Who is the Terrorist Mastermind?

Today in McAllen there was another protest, but this protest was not on immigration issues. Today’s protest was a peace protest for the Iraq, Israel/Hamas, and Israel/Hezbollah conflicts. The article I read said Israel/Palestine and Israel/Lebanon conflicts, but as I pointed out in past blog entries Israel is not fighting the nations of Lebanon or Palestine but the terrorists who hide out in them. I have read blogs from Israel and they harbor no hostile feelings toward the people of those countries. Some of the protestors were people from Lebanon. One individual was Omar Elbenni who was born and raised in Lebanon. His father, brothers, and mother-in-law still reside in Beirut and Northern Lebanon.

“If the war doesn’t stop, they are definitely in danger,” he said.

Also at the rally were those that made clear their abhorrence of what they called the United States’ “unconditional support of Israel”. I wonder who they would rather have the US support-Israel or the terrorist organizations that have pledged to destroy Israel and hate America? As I have pointed out in past entries they are a danger to the United States as well, and some have been caught crossing the border from Mexico into the US.

I am grieved when I read about the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. Hospitals in Beirut can no longer take in patients and may have to close their doors because of a shortage of medicine and fuel. Supplies of milk, rice, and sugar are low. Israeli air-strikes have destroyed the four key bridges and the last major supply link to Syria who also uses that same link to supply weapons to Hezbollah terrorists.

Long lines of cars form at gas stations where drivers are only allowed to buy a maximum of 2 ½ gallons of gasoline.

Essential medicines, including blood pressure and diabetes medications are in short supply, and grocery stores have run out of essentials such as milk, diapers, baby food and canned goods.

Fuad Yammine, a grocer said, “Milk is out of the question, forget it. I’m running out of lots of other foodstuffs too. If you need anything, take it now, because I fear next week there won’t be much left.”

I was discussing the conflict with a friend of mine about how Hamas attacked Israel from one side and while they were responding Hezbollah attacked them from behind. I wonder if it was planned that way. He raised the question about who the mastermind could be. Who is the terror mastermind?

At dawn on January 31 this year, Lebanese Army troops stopped a suspicious convoy of 12 trucks trying to cross the border from Syria. Inside, they found tons of unauthorized ammunition, rockets, and other weapons. The convoy’s final destination: the arms caches of Hezbollah, the radical Islamic political movement whose militia controls wide swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon.

Born out of the chaos of Lebanon’s civil war in 1982, Hezbollah–in English, the Party of God–is a direct spinoff from Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian revolution and its vision of Islamic Shiite fundamentalism. Over its first 15 years, the group earned a long and bloody record for terrorist acts: suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, and bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina and U.S. military housing at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

After leaving Lebanon, the Israelis watched with growing alarm as Hezbollah dug in along their northern border and amassed a growing arsenal. With Lebanon essentially controlled by Syrian troops until last year, arms shipments rolled in unencumbered from Iran and Syria. The bulk of weapons have come from Iran, say U.S. and Israeli officials. Iranian cargo jets typically fly the arms to Damascus, where they are unloaded and trucked to Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekáa Valley and farther south. Among the shipments: rocket-propelled grenade launchers, automatic weapons, mines, mortars, and, most troubling to the Israelis, huge stores of rockets. It is the unrestrained supply of those rockets–both their number and capability–that has changed the strategic equation and pushed the Israelis over the edge.

Israeli officials quietly acknowledge that their intelligence is limited. They were stunned when an Iranian-made, radar-guided cruise missile nearly sank one of their ships off the Lebanese coast July 14. Syrian-made rockets have also turned up in Hezbollah’s arsenal, including midrange units that fell last week on Nazareth and Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city. The rockets contain a nasty innovation–warheads filled with ball bearings that spread like shrapnel–prompting criticism from Human Rights Watch.

“All of northern occupied Palestine is within range,” Nasrallah said, referring to Israel. “Its ports, its bases, its factories, and everything located there.”

{http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060723/31rockets.htm}

Nasrallah does not recognize Israel as a nation and is one of those that has pledged to destroy it. As long as he leads Hezbollah Israel is not safe and must fight to survive. That is why there has been no ceasefire.

Israel is pursuing slightly conflicting objectives–crippling the Hezbollah militia without taking down Lebanon’s government as collateral damage. “We didn’t remove the gloves completely,” says a top Israeli military official.

Lebanon’s government is merely a bit player, caught between two juggernauts.

“Not only has its economy been shattered, but Lebanon is a disaster area,” says Robert Rabil, a professor at Florida Atlantic University, who was in Beirut with his wife and 13-month-old child when the fighting broke out.

Even after Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, the military wing of Hezbollah kept up its fight, using the past six years to dramatically improve its arsenal.
Some in Lebanon hoped that bringing Hezbollah into the government would help moderate the group, but its leaders seem intent on provoking Israel. “This crisis has exposed Hezbollah for what it is–a still-untamed rogue element operating in a rather frail and vulnerable political environment in the wake of all those years of civil war,” says Wayne White, a former top Middle East intelligence analyst at the State Department.
Hezbollah leaders remain confident in public, but many Lebanese are blaming them for the crisis. “They declared war without notifying the Lebanese people, without our permission,” says Elie Khoury, a Lebanese Christian in Beirut.

A drawn-out crisis could recast the entire Lebanese political scene. The powerful Israeli assault could prompt many to rally around the only force willing to take on the Israelis, but growing numbers of Lebanese could also decide that Hezbollah is acting in Iran’s, not Lebanon’s, interests. “When there’s no water, no food, no power, the Sunnis and Christians will turn on Hezbollah, which they don’t even like anyway,” says Hassan, the young Lebanese Sunni.

Syria was under a cloud of suspicion in Lebanon for its suspected involvement in the assassination of Lebanon’s previous prime minister, Rafik Hariri, in February 2005. President Bush has blamed Syria for its support of Hezbollah. “Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me,” he said last week.

Israeli military brass admit privately that they cannot hope to completely destroy Hezbollah, a goal they were unable to achieve during an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. Instead, the Army is working fast to try to eliminate as many rocket launchers as it can before a potential cease-fire. Before it’s over, Israel aims to weaken the militant group by imposing a no man’s land half a mile deep into Lebanon.

Ironically, Hezbollah, which claims to have acted in sympathy with the Palestinians, has succeeded mostly in overshadowing them completely, leaving Israel with a relatively free hand to move against Hamas.

{http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060723/31war.htm}

The spasm of violence reinforces the Bush administration’s conclusion that Iran is playing a pivotal role in the issues that will make or break the Middle East: nuclear weapons, terrorism, the stability of Iraq, democracy, and Israel’s security. “They are all interrelated,” says a senior administration official. “The nexus of it is the regime in Tehran.”

The quest for nuclear weapons has spurred the West to offer Iran help with civilian nuclear power generation, trade, and other incentives if it abandons enriching uranium, the main step in making nuclear fuel for power plants or bombs. Iran has also gained ground in the region with the populist–and stridently anti-Israeli–appeal of Iran’s hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has questioned the Holocaust and stated that Israel “must be wiped off the map.”

Iran is said to have supplied most of Hezbollah’s 12,000 or so rockets.

Iran has also funneled cash and arms to Hamas, which won Palestinian elections this year and has been battling Israeli troops in Gaza.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brands Tehran the “central banker” for terrorism.

Growing Iranian clout with Israel’s adversaries in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Lebanon explains part of the ferocity of Israel’s reaction. “It’s a race against time to stop Iranian influence,” explains an Israeli official.

Iran’s activities, meanwhile, are stirring concern among predominantly Sunni Muslim Arab leaders, who see Hezbollah as one agent of expanding Iranian influence. Jordan’s King Abdullah II has warned of a burgeoning Shiite “crescent” that includes Iran and Iraq and carries over into Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. But Iran also reaches across the sectarian divide with its support for Sunni Islamist Hamas, suggesting that it may be willing to stoke radical challenges to the leaders of moderate Arab nations.

Fear of Iranian meddling has driven a remarkable split in the Arab world, where Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have condemned Hezbollah for “adventurism” in its initial attack (and, of course, Israel for its military campaign). “There is a foreign element playing in our backyard,” warns an Arab diplomat. A senior European official describes the mood of Arab governments on Iran: “They are scared to death. Discreetly, they say, ‘Do something.’”

With the unexpected scope of Israel’s assault, Iran may be concerned about seeing its ally–or strategic asset–whittled down before its eyes. “Will Iran allow Hezbollah to be defeated?” asks Robert Rabil, a professor and Mideast watcher at Florida Atlantic University. “I don’t think so, because Hezbollah expands the border of Iran to the border of Israel, so it’s a deterrent force.”

{http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060723/31iran.htm}

The cruelty of history–and Lebanon displays that cruel juxtaposition of nature’s beauty and history’s heartbreak–is that men and nations are doomed to suffer great bloodshed before they settle down to outcomes inevitable all along. When the dust settles, the Lebanese government will have to take up its duty on its frontier with Israel. No one contests Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon’s politics; no one would deny its place in the country’s sectarian landscape. But the guns and the missiles are another matter. Demography works to the advantage of the Shiites, and a great deal of the country’s wealth has shifted their way in recent years. The Shiites do not need a holy war on their own soil. The reining in of Hezbollah is something they owe their kith and kin. They needn’t be enamored of Israel, and they won’t be. Those Persians bearing gifts, those Syrians who keep their own frontier with Israel as quiet as a tomb while setting ablaze Lebanon’s lands, are no friends of the Lebanese.

{http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060723/31fouad.htm}

Resolution 1559, whose requirement for the disbanding of regional militias, i.e. Hezbollah, has been ignored. (If it had been enforced the current conflict would not be happening. Is that a failure on the UNs part?)

The United States and Britain are right not to endorse calls for a cease-fire just yet. Hezbollah would simply return to its bunkers and eventually start attacking again, with its remaining missile inventory, augmented by ever more dangerous Iranian-supplied rockets. This is the strategic imperative that drives Israel to pursue Hezbollah.

in 2000, Israel withdrew entirely from Lebanon of its own volition, and the borderline of its withdrawal was sanctioned by the U.N. Yet Hezbollah continued firing on Israeli villages and towns and continued trying to kidnap Israeli soldiers. In 2002, a Hezbollah team infiltrated a kibbutz, fired on a school bus, and killed six–and who called for a cease-fire back then?

Hezbollah should never have been allowed to develop as a state within a state, with its own private army in Lebanon, funded by Iran to the extent of $100 million a year, armed by Iran, and trained by the Iranians. (Its mission, in part, is to threaten Israel if Israel were to attack Iran.) Iran has provided Hezbollah with some 12,000 rockets, which have a range of 26 miles to almost 120 miles, the latter with the capacity to reach Tel Aviv. Iran has also trained some 3,000 Hezbollah terrorists, set up 20 permanent missile bases in Lebanon, and equipped Hezbollah with trucks to launch rockets and with experts to assist in targeting. Hezbollah aimed these weapons not at military targets but at population centers, intent on killing as many Israelis as possible.

When Hezbollah kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers this time, the Lebanese president should have called for their release as vehemently as he now calls for a ceasefire. But it was the leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Nasrallah, who spoke, painting himself as the “ruler of the Middle East” and dismissing the Israeli prime minister and defense minister as “rookies” and “pathetic individuals” who would be deterred by his threats from retaliating.

Hezbollah, after all, is the al Qaeda of the Middle East, and Nasrallah the parasite on the body of Lebanon just as Osama bin Laden was the parasite on the body of Afghanistan.

