Articles about Lebanon

Monday, July 31, 2006

EXCELLENT REPORT- 31 July- Hizballah: A Primer

Hizballah: A Primer
Lara Deeb
July 31, 2006

(Lara Deeb, a cultural anthropologist, is assistant professor of women’s studies at the University of California-Irvine. She is author of An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi‘i Lebanon.)

http://www.merip.org/mero/mero073106.html

Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement whose militia is fighting the Israeli army in south Lebanon, has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage of the ongoing war. Much more than a militia, the movement is also a political party that is a powerful actor in Lebanese politics and a provider of important social services. Not a creature of Iranian and Syrian sponsorship, Hizballah arose to battle Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon from 1982-2000 and, more broadly, to advocate for Lebanon’s historically disenfranchised Shi‘i Muslim community. While it has many political opponents in Lebanon, Hizballah is very much of Lebanon -- a fact that Israel’s military campaign is highlighting.

THE LEBANESE SHI‘A AND THE LEBANESE STATE

In Lebanon, the state-society relationship is “confessional” and government power and positions are allocated on the basis of religious background. There are 18 officially recognized ethno-confessional communities in the country today. The original allocations, determined in 1943 in an unwritten National Pact between Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims at the end of the French mandate, gave the most power to a Maronite Christian president and a Sunni Muslim prime minister, with the relatively powerless position of speaker of Parliament going to a Shi‘i Muslim. Other government positions and seats in Parliament were divided up using a 6:5 ratio of Christians to Muslims. These arrangements purportedly followed the population ratios in the 1932 census, the last census ever undertaken in the country.

This confessional system was stagnant, failing to take into consideration demographic changes. As the Shi‘i population grew at a rapid pace in comparison to other groups, the inflexibility of the system exacerbated Shi‘i under-representation in government. Meanwhile, sect became a means of gaining access to state resources, as the government shelled out money to establish sect-based welfare networks and institutions like schools and hospitals. Because the Shi‘a were under-represented in government, they could channel fewer resources to their community, contributing to disproportionate poverty among Shi‘i Lebanese. This effect was aggravated by the fact that Shi‘i seats in Parliament were usually filled by feudal landowners and other insulated elites.

Until the 1960s, most of the Shi‘i population in Lebanon lived in rural areas, mainly in the south and in the Bekaa Valley, where living conditions did not approach the standards of the rest of the nation. Following a modernization program that established road networks and introduced cash-crop policies in the countryside, many Shi‘i Muslims migrated to Beirut, settling in a ring of impoverished suburbs around the capital. The rapid urbanization that came with incorporation into the capitalist world economy further widened economic disparities within Lebanon.

ORIGINS

Initially, this growing urban population of mostly Shi‘i poor in Lebanon was not mobilized along sectarian lines. In the 1960s and early 1970s, they made up much of the rank and file of the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party. Later, in the 1970s, Sayyid Musa al-Sadr, a charismatic cleric who had studied in the Iraqi shrine city of Najaf, began to challenge the leftist parties for the loyalty of Shi‘i youth. Al-Sadr offered instead the “Movement of the Deprived,” dedicated to attaining political rights for the dispossessed within the Lebanese polity. A militia branch of this movement, Amal, was founded at the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. Alongside al-Sadr, there were also other activist Lebanese Shi‘i religious leaders, most of whom had also studied in Najaf, who worked to establish grassroots social and religious networks in the Shi‘i neighborhoods of Beirut. Among them were Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, today one of the most respected “sources of emulation” among Shi‘i Muslims in Lebanon and beyond, and Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah. A “source of emulation” (marja‘ al-taqlid) is a religious scholar of such widely recognized erudition that individual Shi‘i Muslims seek and follow his advice on religious matters. Among the Shi‘a, the title of sayyid denotes a claim of descent from Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.

Between 1978 and 1982 a number of events propelled the nascent Shi‘i mobilization forward and further divorced it from the leftist parties: two Israeli invasions of Lebanon, the unexplained disappearance of Musa al-Sadr and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 1978, while on a visit to Libya, al-Sadr mysteriously vanished, and his popularity surged thereafter. That same year, to push back PLO fighters then based in Lebanon, Israel invaded the south, displacing 250,000 people. The initial consequence of these two events was Amal’s revitalization, as Amal militiamen fought PLO guerrillas in south Lebanon. There were increasing Shi‘i perceptions that the Lebanese left had failed, both in securing greater rights for the poor and in protecting the south from the fighting between the PLO and Israel. The following year, the Islamic Revolution in Iran set a new sort of example for Shi‘i Muslims around the world, and provided an alternative worldview to Western liberal capitalism different from that espoused by the left.

The final, and doubtless the most important, ingredient in this cauldron of events was the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. This time Israeli troops, aiming to expel the PLO from Lebanon entirely, marched north and laid siege to West Beirut. Tens of thousands of Lebanese were killed and injured during the invasion, and another 450,000 people were displaced. Between September 16-18, 1982, under the protection and direction of the Israeli military and then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, a Lebanese Phalangist militia unit entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, and raped, killed and maimed thousands of civilian refugees. Approximately one quarter of those refugees were Shi‘i Lebanese who had fled the violence in the south. The importance of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the formation of Hizballah cannot be underestimated.

