Israel -- 2006 War

African Herbsman · Jul 27, 2006

Al-Qaida calls for holy war against Israel

By WILLA THAYER, Associated Press Writer 36 minutes ago

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader issued a worldwide call Thursday for Muslims to rise up in a holy war against Israel and join the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza until Islam reigns from "Spain to Iraq."

In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said that al-Qaida now views "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."

The Egyptian-born physician said that the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Palestinian militants would not be ended with "cease-fires or agreements."

"It is a jihad (holy war) for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere." Spain was controlled by Arab Muslims for more than seven centuries until they were driven from power in 1492.

He said Arab regimes were accomplices to Israel. "My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit ... and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies ... make yourselves martyrs."

He also called for the "downtrodden" throughout the world, not just Muslims, to join the battle against "tyrannical Western civilization and its leader, America."

"Stand with Muslims in confronting this unprecedented oppression and tyranny. Stand with us as we stand with you against this injustice that was forbidden by God in his book (the Quran)," al-Zawahri said.

Kamal Habib, a former member of Egypt's Islamic Jihad militant group who was jailed from 1981 to 1991 along with al-Zawahri, said the al-Qaida No. 2's outreach to Shiites and non-Muslims was unprecedented and reflected a major change in tactics.

"This is a transformation in the vision of al-Qaida and its struggle with the United States. It is now trying to unite Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims and calling for non-Muslims to join the fight," he said.

Al-Zawahri wore a gray robe and white turban in the video. A picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with photos of two other militants. One appeared to be a bearded Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks. The other was Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, a former top lieutenant of bin Laden who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001.

The Arab satellite station did not transmit the entire tape, using instead selected quotes interspersed with commentary from an anchor.

An Al-Jazeera official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters said the full tape was about eight minutes long. The satellite channel aired only about half the message. It would not say how it received the tape.

"The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price," al-Zawahri said.

"We cannot just watch these shells as they burn our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and stand by idly, humiliated," he added.

The message was al-Zawahri's 10th this year. Bin Laden has issued five messages in a particularly active year of messages from the top al-Qaida leadership.

Al-Zawahri last appeared in a video posted on an Islamic Web site on the first anniversary of the train bombings in London. In the July 7 tape, he said two of the four suicide bombers in London had spent time in an al-Qaida training camp, preparing themselves for a suicide mission.

The two top al-Qaida leaders also paid tribute in June to the slain leader of their Iraq network, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in separate recordings. Many of their messages this year have dealt with current events in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.

Another new audio or video message from bin Laden had also expected in the past week on the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, according to IntelCenter, a U.S.-based independent group that provides counterterrorism information to the U.S. government and media. However, no messages have appeared on Islamic Web sites to announce the release.

Al-Zawahri said Muslims everywhere must rise up to attack "crusaders and Zionists" and support jihad "until American troops are chased from Afghanistan and Iraq, paralyzed and impotent ... having paid the price for aggression against Muslims and support for Israel."

Israel began an offensive on Gaza days after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier on June 25. It opened a second front in Lebanon after Hezbollah guerillas killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two others on July 12.

QueEx · Jul 28, 2006

<center>Israeli Cabinet Decides
Not to Expand Ground War</center>

By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
July 27, 2006

Haifa, Israel (CNSNews.com) - Israel will continue its intensive fighting against Hizballah -- and that includes striking at its infrastructure and command centers, the Israeli government decided on Thursday.

Experts said the outcome of the current fighting in Bint Jbail, the Hizballah 'terror capital' in southern Lebanon, will set the tone for other battles in the area.

Israeli ministers met on Thursday to discuss how to proceed with the war against the Hizballah in southern Lebanon. According to Israeli radio, cabinet ministers decided not to expand the Lebanon offensive, but they did agree to call up more reserve soldiers, apparently for reinforcement and troop rotation.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying that Israel is meeting its goals with the current, limited military offensive.

The Israeli cabinet said on Thursday that the military action is intended to achieve the goals of "returning the abducted soldiers to Israel and halting the firing of missiles at Israeli communities and targets," a statement from the prime minister's office said.

There was more fighting in Bint Jbail on Thursday, but not as heavy as the fighting on Wednesday, when a Hizballah ambush killed eight Israeli soldiers and injured 22. The troops reportedly were caught in narrow alleys during a house-to-house search.

Another Israeli soldier was killed and three others wounded in fierce fighting in Maroun al-Ras on Wednesday. Israeli military officials described Wednesday's battles in southern Lebanon as the most difficult so far in the two-week old war.

More than 40 rockets landed in Israel on Thursday, bringing the toll in two weeks to more than 1,400 Hizballah-launched rockets that have crashed into Israel, killing 19 people and wounding hundreds.

The U.S. has stood virtually alone in supporting Israel's continued military operation in Lebanon, saying there is no point in calling a ceasefire if the situation on the ground has not changed.

Israel is concerned that ending the offensive before dealing Hizballah a lethal blow would only allow the group's patrons, Iran and Syria, to re-arm and strengthen Hizballah for another future round.

Strengthening the troops

In northern Israel, tanks and armored vehicles are still arriving at the Israeli-Lebanese border on flatbed trucks. A traffic snarl developed as civilian vehicles were turned back from the now-closed military zone.

Crews busied themselves with their tanks and waited in the hot sun for orders to move forward up the hill toward the border. Israeli artillery fire could be heard thundering over the hills.

One soldier said he was not afraid. "They should be afraid," he said, referring to Hizballah.

This should be a peak season for the parks and guesthouses in northern Israel. But instead of hikers and picnickers, the parks are being used as temporary military staging grounds.

Rabbi Hertzl from the Habad (Jewish religious movement) arrived in a van at one such camp to distribute tefillin (prayer paraphernalia) and cakes. He said he wanted to encourage the troops who have not yet seen the fighting.

"We came to lift up the spirits [of the soldiers]," said Hertzl. "The spirit is high anyway. It's serious."

Bint Jbail

The fierce fight to capture Bint Jbail has concerned some observers who thought the Israeli army would rout Hizballah more quickly. But Israeli military analysts have said the intense fighting was to be expected since the Hizballah has had six years in which to arm and prepare itself.

Reserve Lt.-Col. Danny Grossman said Israel is fighting an "asymmetrical war," facing a "small force with no red lines."

"Hizballah spent the last six years building up its infrastructure. They put weapons in apartment buildings...[and] they will target civilians," he said.

The easiest thing to do would be to wipe out any town that hosts terrorists but Israel won't do that, said Grossman. Israel will try to do as much as it can to go after the centers of terrorist activity, he said. "They have no red lines and we do."

Reserve General Yossi Peled in Kiryat Shemona who is acting as a commentator for Israel television for the duration of the war would not criticize the military operation in Lebanon.

But he said that what happens in Bint Jbail during the next day or two would "greatly influence" Israel's fight against Hizballah in other sectors of Lebanon.

Yaakov Katz, a military reporter for the Jerusalem Post, said in a radio interview that if Israel can succeed in taking control of Bint Jbail, it will have a "ripple effect" in dealing with other Hizballah strongholds in the area.

"We will be successful in Bint Jbail," said Grossman. The question is where they go from there, he added.

A history of terrorism

Bint Jbail, which means "daughter of the mountain" in Arabic, was a terrorist stronghold even before the time of Hizballah.

Bint Jbail formerly served as the capital of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, said a Lebanese source. Many people left the city long ago-and thousands now live in the U.S., he said.

During the 18 years that Israel maintained a security zone in southern Lebanon, the city was a commercial center. But after Israel pulled out, it became a Hizballah stronghold and the capital of the Islamic resistance.

"It is a copy of an Iranian city," said the Lebanese source. Christians from nearby villages are afraid to go there to shop, he said.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060727c.html

QueEx · Jul 28, 2006

Special Report:

<center>Behind the Israeli Cabinet's Decisions</center>

Strategic Forecasting
July 28 2006

After a long night of debate, the Israeli security Cabinet led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided the military campaign in south Lebanon would not be expanded, and that any modifications to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation, such as deploying more troops, would require Cabinet approval.

Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are severely divided over the current operation, and that it might have no choice but to cave in to diplomatic pressure to put an end to the fighting and draw up a cease-fire. This might not be true to Israeli thinking, but it is certainly a message they are trying to send to Hezbollah's chain of command. Which then raises the question: Why?

Israel is likely exaggerating the extent to which the military and Cabinet are divided over how to continue in this military campaign, but a real disagreement exists between those promoting a sustained air campaign and those pushing for a ground offensive because IDF forces are getting restive. A compromise might have been reached in the July 27 Cabinet meeting to bolster the air campaign but prepare ground forces for an invasion if it becomes apparent that the Israeli air force will be unable to deliver on its own.

There could be some faith within Israel's defense circles that an air campaign will eventually pan out and succeed in undermining Hezbollah's capabilities, but such an operation takes time and costs an exorbitant amount of money, since ground troops are standing by. As support for a continued air campaign is weakening by the day, something else must be factoring into Israel's war strategy.

