To browse books about Lebanon, see

http://www.tomfolio.com/SearchAuthorTitle.asp?Title=lebanon

 

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http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article.jsp?id=2&articleId=3829

OpenDemocracy.net 17 - 8 - 2006

 

By Paul Rogers

 

Hizbollah's encouragement of a return to normality in southern Lebanon retains the strategic advantage over Israel.

 

In the first four days after the ceasefire in Lebanon on 14 August 2006, all the major players and their supporters sought to portray the outcome as a victory. Ehud Olmert's view was that the Israeli campaign had much diminished Hizbollah's capability; the group was no longer "a state within a state", and diplomatic moves combined with the insertion of a multinational force in southern Lebanon would ensure its further weakening. George W Bush concurred, but extended the perspective to identify a weakening of Syrian and Iranian influence since a key proxy in the United States's war on terror had been defeated.

 

The mood among Israelis was more variable, with many expressing pessimism over the war's outcome; the declarations of victory by Hizbollah, and even more by political leaders in Syria and Iran, added to the anguished perception of a war that had not gone to plan. Instead of a three-week campaign to destroy Hizbollah, the guerrilla force had survived. A striking aspect of the Israeli reaction was that the Olmert administration put aside the country's traditionally deep suspicion of the United Nations by embracing the notion of a UN intervention force. The contempt with which Israel has treated Unifil in the past thirty years makes this switch of attitude little short of astonishing.

 

The landscape of victory

 

What was scarcely mentioned by the politicians were the "ordinary" losers. In Lebanon there were 1,100 people killed, more than 3,600 wounded and 750,000 displaced. In Israel, 157 were killed, 1,500 wounded and 300,000 displaced. Israel's economy was damaged as economic activity across much of the north ceased, but Lebanon's infrastructure was far more badly affected; there, 15,000 homes were destroyed, and there was huge damage to bridges, roads, power plants, communications, shops and factories, creating a repair bill of around $7 billion.

 

The coverage of the war across the middle east was more intense than any other story of the period, even Iraq. The twenty-four-hour reporting by numerous regional news channels emphasised the civilian losses in Lebanon. The media coverage in Britain and across much of Europe increasingly highlighted the damage in Lebanon, especially in Beirut and Tyre. By contrast, American TV reporting focused more on Israeli perspectives and experiences.

 

The ceasefire remains very fragile and there are many within Israel who insist that there must be further military action if Hizbollah is to be fully disarmed. With each day that passes, though, this becomes less likely, though it is possible that unexpected events could still lead to sudden instability and renewed violence.

 

Hizbollah's standing across the middle east, and its own power base in Lebanon is such that it is under very little pressure to disarm. In the midst of the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, the most that is likely to happen is that Hizbollah will keep weapons out of sight while storing much of its arsenal in secret locations south of the Litani river and close to the Israeli border. This pattern would be very similar to the movement's behaviour for the past six years at least.

 

Even if the Hizbollah leadership agreed to a limited disarmament in selected areas, this might include only some symbolic action near the border for political purposes. At the same time, the movement would maintain the great majority of its arsenal, especially in the Beka'a valley. Furthermore, with the ending of Israeli air raids, it is now a straightforward process to bring in replacement missiles and other supplies from Syria, even if done in a thoroughly non-ostentatious manner. It is, presumably, already underway.

 

Perhaps the most indicative development of the past four days has been the immediate and very substantial flow of refugees back to the ruined towns and villages in southern Lebanon and the appearance of bulldozers, excavators and large numbers of young men involved in repair and rehabilitation work. The signs are that Hizbollah will channel in very substantial financial resources very quickly indeed. Its emphasis is likely to be placed on repairing the less severely damaged houses, bringing in tents and even prefabricated buildings as temporary replacements for destroyed houses and then providing economic support for the people returning.

 

The whole emphasis will be on repopulating the area as quickly as possible – a development of profound political significance across the region in light of Arabs' awareness of the long-lasting nature of the exile of Palestinians. A marked contrast between what Hizbollah is proving able to do and what Arab governments have so persistently failed to do will be noted by millions.

