LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
JULY 30/2006

Latest New from Miscellaneous sources for July30/06
Rice, Olmert meeting in Jerusalem-Jerusalem Post
Rice Presses for Mideast Agreement-New York Times
Rice arrives in Israel for talks on Lebanon war-Reuters - USA
Rice 'Encouraged' by Hezbollah Comments-Washington Post - United States
Air raid hits Syria border-NEWS.com.au
Hezbollah declares victory after Israel announces troop withdrawal-San Jose Mercury News,
After talk of crushing Hezbollah, Israel seems to lowerBoston Herald, United States 
Seattle security raised after Jewish center shooting-Reuters 
14 die as Lebanon attacks continue-Bangkok Post 
Israel hits Lebanon-Syria highway near border-Ynetnews, Israel
Update: Eight Bodies Found In Southern Lebanon-All Headline News
Israel pulls out of Hezbollah stronghold
Bush: Lebanon crisis is part of broad struggle
Lebanon Clash Part of `Broader Struggle,' Bush Says-Bloomberg - USA
LEBANON: Arab nations more generous than Western counterparts-Reuters
Canada Post suspends mail delivery to Lebanon-CTV.ca
Rice lauds Siniora's efforts-Bahrain News Agency,
EU supports Lebanese peace plan-Euronews.net, France
Latest New from Miscellaneous sources for July 29/06
Midday Roundup: Israel Rejects Ceasefire to Allow Aid Flow to Civilians in South as Airstrikes Continue-Naharnet
Rice in Israel to discuss Lebanon solution-Independent Online
Hezbollah fires new rockets at Israel-AP
Hezbollah politicians back peace package-AP
Lebanon doomed to start all over again-Globe and Mail
DEBKAfile reports climbing military tension with Syria-DEBKA file
UN's Larsen: Cease Fire Needs Okay from Syria and Iran-Arutz Sheva
Moral conundrums of Lebanon war-Boston Globe
Fleeing Lebanese seek shelter with Palestinian refugees-Reuters
72-hour truce asked in Lebanon fighting-Boston Globe
One dead in Seattle shooting-Melbourne Herald Sun
War moves to bloody stalemate-The Age -
Bush and Blair lay out Lebanon plan but warn Tehran-Guardian Unlimited
The Lebanese Government: From Powerless to Power Broker?-TIME - USA
How Israel has lost way in its war on Hizbollah-Independent, UK
Lebanon: no quick fix Open Democracy
Israel drone crashes over mount Lebanon-Monsters and Critics.com
Lebanese want protection from Israel-Seattle Post Intelligencer 
Israel claims 26 militants killed-Daily Telegraph, Australia 
UN official fears Israel will raze Tyre-Jerusalem Post, Israel 
UN aid chief asks for Israel-Hezbollah truce-Newsweek 
Christians Fleeing Lebanon Denounce Hezbollah- The New York Times

Rice: Hezbollah Comments a 'Positive Step'
Israel Continues Air Attacks on Lebanon; Hezbollah Rockets Fall in Isreal
By Robin Wright and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writers
DOHA, Qatar, July 29 -- En route to a new round of Middle East negotiations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday that she was encouraged by Hezbollah's general agreement to disarm and accept an international force in Lebanon, which she called a "positive step" that also strengthens the Lebanese government in the illusive search for a cease-fire.
"Obviously we are all trying to get to a cease-fire as quickly as possible, so I'll take this as a positive step," Rice told reporters on her plane flying from Malaysia to a refueling stop in Qatar. "I think there are a lot of elements that are coming together."
Hezbollah signed on to the proposal "in principle" after negotiations Thursday with the government of Lebanon. But Hezbollah held out the caveat that more talks will be held after agreement is reached by the U.N. Security Council on an international force on the border, according to Hezbollah and Lebanese government officials. The radical Shiite Muslim movement would maintain its heavily armed militia in the south during the talks.
Rice returns to the Middle East as fighting continues apace. Isreali air strikes continued in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah rockets fell in northern Israel. Television images showed repeated air warning sirens in Haifa, Israel, and smoke rising from explosions in Tyre, Lebanon. It was not immediately clear the extent of damage in either area.
Also Saturday, the Israeli government dismissed as unnecessary a proposal from a U.N. official for a 72-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to be distributed in southern Lebanon.
U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egland had floated the request to suspend hostilities after his recent trip to the region.
But Gideon Meir, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said Israel's decision to open a corridor for humanitarian supplies to pass through made a cease-fire unnecessary and that the Jewish state would await a formal proposal from the United Nations before determining whether to agree to a cease-fire.
Egland's pitch, "was not a real proposal," Meir said. "If there is a proposal it has to come from an official body."
He said Israel had agreed to allow a U.N. representative to join its humanitarian relief center in Tel Aviv to help coordinate safe passage for aid convoys. Israel has recently allowed aid shipments through its blockade of Lebanon and facilitated the passage of convoys to some Lebanese cities. But humanitarian workers have complained that distributing necessary supplies to places hardest hit by the conflict is too dangerous because of fighting in the country's south.
"Everything from a humanitarian point of view is working, except that there's a severe problem in the south because Hezbollah does not let aid reach villages," said Meir. "They are maximizing damage to civilian population and we are trying to minimize it."
Rice told reporters on her plane that she is still working on many of the details for a possible plan to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. "I don't expect to present somebody with a 'Here are the five points that you must expect.' There has to be give and take," she added. "This is difficult."
But negotiations now center on several arrangements, not all of them would have to happen immediately or even at the same time, according to U.S. and European officials involved with the diplomacy. They are designed to address the concerns of all three major parties impacted by the hostilities -- Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah. They include:
The central element --- and deal-breaker -- is disarmament of Hezbollah. But this does not have to happen before a cease-fire or even soon, U.S. officials say. The goal is to get a formal commitment and to outline arrangements, possibly to eventually bring members of Hezbollah's militia into the Lebanese Army reserves or in another capacity and to get their arms into a government-controlled depot. European envoys point to some similarities with the disarmament of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland.
--The timing for such a move can be worked out among the Lebanese, U.S. officials say. The aim is to neutralize the militant Shiite movement as a threat to Israel, U.S. and European officials say. Although the movement remains on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, Rice has made clear on this trip that the Bush administration is not trying to isolate the group from Lebanese politics or achieve its total elimination.
European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, center, confers with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before the start of the 13th ASEAN Regional Forum at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center (KLCC) in Kuala Lumpur, Friday, July 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) (Dita Alangkara - AP)
-- A large, robust and well-armed international force will deploy to initially help with humanitarian relief and refugees, but ultimately retrain and back up the Lebanese Army as it deploys throughout the country for the first time since the civil war erupted in1975, U.S. and European officials say. The new force will act as a "spine" for the Lebanese Army, said a senior U.S. official who requested anonymity because of the ongoing diplomacy. Part of its mandate will almost certainly be to insure that new arms do not come into Lebanon through the Syria border, Turkey, the ports or Beirut airport, the sources say. The implicit goal in this is also to prod Hezbollah to embrace its Lebanese identity, rather than remain what a senior U.S. official called "Tehran on the Mediterranean," a reference to its strong relationship with Iran.
-- The release of two Israeli soldiers, whose abduction on July 12 triggered the crisis. Up in the air is still the prospect of an eventual release of some Lebanese or Palestinian prisoners held in Israel jails, European officials say. Hezbollah officials said a long-sought prisoner swap was its goal in kidnapping the Israelis. This kind of "no-deal deal," in which one side releases prisoners, claiming there was no deal, is followed by the release of prisoners by the other side at a later date.
-- A sensitive issue still up in the air is the fate of Shebaa Farms, the last remaining disputed area on the border, say U.S. and European officials. It is on the corner of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, which occupied it in the 1967 war. The United Nations considers the area Syrian territory but Hezbollah claims it for Lebanon, which Syria once -- but only once -- endorsed. Before the July 12 cross border raid, it was the site of the vast majority of clashes between Hezbollah and Israel after its withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. European officials and some U.S. officials believe this needs to be settled to eliminate the flashpoint -- and Hezbollah's justification for keeping its arms.
-- A massive humanitarian effort and a donors conference are to be organized as quickly as possible to get Lebanon back on its feet. U.S. officials are deeply concerned about Lebanon's already troubled economy deepening the political and military instability.
Rice will meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem Saturday night to begin tough negotiations on the specifics of a multi-faceted deal for a cease-fire. "I'm now going into some very intensive, not easy give-and-take in Israel," she told reporters. "These are really hard and emotional decisions on both sides."
Hezbollah's tentative agreement during a heated six-hour cabinet meeting is the first hopeful signal that a cease-fire can be achieved to end 18 days of hostilities that have claimed more than 450 mainly civilians in Lebanon and more than 51 civilians and soldiers in Israel.
Still, a Hezbollah official in Beirut said Saturday that any agreement reached on the Lebanon fighting cannot provide political gain for Israel or the United States, Reuters reported. Naim Kassem, the group's deputy chief, told the Reuter news agency in an interview when asked about U.S. demands the Hezbollah disarm, "American and Israel have no right to get a result from their defeat. There is no [military] victory for America and Israel [as a basis] for them to make political gains."
Although Rice had not seen the full details of the Lebanon meeting led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, she said there were "some very good elements" in the accounts she has seen.
America's top diplomat praised Siniora, calling the cabinet meeting agreement "quite an achievement" since he convinced a deeply divided government of Christians and Muslims, moderates and religious militants, to endorse the approach he outlined during his impassioned speech to the international conference in Rome Wednesday. The common element in both Rice's diplomacy and Siniora's plan is fulfillment of principles already enshrined in two documents: U.N. Resolution 1559, which was passed in mid-2004, and the 1989 Taif Accord brokered by Saudi Arabia that ended Lebanon's civil war a year later. Both call for the disarming of all Lebanon's militias and the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty throughout the country.
The United States is not pushing for a specific deadline for a cease-fire, Rice told reporters on her plane. But there is a new momentum generated by the feverish diplomacy, including a meeting at the United Nations Monday of a working group to sort out the details for a new international force, which is expected to number between 10,000 and 20,000. Rice said she insisted that the meeting be Monday, not later in the week, to generate a plan as soon as possible.
The United States is particularly interested in looking for "ready forces" that can be quickly deployed with their own "lift" or rapid deployment capability, communications and planning units, Rice said.
That meeting will be followed, possibly as early as Tuesday, by a Security Council meeting of foreign ministers to work out language for a new resolution that will embody the elements of the plan Rice is now negotiating. Rice is expected to return to the United States on Monday, barring a change in her still evolving schedule, and would probably attend the New York meeting, U.S. officials said.
Rice said the Lebanese cabinet vote was critical because it showed that the weak government could function as a united body. "That is in and of itself very important. This has not been easy for Siniora," she said. "Everyone knows it is a very complicated coalition. . . . That he is able to go back and bring his government together around a way forward is very encouraging."
Finer reported from Jerusalem.