The thought of Israel even considering scaling down its military operation at this point -- though golden news for Hezbollah -- carries devastating consequences for Israel. If the fighting were to come to a halt over the next few days, Hezbollah would claim victory and present itself as the only Arab force capable of standing up to Israeli aggression. Merely resisting and surviving a fight against Israel represents a major win for the Islamist militant movement and its sponsors in Iran and Syria -- something Israel, the United States and even the surrounding Arab regimes are unable to cope with. Moreover, an imminent cease-fire would allow Hezbollah to retain the capability to carry out attacks against Israel whenever the need arises.

Israel, therefore, cannot agree to a cease-fire. At the same time, the current operational tempo has not yet yielded a satisfactory outcome for Israel. Katyusha rockets continue to rain down over the northern part of the country as Israel continues its attempts to take out Hezbollah's rocket launch sites. Though Israel's massive air campaign could gradually wear down Hezbollah's offensive capabilities, it will take several weeks before any definitive results will come to light. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is locked in its own military strategy. Hezbollah commanders have long been preparing for this battle and are ready to stand their ground for an extended period of time and draw the Israelis into bloody insurgent combat.

And time does not appear to be on Israel's side. Israel has already incurred a steady barrage of rocket attacks over the past two weeks, and the IDF experienced one of its deadliest days in ground fighting July 26, when nine soldiers were killed in a battle against Hezbollah fighters in the village of Bent Jbail. The numbers of Lebanese civilian deaths are also escalating by the day, fueling worldwide criticism of the extensive Israeli air campaign. The United States is carefully buying Israel time to carry out its military objectives by postponing a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but political pressure on the U.S. government will mount over the next few days, following the argument that Israel cannot be given a blank check for a permanent air campaign against Lebanon. An end to the war in the next few weeks, without a dramatic improvement in effectiveness from the Israeli perspective, would leave Hezbollah in a prime position.

With this in mind, it strikes us as exceedingly peculiar that Israel, a country with a heavy track record of fighting experience despite its youth, is so intent on promoting the idea that its defense and political figures are running in circles trying to revise their military strategy while Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is brimming with confidence in his regular video appearances. It is simply not intelligent war strategy to expose your weaknesses in the midst of a major war campaign -- unless your objective is to spread disinformation to prepare for a larger surprise.

In making the decision to restrict the ground operation in southern Lebanon, the Israeli Cabinet carefully inserted a statement that said any future decisions regarding the IDF strategy would take into account "the need to prepare forces for possible developments." This nuance becomes especially critical in light of Israel's decision to call up three additional divisions of reservists July 27. The reservists are ostensibly being called up to "refresh" troops in Lebanon who have been on the battlefield for a short time, but will not be deployed until further notice. It is difficult to see how IDF troops on the front can be relieved if the additional forces have not even been deployed, unless Israel is quietly building up its ground forces for a major assault to clear Hezbollah positions south of the Litani River.

The Israeli Cabinet also agreed to send forces up to the Aouali River -- just north of Sidon in Lebanon -- as a necessary move to destroy Hezbollah's rocket-launching platforms, according to Israeli radio. This is an extensive reach into Lebanon that would place the IDF within striking distance of the Bekaa Valley -- Hezbollah's main base of operations. We also have received indications that reserves belonging to Israel's elite fighting force, the Golani Brigade, have already moved north up to the Bekaa Valley. Fighting on Hezbollah's turf in the Bekaa Valley will undoubtedly be the most difficult stage of Israel's military campaign. At the same time, moving ground forces into the Bekaa is also necessary for Israel to meet its objective of sterilizing Hezbollah's military capabilities.

Moving into the Bekaa Valley also complicates matters with Syria, which could very well view an Israeli push into the Bekaa as a trigger for a Syrian military response. Major smuggling routes for heroin and opium run through the Bekaa and provide a major source of income for Hezbollah forces and Alawite businessmen. Though Israel is not too worried about its ability to defeat Syrian forces, it is not interested in expanding its military campaign across Lebanon's western border into Syria for fear of the aftermath of such an attack. The crumbling of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime would create a new set of problems that Israel is not prepared to deal with, especially while a major upset is occurring in Lebanon. At the same time, al Assad wants to get out of this conflict unscathed and in a prime negotiating position so he can demonstrate his worth in brokering a cease-fire with Hezbollah while putting the issue of the Golan Heights back on the table. With these considerations in mind, the issue of keeping Syria in check will heavily factor into the timing of Israel's push into the Bekaa.

The Bekaa is crucial to Israel's ground campaign, but will have to be dealt with carefully and will likely require more time for major ground combat. In the meantime, Israel is carefully regaining the element of tactical surprise by reducing the war to routine and strongly suggesting that its forces are getting bogged down. Each day Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire, but no developments have dramatically changed the course of the war. While Israel may be developing an atmosphere of complacency around Hezbollah, it will launch its ground offensive when everyone least expects it.

The fact that a major ground offensive is the last thing on anyone's mind does not necessarily decrease the possibility -- it increases it. The movement of troops, rather than the public statements, will only tell if we are right.

`

QueEx · Aug 1, 2006

<center>Special Report: The Ground Offensive</center>

STRATFOR
By George Friedman
August 1, 2006

Israeli forces are well into their main ground offensive into Lebanon. It is difficult to hide a strategic offensive of this size, but Israel has made no attempt to hide this one at all. The three-week air offensive, followed by the pseudo cease-fire and disagreements in the Israeli Cabinet on strategy, made it necessary for Israel literally to announce its offensive. Ultimately, this gave Hezbollah little advantage. It might have wanted to halt fighting at this point, but it certainly knew that for precisely this reason Israel would have to intensify the fighting. There might be elements of tactical surprise, but strategic surprise is gone.

Hezbollah is now fighting the war it wanted and prepared for. Its forces are well-dispersed and dug into bunkers. Supplies for extended combat have undoubtedly been distributed in these strongholds so they require no re-supply. Certainly the Israelis will do everything they can to prevent it. Command has clearly devolved to the lowest possible unit, so contact with central headquarters is not necessary for fighting. Hezbollah is not going to be engaged in maneuver. It will fight where it stands.

As we have said before, the strategy looks more like the way the Japanese defended Pacific islands against the U.S. Marines during World War II than anything else. Hezbollah fighters are defending in depth from interlocking strong points. They have constructed these strong points in order to survive artillery and airstrikes. They are forcing the Israelis to close with the strong points and take them in close combat. The Japanese did not necessarily expect to survive the battles. Their goal was to inflict disproportionate casualties on the attacking troops in order to force reconsideration of the strategy of island-hopping and set the stage for a political settlement. The Japanese failed because they underestimated the U.S. capacity for absorbing casualties and the size of the force available. But the strategy, while ineffective, was based on a real confidence that their own forces would be willing to engage in battles of annihilation when it was their own annihilation that was certain, and when their mission was to delay and impose casualties on the enemy.

There are many differences here, but Hezbollah's core strategy appears to be the same. Its deployment has enormous value if its forces are prepared to fight to the end, imposing time penalties and casualties on Israel. If its strong points can hold out for extended periods of time, some of them firing missiles at Israel, then the Israelis have no option but to close and engage in intense sequential firefights that will take time and cost lives. If it can fight a battle of annihilation yet delay and hurt the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Hezbollah might well force a political settlement. If not, it can still gain a political victory by being the first Arab force to force Israel into high attrition combat.

Therefore, Israel's strategy must be twofold. First, it must end the war with the catastrophic destruction of Hezbollah's military capability. It could survive as a political force, but its military strength, and therefore its coercive presence in Lebanon, must be ended. Second, Israel must do this in a time frame and at a cost in casualties that does not allow Hezbollah to claim victory regardless of the consequences to its own forces. Third, it must carry out this operation before U.S. political interests in the region (pressure from allies in Iraq, the Saudis and so forth) force the United States to compel Israel to agree to a genuine cease-fire, as opposed to the pseudo cease-fire engineered by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that actually bought Israel more time.

In other words, Hezbollah's strategy is to force Israel to fight a war that takes as long as possible, using Israeli time urgency to force Israel to move rapidly against strong points incurring maximum casualties. Israel's strategy is to use its greater mobility and firepower to break Hezbollah as quickly as possible with minimum casualties. The issue is how well-prepared Hezbollah's defenses actually are and how well-motivated its troops are after a three-week bombing campaign. How long can Hezbollah maintain its tempo of operations on a tactical level?

Israel's strength is in its firepower and its mobility. Its mobility has value primarily when fighting against a force with a substantial logistical tail. Cutting nonexistent supply lines against a force that has its supplies organically attached to it does not allow encirclement to take place. This limits the utility of dynamic mobile operations in most senses. There is one sense, however, that allows this to go on.

One of Israel's strategic goals, apart from crushing Hezbollah, is eliminating Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets and missiles into Israel, and particularly to Haifa and points south. It is difficult to know precisely the range of Hezbollah's rockets and missiles and how many they have, but it is clear that simply attacking Lebanon south of the Litani River will not solve that problem. To guarantee an end to rocket attacks, we estimate Israel will have to push Hezbollah back to Riyaq to end the threat from Zelzal-2 rockets, to Baalbek to protect Tel Aviv, and to Hermel to protect Haifa. To protect against the Fajr-5, Israel will have to push as deep as 10 miles north of the Litani along the coast. It is possible to bomb launchers and storage sites, and Israel can hit what it knows about, but the problem is it cannot have certain knowledge of what it knows unless it goes in on the ground. Intelligence is never as good as going and seeing.

