LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
October 27/06
Biblical Reading For today
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12,49-53.
I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
Free Opinions & Studies
The Strong Gale of Berry's Feast Gift-Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 27/10/06
Why withdrawal from Iraq is the worst option.By Michael Rubin-Financial Times 27.10.06
Latest New fromthe Daily Star for October 26/06
Latest New from miscellaneous sources for October 26/06
US Official: Syria Plans Campaign to Topple Saniora Through Aoun ...Naharnet
Berri's Fresh Initiative Draws Reservations-Naharnet
Bush to Iran and Syria: Stop Undermining Saniora's Government-Naharnet
UN Moves from Emergency Relief Phase to Recovery in Lebanon-Naharnet
Lebanon And Syria Called On To Join Weapons Ban-All Headline News
Report: UN mediator in talks with Hezbollah so far unsuccessful-Ha'aretz
Immigrant soldier killed in Lebanon to be honored by Masa-Jerusalem Post
Israel, Germany at odds over Lebanon air incident-Reuters
An Iranian Sales Pitch-FrontPage magazine.com
Iran, Hezbollah charged in 1994 bombing-The Australian
Kidnapped SA soldier: Is he dead or alive?Independent Online
Second contingent of Spanish troops leave for Lebanon-International Herald Tribune
Boiling Point: Jordan, Syria in Water War-The Media Line
Israeli army denies shooting at German vessel in Lebanon-People's Daily Online
Who Betrayed Lebanon? And Who Watched it Happen?American Thinker
Israeli warplanes keep overflying southern Lebanon-Xinhua
Appeal for Lebanon unity talks going nowhere: Analysts-Times of Oman
Europe should study Syria incentives - lawmakers-Reuters
The Strong Gale of Berry's Feast Gift
Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 26/10/06//
The situation in the region is terrible, inter-Arab relations are painfully deteriorating, which will reflect on Lebanon, where disagreements are in every street and in every direction.
This was the essence of the press conference held by Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berry; an essence that was described prior to its announcement as the 'Eid al-Fitr' feast's gift.
It was a gift indeed - since even the mere withholding of these truths before the Eid holiday in the hope that the Lebanese people would be able to celebrate Eid amidst their past worries, sparing them from renewed fears, concerns and tension until after the Eid holiday - is a good enough gift.
Imminent danger, however, necessitated the prompt exposition of the outcome of impressions arrived at by the parliament speaker during his recent communications within Lebanon and abroad, calling for the need to move quickly before matters get out of hand and a civil showdown is reached in Lebanon.
Therefore, Berry announced the start of the parliament's consultative meetings next Monday, setting up a two-week deadline to settle two issues: the national unity government and the electoral bill, in the hope that a resolution could ward off, or at least delay, the threat of an eruption, as confrontation seems to be the only alternative for the failure of consultations.
The two-week period is hoped to act as a truce that defuses simmering tension in the street, despite the absence of any guarantees that this period will end with a concession on the two issues being discussed.
But by pointing out the ultimate importance of the patriotism of the Lebanese people, and their stakes in preventing the settling of regional scores on their country's soil, Berry tried to give an idea about the compromises needed from the sides involved.
Despite limiting consultations to two topics, the governmental issue is believed to be the key issue, which is a summation of the domestic differences in Lebanon, particularly sectarian ones.
The parliament speaker knows that demands by Hezbollah and Aoun's movement for a national unity government stem from their rejection of the current government, headed by Fouad Siniora, and its policies.
The Speaker also knows that attempts to topple this government, especially in the street, will take the form of intense sectarian strife, and that this strife will feed on the increasingly violent confrontation in Iraq, Iran's aggressive conduct in the region, as well as Iran' s alliance with Syria.
At the same time, and as Berry stated, none of the Lebanese object to a national unity government. Consequently, a formula needs to be found to allow for a national unity government, provided that the change does not take the form of sectarian defiance.
Accordingly, an understanding should be reached on this government's policies in a way that makes all participants part and parcel of this government to overcome the crippling third that has been intimidating the current majority.
Berry also refrained from voicing his position regarding the prospective government. Nonetheless, he said enough for all those concerned, particularity those calling for change, to understand that his position does not stem from an opposition to Siniora, but rather from measures taken by the Siniora government to form a national unity government. This was evident in his announcement of enacting parliamentary committees to follow up on financial and aid plans approved by Siniora.