 

The very speed at which the refugees started to return, within hours of the start of the ceasefire, is itself important. It is highly unlikely that this was a spontaneous development and much more likely that, at least informally, the Hizbollah leadership encouraged it. From the Hizbollah perspective, this had a dual benefit: it was a palpable demonstration of its own perceived victory, and it conveyed a message of confidence that it considered the region safe for people to return.

 

It is also clear that Israel was caught unawares by the speed of the refugees' return – a process that both prompted the Israeli Defence Forces IDF to warn civilians about the dangers, and made it much more difficult for the IDF to contemplate further military action. The symbolism should not be underestimated. If southern Lebanon had remained a largely depopulated region, there would have been an impression of continued conflict. If people return and start the process of rebuilding, it reinforces the impression of a Hizbollah victory. Hizbollah itself is helped greatly here by the availability of very large amounts of financial aid, primarily from Iran, and the Tehran government too gains substantial political benefit from its subventions.

 

A fragile stability

 

The resources available from Iran and elsewhere could see southern Lebanon becoming an absolute hive of reconstruction activity before the onset of winter. Little of this is likely to be covered in the western media, but it will be very different across the middle east. In Israel this will add to the consternation, unease and controversy about the conduct of the war. Across the wider region it will further enhance Hizbollah's status while undermining that of the elite power-centres in countries such as Jordan and Egypt. In more general terms it will be at least as symbolic as the early return of the refugees witnessed this week.

 

Hizbollah is clearly seeking "a return to normality" that is as rapid as possible, and the group recognises the immense political symbolism of such a process if it can succeed. There are numerous ways in which it can go wrong, not least through Israel attempting targeted assassinations against the leadership, or air strikes along the Lebanon/Syria border against presumed arms shipments. The IDF may even regard it as essential to do so, in order to encourage a wider Hizbollah military response that would in turn delay this (for Israel) dangerous return to normality.

 

Such a trend has its own dangers, though, and meanwhile the reconstruction starts. Because of the pace of change, every day that passes makes a return to war less likely. The accumulative result is that the status of key Arab leaderships as well as of Israel's own deterrent power is being slowly but surely degraded.

 

 

 

 

http://www.lebanonsolidarity.org/

 

Call for Action August 7th, 2006

 

Civilian Resistance: Call For Action & Solidarity For Lebanon Download Arabic version (.pdf, 46kb) Spanish version below Media contacts and the official Press Release here

 

Endorse this call for nonviolent action!

 

We, the people of Lebanon, call upon the local and international community to join a campaign of civil resistance to Israel's war against our country and our people. We declare Lebanon an open country for civil resistance.

 

In the face of Israel's systematic killing of our people, the indiscriminate bombing of our towns, the scorching of our villages, and the attempted destruction of our civil infrastructure, we say NO!

 

In the face of the forced expulsion of a quarter of our population from their homes throughout Lebanon, and the complicity of governments and international bodies, we re-affirm the acts of civil resistance that began from the first day of the Israeli assault, and we stress and add the urgent need TO ACT!

 

We urge you to join us in defying Israel's aggression against our country and in defending the rights of the inhabitants throughout Lebanon, and particularly in the South, to live on their land. When the United Nations, created to preserve peace and security in the world, is paralyzed; when governments become complicit in war crimes, then people must show their strength and rise up. When justice and human rights are scorned, those who care must unite in their defense.

 

Building on our belief in our country, the efforts of the civil resistance, and on the arrival of the internationals coming to Lebanon for solidarity, we declare that Lebanon is an open country for civil resistance, starting from August 12.

 

On August 12 at 7 am, we will gather in Martyrs' Square to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will carry relief as an expression of solidarity for the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of the Israeli military.

 

After August 12th, the campaign will continue with a series of civil actions for which your presence and participation is needed. Working together in solidarity we will overcome the complacency, inaction, and complicity of the international community and we will deny Israel its goal of removing Lebanese from their land and destroying the fabric of our country.

