Israel's security cabinet approved early Tuesday a widening of the ground offensive in Lebanon while Syria's president called on his army to "raise readiness" against "regional challenges."

"Now they're killing people twice, when we are living and when we're dead."

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al- Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab Population."
Moshe Dayan, Address to the Technion, Haifa ( as quated in Ha'aretz, 4 April 1969)

An Israeli tank shell killed a 16-year-old Palestinian civilian in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza on Monday, Palestinian emergency services said.

Hezbollywood? Evidence mounts that Qana collapse and deaths were staged

...in the case of Qana, the world's media was duped in a cruel and colossal hoax by a terror organization that knows no moral bounds in its exploitation of suffering and anti-Israel hatred. But, as usual, the only party expected to pay the full price will be Israelis.

I'm speechless...

Over a mess-tent dinner of turkey cutlets, the bony-faced 21-year-old private from West Texas looked right at me as he talked about killing Iraqis with casual indifference...

Empathy, love, understanding, compassion, intelligence, wisdom, real...???
Money, competition, TV, materialism, empty, uneducated, poor, fake...!!!
It's called the American Dream.
And pretty much the whole world is dreaming it.
...forced to dream it.
Indocrinated, brainwashed, conditioned, bribed, neurotic.

It's not natural. No way.

The American Dream' Dreamer --> "I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever."

A booklet published in 1973 by the Central Region Command of the Israeli army --> "When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even should be killed ... Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilized ... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good."

During the first months of the current Palestinian initfada, it was common for Israeli army spokespeople to justify killing Palestinian children throwing stones by saying that they "threatened human life."

In this context, it is entirely justified to see Israel's second massacre in Qana as the rule, not the exception.

"It's forbidden to agree to an immediate ceasefire," Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told parliament.

According to the Geneva conventions when mass murder takes place and when one country one people takes it on themselves to bomb and destroy residential neighborhoods, this is a war crime.
...'collective punishment of a population', is a war crime.
No country or people has the right to cause 800,000 refugees as Israel has just done in Lebanon.

"There is no cease-fire and they're won't be any cease-fire in the coming days," Olmert said in a speech to a meeting of mayors in Tel Aviv late today.
"This is an almost one-time opportunity to change the rules of the game in Lebanon."

...and Bush in Florida --> "The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East."
"To achieve the peace that we want, we must achieve certain clear objectives."

"If there is any respect for human rights - and indeed self-respect and dignity of human life - left anywhere in the world, it warrants that the Israeli political and military leaders be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and their allies be tried as accessories before, during and after the fact."

"The savagery of Israel's war machine must stop now unconditionally, unreservedly, without hesitancy or delay. This is non-negotiable."

"Iran's peaceful nuclear program poses no threat to global peace and security," Javad Zarif said, adding that the UN's resolution was legally groundless and of no practical use.

"The people and government of the Islamic Republic are not seeking a confrontation and have always been ready for sincere and constructive talks on the basis of mutual respect and equality. But they have also been firm in the face of pressure, threats and injustice," he added.

Iran is a significant, respected player in the Middle East which is playing a stabilizing role, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Monday.

"...a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region," he told a news conference.

The Toronto Star, Linda McQuaig --> ...a slaughter is taking place in Lebanon, only this time those allowing the slaughter to take place are running the governments of the United States, Britain - and Canada.

Robert Fisk --> You must have a heart of stone not to feel the outrage that those of us watching this experienced yesterday. This slaughter was an obscenity, an atrocity ­ yes, if the Israeli air force truly bombs with the " pinpoint accuracy'' it claims, this was also a war crime. Israel claimed that missiles had been fired by Hizbollah gunmen from the south Lebanese town of Qana ­ as if that justified this massacre. Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked about "Muslim terror" threatening " western civilisation" ­ as if the Hizbollah had killed all these poor people.

Historians, many of them Israeli, have shown us that the history of Israel is not one of defense against aggression. It is instead a litany of aggressions in which civilian life, as long as it is not Jewish, is expendable. And yet the Israeli state and much of its citizenry continue to cloak themselves in mantle of victimhood and the discourse of self-protection.

Justin Raimondo --> They're building Fortress Israel, an impregnable redoubt of Zionism. But they have no intention of hunkering down and luxuriating in a U.S.-taxpayer-supported isolationism. From the security of their base they can expand and extend Israeli influence into Syria, Kurdistan, and beyond, taking their place as the regional hegemon, overshadowing even the United States.

Mulham Assir --> Who is "Al Qaeda" really? For whom do they speak and who benefits from what that say and from the timing of their statements? While the incorrigibly corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are at the forefront of the promotion of US-cum-Israeli foreign policy in the Middle East, the powers-that-be had to think of something, a wild-card with which they could taint their lackeys before world public opinion, a joker they could save for a rainy day, just in case. I once had a history teacher who told my class: "Beware, for in politics, there is no such thing as a coincidence."

For all those who think that Israel is run by the most despicable, racist and repressive regime in the world here is some very bad news indeed.

Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective global future.

CNN: Explain something to us, why would you not try to be shooting these Katusha missiles, or rockets I should say - they're not missiles at all - they're rockets. Why would Israel not be trying to shoot them out of the sky? They have the capability to do that.

Israeli spokeswoman: No, Rosemarie, these are Katusha rockets which they fire a barrel a dozen and the fact that there haven't been casualties in Israel shouldn't necessarily be held against us .

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy."


All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said.

The basic modus operandi of the US media has been well established over the past two-and-a-half weeks. The war cannot be mentioned without claiming that Hezbollah, always referred to as a terrorist organization, ignited the Israeli onslaught by seizing two soldiers.

The efforts of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has given Israel the green light to carry out its attacks, are inevitably referred to as a "peacekeeping mission." Israel's wanton violence is described as "self-defense."

In the morning following the massacre at Qana, the US media scrambled to provide explanations for the horrible event. In the first place, American television refused to show images of the mangled, bloody bodies that television audiences in the rest of the world were seeing. "We cannot show this," they said.

Why not? The level of US government censorship is staggering. A decision was reached during the night that the American public simply could not be allowed to see the reality of the Qana massacre.

Reports of the deaths of dozens of women and children were immediately followed by "Israeli officials say ...," "the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) points out ...," "the government in Tel Aviv explains that ..."

A mass murder is committed, and the US media rushes first to interview the murderer and get his side of the story.

In order to understand the racist brutality of the latest Qana massacre, it is instrumental to look at the previous Qana massacre in 1996.

Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Monday, hours after agreeing to temporarily halt raids for 48 hrs.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz made clear that Israel would not agree to an immediate cease-fire and in fact planned to expand military operations in Lebanon.

Children, possibly as young as six, will be subjected to compulsory fingerprinting under European Union rules being drawn up in secret. The prints will be stored on a database which could be shared with countries around the world.

Russia to defend its principal Middle East ally...