In other words, Berry tried to establish that immunizing Lebanon against regional influences is subject to arriving at an internal understanding on the importance of internal unity, which, in turn, dictates compromises, at least in urgent matters and defusing the tension in the street, and even buying time, as the first steps forward.
Berry added the electoral bill to the consultations agenda in order not to limit the focus on the governmental situation, and to open the door with this bill to possible changes that might encourage Hezbollah to mitigate its opposition to Siniora in the future.
However, this is subject to honoring commitments toward the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, as well as the international tribunal investigating the assassination of Hariri, since these two issues are at the core of the current crisis in its domestic and regional dimensions.
It is also in relation to these two issues that potential for reciprocal compromises is weakened. Therefore, Berry did not raise the ceiling of expectations regarding the consultations - especially after the attempts for dialogue have been brought down by the Israeli aggression - and seemed rather pessimistic, more than ever before. Nonetheless, the feast's gift he has promised was his decision to delay the warning that strong gales are blustering around the country.In the hope that the leaderships in Lebanon become God-conscious, God bears witness that I have delivered the message.
U.S. Official: Syria Plans Campaign to Topple Saniora Through Aoun, Allies
Naharnet/A well-known U.S. official said Thursday that Syria was preparing an "intimidating political campaign" to overthrow Premier Fouad Saniora's government through Gen. Michel Aoun and his allies. The official also said that Syria was planning to spread chaos and disorder by means of using its Lebanese political allies. "The Syrians, which are seeking to ascertain their influence over Lebanon because they are very well aware of the extent of their regional weakness," the official said, "have begun preparations for an intimidating political campaign against the Saniora government, ultimately aimed at eliminating it." "Syria's ambition now is to use its political allies in Lebanon to spread chaos and disorder in the country in an effort to drag Saniora's government into a bitter crisis," the official said, citing "reliable information from Washington." Asked about the identity of the Syrian allies, the official told An-Nahar: "Aoun's (Free Patriotic) Movement and its allies, including key Sunni and Maronite figures north of the country." "Aoun's allies" was a clear reference to Hizbullah, the movement's close political supporter. Both Aoun and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah have been calling for the toppling of Saniora's government and the formation of a national unity cabinet. His comments came as U.S. President George Bush urged Syria and Iran not to undermine Saniora's government and to stop backing Hizbullah. An-Nahar said that other American executives have agreed with the official that any dialogue with Syria over the situation in Lebanon and in Iraq was "not possible now." The official said that the U.S. administration has turned down all requests for "talks with the Syrian government" made by non-governmental Syrian personalities as well as Lebanese and Americans "because we had held discussions with President Bashar Assad and his aides in the past but have reached a dead-end." He stated that the lack of trust in the Syrian regime "would make any dialogue in the near future useless." Beirut, 26 Oct 06, 11:56
Berri's Fresh Initiative Draws Reservations
Naharnet/Speaker Nabih's Berri's initiative to resume fresh national talks in a bid to salvage Lebanon from a crippling political divide has drawn reservations from the country's roundtable leaders. While Premier Fouad Saniora was quick to welcome Berri's proposal, he voiced concern about the talks' agenda, suggesting additional items to be tackled during the discussions. Berri on Wednesday invited rival political chiefs for a consultation session to be held October 30 with only two items on its agenda: a national unity government and new electoral law. Among the items Saniora recommended to include were the issue of the recent Israeli offensive on Lebanon, the seven-point plan and the current government crisis.
The seven-point plan, which was approved by Saniora's cabinet to put an end to the month-long Israel-Hizbullah hostilities, calls for a mutual release of prisoners held by Israel and Hizbullah and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon. It foresees the Lebanese government taking control of southern Lebanon with the help of an international force. Sources close to the March 14 Forces told An-Nahar Thursday that the anti-Syrian majority leaders would only give a "unanimous stand" following thorough consultations. Sources also told Naharnet on Wednesday that the March 14 Forces were willing to accept Berri's initiative on condition that the talks would also deal with the issue of the presidency.
Pro-Damascus President Emile Lahoud's extended three-year term expires next fall. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his ally Gen. Michel Aoun have also withheld comment. Nasrallah and Aoun have been repeatedly calling for toppling Saniora's government and the formation of a national unity cabinet. But parliament's majority leader Saad Hariri, son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik hariri, has rejected any change in the makeup of Saniora's cabinet. Meanwhile, Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea said talk "should start from the critical events (that broke out) in July," in reference to the Israeli war on Lebanon, which was sparked by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border Hizbullah attack July 12.