 

To sign up to join the convoy, send an email to one of the following addresses:

 

If you are in Lebanon Email Rania Masri: rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb

 

If you are an international Email Adam Shapiro: internationals@lebanonsolidarity.org

 

If you are Spanish speaking Email Alberto Arce: nonviolenceproject@gmail.com

 

If you are outside Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, you should know:

 

You need to obtain a visa for Lebanon and for Syria if your plan is to enter Lebanon from Syria. We don't have the funds to cover for the cost of your travel, however we can help with finding accomodations. Please check the website of this campaign regularly: www.lebanonsolidarity.org

 

This campaign is thus far endorsed by more than 200 organizations, including:

 

The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Cultural Center for Southern Lebanon, Norwegian People's Aid, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, Frontiers, Kafa, Nahwa al-Muwatiniya, Spring Hints, Hayya Bina, Lebanese Transparency Association, Amam05, Lebanese Center for Civic Education, Let's Build Trust, CRTD-A, Solida, National Association for Vocational Training and Social Services, Lebanese Development Pioneers, Nadi Li Koul Alnas, Lecorvaw, Samidoun, and The Cultural Movement-Antelias.

 

 

 

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-02.htm

 

Published on Friday, August 4, 2006

by the Independent / UK

 

by Anne Penketh and Kim Sengupta

 

"I don't want to die. I want to go to school," says Jamal, a four-year-old Lebanese boy scarred by the Israeli bombing of his country. Home for Jamal is now a "displacement centre" in the southern town of Jezzine, where his family fled in fear for their lives.

 

"We've had our picnic, and we want to go home now," says another child,staying in a makeshift refugee camp in the Sanayeh public gardens in Beirut. "We are bored and afraid and we want to go home," says another.

 

A displaced Lebanese child lies on a mattress at a park being used as a temporary shelter in Beirut, August 3, 2006. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (LEBANON)

 

These are the voices of the dispossessed of Lebanon, the hundreds of thousands of children whose world was changed forever in the seconds that followed the explosion of a bomb. "Mummy, what is a massacre?" another child asks.

 

About 300,000 Lebanese children have been displaced by Israel's three-week war against Hizbollah - a third of the number of people who have abandoned their homes. In many cases they were ordered out by Israeli army leaflets. They are living in open-air camps, like the one in the Beirut park, or in schools, where many sought refuge. Many children have been housed with host families - in the port of Sidon,

48km (30 miles) south of the capital, 40 per cent of the 22,700 children in temporary accommodation are doing so. The rest are in displacement centres.

 

Ribka Amsale, an aid worker with Save the Children, visited a school in Sidon yesterday. Children were playing football as their mothers cheered them on. The children seemed cheerful enough, but the stress and trauma are already etched in their psyches.

 

"Many are undergoing enormous stress in this situation," said Save the Children's Deborah Haines in Sidon. "Although some are out playing, there are issues of safety and security. Many are at a loose end, as their toys and games have been left behind. Their parents haven't got the time or the patience to set things up for the children."

 

Many of the displaced children are behaving aggressively, getting into fights, in a sign of the underlying pressure that also manifests itself through crying, bed-wetting and bad dreams.

 

Children placed with host families are not necessarily better off than those in the centres, says Ms Haines. "There are tensions, they have to get used to living with strangers."

 

Save the Children, which has launched a humanitarian appeal jointly with The Independent, is working with the Lebanese education and social affairs ministries, local non-government partners, and donor countries to assess urgent needs. Save the Children had received 300 telephone calls by yesterday afternoon, pledging an average of £100 a time, thanks toThe Independent's Lebanon appeal, which was launched on Wednesday.

 

Rania al-Ameri, a Lebanese child psychologist working with young internally displaced people, said: "They desperately need help because they are the ones who are suffering the most. Many children have lost members of their families as well as their homes. They are severely traumatised."

 

There have been discussions on creating safe places for children to play in. It sounds straightforward, and is relatively easy to organise in the camps, where children can be supervised. But for the displaced living with families, the natural caution of mothers must be overcome by house visits.