A victory for Hamas and Hezbollah would radicalize the entire Middle East. Preventing this is an absolute imperative.

{http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/060723/31edit.htm}

Now it seems one of the sinister machinations of Hezbollah is to get Syria more involved.

Six rocket barrages were fired at northern Israel from the areas of Wadi Saluki and Kabriah Majdel-Silim in south Lebanon towards the Northern Gallilee but landed in Syrian territory Saturday.

The IDF noted that this was the second Hizbullah rocket fire attempt which landed across the border, indicating the terror group’s intentions to drag Syria into the Israeli-Lebanese conflict.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, after massive IDF operations in Tyre and the surrounding area, the army planned to target the town of Sidon directly north of Tyre. On Saturday afternoon the IDF called on residents of the area to evacuate their homes immediately and move north.

The IDF said they warned residents in attempt to avoid civilian casualties.

“For your own personal safety, read the message and act accordingly,” read flyers scattered in the area. “In your area criminal terrorist activity is being carried out in the firing of missiles towards Israel. The IDF will use full force against the terror gangs starting very soon. For your own safety, you must immediately leave the area and move north. Whoever stays endangers their lives. (Signed) The State of Israel.”

{http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3286597,00.html}

And this comes from a blogger inside Lebanon:

We were celebrating a year and 4 months ago a new independance day, a historical day that the Lebanese people achieved, united Christians and Muslims not caring about their political leaders storming the streets, giving flowers to the Lebanese army and demonstrating for Lebanon’s freedom.

However, similarly to the 1943 independance that wasnt probably achieved, this independance had a missing piece, which consisted of a lebanese group, called the Party of God ( Hezbollah) threatening Lebanon’s future by its militia.

For more than a year, Politicians from Geagea to Jumblatt and even the government have been warning about the threat Hezbollah represents and the risks of getting Lebanon into a bloody regional war.

However, they havent done anything to stop this threat and here we are, paying the price of our politician’s incompetence and Hezbollah’s destructive and Anti-Lebanese Pro-Iranian Pro-Syrian Islamic plans.

{http://www.ouwet.com/n10452/editorials/il-etait-une-fois-%e2%80%a6-le-liban/}

SO WHO IS THE TERRORIST MASTERMIND?

I don’t want to point any fingers, but consider:

Who supplies Hezbollah with weapons? (Katyusha, Falaq, Fajr 3, Fajr 5, C-802 and Zelzal rockets) When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 Hezbollah has as many as 6,000 rockets. At the start of this conflict Hezbollah’s arsenal was near 13,000 rockets.

Who finances Hezbollah?

Who wants to see Israel “wiped off the map”?

Who is the terrorist mastermind? Could there be more than one? They must be stopped and their insidious plans foiled in order to restore stability to the Middle East.

Does Hezbollah Manipulate the Media?

I was shocked and dismayed when I read of the tragedy at Kana where 56 innocent people, mostly women and children were killed. I was also grieved when I saw a picture of a terrified Israeli child crying.

Israel agreed yesterday to halt air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours in the face of widespread outrage over an air strike that killed at least 56 Lebanese, mostly women and children, when it leveled a building where they had taken shelter.

{http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=150696}

Then I did a little digging to find more about the story.

Some 150 rockets were fired from the Lebanese village of Qana over the past 20 days, Air Force Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel said on Sunday evening.

Speaking to reporters, Eshel added that Hizbullah rocket launchers were hidden in civilian buildings in the village. He proceeded to show video footage of rocket launchers being driven into the village following launches.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292030858&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull}

The Knesset held a special session on the war today, turning into a scene of parliamentary bedlam during Defense Minister Amir Peretz’s speech. Three Arab MKs were thrown out of the plenum by Speaker Dalia Itzik, beginning with Ibrahim Tzartzour, who called Peretz a “child murderer.”

Peretz said that Israel cannot agree to an immediate ceasefire, “because then we will find ourselves back in the same position a few months from now.” He said that the worst thing is that the Lebanese government “abandoned its civilian population in the south of the country to the hands of [Hizbullah leader] Nasrallah, who turned the population into a defensive shield for his terrorists.”

{http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=108826}

Israel must not agree to an immediate cease-fire, but rather expand and strengthen its attacks on Hizbullah, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told an emergency session of the Knesset on Monday.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1153292036616&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull}

Thousands of civilians trapped in south Lebanon’s war zone for three weeks made an exodus for the north Monday, taking advantage of Israel’s 48-hour pause in airstrikes to flee.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153292041277}

After reading so much into it I decided to look into a couple of blogs from people who are there, and I learned a disturbing truth. Sometimes the whole story doesn’t get told.

The attack actually took place sometime after midnight last night and the building collapsed around 8:00 AM today. The IDF would like to know why. I’d also like to know why people stayed overnight in a building that had been hit by missiles. Surely they must have known that it was at risk of collapse.

“The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear,” Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana.

{http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2006/07/qana-building-collapsed-eight-hours.html}

The stories I had read earlier led me to believe that the innocent victims had received no warning when the building got bombed, but the above account says different.

I also read a blog from Lebanon where a letter was posted to Nasralah about Hezbollah tactics.

Firstly I would like to begin with my condolences for all those that perished in this unacceptable, barbaric act…

My condolences go as well to the hundreds who have been savagely murdered in the last 19 days…

My condolences go out as well to the Lebanese people for the loss of their country, that is if they do not take action.

For the last two weeks, we have been screaming that HA are hiding amongst civilians to attack Israel…we posted on boards, we mass mailed, some wrote to news papers and major news channels…

And yet, the most concerned, the Lebanese people that were themselves the victims, stood silent…they felt powerless and defenseless…

Some accused us of treason…some even went all the way to claim we fabricated those stories…

Today, the proof is with you, in front of you and yet some of you refuse to see…you refuse to see that HUMAN BEINGS are being used as SHIELDS…yes HUMAN BEINGS…kids, women, infants…

Mr. Nasralla, we understand the necessities of a guerilla war…we understand that you are fighting what you and your people consider a battle of existence…but we are not in the Mekong delta or the jungles of Vietnam…this is Lebanon Mr. Nasralla…the 10452Km2 are totally inhabited…so wherever your people hide, they are endangering HUMANS…

You vowed Jihad on the Israelis…but the whole country has not…you vowed their destruction and care less if in the process you loose your life…but the whole country has not…

Lebanon and the Lebanese Mr. Nasrallah are people that want to live…we want peace…we do not want to be torn to pieces or suffocated by imploding bombs…

When those people stayed in Qana despite the warnings issued by the Israelis to evacuate, they did so because they had put their faith in the men of the resistance…they believed that those men would protect them, would keep them safe from the Israeli enemy…

Alas…they discovered, and it was too late when they did, they discovered that those men who were supposed to protect them, were in fact hiding behind them.

They discovered that those men were taunting the Israeli by firing at him from behind inhabited buildings, daring him to reply…your men, Mr. Nasrallah, were playing Russian roulette but with the gun aimed at the heads of the innocent victims instead of theirs…

We all agree that the Israelis are retaliating with excessive force…no one is challenging this…what I am challenging is your tactics of turning this excessive force to your benefit at the cost of the lives of the civilians…this is, at best, Mr. Nasrallah, a criminal act, punishable, if not by the laws of the country which are so often bent and twisted, but by the Lord himself…that Lord whose name you use to call your party…

Was this what you meant when you claimed you were reserving surprises to the Israeli enemy??? was this your “after Haifa” ??? Was Quana your after Haifa? If so, then I congratulate you on your napoleonean thoughts…

Pray tell me, were you counting on the public outcry to force the Israelis into a cease fire and thus claim your victory??? Like what happened in April 1996??? Is this what you were aiming at when you fired rockets from the vicinity of the UN post not three days ago, causing a retaliation that killed four UN soldiers???

The outcry wasn’t strong enough…lets do a Qana II…it will have an impact for sure…it never fails…people are so gullible…we get the cease fire and come out as heroes…and in the way we cause Israel to suffer humiliation…

Some victory for Lebanon Mr. Nasrallah…

Anyways, I am sorry for all those souls that are being lost day by day as this nightmare that has engulfed my country goes on, and I pray all the Gods of all the religions to make this madness cease.

Lebanon wants to live.

Lebanon wants to breathe.

Lebanon wants peace.

Give us peace, do not tear us to pieces.

{http://www.ouwet.com/othello/other/the-sad-truth-about-hezbollah-tactics/}

And here is a video link about how Hezbollah uses human shields:

{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68yOJVQA51E}

Here is a portion of an article about the Hezbollah tactic of using human shields:

My son is in the army. He is not the type at all, believe me. Quiet, studious, a writer, a lover of Jewish history, Talmud, ethics. He spent two years in a pre-army program in the Galilee called Karmei Hayil. He made many good friends there from all over the country, and now he and all his friends are in the army.

One of them I know well. A bit chubby, with payot (sidelocks) and a great laugh. He and my son have become like brothers. While both of them tried out for the elite paratroopers unit, only his friend made it in. He and his unit are the ones in Lebanon. They were there over a week, fighting under horrific conditions, running out of food and water. Even though the Israel Air Force dropped tons of leaflets warning civilians to flee because they were in terrorist territory and likely to be injured, they still encountered civilians.

My son spoke to his friend yesterday, and this is how he described it: “The village looked empty, and then we heard noises coming from one of the houses, so we opened fire. But when we went inside, we found two women and a child huddled in the corner of the room. We were so relieved we hadn’t hurt them. We took up base in one of the empty houses. And then all of a sudden, we came under intense fire. Three rockets were fired at the house we were in. Only one managed to destroy a wall, which fell on one of us, covering him in white dust, but otherwise not hurting him.

“I spent the whole time feeding bullets to my friend who was shooting nonstop. We managed to kill 26 terrorists. Not one of us was hurt. Our commanding officer kept walking around, touching everybody on the shoulder, smiling and encouraging us: ‘We’re are better than they are. Don’t worry.’ It calmed us all down. And really, we were much better than them. They are a lousy army. They only win when they hide behind baby carriages.”

Please remember this when you hear about the “atrocity” of the Israeli bomb that killed many civilians in Kafr Qana, a place from which Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Unlike previous administrations, Mr. Olmert has my respect when he says: “They were warned to leave. It is the responsibility of Hezbollah for firing rockets amid civilians.”

Terrorists and their supporters have lost the right to complain about civilian casualties, since all they have is one goal: this entire war is to target civilians. Every single one of the more than 2,500 rockets launched into Israel, is launched into populated towns filled with women and children. Just today, another explosive belt meant to kill civilians in Israel was detonated harmlessly by our forces in Nablus.

{http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744436.html}

Hezbollah hides its arms in private homes, inviting attack, and weaves its tunnels beneath the communities of civilian women and children. It’s only with incredible chutzpah that anyone blames Israel for bombing those places where the enemy stockpiles its weapons and reserves. Israel aims at places where terrorists hide; Hezbollah aims at women and children where they live.

“We are doing something that no other country would do,” Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, says in an interview with the German magazine der Spiegel. “We warn the people using Lebanese television, radio and flyers that we spread over the affected areas. We ask the people to leave their homes and get themselves to safety.”

{http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/fields073106.php3}

According to a pair of Gallup polls released last week, 83 percent of Americans say Israel is justified in taking military action against Hezbollah, while 76 percent disapprove of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. Yet when asked which side in the conflict the United States should take, 65 percent answer: neither side. Indeed, 3 in 4 Americans say they are concerned that the US military will be drawn into the fighting, or that it will increase the likelihood of terrorism against the United States.