Los Angeles Times --> America and Tehran are battling for influence in the Mideast, with Israel and Hezbollah doing the fighting. It's a 'proxy war,' a U.S. official says.

Israel has virtually destroyed the infrastructure of Lebanon.
It's high-tech ethnic cleansing.

The party who employs the human shield MUST assume that their adversary will hesitate to fire against those shields for fear of harming them.

But in order for that to happen, the adversary must first CARE about the welfare of the so-called "human shields."

If the opposing party DOES NOT CARE about their welfare, then the alleged objective of deterring aggression falls apart.

In this case, Israel has proved time and again, beyond ANY reasonable doubt, that they ARE NOT deterred in any manner whatsoever from employing overwhelming force against whatever target they see fit, regardless of whether civilians are in the area.

Gideon Levy --> The devastation we are sowing in Lebanon doesn't touch anyone here and most of it is not even shown to Israelis. Those who want to know what Tyre looks like now have to turn to foreign channels - the BBC reporter brings chilling images from there, the likes of which won't be seen here. How can one not be shocked by the suffering of the other, at our hands, even when our north suffers? The death we are sowing at the same time, right now in Gaza, with close to 120 dead since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, 27 last Wednesday alone, touches us even less. The hospitals in Gaza are full of burned children, but who cares? The darkness of the war in the north covers them, too.

Is there any better sign of how we have lost our senses and our humanity?

Olmert's plan is simple: Security buffer zones in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. These plans are perfectly suited for the Bush administration?s policy in the war on terror. The idea is to prevent real peace from ever taking root in the Middle East. No one holds the key to peace in the Middle East except the United States. History did not start two or three weeks ago when a couple of Israeli soldiers were captured.

Far from winding down, the controversial US detention centre is expanding.

Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations, but did not include the Palestinian militant movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group, both regarded as terrorists in Washington.

Israel agrees to cease air strikes for 48 hours in order to allow investigation into Qana attack to be completed; says will enable free passage for southern Lebanese wishing to leave region, operate 'humanitarian corridors' with UN

"All the residents were warned and called to leave."

The top U.S. general in Iraq had hoped to be able to recommend what he called a "fairly significant" reduction in U.S. troops in the country this year. Instead, on Thursday Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the general's request for 3,500 more troops. And that follows the general's decision to call in a reserve brigade from Kuwait earlier this year. Each brigade has about 3,500 troops.

It was dark when the missiles came to this small mountain village. The children were asleep. With a sudden crack, the roof and a second floor were punched in on top of them. Dirt was forced into mouths. Bodies were broken.

The airstrikes continued through the night, survivors said, and it was not until morning that neighbors were able to reach those buried inside.

VideoDoc --> Israel bombs mentally handicapped children in Qana, Lebanon...

...they are allowed to execute that kind of atrocities. They have their own green light.

UN is rendered useless.
Red Cross unable.
Media = Propaganda + Brainwashing
Human Rights...what human? what rights?
USA knows best.
State of Israel is untouchable.
The whole world is paralyzed.

We all know, or should I say, we feel that something is terribly wrong...

9/11 and PoliceState, Gaza and Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, Africa and South America, microchip and constitution, environment and healthcare, banks and oil...

Yet, we the people of the world are unable to do much.
We are allowed to scream, beg, plead, course...Nothing happens. Nobody listens.
A group of fellow planet dwellers is going crazy...We don't like it and don't approved it, but...
They go on and on...
They know better.

...And we know they have further plans for us.

Powerless, that is how I feel.
...you?

Happy?
Guilty?
Helpless?
Angry?
Empty?
Pride?
vengeance?
Love?
Hate?
Fear?
Excitement?

...you must feel something...it's the War, evil, injustice, tears, pain, ego, a lot of staff... and all this is happening as we speak.

Powerless...
Cheated...
Enslaved...
Killed...

We, all, are dying in Lebanon and Gaza.

"We will not blink in front of Hizbollah and we will not stop the offensive despite the difficult circumstances. It is the right thing to do."

The death toll from Israel's 19-day offensive against Lebanon has risen to around 750, the Lebanese health minister said today.

An Israeli strike that devastated a building in Qana killed at least 56 people, including at least 34 children.

Israeli missiles hit a building where families had been taking refuge during the night in the southern town of Qana, making it the deadliest single strike in the Israeli campaign.

"France condemns this unjustifiable action which shows more than ever the need to agree on an immediate ceasefire, without which these kind of tragedies will only be repeated," Chirac said in a statement.

In Qana, corpses continue to be rescued from rubble. In Beirut, demonstrations condemning Israel's massacre. Demonstrators demand Hizbullah take revenge on Israel, vandalize UN building in city.

There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjuntion with measures of wealth. A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the Government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier.

The Pentagon is keeping a close eye on what its troops post online, with special attention being paid to videos that show the aftermath of combat.

The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked.

"Proper escalation of force was used," he told an investigator...

Then, on June 15, Sergeant Lemus offered a new and much darker account -->

A black coat of oil now covers the Lebanese capital's once-beautiful sandy Mediterranean shore, spilled from a power plant that was knocked down by Israeli warplanes two weeks ago.

...the country's worst ever environmental disaster.

About 80 miles of Lebanon's shores had been affected by a spill of more than 110,000 barrels of oil from the Jiyeh plant, about 12 miles south of Beirut.

"We feel that what he is doing is very good," said Hamed Azir, a 21-year-old student in Ramallah.
"People like him and want him to keep doing it. This is the first time someone is doing something against Israel."

Israel dismissed Hezbollah's offer as disingenuous and said it was an indication of the guerrillas' weakness on the battlefield.

Charles 'FullofHate' Krauthammer --> Britain did it, United States did it...now Israel has a chance.

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.
...as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."

Disproportionate? No.

When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right -- legal and moral -- to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again.

...what about Lebanon and Gaza? Are they allowed to 'carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again'?

Then the bombs started falling, and we could only stand on the barricades of our hotel balcony and watch it all disappear -- again.

At least 10 phone calls were made to Israeli commanders over a period of six hours warning that artillery and aerial bombardments were either dangerously close to or hitting the monitors' building.

The UN post, in Khaim just inside south Lebanon, was clearly marked and well-known to the army, but nonetheless it was hit directly four times in the last hour before an Israeli helicopter fired a precision-guided missile that tore through the roof of an underground shelter, killing the monitors inside. A UN convoy that arrived too late to rescue the peacekeepers was also fired on. From the evidence, it does not get much more deliberate than that.

Dahr Jamail --> "I care about my people, my country, and defending them from the Zionist aggression."

"I will never be a slave to the United States or Israel."

...Israel is waging a hidden war in Gaza.

It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and no protection from an fearsome battery of drones, precision missiles, tank shells and artillery rounds.
The operation is codenamed "Samson's Pillars", a collective punishment of the 1.4 million Gazans, subjecting them to a Lebanese-style offensive that has targeted the civilian infrastructure by destroying water mains, the main power station and bridges.