 

Schools have become the displacement centres of choice because of the holidays, which run until 15 September in Lebanon. But the water is of poor quality, the showers - if there are any - are overcrowded, and the lavatories reek of sewage.

 

In addition to basic necessities such as mattresses, the children need fresh fruit and vegetables for a balanced diet. But "in some of the camps in Tyre, the displaced people need food full stop," said the aid worker Jeremie Bodin of Save the Children. "The stress means that women are no longer breast-feeding, so we need an infant-feeding formula, and we need nappies because the children haven't been changed for days." Emerging from his basement, where he has spent the past three weeks, Ali, nine, said: "My father and mother went with my other brothers and sisters to another town. They said they will come and get me when the bombs stop." After another nearby explosion, he said: "Why are the Israelis hitting us? Do they hate us? My cousin told me nuclear bombs are really big. Are they as big as these rockets?"

 

==========================

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14378.htm

 

 

By Robert Fisk

 

08/05/06 "The Independent" -- -- The room shook. Not since the 1983 earthquake has my apartment rocked from side to side. That was the force of the Israeli explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut - three miles from my home - and the air pressure changed in the house yesterday morning and outside in the street the palm trees moved.

 

Is it to be like this every day? How many civilians can you make homeless before you start a revolution? And what is next? Are the Israelis to bomb the centre of Beirut? The Corniche? Is this why all the foreign warships came and took their citizens away, to make Beirut safe to destroy?

 

Yesterday, needless to say, was another day of massacres, great and small. The largest appeared to be 40 farm workers in northern Lebanon, some of them Kurds - a people who do not even have a country. An Israeli missile was reported to have exploded among them as they loaded vegetables on to a refrigerated truck near Al-Qaa, a small village east of Hermel in the far north. The wounded were taken to hospital in Syria because the roads of Lebanon have now all been cratered by Israeli bomb-bursts. Later we learnt that an air strike on a house in the village of Taibeh in the south had killed seven civilians and wounded

10 seeking shelter from attack.

 

In Israel two civilians were killed by Hizbollah missiles but, as usual, Lebanon bore the brunt of the day's attacks which centred - incredibly - on the Christian heartland that has traditionally shown great sympathy towards Israel. It was the Christian Maronite community whose Phalangist militiamen were Israel's closest allies in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon yet Israel's air force yesterday attacked three highway bridges north of Beirut and - again as usual - it was the little people who died.

 

One of them was Joseph Bassil, 65, a Christian man who had gone out on his daily jogging exercise with four friends north of Jounieh. "His friends packed up after four rounds of the bridge because it was hot," a member of his family told us later. "Joseph decided to do one more jog on the bridge. That was what killed him." The Israelis gave no reason for the attacks - no Hizbollah fighters would ever enter this Christian Maronite stronghold and the only hindrance was caused to humanitarian convoys - and there were growing fears in Lebanon that the latest air raids were a sign of Israel's frustration rather any serious military planning.

 

Indeed, as the Lebanon war continues to destroy innocent lives - most of them Lebanese - the conflict seems to be increasingly aimless. The Israeli air force has succeeded in killing perhaps 50 Hizbollah members and 600 civilians and has destroyed bridges, milk factories, gas stations, fuel storage depots, airport runways and thousands of homes. But to what purpose?

 

Does the United States any longer believe Israel's claims that it will destroy Hizbollah when its army clearly cannot do anything of the kind? Does Washington not realise that when Israel grows tired of this war, it will plead for a ceasefire - which only Washington can deliver by doing what it most loathes to do: by taking the road to Damascus and asking for help from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria?

 

What in the meanwhile is happening to Lebanon? Bridges and buildings can be reconstructed - with European Union loans, no doubt - but many Lebanese are now questioning the institutions of the democracy for which the US was itself so full of praise last year. What is the point of a democratically elected Lebanese government which cannot protect its people? What is the point of a 75,000-member Lebanese army which cannot protect its nation, which cannot be sent to the border, which does not fire on Lebanon's enemies and which cannot disarm Hizbollah? Indeed, for many Lebanese Shias, Hizbollah is now the Lebanese army.