Christians Fleeing Lebanon Denounce Hezbollah
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: July 28, 2006
TYRE, Lebanon, July 27 — The refugees from southern Lebanon spilled out of packed cars into the dark street here Thursday evening, gulping bottles of water and squinting in the glare of the headlights to find family members and friends. Many had not eaten in days. Most had not had clean drinking water for some time. There were wounded swathed in makeshift dressings, and a baby just 16 days old.
Forum: The Middle EastBut for some of the Christians who had made it out in this convoy, it was not just privations they wanted to talk about, but their ordeal at the hands of Hezbollah — a contrast to the Shiites, who make up a vast majority of the population in southern Lebanon and broadly support the militia.
“Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from between our houses.”“Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.”
The evacuation — more than 100 cars that followed an International Committee for the Red Cross rescue convoy to Tyre — included Lebanese from several Christian villages. In past wars, Christian militias were close to Israelis, and animosity between Christians and Shiites lingers. Throngs of refugees are now common in this southern coastal town, the gateway to the war that is booming just miles away. The United Nations has estimated that 700,000 Lebanese, mostly from the southern third of the country, have been displaced by the war. But thousands of people have been left behind, residents and the Red Cross say.
What has prevented many from fleeing is a critical shortage of fuel. Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, a spokesman for the Red Cross who accompanied the convoy to Tyre, said Red Cross officials had offered to lead out any people who wanted to drive behind, but many did not have enough gasoline for the trip.
Those who did get out were visibly upset. Some carried sick children. A number broke down it tears when they emerged from their cars here.
“People are dying under bombs and crushed under houses,” Nahab Aman said, sobbing and hugging her young son. “We’re not dogs! Why aren’t they taking the people out?”Many Christians from Ramesh and Ain Ebel considered Hezbollah’s fighting methods as much of an outrage as the Israeli strikes. Mr. Amar said Hezbollah fighters in groups of two and three had come into Ain Ebel, less than a mile from Bint Jbail, where most of the fighting has occurred. They were using it as a base to shoot rockets, he said, and the Israelis fired back. One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government job and feared retribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to leave Bint Jbail.
“This is what’s happening, but no one wants to say it” for fear of Hezbollah, she said. American citizens remain in some southern villages. Mohamed Elreda, a father of three from New Jersey, was visiting relatives in Yaroun with his family when two missiles narrowly missed his car, while he was parking it in front of his family’s house. His 16-year-old son Ali was sprayed with shrapnel and is now in a hospital in Tyre. “I have never seen anything like this in my life,” said Mr. Elreda, who arrived here on Thursday morning. “They see civilians, they bomb them,” he said, referring to the Israelis.
“We had to move underground like raccoons.” He said a person affiliated with the United States Embassy arrived in Yaroun and shouted for everyone to join a convoy that the Israelis had promised safe passage. He left in such haste, he said, that he had pulled on his wife’s sweatpants (they had a pink stripe running down the length of each leg). His son’s blood still stained his shoes. He said Yaroun had been without electricity and clean water for more than a week, and he had stirred dirty clothes in a pail of water and bleach to make bandages for his son’s wounds.
The village is largely Christian, but has Muslim pockets, and Mr. Elreda said he walked at night among houses to the Christian section, where a friend risked his life to drive his son to Tyre, while Mr. Elreda stayed with the rest of the family. On Thursday he joined his son at the hospital. “He’s my son,” he said, standing at the foot of the boy’s bed. “I just can’t see him like this.”