...yesterday, 12-year-old Anas Zumlut joined the ranks of dead Palestinians, numbering more than 100. His body was wrapped in a funeral shroud, just like those of the two sisters, a three-year-old and an eight-month-old baby, who were killed three days ago in the same area.

Jewish groups across the Puget Sound region moved to increase security on Saturday as the police identified a Muslim man who they say shot six people, killing one, in the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle a day earlier.

Robert Fisk --> ...a young girl lying in a hospital bed, swathed in bandages, her beauty scarred for ever by some familiar wounds; the telltale dark-red holes in her skin made by cluster bombs, the weapon we used in Iraq to such lethal effect and which the Israelis are now using to punish the civilians of southern Lebanon.

..."we must recognize that Lebanon is the latest flashpoint in a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region."

"We saw the consequences on September the 11th, 2001, when terrorists brought death and destruction to our country, killing nearly 3,000 innocent Americans."

"The only way to secure our Nation is to change the course of the Middle East -- by fighting the ideology of terror and spreading the hope of freedom."

"So we have launched a forward strategy for freedom in the broader Middle East, and that strategy has set in motion a transformation."

"From Kabul to Baghdad, to Beirut, and beyond..."

"...courageous leaders in the region have stepped forward to defend freedom and set the Middle East on a better course."

"This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic. Yet it is also a moment of opportunity..."

"...the consequences will be profound -- for our country and the world."

"Thank you for listening."
Adolf Bush Saturday July 29,2006

"The international force proposed by Condoleezza Rice ... will occupy southern Lebanon and it, instead of Israel, will be charged with eradicating the Lebanese national resistance," said an editorial in the official Tishrin daily on Saturday.

..."an occupation force" that would do Israel's job.

Her visit comes after Israel rejected calls by the UN for a three day truce to allow the safe passage of aid to trapped civilians in southern Lebanon. Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner blamed militants for the problem.

Hizbollah's leader said on Saturday that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed to impose conditions on Lebanon and serve Israeli interests in her mission to end war between his group and Israel.

An Israeli air strike has closed the main border crossing from Lebanon into Syria, witnesses and officials say.

A separate strike wounded two UN monitors in their observation post, the UN said, days after four were killed.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to Jerusalem on Saturday to discuss ways to end the 18-day-old war in Lebanon as Israel rejected a U.N. plea for a truce to aid civilians trapped by fighting.

"There is no need for a 72-hour temporary ceasefire because Israel has opened a humanitarian corridor to and from Lebanon," said Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner.

An international medical charity has said that Israel's promised humanitarian aid corridors in south Lebanon are an illusion and that rockets have landed close to its teams two days in a row.

"It's a kind of humanitarian alibi because in effect there is no real humanitarian access in the south," said Christopher Stokes of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders.

"The international community is deluding itself, if it believes there is."

It is certainly a myth that Nero played a fiddle while Rome burned, but it is true Condi Rice, Bush?s Secretary of State, played the piano in Kuala Lumpur as Lebanese continue to die under a hard rain of Israeli bombs and apparently chemical weapons.

Three-judge panel unanimously says that border police may conduct random searches of laptops without search warrants or probable cause. These searches can include seizing the laptop and subjecting it to extensive forensic analysis.

For the second time in three days, CNN featured a segment on the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East.

Americans generally approve of President Bush's handling of the current Mideast crisis.
...6 in 10 say the president is not respected by foreign leaders.

Lebanese Areas Targeted -->

...check out what 'american idol' is doing in Gaza -->

or

...see the america's favored 'fear factor' in Lebanon -->

"The atmosphere in Syria is in every way an atmosphere of war, or at least of the eve of war."

The Syrian army has identified intensive activity of the Israeli army on the Golan Heights. At first they identified lights on some of the bases at night in Syria. We have noticed a rehabilitation and revival of the Israeli military bases on the Golan on which no one has set foot for more than ten years. We see Israeli soldiers rehabilitating these bases and equipping them."

the Toronto Star --> The images of the air war on Lebanon are by now etched on the world's conscience: civilians ordered out of their villages stranded on bombed-out roads or being bombed themselves; medical and relief convoys hit; UN peacekeepers, including a Canadian, killed; highways littered with the dead, and hospitals bursting with bloodied children and people with limbs torn off.

Israel says it does not target civilians...

The Independent --> Eisenhower ended the Suez war in 1956, and America could do it now...

Following the ceaseless bombing of Lebanon, Fox News has gone thermonuclear in its mission to drive fear into the hearts of Americans by insisting that Hezbollah's use of a nuclear device in a major US or Israeli city is inevitable and that only increased surveillance of Americans can stop it.

The United States blocked the UN Security Council from issuing a statement that would have condemned Israel's bombing of a UN post on the Lebanon border that killed four military observers overnight Tuesday.

The Israeli government, however, did not give a single moment for diplomacy, negotiations, or even cool reflection over the situation.

The speed at which everything happened (along with many other pieces of information) indicates that Israel has been waiting for a long time for 'the international conditions to ripen' for the massive war on Lebanon it has been planning. In fact, one does not need to speculate on this...

...professor claimed during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.

"The bodies don't look like they normally do. After an explosion there were no traces of blood loss or subcutaneous haemorrhages [bruises]," Cham said via mobile phone direct from Beirut.

"The hair and sometimes the beard and the moustache remained intact. I found no traces of the pressure wave by the
explosion. The colour of the skin was black like a shoe, but the skin was not carbonised or burnt."

Israel has issued new censorship guidelines banning reporting of the "use of unique kinds of ammunition and weaponry" in Lebanon. This comes amid reports that Israel is using chemical weapons against civilians in Lebanon. Below is the text of the guidelines, sent to international and local news organizations by the chief Israeli military censor, Colonel Sima Vaknin-Gil, on 23 July.

And the Bush Administration is standing by?and standing by?and doing almost nothing?until what happens? The devastating and immoral attacks by Israel on Lebanon?s people, infrastructure and land seem, somehow, rather disproportionate.
...when was the last time one country destroyed another in order to retrieve two kidnapped soldiers? And didn?t Israel just recently kidnap a good fraction of the Hamas leadership during its foray into Gaza?

Lebanon is the victim of something more than meets the eye.

...what is really going on in the Middle East?

Israeli armoured personnel carriers headed on Thursday towards the Lebanese town of Bint Jbail, where the army said it was still fighting "terrorists".

The mass-circulation Yedioth Aharonoth headlined a quote from an unnamed military commander: "Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed."

Senior officials with the Justice Department and intelligence urged Congress yesterday to approve new laws to accommodate the government's warrantless eavesdropping program.

Only the bloodstains on their white shrouds spoke of the tragedy that had unfolded. Two Palestinian girls, one just eight months old, were dead. They were killed when an Israeli tank shell struck a house near Jabalya in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel carried out a new air strike in the Gaza Strip early on Thursday morning.

An Open Letter to George W. Bush...