 

So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance - and so determined its attacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon - that many people here no longer recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war by crossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. Israel's threats of enlarging the conflict even further are now met with amusement rather than horror by a Lebanese population which has been listening to Israel's warnings for 30 years with ever greater weariness. And yet they fear for their lives. If Tel Aviv is hit, will Beirut be spared. Or if central Beirut is hit, will Tel Aviv be spared? Hizbollah now uses Israel's language of an eye for an eye. Every Israeli taunt is met by a Hizbollah taunt.

 

And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army and air force whose targets - if intended - prove them to be war criminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff little better than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, for more than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set in this Lebanon war.

 

In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders - our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt - may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel's consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.

 

And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.

 

============================

 

http://tinyurl.com/kztwa

 

 

Peter Wilson and Martin Chulov

August 02, 2006

 

AS many as 20,000 Israeli troops were pouring into Lebanon last night

after Israel ordered an advance of up to 30km in the most significant

escalation yet of its offensive against Hezbollah.

 

The push to the Litani River, 80km south of Beirut, began last night

with troops backed by helicopters, fighter-bombers and artillery

clashing fiercely with Hezbollah militants at four points along the

Israel-Lebanon border.

 

Israeli defence chiefs said they would need up to two weeks to complete

the campaign, and were racing to achieve their goals before the UN and

international pressure demanded a ceasefire in southern Lebanon.

 

US President George W. Bush reiterated his staunch opposition to an

immediate ceasefire yesterday, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

said a ceasefire was unlikely within "the coming days".

 

"This is a unique opportunity to change the rules in Lebanon," Mr

Olmert said.

 

"We will no longer consent to Hezbollah returning to these positions

and continuing to threaten to abduct soldiers and fire on northern

communities."

 

The new Israeli attacks came before the end of a promised 48-hour halt

to its airstrikes, which had prompted an exodus of tens of thousands of

civilians who had been too afraid to leave southern villages.

 

The Australian Government sent a convoy of vehicles to the port of Tyre

to try to evacuate Australians trapped in the path of the Israeli

advance. More than 20 had been picked up last night.

 

The Israeli cabinet said it had decided to double the number of ground

forces devoted to the operation in Lebanon, but it was not clear how

many troops would eventually be deployed.

 

Defence officials also suggested that when a ceasefire was eventually

declared they would agree to swap two Lebanese prisoners for sergeants

Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose capture by Hezbollah in a

cross-border raid on July 12 triggered the Israeli offensive.

 

 

====================================

 

 

 

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/31/1435219

 

Lebanon is marking a national day of mourning, a day after Israeli warplanes bombed the village of Qana killing 57. Israel has announced it will halt air strikes for 48 hours in Southern Lebanon, but its ground troops continue to fight. Robert Fisk was in the nearby city of Tyre, where many of the victims were taken following the attack. He joins us from his home in Beirut. includes rush transcript

 

After the attack, Israel released what appeared to be video footage of Hezbollah rockets being launched from Qana towards towns in northern Israel, and the Israeli military said that Qana had been targeted because Hezbollah had been using the village as a base from which to launch rockets. This is not the first time that Qana has been devastated by Israeli fire. In 1996, more than 106 villagers died after Israel bombed the UN compound where they were seeking refuge. In the aftermath of the strike 10 years ago, reporting by Robert Fisk led to the United Nations condemnation of the attack. Robert Fisk had just returned from Tyre, where the victims from Sunday's Israeli air strike in Qana were taken following the attack.

 

• Robert Fisk.Veteran war correspondent, London Independent, reporting from Beirut.

 

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

 

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

 

AMY GOODMAN: Following Israel’s bombing of the town of Qana, that killed nearly 57 people, we turn to veteran war correspondent, Robert Fisk. I reached Robert Fisk early this morning at his home in Beirut. Robert Fisk's reporting in Lebanon led to the United Nations condemnation of the Israeli attack on Qana ten years ago, in 1996. Early this morning, when we reached Robert Fisk, he had just returned from Tyre, where victims from Sunday’s Israeli air strike in Qana were taken, following the attack.

