ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

I think, this was posted already somewhere, but it really worth looking at it again:

Quote:

It's like watching two different wars
Julian Borger
August 2, 2006 01:18 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/julian_borger/2006/08/post_279.html

The US and European media have always covered the Middle East from different perspectives, but flying back to Washington from a stay in London at the height of the Lebanese conflict made it clear to me how wide the gulf has become. Britons and Americans are watching two different wars.

The overwhelming emphasis of television and press coverage in the UK was the civilian casualties in Lebanon. Day after day, those were the "splash" stories. The smaller number of civilian casualties from Hizbullah rockets in northern Israel was also covered but rarely made the top headlines or front pages.

Back in DC, watching Lebanon through American camera lenses, the centre of the action seemed to be Haifa. CNN, for example, sent two of its top anchors, Miles O'Brien and Wolf Blitzer, to the Israeli port city. Much of the morning news was devoted to showing O'Brien scurrying in and out of shelters when the air raid sirens sounded. Another correspondent was sent on patrol with a Haifa ambulance crew to look for casualties. On the morning I was watching, the crew only came across a man who had a fatal heart attack as a result of the rockets. The paramedics' attempts to save him were shown.

This emphasis on Israeli casualties relative to Lebanese was taken to its breathtaking extreme by Charles Krauthammer, a conservative columnist on the Washington Post, who described the Hizbullah rocket attacks as "perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz."

From Haifa, the television news typically shifts to the border and to correspondents covering the Israeli army (CNN has another of its leading men, John Roberts, stationed there), who have supplied most of the news on the fighting in south Lebanon.

There have been reports out of Lebanon itself, but they have usually come further down the running order, and reports on civilian casualties there are almost always contextualised, emphasising the Hizbullah tactic of launching rockets from populated areas; in British reporting, that context has often been either missing or weighed separately in analytical pieces.

British journalism generally celebrates eyewitness accounts with a consistency in emotional tone that discourages cool asides to discuss mitigating circumstances; US television reporting out of Lebanon, by contrast, has occasionally been in danger of becoming all context, focusing on Hizbullah tactics to the exclusion of the humanitarian tragedy. Fox News, in particular, has sought to bolster Israeli public relations. An anchor at one point asked Ehud Barak what he would like the world to know about Hizbullah and Hamas.

Qana has changed the tone, at least for the time being. The account of families huddled together in a building in a doomed bid to keep their children safe and the sight of the small bodies being carried out of the rubble has had the emotional force to break through the usual rules of the game, and has mostly been given comprehensive coverage. But one Fox anchor still expressed concern that any pause in the Israeli offensive would allow Hizbullah to regroup.

There is a circular relationship between media coverage of the Middle East and public opinion. Correspondents and editors are often fearful of the avalanches of hate mail that can descend in a heartbeat on matters Middle Eastern, and their reports consequently serve to deepen entrenched points of view.

The difference between British and US polls on the current conflict are striking. Just over a fifth of Britons polled pre-Qana, compared with nearly half of the Americans questioned at about the same time, said they thought the Israeli use of force was proportionate; and another 9% of American respondents thought the Israelis were not being tough enough.

Some of that extraordinary divide must be attributable to the very different realities on British and American television screens.

Meanwhile, more Iraqi civilians are dying every day than Lebanese, but the horror of that war barely appears on television screens in either country any more. Lebanon is newer and much safer to cover. Anyway, Iraq fatigue set in long ago.

I see them as cultural differences, really. There -- In Britain, the newspaper world -- and maybe the public at large -- is far more cynical about government. I think to a certain extent, there's a way in which American reporters -- reflecting an American population -- still believes in some way that if the information comes from the administration -- or from an administration agency -- then it has inherent worth. It may not be true, but there is reason to believe it is true. In a way, that's turned on its head in Britain. There's a deep-seated distrust of what you're being told by the government -- what you've been told by government agencies. And a much deeper-seated instinct to aggressively go out and find out if it's true.

HRW: Israel Deliberately Targeting Civilians

By Foreign News Desk
Friday, August 04, 2006
zaman.com


The Israeli army has massacred 900 people, mainly civilians, in its 23-day offensive.

As the Israeli administration announced that the civilians in Qana were killed by mistake; the Human Rights Watch Organization (HRW) declared that they observed the deliberate killing of civilians in Lebanon by the Israeli army, and noted that some of its strikes constitute war crimes

After the investigation into the killing of 28 civilians, 16 of whom children, Israel said the building would not have been hit if they knew that there were civilians in it.

HRW said Israel's contention that Hizbollah fighters were hiding among Lebanese civilians did not justify its "systematic failure" to distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians in some cases, stated the report, and added that Israel also opened fire on civilian vehicles fleeing the attacks.

zaman

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=7314

Hezbollah uses Christian villages as shields in missile attacks

Washington DC, Aug. 03, 2006 (CNA) - Recent reports indicate that Hezbollah is using Christian villages to shield its attacks against Israel.

According to Christian Solidarity International, Hezbollah is hiding among civilian populations, mostly in southern Lebanese towns, such as Ain Ebel, Rmeish, Alma Alshaab.

Launching attacks behind human shields is in violation of the Geneva Convention's provision for the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, which prohibits the use of civilians as military shields.

This is not a new strategy for Hezbollah. Col. Charbel Barka, a former South Lebanese Army commander, says Hezbollah is repeating what it did in attacks against Israel in 1996.