Berri told a news conference on Wednesday that the first session of "a maximum" 15-day consultation period will commence in parliament on Monday, October 30. He said that Nasrallah would be represented at the talks but would not himself attend given Israeli threats to assassinate the man who prevented the Jewish state from achieving its stated objectives during its assault on Lebanon. Hizbullah's secretary-general and Aoun were among the top leaders who took part in the reconciliation talks, launched early March. The dialogue was last scheduled for July 25. But the outbreak of the Israel-Hizbullah war July 12 has prevented the resumption of the talks. The hostilities ended August 14 under a U.N.-brokered ceasefire. The thorny issue aimed at resolving Hizbullah's right to keep its weapons was last tackled by the rival leaders before the discussions were adjourned. Hizbullah had proposed a defense strategy for Lebanon in the face of a potential threat from Israel. Members of the March 14 Forces, maintain that any defense strategy should keep decisions to "protect Lebanon" in the hands of the state and regular army. But pro-Syrian groups, led by Hizbullah, have so far rejected U.N. Security Council demands to disarm and calls from within Lebanon to merge their fighters with the regular army. Beirut, 26 Oct 06, 09:35
Bush to Iran and Syria: Stop Undermining Saniora's Government
Naharnet/U.S. President George Bush has urged Syria and Iran not to undermine premier Fouad Saniora's government and to stop backing Hizbullah.
"Our message to Syria is consistent: Do not undermine the Saniora government in Lebanon," Bush said at a press conference he held in Washington on Wednesday. Anti-Damascus politicians in Lebanon accuse Syria of trying to meddle in internal Lebanese affairs despite its withdrawal from the country.
Syrian troops pulled out of Lebanon under local and international pressure in April 2005 after more than 29 years of hegemony.
"Help us (Syria) get back the -- help Israel get back the prisoner that was captured by Hamas; don't allow Hamas and Hizbullah to plot attacks against democracies in the Middle East; help inside of Iraq," Bush said in his second press conference in two weeks. He was referring to the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip late June. The U.S. labels Hizbullah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, as a terrorist organization. It also accuses the party of undermining Lebanon's democratic government. "Let me talk about the Iranian issue… whether or not they will help the Lebanese democracy succeed." He reiterated that Saniora's cabinet was a main concern of the Bush administration. "The Saniora government, which is -- a priority of this (U.S.) government is to help that Saniora government," he said. "And we will continue to work to make it clear to the Iranian government that … the sponsor of terrorists will cause more isolation." Bush also insisted that the U.S was "winning" in Iraq, as he defended his war strategy two weeks before elections that may see his Republican party lose control of both chambers of Congress. Iraq is dominating the political discussion as opposition Democrats seek to gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in the November 7 vote. Beirut, 26 Oct 06, 12:10
U.N. Moves from Emergency Relief Phase to Recovery in Lebanon
U.N. humanitarian agencies have wrapped up their emergency relief operations in Lebanon following the devastating Israeli offensive and are moving on to the recovery and reconstruction phase, according to a press release by the U.N. news center in New York. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs closed its office in Lebanon on Wednesday and the new phase, already underway, is being led by the U.N. Development Program. During the emergency relief stage, the agencies helped repair broken water systems and damaged schools as well as trucking in medicines, food, water, temporary shelter and other essential supplies to southern Lebanon, that has borne the brunt of the 34-day war. The U.N. Children's Fund distributed to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren notebooks and other supplies before classes resumed earlier this month. The U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center has also identified hundreds of sites where cluster bombs lie unexploded on the ground. Its operations are still underway to remove the war's leftovers. After the August 14 ceasefire, unexploded cluster bombs littered homes, gardens and highways across south Lebanon. By the end of September, U.N. demining teams had identified 516 cluster bomb strike locations and cleared 17,000 bomblets. U.N. demining officials are concerned that the problem of 1 million pieces of unexploded ordnance in the south could worsen as rain embeds the munitions deeper into the ground. UNICEF has warned that children face "a terrible situation" from the munitions as they walk into fields on their way to school.