Following the events of 1982, many prominent members of Amal left the party, which had become increasingly involved in patronage politics and detached from the larger struggles against poverty and Israeli occupation. In these years, a number of small, armed groups of young men organized under the banner of Islam emerged in the south, the Bekaa Valley and the suburbs of Beirut. These groups were dedicated to fighting the Israeli occupation troops, and also participated in the Lebanese civil war, which by this time had engaged over 15 militias and armies. Initial military training and equipment for the Shi‘i militias was provided by Iran. Over time, these groups coalesced into Hizballah, though the formal existence of the “Party of God” and its armed wing, the Islamic Resistance, were not announced until February 16, 1985, in an “Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World.”

STRUCTURE AND LEADERSHIP

Since 1985, Hizballah has developed a complex internal structure. In the 1980s, a religious council of prominent leaders called the majlis al-shura was formed. This seven-member council included branches for various aspects of the group’s functioning, including financial, judicial, social, political and military committees. There were also local regional councils in Beirut, the Bekaa and the south. Toward the end of the Lebanese civil war, as Hizballah began to enter Lebanese state politics, two other decision-making bodies were established, an executive council and a politburo.

Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah is often described as “the spiritual leader” of Hizballah. Both Fadlallah and the party have always denied that relationship, however, and in fact, for a time there was a rift between them over the nature of the Shi‘i Islamic institution of the marja‘iyya. The marja‘iyya refers to the practice and institution of following or emulating a marja‘ al-taqlid. Fadlallah believes that religious scholars should work through multiple institutions, and should not affiliate with a single political party or be involved in affairs of worldly government. In these beliefs, he is close to traditional Shi‘i jurisprudence, and distant from the concept of velayat-e faqih (rule of the clerics) promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran.

Hizballah and its majlis al-shura officially follow Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the successor to Khomeini as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but individual supporters or party members are free to choose which marja‘ to follow, and many emulate Fadlallah instead. The point is that political allegiance and religious emulation are two separate issues that may or may not overlap for any single person.

Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah is the current political leader of Hizballah. While he is also a religious scholar, and also studied at Najaf, he does not rank highly enough to be a marja‘ al-taqlid and instead is a religious follower of Khamenei. Nasrallah became Hizballah’s Secretary-General in 1992, after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Sayyid ‘Abbas al-Musawi, along with his wife and 5 year-old son. Nasrallah is widely viewed in Lebanon as a leader who “tells it like it is” -- even by those who disagree with the party’s ideology and actions. It was under his leadership that Hizballah committed itself to working within the state and began participating in elections, a decision that alienated some of the more revolution-oriented clerics in the leadership.

HIZBALLAH AND THE UNITED STATES

In the United States, Hizballah is generally associated with the 1983 bombings of the US embassy, the Marine barracks and the French-led multinational force headquarters in Beirut. The second bombing led directly to the US military’s departure from Lebanon. The movement is also cited by the State Department in connection with the kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon and the hostage crisis that led to the Iran-contra affair, the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight and bombings of the Israeli embassy and cultural center in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s. These associations are the stated reasons for the presence of Hizballah’s name on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. In 2002, then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage famously described Hizballah as the “A-Team of terrorists,” possessing a “global reach,” and suggested that “maybe al-Qaeda is actually the B-Team.” Hizballah’s involvement in these attacks remains a matter of contention, however. Even if their involvement is accepted, it is both inaccurate and unwise to dismiss Hizballah as “terrorists.”

There are several major reasons for this. First, Hizballah’s military activity has generally been committed to the goal of ending the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Since the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal, they have largely operated within tacit, but mutually understood “rules of the game” for ongoing, low-level border skirmishes with Israel that avoid civilian casualties. In addition, Hizballah has grown and changed significantly since its inception, and has developed into both a legitimate Lebanese political party and an umbrella organization for myriad social welfare institutions.

Another aspect of the US listing of Hizballah on the terrorist list is related to the group’s reputation as undertaking numerous “suicide attacks” or “martyrdom operations.” In fact, of the hundreds of military operations undertaken by the group during the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon, only 12 involved the intentional death of a Hizballah fighter. At least half of the “suicide attacks” against Israeli occupying forces in Lebanon were carried out by members of secular and leftist parties.

A third element in the US insistence on labeling Hizballah a terrorist group is related to the notion that Hizballah’s raison d’etre is the destruction of Israel, or “occupied Palestine,” as per the party’s rhetoric. This perspective is supported by the 1985 Open Letter, which includes statements such as, “Israel’s final departure from Lebanon is a prelude to its final obliteration from existence and the liberation of venerable Jerusalem from the talons of occupation.” One might question the feasibility of such a project, particularly given the great asymmetry in military might and destructive power that is now on display. The Hizballah rocket attacks of July 2006, which commenced after Israeli bombardment of Lebanon had begun, have thus far killed 19 civilians and damaged numerous buildings -- nothing like the devastation and death wrought by Israeli aircraft in Lebanon. There is also reason to question Hizballah’s intent, despite frequent repetition of the Open Letter rhetoric. Prior to May 2000, almost all of Hizballah’s military activity was focused on freeing Lebanese territory of Israeli occupation. The cross-border attacks from May 2000 to July 2006 were small operations with tactical aims (Israel did not even respond militarily to all of them).

Hizballah’s founding document also says: “We recognize no treaty with [Israel], no ceasefire and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.” This language was drafted at the time when the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had just given rise to the Hizballah militia. Augustus R. Norton, author of several books and articles on Hizballah, notes that, “While Hizballah’s enmity for Israel is not to be dismissed, the simple fact is that it has been tacitly negotiating with Israel for years.” Hizballah’s indirect talks with Israel in 1996 and 2004 and their stated willingness to arrange a prisoner exchange today all indicate realism on the part of party leadership.