This means if Israel wants to destroy all of Hezbollah's military force and destroy existing threats from rockets, it will have to do more than attack Lebanon south of the Litani. It will have to go deep into the Bekaa Valley and it will have to go north of the Litani along the coast. Logic has it that Israel would therefore attempt to encircle south Lebanon along the Litani and move into the Bekaa Valley and north along the coast to isolate Hezbollah from support before dealing with intense fighting in southern Lebanon. This poses obvious logistical problems, since two armored thrusts would have to be supported by relatively few roads leading out of the Israeli panhandle in the north; Israel would want to capture roads in southeastern Lebanon near Metulla in preparation for such a thrust.

It appears (and this is from far away) that is what Israel is doing. Israeli troops are engaged in four separate locations across southern Lebanon, and have reportedly pushed as deep as several miles past the Lebanese border. IDF units remain in Maroun al-Ras, although the town of Bent Jbail has reportedly been devastated and abandoned. Paratroopers are in Aita el-Shaab to the west, where Hezbollah has said there is house-to-house fighting; four Hezbollah fighters were reportedly killed. The Golani and Nahal brigades continue to battle Hezbollah in the villages of Al Adisa, Kfar Kila and Taibe, with reports of fighting as far north as Marjayoun. Approximately 60 IDF D9 armored Caterpillar bulldozers are flattening abandoned Hezbollah positions across southern Lebanon. An Israeli airstrike targeted a westbound road out of Hermel with five air-to-surface missiles in the northern Bekaa Valley. The main border crossing from Beirut to Damascus at Masnaa was also struck.

These are fragmentary reports available by wire services. They are far from defining what is happening on the ground. But what seems to be happening is the IDF is engaging forces in the south carefully while action is taking place in the east and west. The remaining strategic question is whether Israel will focus on southern Lebanon and leave the missile threat and a large part of Hezbollah forces out of its plans, or whether it will drive into the Bekaa and up the coast to deal with Hezbollah in detail. It would seem to us that this would give Israel the maximum advantage, dealing with Hezbollah more completely, taking advantage of its greater mobility and air power and using artillery and airstrikes to grind down Hezbollah and attempt to break its morale in the south. What is unknown, of course, is the disposition and capabilities of Hezbollah north of the Litani and in the Bekaa. We suspect the Israelis might find the same resistance in the Bekaa as in the border region.

In the long run, the correlation of forces dictates Israeli victory. But there are other variables. Time and casualties could turn a military success into a political defeat for Israel. Moreover, if the outcome of the attack is that Israel is forced to occupy Lebanese territory for an extended period of time, then the cost of counterinsurgency operations mount. Israel's strategy is clear. Move in fast, deal a catastrophic blow to Hezbollah, withdraw leaving the Lebanese army or a European peacekeeping force in its place. Hezbollah has drawn Israel in. It expects a catastrophic blow but its intention is to impose tremendous costs on Israel and then create a situation in which peacekeeping forces will not deploy, forcing Israel into a counterinsurgency.

So, the questions now are whether Israel moves north of the Litani, how long Hezbollah will resist and what the cost will be to Israel. Gen. Dan Halutz, chief of staff of the IDF and architect of that air campaign, was hospitalized for the second time July 31, complaining of stomach pains. Should Halutz go out of commission, his deputy, Moshe Kaplinsky, will take command. Kaplinsky is drawn from army, having commanded the Golani Brigade, with long experience in Lebanon. This brings expertise on ground warfare to the top spot in the IDF, particularly in combined infantry-armored operations in Lebanon. Israel has focused down on the main battle now. Hezbollah has been focused for a while. As the cliche goes, the outcome is in doubt, in large part because like all wars, the end of this one is political -- and the intersection of the political with the military complicates the war enormously.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

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African Herbsman · Aug 1, 2006

Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon
Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark

"[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]... a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark)

According to General Wesley Clark--the Pentagon, by late 2001, was Planning to Attack Lebanon

"Winning Modern Wars" (page 130) General Clark states the following:

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.

...He said it with reproach--with disbelief, almost--at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. ...I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."

Of course, this is fully consistent with the US Neocons' master plan, "Rebuilding America's Defenses," published in August 2000 by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

And, as PNAC's website ( http://www.newamericancentury.org ) notes, that the lead author of that plan, Thomas Donnelly, was a top official of Lockheed Martin--a company well acquainted with war and its profit potential.

It's no surprise that Republicans are starting to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq; the troops will be needed in Lebanon. And maybe Sudan and Syria?

Note:

More on General Clark--and his failure to mention all this in his pre-Iraq war commentary on CNN--is in Sydney Schanberg's 9/29/03 article "The Secrets Clark Kept: What the General Never Told Us About the Bush Plan for Serial War" at http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0340,schanberg,47436,1.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=A C20060723&articleId=2797

African Herbsman · Aug 1, 2006

Forgotten army sides with Hizbullah

Jonathan Steele in Marjaayoun
Monday July 31, 2006
The Guardian

"Any Hizbullah in the town?" I asked the Lebanese soldier who had hitched a lift outside this mixed Christian and Shia area just five miles north of the Israeli border. "A few," he replied, as his right eye creased into a cheerful wink.

We dropped him in Marjaayoun's cobbled main square, where three other soldiers in the green camouflage of the Lebanese army were leaning against a wall in the shade. Nearby, outside a shuttered cafe in the otherwise deserted hub of what was obviously once an attractive hillside town, four men were chatting.

Two sported beards and wore black trousers and military-style boots. The younger and tougher-looking man had a walkie-talkie on his belt. His dark and calloused hands were stained with grease and oil. After inquiring who we were, they revealed they were indeed some of our soldier's "few". It was also obvious that the two groups, Hizbullah and the army, had a comfortable relationship, each with its own mission to perform, untroubled by the presence of the other.

In Washington, Jerusalem and London there is much talk of the need to get the Lebanese army to move into southern Lebanon and disarm Hizbullah. On the ground there is little to suggest any antagonism. It looks more like mutual sympathy. The notion that the army could forcibly remove Hizbullah's weapons seems fanciful.

All the evidence suggests that in the current conflict it is Hizbullah which is taking the lead; it is Hizbullah which has won popular admiration for its actions. The army's role is marginal.

As we drove south down the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon, we came across regular army checkpoints. Sentry boxes painted red and white, with the green symbol of the cedar of Lebanon, stood in the centre of the road with a slalom arrangement of barbed wire on the approaches, forcing drivers to slow down. It looked neat and efficient, except that they were all unmanned. If Hizbullah is hiding rockets in vehicles going towards the border, the Lebanese army is not checking.

The Bekaa valley used to be Lebanon's breadbasket, as well as the source of its wine. Rows of vines stretch across the gently sloping terrain around estate houses with names such as Chateau Ksara and Chateau Nakad. South of an artificial lake on the Litani river the road skirts a dam and climbs into rougher, less fertile, boulder-strewn country.

Every small town has a welcome arch at the entrance with the yellow flags of Hizbullah, and pictures of its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, often flanked by Iran's two ayatollahs, the Islamic republic's founder Ruhollah Khomeini and its current leader, Ali Khamenei. At Yogmor the arch has two plywood rockets, a reminder that Hizbullah spreads its message not by word alone.

About 10 miles north of Marjaayoun we found half a dozen soldiers lying on the grass by the road. They made no effort to check us, but we decided to stop and ask whether any risk lay ahead. A few cars with white flags were driving north and town after town was almost completely deserted. Bombs had gouged three craters along a 20-mile stretch of road but traffic could negotiate a narrow strip beside each one.

Identity-checking was in the hands of civilians. No one flagged us down, but when we stopped to buy water at one of the last shops still open a middle-aged man asked to see our press cards and wrote down our names.

In Marjaayoun itself, as well as the lounging soldiers, we saw two jeeps with about 20 troops in the back racing into the square and up a sidestreet. They came from over a brow, where a few minutes later the crump of Israeli artillery fire sounded. We heard at least 20 shells, apparently hitting the south-facing slopes beyond Marjaayoun.

From another vantage point we could see the roofs of the Israeli border town of Metulla on a ridge six miles away. Two miles to our left was the town of Khiyam, where Israeli bombs hit scores of houses as well as a UN building last week, killing four observers.

"People who've been down there say the whole town stinks of bodies trapped in the ruins," said Simon Diab, a guard at Marjaayoun's Orthodox church. Windows in the church and its outbuildings were shattered by the blast from an Israeli bomb which demolished a suspected Hizbullah house the day before.

Marjaayoun had been enjoying a revival in fortunes after the last Israeli occupation ended in 2000. A sign in English and Arabic from the US charity Mercy Corps advertises its project for restoring the ancient souk. In the school 200 refugees are sheltering. They are not totally cut off. Two white Toyotas from the International Committee of the Red Cross raced in as we were leaving.

The Lebanese army has grown from 35,000 to 70,000 since the civil war ended in 1990, far outnumbering Hizbullah's estimated 6,000 fighters. But half the troops are thought to be Shia, which means their loyalty could be uncertain in the unlikely event they were ordered to confront Hizbullah.