The Israeli army killed five Palestinians on Thursday, including a 75-year-old woman and a child, one day after the Gaza Strip suffered its deadliest violence since Israel launched its offensive last month.

Israel says decision by key world powers not to call for a halt to its Lebanon offensive has given it the green light to continue.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday called Israel's interpretation of the Rome conference outcome a "gross misunderstanding," insisting the declaration in no way indicated the Israelis should continue their offensive in Lebanon.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon said earlier that Israel interpreted the lack of consensus at Rome as a green light to continue its attacks on Hizbullah.

"I would say just the opposite - yesterday [Wednesday] in Rome, it was clear that everyone present wanted to see an end to the fighting as swiftly as possible," Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.

Top army commanders have recommended that the Government approve a wider campaign, military and government officials said.

Unfortunately, dear readers, there appears to be no end to this tragedy. Ms Rice has come to the Middle East with no brief. She only brings empty words and rhetoric. It is obvious by now that her hands are tied and she or anyone in Washington is in no position to offer a solution to bring this war to an end. Thanks to the Lobby, this administration is in no position to rein in Israel or ask it to call off this murderous offensive.

Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli air strike that demolished a post belonging to the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

Amidst international outrage over the bombing of a UN post in Lebanon that killed four peacekeepers, the Israeli military says an investigation will be held.

The probe however will not be independent, it will be conducted by the military itself.

Israel's government on Thursday called up at least 30,000 troops to begin training for duty in the offensive against Hezbollah, and Lebanese officials estimated a civilian death toll as high as 600 with fighting in its third week.

"THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA HAS UNDERSTAKEN THE ROLE REQUIRED OF IT BY ITS RELIGIOUS AND NATIONAL DUTY WITH REGARD TO THE SITUATION IN THE REGION AND REPERCUSSIONS OF EVENTS IN LEBANON AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES. IN THIS REGARD, IT HAS CAUTIONED, WARNED AND EXTENDED ADVICE. FURTHERMORE, IT HAS STRIVEN FROM THE FIRST MOMENT TO STOP THE AGRRESSION, MOVING ON MORE THAN ONE FRONT AND BY MORE THAN ONE MEANS, TO PERSUADE THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO FORCE ISRAEL TO AGREE TO A CEASEFIRE.

THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA CALLS ON ALL TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HONEST, CONSCIOUS AND INTERNATIONAL MORAL AND HUMANITARIAN LAWS. IT ALSO WARNS ALL THAT IF THE PEACE OPTION IS REJECTED DUE TO THE ISRAELI ARROGANCE THEN ONLY THE WAR OPTION REMAINS AND NO ONE KNOWS THE REPERCUSSIONS BEFALLING THE REGION, INCLUDING WARS AND CONFLICT THAT WILL SPARE NO ONE INCLUDING THOSE WHOSE MILITARY POWER IS NOW TEMPTING THEM TO PLAY WITH FIRE."

Haaretz, Ze'ev Maoz --> There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.

This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion.

The U.N. observers killed when an Israeli bomb hit their bunker in Lebanon Tuesday called an Israeli military liaison about 10 times in the six hours before they died to warn that aerial attacks were getting close to their position, a U.N. officer said.

Since 9/11, numerous authors and researchers have drawn attention to training exercises being conducted or prepared for by the U.S. military and other government agencies at the time of the September 11 attacks. With names like Vigilant Guardian, Global Guardian, Timely Alert II, and Tripod, the question has arisen as to what connection these drills might have had with real-world events that morning.

Much of the discussion will likely focus on efforts by the Europeans and others to overcome strong U.S. and British opposition to an immediate cease-fire.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and Iran's nuclear program with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

The White House has drafted legislation covering trials of terror detainees that would allow hearsay evidence and let defendants be excluded from trials to protect national security.

...the draft says they "may be tried and punished at any time without limitations."

The draft legislation would bar "statements obtained by the use of torture" for use as evidence, but evidence obtained in interrogations where coercion was used would be admissible.

Encased in lightweight climate-controlled body armour, humming with electricity and bristling with sensors, this fighting man-machine is constantly updated with battlefield information via a glowing monocular display. Meet the soldier of the future.

Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., a 40-year-old black man in a Southern Mississippi jail, was allegedly hooded and hog-tied by police, beaten about the head and testicles and ultimately died from blunt injuries to the head.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is at the centre of a diplomatic storm after accusing Israel of deliberately bombing a UN observer post in southern Lebanon, killing at least two peacekeepers.

Dan Gillerman, Israel's UN ambassador, reacted furiously, describing Mr Annan's comments as "premature and erroneous".

"He went far too far for the seasoned and experienced diplomat that he is. I think that his statement was irresponsible, unfortunate and deplorable," Mr Gillerman said.

U-N chief Kofi Annan says the nations gathering in Rome this week to seek an end to the Mideast violence can't afford to leave "empty-handed."
Annan says they need to find a concrete strategy for ensuring lasting peace, or they'll "once again dash the hopes" of those caught in the middle.

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. The announcement raised the prospect of a more protracted Israeli involvement in Lebanon than the political and military leadership previously signaled or publicly sought.

Pollution, destructive overfishing and increasing commercial exploitation are threatening the planet?s cradle of life, warns the UN.

Chairman of Meretz MK Yossi Beilin filed a petition to the High Court of Justice Tuesday against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's failure to officially declare the war in Lebanon, thus preventing northern residents from being able to collect compensation for war damages according to the law.

With many Lebanese civilians still hiding in their homes in refugee camps and villages in southern Lebanon, afraid to flee after hearing of convoys of evacuees being hit by Israeli airstrikes, Israeli military officials announced that they are establishing a 'kill zone' across many of those villages, in which anything that moves will be killed.

A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.

See how disproportionate the whole war is...

An Israeli bomb destroyed a UN observer post on the border in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing four peacekeepers, a UN official said.

UN chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.
The dead included observers from Canada, Austria, China and Finland, a senior Lebanese military official said

Israeli intelligence sources tell NBC News that among the targets hit in Lebanon are as many as a dozen financial institutions ? part of a previously secret campaign to destroy Hezbollah's financial infrastructure. Some banks were demolished, others deliberately damaged but not destroyed. In one case, Israel also took out a bank manager's home.

Human Rights Watch said that Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon, killing a civilian, and called on the Jewish state to immediately cease the practice.

The New York-based rights group said researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that Israel staged a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19.

The report said researchers had also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams stationed at the Lebanese border.

Israel withdraws unilaterally? Diplomatic settlement? Israel snared in counter-insurgency? Lebanese government falls? Israel invades Lebanon?

Toronto Star --> no matter how many bombs it rains down on Lebanon, no matter how many villages taken, no matter how battles won, Israel will lose the war of world opinion.

...the pictures tell their own stories. Too bad the mainstream media are not publishing them.