RESISTANCE, POLITICS AND RULES OF THE GAME

In 1985, Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon, but continued to occupy the southern zone of the country, controlling approximately ten percent of Lebanon using both Israeli soldiers and a proxy Lebanese militia, the Southern Lebanese Army (SLA). Hizballah’s Islamic Resistance took the lead, though there were other contingents, in fighting that occupation. The party also worked to represent the interests of the Shi‘a in Lebanese politics.
The Lebanese civil war came to an end in 1990, after the signing of the Ta’if Agreement in 1989. The Ta’if Agreement reasserted a variation of the National Pact, allotting greater power to the prime minister and increasing the number of Muslim seats in government. Yet while the actual numerical strength of confessional groups in Lebanon is sharply contested, conservative estimates note that by the end of the civil war, Shi‘i Muslims made up at least one third of the population, making them the largest confessional community. Other estimates are much higher.

When the first post-war elections were held in Lebanon in 1992, many of the various militia groups (which had often grown out of political parties) reverted to their political party status and participated. Hizballah also chose to participate, declaring its intention to work within the existing Lebanese political system, while keeping its weapons to continue its guerrilla campaign against the Israeli occupation in the south, as allowed by the Ta’if accord. In that first election, the party won eight seats, giving them the largest single bloc in the 128-member parliament, and its allies won an additional four seats. From that point on, Hizballah developed a reputation -- even among those who disagree vehemently with their ideologies -- for being a “clean” and capable political party on both the national and local levels. This reputation is especially important in Lebanon, where government corruption is assumed, clientelism is the norm and political positions are often inherited. As a group, Lebanese parliamentarians are the wealthiest legislature in the world.

While the party’s parliamentary politics were generally respected, levels of national support for the activities of the Islamic Resistance in the south fluctuated over the years. Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure -- including the destruction of power plants in Beirut in 1996, 1999 and 2000 -- generally contributed to increases in national support for the Resistance. This was especially true after Israel bombed a UN bunker where civilians had taken refuge in Qana on April 18, 1996, killing 106 people.

The occupation of south Lebanon was costly for Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made withdrawal a campaign promise in 1999, and later announced that it would take place by July 2000. A month and a half before this deadline, after SLA desertions and the collapse of potential talks with Syria, Barak ordered a chaotic withdrawal from Lebanon, taking many by surprise. At 3 am on May 24, 2000, the last Israeli soldier stepped off Lebanese soil and locked the gate at the Fatima border crossing behind him. Many predicted that lawlessness, sectarian violence and chaos would fill the void left by the Israeli occupation forces and the SLA, which rapidly collapsed in Israel’s wake. Those predictions proved false as Hizballah maintained order in the border region.

Despite withdrawal, a territorial dispute continues over a 15-square mile border region called the Shebaa Farms that remains under Israeli occupation. Lebanon and Syria assert that the mountainside is Lebanese land, while Israel and the UN have declared it part of the Golan Heights and, therefore, Syrian territory (though occupied by Israel). Since 2000, Lebanon has also been awaiting the delivery from Israel of the map for the locations of over 300,000 landmines the Israeli army planted in south Lebanon. Unstated “rules of the game,” building on an agreement not to target civilians written after the Qana attack in 1996, have governed the Israeli-Lebanese border dispute since 2000. Hizballah attacks on Israeli army posts in the occupied Shebaa Farms, for example, would be answered by limited Israeli shelling of Hizballah outposts and sonic booms over Lebanon.

Both sides, on occasion, have broken the “rules of the game,” though UN observer reports of the numbers of border violations find that Israel has violated the Blue Line between the countries ten times more frequently than Hizballah has. Israeli forces have kidnapped Lebanese shepherds and fishermen. Hizballah abducted an Israeli businessman in Lebanon in October 2000, claiming that he was a spy. In January 2004, through German mediators, Hizballah and Israel concluded a deal whereby Israel released hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. At the last minute, Israeli officials defied the Supreme Court’s ruling and refused to hand over the last three Lebanese prisoners, including the longest-held detainee, Samir al-Qantar, who has been in jail for 27 years for killing three Israelis after infiltrating the border. At that time, Hizballah vowed to open new negotiations at some point in the future.

HIZBALLAH’S NATIONALISM

As noted, Hizballah officially follows Khamenei as the party’s marja‘, and has maintained a warm relationship with Iran dating to the 1980s, when Iran helped to train and arm the militia. Hizballah consults with Iranian leaders, and receives an indeterminate amount of economic aid. Iran has also continued military aid to the Islamic Resistance, including some of the rockets in the militia’s arsenal. This relationship does not, however, mean that Iran dictates Hizballah’s policies or decision-making, or can necessarily control the actions of the party. Meanwhile, Iranian efforts to infuse the Lebanese Shi‘a with a pan-Shi‘i identity centered on Iran have run up against the Arab identity and increasing Lebanese nationalism of Hizballah itself.

A similar conclusion can be reached about Syria, often viewed as so close to Hizballah that the party’s militia is dubbed Syria’s “Lebanese card” in its efforts to regain the Golan Heights from Israel. While the party keeps good relations with the Syrian government, Syria does not control or dictate Hizballah decisions or actions. Party decisions are made independently, in accordance with Hizballah’s view of Lebanon’s interests and the party’s own interests within Lebanese politics. After the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005, and the subsequent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, Hizballah’s position was often inaccurately described as “pro-Syrian.” In fact, the party’s rhetoric was carefully chosen not to oppose Syrian withdrawal, but to recast it as a withdrawal that would not sever all ties with Lebanon, and that would take place under an umbrella of “gratitude.”