Remembering Nothing
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Newsweek
By Eleanor Clift
The common thread of the administration's policy in Iraq and Lebanon is an ignorance of history and a willful disregard of its lessons WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
President Bush has this annoying tendency of enlarging problems, thinking that makes him a bold and visionary leader. An ordinary ceasefire that stops people from killing each other isn't good enough for Bush and his diplomatic automaton, Condoleezza Rice, who sees the violence in Lebanon and Iraq as the "birth pangs of a new Middle East."
Secretary of State Rice is holding out for "a sustainable ceasefire," which reminds me of the old Gershwin tune, "Nice Work If You Can Get It." A grand bargain that can last into the future is a laudable goal but well out of reach for an administration that is weakened and isolated on the world stage. Why not settle for what every American government has done until this one? Stop the fighting first and then resolve the conflict as best you can.
Living from crisis to crisis is no fun, but it's better than the alternative of maimed children, hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese refugees and a million terrified northern Israelis confined to bomb shelters. The Bush Doctrine in the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict is an extension of the theory applied in Iraq: that anything is better than the status quo. Bush's worldview emanates from a childish need to do everything different from his predecessors. He operates from a gut belief that if he dares to reshuffle the deck in the Middle East, the result will be better than the hand American presidents traditionally play. The reverse is happening. Iraq is on its way to becoming the next Lebanon, and Lebanon is descending back into the hell that made its very name synonymous with sectarian warfare.
Four years of Bush-style wars have made Americans wish they could wash their hands of the rest of the world. A New York Times/CBS News poll found a strong isolationist streak emerging, with 58 percent saying the United States has no responsibility to resolve the conflict between Israel and other countries in the Middle East, and 56 percent supporting a timetable for getting out of Iraq. A substantial majority of 62 percent say the Iraq war has not been worth it in terms of lives lost and dollars spent. Yet there are no signs the administration is backing away from its determination to stay the course in Iraq and to give Israel the room it needs to inflict more damage on Hizbullah.
The common thread in both these conflicts is an ignorance of history and a willful disregard of history's lessons. Some problems have roots deeper than any army can destroy. I spent the past week at a retreat in Abiquiu, N.M., called Ghost Ranch. Set in the midst of the desert landscapes made famous by the painter Georgia O'Keefe, it is a place to come for contemplation and spiritual rebirth. "Welcome to liberal Presbyterian heaven," a gray-haired volunteer said as I checked in for my room assignment. Ghost Ranch is under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church, but other faiths and nonbelievers are welcome. I was there to participate in a seminar called "Discerning the Signs of the Times," and much of our discussion centered on the Middle East. A fellow presenter, Dale Bishop, taught Iranian studies at Columbia University and for 20 years served as Middle East area executive for the United Church of Christ. He spent much of his time reminding us of Lebanon's bloody history and how Iraq seems destined to go down the same path.
Both countries are artifacts of the colonial era. Winston Churchill drew the border lines for Iraq. The first Iraqi king was a Saudi-born royal who had not set foot in the new nation until he was installed. Lebanon was carved out of Syria by the French, who wanted a place for the Christian population. "It wasn't totally whim, but it was a lot whim," says Bishop. Lebanon has 17 sects, including a variety of Christians, Shiite and Sunni Muslims and Druze, and they fought a prolonged civil war that didn't end until 1991. It was said that the fighting would continue until only a single Lebanese was left, and he would look at himself in the mirror and shoot the mirror. U.S. troops were in the middle of that mess until 241 American servicemen were ambushed and killed in their barracks in 1983. That was enough for President Reagan. He pulled out U.S. troops and launched a little war in Grenada to save face.
The Lebanese continued to fight it out without U.S. forces, an outcome Bishop believes will eventually happen in Iraq. "And it's not going to be pretty," he says. "We walked into a huge mess, and we're not going to achieve a military victory-and our pride prevents us from just leaving. We have to cover it over ..." Here he paused a bit mischievously, mindful of his audience. "Maybe another aircraft carrier appearance saying 'It's over. We won. Goodbye'." If making problems bigger doesn't work, there's always the option of walking away. Either way, it's a new Middle East that's being born, and it's Bush's baby.

A Right Way To Help Israel
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The New York Times
There is a difference between justified and smart. Israel's airstrikes against Hezbollah targets are legitimate so long as Hezbollah wages war against Israel and operates outside the control of the Lebanese government. But the air campaign is now doing Israel more harm than good.
A better answer to the Hezbollah problem would be an immediate cease-fire, paving the way for an international force to patrol Lebanon's southern border. That is what Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, was pushing for in Washington yesterday, and there were signs that President Bush may be finally coming around. For more than two weeks, Mr. Bush has been playing for time, declining to join calls for an immediate cease-fire so that Israel can continue its military actions. Israel and the administration are right to argue that a cease-fire alone cannot provide a lasting solution. But if Washington is now prepared to exercise diplomatic leadership on behalf of Israel's security, rather than simply run interference for Israel's military operations, a cease-fire now could become the first step to a more lasting solution.
The glaring flaw in the administration's logic is that there is no way that even weeks of Israeli airstrikes can eliminate more than a fraction of the 12,000 rockets Hezbollah is believed to have in Lebanon. And more weeks of television screens filled with Lebanese casualties, refugees and destruction would be a propaganda bonanza for the Hezbollahs and the Hamases, and a mounting political problem for the Arab world's most moderate and pro-Western governments. Whatever a major Israeli ground offensive might achieve in military terms would have far too steep a political and diplomatic cost. Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon brought no lasting gains, and few Israelis are eager for a repeat.
What is needed, as almost everyone now agrees, is a strong international force, including well-armed units from NATO countries, to move into southern Lebanon as quickly as possible. Its mission would be to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with U.N. resolutions, thereby reasserting the sovereignty of the Lebanese government and preventing further attacks against Israel. An immediate internationally imposed cease-fire would spare Lebanese civilians from further suffering.
Yesterday, there were some encouraging signs of movement in this direction, with Mr. Bush sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice back to the Middle East for the weekend and calling for a multinational force to be dispatched quickly. A United Nations meeting to discuss such a force has now been moved up to Monday.
The pressure for bringing in an international force should now be coming from American diplomacy, not Israeli airstrikes. If Washington is about to come off the diplomatic sidelines to which it has foolishly consigned itself for the past two weeks, it will discover a real opportunity to help Israel's security, America's international image and pro-Western Arab governments.

Fetch, Heel, Stall
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The New York Times
By Maureen Dowd
Oops, they did it again. That pesky microphone problem that plagued George W. Bush and Tony Blair in St. Petersburg struck again at their White House news conference yesterday. The president told technicians to make sure his real thoughts would not be overheard this time, but somehow someone forgot to turn off the feed to my office. As a public service, I'd like to reprint the candid under-their-breath mutterings they exchanged in between their public utterances.
THE PRESIDENT: "The prime minister and I have committed our governments to a plan to make every effort to achieve a lasting peace out of this crisis."
"Actually, we talked about our plan to keep using fancy phrases like 'lasting peace' and 'sustainable cease-fire,' so we don't actually have to cease the fire. Condi had a great one! Didya hear it, Tony? She said, 'The fields of the Middle East are littered with broken cease-fires.' Man, can she talk, and she plays piano, too!"
THE PRIME MINISTER: "The question is now how to get it stopped and get it stopped with the urgency that the situation demands. ... I welcome very much the fact that Secretary Rice will go back to the region tomorrow. She will have with her the package of proposals in order to get agreement both from the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon on what is necessary to happen in order for this crisis to stop."
"I thought it was quite clever, George, to stall by sending Condi to Kuala Lumpur for that imminently skippable meeting of marginal Asian powers. And her decision to tickle the ivories while Beirut burns was inspired. The Asians love a good Brahms sonata. And she called it a 'prayer for peace'! Just brilliant. But her idea of a series of Rachmaninoff concerts at every layover on the way to the Middle East could look too conspicuously like dawdling."
THE PRESIDENT: "Hezbollah's not a state. They're a, you know, supposed political party that happens to be armed. Now what kind of state is it that's got a political party that has got a militia?"
"Uh-oh! I mean, besides all those Shiite leaders we set up in Iraq who have THEIR own militias. Oh, man, this is complicated. What about those Republican Minutemen patrolling the Mexican border? Or Vice on a hunting trip?"
THE PRIME MINISTER: "Of course the U.N. resolution, the passing of it, the agreeing of it, can be the occasion for the end of hostilities if it's acted upon, and agreed upon. And that requires not just the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon, obviously, to abide by it, but also for the whole of the international community to exert the necessary pressure so that there is the cessation of hostilities on both sides."
"And the whole of the cosmos! We can call for an intergalactic study group to act upon and agree upon and adjudicate - George, I can keep the verbs, adjectives and conditional phrases going until these reporters keel over."
THE PRESIDENT: "My message is, give up your nuclear weapon and your nuclear weapon ambitions. That's my message to Syria - I mean, to Iran. And my message to Syria is, you know, become an active participant in the neighborhood for peace."
"It's so hard to keep all these countries straight! And which ones are in the Axis? I hate it when Condi leaves town. Tony Baloney, just blink twice when I mention a bad country and once when I mention one we like and sell arms to. And while you're at it, heel, poodle! Har-har. Play dead! You crack me up."
THE PRIME MINISTER: "I've spoken to President Chirac, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, the president of the European Union, the prime minister of Finland and many, many others."
"See? I'm no poodle. I'm here to keep the names of our allies straight. And I can stand up straight. Bush, old boy, that's not posture. That's Paleolithic Man."
THE PRESIDENT: "And so what you're seeing is, you know, a clash of governing styles. For example, you know, you know, the, the, the notion of democracy beginning to emerge - emerge - scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, and those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them, and so they respond. They've always been violent. ... There's this kind of almost, you know, kind of weird kind of elitism that says: well, maybe - maybe - certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free."
"Tony, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

