After spending so much time reading about the “Madness of Nasrallah” I wanted to take some time off. I went down to the seashore today, but not before being asked the question, “How is the ceasefire going?” I was asked the question more than once. The people who know me as a news junkie expect me to keep tabs on what’s going on in the world. It seems Nasrallah is trying to claim a nonexistent victory when both Israel and Lebanon know the truth. By reading Lebanese blogs I learn that many Lebanese feel like hostages in their own country, hostages to the Hezbollah terrorists, unless Hezbollah is disarmed.
From one blog I read:
1. Israel has the ability to flatten Lebanon and kill everyone in it
2. Hezbollah can cause a few fires, kill a few people. They can inflict little long-term damage on Israel. They can’t put a dent in the IDF or Israeli infrastructure. They can’t defend Lebanon from the IDF. Lebanon will be destroyed, while Israel is barely scratched.
Northern Israel is dispopulated. The IDF’s reputation has, once again, been tarnished by Hezbollah. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets. Hassan Nasrallah continues to make speeches. Al Manar continues to broadcast, and there’s nothing Israel can do about that.
Even more, when Israel tries to take out Hezbollah fighters, they invariably hit Lebanese civilians, thus further tarnishing the IDF in the eyes of the international community, and taking any sort of moral authority away from the State of Israel.
All the while, little attention is paid to Hezbollah’s rockets bombarding northern Israel because:
a) they aren’t nearly as devastating as Israel’s rockets barraging Lebanon
b) due to Israeli political maneuvering over the past two decades, the world has already written Hezbollah off as a terrorist organization. Thus, anything good they do is seen as incredibly positive, and anything bad they do is expected. Hezbollah firing rockets at civilians is not a news story, but them respecting a ceasefire is. Whereas the international community expects Israel to respect every ceasefire and not commit any war crimes.
Lebanese tend to discount reports about Israeli civilian deaths, the harm done to Israel’s economy, and the displacement of the Israeli population. What’s happened to Israel pales in comparison to what’s happened to Lebanon.
However, Israel has been hit very hard. It will recover quickly, but the whole country is effected by this war.
I’m optimistic that Prime Minister Saniora will be able to isolate Hezbollah and reduce their power independent of the government, but Hezbollah remains more powerful than the Lebanese government, and there’s nothing that the Lebanese government, Israel, the UN, or Western nations can do about that.
Hezbollah has been tremendously hurt. Lebanese politicians seem to have maintained their anti-Syrian stances, and the Arab countries seem to be more firmly anti-Syrian.
There are signs that some good might come out of this situation. But we’ll have to wait and see.
{http://lebop.blogspot.com/}
Another blogger writes:
Victory is ours” I heard Hassan Nasrallah say on TV…and seriously I couldn’t help but smile…what victory was this man speaking of???
How does a party like Hezbollah measure victory and in what terms?
If he means victory of the Lebanese people, then, let us look carefully at the impact the last 33 days of war has had on Lebanon:
1- More than 1000 persons have lost their lives
2- Five thousand wounded
3- A million and a half homeless and displaced
4- Cost of losses due to destruction close to 5 billion dollars
5- Major foreign investors are reconsidering their investments in the country
6- Many of the educated young people are leaving the country to go out to safer places
7- Fuel for electrical plants is estimated to last another two days before it runs out…which means no electricity
8- Petrol for cars is already running short and some people are queuing for hours to be able to obtain a miserable 10 liters of the fuel.
So how can this be considered as a victory?
Unless we are talking another type of victory…the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Lebanon…then by all means it is…today, Lebanon is laid open…people are screaming from hunger…diseases are spreading like wild fire amongst the displaced and the homeless…so we have the perfect setup for a country like Iran to come in and take control…distribute some foodstuff, assist here and there in some reconstruction projects…and you have the support of the population…then launch the revolution…On the other hand, Iran wins a major playing card in the region and that is a loaded weapon aimed at the head of Israel…this would give it more leverage in the talks about its nuclear project. So it is indeed some victory…
{http://www.ouwet.com/othello/other/victory-whose-victory-is-that/}
In a speech President Bush called the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah another part of the broader war on terror, a war between freedom and tyranny.
Friday’s U.N. Security Council resolution on Lebanon is an important step forward that will help bring an end to the violence.
The resolution calls for a robust international force to deploy to the southern part of the country to help Lebanon’s legitimate armed forces restore the sovereignty of its democratic government all Lebanese territory.
As well, the resolution is intended to stop Hezbollah from acting as a state within the state.
We’re now working with our international partners to turn the words of this resolution into action. We must help people in both Lebanon and Israel return to their homes and begin rebuilding their lives without fear of renewed violence and terror.
America recognizes that civilians in Lebanon and Israel have suffered from the current violence.
And we recognize that responsibility for this suffering lies with Hezbollah. It was an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah on Israel that started this conflict.