There is no doubt that Hizballah is a nationalist party. Its view of nationalism differs from that of many Lebanese, especially from the Phoenician-origins nationalism espoused by the Maronite Christian right, and from the neo-liberal, US-backed nationalism of Hariri’s party. Hizballah offers a nationalism that views Lebanon as an Arab state that cannot distance itself from causes like the Palestine question. Its political ideology maintains an Islamic outlook. The 1985 Open Letter notes the party’s desire to establish an Islamic state, but only through the will of the people. “We don’t want Islam to reign in Lebanon by force,” the letter reads. The party’s decision to participate in elections in 1992 underscored its commitment to working through the existing structure of the Lebanese state, and also shifted the party’s focus from a pan-Islamic resistance to Israel toward internal Lebanese politics. Furthermore, since 1992, Hizballah leaders have frequently acknowledged the contingencies of Lebanon’s multi-confessional society and the importance of sectarian coexistence and pluralism within the country. It should also be noted that many of Hizballah’s constituents do not want to live in an Islamic state; rather, they want the party to represent their interests within a pluralist Lebanon.

The nationalist outlook of the party has grown throughout Hizballah’s transition from resistance militia to political party and more. After the Syrian withdrawal, it became evident that the party would play a larger role in the Lebanese government. Indeed, in the 2005 elections, Hizballah increased their parliamentary seats to 14, in a voting bloc with other parties that took 35. Also in 2005, for the first time, the party chose to participate in the cabinet, and currently holds the Ministry of Energy.

Hizballah does not regard its participation in government as contradicting its maintenance of a non-state militia. In fact, the first item on Hizballah’s 2005 electoral platform pledged to “safeguard Lebanon’s independence and protect it from the Israeli menace by safeguarding the Resistance, Hizballah’s military wing and its weapons, in order to achieve total liberation of Lebanese occupied land.” This stance places the party at odds with UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for the “disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias” in September 2004, and with those political forces in Lebanon that seek to implement the resolution. Prior to the July events, Nasrallah and other party leaders attended a series of “national dialogue” meetings aimed at setting the terms for Hizballah’s disarmament. The dialogue had not come to any conclusions by the beginning of the current violence, in part because of Hizballah’s insistence that its arms were still needed to defend Lebanon.
But the party has a social platform as well, and views itself as representing not only Shi‘i Lebanese, but also the poor more generally. The Amal militia formed by Sayyid Musa al-Sadr developed into a political party as well, and has been Hizballah’s main political rival among Shi‘i Lebanese, though they are now working in tandem. The longtime speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, Amal’s leader, is the intermediary between Hizballah and diplomats inquiring about ceasefire terms and a prisoner exchange. The party also plays the usual political game in Lebanon, where candidates run on multi-confessional district slates rather than as individuals, and it allies (however temporarily) with politicians who do not back its program. In the 2005 parliamentary contests, the Sunni on Hizballah’s slate in Sidon was Bahiyya al-Hariri, sister of the assassinated ex-premier. Since the elections, the strongest ally of the Shi‘i movement has been the former general, Michel Aoun, the quintessentially “anti-Syrian” figure in Lebanese politics. Aoun’s movement, along with Hizballah, was an important component of enormous demonstrations on May 10 in Beirut against the government’s privatization plans, which would cost jobs in Lebanon’s public sector.

SOCIAL WELFARE

Among the consequences of the Lebanese civil war were economic stagnation, government corruption and a widening gap between the ever shrinking middle class and the ever expanding ranks of the poor. Shi‘i areas of Beirut also had to cope with massive displacement from the south and the Bekaa. In this economic climate, sectarian clientelism became a necessary survival tool.

A Shi‘i Muslim social welfare network developed in the 1970s and 1980s, with key actors including al-Sadr, Fadlallah and Hizballah. Today, Hizballah functions as an umbrella organization under which many social welfare institutions are run. Some of these institutions provide monthly support and supplemental nutritional, educational, housing and health assistance for the poor; others focus on supporting orphans; still others are devoted to reconstruction of war-damaged areas. There are also Hizballah-affiliated schools, clinics and low-cost hospitals, including a school for children with Down’s syndrome.

These social welfare institutions are located around Lebanon and serve the local people regardless of sect, though they are concentrated in the mainly Shi‘i Muslim areas of the country. They are run almost entirely through volunteer labor, mostly that of women, and much of their funding stems from individual donations, orphan sponsorships and religious taxes. Shi‘i Muslims pay an annual tithe called the khums, one fifth of the income they do not need for their own family’s upkeep. Half of this tithe is given to the care of the marja‘ they recognize. Since 1995, when Khamenei appointed Nasrallah and another Hizballah leader as his religious deputies in Lebanon, the khums revenues of Lebanese Shi‘a who follow Khamenei have gone directly into Hizballah’s coffers. These Shi‘a also give their zakat, the alms required of all Muslims able to pay, to Hizballah’s vast network of social welfare institutions. Much of this financial support comes from Lebanese Shi‘a living abroad.

WHO SUPPORTS HIZBALLAH?