So the chronology of war has been reorganized: now we are being told that Israel was forced to attack Lebanon to defend itself from the barrage of Hezbollah rockets falling on Israeli civilians. The international community is buying the argument hook, line, and sinker. ?Israel has the right to defend itself," says every politician who can find a microphone to talk into.

More than a dozen vehicles of fleeing civilians have been hit by Israeli artillery or warplanes, leaving tens of thousands of refugees too scared to leave overwhelmed cities such as Tyre.

"It's time to let the Israelis take off the gloves?. Israel needs to hit the [Syrian] Assad regime. Hard."

And thus it has reached this new stage, where without warning, the telephone or cellular phone rings in a Palestinian home. The caller is an Israeli intelligence officer who speaks weak Arabic. He speaks little and has only specific words to say, "We are from the Israeli Defence Force. Leave the house - we will destroy it in half an hour."

A must read --> "I, Tsilli Goldenberg, Israeli citizen...
Accuse you - Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel, Amir Peretz, Minister of Defense, Dan Halutz Head of Staff Chief Commander of the Israeli Army, of committing this bestial barbaric slaughter in Lebanon.

I accuse you of committing Crimes against Humanity towards the Palestinian People. I accuse you of deserting our soldiers, when their lives could be saved by negotiations, and I accuse you of starting an unjustified war in my name." - Tsilli Goldenberg, Masarik 11, Jerusalem 93106 Israel

Rice told her Lebanese counterparts that she was "deeply concerned about the Lebanese people and what they are enduring."

She brought blankets to prove it.

You're going straight to HELL, Condi...and you know it.

"Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they did nothing wrong," said one federal air marshal.

These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR.

Toronto Star --> "They're not fighting Hezbollah. They're fighting the population"

Israel's bombing of Gaza's only power plant and other infrastructure was a disproportionate use of force that has had profound humanitarian consequences, the United Nations' chief aid official said on Tuesday.

"Civilian infrastructure is protected. The law is very clear. You cannot have any interpretation in any other way."

The ambulance headlamps were on, the blue light overhead was flashing, and another light illuminated the Red Cross flag when the first Israeli missile hit, shearing off the right leg of the man on the stretcher inside. As he lay screaming beneath fire and smoke, patients and ambulance workers scrambled for safety, crawling over glass in the dark. Then another missile hit the second ambulance.

Even in a war which has turned the roads of south Lebanon into killing zones, Israel's rocket strike on two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances on Sunday night set a deadly new milestone.

The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of its much-vaunted military apparatus.

Pepe Escobar --> As southern Lebanon is turned into a wasteland mirroring the Gaza gulag, Washington neo-cons may stridently celebrate the contours of a final solution for the Hamas-Hezbollah "problem". Or should they?

Nearly daily pounding halted during US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Beirut yesterday.

...and today, back to bombing.

On the 13th day of Israel's offensive, its forces moved one step deeper into Lebanon.

Israel "is taking Lebanon backward 50 years and the result will be Lebanon's destruction," Fuad Saniora told Rice, the prime minister's office said.

It is essential for the US and its allies to abide by the same rules they seek to impose on others. This principle is being flouted.

The Bush administration's contempt for the United Nations Charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the other fundamental principles of international law has once again been laid bare by its defense of the ongoing Israeli assault against Lebanon.

Israel's wanton bombing of Lebanese civilians is an unequivocal war crime.

States are obliged to protect Lebanon, militarily if necessary, lest international law become a travesty.

If the Security Council won't act, the General Assembly can and must.

Prof. Jorge Hirsch --> ...and then the blaming will wither away as a three-billion-year old experiment, life on planet Earth, comes to an end.

Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark...

Paul Craig Roberts --> There never was any doubt of the Bush Regime's complicity in Israel's naked aggression against the Lebanese civilian population. Bush has protected Israel from world condemnation. Bush has blocked those who attempted to bring a stop to Israel's bombing of residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, and now Bush rushes more bombs for Israel to drop on Lebanon.

"... will go to war with Iran before the end of the year."

Are Iran and Syria Next?

By any interpretation of international law, Israel today is committing massive and egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity against the defenseless people of Palestine and Lebanon. It's doing it with the full support and encouragement of the US and willful compliance of the West.

Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq

Condoleezza Rice has described the plight of Lebanon as a part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East" and said that Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire.

...masters of the world have spoken.

The residents said eight bystanders were wounded in the strikes on houses in Gaza City and the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern part of the coastal territory.

Israel has killed 121 Palestinians in a month-long offensive in Gaza.

Israel is in the process of taking out every bridge, every power station, every civilian factory, or any other recognizable infrastructure in South Lebanon, creating 500,000 refugees, a "humanitarian disaster" in the making. And still they lust for more weapons of mass destruction, seeking to expedite a previous order for 5 ton laser guided bombs. As civilian deaths pass 400, the estimated property damage is already in the billions.

Meanwhile Israel is washing its hands of any responsibility (at least for the civilian deaths), with now the enthusiastic endorsement of our Congress, by saying it is dropping leaflets telling people to get out. Never mind that people are now desperately trapped because the roads are impassible due to the widespread destruction.

"Army chief of staff Dan Halutz has given the order to the air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the Dahaya district (of Beirut) in response to every rocket fired on Haifa," a senior air force officer told the station.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee says it will sue the U.S. Government, claiming that it failed to protect American citizens from the fighting in Lebanon.

The lawsuit, which was to be filed Monday on behalf of about 30 American citizens, alleges that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not take all possible steps to secure the safety and well being of U.S. citizens when fighting erupted between Israel and Hezbollah guerillas.

The committee is asking the U.S. District Court in Detroit to order the American government to request a cease fire and to stop shipments of weapons or any other military support to Israel during the evacuation of U.S. citizens from Lebanon.

It has nothing to do with hating Jews or favoring Arabs, and everything to do with simple humanity.

Israel bombarded Lebanon for a 12th day and took its first Hezbollah prisoners yesterday as a top UN official called its actions "disproportionate" and a violation of international humanitarian law amid intensive diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.

Israeli news media have reported that about 18,000 Israeli soldiers have now been mobilized for operations in Lebanon and Gaza.

Israel is directing a multimedia propaganda campaign at the besieged people of Southern Lebanon.

Mobile phone users are being bombarded with text messages and phone calls, and a local radio station has suddenly had reports broadcast from the Israeli government's point of view.

The shelling hit Beit Lahiya, a town of about 40,000 in the northern Gaza Strip.

Three Palestinians died and eight were wounded on Monday.

Rice met with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon before heading to Jerusalem to talk to Israeli officials.

White House officials said U.S. President George W. Bush remains opposed to an immediate ceasefire to stop violence in the Middle East, despite personal pleas from ally Saudi Arabia that he help stop the bloodshed.

NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren.

"Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

The rescue workers had extracted her through a jagged hole in the roof of the crumpled bus, created by a missile fired minutes earlier by an Israeli helicopter that had blasted the vehicle off the road. Left behind in the vehicle, slumped over each other and soaked in blood, were the bodies of three people.