Hezbollah terrorists targeted Israeli civilians with daily rocket attacks. Hezbollah terrorists used Lebanese civilians as human shields, sacrificing the innocent in an effort to protect themselves from Israeli response.
Responsibility for the suffering of the Lebanese people also lies with Hezbollah’s state sponsors, Iran and Syria. The regime in Iran provides Hezbollah with financial support, weapons and training.
Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks.
Syria’s another state sponsor of Hezbollah. Syria allows Iranian weapons to pass through its territory into Lebanon. Syria permits Hezbollah’s leaders to operate out of Damascus and gives political support to Hezbollah’s cause.
Syria supports Hezbollah because it wants to undermine Lebanon’s democratic government and regain its position of dominance in the country. That would be a great tragedy for the Lebanese people and for the cause of peace in the Middle East.
Hezbollah and its foreign sponsors also seek to undermine the prospects for peace in the Middle East.
Hezbollah terrorists kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Hamas kidnapped another Israeli soldier for a reason: Hezbollah and Hamas reject a vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.
Both groups want to disrupt the progress being made toward that vision by Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert and President [Mahmoud] Abbas and others in the region. We must not allow terrorists to prevent elected leaders from working together toward a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East.
{http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/14/transcript.bush/index.html}
In answer to the question on how the ceasefire was going, it is fragile but holding. There have been some last minute attacks.
Two Hizbullah terrorists were killed in two separate clashes with IDF troops in southern Lebanon, but the ceasefire is largely holding. 161 Israelis hospitalized with wartime wounds.
At noon, the first ceasefire-threatening incident was reported: A Hizbullah terrorist cell detected “moving in a threatening manner,” according to the IDF announcement, was fired upon by an IDF force near Hadta, in the western sector of southern Lebanon. One terrorist was killed.
Shortly afterwards, another terrorist was killed in a separate clash in the eastern sector. No Israelis were hurt in the battles.
The two incidents have been the only clashes since 8 AM this morning, when the UN-approved ceasefire took effect.
{http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=109997}
In a different area of the conflict there was a demonstration and a murder of a man who helped Israel. The killing was graphic with people kicking and stomping the body after he had been shot. I don’t know how it is handled there, but here in the states it would be a hate crime of the worst caliber.
Palestinian gunmen identifying themselves as members of Islamic Jihad shot a man in a public square in the West Bank town of Jenin on Sunday Aug. 13, 2006. He was identified as Bassem Malah, 22, who worked in an Israeli Arab town.
The man was executed in front of hundreds of people. He was accused by the very gunmen who killed him of giving information to Israeli authorities. The information was said to have led to an attack on two other Islamic Jihad members. There were no hearings, no trial. And merely shooting him wasn’t enough. One of the gunmen went on to kick the man’s lifeless body as the crowd gathered and watched, many of them taking pictures. But the demonstration was very far from over.
One of the gunmen stood proudly over the man he had just murdered. Bassem Malah never had a trial, let alone any formal criminal charge, except that of betraying other armed gunmen of Islamic Jihad.
When they allowed the crowd closer, many of them took out their cell phones. They couldn’t wait to take pictures of the dead 22 year old with their cell phones, jockeying for position like vultures over a carcass.
At one point an old woman dressed in white appeared at the scene of the murder. His Mother, perhaps?
No. She was the Mother of another member of Islamic Jihad who had been killed four years ago in a confrontation that had nothing to do with Bassem Malah, who would have been just 18 at the time. She was given the honor of stomping the dead young man’s neck and head until the blood poured out onto the ground.
Apparently the Palestinians prefer a well-organized demonstration and one gunman was careful to position the body just so while abusing the corpse, perhaps for more cell phone pictures.
When the demonstration was over there was virtually nothing left of 22 year old Bassem Malah except his battered dead body which had been fully stomped into the ground.
Many naive Americans who are rarely given a clear picture of what goes on in the world of these so-called freedom fighters by the mainstream media allow themselves to be incited by groups like ANSWER, CAIR and others, taking to the streets to pronounce groups like Islamic Jihad noble freedom fighters. Perhaps if they were given an opportunity to watch a demonstration by those terrorists first hand, they wouldn’t be so quick to pronounce America and Israel terrorist states. One can hope, anyway.
The link has some photos attached. WARNING: THEY ARE GRAPHIC!
{http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/a_demonstration.html}
I FAIL TO UNDERSTAND SUCH HATRED! IT’S THE KIND OF HATRED THAT DRIVES TERRORISTS AND THEIR SYMPATHIZERS TO COMMIT DESPICABLE ACTS! I DON’T THINK I WANT TO UNDERSTAND!
Such stories make me want to turn the news off for awhile and forget that evil exists in the world.
Posted by jpfarris9 
Posted by jpfarris9 