Late last month, a fortnight into Israel’s war against Lebanon, the Hebrew media published a story that passed observers by. Scientists in Haifa, according to the report, have developed a “missile-trappingo” steel net that can shield buildings from rocket attacks. The Israeli government, it noted, would be able to use the net to protect vital infrastructure — oil refineries, hospitals, military installations, and public offices — while private citizens could buy a net to protect their own homes. Read more about After Lebanon, Israel is looking for more wars
If Hezbollah were a military, given Western standards, it would certainly be the most moral in the world. During Israel’s five week offensive, Hezbollah killed 118 Israeli soldiers and 41 Israeli civilians (18 of which were Israeli Palestinians). Hezbollah killed three Israeli soldiers for every one Israeli civilian. In contrast, Israeli forces killed more than 1000 Lebanese civilians during the onslaught (more bodies are expected to be discovered during the current period of “calm”). Robert Fisk, based in Lebanon, reported, “They are digging them [Lebanese bodies] up by the hour.” Read more about Losing its Morals and Marbles: Israel's Fight for Lebanon
There is almost nobody in the public arena right now who objects to the view that the last month of fighting against Hizbollah was interrupted and that sooner or later, whether next month or next year, another round will erupt. Nobody disputes that such another round is inevitable, and very few are suggesting any steps to take to prevent that war from breaking out by trying diplomacy with the Lebanese leadership or even engaging the Syrians. And of course, the main issue on the Israeli agenda is the demand for ‘investigations’ into why Israel ‘lost’ the war, with accompanying demands for soul-searching by politicians. Read more about Political and sexual abuse
Imagine, if you will, a modern apartheid state with first, second and eleventh class citizens, all required to carry identification specifying their ethnic origin. First class citizens are obliged to serve in the armed forces, kept on ready reserve status until in their forties, and accorded an impressive array of housing, medical, social security, educational and related benefits denied all others. Second class citizens are exempted from military service and from a number of the benefits accorded citizens of the first class. They are issued identity documents and license plates that allow them to be profiled by police at a distance. Read more about Israeli apartheid: The striking parallels to South Africa
The late Hafez Assad had “his Palestinians.” Ideologically divergent, they served politically to forestall any move by the PLO towards a negotiated settlement with Israel and personally to thwart the man Assad loathed like no other: Yasser Arafat. Surely few in my generation have even heard of the personalities comprising the Palestinian face of Assad’s crusade. Abu Musa, a celebrated Palestinian commander early in the Lebanon War, in 1983 led his breakaway Fateh faction into battle against what remained of Arafat’s PLO in the wake of Begin and Sharon’s slaughter a year prior. Thanks to Syrian patronage, his combat victory led him into total obscurity and into early retirement in Damascus. Read more about Abu Mazen: America's Tribute to Hafez Assad
Security Council Resolution 1701 did not come a minute too soon if only because it blew the whistle on an Israeli assault that was killing dozens of Lebanese civilians daily, destroying the country and forcing nearly a million people to seek refuge from its escalating war crimes. The so-called “international community” provided cover for extending the war under the guise of prolonged negotiations at the UN, hoping that Israel would win a decisive victory. But what Israel failed to win on the battlefield, its friends helped to deliver in the UN resolution. Read more about Count the UN Security Council among the losers
During Israel’s war against the people of Lebanon, our media, politicians and diplomats have colluded with the aggressors by distracting us with irrelevancies, by concocting controversies, and by framing the language of diplomacy. In the fragile truce that is currently holding while Lebanon waits for Israel to withdraw, we are simply getting more of the same. One example of the many distractions during the war that neatly reveals their true purpose is the “faked Reuters photograph” affair. The far worse photography scandal, which is not talked about, is that the images of the war we saw over the past month in our Western media were constantly doctored, day in, day out. Read more about Lebanese deaths, and Israeli war crimes, kept off the balance sheet
I grew up Jewish in Beirut. Although I left nearly 40 years ago, my memories of Lebanon — vibrant and multicultural — have stayed with me. And so, my wife and I had started talking about taking a trip there. I would show her the neighborhood where I grew up, the beaches where I swam in the warm Mediterranean waters and the small mountain hotel we loved to stay at in the summer. I would also show her my school, where Jewish, Christian and Muslim children learned and grew together. After the past few weeks, we may never be able to take this trip. Read more about It's time for Jewish dissenters to challenge Israeli policies
Now, with the Israel-Hizbollah war a stalemate at best and the Israeli deterrence at a historic nadir, Olmert and Bush know that the Israeli public has lost its nerve and its stomach for a unilateral withdrawal from one inch of the West Bank. Twenty years elapsed between the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the first intifada. Eight years elapsed between the start of the Oslo process and the second intifada. The Gaza withdrawal has only exacerbated the Palestinians’ suffering, and without a diplomatic track to speak of, a third intifada is imminent, one that likely will not be constrained by the sham of Palestinian self-governance. Read more about Deepening the fault lines
As Lebanon and Gaza burn and the laws of war are violated with impunity, the terrible erosion of international law represents a critical challenge for the international community. Reflecting on the South African apartheid regime’s efforts to gain supremacy in South Africa and the Southern African region, Jeff Handmaker and Bangani Ngeleza argue it is imperative that we continually raise our voices against Israel’s brazen impunity until a real and lasting ceasefire is in place, war criminals are brought to justice and the Israeli regime is held accountable for decades of repression and regional destabilisation. In doing so, we will surely find a true humanity. Read more about In search of a true humanity