Beirut, 26 Oct 06, 11:36
Israeli Fighter Jets in 'Incident' with German Warship off Lebanon
Naharnet/Two Israeli warplanes have been involved in an armed incident with a German warship patrolling the Lebanon coast as part of the U.N. peacekeeping force.A spokesman for the command of the German mission in Lebanon said Wednesday it was investigating the incident that took place on Monday. According to Thursday's edition of the German Tagesspiegel newspaper, two Israeli F-16 warplanes fired shots as well as anti-missile defense flares while flying low over the vessel. The newspaper said the incident had been reported to the German parliament on Wednesday by a state secretary in the defense ministry, Christian Schmidt. A German defense ministry spokesman did not identify the vessel. In Israel, Defense Minister Amir Peretz denied his country's planes had opened fire on the ship, in a telephone call with German counterpart Franz Josef Jung. "No Israeli plane opened fire at a German ship and Israel has no intention of attacking the German forces," Peretz said, according to his spokesman.
The defense minister also proposed closer cooperation between the Israeli military and the German naval force to Jung, whom he is due to meet in Israel next week. An Israeli army spokesman, meanwhile, said two planes had intercepted a helicopter as it entered the Lebanon-Israel border zone off Rosh Hanikra. "The Israeli planes approached the helicopter which had not identified itself according to the set procedure," he said. But the planes did not open fire and the helicopter turned back and landed on a German ship. France and the U.N. this week warned Israel that it was endangering the multinational peace mission in Lebanon by sending its fighter jets into Lebanese airspace. Police in Lebanon have said that there were more Israeli flights over the country on Monday than on any other day since the end of the Jewish state's 34-day offensive.
Peretz said at the weekend that the flights through Lebanese airspace would continue because of alleged arms smuggling to Hizbullah since the end of the war on August 14. Germany is heading the naval component of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon but has refused to contribute ground troops in a bid to avoid clashes with Israeli forces because of lingering sensitivities over the Holocaust. The German press also reported on Thursday that the German navy has been told that their mandate does not allow them to come within 10 kilometers of the Lebanese coast unless asked to do so by Beirut authorities.
Die Welt and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspapers said this was decided by Beirut and the U.N. on October 12, citing a document tabled in the German parliament by the defense ministry on Wednesday. The Agence France Presse said the issue had been the subject of protracted wrangling between Beirut and Berlin before eight German vessels set sail for Lebanon on September 21 with some 1,000 soldiers on board. The German government said at the time that it had won assurances that its ships would be allowed to search Lebanese waters and to use force if necessary to intercept weapons being smuggled to Hizbullah. Beirut has argued that German vessels be required to seek for permission from Lebanese authorities before approaching the coast. Under the mandate agreed to by the U.N. and Lebanon, the Germans would now have to do so, said the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. It said the U.N. mandate also stipulated that German soldiers may only set foot on suspect ships or seize material if they were accompanied by Lebanese soldiers.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 26 Oct 06, 07:06
Argentine Prosecutors Seek Arrest of Rafsanjani, ex-Hizbullah Chief in Jewish Center Blast
Naharnet/Argentine prosecutors asked a federal judge to order the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people. The decision to attack the center "was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities of the then-government of Iran," prosecutor Alberto Nisman said at a news conference Wednesday. He said the actual attack was entrusted to Hizbullah.
The worst terrorist attack ever on Argentine soil, the bombing of the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and injured more than 200 when an explosive-laden vehicle detonated near the building. Iran's government has vehemently denied any involvement in the attack following repeated accusations by Jewish community and other leaders here. Prosecutors urged the judge to seek international and national arrest orders for Rafsanjani, who was Iran's president between 1989 and 1997 and is now the head of the Expediency Council, which mediates between parliament and the clerics who rule the country. They also asked the judge to detain several other former Iranian officials, including a former intelligence chief, Ali Fallahijan, and former Foreign Minister Ali Ar Velayati. They also urged the arrest of two former commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, two former Iranian diplomats and a former Hizbullah security chief for external affairs.
Nisman and fellow prosecutor Marcelo Martinez Burgos said they suspected that Hizbullah undertook activities outside Lebanon only "under orders directly emanating from the regime in Tehran." The two prosecutors head a special investigative unit probing the attack, which flattened the former Jewish center, since rebuilt into a heavily guarded fortress-like compound. Nisman announced in November 2005 that investigators believed a suspected 21-year-old Hizbullah fighter had been identified as the suicide bomber. The attack on the seven-story Jewish center, a symbol of Argentina's more than 200,000-strong Jewish population, was the second of two attacks targeting Jews in Argentina during the 1990s. A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people in a case that has also been blamed on Hizbullah. Some speculated the bombing was inspired by Argentina's support for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Others said Argentina's Jewish community, one of the largest in Latin America, represented an obvious target for Israel's opponents. In 2004, about a dozen former police officers and an accused trafficker in stolen vehicles were acquitted of charges that they had formed a "local connection" in the bombing.(AP) (AFP photo shows members of the Argentine Jewish community participating in the rescue efforts shortly after the blast that destroyed the Jewish center in Buenos Aires)
Beirut, 26 Oct 06, 07:19
Who Betrayed Lebanon? And Who Watched it Happen?