US Needs To Revisit Mideast Diplomacy
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Financial Times
"You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can't make peace without Syria." It sounds like an axiom from a bygone age, like veterans of the 19th-century Great Game between Russia and Britain tapping their noses knowingly in some club in St James and muttering "warm water ports". The fact that it is attributed to Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state and arch-realist, will not recommend itself to the present administration. But President George W. Bush may find it worth re-examining.
Mr Bush has bought Israel's line that the Hizbollah cross-border raid on July 12 that triggered the current crisis was ordered by Iran and Syria, the Islamist militia's patrons. Maybe, maybe not.
Hizbollah is a powerful state-within-the-Lebanese-state. Its success in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000 has given it such status in the Arab and Muslim world it has a vainglorious tendency to believe it is the vanguard of Islamism. It has its own agenda and is not instrumentally controlled by Tehran, its ideological inspiration, or Damascus, with which it has been in often uncomfortable alliance by virtue of Syria's 29-year occupation of Lebanon.
But let us suppose, for the sake of practical rather than moral clarity, that Hizbollah was doing its sponsors' bidding: trying to get Syria back in the game after its ejection from Lebanon last year; and signalling on behalf of an Iran facing sanctions because of its nuclear ambitions that Tehran has the means to respond. What should be the response of the US and its allies?
Washington's current stance, using diplomacy to prosecute Israel's war aims (to disarm if not destroy Hizbollah) and drive a wedge between Syria and Iran, is simply not realistic. Israel's destruction of civilian lives and live­lihoods has turned Lebanese and regional opinion behind Hizbollah, enhanced by the guerrillas' resistance to Israel's elite ground troops.
Beyond that, Syria and Iran have no incentive to try to restrain Hizbollah. Instead of assembling rewards and penalties to get them to influence the group's behaviour, Washington either ignores them or threatens them just enough to ensure their continuing contribution to regional instability. Mr Kissinger would not approve. Nor would one of his successors at the state department, Warren Christopher.
Their successes - in arranging an armistice between Israel and Syria after the 1973 Yom Kippur war and a ceasefire in Lebanon after the last Israeli incursion to crush Hizbollah in 1996 - required the investment of scores of hours in Damascus. Syria played along because it was offered the perspective of eventually recovering the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Hiving Syria off from Iran would require something similar now - as well as a credible threat it will be isolated if it continues to stir trouble beyond its borders. But better still would be to engage Iran as well.
The US has edged towards talks, but set a killer precondition that Tehran must first abandon nuclear enrichment activity. But getting clarity and security on Iranian nuclear plans is only conceivable as part of a grand bargain that fully addresses Iran's status as a regional power and its legitimate security concerns.
The use of military force detached from diplomacy has generally failed under the Bush administration. So might diplomacy backed up by the threat of force - but we will not know that until it is tried.

The Road To Damascus
Saturday, July 29, 2006; A10
The Wall Street Journal
When Bashar Assad succeeded his father Hafez as president of Syria six years ago, hopes ran high that the British-trained ophthalmologist would bring a reform-minded sensibility to his repressive country. It hasn't turned out that way, yet suddenly the young dictator is being hailed as the man the U.S. must engage one-on-one to bring peace to Lebanon.
As former Secretary of State Warren Christopher put it in yesterday's Washington Post, "we do not have the luxury of continuing to treat [Syria] with diplomatic disdain." Coming from Mr. Christopher, this is remarkable, since he famously visited Damascus some 22 times to coax the elder Assad in the mid-1990s to make peace with Israel. All of that beseeching was for naught.
Even forgetting that history, Mr. Christopher's argument has a few problems. For one thing, the notion that the Bush Administration has isolated Mr. Assad is simply false. The young dictator has disdained explicit invitations to work with the U.S. As these columns described on July 15 ("Assad and Bush"), in the wake of the fall of Saddam Hussein President Bush dispatched Colin Powell to Damascus with an offer of better relations in return for cooperation against terrorism. Mr. Powell got about as far with Bashar as Mr. Christopher did with his father.
Mr. Bush also sent a message of conciliation after Congress passed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act in late 2003. Given a choice among six sanctions to apply to Syria, Mr. Bush chose the two weakest and also sent a new Ambassador to Damascus. Mr. Assad's response was to see this as a sign of weakness and allow Syria to serve as a staging ground and transit point for insurgents moving into Iraq.
There is also the little problem of the continuing U.N. investigation into the February 2005 murder of leading Lebanese political figure Rafik Hariri. The former prime minister had been challenging Syria's grip on the country, and Mr. Assad had in reply threatened to "break Lebanon over [his] head," according to the U.N. probe. The evidence turned up so far points to Syria and its agents as the murder culprits. And as Walid Jumblatt says in his interview with Michael Young nearby, the fear of more assassinations remains palpable in Lebanon even though Mr. Assad withdrew his army from the country to much fanfare in 2005.
As the price for delivering "peace" in Lebanon, Mr. Assad is sure to demand that this U.N. evidence be downplayed, if not washed away. We find it hard to believe that the U.S. would want to be complicit in covering up the murder of a former head of state. One of the reasons Bill Clinton cited for sending cruise missiles into Baghdad early in his first term was that Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush. Quashing the probe would be an abdication of justice as well as a betrayal of the Lebanese people that the current President Bush vowed to stand by only last year.
As for Hezbollah, Mr. Young reports that arms continue to flow through Syria to the Shiite militia that started the current conflict. And according to a Kuwaiti newspaper, Hezbollah leaders met this week in Damascus with Syrian and Iranian officials to plot strategy. For Mr. Assad to abandon these allies and risk their wrath, he'd need more than security guarantees and some "economic goodies."
There is one diplomatic approach to Damascus that might get Mr. Assad's attention -- call it the Turkish way. In the fall of 1998, the Turkish army mobilized for war with Syria. The Kurdish PKK had trained in Syria and its terrorist leader, Abdullah Ocalan, operated more or less openly in Damascus. The Turks made a simple offer: Either expel Ocalan and close the terror camps, or expect to be invaded. Within a year, Ocalan was in jail and the PKK had ceased its attacks. It was a similarly forceful message, delivered by then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in early 2005, that caused Syria to turn over Iraqi insurgent leader and Saddam's half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, to U.S. custody.
In order to prevail against Hezbollah, Israel (with implicit U.S. backing) may have to make a similar offer that Syria can't refuse. Either Syria stops arming Hezbollah, or Israel will have to consider taking the fight to Dasmascus.
No one wants to see the current conflict widen, but the worst possible outcome would be a cease-fire imposed by the world that allowed Hezbollah to survive as a potent military force. Equally bad would be a cease-fire that allows Syria to reimpose its will on Lebanon, while Hezbollah could re-arm and wait for the next time Iran or Syria needed it to create a second front against Israel -- or the United States.

NIH Director Joins Call For Mideast Cease-Fire
Saturday, July 29, 2006; A3
The Washington Post
By Christopher Lee
The head of the National Institutes of Health has joined a nonprofit group's public campaign demanding an "immediate cease-fire" in the Middle East, a stance at odds with Bush administration policy.
Elias A. Zerhouni, a physician whom President Bush appointed director of the NIH in 2002, lent his name to a half-page ad in yesterday's Washington Post by the Arab-American Institute Foundation. The ad, which featured the names of 36 prominent Arab Americans, called upon "all those in power to stop the violence" through a cease-fire so that "reconciliation and reconstruction" efforts can begin.
"We reclaim our American values of justice and mercy and compassion, values that abhor oppression and racism," the ad reads in part. "American leadership in the political and humanitarian challenges ahead is a sacred duty."
The administration has rejected Arab and European calls for an immediate cease-fire, saying a cease-fire should come only as part of a broader agreement that can endure for years and rein in Hezbollah militants.
Although Zerhouni's name appears in the ad, his title as leader of the nation's medical research agency does not.
"He signed in his personal capacity, which is why we did not list his affiliation," said Helen Samhan, the foundation's executive director. "We respect him for taking a personal stand on this, but he made it very clear that it was not in his professional capacity."
"He put it in as a private citizen," said John T. Burklow, an NIH spokesman.
Zerhouni was born in Algeria and earned a medical degree there in 1975, according to the NIH Web site. He later trained in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he became chairman of the radiology department. He also was a consultant to the Reagan White House.
Some supporters of Israel and U.S. policy in the current conflict in Lebanon said they found it unusual that a high-ranking administration official would publicly oppose the president on foreign policy, even if his title was not attached.
"It's clear that in this particular case it doesn't represent the administration's position, but I would hope that anybody who is in that position of authority would have the common sense and discretion not to do things of this sort," said Neil B. Goldstein, executive director of the American Jewish Congress.
Kenneth Bandler, a spokesman for the American Jewish Committee, said that because Zerhouni did not use his title, the group does not object. "It's not an issue for us," he said.
William L. Bransford, general counsel for the Senior Executives Association, an organization of high-ranking federal civil service officials, said Zerhouni had not crossed any ethical or legal lines -- only political ones.
"A political appointee serves at the pleasure of the president, and I don't know how the president would react to that," Bransford said. "You don't necessarily have any First Amendment rights in that type of position. As somebody who comes out publicly with a position that's directly opposite the administration, you would hope that they perhaps cleared that before they did it. Maybe they would allow some expression of personal opinion . . . because as the director of NIH, he doesn't have anything to do with the conflict."
The White House referred questions to the National Security Council. NSC spokesman Frederick Jones said he had no immediate comment late yesterday.