Gallup’s numbers suggest two things. First, that most Americans, sizing up the warfare in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, recognize that Hezbollah is the aggressor and that Israel is fighting in self-defense. And second, that most Americans believe this fight has nothing to do with the United States.

Welcome to Sept. 10.

For years Osama bin Laden had preached that it was “the duty of Muslims to confront, fight, and kill” Americans. His adherents had responded by blowing up the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and slamming a boat laden with explosives into the USS Cole. Yet most Americans paid no attention to Al Qaeda and its threats — until 3,000 people lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

Has nothing been learned from that experience?

Hezbollah’s barbaric assault on Israel — kidnapping and murdering soldiers who weren’t engaged in hostilities, firing waves of missiles into cities and towns, packing rockets with ball bearings meant to maximize suffering by shredding human flesh — is part and parcel of the radical Islamist jihad against the free world. Nothing to do with the United States? It has *everything* to do with the United States. Hezbollah hates Americans at least as implacably as Al Qaeda does, and rarely misses an opportunity to say so.

“We consider [America] to be an enemy because it wants to humiliate our governments, our regimes, and our peoples,” railed Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, at an enormous rally in February 2005. (Video of Nasrallah’s speech, which was broadcast on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, has been posted on the internet by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.) “It is the greatest plunderer of our treasures, our oil, and our resources. . . . Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: ‘Death to America!’ “

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=hezbollah_is_our_enemy,_too&ns=JeffJacoby&dt=07/31/2006&page=2}

With no desire to occupy the south of Lebanon again, and no clear alternative in sight to Hezbollah’s rule there, the Israelis might have preferred to conduct a guerrilla war, striking and withdrawing, much like the one Hezbollah has been waging against them.

But such a war could go on approximately forever. Now the Israelis are talking vaguely about establishing a “security zone” in the south of Lebanon. It used to be called a “buffer zone” when the Israelis occupied the southern part of Lebanon for a long, draining 18 years. But with Hezbollah’s rockets now raining on Israelis, that long ordeal begins to look like a peaceful idyll, and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon six years ago a big mistake. For Hezbollah has had six years to prepare for this war.

{http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PaulGreenberg/2006/07/31/notes_on_a_war?page=full&comments=true}

I am saddened each time I hear of civilian casualties because of Israeli attacks. I am angered that Hezbollah would use people as human shields. I also believe as was pointed out by Anderson Cooper last week that Hezbollah manipulates the media into showing only what they want you to see. However, I do believe some in the media are beginning to get wise to those tactics.

What You Might Not Hear

I was talking to a man about current events today and told him some of the things I had learned from reading blogs. He looked at me in surprise and said, “You might not hear that on CNN.”

Hezbollah has a way of manipulating the media and making the world see only what they want them to see. The media has been focusing a lot on civilians caught in the crossfire. The stories the news media might not broadcast…at least not widely are the stories from inside Lebanon from bloggers.

The situation in Ain Ebel is unbearable. Thousands of civilians have fled to the village from nearby villages and more than 1000 rockets have hit the village, there is no more food neither clean water and diseases r spreading.

Now here comes the most sickening part:
Hezbollah has been firing rockets from the village since Day 1 hiding behind innocent people’s places and even CHURCHES. No one is allowed to argue with the Hezbollah gunmen who wont hesitate to shoot you and i ve heard about more than one shooting incident including young men from the village and Hezbollah.
Urgent appeals have been done through phone calls from terrified people who wouldnt give out their name fearing Hezbollah might harm or even eliminate them.

This is the true image of our brave Islamic Resistance, putting the civilians and their homes as body shields to the Israeli bombardements.

Let the message spread and let those criminals move out of the village once and for all.
Free Ain Ebel from the terrorists !

{http://www.ouwet.com/n10452/editorials/free-ain-ebel-from-hezbollah-invasion/}

Not all villages in southern Lebanon are Shiite. Just above the abandoned SLA base at the old Majidiyya estate on the Lebanon-Israel border sits a small, quiet Druse village called Mari. You will not find Mari on any maps, but at the beginning of the current conflict Mari found itself caught between the Israeli Air Force, which apparently wanted to avoid bombing the village directly, and Hizbullah, which wanted to enter the town at all costs. You see, Mari’s location would provide the militia an excellent overview of the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona (and the settlement of Metulla, which is closer but much smaller), and finding a way to operate there would give Hizbullah increased civilian cover for their Katyusha rocket fire.

Residents who have recently escaped from Mari tell of a dramatic, desperate situation in the village. The Druse residents, who have no affinity at all for Hizbullah, resisted Hizbullah’s attempts to enter the village. The IAF apparently and unwittingly assisted in their resistance by bombing the roads leading into the village, cutting off the militia’s ability to enter the town, at least temporarily. Hizbullah responded by cutting off the town’s electricity and water supply, essentially laying seige to a town on its own side of the border, hoping that its residents would pack up and leave. Many of them have done so. My sources say that Hizbullah has been desperate to enter the village but has as of yet been unable to do so in large numbers. Residents also describe a growing humanitarian crisis in the village due to the lack of fresh water.

{http://blissstreetjournal.blogspot.com/2006/07/siege-of-mari.html}

HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS ARE CAUSUNG A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY!

Passengers on board an evacuation ship told medical doctor Boris Buck from the German city of Munich that they had seen members of the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah group or their sympathisers killing 18 Lebanese people during the night.

The victims were suspected of helping the Israeli air force pick out targets.

{http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Middle_East/0,,2-10-2075_1974589,00.html}

ARE THE HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS REALLY THERE TO PROTECT LEBANON?

Israeli troops pulled back from a key Lebanese border town Saturday where it battled Hezbollah for a week, claiming to have finished its mission after the bloodiest ground fight of the 18-day war. Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children.

The battle for Bint Jbail has symbolized Israel’s difficulty in pushing guerrillas back from the border, whether by air bombardment or ground assault. Hezbollah on Friday escalated its cross-border attacks, firing longer-range missiles deeper into Israel than ever before.

{http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/israel-pulls-out-of-hezbollah/20060728045409990004}

Israeli tanks pushed back into Gaza before dawn Saturday, a day after ending a bloody, three-day sweep that killed 30 Palestinians.

Seven tanks crossed just over Gaza’s northern border, Palestinian security officials said. The army had said its withdrawal Friday was temporary and did not mean its monthlong offensive in the Gaza Strip was over.

Also Saturday, Israeli forces attacked a site on the Gaza-Egypt border where militants had been tunneling, the army said. Palestinian officials said electric cables were destroyed in the attack, knocking out power to the nearby town of Rafah.

The army said its aircraft also attacked a building housing a weapons cache in Gaza City. No injuries were reported in either incident.

After Israeli troops left Friday, Palestinians streamed out of their homes, inspecting their battered houses and vehicles while rescue workers searched for bodies underneath rubble. Militants picked up mines and explosives they had planted to hit Israeli tanks.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/29/gaza.ap/index.html

What’s life like in Northern Israel right now? Here is a small picture and the link to the full article:

The lobby of the hotel in Haifa last Friday morning looked like hotel lobbies do on these occasions: Anchor people from the major networks scrabbling for a new angle for their piece at the top of the hour; Journalists putting in requests to the army to be embedded with the Israeli forces operating in Lebanon; and everyone trying to pronounce the name of Brigadier-General Ido Nechushtan, who has just finished a briefing. We do that on purpose.

Friday afternoon and sirens go off, followed almost immediately by four explosions. The hotel workers run for the shelters, journalists and others run to the promenade outside the hotel that overlooks Haifa.

The last explosion is deafening and clearly very close. Smoke rises from the center of the city. We jump into cars and rush to the spot. The rocket has plowed into the roof of a post office and exploded. Several injuries from the blast, no deaths.

This is Friday afternoon and public services are closed in Israel. One hour previously, and the post office would have been filled with the Jews and Arabs who make up the residents of this part of the city.

Being interviewed on a European radio station, the interviewer snarls at me when I mention that Haifa has a mixed Jewish/Arab population and that as we speak, many of them were sitting in bomb shelters together, hiding from Nasrallah’s rockets.

I was surprised this information could be so irritating. I didn’t dare tell him about the guy who came up to me in downtown Haifa, showed my his bombed shop front and told me he was an Arab who wants the IDF to destroy the Hizbullah.

{http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3282393,00.html}

Being far from the battle field it is hard to imagine the emotional stress and tension the civilian population must be feeling.

President Bush said yesterday that he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice back to the Middle East today to negotiate an end to the bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel, amid widespread criticism that the United States has waited too long to push for an end to the conflict.

With the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain at a joint news conference, Bush defended his refusal to call for an immediate Israeli cease-fire, saying that it is important to defeat “terrorists [who] are trying to stop the advance of freedom.”

{http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/07/29/bush_sending_rice_back_to_the_mideast/?page=1}

President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said Friday that they would present a plan to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah at the United Nations next week as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed into an urgent round of weekend meetings in the Middle East to hash out the details.

Facing pressure from Arab and European allies to end the violence, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, at a joint White House appearance, painted the broad outlines of a plan in which an international peacekeeping force would insert itself between the warring sides and help the weak Lebanese military take control of the southern region controlled by Hezbollah.

But aides acknowledged that the hard work of figuring out what Lebanon and Israel would accept, and how an international force would be composed, lay ahead.

Israel wants to weaken Hezbollah and push it well away from the border, and may not be ready to call off its campaign, especially when it has serious doubts that an international force would be strong enough to contain Hezbollah. And Hezbollah, which built its reputation on its willingness to fight Israel, has always rejected calls to disarm, and seems to have a flow of military and financial support from Syria and Iran.

{http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print}

President Bush said Saturday that while the fighting in Lebanon is “painful and tragic,” it also presents opportunity for change in the Middle East, a region that has “suffered decades of tyranny and violence.”

Bush, in his weekly radio address, said he will work with allies to get a U.N. Security Council resolution mandating a multinational force in southern Lebanon, where fighting has raged between Israel and the Hezbollah militia.

“This approach will demonstrate the international community’s determination to support the government of Lebanon, and defeat the threat from Hezbollah and its foreign sponsors,” Bush said.

{http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/29/bush.radio.ap/index.html}

But how affective is the UN? According to Bill O’Reilly:

The United Nations is impotent. That’s the only diagnosis an objective person can arrive at if you look at the facts. Time and time again, the United Nations has been called upon to protect innocent people and has failed.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BillOReilly/2006/07/29/viagra_for_the_united_nations

Can a UN sanctioned multinational force protect the peace? If Hezbollah is disarmed who knows?

Meanwhile back in the United States the tension felt in the Middle East is finding its way to American shores in the form of what can only be called “hate crimes”.

A man walked into a Jewish organization Friday afternoon and opened fire, killing one woman and injuring at least five others before he was arrested, officials said.

The gunman, who employees said claimed to be a Muslim angry at Israel, forced his way through the security door at the Jewish Federation after an employee had punched in her security code, said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a co-worker who was not at the building at the time.

Staff members said they overheard him saying “‘I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,’ before opening fire on everyone,” Meislin-Dietrich said. “He was randomly shooting at everyone.”

http://news.pajamasmedia.com/2006/07/29/9903694_6_Shot_1_Fatally.shtml

Will the violence come to an end? Will there be a peaceful resolution? Will Hezbollah and Hamas release their kidnapped hostages? Will the border between southern Lebanon and Northern Israel be secured? Will the humanitarian crisis on both sides of the border be dealt with?

