Very interesting discussion of the war over at the Head Heeb, who considers Lebanon the weakest link in the conflict and worries about a possible return to civil war there — which he rightly argues would destabilize the region so much as to jeopardize any chance of regional peace for years. Let’s hope that won’t happen, and for now I don’t think it will. Now, obviously my views on these things are quite different from Jonathan’s — I have come to believe over the last few years that peace is not an Israeli foreign policy goal, only lack of aggression against it is (something that can and hopefully will change).
Tag: lebanon
Hizbullah’s psy-ops in Israel?
Hossam beat me to posting about the great BBC article on Israeli psy-ops (the stuff about Al Manar’s satellite feed being hacked is especially fascinating, since they are all Arab or Iranian owned), but I will beat him at his own game:
Dozens of Israeli customers of the Orange cellular service provider received unexpected SMS messages on their phones Wednesday evening, with the English message:
“Now Now Now…Go out from your home Hizballah willing shelling of the area, Israel Government Cheating you And refuse recognition Defeat.”
It was not yet clear whether Hizbullah operatives were in fact behind the messages of intimidation, or whether the messages were no more than a joke in poor taste by other network subscribers.
. . .
Rani Rahav, a spokesperson for Orange, responded that the text messages were coming from a small service provider “somewhere out there in the Pacific Ocean. We are working right now to block the provider from transmitting further messages to Orange customers.”
This will be remembered in Israel as “the Micronesian betrayal.”
Sadr to send Hizbullah more troops from Iraq?
Does anyone know whether this has any credibility?
A senior member of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iraqi Shi’ite militia, the Mahdi Army, says the group is forming a squadron of up to 1,500 elite fighters to go to Lebanon.
The plan reflects the potential of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to strengthen radical elements in Iraq and neighboring countries and to draw other regional players into the Lebanon conflict.
“We are choosing the men right now,” said Abu Mujtaba, who works in the loosely organized following of radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. “We are preparing the right men for the job.”
It is the Washington Times after all…
Et la communauté internationale dans tout ça?
Un excellent editorial dans Le Figaro:
(sorry, no time to translate)
Continue reading Et la communauté internationale dans tout ça?
Misr Digital on resistance week
Wael Abbass of MisrDigital has posted a fantastic virtual coverage of solidarity demos in Cairo accross last week. As always, Wael takes good pix and videos of the protests, clashes, portraits of security officials present when abuses happen. The most interesting video this time was one taken of a CSF conscript mumbling “Amen” as pro-resistance demonstrators were praying for Israel’s and America’s defeat.
Wael also said his blog has been recently coming under attacks from Israeli hackers, so he sent them the following post card…
Thousands demonstrate in support of resistance
Thousands of Muslim Brothers activists took part in demos following Fri prayers today in Giza and Shoubra.
Around five thousands supporters of Egypt’s largest Islamist opposition group prayed and demonstrated in front of Istiqama mosque in Giza, according to Photographer Nasser Nouri. The protestors were surrounded by CSF, who banned them from marching to the nearby Israeli embassy, but no arrests were reported.
In el-Khazendar mosque in Shoubra, around a thousand MB supporters, half of them children, demonstrated for an hour after the Friday prayers, according to a photographer present in the scene. The mosque was surrounded by CSF, who made sure the demo did not turn into a march. Ten children were detained by security, according to Ikhwan Web.
Around five thousands supporters of Egypt’s largest Islamist opposition group prayed and demonstrated in front of Istiqama mosque in Giza, according to Photographer Nasser Nouri. The protestors were surrounded by CSF, who banned them from marching to the nearby Israeli embassy, but no arrests were reported.
In el-Khazendar mosque in Shoubra, around a thousand MB supporters, half of them children, demonstrated for an hour after the Friday prayers, according to a photographer present in the scene. The mosque was surrounded by CSF, who made sure the demo did not turn into a march. Ten children were detained by security, according to Ikhwan Web.
(You can find a slideshow of the two demos here.)
Here’s a good dpa roundup by Jano Charbel of the protests in (the above-mentioned) Giza, and another two in Al-Azhar Mosque and Mansoura province. Jano puts the number of Giza demonstrators at less than what Nasser Nouri said, however. Continue reading Thousands demonstrate in support of resistance
Condipatra
SP sent me this..