Shiite Pilgrimage Leads To Church
Saturday, July 29, 2006; A1
The Washington Post
By Anthony Shadid
RMEISH, Lebanon -- The word went out -- there was refuge in a Christian village -- and thousands came.
In a pilgrimage of fear, Shiite Muslims from the towns most ravaged along the Lebanese border fled for Rmeish, a hilltop hamlet along a road where Israeli shells fell, at times, every 15 seconds Friday. Here, they escaped to a church, and at the church, a basement lit by soft shafts of sunlight. In it were the wretched of this war: children with dirty feet and a pregnant woman who feared giving birth in squalor, an 85-year-old man whose donkey, his sole possession, was killed by a bomb and hundreds of others among the perhaps 20,000 who arrived in Rmeish, some drinking from a fetid pool and walking the streets in search of food and goodwill.
"The safety of God," said Heidar Issa, one of those here. "That's what we were counting on."
In a country fractured by faith, torn asunder by 15 years of civil war, they found refuge among the Lebanese Christians they once fought. Their politics often diverged -- over support for Hezbollah, their views of today's conflict -- but they shared a plight. And in a common misery wrought by war, less than a mile from the Israeli border, there was fleeting coexistence rather than talk of strife.
"Everyone is opening their doors to anyone who comes," said Tannous Alem, a 43-year-old resident of Rmeish with a cross around his neck, who had brought 120 people into his home over 12 days. "We're all the same in times like these."
Southern Lebanon, populated largely by Shiite Muslims, has borne the brunt of Israel's attacks, its villages depopulated, its roads and bridges in shambles and nearly every family touched by the war. But the road to Rmeish along Lebanon's border is a microcosm of the diverse country itself: Sunni Muslim village, then Shiite hamlet, alongside Christian town.
Along the sea was Alma al-Shaab, a Christian village with its olive trees, cactuses bearing prickly pears and gardens wilting with no water. Inland was Yarine, a largely Sunni Muslim town, along rolling green hills with cream-colored stones and shrub-like trees. With a wave, an inhabitant there beckoned a passing car: "Welcome! Come join us!" On the Israeli side of the border, antennas stood like sentries along a ridge. Horses, seemingly lost, wandered the streets, unfazed by the explosions. Passing them was a gaggle of Syrian workers, fleeing on foot. Their white flags were tethered to crooked branches, held by hand.
"They are fighting jihad in the path of God," read a sign attached to an electricity pylon in Raamiye, a Shiite Muslim village near the site where Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid more than two weeks ago.
"Please," one woman cried. "Check and see if my home is safe."
"When you come back, can you take us?" another man shouted.
Next was Kawzah, a Christian village with an abandoned Lebanese army checkpoint, then Aita al-Shaab, a village known as a stronghold of Hezbollah, where torn electricity wires dangled like vines along the street. Israeli attacks have destroyed swaths of the village, now deserted. A white Toyota was abandoned there, its trunk unlatched. Next to it was a blue Mercedes, its hood open.
And then came Rmeish, long a rival of Aita al-Shaab, whose Christian inhabitants sometimes served as officers in a Lebanese militia that fought Hezbollah during the Israeli occupation that ended in 2000. The hundreds of displaced people convulsed its streets, gathering along the curbs.
"17 days without water!" one person shouted. Another pointed to the hillsides. "There are still bodies there," he yelled.
In peace, Rmeish was a village of 7,000, picturesque with its red-tiled roofs and tidy streets. Since Israel ordered Lebanese to flee their villages along the border, as many as 20,000 have come. Isolated from the rest of the country, Rmeish suffered the same fate as its neighbors: no fuel for cars even for those who want to leave, no electricity, and supplies of food dwindling, even as stores remained open. To bathe, wash dishes and cook, the displaced draw water from a fetid pool filled by winter rains. Some said they were drinking from it. Diseases like scabies were spreading. The municipal government, overextended in the best of times, has virtually collapsed.
A ride to Beirut, once $10, now costs as much as $400, sometimes more.
"It's so miserable," said Carla el-Hage, a 19-year-old from the village. "This is what you read in history books."
The displaced have gathered in homes, a school and a convent. As many as 700 went to the Tajali Church, part of it unfinished. On a concrete steeple, roofed in red tile, stands a cross. Windows await their stained glass. On the church door was a letter pleading for order: a curfew beginning at 7 p.m., no lights at night and no trucks on the streets that might be targets.
In the basement was Khadija Rahme, a 29-year-old woman, eight months pregnant with her first child. She grasped a half-burnt candle. Her face drawn, she complained that there had not been enough water for bathing in 17 days.
"I'm so scared," she said, pleading. "I'm so scared I'm going to have to give birth here."
Next to her was 50-year-old Haniya Srour, who started crying.
"She's 95 years old," Srour said, pointing to her mother, Malika, lying listlessly on a mattress.
"Look how we're eating," she said, pointing to week-old bread, crumbling in her hands. Nearby was a bottle of drinking water, tinted green. Around the room were mattresses in small spaces, pans and silverware soaking in pots, plastic bags stuffed with clothes, a Koran and their identity papers, and cheap rugs marking the extent of each family's domain.
"Come look at the bathroom," she said, walking into a pitch-black room, the toilet a plastic bucket.
Not everyone in Rmeish was happy with the flood of displaced Shiites. Some complained that a few had broken into deserted houses, searching for food. Others worried that they might become squatters. And there was a sense of relief as thousands managed to travel the dangerous roads and flee toward Beirut since Thursday. But even the displaced were struck by the generosity they found in a village that, almost without exception, they thought the Israelis might not attack because it was Christian.
"They welcomed us with 100 hellos," said Issa, who arrived 10 days ago with 26 people in his truck. "Bless them."
His friend, Hussein Rahmi, nodded. "It's safer with the Christians," he said.
In the church's courtyard walked Fadi Abdoush, a stocky, 23-year-old Christian from Rmeish, with the gait of someone who had taken charge. He worked at a grocery store, but since the conflict began, he had struggled to provide help for the displaced.
"There is no city council," Abdoush said. "I've become the city council now. I've become the mayor."
He turned on a faucet that let out dirty water. "This is what we're drinking," he said.
He walked past 11 steel vats from Holland for shipping hydrogenated vegetable fat that he had lined up next to the church. Filled with stagnant water, they were for washing clothes. He walked into the entryway of his house, where he had set up three large steel plates for baking bread. He pointed out a makeshift latrine, too small to serve so many people. Then he walked into a small concrete hut, with brown tobacco leaves hanging from the roof for drying, where he had put 28 people, one family, who came from Aita al-Shaab.
Sixteen days ago, their house was destroyed. They had walked to Rmeish at 3 a.m.
"We don't know what our destiny is," said Hussein Nassar, the 65-year-old patriarch. "We have no idea what awaits us."
Abdoush looked out at the family. "One day it might be our turn," he said, echoing the words of neighbors that were often repeated Friday.
Along the town's main road was a jarring scene: a rare, chaotic, desperate panorama of life in an otherwise desolate and deserted region. People milled about on the roads, looking for rides. "$500 to Beirut! This isn't a shame? It's not a shame?" Suheil Adeeb shouted. Others stood expressionless. They held bags with clothes, blankets in plastic bags and their cooking pots on the street before them, the metal catching the glint of the sun. "We're waiting for God's help," said Yusuf Jamil, a 24-year-old from Aita al-Shaab.
A convoy left the city. Other cars joined it, frantically, people believing that in numbers there was more safety.
"It's a disaster for them, and it's a disaster for us," said 30-year-old Yusuf Rida.
Three nights before, his house was destroyed. So were three houses of his relatives. His grandfather was killed, as was his grandmother. With his cousin and uncle, they were still buried in the rubble. Before dawn, he walked to Rmeish with his three children and wife, all of them barefoot, bringing nothing with them but their clothes. They slept by the fetid pool.
"I didn't want to leave," he said.
"It was forced upon us," added his wife, Amal.
As they left Rmeish, a convoy with perhaps 100 cars plied the road, the vehicles flying their ubiquitous white flags, as blasts reverberated in the wadis along each side. Ahead, the white flag once tied to the roof of one minibus trailed behind it like a sail. There was a battered red Mercedes, improbably filled with 10 people, and a red tractor carrying 20 in back. They passed olive trees, a plowed but abandoned field and a silver Mercedes that was abandoned. "Joe Taxi," its windshield read.
At each blast, the eyes of Rida's children grew wider, and his wife cried more.
"These aren't my tears," she said. "These are the tears of my children."
He called his brother, staying near Sidon, to see whether he had room for his family. His daughter asked where another relative had gone. But for long stretches, they simply sat in silence, the terraced, rolling hills of southern Lebanon passing their windows.
"We don't know where we're going," he said softly. "We're just going."