We can only hope and pray.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”

Sound familiar? These words of prophecy were given two thousand years ago by Jesus Christ himself and were written in Matthew 24:3-8.

Do they apply to today? I don’t know. But in light of world events (war in the Middle East involving Palestinian Hamas, Syrian and Iranian backed Hezbollah, and the nation of Israel; war in Iraq; North Korea testing weapons of war; earthquakes and tsunamis in Indonesia) it gives one reason cause for thought. I would have written an article about it, but someone already has for The Post Chronicle.

{http://www.postchronicle.com/religion/article_21228898.shtml}

There are so many specifics related to the present Middle East tension; that is, specifics already pronounced in Holy Scripture. Biblical prophecy is one of the most alluring studies anyone can explore. All the more so when placing the Bible alongside today’s daily newscasts.

I have learned not to speculate about human events, however every time I hear tell of a war or an earthquake I remember those verses of Scripture. As I write I am tuned in to CNN where a reporter asked,”Is it Armageddon?” As I said I don’t speculate about human events and haven’t since I heard someone speculate that Bill Clinton was the Antichrist or that Y2K was the end of the world as we know it, or more recently the superstition surrounding June 6 of last month (06/06/06). I don’t give credence to Doomsday prophets. I go straight to the source, the Bible. I read it, believe it, and that is enough.

When my father was 19 years old he went to Israel backing the 1950s when it was still young as a recognized nation. It was a life changing experience, and when he returned he became a preacher and evangelist which is why I became a student of Bible prophecy at an early age and why I pay close attention to any conflict involving Israel and its neighbors.

Hezbollah guerrillas killed at least eight Israeli soldiers in Lebanon yesterday in fighting set to continue after world diplomats meeting in Rome failed to agree on calling for an immediate end to the 15-day-old war. Israel was also under international fire over the killing of four UN peacekeepers Tuesday in what UN chief Kofi Annan charged was an “apparently deliberate” targeting of their post. In separate fighting in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces killed 23 Palestinians yesterday. Israel’s offensive is by no means over, an Israeli general said. “Given the progress over the last two weeks, I reckon it will continue for several more weeks,” Major-General Udi Adam, head of the northern command, told reporters.

In the latest fighting, Lebanese security sources said guerrillas ambushed an Israeli force advancing on the town of Bint Jbeil, four kilometres from the frontier. Hezbollah sources said the Israeli force was cut off and most of its vehicles were destroyed. “Our men can hear the screams of their wounded calling for help,” one source said. The Israeli army said eight of its soldiers were killed and 22 wounded. Arabic media had reported that as many as 14 soldiers died in the clash. Several Israeli soldiers were also wounded when Hezbollah guerrillas attacked the nearby border village of Maroun Al-Ras, seized by the Israelis in heavy fighting last week, medics said.

{http://www.kuwaittimes.net/Navariednews.asp?dismode=article&artid=737079242}

Israel is planning to deploy anti-missile batteries near Tel Aviv to intercept any longer-range rocket that Hizballah may fire at Israel’s second-largest city, state-run radio reported on Friday. The army would not confirm the report.

Israel developed its anti-missile system following the 1991 Gulf War, when it was hit by at least 39 Iraqi Scud missiles. It has not been used against the incoming Hizballah rockets because they fly too low.

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060728c.html}

Divisions in the international community over the Israeli-Hizballah conflict are widening, as the United States finds itself increasingly under fire for supporting Israel.

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060728a.html}

I am both saddened and alarmed by the divisions being created and every day I pray for a resolution to the conflict. But I can see no real resolution until the terrorists Hezbollah and Hamas are disarmed. Also disturbing are those that want to make terrorist leader Nasrallah out to be a “Folk Hero”.

{http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2006/20060728124856.aspx}

And while the Middle East is under siege where is Nasrallah? Like any terrorist leader he goes into hiding, kind of like Osama bin Laden, while others do the dirty work of murdering people and blowing things up.

Intelligence reports indicate the leader of Hezbollah is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

Israeli military and intelligence forces are continuing to hunt for Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, who fled his headquarters in Beirut shortly before Israeli jets bombed the building last week.

“We think he is in an embassy,” said one U.S. official with access to the intelligence reports, while Israeli intelligence speculates Sheik Nasrallah is hiding in the Iranian Embassy.

{http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060728-123022-5852r.htm}

Aren’t there a few things about which we can all just go ahead and agree? There have to be at least a handful. I would have thought that Hezbollah fitting the definition of a terrorist organization would be one of those things. I guess I would have thought wrong.
This week I read a blogger questioning whether or not Hezbollah meets the definition of a terrorist organization. I am not referring to a fringe anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist crazy either. I am referring to a recent blog entry posted by CNN correspondent, Tom Foreman, on Anderson Cooper’s blog this week.

Foreman pondered the question of how a terrorist should be defined by a news agency.

“What makes a terrorist?

I don’t mean why do people starting bombing, and shooting and fighting from the shadows. I mean, for the purposes of news organizations defining terrorism, what should the definition be?

The United States and others clearly call Hezbollah a terrorist group: The source of countless raids, bombings and attacks on Israel; the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, which left 241 people dead; and the architects of all those displays in which young men cover their faces, strap mock bombs to their chests, and parade before the cameras pledging to kill any and all soldiers and civilians alike who oppose their cause.

All this makes Hezbollah, especially for many westerners, the very definition of a terrorist group.

But some people describe another part of Hezbollah. They talk about a group that is beloved in southern Lebanon for running schools, hospitals, social services, even clearing snow in the winter for some communities that the official government of Lebanon does not serve. They say these things make Hezbollah something other than a terrorist group: A quasi-government; a nation within a nation.

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=the_definition_of_a_terrorist&ns=LorieByrd&dt=07/28/2006&page=full&comments=true}

The infamous gangster Al Capone did good deeds in the community as well. Did that make him anything other than a notorious criminal and a murderer? Hezbollah is the same. They terrorize, torture, and murder, trying to hide their sins and evil tendencies behind a cloak of good deeds.

Does anybody want to ask why America has to get involved? What does Hezbollah have to do with it? What has Hezbollah done to America? Oliver North wrote a column on that very subject.

“Know your enemy” isn’t just a hackneyed military slogan — it’s an essential survival tool in this new world disorder of global Islamic terror. Hezbollah is — and has always been — America’s enemy.

When Lebanon descended into civil war along sectarian and ethnic lines in 1975, nearly a half dozen rival factions with armed militias began a deadly struggle for power — Christian, Sunni, Shia, Druze and Palestinian. Into this chaos, and well before Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Ayatollah Khomeini began sending Pasdaran — Iranian Revolutionary Guards — to the Lebanese Biqa Valley to organize, train and equip the poorly armed, disparate Shia militias into an effective politico-military force. Hezbollah was the result — and almost immediately, Americans began to die.

From their bases in the Biqa, Hezbollah terrorists launched a series of spectacular attacks against Americans:

– April 18, 1983: A suicide bomber driving a pickup truck loaded with explosives rams into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 — including 17 Americans.

– Oct. 23, 1983: A suicide bomber detonates a truck full of explosives in the U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut International Airport, killing 241 U.S. servicemen.

– Dec. 12, 1983: Hezbollah operatives attack the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. Near simultaneous attacks are carried out against the Emir of Kuwait, the French embassy, the airport, a major oil refinery and an American residential compound. In all, six people die; more than 80 are wounded.

– April 2, 1986 — a bomb aboard TWA Flight 840, en route from Athens to Rome Rome to Athens kills four members of the Kluge family from Annapolis, MD, an American family that included an infant girl.

– Feb. 17, 1988: U.S. Marine Col. William Higgins, assigned to the U.N. Peacekeeping Force for Lebanon, is kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

– June 14, 1985: TWA Flight 847 is hijacked and landed at Beirut International Airport. During the 17 day stand-off, U.S. Navy Seabee Diver Robert Stethem is murdered aboard the aircraft and his body is dumped on the tarmac.

– In a wave of kidnappings between 1982 and 1988, Hezbollah took more than 30 Westerners hostage in Lebanon, among them, CIA station chief William Buckley, American University of Beirut President David Dodge, AP reporter Terry Anderson, American University of Beirut librarian Peter Kilburn, American University Hospital Administrator David Jacobsen, Father Martin Jenco, a Roman Catholic Priest, and Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian missionary. Though most survived captivity — Anderson was held 2,454 days — some, like Buckley, were tortured to death.

– June 25, 1996, the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia is bombed, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel and wounding more than 400.

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/OliverNorth/2006/07/28/terror,_inc}

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities — every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians — and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world — governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats — has completely lost its moral bearings.

The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is “disproportionate,” as in the universally decried “disproportionate Israeli response.”

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2006/07/28/israel:_keep_rolling}

Some in world government, media, and the UN have tried to demonize Israel as the aggressor. But who made the first aggressive move, crossing illegally onto Israeli soil to murder and kidnap Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah uses Lebanese civilians as human shields. Hezbollah has no qualms about targeting Israeli civilians. Just take a look at the type of missiles they use.

It isn’t just Israel the terrorists want. In case the Western world didn’t get the point, al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two, in his statement about Al Qaeda wanting to get involved in the conflict mentioned Spain and “later swore that ‘the tragedy of Al Andalus’ must not be repeated.”

It isn’t just al-Qaeda that wants to force this. Hamas isn’t just interested in Israel. It has “demanded the return of the city of Seville to Islam” and what it calls “the lost paradise of Al Andalus.”

These dreams of “Al Andalus” make Spain a target as the Spanish have already learned the hard way. And Spain isn’t a target because of its policies toward the United States or the Middle East, but because its existence is regarded as a “tragedy” by the jihadists. As former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar put it, the problem with al-Qaeda has been 1,300 years in the making.

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ChuckColson/2006/07/27/an_unwelcome_reunion}

I always say that if there is one job I would never want it is that of the President of the United States. He has a tough job.

Throughout American history, presidents have had to deal with crises of enormous magnitude, but seldom in recent times has any president been confronted with so many during his terms in office. Starting with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, followed by the corporate and accounting scandals that rocked our economy, devastating hurricanes from which we are still recovering, and nuclear threats from Iran to North Korea.

“What next, I wonder,” a senior White House official remarked to me last month. He got his answer sooner than he expected.

Mounting terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan were already posing tougher military challenges for the United States. Then Islamist Hezbollah radicals in Southern Lebanon and Hamas Palestinians in the Gaza Strip attacked Israel — creating two new fronts in the rapidly expanding terrorist war.

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=war,_terrorism,_the_economy:_bush_cant_catch_a_break&ns=DonaldLambro&dt=07/28/2006&page=1}

I was also disturbed today of the human rights atrocities committed in Iran.

On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka.

Her death sentence was imposed for “crimes against chastity”.

The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old.

But she was not married – and she was just 16.

{http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/5217424.stm}

The UN has called them down about their abuses. But has it been affective?

{http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4114621.stm}

{http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3782793.stm}

Iran violates human rights. Iran supports terrorism. Iran was present in North Korea when it ignored the voices of the world community and test-fired its missiles. Today I got a report about Iran’s president getting “chummy” with Venezuela’s dictator Hugo Chavez. Is it possible that the UN should quit trying to condemn Israel for its actions against the terrorists that threaten it and focus more attention on what Iran is up too?