As one of Israel’s stated goals in the current war is the “removal” of Hizballah from the south, it is critical to note that the party has a broad base of support throughout the south and the country -- a base of support that is not necessarily dependent on sect. Being born to a Shi‘i Muslim family, or even being a practicing and pious Shi‘i Muslim, does not determine one’s political affiliation.

Nor does one’s socio-economic status. It is sometimes assumed that Hizballah is using its social organizations to bribe supporters, or that these organizations exist solely to prop up “terrorist activities.” These views both betray a simplistic view of the party. A more accurate reading would suggest that the party’s popularity is based in part on its dedication to the poor, but also on its political platforms and record in Lebanon, its Islamist ideologies, and its resistance to Israeli occupation and violations of Lebanese sovereignty.

Hizballah’s popularity is based on a combination of ideology, resistance and an approach to political-economic development. For some, Hizballah’s ideologies are viewed as providing a viable alternative to a US-supported government and its neo-liberal economic project in Lebanon and as an active opposition to the role of the US in the Middle East. Its constituents are not only the poor, but increasingly come from the middle classes and include many upwardly mobile, highly educated Lebanese. Many of its supporters are Shi‘i Muslim, but there are also many Lebanese of other religious backgrounds who support the party and/or the Islamic Resistance.

“Hizballah supporter” is itself a vague phrase. There are official members of the party and/or the Islamic Resistance; there are volunteers in party-affiliated social welfare organizations; there are those who voted for the party in the last election; there are those who support the Resistance in the current conflict, whether or not they agree with its ideology. To claim ridding south Lebanon of Hizballah as a goal risks aiming for the complete depopulation of the south, tantamount to ethnic cleansing of the area.

In terms of the current conflict, while Lebanese public opinion seems to be divided as to whether blame should be placed on Hizballah or Israel for the devastation befalling the country, this division does not necessarily fall along sectarian lines. More importantly, there are many Lebanese who disagree with Hizballah’s Islamist ideologies or political platforms, and who believe that their July 12 operation was a mistake, but who are supportive of the Islamic Resistance and view Israel as their enemy. These are not mutually exclusive positions. One of the effects of the Israeli attacks on selected areas of Beirut has been to widen the class divides in the Lebanon, which may serve to further increase Hizballah’s popularity among those who already felt alienated from Hariri-style reconstruction and development.

THE CURRENT VIOLENCE

On July 12, 2006, Hizballah fighters attacked an Israeli army convoy and captured two soldiers. The party stated that they had captured these soldiers for use as bargaining chips in indirect negotiations for the release of the three Lebanese detained without due process and in defiance of the Supreme Court in Israel. As noted, there is precedent for such negotiations. The raid had been planned for months, and the party made at least one earlier attempt to capture soldiers. Nasrallah had stated earlier that 2006 would be the year when negotiations would take place for the release of the three remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. In a July 20 interview on al-Jazeera, he also stated that other leaders in Lebanon were aware of his intention to order a capture attempt, though not of the details of this particular operation.

After the capture of the soldiers, Israel unleashed an aerial assault on Lebanon’s cities and infrastructure on a scale unseen since the 1982 invasion. This attack was accompanied by a naval blockade, and more recently, a ground invasion. The ground invasion is being strongly opposed by Hizballah fighters along with fighters from other parties. Both the Lebanese Communist Party and Amal have announced the deaths of fighters in battle. At least 516 Lebanese have been killed, mostly civilians; the Lebanese government’s tally of the dead stands at 750 or more. A UN count says one third of the dead are children. In several cases, villagers who were warned by Israeli leaflets or automated telephone messages to leave their homes were killed when their vehicles were targeted shortly thereafter. On July 30, Israeli planes bombed a three-story house being used as a shelter in Qana, killing at least 57 civilians and reawakening memories of the 1996 Qana massacre. The Lebanese government estimates that 2,000 people have been wounded since July 12, while as many as 750,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Hizballah has responded, since early on in the Israeli bombing campaign, by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, killing 19 civilians thus far. An additional 33 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat.

In Lebanon, entire villages in the south have been flattened, as have whole neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Runways and fuel tanks at Beirut International Airport, roads, ports, power plants, bridges, gas stations, TV transmitters, cell phone towers, a dairy and other factories, and wheat silos have been targeted and destroyed, as well as trucks carrying medical supplies, ambulances, and minivans full of civilians. The UN is warning of a humanitarian crisis, and has indicated that war crimes investigations are in order for the targeting of civilians in both Lebanon and Israel. Human Rights Watch has documented Israel’s use of artillery-fired cluster munitions, which it believes “may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law” because the “bomblets” spread widely and often fail to explode on impact, in effect becoming land mines. Eyewitnesses in Beirut report that the pattern of destruction in hard-hit neighborhoods resembles that caused by thermobaric weapons, or “vacuum bombs,” whose blast effects are innately indiscriminate. Lebanese doctors receiving dead and wounded have alleged that Israeli bombs contain white phosphorus, a substance that, if used in offensive operations, is considered an illegal chemical weapon.

Israel’s initially stated goal of securing the release of the two captured soldiers has faded from Israeli discourse and given way to two additional stated goals: the disarmament or at least “degrading” of Hizballah’s militia, as well as its removal from south Lebanon. According to an article in the July 21 San Francisco Chronicle, “a senior Israeli army officer” had presented plans for an offensive with these goals to US and other diplomats over a year before Hizballah’s capture of the two soldiers. Though Israel is not in compliance with several UN resolutions, the Israeli army appears to be attempting singlehandedly -- though with US approval -- to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559.