By: Dan Gordon
October 26th, 2006
In the vision of certain members of the press, Israel is a colonialist mass murderer, and the word terrorist does not exist without quotation marks surrounding it. Israelis are aggressors. Islamist terrorists, be they Palestinians or Iranian backed Hezb’allah, are victims. These media types come to the Middle East with their narrative firmly in place. It is so because they believe it to be so.
I was an eyewitness to a classic example of this in Jenin, in 2002. Western journalists and United Nation envoys were in an uproar over an alleged Israeli massacre of a thousand Palestinians. There were grisly, supposed eyewitness, accounts of Israeli bulldozers shoveling hundreds of corpses of helpless Palestinian refugees into mass graves. There were stories of Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian children in front of their parents and then throwing their bodies into wells and sewage pits.
Comparisons were made to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, to Nazi war crimes and the term genocide was spoken with righteous indignation. The truth turned out to be somewhat less Baroque. There was a battle not a massacre.
In that battle some fifty Palestinian combatants were killed, as were twenty three Israeli soldiers. The battle was a ferocious one and in the Arab press there were glowing tales of the fifty Palestinian fighters who fell in glorious combat against the Zionist enemy they valiantly slaughtered. But to the majority of Western journalists the facts became a footnote on the inside pages, reported weeks after the front page banner line headlines screamed about the supposed massacre.
There was one journalist, Sheila McVicker of CNN, who was so openly hostile in her attitudes toward Israel that an Israeli Army medical officer, a gentle man who was head of pediatrics at Hadasa Hospital, inquired quietly as to the source of her anger at Israel. He tried to explain to her that Jenin was not the shelter of helpless refugees, rather it was exactly what its residents proclaimed it to be: the suicide bomber capital of the world. Hundreds of Israeli men, women and children, almost all of them civilians, had been murdered by the suicide bombers dispatched from Jenin. That is why a battle took place there. After close to thirty people were blown to bits at a Passover dinner in Israel, the Israeli military took action against those who dispatched the suicide bombers, trained them, armed them and sent them out to murder again and again.
“Maybe,” demanded Ms. McVicker, “You should ask yourself why they became terrorists.”
“I do,” said the good doctor. “It’s something I ask myself all the time. Why would someone from Jenin choose to come to Jerusalem or Hadera to commit suicide just so they could kill a few Jews along the way? Why would they choose death over life?”
“I can sum it up for you,” said Ms. McVicker defiantly, “I can sum it up in one word: occupation,” she said spitting the word out, as if it left a foul taste in her mouth.
“But my dear, Ms. McVicker,” the good doctor said, “Jenin hasn’t been occupied for nine years. In nine years there has not been the footprint of one Israeli soldier in Jenin. Jenin is ruled by the United Nations and the PLO.”
Ms. McVicker did not reply. She turned on her heel as if she had been spat upon and stormed off. How dare this man respond with facts? How dare he contradict the narrative to which she was so firmly committed?
The latest example of this journalistic attitude, but by no means the most egregious, can be seen in an article by one Robert Fisk. He adds a new twist. “We” by which he not only means Western Europe, but graciously includes Israel in this imperial “we”, “We” told the “Arabs” that we believed in “Democracy” then “We” betrayed them, one in all.
“And remember our promise to honor the fledgling Democracy of Lebanon…which brought the retreat of the Syrian Army. Lebanon was then held up to be a future model for the Arab world. But once Hezb’allah crossed the frontier and seized two Israeli soldiers killing three others on July 12th, we stood back and watched the Lebanese suffer.”
At the risk of subjecting Mr. Fisk to the same insult of perspective, fact and logic which was inflicted upon Ms. McVicker, one is compelled to place his truly twisted assertion into the historical context of which it is a part.
At the urging of the International Community (both Europe and the United Nations) as well as the government of Lebanon, Israel withdrew from quite literally every centimeter of land it had occupied in almost two decades of fighting with Hezb’allah. In order to provide Israel with guarantees for its security in return for withdrawing from Lebanon, both the United Nations and the government of Lebanon undertook certain obligations in UN Resolution 1559. Paramount amongst those obligations was the disarming of militias, chief amongst them Hezb’allah. In addition the government of Lebanon was to reassert its sovereignty over Southern Lebanon by having its army take up the positions which Israel handed over.