In spite of its numbers the army is thinly spread in the section of southern Lebanon we visited, offering little more than symbolic defence. Hizbullah, by contrast, is active. "Israel came in too easily in 1982," said the Hizbullah unit leader in Marjaayoun. At that time Hizbullah didn't exist. He gave his name as Hussein Bitar. "Either we are here or they are here. We are not leaving this land, it is ours, not theirs. Israel thinks the United States is with them, but we have God," he said.

The grease on his hands could have been a sign that his mission was launching rockets. It might have a more innocent explanation. Either way, the Lebanese army troops we witnessed clearly did not mind a Hizbullah commander in their midst.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1834160,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

African Herbsman · Aug 1, 2006

Re: Arab world deeply split over Hezbollah

Arab support for Hezbollah growing

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer Sat Jul 29, 4:48 PM ET

CAIRO, Egypt - A top Egyptian cleric issued an edict Saturday defending Hezbollah's fight against
Israel, as Arab support for the militant group grew around the region.
ADVERTISEMENT

In widely published comments, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa described Hezbollah strikes on Israel as "defense of its country and not terrorism," a position many saw as contradicting his country's official position.

"We are all against what is going on in Lebanon," Gomaa said, describing the Israeli attack on Lebanon and the killings of civilians as an "injustice."

The grand mufti issues religious edicts that are binding for Sunni Muslims in Egypt.

Around the Arab world, popular support for the Lebanese people and Hezbollah continued to expand as newspapers and television stations showed graphic images of civilian casualties.

Qatar-based Sheik Youssef el-Qaradawi, one of the Arab world's most prominent Sunni religious scholars, issued a religious edict Thursday saying support for the guerrillas was "a religious duty of every Muslim."

At least 458 Lebanese have been killed in the fighting that broke out after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others July 12 after a cross-border raid. Most casualties have been civilians, and some estimates range as high as 600 dead.

Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said.

In Kuwait's Al-Qabas daily, columnist Abdel al-Tukhaim wrote that while he was not a "Hezbollah supporter," he now admired the group following the "destructive punishment" Israel dealt Lebanon because of "two soldiers who could have died in a traffic accident."

"In three major wars with Israel ... no Arab country was able to hit deep into Israel or hurt it the way Hezbollah, or the Lebanese resistance did," al-Tukhaim wrote. "They broke the psychological barrier our armies and regimes had and proved to us that the third strongest army in the world was a myth."

The Cairo-based daily al Ahrar commended Hezbollah on its fighting in the towns of Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras, sites of some of the fiercest battles since the conflict began.

"Hezbollah fighters have proved what their leader Hassan Nasrallah has already promised that losing a battle doesn't mean losing the war, and that there are other surprises awaiting Israel," the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, political analyst Ayed al-Mannah wrote in Kuwait's Al-Watan daily that Hezbollah "deserves more Arab and Muslim admiration for standing up to the most mighty regional power in the Middle East."

He said Hezbollah and Hamas have proven to be stronger than the Lebanese and Palestinian governments.

"I wonder: Wouldn't it be better for a weak or impotent government to give up its legal rights in favor of those who are more capable of running the country and providing security and justice to the people?" al-Mannah wrote.

Four Dubai-owned television stations said a Friday telethon had raised $13.4 million for the Lebanese people, some 750,000 of whom have been left homeless since fighting broke out.

During the telethon, Jordan's Queen Rania told the Lebanese people: "Your children are our children. Your wounds are our wounds. Your house is our house."

Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak said in remarks released Friday that Israel's response was "disproportionate, to say the least," though he also has criticized Hezbollah for triggering the crisis.

QueEx · Aug 1, 2006

African Herbsman said:
Forgotten [Lebanese] army sides with Hizbullah

"Any Hizbullah in the town?" I asked the Lebanese soldier who had hitched a lift outside this mixed Christian and Shia area just five miles north of the Israeli border. "A few," he replied, as his right eye creased into a cheerful wink ...

Hizbullah and the army, had a comfortable relationship, each with its own mission to perform, untroubled by the presence of the other.

Any reason to wonder why Israel has also struck the Lebanese Army ???

QueEx

`

African Herbsman · Aug 2, 2006

The bigger question is why hasn't the Lebanese army struck back.

QueEx · Aug 2, 2006

African Herbsman said:
The bigger question is why hasn't the Lebanese army struck back.

You must not have been reading the posts in this and other threads. The Lebanese army is inept. Its practically a police force -- which could not disarm Hezbollah, even if it wanted to.

So, a better question is this: Despite the weakness of the Lebanese Army, it is the Army of Lebanon and it was not threatened by any other force, including the Israelis, so why allow an armed militia (one maybe armed better than the country's own national army) to occupy and control parts of the country without being under the control and authority of the national (Lebanese) government -- and, by its sole acts, allowed to draw a country (Lebanon) into a war that it didn't ask for or want ??? :confused:

QueEx

African Herbsman · Aug 2, 2006

QueEx said:
You must not have been reading the posts in this and other threads. The Lebanese army is inept. Its practically a police force -- which could not disarm Hezbollah, even if it wanted to.

So, a better question is this: Despite the weakness of the Lebanese Army, it is the Army of Lebanon and it was not threatened by any other force, including the Israelis, so why allow an armed militia (one maybe armed better than the country's own national army) to occupy and control parts of the country without being under the control and authority of the national (Lebanese) government -- and, by its sole acts, allowed to draw a country (Lebanon) into a war that it didn't ask for or want ???

QueEx

It's sarcasm dude. I know the Lebanese army is an army in name only. I wouldn't be suprised if a large percentage of them aren't aligned with Hizballah. If they weren't before the reoccupation, they are now.

Why allow a foriegn power to cross your borders, kidnap and kill your citizens? If the elected government doesn't stop it, is it wrong for the citizens to defend their country?
[frame]http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html[/frame]

It is well documented that these war plans were drawn up way before the two israeli soldiers were detained in Lebanese territory. This war would have happened one way or another the America and Israel would have made sure of that. This is about imperialism, not Israeli soldiers or Muslim extremists.

[frame]http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=REI20060730&articleId=2861[/frame]

[frame]http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MEY20060728&articleId=2840[/frame]

After southern Lebanon is annexed, who's next?

[frame]http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0340,schanberg,47436,1.html[/frame]

God bless Greater Israel.

Makkonnen · Aug 3, 2006

Re: Arab world deeply split over Hezbollah

looks like everyone forgot why hezbollah acted when it did- one word Gaza

10 yrs ago 100 civilians were killed by Israel in Qana, but I'm sure that stuff like that had nothing to do with Hezbollah's existence, support or attacks. Shebaa Farms doesn't exist anymore either I guess.

The Arab world isn't deeply split. Arab news media might be depending on who funds them but the people aren't.

http://linktv.org/mosaic/streamsArchive/index.php4

^^^^^its worth more than bullshit whitewashed american propaganda

I remember when the news used to try to be objective here in the US.

GET YOU HOT · Aug 5, 2006

African Herbsman · Aug 5, 2006

The Philosophy of Zionism & Israel - Harun Yahya

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XiGgDtsKvog"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XiGgDtsKvog" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Makeherhappy · Aug 5, 2006

[FRAME]http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/maps/468.shtml[/FRAME]

QueEx · Aug 5, 2006

[frame]http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1838437,00.html[/frame]

london · Aug 5, 2006

PROPAGANDA IS PART OF EVERY WAR

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,429105,00.html

[frame]http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,429105,00.html[/frame]

Makkonnen · Aug 8, 2006

LATimes

Israel Is Accused of Sending Poison to Hamas Premier
By Ashraf Khalil, Times Staff Writer
August 8, 2006

GAZA CITY — Hamas on Monday accused Israel of a failed assassination attempt against Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh using a poison-filled letter.

Several employees in the office of Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer in the West Bank city of Ramallah were hospitalized after one of them opened a letter addressed to Haniyeh. The letter contained a tissue that gave off a strange smell, filling the room and overwhelming several employees, Palestinian sources said.

Seven employees were hospitalized, one in serious condition.

An Israeli army spokesman who declined to give his name denied any involvement by Israeli troops or officials.

During a Cabinet meeting in Gaza City, Haniyeh called the incident a "criminal and dangerous act," according to the Ramattan news agency.

He said the letter was sent from Tel Aviv addressed personally to him.

Shaer promised a full investigation, saying the tissue had been sent to a lab for analysis.

In 1997, Israeli agents tried to kill Hamas senior leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman, Jordan, by injecting poison in his ear. The attempt failed, and the agents were captured and later exchanged for jailed Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Haniyeh, whose Hamas-led government is opposed by Israel, has been unable to leave the Gaza Strip since taking power in late March because of Israeli limitations.

Dozens of Hamas-affiliated ministers and lawmakers have since been detained without charges by Israel, most recently parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik, who was hospitalized by his captors Monday. An Israeli army spokesman said Dweik had complained of dizziness and chest pains and was being kept overnight for observation.

In Gaza City, supporters of Islamic Jihad held a rally in support of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. About a thousand protesters marched through Palestine Square downtown, waving black Islamic Jihad banners and yellow Hezbollah flags and chanting, "We are loyal to you, O Nasrallah."