A Christian from the village of Ain Ebel, who requested to remain nameless for fear of a reprisal from Hezbollah, reported that he found Hezbollah fighters setting up a launcher on his rooftop. Hezbollah fighters ignored his pleas to stop and fired the missiles. He immediately gathered his family and fled his home, which was bombed 15 minutes later by an Israeli air strike.

Hezbollah has also attempted to stop Christians from fleeing their villages. According to Christian Solidarity International, on July 28, Hezbollah fighters fired upon several Christians fleeing Rmeish with their families, wounding two.

Sami El-Khoury, president of the World Maronite Union, adds that media reports about Christian support for Hezbollah are inaccurate.

"Contrary to Western press reports, indicating high percentages of Christian support for Hezbollah, 90 percent of Christians, 80 percent of Sunni and 40 percent of Shiites in Lebanon oppose Hezbollah," El-Khoury told Christian Solidarity International.

Christian Solidarity International has called for the United Nations to establish a politically independent commission to investigate Hezbollah's contravention of international law. The group has also urged the UN Security Council to deploy immediately an international force in Lebanon to facilitate a ceasefire, to stop the flow of arms from Syria to Hezbollah, and to assist the Lebanese government in fulfilling its obligation to disarm Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been the ruling power in the south since Israel withdrew from Lebanon six years ago. Christian villages suffer from extensive neglect of infrastructure under Hezbollah rule. Once the majority, the Christian population in Lebanon has declined to under 40 percent due to pressures by Islamic militias supported by Iran and Syria.

I have trouble believing this story. The South Lebanese Army was a bunch of collaborators who were paid off by the Israeli government to fight Hezbollah, so it is difficult to believe they would be telling the truth. The truth is the Israeli don't distinguish between Muslim and Christian Arabs. In Palestine, they jail many Christian Palestinians without any cause and don't mind killing them whenever they want to. I know, I have personally been in Palestine and have seen the racism of Israeli against all Palestinians.

Caritas calls for immediate opening of humanitarian corridor in Lebanon

Madrid, August 04, 2006 (CNA) - Caritas International has asked all parties involved in the Middle East conflict to immediately open a humanitarian corridor in order to help the Lebanese population caught between the two warring sides.

In a statement released earlier this week through Caritas Spain, the organization condemned Israel for reversing its decision to halt the bombardment of Beirut for 48 hours after more than 50 civilians were killed during an attack on the Lebanese village of Qana.

Caritas reports that civilians, "remain terrified at refuge centers and do not risk leaving, out of fear of being a target of the attacks." It added that humanitarian agencies, "seem powerless to provide swift and rapid assistance" to the population, which lacks potable water, food, and medicine.

In addition to, "an immediate and unconditional ceasefire," Caritas is requesting the safety of all humanitarian organizations and their workers be guaranteed. It is also calls for the release of Israeli soldiers and of the Palestinian officials who have been arrested, as well as for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force and the restarting of peace talks.

"In support of our workers and volunteers who are risking their lives every day by helping others, and in solidarity with all those who are suffering, we believe it is right to direct the attention of the entire world to this humanitarian disaster that is spreading all over Lebanon and to call on all persons of good will to demand peace," the statement indicated.

Caritas Spain also emphasized that, "peace is an unalienable right of every human being," and that, "according to International law, military attacks must not deliberately target civilians."

Israeli strike kills 33 farm workers in Lebanon...loading fruit.l

Israel plans to reoccupy part of Lebanon

Operation must get cabinet's approval

August 4, 2006

BY DION NISSENBAUM and MATTHEW SCHOFIELD

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS


TEL AVIV, Israel -- The Israeli military began preparing to reoccupy southern Lebanon on Thursday, and Israeli officials conceded that their three-week bombing campaign has had no significant impact on Hizballah's ability to fire short-range rockets into northern Israel.

The dispatch of thousands of Israeli soldiers to retake as much as one-fifth of Lebanon -- the operation must still be approved by the Israeli cabinet -- would mark a major expansion in Israel's Lebanon campaign and would reverse Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon six years ago after a troubled 18-year occupation...

freep

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Four Israeli missiles slammed into a refrigerated warehouse where farm workers were loading vegetables Friday near the Lebanon-Syria border and at least 28 people were killed, officials said.
At least 12 were wounded, they said.
...
Arab television channels showed videotape of Lebanese soldiers and orange-garbed rescue workers hauling body after body out of the ruins of the warehouse. Many of the victims were dismembered and scorched. Crates of fruit lay in a jumble and the nearby orchard was badly damaged.
...
Syria's official news agency reported that 33 were killed, 23 of them Syrians. The Syrian dead included 18 men, 2 elderly women and 3 young girls, it said. Ten were wounded.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it ``attacked from the air two structures in the Bekaa Valley, on suspicions that weapons were being transported there.'' It said it was checking reports that farm workers and a vegetable storehouse were hit.
...

(Reuters) - Several rockets landed in or near the Israeli city of Hadera on Friday, Israel's Channel 2 television reported, causing no casualties.

The strikes marked the deepest distance that rockets fired by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah had landed inside Israel since the start of fighting between Israel and Hizbollah on July 12. Hadera is about 80 km (50 miles) from the Lebanese border.

TV news teams face a tricky balancing act in covering the Lebanon crisis, with cries of pro-Israeli bias sitting side by side accusations that broadcasters are flying the flag for Hizbullah. But what are the networks actually saying?

I bet Lebanese civilians would be less likely to be killed by Hezbollah and by Israel if Hezbollah were to:
(1) Return its captured Israeli soldiers;
(2) Stop shooting its missles into Israel;
(3) Love life more than death;
(4) Love its children more than it hates Israel.