I also talked to a friend who recently returned from Iraq. She said she was ready and willing to go back and finish the job. She told me that there are nice people in Iraq…not just the insurgents. She also said the media makes things out to be worse than they really are. The media sensationalizes things? Really? Okay, I’m being sarcastic. But the troops in Iraq need our prayers and our support, not the demoralization that some people like Cindy Sheehan gives our servicemen and women. She told me how the immediate pullout from the first Gulf War led to the murders and executions of Iraqis that supported America by the Sadam Hussein regime. Would America let that happen again? I hope not.

Cadre of Conflict

I get a constant flow of news from CNN and world newspapers, so my email inbox is almost always full. One thing that has been receiving almost constant coverage is what is unfolding in the Middle East. I’ve been tuned in to CNN all day and aside from the occasional story of how Andrea Yates was found not guilty of murdering her children by reason of insanity or the continuing war in Iraq the news was dominated by the Israel/Hezbollah conflict. I also get news from the UN and its role in world affairs. A lot of people I talk too don’t have any confidence in the UN, saying it’s ineffective or referring to it as “having no teeth”. I myself believe that had UN resolution 1559 which was adopted on September 2, 2004 been enforced then Hezbollah wouldn’t be a threat and the tensions Israel is facing right now would not be in play.

{http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/498/92/PDF/N0449892.pdf?OpenElement}

Israel’s two-front conflict saw its heaviest day of fighting on Wednesday, killing 9 Israeli soldiers, dozens of Hezbollah fighters and at least 23 Palestinians in Gaza. As the battles raged, a meeting of the United States and European and Arab countries in Rome failed to reach agreement on a plan to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as the United States resisted calls for an immediate cease-fire.

{http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print}

Israel does not intend to expand its ground operations into Lebanon at the moment although there are some that believe that ground operations are necessary in order to root out Hezbollah terrorists.

An editorial in last week’s New York Post writes,

“All Hezbollah has to do to achieve victory is not to lose completely. But for Israel to emerge the acknowledged winner, it has to shatter Hezbollah… Israel has to pull itself together now, to send in ground troops in sufficient numbers, with fierce resolve to do what must be done: Root out Hezbollah fighters and kill them. This means Israel will suffer painful casualties – more today than if the Israeli Defense Force had gone in full blast at this fight’s beginning.“The situation is grave. A perceived Hezbollah win will be a massive victory for terror, as well as a triumph for Iran and Syria… Israel can’t afford a Hezbollah win. America can’t afford it. Civilization can’t afford it. Yet it just might happen…The ‘world community’ wants a cease-fire – which would only benefit the terrorists. Hezbollah would claim (accurately) that it had withstood Israel’s assault. Couldn’t get a better terrorist recruiting advertisement… A cease-fire would be under U.N. auspices. Gee, thanks. No U.N. force would protect Israel’s interests, but plenty of U.N. contingents would cooperate with or turn a blind eye to the terrorists… One bright spot: The Bush administration continues to resist international attempts to bully Israel into a premature cease-fire.

{http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=108527}

The UN proposes sending in an interim Force consisting of 1,990 troops, supported by 50 military observers, 95 international civilian personnel, and 304 local civilian staff and made up of China, France, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine.

{http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/27/un_in_lebanon/}

And as for the UN observers killed by Israeli crossfire:

The words of a Canadian United Nations observer written just days before he was killed in an Israeli bombing of a UN post in Lebanon are evidence Hezbollah was using the post as a “shield” to fire rockets into Israel, says a former UN commander in Bosnia.

{http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=37278180-a261-421d-84a9-7f94d5fc6d50}

Using a UN outpost to fire rockets at Israel? That is despicable.

Now everyone agrees that a peacekeeping force should be sent to southern Lebanon, but no one wants to commit any troops, leaving it up to Israel to maintain its own security against Hezbollah without any help.

And why did Israel go in with as much force as it did:

• On July 12, 2006 the BBC had the headline describing the only possible result of the UN’s inaction:
Hezbollah Seizes Israel Soldiers
Lebanese guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, triggering the first Israeli land incursion into the country since 2000.
• Farther down in the piece we learn why the Israelis have reacted as they have:
Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers in 2000. They died during the operation, but four years later, the group was able to exchange their bodies for 430 Palestinians and Lebanese held in Israeli jails.
• Oh. I see. Cease fire. Prisoner swap after four years (three dead Israelis for 430 live Palestinians and Hezbollah). Everyone lives happily ever after. Until they do it again. Two years later.

{http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/RichGalen/2006/07/27/its_up_to_israel_again}

On Monday’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper related his visit to a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut where he was supposed to photograph certain damaged buildings, part of the terrorist group’s strategy of generating news stories about Lebanese civilian casualties caused by Israeli bombs.But instead of merely transmitting Hezbollah’s unverified and unverifiable claims to the outside world, Cooper — to his credit — exposed the efforts by Hezbollah to manipulate CNN and other Western reporters. It’s quite a contrast from the much more accommodating approach taken by his colleague, Nic Robertson, in a report that aired on a variety of CNN programs (including AC360) back on July 18, a report that Robertson himself has now conceded was put together under Hezbollah’s control.{http://newsbusters.org/node/6574}

Hezbollah, like Hamas, has a way of manipulating the media and making the world see what it wants it to see. Sometimes you have to do a little digging to get the facts. I read a report from HonestReporting about the myths and the facts concerning the current conflict.

{http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Israel_Under_Fire.asp}
The prisoner whom Hezbollah is demanding, above all others, be released, is Samir Kuntar, jailed in Israel since a 1979 attack in the northern Israeli town of Nahariyah, in which he entered an apartment and murdered three family members and an Israeli police officer.Kuntar is quite simply a terrorist and a murderer who committed a terrible atrocity on Israeli soil. Those prisoners held in Israeli jails captured during Israel’s stay in southern Lebanon are, likewise, held for terrorist offences and due to the inherent risk that they will return to their previous activities.In a past blog entry I mentioned him and how he murdered a four-year old by bashing her head in. Today I read the whole heartbreaking account from the wife and mother whose family was so brutally murdered by the terrorists.

{http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2740-2003May17¬Found=true}

Behind the terrorists, and often pulling the strings are nations like Iran and Syria. The President condemned Iran for its support of terrorists, and some write that standing up to the states that sponsor terrorism is a necessity in combating the terrorists it sponsors.

{http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/27/us.mideast.ap/index.html}

{http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/AR2006071301668_pf.html}

{http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4045906.html}

{http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008658}

As Lebanon’s largest political party and most potent armed force, Hezbollah has long been described as a “state within a state” — a Shiite Muslim minigovernment boasting close ties to Iran and Syria.But Wednesday’s move across the border to capture two Israeli soldiers went a step further: Hezbollah acted as the state itself, threatening to drag Lebanon into a war.{http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hezbollah13jul13,0,4053216.story?coll=la-home-headlines}

Hezbollah has no regard for the Lebanese government or its people which it uses as human shields. They claim to fight for Lebanon, but in truth they make themselves an enemy to Lebanon by committing unprovoked acts of war.

Now Al Qaeda threatens to join the cadre of conflict trying to wipe-out Israel.

Al Qaeda’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.”

Spain? It sounds like the terrorists have more in mind than just the destruction of Israel. They want world domination.

{http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/27/zawahiri.ap/index.html}

With the war on terror escalating and many nations of the world wanting to take a backseat, imposing sanctions or arguing over diplomacy there are some that say until the threat of terrorism is over and the terrorist Hezbollah is stopped, ”Roll Israel Roll”.

{http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MattTowery/2006/07/27/roll,_israel,_roll}

Analogy of a Crisis

Imagine a kid who has been picked on and mistreated and all he wants is a place to call home and live in peace. He moves into a new neighborhood where he is surrounded by bullies. One day he is attacked by a bully from one side and while he is fighting that bully another bully from the other side attacks. It goes without saying that emotions are high and he is on edge, and when he turns to fight the other bully he fights more ferociously because he is being attacked from two sides. Then the big brother of the two bullies decides to get involved. The neighborhood wants them to stop fighting and shake hands because their fighting has become so intense, but the new kid knows that if he stops fighting the bullies will remain to return and clobber him later.

The new kid is Israel which is still relatively young as a nation. The neighborhood is the Middle East. The neighborhood bullies are Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Hamas stirred things up by kidnapping Cpl. Gilad Shilat. As Israel fought to get him back Hezbollah snuck up behind them and attacked. Tensions were already high as Israel fought back. Iran, Syria and Hezbollah were all taken aback by the ferocity of Israel’s response.

{http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2006/20060726115829.aspx}

Because of that ferocity the big brother of the two bullies (Iran) wants to join the fray, ganging up on the kid (Israel).

{http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/26/iran.volunteers.ap/index.html}

(Iran supports Hezbollah and reports say that Iran was also present for North Korea’s missile testing that put the world on edge during the first week of July. It is widely believed that they backed Hezbollah’s actions against Israel in order to divert attention away from their own activities.)

Meanwhile Hezbollah continues to fire rockets at Israel, and unlike Israel they have no qualms about killing civilians. A total of 119 rockets were fired at Israel on Wednesday. In all, 55 Israelis were wounded from rocket attacks in some 35 locations in the country’s North on Wednesday, Magen David Adom reported. One person was seriously wounded, five moderately and 25 lightly. 24 people were taken to hospital for shock.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153292000845}

The Iranian Fars news agency in Lebanon quoted a senior Hizbullah official Wednesday as saying that the organization has set a new target for itself – the city of Netanya.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153291996655}

IDF ground forces pushed deeper into Lebanon on Tuesday after troops succeeded in sealing off the Hizbullah stronghold of Bint Jbail following 48 hours of intense battles with the guerilla group.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153291993055}

The battle for the Hizbullah stronghold of Bint Jbeil sparked again this morning into a major conflagration. Israel suffered 25-30 casualties, and dozens of Hizbullah bodies are strewn in the area.

Desperate to escape the war zone, refugees fled for their lives.

{http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/26/desperate_refugees_try_to_flee_lebanons_war_zone/}

Tragedy struck when UN peacekeepers got caught in the crossfire. Some at the UN thought it deliberate, but when you think about it…what would be the reason? I believe it is likely that Hezbollah used that area to fire rockets at Israel and Israel retaliated, accidentally killing the UN peacekeepers. Why would they attack someone that was sent in to help put a stop to the hostilities? It makes no sense.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153291996858}

However, CNSNews reports that Kofi Annan Could Have Ordered Peacekeepers to Leave because of the danger surrounding them, but he didn’t.

The four United Nations peacekeepers killed in an Israeli attack on their outpost were required to stay at that post “until they were ordered by the [U.N.] secretary general to withdraw,” said a member of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization on Wednesday.

But the peacekeepers apparently never received such an order, despite the fierce cross-border fighting that erupted in southern Lebanon two weeks ago.

The four peacekeepers — from China, Austria, Canada and Finland — had taken security precautions and were in a shelter under their bunker when they were killed, said Wicki Dieter, the chief plans officer for the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).

(UNTSO is an unarmed U.N. body whose “observer” mandate dates from 1948. By contrast, UNIFIL — the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon — was created in 1978 to “restore the international peace and security” in southern Lebanon.)