They also harshly criticized the anemic response of Arab governments to the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and to the ongoing siege that has paralyzed the Gaza Strip and killed at least 170 Palestinians.

Islamic Jihad senior leader Khalid Batch condemned what he called "the international silence over Palestine that has given Israel the right to kill and commit massacres."

Nasrallah's popularity has soared throughout the Arab world during the nearly 4-week-old Israeli offensive. Hezbollah flags and posters of Nasrallah are some of the hottest-selling items in Gazan stores.

The Lebanese Shiite Muslim group has long been well regarded among opponents of Israel for its protracted guerrilla war, which helped lead to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000.

Special correspondent Hatem Shurrab contributed to this report.

gene cisco · Aug 8, 2006

Re: Israel Is Accused of Sending Poison to Hamas Premier

Hahhahhaha

Man I called a lot of shit on this board. 3 years ago I called bullshit on Iraq, which is true false war. Now I call bullshit on the zionist that run america.

By the way BCK still owe me holla at where the WMD at. As for the zionist, every article posted proves how they dirty as fuck, but throw a rock at them and you a demon.

In the last 3 years I lost a lot of respect for america and the citizens to lazy to research.

All hail israel with its fake ass and american weapons still up to its old tricks.

African Herbsman · Aug 9, 2006

Re: Israel Is Accused of Sending Poison to Hamas Premier

State sponsored terrorism.

QueEx · Aug 9, 2006

Re: Arab world deeply split over Hezbollah

<center>Sunnis Urged to Put Anti-Israel
Campaign Above Rift With Shi'ites</center>

Patrick Goodenough
International Editor

(CNSNews.com) - Sunni Muslims around the world are being pressed to take sides in a dispute among scholars over whether a united Islamic front against Israel should take precedence over historical differences with Shi'ites.

The debate is raging in newspaper columns and on Internet sites, with proponents of both positions citing religious edicts (fatwas), scholars' appeals, and Koranic injunctions to bolster their arguments.

Rancor between Sunnis and Shi'ites, whose schism stems from differences over the rightful successor to Mohammed, has existed for centuries and continues to cause bloodshed in Iraq.

Most Arab countries have Sunni majorities - exceptions include Iraq and Bahrain -- but among Lebanon's collection of minorities, Shi'ites are thought to be the biggest. The Hizballah terrorist organization now at war with Israel is a Shi'ite organization, sponsored by predominantly Shi'ite Iran, as well as by Syria, whose ruling elite are Allawites, an offshoot of Shi'a Islam.

In Saudi Arabia, some top Islamist clerics have ruled that Sunnis should not back Hizballah. Most prominent of these in recent days has been Sheikh Safar al-Hawali, who posted a fatwa online saying that Hizballah (the name means "Army of Allah") is in fact the "army of the devil" and imploring Sunnis: "Don't pray for Hizballah."

Hawali, a scholar formerly at Umm Al-Qura University, was a signatory of a Nov. 2004 communique by 26 Saudi clerics calling for jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq.

Another fatwa circulating on the Internet rejects support for Hizballah. Issued several years ago by another Saudi Islamist cleric, Abdullah bin Jibreen, it declares that Sunnis should not support Hizballah or pray for its victory.

(Bin Jibreen used the derogatory term "rafidi," a word based on the Arabic root for "to reject" or "to abandon," and used by Sunnis who regard Shi'a Islam as heresy.)

Jibreen, who at the time was a member of the Saudi government-appointed Council of Senior Scholars, also issued a decree in 1991 ruling that Shi'ites are "idolaters deserving to be killed."

These calls for Muslims not to support Hizballah have upset many other Sunni religious figures, who believe the jihad against Israel is more important than splits among Muslims.

Sheikh Rashid al-Ghanoushi, the exiled leader of a banned Islamist movement in Tunisia, said those issuing the anti-Hizballah fatwas should be ashamed of themselves for doing so "while the nation is under attack and both Palestinian and Lebanese people are facing genocide."

Influential Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi urged all Muslims to support Hizballah against "the enemy," telling the al-Jazeera television network that sectarianism "hurt the resistance."

The publishers of Islam Online, a website affiliated with Qaradawi, said this was a time for solidarity and unity among Muslims.

"Unfortunately, some Muslims do not share this spirit. 'Why should we help Hizballah when they are not Sunni Muslims?' they wonder. Some prohibit any form of cooperation or support to the Lebanese resistance; they even prohibit du'aa [prayer].

"This is a serious issue indeed. The last things we need in this critical situation are disruption and disunity," said Islam Online.

"True, differences do exist between Sunnis and Shi'ites, but these differences do not exclude the Shi'ites from the fold of Islam, nor do they excuse forsaking them in their struggle against the Israeli aggression."
'Close ranks'

The biggest response to the anti-Hizballah fatwas came from a group of 169 Sunni scholars from Muslim nations stretching from Bosnia to Indonesia, including 28 Saudis, who issued a statement at the weekend trying to undo what they saw as damage to Islamic unity.

Published by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Monday and punctuated with verses from the Koran, the statement called on all Arabs and Muslims to "offer all material and moral support" to the Lebanese and Palestinians, "giving this duty the top priority over all religious duties."

In a clear reference to the Sunni-Shi'ite division, the signatories urged "all of the [Islamic] nation's sects to close ranks in confrontation of its enemy who seeks to eliminate us."

It should not allow the sectarian violence in Iraq to spill over into other places, they said.

"When the nation is at war, we must be fully aware that sectarian feuds can exhaust our strength which opens the door wide for the enemy to impose its hegemony on us."

The scholars also called on Arab and Muslim governments to abandon delusions of peace with Israel.

"We must abide by the fatwa issued by the Muslim scholars who prohibit the recognition of the Zionist state, normalization of relations with it or giving up any inch of the Palestinian land. We should believe in the fact that this criminal enemy does not recognize the rights of others except under the pressures of jihad and resistance."

The scholars also said all Arab and Muslim government should base their relations with other nations, especially the United States, on those countries' stances towards "our issues, topped by Palestine."

'Not terrorism'

In the early days of the latest Israeli-Hizballah conflict, the governments of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia cautiously criticized the Lebanese group for its "adventurism" which triggered the fighting.

The comments were widely reported, and have frequently been cited as significant by the U.S. State Department and allied governments.

Many Mideast analysts argued that the stance taken by the Sunni trio was driven largely by their concerns about Iran and the emergence of a "Shi'ite crescent" from Iran to Lebanon. Since those early days, the three governments' public criticism of Hizballah has largely been dropped.

The Saudis' weekly cabinet meeting Monday agreed to stand with the Lebanese and Palestinian people and called for a strong and united Arab stance against "Israeli aggression."

In Egypt, the government-appointed mufti, Ali Gomaa, has voiced strong backing for Hizballah.

"Hizballah is defending its country and what it is doing is not terrorism," the state news agency MENA quoted him as saying on Friday.

Asked in a Time magazine interview for his opinion of Hizballah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said "nobody should be allowed to establish a state within a state" but softened his criticism by saying the organization was "part and parcel of the Lebanese people's fabric." He also did not censure Hizballah for triggering the crisis, but condemned Israel for a "disproportionate response."

Iraq has seen the worst violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites. The minority Sunni Ba'athists dominated and oppressed the Shi'ite majority until U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The sectarian carnage there has been largely attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed last June.

Zarqawi labeled Iraqi Shi'ites "rafidi" and described them in one published letter as "a sect of treachery and betrayal throughout history and throughout the ages."

The targeting of Shi'ites prompted al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri to send a letter to Zarqawi last October questioning the strategy.

Although "anyone with a knowledge of history" knew that Shi'ites were heretics and had a background of "cooperating with the enemies of Islam," al-Swahili said, many ordinary Muslims may not understand.

"Is the opening of another front now in addition to the front against the Americans and the government a wise decision?" he asked.

Last week, al-Zawahiri issued a videotape message urging all Muslims everywhere to join the jihad against Israel in Lebanon and Gaza.

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1413984.html

GET YOU HOT · Aug 10, 2006

Re: Arab world deeply split over Hezbollah

nittie said:
The Arab world should be pissed at Hezbollah. If Hezbollah succeeds at repelling Israel their natural enemy Al Qeada will start making moves in Lebanon, that means a all out civil war in the region at a time when it is just beginning to see dividends from going Democratic or more importantly Capitalistic.

No,no no....

Makkonnen · Aug 10, 2006

Re: Israel Is Accused of Sending Poison to Hamas Premier

bck is now Greed

but they'd be screamin osama osama if an arab sent chalk dust to one of them guys running israel

VegasGuy · Aug 11, 2006

Re: Israel Is Accused of Sending Poison to Hamas Premier

Who cares? Humas wants a fight and Israel is gonna bring it and keep bringing it until they feel like quiting. They've been down the annihilation road before and they don't intend to do that shit again without a fight.

-VG

Makkonnen · Aug 12, 2006

Re: Israel Is Accused of Sending Poison to Hamas Premier

VegasGuy said:
Who cares? Humas wants a fight and Israel is gonna bring it and keep bringing it until they feel like quiting. They've been down the annihilation road before and they don't intend to do that shit again without a fight.