CPJ: Israel targeting TV crews in South Lebanon
Just got this:
LEBANON: TV crews allege targeting by Israeli warplanes in the south
New York, July 27, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today over allegations by several television crews that Israeli warplanes had attacked them, effectively shutting down live television coverage from southeast Lebanon.
Crews from four Arab television stations told CPJ that Israeli aircraft fired missiles within 80 yards (75 meters) of them on July 22 to prevent them from covering the effects of Israel’s bombardment of the area around the town of Khiam, in the eastern sector of the Israel-Lebanon border
“Israeli aircraft targeted in an air raid TV crews, especially Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Al-Manar,”said Ghassan Benjeddou, Al-Jazeera’s Lebanon bureau chief. “It’s a miracle that our crew survived the attack,” he told CPJ.
Continue reading CPJ: Israel targeting TV crews in South Lebanon
Photos of Israeli girls confirmed as real
Remember of the photos of young Israeli girls writing messages on artillery shells that I posted (here and on Flickr) a while back? Well, despite all the people in the comments saying they couldn’t possibly be true, they have have now been confirmed by the IDF as real:
Questions over the photos’ authenticity have been put to rest by authorities that were present during the incident, which occurred on July 17 near the northern border. The mostly local children had been brought to see the shells by their parents. Although it remains unclear who encouraged them to write the messages, their colorful scribbles, including a Star of David, hearts, and “From Israel, with Love,” have appeared in dozens of blogs, or on-line journals, and on-line photo hosting sites.
Although the IDF has failed to issue a response to the incident, a spokesman from the IDF said it “appeared as though the situation occurred unofficially.” Although an officer was present during the incident, the soldiers, and the IDF as a whole, did not condone or condemn the incident.
An official close to Israel’s public relations campaign said that there was “no way” to spin the incident in a positive light. “Some people are simply irresponsible,” said the official.
On-line, the photos are being called “horrifying,” “disgusting” and “despicable.” “I still cannot understand why or how anyone would allow their young children to walk up to missiles or other explosives. The militarization of children is always a crime,” said one user by the name of “aviv2b” on the Guardian Web site, which ran a lengthy discussion about the photos.
Another reader, by the name barbicanangel posted that “I still say Israel is right in this war, however, the picture of young Jewish girls signing the shells is quite disturbing.”
Although the photos were first taken by professional photographers from AFP, Associated Press, and Haaretz, they were circulated on-line through the popular photo-hosting Web site Flickr.com. That site republished the photos, bringing them to the attention of hundreds who later posted them on their own personal sites.
All hail Flickr!
Lebanon link dump
Since I criticized HRW last week, I should highlight that they are now condemning Israel’s use of cluster bombs in Lebanon. I worked on the use of cluster bomb in Kosovo in the late 1990s — these are extremely nasty weapons that can cause damage long after the initial bombing. All cluster bombs, which as their name indicates contain smaller ordnance that spreads over a wide area, has a certain number of duds that do not detonate immediately. Because these are often brightly colored and spread widely, children have been regularly killed or severely wounded weeks and months after a conflict by detonating them accidentally. In other words, they create small minefields. It’s a weapon that should be banned, and it’s particularly disgusting to use them in civilian areas. I hope to see more serious work like this from HRW, especially when they were much quicker to condemn Hizbullah than Israel.
Read frequent Arabist reader Praktike on the Dream Palace of the Americans. I am very jealous of his clever title, and have a comment under his post. And speaking of Fouad Ajami
Read frequent Arabist reader Praktike on the Dream Palace of the Americans. I am very jealous of his clever title, and have a comment under his post. And speaking of Fouad Ajami
In other news: Muammar Qadhafi is still insane, and now claims to have been very close to building a nuclear bomb.
Lebanese writer Elias Khouri on the invasions of Lebanon.
A petition for academics condemning Israel’s aggression.
Not about Lebanon, but here is Gush Shalom’s debunking of Ehud Barak’s “generous” 2000 offer. (To bookmark and send to the next idiot who mentions it.)