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060726c.html}

The UN Secretary General remarked to the International Conference on Lebanon:

The people of Lebanon are reliving scenes from a chapter in their country’s history they thought had been closed. This time, we need solutions that will stand the test of time. Israelis, for their part, thought they had seen the last of rockets terrorizing them from beyond their northern border, but the conflict has been rejoined more fiercely than thought possible. The wider region, too, can hardly stand another conflict alongside the sectarian strife, extremism and economic stagnation that are already widespread.

{http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2150#}

Almost two weeks into its military assault on Hezbollah, Israel said Tuesday that it would occupy a strip inside southern Lebanon with ground troops until an international force could take its place.

{http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/world/middleeast/26mideast.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin}

However French President Jacques Chirac opposed the idea that NATO lead an international force in Lebanon, saying the alliance is seen in the region as “the armed wing of the West.”

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153292002139}

With an International peacekeeping force coming init is sorely hoped that they avoid the mistakes of the past. It’s been a tactic used by Hizballah in the past — to strike and then seek a quick ceasefire through UNIFIL. Most recently it tried this last December, when an attempt to capture Israeli soldiers failed and led to Israel firing artillery at terrorist positions across the border.

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060726b.html}

Back in 2000 Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers in full view of UN peacekeepers.

The Israeli army had been warning for months that Hizballah intended to kidnap Israeli soldiers to be used as bargaining chips to free Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails. The most notable member of the Hizballah leadership, Sheikh Obeid, was abducted by Israeli commandos in 1989 with the intention of swapping him for Israeli MIAs.

“Soldiers belonging to the Indian UNIFIL battalion man a small hilltop observation post overlooking the gate and had a clear view of the drama,” the Daily Star reported.

“‘The Israeli vehicle comes twice a day and at around the same times,’ Major Rahendra Bansiwal was quoted as saying. ‘Hizbullah must have seen their routine and timed the operation accordingly.’”

According to the report citing the UN eyewitnesses, the three Israeli soldiers drove down the hill leading to the gate in the Shaba farms area to check the fence for damage or infiltration attempts. As the jeep reached the gate, two soldiers climbed out while the driver remained in the vehicle.

A huge roadside bomb was detonated about 55 yards from the Israelis on the Lebanese side of the fence to “disorient” the Israelis. At the same time, a Hizballah guerrilla fired eight Sagger anti-tank missiles across the border by remote control that exploded in front of the vehicle, setting fire to the jeep and the grass.

At the same time, Hizballah fired mortars and Katyusha rockets at nearby Israeli outposts to distract them long enough to break open the gate, drive across and snatch the soldiers, who had been pelted by smoke grenades.

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ForeignBureaus/Archive/200010/For20001011e.html}

Hezbollah, once described as “the A-team of terrorists” by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, is a terrorist group with a record of killing hundreds of Americans and Israelis (from Beirut to Saudi Arabia to Argentina to inside Israel). Hezbollah is of global reach and extent. It began with the fundamental goals of creating an Islamist state in Lebanon and the total annihilation of Israel. It is armed and supported by Syria and Iran, and it has branches in some 20 countries. It occupies 20 percent of the Lebanese parliament but that percentage does not give it sufficient due. Here is Amir Taheri in the London Times:

Hezbollah is a state within the Lebanese state. It controls some 25% of the national territory. Almost 400,000 of Lebanon’s estimated 4 million inhabitants live under its control. It collects its own taxes with a 20% levy, known as “khoms”, on all incomes. It runs its own schools, where a syllabus produced in Iran is taught at all levels. It also runs clinics, hospitals, social welfare networks and centres for orphans and widows.

The party controls the elected municipal councils and appoints local officials, who in theory should be selected by the central government in Beirut. To complete its status as a virtual state, the party maintains a number of unofficial “embassies”: the one in Tehran is bigger and has a larger number of staff than that of Lebanon itself.

Hezbollah also has its own media including a satellite television channel, Al-Manar (the lighthouse), which is watched all over the Arab world, four radio stations, newspapers and magazines plus a book publishing venture. The party has its own system of justice based on sharia and operates its own police force, courts and prisons. Hezbollah runs youth clubs, several football teams and a number of matrimonial agencies.

In sum, it may very well have the run of Lebanon more than non-Hezbollah factions and institutions. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, brags about this today.

As for Israel’s disproportion, it is worth remembering that Israel is but one state — with a majority of Jews but a substantial Arab population. The Arab states number 22. The land-mass comparison is some 10,000 square miles compared to over five million square miles. That does not include Iran. The Palestinian Authority, situated now in the southwest of Israel, is a Hamas entity — it is more lethal and Islamist than Arafat’s PLO.

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=israel,_the_model&ns=BillBennett&dt=07/26/2006&page=1}

Israel is a kid up against some of the biggest bullies in the Middle East.

The Buddamus Code

A few years ago there was a game called Simcity 2000. I understand there has been another version created since then. It was a city management simulation game. Anyway in normalplay there were the problems of running out of money, polution and a lackof needed resources. But I had the Buddamus code. When I typed it in I had all the money I needed and extra, plus I had access to a means of clean, sustainable energy that wasn’t normally available for the time period I was supposed tobe playing in.

In real life there is no Buddamus code to maintain resources. I read in today’s San Antonio Express News that a key oilfields decline in output is causing economic fears. In the report Maria Dickerson of the Los Angeles Times writes:

Output of the nation’s most important oil field has fallen steeply this year,raising fears that wells there that generate 60 percent of the country’s petroleum are in the throes of major decline.

The report got me thinking about how dependent the world is upon oil. With gas prices on the rise, especially with the current crisis in the Middle East, alternate fuel sources are badly needed. I’m writing with the crazy idea that with the world’s consumption of oil just suppose that one of these days that particular fossil fuel dries up. What about other more sustainable alternative fuels? Think about it. Give it some thought.

Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a domestically produced, renewable fuel that can be manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases. Biodiesel is safe, biodegradable, and reduces serious air pollutants such as particulates, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and air toxics. Blends of 20% biodiesel with 80% petroleum diesel (B20) can generally be used in unmodified diesel engines.

Electricity

Electricity can be used as a transportation fuel to power battery electric and fuel cell vehicles. When used to power electric vehicles or EVs, electricity is stored in an energy storage device such as a battery. EV batteries have a limited storage capacity and their electricity must be replenished by plugging the vehicle into an electrical source. The electricity for recharging the batteries can come from the existing power grid, or from distributed renewable sources such as solar or wind energy.

Fuel cell vehicles use electricity produced from an electrochemical reaction that takes place when hydrogen and oxygen are combined in the fuel cell “stack.” The production of electricity using fuel cells takes place without combustion or pollution and leaves only two byproducts, heat and water.

Ethanol

Ethanol is an alcohol-based alternative fuel produced by fermenting and distilling starch crops that have been converted into simple sugars. Feedstocks for this fuel include corn, barley, and wheat. Ethanol can also be produced from “cellulosic biomass” such as trees and grasses and is called bioethanol. Ethanol is most commonly used to increase octane and improve the emissions quality of gasoline.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen (H2) will play an important role in developing sustainable transportation in the United States, because in the future it may be produced in virtually unlimited quantities using renewable resources. Hydrogen has been used effectively in a number of internal combustion engine vehicles as pure hydrogen mixed with natural gas.

Methanol

Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, can be used as an alternative fuel in flexible fuel vehicles that run on M85 (a blend of 85% methanol and 15% gasoline). However, it is not commonly used because automakers are no longer supplying methanol-powered vehicles.

Natural Gas

Natural gas is domestically produced and readily available to end-users through the utility infrastructure. It is also clean burning and produces significantly fewer harmful emissions than reformulated gasoline or diesel when used in natural gas vehicles. In addition, commercially available medium- and heavy-duty natural gas engines have demonstrated over 90% reductions of carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter and more than 50% reduction in nitrogen oxides (NOx) relative to commercial diesel engines. Natural gas can either be stored onboard a vehicle as compressed natural gas (CNG) at 3,000 or 3,600 psi or as liquefied natural gas (LNG) at typically 20-150 psi.

Propane

Propane or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a popular alternative fuel choice for vehicles because there is already an infrastructure of pipelines, processing facilities, and storage for its efficient distribution.

Besides being readily available to the general public, LPG produces fewer vehicle emissions than gasoline. Propane is produced as a by-product of natural gas processing and crude oil refining.

P-Series

P-Series fuel is a unique blend of natural gas liquids (pentanes plus), ethanol, and the biomass-derived co-solvent methyltetrahydrofuran (MeTHF). P-Series fuels are clear, colorless, 89-93 octane, liquid blends that are formulated to be used in flexible fuel vehicles (FFV’s). P-Series are designed to be used alone or freely mixed with gasoline in any proportion inside the FFV’s gas tank. These fuels are not currently being produced in large quantities and are not widely used.

Since 1992, when the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) was passed, only one new fuel has been recognized as an alternative fuel under the EPAct petitions provision. P-Series fuels were added to the list of alternative fuels in 1999.

The world is, and will for a long time remain, dependent upon oil, but alternative renewable fuels are available.

{http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/}

However, I do know the value of oil when it comes to heating. I was working at the Minute Man National Historical Park in Lexington, Massachusetts one particularly cold winter day when the heating oil ran out at the visitor center. The temperature in the building dropped fast to where each breath came out in smokey whisps. Visitors still showed up, but they could come and go, whereas I had to stay there all day, and it was like being in an icebox. I did have a small electric space heater, but that didn’t do much in warming the room, and with visitors in the building I couldn’t stand in one place all day. Finally, at the end of the day somebody arrived with heating oil. So yes…I definitely know the value of oil for heating.

Can There Be a Peaceful Resolution to the Conflict?

This morning I saw photos from both sides of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon. The situation is heart wrenching. I saw Lebanese civilians bloodied and battered by Israeli attacks. I saw Israeli civilians, innocent of the conflict going on, with their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Some were bloodied but still had their lives after Hezbollah’s vicious attack. Others were not so lucky.

The following statistics were from yesterday and have probably changed:

Some 17 people were wounded Saturday, two of them seriously, as waves of Katyusha strikes – more than 160 rockets – struck targets across the north of Israel.

Ten rockets land in Haifa Sunday morning, killing two people and wounding several others. Two children hurt in Katyusha rocket strike on Carmiel Sunday morning; more rockets fired at the Upper Galilee, Acre, Tiberias and Kiryat Shmona during Sunday.

Some 37 Israelis have been killed (including soldiers) since the beginning of fighting in the north.

Hospitals in Israel have treated 1,293 people who were injured in rocket attacks since the fighting on the country’s northern border began 12 days ago. 19 people are still hospitalized across the country in serious condition. Another 37 people sustained moderate wounds and 325 were lightly injured. The number of people who suffered from shock stands at 875.

Time Magazine lists six keys to peace in the Middle East:

1. Get the U.S. involved

Rice’s trip is evidence that the U.S. is involved in the Middle East, whether it wants to be or not. This is not, for once, because it is the world’s sole superpower, the policeman to which those in any tough neighborhood eventually turn. It is because it has a unique relationship with Israel and is committed to guaranteeing its security. That means Washington can talk to the Israelis and, occasionally, convince them that their best interests require them to talk to those whose motives and behavior they despise.

2. Don’t forget the Palestinians

Like any birth, this one won’t be easy. The leading Sunni Arab states, if they are to join the U.S. in opposition to Hizballah and Iran, are likely to ask for something in return, and it is not hard to divine what it would be: a full-hearted U.S. commitment to revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

3. Guarantee Israel’s security

Israel finds itself in a dilemma. The Jewish state’s superb armed forces never failed when asked to fight against massed armies in conventional wars. But Israel is not fighting a standard war now; with Hamas and Hizballah, it is battling against cells of well-trained militias energized by religious fervor. Armies surrender when their leaders tell them to; guerrillas just slip back to a safe house and wait to fight another day. All of that means that Israel has to fight a war that inevitably results in terrible and visible damage to towns and cities — and costs innocent lives. In the court of world public opinion, that is a fight Israel ultimately can never win.