-VG

Personally, I care that Israel uses chemical weapons and other outlawed means to kill Hamas and civilians all because Hamas are outlaws. Now they arent any better than Hamas and are in fact worse. Line up the list of crimes and reasons behind them and morally I dont see Israel as being any part of correct. Using the spoken moral code of those here in the US supporting Israel they dont come out on top either.
If they want to steal the land and kill of the arabs with claim to it that's on them but I'd prefer they not fuckin lie and pretend like they are just peaceful victims trying to scratch out a meager existence among savages.

Look at the situation though VG. There is no way short of killing off all arabs that Israel will win this in the longterm. Its not gonna happen, the population numbers won't work. Most likely no one will be inhabitating what is now Israel and a large part of the middle east for thousands of years after the nukes go off.

QueEx · Aug 15, 2006

<center>Bush Says Israel Defeated Hezbollah</center>

Aug 15, 2:36 AM (ET)
Associated Press
By DEB RIECHMANN

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Monday that Israel defeated Hezbollah's guerrillas in the monthlong Mideast war and that the Islamic militants were to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese civilians.

Bush admonished Iran and Syria for backing Hezbollah, which captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12 igniting the conflict. Both sides claimed victory Monday, hours after a U.N.-brokered cease-fire took effect, while Bush said Israel prevailed.

"Hezbollah attacked Israel. Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis," the president said at the State Department after a day of meetings with his top defense, diplomatic and national security advisers.

The United States backed Israel in the war, and Bush made clear he was determined to help the Israelis in the post-fighting struggle of words about who wound up on top.

The president portrayed the war, which killed about 790 Lebanese and 155 Israelis, as part of a broader struggle between freedom and terrorism. He said one can only imagine how much more dangerous such a conflict would be if Iran possessed nuclear weapons.

Bush said Hezbollah lost, though Israel didn't knock out the guerrillas.

Israel's prime minister and Bush said the offensive eliminated the "state within a state" run by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, however, declared that his guerrillas achieved a "strategic, historic victory" over Israel.

"Hezbollah, of course, has got a fantastic propaganda machine, and they're claiming victories," Bush said. "But how can you claim victory when, at one time, you were a state within a state, safe within southern Lebanon, and now you're going to be replaced by a Lebanese army and an international force?"

Bush said a United Nations-brokered cease-fire was an important step toward ending the violence, yet he acknowledged that the truce was fragile.

"We certainly hope the cease-fire holds because it is step one of making sure that Lebanon's democracy is strengthened," Bush said.

The U.N. plan calls for a joint Lebanese-international force to act as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah militiamen. France and Italy, along with predominantly Muslim Turkey and Malaysia, have signaled willingness to contribute troops to the joint force, but consultations are needed on the force's makeup and mandate.

Bush spoke on the phone early Monday to Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, and Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Italy's troops could be ready within two weeks.

"There's going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon, and that's going to be a Lebanese force with a robust international force to help them seize control of the country - that part of the country," Bush said.

On Bush's first day back from vacation, his motorcade traveled between the White House and State and Defense departments for meetings on transforming the U.S. military, on homeland security and on the warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sectarian violence has surged in Iraq and created what some consider the greatest threat to stability there since Saddam Hussein's government was toppled three years ago. Meanwhile, efforts to get North Korea and Iran to restrict their nuclear ambitions remained stalled.

"We live in troubled times, but I'm confident in our capacity to not only protect the homeland, but I'm confident in our capacity to leave behind a better world," Bush said at a meeting at the Pentagon where he sat between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

His words sought to calm jitters about last week's arrests of more than two dozen people in England and Pakistan accused of plotting to blow up as many as 10 passenger planes flying between Britain and the United States.

The nation's safety looms large as an issue in the midterm elections. Both Republicans and Democrats are maneuvering for political advantage with control of Congress at stake.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20060815/D8JGMN200.html

QueEx · Aug 15, 2006

<center>Hezbollah: We won</center>
<center>'Divine' victory</center>

Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Turkish Daily

BEIRUT - AFP

Hezbollah boasted on Monday it had scored a "divine victory" in its conflict with Israel while the Jewish state claimed the upper hand, saying the militant group now cannot "do what it likes in Lebanon."

Hours after a U.N.-brokered cease-fire agreement took effect at 0500 GMT, Hezbollah activists handed out posters claiming victory in the Shiite movement's fight against Israel.

And as displaced Lebanese began to return to their shattered neighborhoods, one of the two elected Hezbollah MPs in Lebanon's government championed his movement's success.

"They will return home, their heads high, in dignity, after the resistance achieved a great victory for them," Hassan Fadlallah told reporters.

He was surrounded by militants, standing in front of the rubble of flattened buildings and raising yellow Hezbollah flags bearing a Kalashnikov rifle and proclaiming: "Hezbollah will be the victor."

A smiling picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose name means "Victory of God," graced posters distributed in Beirut's Shiite stronghold southern suburbs, captioned: "The divine victory."

Posters showing pictures of Hezbollah fighters operating a rocket-launcher were handed out to displaced who were returning after fleeing southern areas that were heavily bombarded during the Israeli attacks.

Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker and leader of the Shiite Amal movement, encouraged displaced Lebanese to return to their homes in the south "to cement the victory of the resistance and the Lebanese people."

"Let those who find their houses standing go home. And those who no longer have a place to live should lodge with friends or neighbors until their homes can be repaired," Berri told journalists.

Five Amal militants were also killed in fighting over the past month.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=51552

gene cisco · Aug 15, 2006

I seen the bush speech to the noids. I heard him blame hezzy,iran, and syria.

Seems he left out that we now know israels terrorist attack was planned and the soldier story was an excuse.

Seems to be prepping the noids for an iran war. In his speech he eluded to nuclear weapons and iran backing hezzy.

Didn't know hezzy had american planes and bombs to blow lebanon to shit.

The zionist bush is gonna start more shit all for israel.

Sad though if americans just watch fox or cnn they will believe bush.

As for hezzy winning, they did in a way. All the zionist dick riders said they wouldn't last two weeks. They made it a month and blew the shit out of some of those terrorist tanks.

Now iran said it has long range missles to reach israel if israel breaks the truce. BULLSHIT.

Not if israel breaks the truce. They saying in a subtle way if america attacks them they blowing up the zionist.

Those of us who are not humanoids know bush was rushing bombs to israel and HE is responsible for the deaths not hezzy.

Oh well maybe we could bomb the shit out of iran using this as an excuse and they can then bomb israel to shit and then neither one will be in a condition to start shit.

But to see bush blame hezzy and just listen to the known bullshit in his speech tells me he is up to something.

We shall see.

QueEx · Aug 15, 2006

You mention so many issues its hard (no impossible LOL) for me to respond to them. So, I probably won't.

I said in an earlier post, I didn't buy (and still don't) the idea that the break-up of the UK-US airplane terror plot was "all about" Bush and more scare tactics, yada, yada, yada. I have noticed, however, that the Administration appears to have jumped on the band wagon with both feet in attempting to exploit the UK/US terror bust to the repubs fall-election advantage. At this point, I don't think that there is any question of that. So far though, I haven't seen yet where its having a real affect on the American people. Maybe its crying wolf too many times. Maybe the humanoids are fooling you gene. Maybe they aren't as fooled as you thought.

Maybe it will come out -- but I'm still waiting to see if there was a "Grand Plan" for Israel to attack Hez WITH American complicity. Could be but I'm not yet buying the rhetoric. There are too many people with too many agendas which stand to benefit from that "complicity" theory. If you're anti-Bush it makes good print. If you're just anti-bush and need another nail to put in his coffin (don't know why another nail is needed) it serves to add more fuel to the fire. Makes good argument for the Muslim Radicals. Makes good argument for those (Americans included) who detest Israel and want to draw a wedge between the two. Makes good argument for Russia and the Chinese who want to capitalize on our lack of leadership in the Middle East and the great fuck up in Iraq. Makes good argument for the Iranians. Makes good argument for whats left of Al Qaeda. Just helps to many different interest. Could be true. I'm watching it unfold.

I'll say this though, the Israeli response to the kidnapping (the initial air campaign) and Bush's acquiesence (no call for a cease fire to give Israel time to try to smash Hezbollah) was a bad call on both fronts. I happen to believe that Israel has the right to defend itself and that we will ALWAYS have this trip-wire unless someone has the balls to really try to solve that conflict before it really does lead to Armageddon. Bush, I don't believe, has them balls. He's been losing opportunity every time he opens his dumb-assed mouth.

QueEx

gene cisco · Aug 15, 2006

Well que, I don't believe israel has the right to exist or we should back it. I read to much from the first zionist conference to the formation of the state in the late forties. No way can I except what they did to the arabs or were willing to do in other areas besides palastine(argentina,uganda, etc). All homelands with people living there.

That being said I listen to right wing talk to try to understand that type humanoids lil brain.

Talking points today were how hezzy won cause israel is to soft. We must take the fight to iran and syria. Israel should have kept bombing and fighting.

The thing bout the right is they are consistent. They can back israel and scream destroy the arabs. The left cannot back israel and the arabs at the same time, thus i now feel they will lose the debate everytime when it comes to bombing iran or syria.