It is unclear how the aerial bombardment of infrastructure and the killing of Lebanese civilians can lead to any of these goals, especially as support for Hizballah and the Islamic Resistance appears to be increasing. Outrage at Israel’s actions trumps ideological disagreement with Hizballah for many Lebanese at this point, and as such, it is likely that support for the party will continue to grow.

30 July- Ha'aretz- Days of Darkness

Days of Darkness
By Gideon Levy
Ha’aretz
30 July 2006

In war as in war: Israel is sinking into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to cover everything. The brakes we still had are eroding, the insensitivity and blindness that characterized Israeli society in recent years is intensifying. The home front is cut in half: the north suffers and the center is serene. But both have been taken over by tones of jingoism, ruthlessness and vengeance, and the voices of extremism that previously characterized the camp's margins are now expressing its heart. The left has once again lost its way, wrapped in silence or "admitting mistakes." Israel is exposing a unified, nationalistic face. 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. Since we've grown accustomed to thinking collective punishment a legitimate weapon, it is no wonder no debate has sparked here over the cruel punishment of Lebanon for Hezbollah's actions. If it was okay in Nablus, why not Beirut? The only criticism being heard about this war is over tactics. Everyone is a general now and they are mostly pushing the IDF to deepen its activities. Commentators, ex-generals and politicians compete at raising the stakes with extreme proposals.

Haim Ramon "doesn't understand" why there is still electricity in Baalbek; Eli Yishai proposes turning south Lebanon into a "sandbox"; Yoav Limor, a Channel 1 military correspondent, proposes an exhibition of Hezbollah corpses and the next day to conduct a parade of prisoners in their underwear, "to strengthen the home front's morale." It's not difficult to guess what we would think about an Arab TV station whose commentators would say something like that, but another few casualties or failures by the IDF, and Limor's proposal will be implemented. Is there any better sign of how we have lost our senses and our humanity? Chauvinism and an appetite for vengeance are raising their heads. If two weeks ago only lunatics such as Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu spoke about "wiping out every village where a Katyusha is fired," now a senior officer in the IDF speaks that way in Yedioth Aharonoth's main headlines. Lebanese villages may not have been wiped out yet, but we have long since wiped out our own red lines.
A bereaved father, Haim Avraham, whose son was kidnapped and killed by Hezbollah in October 2000, fires an artillery shell into Lebanon for the reporters. It's vengeance for his son. His image, embracing the decorated artillery shell is one of the most disgraceful images of this war. And it's only the first. A group of young girls also have their picture taken decorating IDF shells with slogans. Maariv, which has turned into the Fox News of Israel, fills its pages with chauvinist slogans reminiscent of particularly inferior propaganda machines, such as "Israel is strong" - which is indicative of weakness, actually - while a TV commentator calls for the bombing of a TV station. Lebanon, which has never fought Israel and has 40 daily newspapers, 42 colleges and universities and hundreds of different banks, is being destroyed by our planes and cannon and nobody is taking into account the amount of hatred we are sowing. In international public opinion, Israel has been turned into a monster, and that still hasn't been calculated into the debit column of this war. Israel is badly stained, a moral stain that can't be easily and quickly removed. And only we don't want to see it. The people want victory, and nobody knows what that is and what its price will be. The Zionist left has also been made irrelevant. As in every difficult test in the past - the two intifadas for example - this time too the left has failed just when its voice was so necessary as a counterweight to the stridency of the beating tom-toms of war. Why have a left if at every real test it joins the national chorus? Peace Now stands silently, so does Meretz, except for brave Zehava Gal-On. A few days of a war of choice and already Yehoshua Sobol is admitting he was wrong all along. Peace Now is suddenly an "infantile slogan" for him. His colleagues are silent and their silence is no less resounding. Only the extreme left makes its voice heard, but it is a voice nobody listens to. Long before this war is decided, it can already be stated that its spiraling cost will include the moral blackout that is surrounding and covering us all, threatening our existence and image no less than Hezbollah's Katyushas.

31 July- The Guardian- They found them huddled together- More than 60 people, including 34 children, killed by Israeli attack on home

'They found them huddled together' More than 60 people, including 34 children, killed by Israeli attack on home where families were sheltering

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Jonathan Steele and Clancy Chassay in Qana; Rory McCarthy at the Israel-Lebanon border; Wendell Steavenson in Beirut and Julian Borger in Washington
Monday July 31, 2006

