forces and, above all, civilian targets.
SPIEGEL: The fact remains that Beirut has failed to establish any authority in the south -- and this is exactly how Israel is justifying its attacks.
NEWSLETTER
Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In- Box everyday.
Lahoud: But that authority is what Israel is wrecking. The Israeli armed forces are destroying Lebanon, and the international community isn't trying to hold them back, but giving them more time to complete their plan of destruction.
SPIEGEL: Should the kidnapped soldiers, as Israel demands, be returned without conditions? Or do you consider it legitimate to use them as a bargaining chip?
Lahoud: The exchange of prisoners has always worked perfectly in the past. The Germans above all were very helpful in this process. It is unclear whether that will happen this time. It's a charged atmosphere.
SPIEGEL: Please explain your relationship to Hezbollah. What do you think of Hassan Nasrallah?
Lahoud: Hezbollah enjoys utmost prestige in Lebanon, because it freed our country. All over the Arab world you hear: Hezbollah maintains Arab honor, and even though it (Hezbollah) is very small, it stands up to Israel. And of course Nasrallah has my respect.
SPIEGEL: The United Nations want to defuse the problem through a massive deployment of international troops in southern Lebanon.
REUTERS
Smoke rises from a Hizbollah stronghold in southern Beirut after an Israeli air strike.
Lahoud: That is an old proposal, which is hardly achievable. As long as the conflict between Lebanon and Israel remains unresolved, no international force will help, however large it may be. The problems smoulder on: the undetermined status of the Schebaa Farms, the Lebanese prisoners in Israel and above all the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
SPIEGEL: Why the Palestinians?
Lahoud: We have today around half a million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, their birth rate is three times higher than the Lebanese. That is a time bomb. It is the basic problem of our country, it led to the outbreak of civil war in 1975 and still remains unsolved today. Everybody today is talking about UN resolution 1559, but nobody mentions resolution 194, which recognizes the Palestinians' right of return (to Israel). Lebanon is small and can't integrate the Palestinians.
Interview conducted by Volkhard Windfuhr and Bernhard Zand

KILL THEM ALL. LET ALLAH SORT THEM OUT.
GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary
By Don Feder
07-24-06
To counteract reigning confusion about the latest Middle East mayhem, here is a spectator's guide to World War III the Lebanese Front.
The Sons of Allah started it. (The Sons of Allah always start it.)
The current round of bloodletting began on June 25, when Hamas tunneled into Israel from its Gaza lair, kidnapped an Israeli soldier and killed two others. Then their Shiite brethren in Lebanon staged a raid into Israeli territory, killed 8 soldiers and grabbed two. (For what this scum does to captives, consider the fate of the two U.S. soldiers captured by the terrorists in Iraq tortured to death, their bodies mutilated.)
Israel responded with pinpoint air strikes, hitting Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Hezbollah began launching rockets into the heart of Israel (1,400 in the first five days of the latest fighting). On the July 16, one of its rockets killed 8 people in Haifa, Israel's third largest city.
A disproportionate response is the best kind.
The Europeans are whining (after all, it's what they do best) that Israel's response to the kidnapping/murder of its citizens, and rocket attacks on its cities, is “disproportionate. Israel's retaliation is totally disproportionate, croaked French President Jacques Cirac (pity the chronic collaborationists -- who are hooked on surrender -- weren't able to formulate a disproportionate response to the German jihad of 1940)
What would a proportionate Israeli response be? Snatching two Hezbollah fighters, torturing them to death, cutting off their genitals and stuffing them in their mouths? Sending a suicide bomber into a Gaza shopping mall to turn Palestinian women and children into body parts? Blowing up a Syrian skyscraper (do they even have them?) and burying 3,000 office workers under several tons of rubble?
Proportionate responses let the terrorists establish the rules of engagement -- set the parameters of the conflict. (We kill three of them; they kill three of us.) Given the population disparity in the Middle East (100 Muslims for every Jew), Hamas and Hezbollah Iran and Syria -- are happy to engage in this type of attrition.
In The Untouchables Sean Connery as the old Irish cop advising Eliot Ness on how to deal with the Capone mob, urged a disproportionate response: If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they are not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead. You wanna know how to do it? Here is how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He (Capone) sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone. Or any criminal gang masquerading as a business or a religion.
Lebanon used to be a nice little country, before the Sons of Allah got their blood-smeared hands on it.
Believe it or not, Beirut was once called the Paris of the Middle East (all the elegance, none of the French). Lebanon was the most advanced and prosperous country in the Arab world because a majority of Lebanese were Christians.
Then came the influx of Palestinian refugees (charming folks, really) in 1948 and 1967. When the PLO was kicked out of Jordan by King Hussein, they set up shop in Lebanon. A civil war ensued, with the local Muslim population allied with their Palestinian cousins.
Israel invaded twice to secure its northern border from PLO mortar attacks. At the behest of the Arab League, Syria sent a “peacekeeping” force that turned into an army of occupation. It controlled the Bekaa Valley for a quarter of a century. (Even after its withdrawal, the Lebanese government remains a Syrian puppet.) The Syrians murdered every Christian politician of consequence, including president-elect Bashir Gemayel in 1982. Due to their breeding habits, Muslims are now a majority. Hezbollah has 27 seats in the Lebanese parliament.