No way we can play this hypocrisy game. Choose a side. At least the right has a position that is logical. They support israel and its terrorism and want to blow the arabs to shit.

The left support israel, who stole arab land, and hope to broker peace between israel and its neighbors.

Que, to use this analogy. the israel settlement is like a european settlement in the new world. It will keep pushing and pushing until either it wins or the arabs.

Que, I know you make good points and know how to lay an argument out a lot better then I can.

I would love to read your points on why we should support israel and how it benefits americans. Pros and cons. Maybe a new post.
Do you think there is any chance in our lifetime we will denounce israel?

Would you still supports israels right to exist if it existed in uganda like it was proposed? If it were black folks it terrorized instead of arabs?

If you can take some time and elaborate on your stance on israel for me.

GET YOU HOT · Aug 15, 2006

The goal of the United States Government is to pacify the American public and the "noids" still believe in Bush...his poll numbers are down, but yet, support for his policy still has enormous support...particularly by special intrest groups.

All the mainstream media reports are biased because they are written by and told to write by Zionists...they serve to influence the public, dumbing you down, forcing you to worry about gas prices, bird flu, hurricane Katrina...the upcoming election, foiled airline bombing, terror alerts, Liberman, Enron exec heartattack, on and on...It's all all staged distraction to take focus off real issues...We are spending millions on Iraq to train their soldiers....for what? What is the plan?...Some of you know why and still, you chose to ignore, call people conspiracy theorists...

The War in Iraq continues and all we hear is Iraqi forces are not ready, Iraqi police still need training...well, we train our young and reserve forces for minimal time, boot camp is 3 months, and then we send them off to die...wonder what the average age is for the deceased soldiers of the Iraqi War is....innocent civilians being killed by the hundreds, weekly...
The Bush Administration is telling you...

OBEY

QueEx · Aug 16, 2006

gene,

I'm not prepared to defend, debate or debunk the Legitimacy of Israel's Existence. I have started to collect articles which I hope to sort through one day to see where they lead me. I don't really have the time to do the kind of research I'd like to or spend an inordinate amount of time reading/comparing the definitive collective works of others on the subject.

My opinion that Israel has the right to defend itself is based on the fact that it is a nation-state, though created by the UN, and that that every nation-state has the right to defend itself. Of course, opinion on the UN's creation of Isreal range from both extremes. Right or wrong, I know that many Muslim nations have acquiesced, by whatever line of thought, to Israek's legitimacy -- such to the point that some have entered into treaties with Israel and appear to want to live with it peacefully. Some will argue, however, that those Muslim governments have betrayed Islam or Muslims in doing so -- maybe they did but thats for the people of those countries to decide.

ON THE RIGHT
Yeah, I am well aware of the rhetoric on the right. In fact, I have noted that some on the right have been quite happy about the latest Israeli-Arab war hoping that it eventually evolved to ultimate clashes between the U.S. and Iran and the rest of the Muslim world. Yep, Armageddon.

What that says to me is that the conflict between Muslims and the West, driven perhaps by fundamentalist on both sides, is really evolving (if it wasn't already) into a "Religious" confrontation. Funny thing though, it leaves the agnostics and atheist in one hellava position: some taking sides with Israel and some taking sides with the Muslims when both desire their conversion or destruction.

QueEx

QueEx · Aug 16, 2006

<center>Cease-Fire: Shaking Core Beliefs in the Middle East</center>

STRATFOR
By George Friedman
August 16, 2006

An extraordinary thing happened in the Middle East this month. An Israeli army faced an Arab army and did not defeat it -- did not render it incapable of continued resistance. That was the outcome in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. But it did not happen in 2006. Should this outcome stand, it will represent a geopolitical earthquake in the region -- one that fundamentally shifts expectations and behaviors on all sides.

It is not that Hezbollah defeated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It did not. By most measures, it got the worst of the battle. Nevertheless, it has been left standing at the end of the battle. Its forces in the Bekaa Valley and in the Beirut area have been battered, though how severely is not yet clear. Its forces south of the Litani River were badly hurt by the Israeli attack. Nevertheless, the correlation of forces was such that the Israelis should have dealt Hezbollah, at least in southern Lebanon, a devastating blow, such that resistance would have crumbled. IDF did not strike such a blow -- so as the cease-fire took effect, Hezbollah continued to resist, continued to inflict casualties on Israeli troops and continued to fire rockets at Israel. Hezbollah has not been rendered incapable of continued resistance, and that is unprecedented.

In the regional equation, there has been an immutable belief: that, at the end of the day, IDF was capable of imposing a unilateral military solution on any Arab force. Israel might have failed to achieve its political goals in its various wars, but it never failed to impose its will on an enemy force. As a result, all neighboring nations and entities understood there were boundaries that could be crossed only if a country was willing to accept a crushing Israeli response. All neighboring countries -- Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, prior to the collapses of central authority -- understood this and shaped their behavior in view of it. Even when Egypt and Syria initiated war in 1973, it was with an understanding that their war aims had to be limited, that they had to accept the probability of defeat and had to focus on postwar political maneuvers rather than on expectations of victory.

The Egyptians withdrew from conflict and accepted the Sinai as a buffer zone, largely because 1973 convinced them that continued conflict was futile. Jordan, since 1970, has been effectively under the protection of Israel against threats from Syria and internal dangers as well. Syria has not directly challenged the Israelis since 1973, preferring indirect challenges and, not infrequently, accommodation with Israel. The idea of Israel as a regional superpower has been the defining principle.

In this conflict, what Hezbollah has achieved is not so much a defeat of Israel as a demonstration that destruction in detail is not an inevitable outcome of challenging Israel. Hezbollah has showed that it is possible to fight to a point that Israel prefers a cease-fire and political settlement to a military victory followed by political accommodation. Israel might not have lost any particular battle, and a careful analysis of the outcome could prove its course to be reasonable. But the loss of the sense -- and historical reality -- of the inevitability of Israeli military victory is a far more profound defeat for Israel, as this clears the way for other regional powers to recalculate risks.

Hezbollah's Preparations

Hezbollah meticulously prepared for the war by analyzing Israeli strengths and weaknesses. Israel is casualty-averse by dint of demographics. It therefore resorts to force multipliers such as air power and armor, combined with excellent reconnaissance and tactical intelligence. Israel uses mobility to cut lines of supply and air power to shatter centralized command-and-control, leaving enemy forces disorganized, unbalanced and unsupplied.

Hezbollah sought to deny Israel its major advantages. The group created a network of fortifications in southern Lebanon that did not require its fighters to maneuver and expose themselves to Israeli air power. Hezbollah stocked those bunkers so fighters could conduct extended combat without the need for resupply. It devolved command to the unit level, making it impossible for a decapitation strike by Israel to affect the battlefield. It worked in such a way that, while the general idea of the defense architecture was understood by Israeli military intelligence, the kind of detailed intelligence used -- for example, in 1967 -- was denied the Israelis. Hezbollah acquired anti-tank weapons from Syria and Iran that prevented Israeli armor from operating without prior infantry clearing of anti-tank teams. And by doing that, the group forced the Israelis to accept casualties in excess of what could, apparently, be tolerated. In short, it forced the Israelis to fight Hezbollah's type of war, rather than the other way around.

Hezbollah then initiated war at the time and place of its choosing. There has been speculation that Israel planned for such a war. That might be the case, but it is self-evident that, if the Israelis wanted this war, they were not expecting it when it happened. The opening of the war was not marked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Rather, it was the persistent and intense bombardment of Israel with missiles -- including attacks against Israel's third-largest city, Haifa -- that compelled the Israelis to fight at a moment when they obviously were unprepared for war, and could not clearly decide either their war aims or strategy. In short, Hezbollah applied a model that was supposed to be Israel's forte: The group prepared meticulously for a war and launched it when the enemy was unprepared for it.

Hezbollah went on the strategic offensive and tactical defensive. It created a situation in which Israeli forces had to move to the operational and tactical offensive at the moment of Hezbollah's highest level of preparedness. Israel could not decline combat, because of the rocket attacks against Haifa, nor was it really ready for war -- particularly psychologically. The Israelis fought when Hezbollah chose and where Hezbollah chose. Their goals were complex, where Hezbollah's were simple. Israel wanted to stop the rockets, break Hezbollah, suffer minimal casualties and maintain its image as an irresistible military force. Hezbollah merely wanted to survive the Israeli attack. The very complexity of Israel's war aims, hastily crafted as they were, represented a failure point.

The Foundations of Israeli Strategy

It is important to think through the reasoning that led to Israeli operations. Israel's actions were based on a principle promulgated by Ariel Sharon at the time of his leadership. Sharon argued that Israel must erect a wall between Israelis and Arabs. His reasoning stemmed from circumstances he faced during Israel's occupation of Lebanon: Counterinsurgency operations impose an unnecessary and unbearable cost in the long run, particularly when designed to protect peripheral interests. The losses may be small in number but, over the long term, they pose severe operational and morale challenges to the occupying force. Therefore, for Sharon, the withdrawal from Lebanon in the 1980s created a paradigm. Israel needed a national security policy that avoided the burden of counterinsurgency operations without first requiring a political settlement. In other words, Israel needed to end counterinsurgency operations by unilaterally ending the occupation and erecting a barrier between Israel and hostile populations.