That Israel lived up to its end of the bargain is beyond debate. The United Nations, using GPS tracking mechanisms, reestablished every inch of the International Border. North of it was Lebanon, south of it was Israel. The launching by either side of attacks against each other in violation of that border was a violation of International Law.
On the other hand there also can be no debate about the fact that neither the government of Lebanon nor the United Nations lived up to its commitments. The Lebanese army was never dispatched to Southern Lebanon. Lebanese sovereignty was never established there. The UN took no actions either to help them do so, nor hinder Iran’s terrorist army proxy from occupying Southern Lebanon.
If one wishes to talk about occupied territories, there can be no clearer example of same than Hezb’allah’s occupation of Lebanon between the Litani River and Israel’s border and in the area of Southern Beirut where Hezb’allah established its capital within a capital, within its state within a state. Instead of ordering its army to take over the positions which Israel abandoned, the Lebanese government allowed an Iranian backed militia to transform itself into a terrorist army which built a Siegfried line like array of fortresses in bands three deep stretching all along Israel’s border.
It similarly turned a blind eye as that terrorist army was armed, in contravention of the guarantees both it and the UN had given to Israel, with tens of thousands of offensive rockets and a like number of anti-tank missiles, all of them aimed at Israel. Hezb’allah provided the lame excuse that all this was necessary to protect Lebanon from an Israeli invasion.
Then after six years of planning and preparation for its offensive on July 12th, 2006, Hezb’allah did not “cross the frontier” with Israel, they launched a totally unprovoked attack against a routine patrol clearly inside Israeli territory which offered no threat whatsoever. For a reporter, Mister Fisk ought to get his facts straight. They did not seize two Israeli soldiers and kill two others, they attacked two humvees with anti-tank missiles and automatic weapons, killing eight soldiers and then kidnapping two. They did so, not because they had nothing else to do that morning and thought it might be fun. They did so in order to provoke exactly the invasion which they proclaimed to the Lebanese people they were there to prevent.
What they had hoped for was a massive armored charge across the border to try and retrieve the two kidnapped soldiers. How do we know this to be true? We know it to be true by their actions. They hit one humvee and then lay in wait for the second one which came to rescue their comrades. Then they hit it as well. In other words, they had set an ambush. The ambush however was not restricted in its purpose to simply the two humvees. Again we know this because of Hezb’allah’s actions.
One will remember that it took Israel some weeks to get its reserves in position to be able to enter the fight. When it did so numbers of things were found to be lacking. Things like ammunition, food, and water. That is because Israel was caught with its pants down.
Hezb’allah, on the other hand, was fully prepared, all of its weapons had already been deployed to its forward positions, all of its fighters were already on alert, in position, manning the ambushes for the armored charge which they had hoped to provoke. The IED’s which have taken such a toll on American forces in Iraq, were laced along all the entrance routes into Southern Lebanon. “Tank Hunter” squads were in position and waiting to tear to pieces the expected Israeli armored advance.
This was to be a replay of what the Egyptians had done to the Israeli armor corps in the Sinai Desert in 1973. There, infantrymen equipped with masses of anti-tank weapons decimated entire Israeli armored brigades. In order to ensure this armored charge, Hezb’allah began raining down upon Israel’s northern communities what would be over four thousand rockets falling almost exclusively at Israel’s civilian population. The thinking most assuredly was that given those attacks upon Israel’s civilians, Israel would have to respond with the same kind of armored advance they had launched against PLO terrorists in Lebanon in 1980.
Like so many other military planners, Hezb’allah’s leadership was refighting the last war. Aside from that it was, in fact, a good plan.
Unfortunately for Hezb’allah it failed.
Israel did not take the bait. Instead of an armored charge, as Hezb’allah had hoped for, Israel responded by taking out bridges hoping to cut off Hezb’allah’s ability to spirit away the kidnapped soldiers. In addition, Israel struck by air at Hezb’allah’s command and control center in Southern Beirut.
Contrary to Mr. Fisk’s convoluted logic, Lebanon did not suffer because “we” betrayed its fledgling Democracy. Lebanon suffered because both Lebanon and the United Nations failed to live up to their obligations under UN Resolution 1559 and allowed Iran’s terrorist army proxy to occupy Southern Lebanon, and from those occupied territories launch an attack that was meant to drag both Israel and Lebanon into a war which neither wanted.