"The United States is already at war with Iran," Koppel begins. "But for the time being the battle is being fought through surrogates."

More than 60 state lawmakers are urging the University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire an instructor who has argued that the U.S. government orchestrated the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Kevin Barrett has said he thinks the most likely theory about the 9/11 plot is that it was an "inside job" organized and commanded by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Officials said doctors discovered a decline in the functioning of Sharon's kidneys and that the former prime minister was accumulating liquids in his body.

Pictures -->

Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Lebanon today as Hezbollah answered with more rocket barrages.

Israeli warplanes struck a minibus carrying people fleeing the fighting Sunday in southern Lebanon, killing three people, Lebanese security officials said.

"Day by day, it becomes more evident that, as the crisis is widening, one must act as fast and efficiently as possible to stop bloodshed and violence and end the suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the destruction of civil infrastructure," Russia?s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"We consider it necessary to hold a meeting of all the nations and bodies that are really able to assist in overcoming the crisis," it said, adding that Beirut looked "the most optimal venue" and the meeting could be held early next week.

The leader of Greece's Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, accused Israel on Sunday of "sacrificing innocent civilians" in its bombardment of Lebanon.

"Israel's actions within its right to self defense have long exceeded any rational limit," Christodoulos said on Sunday.

"[They are] sacrificing innocent civilians by the hundreds, and creating refugees by the thousands," he added, telling the Israeli authorities, "Do not provoke our consciences. Do not feed the world condemnation against you. It is not in your interest...Fear God's wrath."

"The massive, brutal and murderous viciousness of Hezbollah is unfortunately not represented in its full intensity on television screens outside of Israel," Olmert told reporters.

"A twisted image is presented, where the victim is presented as an aggressor."

"Arrogant powers have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region," Ahmadinejad said. "But today, the occupier regime (Israel) - whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion - has reached its finishing line."

...the influential 24-year old White House liaison to the Jewish community, is putting out the call to prominent American Jewish organizations to support John Bolton -- with the arm-twisting innuendo that in this time of crisis in the Middle East, American Jews need to line up behind the guy Jesse Helms said "is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed in a cabinet meeting Sunday that "the IDF has all the time and the flexibility to carry out its mission. The army's operations are being carried out with no restraints."

"We offer our utmost support to the IDF. It has the necessary freedom of action. Even in the midst of a diplomatic process, our fire power will not be jeopardized," Olmert vowed.

Your organization wrote a letter to "Dear Ambassador Bolton", the US Ambassador to the UN. In this letter, you write: "we want to express our concern over the escalating crisis between Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine". Which "crisis" are you talking about? There is NO "crisis"...

Dr. Bashir Sham, member of "French Association of Cardiovascular Surgeons", explains that the way the corps look when they reach the hospital, especially those of the air strikes in Doueir and Rmayleih, is very abnormal." One might think they were burnt , but their colour is dark , they're inflated, and they have a terrible smell" All this , and the hair is not burnt nor do the bodies bleed.

A spokesman for the army , said on record that the Israelis are using "bombs with special fillings" that could include internationally forbidden material.

Warning: The attached pictures are hideously gruesome...

An Egyptian legal committee has warned of the serious consequences of the Israeli use of chemical weapons against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip for more than a week now, and have called for an international investigation of the claim.

The committee for citizens' rights in northern Sinai, adjacent to the Gaza Strip, charged that the Israeli warplanes have been releasing chemical materials against the Palestinian populace in the Strip for the past week.

William Blum --> The generally accepted definition of terrorism, used by the FBI and the United Nations amongst others, is: The use of violence against a civilian population in order to intimidate or coerce a government in furtherance of a political objective.

According to Lebanon's prestigious newspaper Al-Safeer, the arrested spy told Lebanon's secret agencies about the network of important Israeli cells within Beirut and south of Lebanon.

Sensitive tools and equipments were also recovered from the Israeli, who admitted to have marked several buildings in Beirut to help Israeli air strikers target them on point, it added.

The arrested spy was a key member of large-scale Israeli intelligence network in Beirut, it concluded.

Israeli warplanes struck Sidon early Sunday, targeting a religious building run by a Shiite Muslim cleric close to Hezbollah in their first hit inside the southern port city, currently swollen with refugees from fighting further south.

Also early Sunday, a huge explosion reverberated across Beirut, apparently caused by an Israeli air raid on the capital's southern suburbs.

...the Israeli jets fired two missiles that directly hit the four-story Sayyed al-Zahraa compound in Sidon. The compound, which contains a mosque, a religious library and a seminary, was entirely destroyed but was believed to be empty at the time of the strike.

"It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses," Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, told reporters as he toured the shattered Haret Hreik district. "It makes it a violation of humanitarian law."

"It's bigger, it's more extensive than I even could imagine," he said, surveying a pile of rubble.

Egeland said between half a million and a million people were in need of international assistance in Lebanon, but delivering aid required safe access. "So far Israel is not giving us access," he said.

The Israeli defence doctrine, old as Israel itself, considers the bombing of civilian targets a means for pressuring "militants" and uncooperative governments. So Israel bombs bridges and villages in South Lebanon, power plants in Gaza, orchards, fields, schools, hospitals, residential neighbourhoods, beach barbecue parties, etc. Everything is a legitimate target. Israeli ministers announce publicly that their chief strategy is to cause civilian suffering. Every day sees its Guernica, and the UN, which proudly displays a reproduction of the painting, is mum in the face of a hundred Guernicas.

To be clear, Israel's actions fit the very definition of terrorism. Doubly so now, since the bombing campaign is a response to attacks on Israeli soldiers, not civilians. The ever more morally bankrupt "international community" sees nothing, hears nothing and says nothing. Don't take my word for it. An aide of the Israeli Prime Minister said recently: "We are acting there [in Gaza] in an unprecedented manner; we're firing hundreds of artillery shells, attacking from the air, sea and land and the world remains silent."

As Israel continues to unleash its deadly firepower on a hapless Lebanon for a second week running, the United Nations remains paralysed and unable to take any action because of an indisputable fact of international politics: the unrestrained U.S. support for an intransigent Israel.

Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, has implicitly accused Israel of war crimes.

Yet, the 15-member U.N. Security Council, mandated to keep the peace and maintain international security, has remained ineffective...
...even after a desperate plea by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

Gazans feel intimately involved in events on Israel's northern border. Many see it as two fronts in the same battle. And they see Hassan Nasrallah as a leader, not only of Hezbollah, but also of the Palestinians.

Before the current crisis, many Palestinians were disillusioned with their new democracy - and their divided leaders. Now, Palestinians are again united against their powerful neighbour.

Gideon Levy --> The fact that George Bush and Tony Blair are cheering Israel might be consolation for Ehud Olmert and the media in Israel, but it is not enough to persuade millions of TV viewers who see the images of destruction and devastation, most of which are not shown to Israeli audiences. The world sees entire neighborhoods that have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing in panic, homeless, and hundreds of civilians dead and wounded including many children who have nothing to do with Hezbollah.