It was an unremarkable three-storey building on the edge of town. But for two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, it was a last refuge. They could not afford the extortionate taxi fares to Tyre and hoped that if they all crouched together on the ground floor they would be safe.
They were wrong. At about one in the morning, as some of the men were making late night tea, an Israeli bomb smashed into the house. Witnesses describe two explosions a few minutes apart, with survivors desperately moving from one side of the building to the other before being hit by the second blast. By last night, more than 60 bodies had been pulled from the rubble, said Lebanese authorities, 34 of them children. There were eight known survivors.
As yet another body was removed from the wreckage yesterday morning, Naim Raqa, the head of the civil defence team searching the ruins, hung his head in grief: "When they found them, they were all huddled together at the back of the room ... Poor things, they thought the walls would protect them."
The bombing, the bloodiest incident in Israel's 18-day campaign against Hizbullah, drew condemnation from around the world. Late last night Israel announced a suspension of aerial activities in southern Lebanon for 48 hours and said it would coordinate with the UN to allow a 24-hour window for residents in southern Lebanon to leave the area if they wished.
The bombing sparked furious protests outside the UN headquarters in Beirut. Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, accused Israel of committing "war crimes" and called off a planned meeting with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. Israel apologised for the loss of life but said it had been responding to rockets fired from the village.
Muhammad Qassim Shalhoub, a slim 38-year-old construction worker, emerged with a broken hand and minor injuries, but lost his wife, five children and 45 members of his extended family. "Around one o'clock we heard a big explosion," he said. "I don't remember anything after that, but when I opened my eyes I was lying on the floor and my head had hit the wall. There was silence. I didn't hear anything for a while, but then heard screams."
"I said: 'Allahu Akbar [God is most great]. Don't be scared. I will come.' There was blood on my face. I wiped it and looked for my son but couldn't find him. I took three children out - my four-year-old nephew, a girl and her sister. I went outside and screamed for help and three men came and went back inside. There was shelling everywhere. We heard the planes. I was so exhausted I could not go back inside again."
Ibrahim Shalhoub described how he and his cousin had set out to get help after the bombs hit. "It was dark and there was so much smoke. Nobody could do anything till dawn," he said, his eyes still darting around nervously. "I couldn't stop crying, we couldn't help them."
Said Rabab Yousif had her son on her knee when the bomb fell. "I couldn't see anything for 10 minutes and then I saw my son sitting in my lap and covered with rubble," she recalled. "I removed the dirt and the stones I freed him and handed him to the people who were inside rescuing us.
"I then started freeing myself, my hands were free, and then went with two men to rescue my husband. We pulled him from the rubble. I tried to find Zainab, my little daughter, but it was too dark and she was covered deep in rubble I was too scared that they might bomb us again so I just left her and ran outside." She was in hospital with her son and husband, who was paralysed and in a coma. There was no news of her daughter.
Rescue workers were pulling bodies from the rubble all morning. They came across the smallest corpses last, many intact but with lungs crushed by the blast wave of the bombing.
"God is great," a policeman muttered as the body of a young boy no older than 10 was carried away on a stretcher. The boy lay on his side, as if asleep, but for the fine dust that coated his body and the blood around his nose and ears.
The house stood at the top of a hillside on the very edge of Qana and its disembowelled remains had spilled down the slope. Bodies were lined up on the ground - a baby, two young girls and two women. The rigid corpse of a young man lay nearby, his arm rising vertically from beneath a blanket, his index finger pointing up to the sky.
"Where are the stretchers, where are the stretchers?" a rescue worker cried as Israeli warplanes roared overhead. Sami Yazbuk, the head of the Red Cross in Tyre said they got the call at 7am, but had to take a detour to Qana because of shelling on the road.
In a nearby ambulance the smallest victims were stacked one on top of the other to make space for the many to come. A boy and girl, both no more than four years old had been placed head to toe. They were still wearing pyjamas.
Family photos - one showing two young children - were scattered in the debris. Mohsen Hachem stared at the images. "They had to have known there were children in that house," he said. "The drones are always overhead, and those children - there were more than 30 - would play outside all day."
Anger at the attack erupted in Beirut, where windows in the UN building were smashed and its lobby invaded by demonstrators furious at the rising Lebanese death toll. After extensive coverage on Lebanese TV of corpses being taken from the remains of the building, thousands turned out in the city's main open square to vent their fury. Likewise, in Gaza crowds clashed with Palestinian police after smashing into a Unesco building.
Over the border, Israeli leaders expressed sorrow for the civilian deaths, but the military said that Qana had been targeted because Hizbullah had been using it as a base from which to launch rockets. "There was firing coming from there before the air strike. We didn't know there were civilians in the basement of that building," one Israeli defence force spokesman said. He added that rockets had been fired from Qana "in the last few hours" before the air strike.
The strike that destroyed the building was a precision-guided bomb dropped from the air, the same kind of bomb that destroyed a UN position in Khiyam last week, killing four UN observers. Writing on an olive green fragment of the munition which appeared to have caused the explosion read: GUIDED BOMB BSU 37/B.
"We don't know what the people were doing in the basement. It is possible they were being used as shields or being used cynically to further Hizbullah's propaganda purposes," the spokesman said. "We apologise. We couldn't be more sorry about the loss of civilian life."
More than 750 Lebanese, most of them civilians have been killed since Israel began its strikes in response to the kidnapping of two soldiers. A total of 51 Israelis, 18 of them civilians, have been killed.
For Qana, history has repeated itself. Ten years ago, more than a hundred civilians taking refuge in a UN compound there were killed by Israeli shelling.
At the site of the latest tragedy, a man broke down as another small body was brought out, followed quickly by another. The civil defence workers cradled the corpses before placing them delicately on the bright orange stretchers.
"He was the son of Abu Hachem," said a young man in the crowd outside the house. "They're Ali and Mohammed - they're brothers," a neighbour shouted.
At Tyre hospital, Dr Salman Zaynadeen said the casualties were the worst thing he and colleagues had ever faced. Twenty-two bodies were in a refrigerated lorry serving as the hospital's morgue, 12 of them children. "At least 20 more are expected. They range in age up to 75. They were crushed," he said.
Five dead boys lay in the yard outside. Army staff photographed them for identification purposes.
The youngest, Abbas Mahmoud Hashem, lay on his back with his head turned and his right leg drawn up. A dummy hung on a blue plastic chain round his neck; concrete dust covered his face and hair. He looked about 18 months old.
On a hospital bed, a 13-year-old survivor, Nour Hashem, lay fiddling with her bed sheet, her eyes welling with tears. She had been in the house where so many of her family had been killed but had miraculously escaped with only slight injuries.
"We were all sleeping in the same room, my friend, my sister and my cousin," she said, her voice still shuddering.
"I pulled the rubble off my mother and she took me to another house, then she went looking for my brothers and sisters. But my brothers and sisters didn't come and my mother didn't return."
Backstory
The small village of Qana, south-east of Tyre, was a symbol of Lebanon's tragedy before yesterday's air strike. Ten years ago, in remarkably similar circumstances, Israeli artillery shelled a UN compound there, killing more than 100 civilians . The bombardment was part of the Israeli operation codenamed Grapes of Wrath, aimed (then, as now) at punishing Hizbullah for cross-border attacks and dislodging it from the border.
Israel apologised and said it had been an accident caused by old maps and poor calculations. Backed by the US, Israel blamed mainly Hizbullah for using civilians as human shields. But a UN report noted many inconsistencies in the Israeli account and said it was "unlikely" the deaths were the result of technical errors.