 

ROBERT FISK: I went to Tyre, Amy. By the time this has happened -- to get from Beirut now to the south takes 46 hours, because of the broken bridges and the bombed roads, and I realized that by the time I got down there, the wounded would have been in the hospitals in Tyre, and the dead would be already brought from Qana to the villages. So when I got there, I went straight to the government hospital in Tyre, where many of the wounded -- and there weren't many, because most of them died -- had been taken and where they were counting the number of children.

 

When I arrived there, there were a number of, maybe 20, 30 children, the corpses of children, lined up outside the government hospital, hair matted, still in their night clothes. The bomb that killed them was dropped at 1:00 in the morning. And they ran out of plastic bags. They were trying to put the children in plastic bags, their corpses, and they would put on it, you know, “Abbas Mehdi, aged seven,” and so and so, aged one, and use a kind of sticking tape on it. But then they ran out of plastic bags, so they had to put the children's corpses in a kind of cheap carpet that you can buy in the supermarkets, and they roll them up in that and then put their names on again. I was having to go around very carefully and write down, from the Arabic, their names and their ages. It would just say “Abbas Mehdi, aged seven, Qana.”

 

And, of course, every time I saw the “Qana,” I remember that I was actually in Qana ten years ago when the massacre occurred there then. This is the second massacre in the town whose inhabitants believe that this is the place where Jesus turned water into wine in the Bible, most of whom, 95% of whom, are Christians -- I’m sorry, are Muslims. I think all who died were Muslims. The 5% is Christians who have been there for hundreds of years, their families, because they do believe it is the Biblical Qana. There is a claimant to the rival of Qana in Galilee in northern Israel actually.

 

The Lebanese soldiers were trying take down the names of all who had died, but I found a man with a clipboard who had taken down 40 names, and he said that they weren't accurate, because some of the children were blown into bits and they couldn't fit them together accurately and there might be -- they couldn't put the right head on the right body, and therefore they might not be able to have an accurate list of the dead. But he was doing his best in the circumstances of war to maintain the bureaucracy of government.

 

One by one the children's bodies were taken away from the courtyard of the government hospital on the shoulders of soldiers and hospital workers and were put in a big refrigerated truck, very dirty, dusty truck, which had been parked just outside the hospital. The grownups, the adult dead, including twelve women, were taken out later. The children were put in the truck first. Pretty grim. As I said, the children's hair, when you could see the bodies, were matted with dust and mud. And most of them appear to have been bleeding from the nose. I assume that’s because their lungs were crushed by the bomb, and therefore they naturally hemorrhaged as they died.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk reporting from Beirut. After the attack Sunday, Israel released what appeared to be video footage of Hezbollah rockets being launched from Qana toward towns in northern Israel. I asked Robert Fisk about the footage.

 

ROBERT FISK: I’ve seen the video footage. It’s impossible to tell from the footage if indeed this is from Qana. You know, you have to realize that last time the massacre occurred at Qana in 1996, when they killed 106 refugees who were sheltering in the then-UN base that was there -- it doesn't exist anymore, but it did then -- more than half of them children, again. They said that missiles had been fired from within the UN base. It turns out that they were fired from half a mile away. They then said that they didn't have a live time pilot-less aircraft over the UN base at the time. And, in fact, on the Independent, I found a UN soldier who did have a videotape, showing clearly at the time of the bombardment -- this is in 1996 -- a live time photo reconnaissance unmanned aircraft over the base. The Israelis were later forced to admit that they had not told the truth: indeed there was a machine over the base at the time. You know, you can do what you want with photo reconnaissance pictures and with photographs after the event. It’s interesting that we weren't shown these pictures before the massacre. We were only shown them after the massacre.