4. Stabilize Lebanon

By leaving soldiers in the West Bank after any future withdrawal, Israel might hope to be able to guarantee security on its eastern border. But the same tactic wouldn’t work to the north; nobody is going to countenance Israel occupying a swath of southern Lebanon again (as it did from 1982 to 2000) to deny Hizballah room from which to fire its rockets — least of all Israelis themselves, who are horrified by the idea of a re-occupation. That is why the fourth key to peace is to stabilize Lebanon. In part, that means propping up the fragile government of technocrats led by Fouad Siniora and pumping donors to help Lebanon rebuild itself (again). But it also means ensuring that Hizballah can no longer use its strongholds in the south to threaten regional peace.

5. Handling Iran

Assuming Iran was behind Hizballah’s raid, what happens next? The U.S. and other powers are discussing how to rein in Iran’s nuclear program, and it may be easier to jointly impose sanctions now that Iran is viewed as responsible for mayhem in Lebanon. But what then? European officials talk of a “constructive dialogue” with Tehran that involves recognizing it as an important regional power while maintaining the right to sanction it if it breaks the nuclear rules. But Israel — along with many supporters in the U.S. — thinks a dialogue with a nation whose leader has said that Israel “must be wiped off the map” is a waste of breath.

6. Pray for Iraq

The failure of the U.S. to impose order in Iraq after the invasion of 2003 has emboldened all those who believe that more spasms of violence will stop Washington and its allies from pushing for fundamental change. And there are worse possible outcomes than that. Iraq could become the launching pad for a full-on war between Sunni and Shiite, with Iran entering the fray on the Shiite side and the Arab states defending Iraq’s Sunnis. Seen in that light, there’s little wonder that Rice is off on her travels.

{http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/23/time.cover.story.tm/index.html}

Today Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Lebanon and captured two Hezbollah guerrillas, while two aid convoys carrying food, generators and other badly needed supplies left Beirut for two southern cities.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Beirut with diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the warfare. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said his government hopes to “put an end to the war being inflicted on Lebanon.”

The White House has said an international force may be needed to help the Lebanese army move into the south, which the Beirut government has long refused, wary of confronting the guerrillas’ power there.

Arab heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia are pushing Syria to end its support for the guerrillas. Israel signaled a policy shift, saying it would accept an international force — preferably from NATO — to ensure the peace in southern Lebanon.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said that “We all want to urgently end the fighting. We have absolutely the same goal. But she added that if the violence ends only to restart within weeks, “then all of the carnage that Hezbollah launched by its illegal activities — abducting the soldiers and then launching rocket attacks — we will have gotten nothing from that.”

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/sns-ap-lebanon-israel,0,1799844.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

Meanwhile in Syria there are anti-US and Israel sentiments being stirred up with the situation in Iraq being a key component.

{http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-axis20jul20,0,7792197.story?coll=ny-top-headlines}

Israel seems ready to bring an end to the conflict. Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel was interested in a NATO-led force, one consisting of European Union members with combat experience and the authority to take control of Lebanon’s border and crossing points.

“It’s a new idea, we’ll certainly take it seriously,” said John R. Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations.

{http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/world/middleeast/24mideast.html?th&emc=th}

However, there are some in the European Union who have not yet reached a consensus that the terrorist organization Hezbollah are indeed terrorists.

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060724a.html}

“The fighting in Lebanon has cost the Hizbullah a high price,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said on Friday evening. “About 100 Hizbullah fighters were killed in IDF operations.”

Speaking to reporters about the fighting in the North and in the Gaza Strip, Halutz said that the two facts that “the Hizbullah does not publish its dead or damage and has lied to the media are indicative [of its condition].”

Halutz warned Israelis that the success of operations in Lebanon could take time.

“This war is difficult and complex,” he said. “The enemy has no restraints, moral or otherwise, and no responsibility for the country it is destroying. The ‘protector of Lebanon’ is destroying Lebanon.”

As a supposed protector of Lebanon they have no qualms about bringing war down on Lebanese heads. And for those who say they are not a terrorist organization…like any terrorist organization they have sleeper cells beyond Lebanon’s borders that they are calling into activation.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1153291980012}

Here are some words from a blog of an IDF soldier in Israel.

If Hezbollah is not uprooted, if the UN will start to pressure for a ceasefire before enough was achieved against it, the Arab world will perceive Hezbollah and Iran by proxy to be victorious. Lebanon will further loss control over its own country to Hezbollah and the Hamas in Gaza will assume much the same role in the south of Israel. (Iran has been supporting them as well)

{http://israelibunker.blogspot.com/}

If a ceasefire comes about without first disarming Hezbollah then what has been achieved? I read a few columns today from people addressing the conflict:

Suzanne Fields:
{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/SuzanneFields/2006/07/24/appeasing_contempt_of_the_jews}

Michael Barone: {http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2006/07/24/this_time_may_be_different}

Paul Greenberg:
{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2006/07/24/this_war_may_have_just_begun}

There are those that believe Hezbollah is a legitimate government party, and if only they would disarm their military branch they could stay in their government positions. However I learned some disturbing news and will end this blog entry with a list of men that must not be forgotten. Their families lost them when they were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Hezbollah terrorists.

William Rich Huggins
{http://ojc.org/higgins/}

Robert dean Stethem
{http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rdstethe.htm}

William Francis Buckley
{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Francis_Buckley}

If the fighting stops and a ceasefire is achieved then the danger posed by Hezbollah still has to be addressed.

Israel’s Cause is Just

I have just finished watching video coverage from both sides of the Israel/Lebanon conflict. I saw the faces of people pained as they ran in fear as their homes were destroyed by Katyusha rockets in Israel. I saw the fear in Lebanese eyes as they fled their homes with heated angry words. US citizens in Lebanon are upset that the evacuation is not moving fast enough.

I read some blogs from Israel and they clearly state that Israel’s fight is not against Lebanon, but the Hizbollah terrorists that like so many of their “predecessors” hide among the innocent civilians (in a sense using them as human shields.).

Every important party in the region and in the world, except the radical Islamists in Tehran and their clients in Damascus, wants Hezbollah disarmed and removed from south Lebanon so that it is no longer able to destabilize the peace of both Lebanon and the broader Middle East.

Which parties? Start with the great powers. In September 2004 they passed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, demanding that Hezbollah disarm and allow the Lebanese army to take back control of south Lebanon.

The resolution enjoyed the sponsorship of the United States and, yes, France. As the former mandatory power in Lebanon, France was important in helping the Lebanese expel Syria during last year’s Cedar Revolution, but it understands that Lebanon’s independence and security are forfeit so long as Hezbollah — a lawless, terrorist, private militia answering to Syria and Iran — occupies south Lebanon as a rogue mini-state.

Then there are the Arabs, beginning with the Lebanese who want Hezbollah out. The majority of Lebanese — Christian, Druze, Sunni Muslim and secular — bitterly resent their country’s being hijacked by Hezbollah and turned into a war zone. And in the name of what Lebanese interest? Israel evacuated every square inch of Lebanon six years ago.

The other Arabs have spoken, too. In a stunning development, the 22-member Arab League criticized Hezbollah for provoking the current crisis. It is unprecedented for the Arab League to criticize any Arab party while it is actively engaged in hostilities with Israel. But the Arab states know that Hezbollah, a Shiite militia in the service of Persian Iran, is a threat not just to Lebanon but to them as well. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have openly criticized Hezbollah for starting a war on what is essentially Iran’s timetable (to distract attention from Iran’s pending referral to the Security Council for sanctions over its nuclear program). They are far more worried about Iran and its proxies than about Israel. They are therefore eager to see Hezbollah disarmed and defanged.

{http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer071906.php3}

Israel was forced into this fight and is standing up to liberate Lebanon from the Syrian-linked Hizbollah. Here are a few words and comments for the Lebanese from Israeli bloggers.

I’m an IDF soldier stationed at the Lebanon is border, but got back home for a funeral of someone I knew. We can’t see all the bombing on Lebanon here from Israel (naturaly we’re focusing on bombs at Israel), so you’re pretty much updating me on what’s going on. I don’t want to start arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong, the finaly word is that it’s not right that civilians get hurt in the process, from both sides.I’m sending you my best wishes from here, and hope that you and your family will be strong and be alright until this horrible situation will be over.

******************************************************

So to sum up: The Israelis want Hizbullah gone. The Lebanese want Hizbullah gone.

Why don’t the Lebanese army and the IDF team up to jointly squash Hezbullah like a bug??!!

If this was coordinated between them the strength of each could counter-act the weakness of the other for success with very little loss of civilian life.

******************************************************

Until the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the businessman-politician who financed much of the reconstruction of Beirut, it was impossible to imagine a Lebanese government taking action against Hizbollah, because of its Syrian patrons. But the assassination unleashed a powerful anti-Syrian movement in Lebanon and something deeper, a sense that the time had come for Lebanese, rather than sectarian interests to rule. Hizbollah, the last of the ethnic-religious militias, is an obstacle to that newfound sends of Lebanese nationalism said to be the new mood in Lebanon. Thus, the declared goals of the Israeli military moves, as enunciated this morning by Defense Minister Amir Peretz, is to make the Lebanese government send its army to the Israeli border to replace the Hizbollah positions there. If Beirut won’t do so, he said, Israel would make sure that Hizbollah does not return to the border.

******************************************************

{http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/07/18/this-week-in-israel-war/}

Two brothers, three year-old Muhammad Taluzi and seven-year-old Rabiya Taluzi, were killed on Wednesday evening when several Katyusha rockets fell on the Arab Israeli town of Nazareth.

At least nine people were wounded from shrapnel, while 28 others were evacuated to hospital for shock. A number of wounded were evacuated to the city’s Italian and English hospitals.

A Mazda automotive repair shop was hit along with a three-story residential building, both in the densely-populated Arab neighborhoods of lower Nazareth.

According to witnesses, the rockets hit in the street while the children were playing outside, in defiance of Home Front Command instructions.

Northern residents are ordered by Home Front Command to remain in their bomb shelters at all times, particularly when alert sirens are sounded.

{http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1150886033419}

The UN has sent more peacekeepers to Lebanon, but it is my understanding that they already had them there. Will peacekeeping forces be affective as long as Hizbollah remains armed and dangerous?

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went within range of Hizbollah rockets Tuesday night, to visit the northern town of Haifa for talks with mayors and local authority heads, and said that the Hizbollah’s attacks on Israel’s northern border were designed to divert the world’s attention from Iran during the G8 meeting in St. Petersburg; according to Olmert, the plan worked. Was that the plan all along to divert attention from Iran’s activities? With the Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizbollah connection it’s certainly possible.

The Israeli army dropped leaflets on areas of southern Lebanon warning the civilian population “to stay clear of areas from which rockets are launched against Israel” The leaflets warned that these areas would become targets for the Israeli Air Force and that civilians remaining in those areas “are endangering their lives.”

The leaflets also stressed that any truck or pickup truck traveling south of the Litani River (about 15 miles north of the Israeli border) would be suspected of transporting weapons and rockets and would therefore be a potential target for the Israeli army.