The torture of prisoners in US custody in Iraq was authorised and routine even after the Abu Ghraib scandal came to light, a US-based rights group says.

Soldiers' accounts show that detainees routinely faced severe beatings, sleep deprivation and other abuses for much of 2003-2005, Human Rights Watch says.

Soldiers who tried to complain about the abuse were rebuffed or ignored.

Israeli troops have moved into southern Lebanese villages and the first street fights have taken place as people there are told to get out before air strikes begin.

To grasp a better understanding of the escalation between the Israeli Northern Front (Historical Palestine) and Hezbollah (Party of Allah), which erupted on Wednesday July 13, the events leading up to crisis, particularly the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip, should be discussed.

First of all; the relentless massacres the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOFs) have systematically been conducting against Palestinian children, civilians, and their infrastructures since the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) was voted to power in late January must be mentioned...

Washington's self-styled "global war on terror" has cost the country at least 430 billion dollars over the past five years in military and diplomatic efforts, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog arm of the U.S. Congress.

"We're horrified following the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) for the past week ... to see what the destruction is from what they've done," she told reporters.

"We're pretty depressed, we're pretty upset. Sixteen people were killed here in Maghazi over the past days, 125 wounded, there are 80 families that are now without houses.

"All Israel is doing is feeding anger across the Middle East and they won't get peace that way."
"The only way they can achieve peace now is to sit down at the negotiating table."

Police said around 7,000 people joined the London protest as it snaked from the banks of the Thames to Hyde Park, first in brilliant sunshine and then in torrential rain.

Many carried red and white Lebanese flags and placards condemning "Israeli crimes in Lebanon."
"We are all Hizbollah. Boycott Israel" read one.
"Axis of evil: Bush, Blair, Olmert" another.

The UN's Jan Egeland said half a million people needed assistance - and the number was likely to increase.

One-third of the recent Lebanese casualties, he said, appeared to be children.

Pictures -->

On July 13, after she posted her views on torture and the Geneva Conventions, her blog was taken down and her security badge was revoked. On Monday, Axsmith was terminated by her employer, BAE Systems, which was helping the CIA test software.

Thousands march in Tel Aviv to protest Lebanon fighting, call on soldiers to refuse taking part in war. Clashes with passersby erupt during event, activists called 'traitors'

Reports from Gaza claim Palestinian organizations agree to Hamas initiative to stop shooting Qassams. Islamic Jihad and others express dissent.

Anyone can see that what Israel is doing is unacceptable, violent, cruel, evil and wicked. If Israel is behaving in the manner of a psychotic bullying child, then Britain and the US are like its mad tattooed parents.

Israeli warplanes hit TV transmission towers on Saturday in Lebanon, knocking the nation's leading private network off the air and cutting phone links to some regions.

Fighter bombers fired missiles at transmission stations in the central and northern Lebanese mountains, leaving antennas burning on the ground.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across the globe Friday to rally against the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, which one regional leader branded a "genocidal war."

Alan 'Sick Mind' Dershowitz --> THE NEWS IS filled these days with reports of civilian casualties, comparative civilian body counts and criticism of Israel, along with Hezbollah, for causing the deaths, injuries and "collective punishment" of civilians. But just who is a "civilian" in the age of terrorism, when militants don't wear uniforms, don't belong to regular armies and easily blend into civilian populations?

Alexander Cockburn --> The guiding rule in this tsunami of drivel is that the viewers should be denied the slightest access to any historical context, or indeed to anything that happened prior to June 28, which was when the capture of an Israeli soldier and the killing of two others by Hamas hit the headlines, followed soon thereafter by an attack by a unit of Hezbollah?s fighters.

Memory is supposed to stop in its tracks at June 28, 2006.

The IDF has started constructing a temporary detention center designed to hold the Lebanese prisoners that will be captured during army operations in Southern Lebanon.

Officials: Project attests to government's plans for large-scale ground incursion in Lebanon.

Let's just get something out of the way right up front, before I go any further. Zionism is not Judaism; being Jewish does not make anyone Zionist; and anti-Zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.

The Toronto Star --> What is the definition of defence and what are its acceptable limits?

Israel claims that Iranian hands are all over the bombs and training of Hezbollah and its arms.

The hypocrisy is not lost on any Arab, because we all know, especially those of us at the receiving end, that U.S. hands are all over Israeli bombs and ammunitions and war machines.

The argument is the same. The only difference appears to be who makes the accusations and which accusations "count" in this lopsided war.

President Bush says he is sending Rice to the Middle East to meet with regional leaders about the best way to resolve the conflict. "Secretary Rice will make it clear that resolving the crisis demands confronting the terrorist group that launched the attacks, and the nations that support it," said Bush.

That means Syria and Iran, which, the president says, have helped arm Hezbollah.

Israeli armoured vehicles were last night reported to have crushed a border fence and entered Lebanon, surrounding a United Nations observation post.

Israel massed tanks and troops on the Lebanese border on Friday, hours after calling up several thousand reserves, as the Jewish state tightened its military stranglehold on the country - knocking out a key bridge on the road to Syria and pummeling Hezbollah positions in the south.

At sundown, military officials said they were preparing for a possible invasion to destroy Hezbollah positions in the south of embattled Lebanon.

The YNET News website said the army was believed to be aiming to have three to four divisions massed on the border by the end of the weekend. An Israeli division normally includes about 5000 soldiers and around 100 tanks.

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

Pictures -->

"Failing to be seen to take visible action to resolve the crisis, or even presenting an option like trying to revive the peace process, makes the U.S. seem to be a partner to Israel with little regard for the Arab world," noted Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here in a report released Friday, entitled "The Road to Nowhere."

Washington's strong backing -- hedged by occasional calls for restraint -- for Israel's 10-day-old military campaign in Lebanon has won it very few friends in the Arab world.

xymphora --> It is only in the light of the ongoing crimes being committed by Israel in Lebanon that we can come to a full understanding of the real reason for the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

Lebanon in ruins -->

Embarrassing. Shameful. A travesty. Those kinds of words begin to describe the alliance between the United States and Israel. Here are a few more: Government criminality. High-tech terror. Mass murder from the skies.

Israel massed tanks and troops on the border, called up reserves and warned civilians to flee...

Chris Floyd --> Citizens, Attend! A Communication from the Divine Emperor Georgius Secundus Guber, Conqueror of Babylon, Scourge of Bactria, Groper of Germania, Teat of Succor to the Wealthy and Defender of the Faith-Based:

We have in our imperial wisdom have decided that our most steadfast and faithful satrap, Ehud Agrippa, lord lieutenant of the province of Judea, shall be allowed to continue his destruction of the Arab rabble in Tyre, in Sidon, in Beirut - yea, in all of the Lebanon shall there be no place safe from his sword. We have fixed the remaining duration of this most highly approved and unrestrained slaughter of troublesome vermin for the term of not less than one week, after which time we will deign to send our most beloved and comely Companion of the Throne, Condioryza, to our Phoenician and Judean domains, there to establish once more our imperial Peace.