 

But they may be correct. The Hezbollah are firing missiles from villages in southern Lebanon, just as, for example, when the Israelis entered southern Lebanon and go into places like Bent Jabail, they're using civilian houses as cover for their tanks, so the Hezbollah use houses as cover for their missile launching. But the odd thing is the idea that for the Israeli military that somehow it’s okay to kill all these children; if a missile is launched 30, 90 feet from their house, that's okay then. We’ve got some film to show the missiles were launched; that's okay then. I mean, did the aircraft which dropped this bomb, a guided weapon, by the way -- they knew what they were hitting. It’s a guided weapon. We know that because the computer codes have been found on the bomb fragments. Did they say, “Oh, well, then, the man who launched the missile is hiding with the children in the basement of the house we're going to hit”? Is it the case now that if you happen to live in a house next to where someone launches a missile, you are to be sentenced to death? Is that what Israel thinks the war is about?

 

I’m sitting here, for example, in my house tonight in darkness -- there’s no electricity -- next to a car park. What if someone launches a missile from the car park? Am I supposed to die for that? Is that a death sentence for me? Is that how Israel wages war? If I have children in the basement, are they to die for that? And then I’m told it’s my fault or it’s Hezbollah's fault? You know, these are serious moral questions.

 

It’s quite clear from listening to the IDF statement today that they believe that family deserved to die, because 90 feet away, they claim, a missile was fired. So they sentenced all those people to death. Is that what we're supposed to believe? I mean, presumably it is. I can't think of any other reason why they should say, “Well, 30 meters away a missile was fired.” Well, thanks very much. So those little children’s corpses in their plastic packages, all stuck together like giant candies today, this is supposed to be quite normal, this is how war is to be waged by the IDF.

 

The fact that when they made these comments, they went unchallenged on television, was one of the most extraordinary scenes I’ve seen. I got back from Tyre on a very dangerous overland journey on an open road, which was under air attack, and I got back, and just before the electricity was cut, I saw the BBC reporting what the Israelis had said, but without questioning the morality that if someone fires a missile near your home, therefore it is perfectly okay for you to die.

 

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll return to our interview with Robert Fisk of the Independent newspaper in Britain, reporting from Beirut.

 

break

 

AMY GOODMAN: We return to our interview with Robert Fisk of the Independent. He has been based in Lebanon for the last 30 years. I spoke to him early this morning, after he had just returned from Tyre. I asked him to respond to Israel's announcement it would suspend air strikes over southern Lebanon for 48 hours.

 

ROBERT FISK: That would certainly give the United Nations and particularly the International Red Cross the opportunity of getting thousands of people out of the region. But whether you can arrange convoys for thousands of people to leave in that period of time, I don't know. The people who the haven't left are either too frightened to leave, or they’re too poor, or they have no cars, or they’re too elderly or too young. Can the International Committee of the Red Cross with whom I have been traveling for some of the last few days -- does that give them enough time to get people out? Does that mean there will be no shells on the road, or is it just air attacks that are stopping?

 

You know, it’s very interesting that the Israelis should say now, now after all these days, they're going to give 48 hours. Why didn't they give an extra 48 hours at the beginning to get the people out? Why now? Is this a bonus, a plus point, something you -- a supermarket extra card that you win because you’ve killed so many people? Is it a monopoly board that you're going to gamble? Okay, you get 48 hours free of air attack, because you killed so many people yesterday. Is that what this is supposed to mean?

 

AMY GOODMAN: In an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, it voted Sunday not for a cessation of hostilities -- the U.S. was opposed to that -- but to deplore what happened in Qana and an end to the violence. I asked Robert Fisk to respond.

 

ROBERT FISK: John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has consistently opposed any kind of ceasefire, because he believes, as Mr. Bush does and as our own dear prime minister, Lord Blair, as I call him, does, that the Israelis can accomplish these hopeless political military aims. Well, the Israelis believe that they can actually destroy one of the most disciplined and most ruthless guerrilla armies in the world. They can't, anymore than the Americans could destroy the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese or British could destroy the IRA. And, believe me, the Hezbollah are not as weak and cowardly as the IRA was. But they can't. These are hopeless political aims. All the United Nations is doing by postponing a ceasefire is condemning more Lebanese to death. I wrote in Saturday’s paper, before Qana, that the actions of Blair and Bush, and Bolton by extension, and Condoleezza Rice, were going to condemn more innocents to death.