In U.S., Calls Grow For Direct Contact With Syria
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Los Angeles Times
By Kim Murphy And Tyler Marshall
DAMASCUS, Syria - As international leaders search for a negotiated end to the violence in Lebanon, there is little doubt that the go-to state is Syria, Hezbollah's powerful ally and perhaps the only Arab state capable of guaranteeing a lasting peace.
But who will go?
The Bush administration's policy of isolating the government of Bashar Assad has left Washington with no high-level contacts in Syria. With no U.S. ambassador in Damascus, a strong system of economic sanctions in place and a refusal to talk with Syrian leaders, Washington is negotiating the most serious Middle East crisis in years through Arab and European intermediaries whose influence is questionable.
The policy has frustrated some U.S. diplomats and prompted a growing chorus in Washington to call for direct contacts not only with Syria, but also possibly with its ally, Iran - the two biggest backers of militant anti-Israel groups in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Without Assad's intervention, no agreement to end Hezbollah rocket attacks or to safely place a new peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon is possible, say those who advocate opening new lines of communication.
By contrast, an order from Syria to halt weapons and other logistical shipments at the Lebanon border could strangle Hezbollah military operations within weeks, military analysts say.
"Of course Syria has the power to make Hezbollah stop fighting. Because while Hezbollah is to a certain degree independent, it needs a political umbrella, and Syria and Iran are that umbrella," said Redwan Ziadeh, a political analyst based in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
In 1998, when Hezbollah was firing rockets into Israel, President Clinton telephoned Syrian President Hafez Assad "to stop Hezbollah, to stop the rockets. And Hezbollah stopped the rockets," Ziadeh said.
In Washington on Friday, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska became the latest prominent foreign policy expert to call for contacts with Syria.
"America's approach to Syria and Iran is inextricably tied to Middle East peace," Hagel said in a speech to the Brookings Institution. "Whether or not they were directly involved in the latest Hezbollah and Hamas aggression in Israel, both countries exert influence in the region in ways that undermine stability and security.
"Both Damascus and Tehran must hear from America directly," he said.
Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Leslie H. Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, have made similar recent public statements.
Within the Bush administration, the prevailing view is that Assad has made a strategic decision to ally his nation with Iran and Hezbollah against the United States, and that trying to detach Syria from those alliances would be fruitless, said administration sources speaking on condition of anonymity.
Still, Bush appeared Friday to be avoiding any repeat of his earlier criticisms of Damascus. When asked what message he had for Syria and Iran during a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the president passed up a chance to bash the Syrians, instead offering what seemed to be an invitation to get involved.
Blair, answering the same question, went further, saying Syria and Iran faced a choice, either to risk increasing confrontation or to "come in and participate as proper and responsible members of the international community."
So far, the United States has relied on Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to try to reach out to Syria.
But with Arab public opinion mounting in favor of Hezbollah and Syria's support for the group, those governments have had trouble making a convincing case.
Thousands have turned out for anti-Israel rallies across the Arab world. Here in Damascus, posters of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah hang in shop windows, and Hezbollah flags flutter out of car windows. The rising public support for the first time seems to cross traditional religious and political boundaries, encompassing Sunni and Shiite Muslims and secular Arabs.
Thus, moderate Arab leaders have begun distancing themselves from Washington.
Saudi Arabia, for one, was stung that a statement it issued early in the crisis criticizing Hezbollah for starting the fighting was used as partial justification for Israel's bombardment. This week, the kingdom adopted a much different tone, with King Abdullah warning that "should the option of peace fail as a result of the Israeli arrogance, only the option of war will remain."
Syrians say that they have little opportunity to act diplomatically while Israel continues to bomb Lebanon.
"The minute the Israelis decide to stop ruining Lebanon, Syria can play a mediating role. But nobody can stick their neck out in such a crisis so long as the Israelis are being so warlike," said Sami Moubayed, a Syrian writer and political commentator.
Syrian officials said this week that they were ready to open direct talks with the U.S., but they appeared to be uncertain of what Washington expected from the relationship - or what it was prepared to deliver in exchange.
"Of course, the Americans always want something from Syria: Sealing the border with Iraq. Closing the offices of the Palestinian groups. Cooling relations with Iran. The problem is they want so many things, but they offer nothing in return," said Nabil Samman, a Damascus-based analyst.
Analysts and officials in Damascus said Syria would not initiate negotiations to end the fighting in Lebanon unless the talks included an opportunity for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the fate of the Golan Heights - territory Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
Assad also expects guarantees of a continued role for Syria in Lebanon and assurances that Lebanon will not be used as a platform to undermine his regime, they said.
The fact that Hezbollah has not fired long-range rockets as far as Tel Aviv is evidence that Syria has placed the group on a leash, many analysts here said. But Damascus' desire to avoid war with Israel is a more likely reason for the move than any indirect lobbying by the United States.
In a telephone interview Friday, Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, said there had been "absolutely no contact" between Syria and the United States since the crisis began. The caustic tone of his remarks indicated he expected no opening anytime soon.
"How does he envision this participation?" Moustapha asked, referring to Bush and his news conference comment. "This administration doesn't talk to anyone who doesn't support its policies. He thinks things work by dictation, not diplomacy: 'Syria must do this, Syria must to that.' "
Bush "always talks past countries, not to them," Moustapha said.
Moustapha dismissed any possibility that Bush's remarks could be interpreted as an invitation to a diplomatic opening.
"You don't talk to countries via news conferences," he said.
*
Murphy reported from Damascus and Marshall from Washington. Times staff writer Doyle McManus in Washington contributed to this report.