{http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060719c.html}

DOES THAT SOUND LIKE ISRAEL WANTS TO BE THE AGGRESSOR AS MANY TRY TO LABEL THEM? I DON”T THINK SO.

Should Israel be allowed to continue until Hizbollah is driven out of Lebanon? Some would say that is the case.

{http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JonahGoldberg/2006/07/19/why_a_cease-fire_makes_no_sense_for_israel?page=full&comments=true}

Is Hizbollah a threat to Israel? YES! Is Hizbollah a threat to Lebanon? YES! Is Hizbollah a threat to the united states? Yes! Is Hizbollah a threat to the world? Most definitely YES!

{http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=hezbollah_is_here&ns=MichelleMalkin&dt=07/19/2006&page=full&comments=true}

While the World’s Back was Turned

While the world’s attention was focused on the escalating conflict in the Middle East a Tsunami struck in Indonesia while the memory of the 1994 is still fresh in people’s memories. The death toll from an earthquake and the resulting tsunami has reached 340 with more than 200 people missing. More than 54,000 people have been displaced, and hundreds of buildings have been destroyed. Monday’s quake generated waves more than ten feet high. The International Tsunami Information Center issued a tsunami watch after 7.7-magnitude earthquake rumbled in the Indian Ocean 220 miles south of Jakarta.

The early warning system that Indonesian, German and U.N. scientists began developing after a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004 killed more than 200,000 people in 12 countries has not been completed.

Though local authorities failed to issue warnings — with one scientist saying they’d realized the quake’s power too late — a few people said they’d recognized the danger when they saw the sea recede, and fled to high ground. A black wave shot ashore half an hour later, sending boats, cars and motorbikes crashing into resorts and fishing villages, and flooding areas 300 yards inland.

While the world’s back was turned the Taliban decided to raise its head again. Scores of Taliban fighters entered the southern Helmand town of Garmser, bordering Pakistan, and surrounded a police compound, forcing a small security force to flee and taking control of the area.

On Monday, a large number of Taliban militants entered Naway-i-Barakzayi, a north of Garmser, and fought a brief battle with police before they too fled the area. One coalition soldier was killed and 11 were wounded.

I have been noticing that terrorists tend to take advantage when your back is turned. While Israel was distracted and dealing with Hamas militants Hizballah snuck up from behind to stab them in the back. While attention is turned toward Israel and Lebanon the Taliban decided to attack.

The violence in Lebanon has the world’s attention. Hizballah is the wild card. There is always the possibility it could try to order up terrorist attacks against Israeli and Western targets around the world. Israel’s strikes against Lebanon have provoked Shi’ite radicals in Iraq, who are threatening to attack U.S. troops in retaliation. The most chilling scenario is that the Israeli-Lebanese dispute could grow into a wider war, if Hizballah’s backers in Iran or Syria decide or are provoked to join the fray–a possibility that grew when Israeli intelligence claimed on Saturday that Iranian forces helped Hizballah fighters hit an Israeli ship off the coast of Beirut, killing one sailor. (Iran denies the charge.)

Lisa Beyer reported in Time magazine and here is an excerpt on why the Israeli’s are fighting.

The Israelis are determined to show their adversaries that they aren’t cowed. That has become clear in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s announcements that Israel will not negotiate for the return of its soldiers. Israeli officials have long talked of “changing the rules of the game,” and Olmert unleashed the military to do just that, setting the price for aggression against Israel so high that its enemies would be deterred from acting up in the future.Olmert may have been influenced by President Bush, both in his stance of “no negotiations with terrorists” and in his decision to retaliate harshly for the Hamas and Hizballah actions. The post-9/11 era has marked a new high in Israeli-U.S. relations, with Washington abandoning its past practice of criticizing Israel when it acts severely toward the Palestinians or other Arab parties. Starting with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli officials have taken to adopting Bush’s war-on-terrorism rhetoric. Justice Minister Haim Ramon last week said Israel would treat Nasrallah as the U.S. treats Osama bin Laden.

In that context, the abduction of the soldiers was particularly combustible. As it is, such acts strike deep into Israel’s soul. It is practically a sacred notion in the Israeli military that nobody is left behind. And because the nation has a citizen’s army and Israel’s population is so small, hostage taking is felt intimately; if it’s not your son or your neighbor’s son, it could be.

But provoked by the hostage taking, Olmert’s government is also trying to settle other scores. Palestinian militants have been regularly firing homemade Qassam rockets, a Hamas specialty, into Israel from Gaza–some 200 in June and 100 so far in July. Hizballah has occasionally also lobbed rockets across the border since the Israeli pullout. And Israel has watched in dismay as Hizballah has built border fortifications, sometimes 30 feet from Israeli outposts and stockpiled with what Israel estimates to be 13,000 rockets, including upgraded ones that can reach at least as far as the cities of Haifa and Tiberias.

Facing those threats, Israel isn’t prepared to show mercy. In the case of Hizballah, especially, the Israelis are going well beyond retribution, taking an opportunity to degrade the organization’s capabilities and, perhaps, cripple the group permanently. Said Defense Minister Amir Peretz: “The goal is for this to end with Hizballah so badly beaten that not a man in it does not regret having launched this incident.” Most Israelis know the offensive has come at a heavy price–to civilians on both sides, to Lebanon’s infrastructure and to Israel’s reputation abroad. But from the government’s point of view, it is necessary and it is working. Israel claims to have hit many stores of Hizballah’s rockets, often within houses. What Israel wants is for the Lebanese to disarm Hizballah, but Israeli realists don’t expect the Lebanese to go that far. A demilitarized zone in the south might suffice. The Israelis were heartened to hear that some Arab states and a number of Lebanese politicians were complaining that Hizballah had taken not just the Israeli soldiers but also all of Lebanon hostage.

The assault on Lebanon is intended to send a broader message too, at a time when Israel has largely given up on trying to negotiate for peace and security and instead is trying to establish them on its own. The strongest argument made by domestic critics of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year was that the country’s enemies would think it was weak and frightened and thus would be encouraged to strike out. Olmert’s dual counterblasts are aimed at changing that impression–among those who believe it–to make the idea of attacking Israel prohibitively scary to the other side or, as the Israelis put it, to re-establish deterrence.

Hassan Nasrallah is the secretary-general of the Hizbullah terrorist organization. In a speech back on April 9, 2000. He said, “The Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities. It is clear that the numbers they talk about are greatly exaggerated. They can speak of fabricated or exaggerated massacres that occurred during the Second World War, but we must forget the massacres that they committed against us and the peoples of the region which are documented and proven…” (He is trying to distort documented history much like Al-Jazeera does by weaving tales of a 9/11 conspiracy.)

Nasrallah also said, “All the major disasters which befell the region stem from the existence of the state called Israel. So long as there is a state called Israel, disasters and suffering will continue. This is a cancerous body in the region… When a cancer is discovered, it must be dealt with fearlessly; it must be uprooted…” (That tells you his intentions toward the nation of Israel and any Middle East peace process.)

Here are excerpts from a speech a speech he gave earlier this year on May 23, 2006:

“A year ago today I said, in Bint Jbeil, that the resistance [Israel] has more than 12,000 missiles. When I say ‘more than 12,000 missiles,’ it doesn’t mean 13,000. It doesn’t mean 13,000… I acknowledge that for many years – since 1992, to be precise – the resistance has had a significant and respectable missile capability, both in quantity and quality. Therefore, I can tell you that the north of occupied Palestine is entirely within the range of the missiles of the Lebanese resistance.“This, of course, is the minimum. As for reaching beyond the north – the less said the better. We have no reason to say whether or not we have such capabilities. Let’s keep quiet about this.

“Today the north is within the range of the missiles of the resistance – their ports, their bases, their factories, everything… This creates a balance between the north of Palestine and the south of Lebanon and Lebanon in its entirety.” (He had the express intention of instigating a war before Israel crossed into Lebanon to retrieve their kidnapped soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, not to mention Gilad Shilat in Gaza.)

What type of prisoner is Hizballah wanting released? In exchange for the two Israeli soldiers it abducted in a cross-border raid last week is Hizballah wants Israel to release Samir Kuntar, who is serving multiple life sentences for an attack in which he killed a four-year-old girl by smashing her skull with a rifle butt. Hizballah said the goal of its July 12 assault was aimed at winning his freedom.

The following is excerpted from a report entitled Hizballah Wants Israel to Free Child-Killer by Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor

Samir Kuntar is one of only two or three Lebanese prisoners still held by Israel, and Hizballah said its July 12 assault is aimed at winning his freedom.The terrorists killed eight Israeli soldiers and seized Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, taking them back over the border. Their whereabouts and condition remain unknown.

The Shi’ite group dubbed the raid Operation True Promise (Al-Wa’ad Al-Sadeq), saying it was making good on an earlier pledge to continue to capture Israeli soldiers and use them to obtain the release of the remaining Lebanese in Israeli jails.

Since the raid, the conflict has escalated, with Israel launching an air assault on Lebanese infrastructure and Hizballah targets and Hizballah firing hundreds of missiles into Israel.

The fighting and loss of life have swung some attention away from the hostage issue, and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an address late last week that “the battle today is no longer a battle over prisoners or the exchange of prisoners.”

Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during a televised address to the nation Monday night that he kept photographs of Goldwasser and Regev – along with one of another soldier, Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas in a June raid across the Gaza-Israel frontier – on his desk as a daily reminder of his mission.

“We will do everything in our power to ensure their safe release and bring them back home,” he said.

In past years, Israel has succeeded in winning freedom for captured soldiers, or the return of missing soldiers’ remains, but only by negotiating exchanges involving large numbers of Arab prisoners.

In the most recent of these highly controversial swaps, in January 2004, Israel handed over more than 400 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees in return for one Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers abducted along the Lebanon border in 2000.

That exchange left just two Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails – Kuntar and a man named Nasim Nesser. (Lebanon claims a third man, named as Yehya Sekaf, is also being held, although Israel denies this.)

Lebanese media refer to Kuntar as the “dean” of Lebanese prisoners in Israel. He has been in prison for 28 years, and Hizballah wants him out.

Although Kuntar was jailed for an attack launched by a Lebanon-based Palestinian terrorist group before Hizballah was even established, Hizballah depicts itself as the vanguard of the Islamic campaign against Israel and regards winning freedom for the prisoners a “sacred duty.”

A website set up by family members says Kuntar was jailed “for killing several Israelis in a raid on northern Israel.”

Israeli media and eyewitness accounts of the incident provide much more detail. Kuntar was one of a four-man group that crossed into Israel by sea, sent on the mission by the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), an affiliate of Yasser Arafat’s PLO.

In the coastal town of Nahariya, the terrorists shot dead a policeman and forced their way into an apartment building, where they captured Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat, 4.

While the terrorists rampaged through the apartment, firing weapons and detonating grenades, Haran’s wife Smadar hid in a crawlspace above the couple’s bedroom together with their other daughter, two-year-old Yael, and a neighbor.

In an effort to prevent Yael from crying out and alerting the terrorists to their whereabouts, Smadar kept her hand over the child’s mouth, and accidentally smothered her to death.

Meanwhile Kuntar and his group took Danny and Einat Haran to the beach.

“There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see,” Smadar wrote later.

“Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.”

That is not the type of man that needs to be freed. I hadn’t been so upset by a report since I saw pictures of the children of Palestine that had been caught in the cross fire. I was so upset I had to turn off the news and the computer and take a long walk.