Witnessing what Hezb’allah was doing, in its six years of occupation and preparation for its offensive, Mr. Fisk and his ilk did indeed stand back and wait for both Lebanon and Israel to suffer.
Fisk goes on to state,
“Had Bush – indeed Blair – denounced Israel’s claim that it held the Lebanese government responsible for the kidnapping and killing of its soldiers and demanded an immediate cease fire, then the disaster that is destroying Lebanon’s Democracy would not have happened.” Tisk, tisk, Mr. Fisk. Can one imagine a scenario in which one country allows a terrorist army to equip itself with tens of thousands of rockets which it then rains down on a neighboring country, and yet that country does not hold the country from which those rockets were launched accountable? Is there any country in the world which would, in fact, just shine it on? Especially in light of the fact that this same Hezb’allah which killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers and launched over four thousand rockets against Israel’s civilians, was part of the Lebanese government!
Moreover, Fisk conveniently overlooks the fact that so long as Hezb’allah thought it was wining, it did not want a cease fire. Fisk talks about dead children in Tyre. Unfortunately no one needs to instruct me about the tragedy of the death of one’s child. I know it only too well. And my heart grieves with any parent who has suffered that horrific fate. But then, Fisk incredibly states that those children
“Would have been alive if even Blair and Margaret Beckett had demanded a cease fire. But they are dead. And Blair, and Beckett and Bush should have this on their consciences.”
No Fisk, you’ve got it wrong. The same Hezb’allah which pulled children’s bodies from the wreckage of the carnage which they themselves provoked, only to rebury those poor children’s bodies, and dig them up again for the next news crew; the same Hezb’allah which in the most cynical fashion launched, from within the Lebanese civilian population, their attacks against Israel’s civilian population in order to achieve maximum casualties of both, should have it on their consciences. So should their journalist appeasers and apologists, who enabled them and continue to cover up their crimes.
That Fisk is one such appeaser and apologist becomes clear when he almost gleefully states
“The Israeli Army were (was) soundly thrashed when they crossed the border to fight the Hezb’allah losing forty men in thirty six hours.”
Not that one is keeping score, but simply as a way of illustrating how fast and loose is Fisk with facts, in the first thirty six hours of the war Israel in fact lost 12 soldiers killed and four civilians. When one takes into account that eight of those twelve soldiers were killed in the initial attack, what those figures tell us is that in the first thirty-six hours of the conflict Israel lost as many civilians as soldiers, four of each.
As to Fisk’s assertion that Israel was “soundly thrashed” one is again forced to resort to facts as opposed to the fanciful narrative Fisk has created, in which Hezb’allah is somehow simultaneously the helpless victim and the sound thrasher. So here are the facts: at the end of the conflict all of Hezb’allah’s three-band-deep, Siegfried line-like system of fortresses, bunkers, tunnels and armed caches were destroyed or abandoned or in the control of the Israeli Army. Some six hundred of Hezb’allah’s elite fighters were killed, an unknown number (unknown because Hezb’allah has yet to release the figures) were wounded.
In contrast to this, Israel suffered one hundred and nineteen soldiers killed. That number, while tragic, represents the lightest casualties ever suffered by the Israeli army in major combat in its history. In 1948 in its war of liberation Israel suffered six thousand killed. In the Six Day War, arguably Israel’s greatest victory, the IDF suffered almost seven hundred killed. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War it suffered two thousand seven hundred killed in action.
In the first week alone of the first Lebanon War the IDF had one hundred and seventy six killed. Of the four hundred tanks deployed by the IDF in combat against Hezb’allah, a total of five tanks were destroyed. Hezb’allah on the other hand has been forced to abandon all its strongholds. Its terrorist capital, and infrastructure are in ruins and the positions it once manned are now finally taken up by the Lebanese Army and fifteen thousand man strong United Nations force.
Had those forces been in place on July 11th, as both Lebanon and the United Nations assured Israel after its withdrawal would be the case, none of the children Fisk and I both mourn would have died. None of them. Not one.
“When I sit on my sea front balcony today, I am waiting for the next explosion to come,” writes Fisk.
That at least is true; just as Fisk sat on his balcony refusing to cover the story that lead to the tragedy he now bemoans. That story was how Iran’s terrorist army proxy, not Israel, occupied Southern Lebanon, and then used those occupied territories to drag Israel and Lebanon both into its totally preventable war.