Until that time, we send this stern counsel to the recalcitrant tribes who trouble our repose: Thou beasts, thou blocks, thou low and bitter things, it is best for you now to commend your hearts to the gods - for your posteriors belong to Ehud.

Citizens of the eleventh class, really not citizens at all, have no rights citizens of the first class or their government are bound to respect. Their residence is forbidden in nearly nine-tenths of the country, all of which they used to own. The areas left to them are cut up into smaller and smaller portions weekly, by high walls, free fire zones and hundreds of checkpoints manned by the army of the first class citizens, so that none can travel a dozen miles in any direction to work, school, shopping, a job, a farm, a business or a hospital without several long waits, humiliating searches and often arbitrary denials of the right to pass or to return.

Citizens of the eleventh class are routinely arrested, tortured, and held indefinitely without trial. Political activism among them is equated to ?terrorism? and the state discourages such activity by means including but not limited to the kidnapping of suspects and relatives of suspects, demolition of their family homes, and extralegal assassination, sometimes at the hands of a death squad, or at others times by lobbing missiles or five hundred pound bombs into sleeping apartment blocks or noonday traffic. Passports are not issued to these citizens, and those who take advantage of scarce opportunities to study or work abroad are denied re-entry.

The Canadian --> Israeli elites who bomb innocent Lebanese civilians are influenced by the Leo Strauss, who was a Zionist who sought to re-create German Nazism in a scheme of "World Domination".

Rabbi Weiss indicates that "The answer lies in one word - Zionism." Zionism is in fact, a form of neo-fascism. Having had many relatives who lost their lives in the Holocaust, the hypocritical Israeli elites now inflict their own brand of neo-fascism, in the form of militaristic and racist Zionism.

Rabbi Weiss indicates that "Zionism has misled some Jews into thinking that there exists a need to pursue aggressive policies against the Palestinian people (and other peoples in Middle East) to steal their land and persecute their people."
Rabbi Weiss refers to Zionism as "an embarrassment to the Torah Jew."

Fights broke out at the gate of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo on Friday when plainclothes security men stopped demonstrators taking to the streets with a protest against Israeli attacks on Lebanese and Palestinians.

Only in a world where the de facto ruler is a White male (with a red-neck mentality and an IQ well below triple digits) could Israel?s barbaric response to feeble Palestinian rocket attacks (that had registered zero fatalities) and to the capture of three of its soldiers (who were complicit in genocidal acts) be considered an act of ?self defense?.

In Bush?s alternate universe beyond the looking glass, logic, proportion and morality cease to exist. Israel has no more obligation to abide by the Geneva Conventions or UN Resolutions than the United States. Immunity and impunity are special privileges bestowed upon Washington and Tel Aviv.

Carpenters are running out of wood for coffins. Bodies are stacked three or four high in a truck at the hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble.

The morbid reality of Israel's bombing campaign of the south is reaching almost every corner of this city. Just a few kilometers from the Rest House hotel, where the United Nations was evacuating civilians Thursday, wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family who were bombed as they were trying to escape the village of Hosh, officials said.

Officials at the Tyre Government Hospital inside a Palestinian refugee camp said they had counted the bodies of 50 children among the 115 in the refrigerated truck in the morgue.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, heading for a weekend trip to the troubled Middle East, said Friday she would work with allies in the region to help create conditions for "stability and lasting peace."

She ruled out a quick cease-fire as a "false promise" and defended her decision not to talk to officials from Hizbullah or Syria.

Archivist uncovers dark side of famous explorer.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that the Israel Defense Forces had occupied the Red Crescent premises in an operation that began Tuesday night, blocking the entrance and hindering movement of ambulances, patients and staff.

"This action shows grave disregard by the IDF for its obligation to respect and protect medical units," the ICRC said in a statement.

Israel Thursday pursued its air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, where it has killed nearly 100 people in three weeks.

HELEN THOMAS: The United States is not that helpless. It could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis.

TONY SNOW: I don't think so, Helen.

HELEN THOMAS: We have gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.

TONY SNOW: What's interesting, Helen --

HELEN THOMAS: And this is what's happening, and that's the perception of the United States.

TONY SNOW: Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view, but I would encourage you --

HELEN THOMAS: Nobody is accepting your explanation. What is restraint? You call for restraint.

The organizers of the 2006 Locarno International Film Festival have dropped the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a festival sponsor because of that country's unremitting bombardment of civilian targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The Independent --> Outside the cavernous US government-run holding centre in Nicosia, Mohammed Shami shook his head. "I feel embarrassed to be an American. They have given Israel the green light to destroy Lebanon. What they are doing is wrong; it is immoral."

They are not children, they are terrorist, says Israel.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan - the "axis of pro-American dictators" - have been executing one of the more stunning gambits in recent Middle Eastern history: publicly aligning themselves against Hezbollah and Iran (and implicitly with Israel and the United States), even in the face of clear public opposition.

Justin Raimondo --> Any other American president would have long ago made such a pronouncement and fulfilled America's mediating role, in line with our status as the predominant power in the region.

But not this president. This is all about Israel, and not the U.S., as the dominating power in the Middle East.

Israeli warplanes continued their bombardment of Lebanon yesterday, defying a demand by Kofi Annan for an immediate end to fighting on the ninth day of a war that has led to the "collective punishment of the Lebanese people" .

Two countries, the US and Britain, defiantly refused to back the international clamour for an immediate ceasfire between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas. Their ambivalence about civilian deaths in Lebanon has given Israel a powerful signal that it can continue its attacks with impunity.

"The United States doesn't want to arrive at this solution immediately," French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told French radio RMC Info on Friday.

"And that's what is now blocking the workings of the United Nations Security Council."

...it is clear that Israelis cannot cannot cannot accept Palestinians as human beings whose humanity is of equal value as their own. This is the bottom line. And until that bottom line is changed, there is nothing that a member of a society that builds walls around itself to shut itself off from the world and shut the world from itself can tell me.

"This is a demanding operation and we are at war. War costs lives. Civilians will be killed too. I suggest not counting the dead. We need to show strength and determination." Israel's OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam noted Friday.

"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University.

By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."

More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.

Israel appears to be gearing up for a major ground offensive in Lebanon, warning residents in the southern region through radio broadcasts and leaflets to flee the area.

Another sign of full-scale invasion is the call-up by Israel of more reserve troops Friday. Although the exact number was not released, hundreds if not thousands of reservists have been told to meet at specific checkpoints in Israel.

Robert Fisk --> They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite.

...they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.

But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis ? in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside ? tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity?

I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses.

"At the rate that technology is advancing, people will be implanting chips in our children to advertise directly into their brains and tell them what kind of products to buy," Clinton said at the Kaiser Family Foundation.