The important concept in Sharon's thinking was not the notion of impenetrable borders. Rather, the important concept was the idea that Israel could not tolerate counterinsurgency operations because it could not tolerate casualties. Sharon certainly did not mean or think that Israel could not tolerate casualties in the event of a total conventional war, as in 1967 or 1973. There, extreme casualties were both tolerable and required. What he meant was that Israel could tolerate any level of casualties in a war of national survival but, paradoxically, could not tolerate low-level casualties in extended wars that did not directly involve Israel's survival.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was Sharon's protege. Olmert was struggling with the process of disengagement in Gaza and looking toward the same in the West Bank. Lebanon, where Israel learned the costs of long-term occupation, was the last place he wanted to return to in July 2006. In his view, any operation in Lebanon would be tantamount to a return to counterinsurgency warfare and occupation. He did not recognize early on that Hezbollah was not fighting an insurgency, but rather a conventional war of fixed fortifications.

Olmert did a rational cost-benefit analysis. First, if the principle of the Gaza withdrawal was to be followed, the last place the Israelis wanted to be was in Lebanon. Second, though he recognized that the rocket attacks were intolerable in principle, he also knew that, in point of fact, they were relatively ineffective. The number of casualties they were causing, or were likely to cause, would be much lower than those that would be incurred with an invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Olmert, therefore, sought a low-cost solution to the problem of Hezbollah.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz offered an attractive alternative. Advocating what air force officers have advocated since the 1930s, Halutz launched an air campaign designed to destroy Hezbollah. It certainly hurt Hezbollah badly, particularly outside of southern Lebanon, where longer-range rocket launchers were located. However, in the immediate battlefield, limited tactical intelligence and the construction of the bunkers appear to have blunted the air attack. As Israeli troops moved forward across the border, they encountered a well-prepared enemy that undoubtedly was weakened but was not destroyed by the air campaign.

At this point, Olmert had a strategic choice to make. He could mount a multi-divisional invasion of Lebanon, absorb large numbers of casualties and risk being entangled in a new counterinsurgency operation, or he could seek a political settlement. He chose a compromise. After appearing to hesitate, he launched an invasion that seemed to bypass critical Hezbollah positions (isolating them), destroying other positions and then opting for a cease-fire that would transfer responsibility for security to the Lebanese army and a foreign peacekeeping force.

Viewed strictly from the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis, Olmert was probably right. Except that Hezbollah's threat to Israel proper had to be eliminated, Israel had no interests in Lebanon. The cost of destroying Hezbollah's military capability would have been extremely high, since it involved moving into the Bekaa Valley and toward Beirut -- let alone close-quarters infantry combat in the south. And even then, over time, Hezbollah would recover. Since the threat could be eliminated only at a high cost and only for a certain period of time, the casualties required made no sense.

This analysis, however, excluded the political and psychological consequences of leaving an enemy army undefeated on the battlefield. Again, do not overrate what Hezbollah did: The group did not conduct offensive operations; it was not able to conduct maneuver combat; it did not challenge the Israeli air force in the air. All it did was survive and, at the end of the war, retain its ability to threaten Israel with such casualties that Israel declined extended combat. Hezbollah did not defeat Israel on the battlefield. The group merely prevented Israel from defeating it. And that outcome marks a political and psychological triumph for Hezbollah and a massive defeat for Israel.

Implications for the Region

Hezbollah has demonstrated that total Arab defeat is not inevitable -- and with this demonstration, Israel has lost its tremendous psychological advantage. If an operational and tactical defensive need not end in defeat, then there is no reason to assume that, at some point, an Arab offensive operation need not end in defeat. And if the outcome can be a stalemate, there is no reason to assume that it cannot be a victory. If all things are possible, then taking risks against Israel becomes rational.

The outcome of this war creates two political crises.

In Israel, Olmert's decisions will come under serious attack. However correct his cost-benefit analysis might have been, he will be attacked over the political and psychological outcome. The entire legacy of Ariel Sharon -- the doctrine of disengagement -- will now come under attack. If Israel is thrown into political turmoil and indecision, the outcome on the battlefield will have been compounded politically.

There is now also a crisis in Lebanon and in the Muslim world. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has emerged as a massive political force. Even in the multi-confessional society, Hezbollah will be a decisive factor. Syria, marginalized in the region for quite a while, becomes more viable as Hezbollah's patron. Meanwhile, countries like Jordan and Egypt must reexamine their own assumptions about Israel. And in the larger Muslim world, Hezbollah's victory represents a victory for Iran and the Shia. Hezbollah, a Shiite force, has done what others could not do. This will profoundly effect the Shiite position in Iraq -- where the Shia, having first experienced the limits of American power, are now seeing the expanding boundaries of Iranian power.

We would expect Hezbollah, Syria and Iran to move rapidly to exploit what advantage this has given them, before it dissipates. This will increase pressures not only for Israel, but also for the United States, which is engaged in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in a vague confrontation with Iran. For the Israelis and the Americans, restabilizing their interests will be difficult.

Now, some would argue that Israel's possession of weapons of mass destruction negates the consequences of regional perception of weakness. That might be the case, but the fact is that Israel's possession of such weapons did not prevent attacks in 1973, nor were those weapons usable in this case. Consider the distances involved: Israeli forces have been fighting 10 miles from the border. And if Damascus were to be struck with the wind blowing the wrong way, northern Israel would be fried as well. Israel could undertake a nuclear strike against Iran, but the threat posed by Iran is indirect -- since it is far away -- and would not determine the outcome of any regional encounter. Certainly, the possession of nuclear weapons provides Israel a final line from which to threaten enemies -- but by the time that became necessary, the issue already would have shifted massively against Israel. Nuclear weapons have not been used since World War II -- in spite of many apparent opportunities to do so -- because, as a weapon, the utility is more apparent than real. Possession of nuclear weapons can help guarantee regime survival, but not, by itself, military success.

As it stands, logic holds that, given the tenuous nature of the cease-fire, casus belli on Israel's part can be found and the war reinitiated. Given the mood in Israel, logic would dictate the fall of Olmert, his replacement by a war coalition and an attempt to change the outcome. But logic has not applied to Israeli thinking during this war. We have been consistently surprised by the choices Israel has made, and it is not clear whether this is simply Olmert's problem or one that has become embedded in Israel.

What is clear is that, if the current outcome stands, it will mean there has been a tremendous earthquake in the Middle East. It is cheap and easy to talk about historic events. But when a reality that has dominated a region for 58 years is shattered, it is historic. Perhaps this paves the way to new wars. Perhaps Olmert's restraint opens the door for some sort of stable peace. But from where we sit, he was sufficiently aggressive to increase hostility toward Israel without being sufficiently decisive to achieve a desired military outcome.

Hezbollah and Iran hoped for this outcome, though they did not really expect it. They got it. The question on the table now is what they will do with it.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

gene cisco · Aug 16, 2006

Yeah que, I understand there is a lot to read. Sometimes I start reading and hours pass by. Its just I feel if israel were located in africa and on the same shit black folks would be in the same case as the arabs.

Back to the article.
First off alot of the arab world only put up with israel cause they are paid off by america.

Look how much america gives egypt, second only to israel in money it gets from us.

Lets not forget saudis hate us, so just cause the few that run the country pretend to like america and put up with israel it really don't reflect the truth.

Bottomline is israel has one friend and that is america. They look weak right now, and everybody seems to be happy about that.

This little illegal country has caused to much trouble for the world. I'm sure russia and china would love to see it gone. Europe would to. All the arab countries that 'put up with it' would declare the day israel falls a holiday.

This cease fire and hezzy 'victory' will change a lot.

Another thing is just like we are rushing arms to israel who is to say china and russia aint doing the same for iran. Then maybe iran doing the same for syria.

A bully state with one flunky just been exposed. Usually it takes somebody to stand up to the bully and others follow.

QueEx · Aug 17, 2006

geno,

You've got a thing for Israel, right or wrong. I would like to see a lot more of OUR influence on what Israel does, especially since we are its main benefactor and what it does invariably affects us. I don't and have never agreed with every aspect of Israeli policy. But is it an illegal state? Maybe.

Maybe not. Were the actions of the United Nations creating Israel illegal??? If so, maybe the illegal argument should be addressed in terms of the UN then. Maybe the existence of half the globe should be challenged based on prior history??? If you look at the globe 50 years ago, maybe it doesn't look the same as it does now. Need to be challenged??? Where does it end or, better still, where does it begin ???

I still say:

What that says to me is that the conflict between Muslims and the West, driven perhaps by fundamentalist on both sides, is really evolving (if it wasn't already) into a "Religious" confrontation. Funny thing though, it leaves the agnostics and atheist in one hellava position: some taking sides with Israel and some taking sides with the Muslims when both desire their conversion or destruction.

`

Israel -- 2006 War

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The Quizatz Haderach

Superfly Moderator

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Not A BGOL Eunuch

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Not A BGOL Eunuch

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Not A BGOL Eunuch

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Not A BGOL Eunuch

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