 

You know, I went into a hospital in Marjayoun last week, and I saw this very beautiful young woman lying in bed, and her skin had been pitted with very familiar wounds, the little tiny round crimson holes of cluster bomblets. We used cluster bombs in Iraq in 2003. I know exactly what the wounds look like. I identified them at once. Indeed, she described the cluster bombs falling like grapes, as she put it, out of the sky, oddly enough an expression used by an Iraqi woman in 2003 to me. This young woman had been wounded 48 hours before I saw her. Had Bush and Blair insisted on a ceasefire at the beginning, this woman, her skin would not be destroyed in the way it has been.

 

On the ground, when you're here, when you see the wounded, see the dead, you realize the immorality, the obscenity, the atrocity of statesmen, as they think they are, claiming that, you know, it isn't yet time for a ceasefire. A hasty ceasefire would not be a good thing, as Condoleezza Rice said. 24 hours before, I saw a picture of her on a beach in Malaysia. And people remember this. People remember this. In the hospital it was a young man who said -- turned to me, he said, “Why have you done this to us? Why have you done this to us?” And the woman I was talking to said the same: “Why does the West want to do this to us?”

 

You know, this has been going on for more than two weeks now. I’m traveling around the south, increasingly outraged at what I see, as a human being. And I’m not a Muslim. I’m not a Muslim. And I keep saying to myself, “If I was a Muslim, how much more outraged might I be?” I turned to an American friend of mine tonight back in Beirut before I came home, and I said, “You know, I’ve been watching this now for more than two weeks, and there's going to be another 9/11.” There’s going to be another 9/11, and then we’re going to hear all the usual claptrap about how it’s good versus evil, and they hate us because we’re good and democratic, and they hate our values, and all the other material that comes out of the rear end of a bull that your president and my prime minister talk.

 

What’s going on in southern Lebanon is an outrage. It’s an atrocity. The idea that more than 600 civilians must die because three Israeli soldiers were killed and two were captured on the border by the Hezbollah on July 12, my 60th birthday -- I’ve spent 30 years of my life watching this, this filth now, you know -- is outrageous. It’s against all morality to suggest that 600 innocent civilians must die for this. There is no other country in the world that could get away with this.

 

You know, when -- I wrote in my paper last week, there were times when the IRA would cross from the Irish Republic into northern Ireland to kill British soldiers. And they did murder and kill British soldiers. But we, the British, didn’t hold the Irish government responsible. We didn't send the Royal Air Force to bomb Dublin power stations and Galway and Cork. We didn't send our tanks across the border to shell the hill villages of Cavan or Monaghan or Louth or Donegal. Blair wouldn't dream of doing that, because he believes he's a moral man, he’s a civilized man. He wouldn't treat another nation like that.

 

But when the Israelis treat Lebanon like that, it's okay, and Blair doesn't want a ceasefire. You can’t have a real ceasefire. In other words, we've got to have the Lebanese on their knees to sign the dotted line, before we give them a ceasefire. And that dotted line means the disarmament of Hezbollah, which will be impossible for the Lebanese to do without restarting the civil war, because to disarm Hezbollah, you must use the army, and most of the Hezbollah are, of course, Shiite Muslims, and most of the army are Shiite Muslims. So you’re going to have brothers assaulting brothers to take their weapons away. It will not happen. However much you may wish it and however much I may wish it, it won't happen. And, again, this double morality: Blair wouldn't dream of attacking the Irish Republic because the IRA crossed the border from Ireland, but it’s quite in order for Israel to attack the Lebanese Republic because the Hezbollah crossed the border from Lebanon.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon. He had just returned from Tyre, where victims of the Qana bombing had been taken. We'll play part two of this interview tomorrow on Democracy Now!

 

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