Palestinians Are Hailing Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah As A Hero In The Fight Against Israel Since Attacks Began
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Houston Chronicle
By Gregory Katz
A new camaraderie
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK - Defiant Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is emerging as the latest hero for angry Palestinians looking to challenge the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
The bearded, charismatic Nasrallah - born and based in Lebanon - was not a household name in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but that changed dramatically over the last 17 days after Hezbollah first launched a successful attack on Israeli soldiers and then peppered Israel with more than 1,500 rockets.
At rallies after prayers in the central mosque in Ramallah Friday, Nasrallah was hailed by several hundred militants for his bold challenge to Israeli authority. Several people carried his picture, and he was even feted with a newly written song.
"Nasrallah, we are with you," the marchers sang to a recorded rap beat. "Nasrallah, we are your soldiers. Dear Hezbollah, hit Tel Aviv."
The crowd carried a mix of yellow Hezbollah flags and green Hamas banners, representing a possible union between the two groups fighting Israel on separate fronts. Both radical organizations are holding kidnapped Israeli soldiers and facing daily confrontations with the Israeli Defense Forces.
Winning supportNasrallah's group has managed to stalemate Israel, pinning down large portions of the Israeli civilian population in the north of the country with rocket fire. This is winning him support in the occupied territories and throughout much of the Arab world, Palestinians said.
"We feel that what he is doing is very good," said Hamed Azir, a 21-year-old student in Ramallah. "We think it's a good time for Israel to know they are not the only power and that another power can do something to them."
He said he was not surprised by Hezbollah's ability to withstand intense Israeli attacks because the guerrilla group has been preparing for this confrontation for years. Azir said he had no illusions that Hezbollah is strong enough to defeat Israel, especially since the Israelis have access to American weaponry, but he said Hezbollah's resistance has inspired Palestinians.
"Of course Nazrallah is getting more and more popular," he said. "People like him and want him to keep doing it. This is the first time someone is doing something against Israel."
Surviving attacksNasrallah, 46, has survived Israeli attempts to kill him with massive "bunker busting" bombs and has emerged unscathed after each attack. His resilience is much admired in the Palestinian territories, where many feel helpless in the face of Israel's military might.
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism analyst with the Swedish National Defense College, said Nasrallah's popularity stems in part from Hezbollah's role in forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon six years ago and also from his control of the Al-Manar television station, which is beamed to the Palestinian territories.
"He's packaging the resistance to Israel in a very skillful way, and he's doing what the Arab states are not doing - giving Israel a bloody nose," said Ranstorp. "And he's very respected by the Israeli Defense Forces generals because of his skill at reading the political environment."
The Hezbollah chief has joined a long list of leaders hailed by the Palestinians as potential saviors. First was Gamel Abdel Nasser, with his Pan-Arab approach, then came Yasser Arafat, who advocated armed struggle, and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who launched Scud missiles at Israel and paid the families of suicide bombers.
"Nasrallah is giving us a small point of hope," said Mahar Zaid, 50, who runs an education center in Ramallah. "There is no difference between Hezbollah and Hamas. The goal is to liberate the land."
Dismissing leadershipIn his brash speech after the July 12 raid in which Hezbollah commandos entered Israel and killed eight soldiers and kidnapped two others, Nasrallah seemed to mock the new Israeli leaders as lacking the stature and expertise of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma since suffering a stroke in January.
Nasrallah called the new team "small" and even made a dismissive hand gesture.
Writing in the Haaretz newspaper, Doron Rosenblum said this insult to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his advisers virtually guaranteed Israel would launch a harsh military response. He said Nasrallah's short, pointed speech really kicked off the war.
"Was it a clever trap laid by the wily fox?" Rosenblum wrote. "Or perhaps one uncalculated moment of catastrophic hubris."
Either way, the speech gave many Palestinians a welcome sense that for once someone was standing up to Israel.
Jihad Jebril, a Hamas official in the West Bank, said Palestinians felt the outside world was ignoring their plight even as Gaza was under heavy attack.
"There was bombing every day in Gaza and nobody cared, and then Hezbollah took action," he said. "So people think of Nasrallah as a big leader, not only in Lebanon but throughout the whole Islamic world. Our people feel much better than they did before this started."

Hezbollah Chief's Town Proud Of Native Son
Saturday, July 29, 2006
AP
By Kathy Gannon
The narrow road that leads to this southern Lebanese town is littered with the hulks of rocketed cars, white flags hanging limply from the windows. An Israeli drone whines overhead.
The streets are silent and empty but for wary young men who slip quietly out of the shuttered buildings when a stranger arrives.
Bazouriya, a farming village that sits on a hill above rolling fields, is the ancestral home of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Support for the guerrillas runs deep here even in the face of Israeli bombardment.
Two of the first Israeli missiles to hit the village slammed into the home of Mohammad Rida, a bulky man with a small beard. One missile blasted a hole in the house. He, his wife and four children were unable to get out before a second missile struck.
He called it a miracle they all survived, even his 1-year-old daughter who was covered in the rubble.
At a steel-gated private school - now a shelter for more than 200 sweltering Bazouriya residents - Rida cradled the child, Fatima, in his arms and pointed out the small scars on her leg as he explained that Hezbollah's roots ran deep here.
"We are Hezbollah. They are from these places. Their mothers and fathers are from this land. This is the land of their ancestors," Rida said.
A 10-foot poster of Nasrallah stands in the main square of the town. Photographs were not allowed by the young men who escorted visitors to the school and back to their cars. Although they didn't give a reason for the ban, they gestured skyward, indicating they didn't want to give Israelis any information that could become targets for artillery and jet fighter strikes.
Rida, while rejecting relations with Israel, spoke fondly of a more peaceful status quo.
"They should stay in their place, and we will be in our place. But they should accept us for what we are. We are Hezbollah."
Men listening nodded in agreement.
Without Hezbollah and its rockets, Rida said, Israel would destroy Lebanon.
"If we didn't have rockets to strike Haifa (the northern Israeli port) what would Israel do? If we were weak they would destroy us," he said.
Nasrallah's association with the town began when he was 15. During fighting in 1975, the Hezbollah leader's father, a vegetable seller, fled the capital of Beirut with his family to his ancestral town.
Radical politics electrified Lebanon in the 1970s, and Nasrallah joined the Amal movement, known then as an organization that looked after the poor and deprived Shiite Muslims who dominated the south of the country.
Nasrallah left Amal for Hezbollah shortly after Israel's 1982 invasion, becoming a devout member of the resistance as a result of watching the occupiers' campaign of village raids and sweeping arrests. He took over the Hezbollah leadership in 1992, after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Sheik Abbas Musawi.
Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Nabulsi insisted Bazouriya had no special links to the Shiite guerrilla movement despite its deep attachments to Nasrallah.
"It is like any other community. Hezbollah has its support among the people because we are the sons of this country. We are defenders of our land. We are fighting occupation," he said.
Yet the town has another tie to the present conflict. It is the hometown of Nasim Nisr, one of three Lebanese jailed in Israel for whom Nasrallah routinely demands freedom. Nisr was sentenced in June 2002 to six years in prison on charges of spying and treason.
Hezbollah has demanded the release Lebanese prisoners in Israel in exchange for two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture ignited the fighting.
In the darkened basement of the school, where children had only blue plastic bottle caps for toys, the youngsters offered messages that appeared carefully coached by their parents.
"We don't need food from America. We don't need help from America. We just need America to stop sending its missiles to Israel," said 6-year-old Hussein Mournia, barely visible in the darkened room.
Before the fighting, Bazouriya was a town of about 14,000, but thousands have fled.
Residents who stayed behind said the rocketing and bombing is relentless.
The only assistance for displaced residents has come from Mahmood Hassan, the school's owner and a Bazouriya businessman who now lives in Beirut. He drives supplies south every day.
"Thank God for Mahmood Hassan because without him we would have nothing," said Laila Nemi, who had been at the school with her six children for two weeks.
Nothing has come from Tyre, about 6 miles away, even though several aid organizations, including the Red Cross, have representatives there.
Rida wondered if that was because the leader of Hezbollah was a native son. "But why should that be? He is not here," he said.
Villagers living in the school said they were afraid to drive to Tyre after cars headed there, flying white flags to identify them as civilians, had been hit by Israeli missiles.
"In my country," Rida said defiantly, "I will never carry a white flag."