Many Lebanese Christians were forced into exile. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace recently urged Jerusalem to hit them (Hezbollah) hard. On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv,s Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the (Lebanese) Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from (Islamic) fundamentalism
Lebanon is the latest front in Islam,s war on humanity.
Along with Kosovo, Kashmir, Nigeria, the West Bank, Gaza and the Sudan, Lebanon is one front in a global war.
On July 11, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (the Army of the Righteous, as opposed to Hezbollah the Army of God exploded 8 bombs along a busy commuter railroad in Bombay. These Sons of Allah (Pakistani Chapter) managed to kill 147 Indians and wound hundreds more -- not quite half the death toll in Lebanon, in a matter of minutes. Oddly, the Europeans aren,t up in arms over this outrage. A serious condemnation of Pakistan might upset their Muslim citizens.
The Lashkar-e-Taib's initial goal is to detach the Kashmir from India. Long-term, it seeks an Islamic republic in India (where Muslims constitute only 10% of the population) and the annihilation or subjugation of Hindus. One of its slogans is Killing Hindus is the way forward echoing Iranian President Ahmadinejad's pledge to see Israel wiped from the face of the earth. On its website, Hamas (now in control of the Palestinian parliament, so-called) boasts, We will drink the blood of Jews until we have quenched our thirst with your blood.
Given the Muslim mania for making blood sacrifices in his name, Allah seems less like the God of the Bible than a super-charged Moloch.
In Kosovo (which NATO turned over to Albanian Muslims after bombing Yugoslavia into submission in 1999), 200,000 Serbs have been ethnically cleansed. In a decade, the Serbs have gone from 20% of Kosovo's population to less than 2%. Two thousand Serbs were murdered (with zero intervention by the international peacekeeping force); the remaining 80,000 cower behind barbed-wire barricades.
Tha's the way the Sons of Allah do business in Lebanon, the Indian subcontinent, the Sudan or the West Bank. (Since the Palestinians assumed control, Bethlehem's Christian population has gone from 70% to 35%.)
Wherever the Neanderthals come in contact with those who walk upright, the results are ethnic cleansing, subjugation, genocide, terrorism or civil war. Hezbollah is Hamas is the PLO is the Lashkar-e-Taiba is Al Qaeda is Iran is Syria, is Saudi Arabia. Like Mafia, Cosa Nostra, wise guys and the Organization, these are different names for the same criminal conspiracy.
Israel brought this on itself (with an able assist from Washington).
Go back to 1982. PLO attacks from Lebanon prompted an Israeli invasion. Israel was at the outskirts of Beirut. Arafat and the PLO high command were cornered like rats. Israel could have wiped out the oldest terrorist gang in existence and turned Lebanon over to the Christians, creating a strong ally and a buffer state.
Ronald Reagan the Gipper, for God's sake! forced Sharon to let Arafat go and pull back. The U.S. sent in a peacekeeping force of Marines. The Sons of Allah thanked us by murdering 241 of them, in the 1983 bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut. (Hezbollah claimed responsibility, a fact little noted by the media today.)
The Sons of Allah took the American withdrawal from Lebanon as a sign of our impotence. Along with Clinton's pull-out from Somalia and Gomer Pyle's non-response to the 444-day Tehran hostage crisis, this set the stage for 9/11.
Israel pulled back to a 20-mile security zone in Southern Lebanon, which it vacated in 2000 another Hezbollah victory.
Responding to US pressure and the stupidity of its own politicians, last year, Israel unilaterally turned Gaza over to the terrorists, and drove 8,000 Jews from their homes in the process (thus achieving the distinction of being the first government to ethnically cleanse its own people).
This suicidal good will gesture was rewarded when those peace-loving Palestinians elected Hamas to power in January. Since the handover, Hamas has launched 700 missiles at Israeli settlements in the Negev.
For these ravenous wolves, concessions, negotiations and ceasefires are the scent of blood. An outstretched hand is always answered with a kick in the teeth. Prior to the Second World War, Winston Churchill warned of the Germans, The Hun is either at your feet or at your throat meaning you will subdue him or he will subdue you. That goes double for the Sons of Allah.
When we negotiate, we lose.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is now in Beirut, apparently trying to end the fighting.
Rice thanked Lebanese Prime Minister Faud Saniora for his courage in attempting to contain the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. (What about his gutlessness in allowing the Party of God to create a state within a state in Lebanon?) She also met with Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament and a Hezbollah ally. Hope Berri washed off the residual blood of 241 Marines before they shook hands.
Hezbollah has announced its interest in a ceasefire -- to give it time to regroup, import more Syrian rockets and plan its next campaign.
Now that it's proven its ability to damage the terrorist infrastructure, Israel needs to step-up its air strikes and send in the troops (can you say “massive deployment, baby? to do the job only ground forces can do.
Tragically, that won't happen. Jerusalem is signaling it will accept yet another peacekeeping force. This time, instead of the UN (Hezbollah launches its rockets in line of sight of the blue- helmet boys), perhaps a NATO force will do composed of the French, Germans and Spanish, no doubt. Commanded by Cindy Sheehan and Pat Buchanan?
The principal reason I support the US presence in Iraq is because I like the idea of putting jihadists in body bags whenever and wherever we find them.
To resurrect and reconfigure one of my favorite Vietnam-era slogans Kill em all. Let Allah sort em out.