Through it all Fisk sits on his sea front balcony writing his next narrative which will no doubt enable, and apologize for, terrorist atrocities yet to come.
Dan Gordon is the writer of such films as The Hurricane, Murder in the First, Wyatt Earp, and The Assignment. He served as a captain in the reserves in the IDF during the recent war.
Dan Gordon
Why withdrawal from Iraq is the worst option
by Michael Rubin
Financial Times
October 26, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1037
The news from Iraq is bad, but many of the recommendations coming from London and Washington are worse. Dividing Iraq would abet ethnic cleansing and break the country into morsels more easily digested by neighbouring states. Outreach to Iran and Syria is no panacea: Tehran and Damascus treat diplomatic commitment with disdain; Iran's revolutionary guards seldom abide by the promises of Iranian diplomats.
Imposing a strong man to govern is easier said than done: while Iraqis support the concept, consensus quickly breaks down; Iraq is a country with 100 would-be generals for every private. There is no magical political formula. Compromise is undercut both by maximalist demands and a growing belief that violence leads to concession. Withdrawal is the worst option: it would enable terrorism to flourish not only in Iraq, but around the world.
Solutions in Iraq require precise treatment of the problems. One in six Iraqis fled the country under Saddam Hussein. Those who settled in the west had no cultural impediment to democracy. This suggests the problem in Iraq is not democracy, but rather rule of law. Any solution to the Iraq quagmire, therefore, requires improving security, not creating a vacuum. The greatest impediment to rule of law in Iraq is not the insurgency, still relatively localised, but the militias. These exist for one reason: to impose through force what citizens are unwilling to volunteer through the ballot box.
To improve security, the coalition must improve the police and eviscerate the militias. The problems are related. The interior ministry has become a refuge for militiamen and cover for death squads. As the coalition did with the reconstituted Iraqi army, the coalition troops must embed with the police at every level. There should not be any police checkpoint that does not include coalition soldiers, nor should there be any interior ministry raid conducted without a coalition supervisor outside. This requires resolving a catch-22: the coalition does not station its troops with the police because of inadequate security, but the driving forces of this insecurity are the police. If security is the goal, there is no shortcut.
A related lesson is that desire for short-term calm cannot trump the quest for long-term security. While it has become conventional wisdom that de-Baathification, the initial removal of Saddam's party members from authority, sparked insurgency, the data show violence to be proportional to that policy's subsequent reversal. In Mosul, US general David Petraeus spoke of reconciliation when he appointed senior Baathist General Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi to be that city's police chief. He portrayed Mosul as a model of calm. But the peace was illusionary. Gen Barhawi was unreformed. He used his position to provide intelligence, equipment and arms to terrorists. In November 2004, he handed the keys of every police station in the city over to insurgents.
What Gen Petraeus did in the north, British commanders replicated in the south. While successive British commanders juxtaposed their non-confrontational strategy with more heavy-handed American tactics, the British approach sacrificed long-term stability for the sake of short-term calm. Rather than pacify southern Iraq, the British army enabled militias to entrench. Contrary to the belief of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the British army chief, occupation itself is not responsible for the deteriorating situation in Iraq, but rather the fact that militias have grown secure enough to believe themselves capable of defeating the British army.
Countering the militias need not require immediate confrontation, but rather more robust disruption of supply and operations. Both big Shia militias receive support from Iran. In 1992 the US forced down an Iranian aircraft ferrying men, money, and weapons to Bosnia. Such operations in Iraq lack only political will: US and British intelligence are well aware of Iranian supply lines.
It would be a mistake to abandon democracy. To do so would reaffirm the worst conspiracies about coalition intentions and drive Iraq into the arms of neighbouring states. Still, there is room for improvement in the election system.
The current system of proportional representation encourages populist rhetoric, empowers political parties that sponsor militias and encourages parties to form on ethnic and sectarian lines. The coalition should press the legislature to abandon party lists in favour of directly-elected constituencies. This would make Iraqi politicians more accountable to constituents than party leaders, but encourage them to discuss more the problems of security, electricity and school rather than spout corrosive rhetoric.
As violence spreads in Iraq, politicians are right to change course. But abandoning the Iraqis should not be an option. Rather, coalition strategy should address the rule of law directly, and remain cognisant that the war in Iraq has broader repercussions. While many in Britain and Europe believe war in Iraq to be illegal, they should not sacrifice ordinary Iraqis on the altar of anti-Americanism.
***The writer, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.