The Lebanese Government: From Powerless To Power Broker?
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Time
By Andrew Lee Butters
Dispatch: A newly united Lebanese cabinet - including Hizballah - may be in the best position to negotiate a cease-fire deal
Earlier this week, the chances of achieving a workable cease-fire in the current Middle East crisis seemed about as dim as the Lebanese government's prospects for staying in power. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who came to office last year with American support, looked as if he had been hung out to dry by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she refused to push Israel for an immediate cease-fire. Instead, she repeated her calls that Hizballah be disarmed first, something that the Lebanese government - which has trouble making its citizens pay their income tax and electricity bills - could never do on its own. Siniora looked powerless, and his already fragile government seemed one step closer to collapse.
But now Siniora suddenly stands at the head of a united Lebanese cabinet - which includes Hizballah - with the power to negotiate for a deal that could include the disarmament of Hizballah and the restoration of Lebanese government control over all its territory. "There is total unity about a cease-fire and a package deal," Ahmad Fat Fat, Lebanon's Minister of the Interiorm told TIME. "We need a cease-fire and we need it immediately. But we also need a package deal so we don't have to return to war in a few weeks or a few months."
Such a deal, according to Lebanese officials, would include negotiations on all the outstanding grievances between Lebanon and Israel: the status of land such as Sheba Farms, which is still occupied by Israel and claimed by Lebanon; an exchange of prisoners; the deployment of the Lebanese army as well as an international force to the south and the disarmament of Hizballah; maps of where Israel has laid land mines in Lebanon; and an end to Israeli violations of Lebanese territorial waters and airspace.
"The package they propose has all the elements to reach a sustainable peace - the absence of war - between Lebanon and the entity of Israel," said Ali Hamadan, a spokesman for Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament and the leader of the Amal Movement. Since most of Hizballah's leaders are in hiding, Amal - Lebanon's second largest Shia party - has been negotiating on Hizballah's behalf. "Some of the components may need adjusting, but there is nothing sacred as long as it is based on liberating the land and a free Lebanon."
So what has put Siniora's government in the position to make a potential breakthrough in diplomacy? In the view of the Lebanese, it's that U.S. has moved toward their position that all of the disagreements between Israel and Lebanon should be open for negotiation. "The discussions with the U.S. have been useful because they solved some of the illusions that you simply send a force and you reach a solution, " Dr. Mohamad Chatah, a senior advisor to Siniora, told TIME. "Any international force has to be part of a political framework that is accepted by all. Now the U.S. has agreed to this concept and no one is talking about sending NATO forces to impose and to disarm."
Many observers agree with Chatah that the principal reason the Lebanese government is having success getting the U.S. to listen is that the Israelis are having difficulty disarming Hizballah by force. After 16 days of fighting, the Israeli army is still bogged down in fierce battles just a few miles from the border. "If Israel is not able to win a war and create peace that way then why should anyone expect a multinational force to do so?" asked Chatah. "We have a long history of multinational forces coming and being part of the problem. We need a solution that ends this state of intermittent war. I must say the U.S. has moved a great deal. I think the Americans are discussing everything" in the package deal.
From the U.S. point of view, helping to build up Siniora's regime is one of the key priorities of any current Middle East diplomacy. As a Rice aide says, "This is not a Hizballah-centric policy. This is a Lebanon-central-government-centric policy". One element that the U.S. would likely insist on as part of any package deal is the creation of a buffer zone in South Lebanon near the Israeli border.
Although the Lebanese government is talking about a cease-fire agreement, officials caution against interpreting that as a peace agreement and recognition of Israel. Instead they speak of updating the armistice agreement the two countries signed in 1949, which never mentions the word "Israel," simply Palestine. True peace with Israel would only come as part of a regional peace agreement that settles the Palestinian question, especially since some 400,000 displaced Palestinians live in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese. But for the moment, the Lebanese government, as well as the international community, will take any peace it can get.
-With reporting by Elaine Shannon

U.S. Mideast Diplomacy: Let The Fighting Go On
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
THE MAIN EVENT
After more than two weeks of war between Israel and Hezbollah, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a diplomatic foray into the region, visiting Lebanon and attending talks in Rome.
* * *
But to call the trip a peace mission would be a misnomer. In contrast to her predecessors who have shuttled to the region during past conflicts, Ms. Rice resisted calls for an immediate cease-fire. She instead said the Bush administration doesn't want a halt in the fighting if it only returns the region to the "status quo ante."
On Friday, President Bush called for a United Nations multinational force to end hostilities in the region, and said he would send Ms. Rice back Saturday. But he still didn't call for an immediate cease-fire, putting him at odds with European and Arab allies.
The violence in Lebanon erupted shortly after the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants who crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Israel responded with a bombing campaign in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah in turn launched waves of rockets into Israel. About 400 Lebanese civilians and about 20 Israeli civilians have been killed.
Here's a look at some of the questions surrounding the Bush administration's approach:
Does the president really want peace? Yes, but not necessarily immediately. The administration's position on the conflict in Lebanon reflects a broader policy approach that Ms. Rice has called "transformational diplomacy," which aims to "change the world itself" through spreading democracy, hunting down terrorists and toppling unsavory regimes rather than just managing the status quo. In Lebanon, that translates to: Let the fighting continue if it roots out the terrorist insurgents of Hezbollah, paving the way for stability and democracy.
How does this differ from the diplomacy of previous administrations? In the prior three decades, U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton practiced various shades of "realpolitik" -- the practice of negotiating with most states, no matter how disagreeable, to maintain a balance of power in a region. In the Middle East, the U.S. mantra has been to engage the region in incremental, process-oriented diplomacy no matter what. President Bush has turned away from the realist approach. He has been far stingier about leading negotiations, while actively working to isolate states like Iran and Syria and factions like Hezbollah -- though he has been more tolerant of some less-than-democratic places, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His policies are guided by a strong sense of idealism like that of Woodrow Wilson, who sought to "make the world safe for democracy." As shown in Iraq, he also has much more actively deployed, or at least condoned, military force as a way to drive his agenda.
What is Iran's role? Iran has been considered a destabilizing force in the region since the Islamic revolution of 1979. During the 1980s, the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran because the U.S. didn't want to see Iran grow too powerful. Some analysts think Iran -- together with Syria -- holds a key to stability in the region, starting with persuading Hezbollah to disarm. A stumbling block is Iran's civilian nuclear-energy program, which the U.S. believes is a cover for a weapons program. Iran also is believed to be one of Hezbollah's largest financial supporters.
How has the removal of Saddam Hussein changed the power equation? For decades, Iraq served as a kind of fulcrum. Mr. Hussein was a secular leader -- and Sunni Muslim -- who served as a counter to Shiite fundamentalists in Iran. The recent U.S. invasion led to a power vacuum that has increased the influence of neighboring Iran, which had long wanted to topple the Iraqi regime. Besides carrying weight with Shiites in Iraq, analysts suspect the Iranians are funneling money to Shiite insurgents there.
--Lauren Etter
* * *
POINTS OF VIEW
"Now is the time to address the root cause of the problem, and the root cause of the problem is terrorist groups trying to stop the advance of democracy. "
-- President George W. Bush
"I will not give the order to the soldiers of the Israeli army to stop firing, to stop fighting and to stop hitting those who seek to take our lives...Does anyone imagine that we will stop halfway through so that in two months it will come back again? No way."
-- Ehud Olmert, Israeli prime minister
"Is this what the international community calls self-defense?...Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?"
-- Fuad Siniora, Lebanese prime minister
"It is not clear to me what exactly the United States is trying to accomplish by not taking a stance in favor of an early cease-fire."
-- Zbigniew Brzezinski, ex-national security advisor to Jimmy Carter
FACTS
About 46% of the world's population lives in "free" societies, compared with 20% in 1977, according to Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit promoting democracy. Of the 18 Middle Eastern and North African countries, only one is considered "free" -- Israel.
The U.S. State Department has named 42 groups to its List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Of those, at least five have a home base in Lebanon.
Hezbollah is an important player in Lebanese politics. The terrorist group has 14 seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament. It also has two ministers in government, and one more endorsed by Hezbollah.
Israel has received nearly $49 billion in U.S. foreign aid between 1960 and 2004 -- more than any other country. Egypt has received the second-most, $43 billion, followed by India, Vietnam, Pakistan and South Korea.
Before the start of the Lebanon conflict, there were an estimated 25,000 U.S. citizens living in Lebanon, according to the U.S. State Department. About 14,600 have been transported out of Lebanon. About 9,700 have arrived back in the U.S.
Hezbollah has roughly 2,500 to 3,500 members, according to Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There are about 300 Hezbollah guerillas who carry out attacks. Israel has about 168,000 people in its armed forces.