31 July- New York Times- A Night of Death and Terror for Lebanese Villagers

A Night of Death and Terror for Lebanese Villagers

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: July 31, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/world/middleeast/31scene.html?hp&ex=1154404800&en=ea7a24f06a208bd2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

QANA, Lebanon, July 30 — The dead lay in strange shapes. Several had open mouths filled with dirt. Faces were puffy. A man’s arm was extended straight out from his body, his fingers spread. Two tiny children, a girl and boy, lay feet to head in the back of an ambulance, their skin like wax.
In the all-day scramble to retrieve the bodies from the remains of this one house — backhoes dug for hours at the site after an early-morning airstrike — tallies of the dead varied, from as many as 60 to 27, many of them children.
This was the single most lethal episode in the course of this sudden war. The survivors will remember it as the day their children died. For the village, it is a fresh pain in a wound cut more than 10 years ago, when an Israeli attack here killed more than 100 civilians. Many of them were children, too.
The Israeli government apologized for that airstrike, as it did for the one here on Sunday. It said that residents had been warned to leave and should have already been gone.
But leaving southern Lebanon now is dangerous. The two extended families staying in the house that the Israeli missile struck — the Shalhoubs and the Hashims — had discussed leaving several times over the past two weeks. But they were poor — most worked in tobacco or construction — and the families were big and many of their members weak, with a 95-year-old, two relatives in wheelchairs and dozens of children. A taxi north, around $1,000, was unaffordable.
And then there was the risk of the road itself.
Dozens, including 21 refugees in the back of a pickup truck on July 15, have been killed by Israeli strikes while trying to evacuate. Missiles hit two Red Cross ambulances last weekend, wounding six people and punching a circle in the center of the cross on one’s roof. A rocket hit the ambulance convoy that responded in Qana on Sunday.
“We heard on the news they were bombing the Red Cross,” said Zaineb Shalhoub, a 22-year-old who survived the bombing. She was lying quietly in a hospital bed in Tyre.
“What can we do with all of our kids?” she asked. “There was just no way to go.”
They had moved to the house on the edge of a high ridge, which was dug into the earth. They thought it would be safer. The position helped muffle the sound of the bombs.
But its most valuable asset was water. The town, mostly abandoned, had not had power or running water in many days. A neighbor rigged a pumping system, and the Shalhoubs and Hashims ran a pipe from that house to theirs.
Life had taken on a strange, stunted quality. In a crawl-space basement area near the crushed house, five mattresses were on the floor. A Koran was open to a prayer. A school notebook was on a pillow. Each morning, the women made breakfast for the children. Ms. Shalhoub gave lessons. And they all hoped for rescue.
The first missile struck around 1 a.m., throwing Mohamed Shalhoub, one of the relatives who uses a wheelchair, into an open doorway. His five children, ages 12 to 2, were still inside the house, as was his wife, his mother and a 10-year-old nephew. He tried to get to them, but minutes later another missile hit. By morning, when the rescue workers arrived, all eight of his relatives were dead.
“I felt like I was turning around, and the earth was going up and I was going into the earth,” said Mr. Shalhoub, 38, staring blankly ahead in a hospital bed in Tyre.
Israeli military officials said the building did not collapse until the early morning, and that “munitions” stored in the house might have brought it down. But the house appeared to have been hit from above, and residents said the walls and ceiling came down around them immediately after the first bomb.
“My mouth was full of sand,” Ms. Shalhoub said. She said doctors had told her family that those who died had been suffocated and crushed to death.
“They died because of the sand and the bricks, that’s what they told us,” she said.
At least eight people in the house survived, and told of a long, terrifying night. Some remained buried until morning. Others crawled free. Ms. Shalhoub sat under a tree with Mohamed Shalhoub, without his wheelchair, and three others, listening to the planes flying overhead in the dark.
“You couldn’t see your finger in front of your face,” said Ghazi Aidibi, a neighbor.
Ms. Shalhoub said she tried to help a woman who was sobbing from under the wreckage, asking for her baby, but she could not find the child. A neighbor, Haidar Tafleh, said he heard screaming when he approached the debris, but that bombing kept him away.
“We tried to take them out, but the bombs wouldn’t let us,” Mr. Tafleh said.
The area took several more hits. A house very close to the Shalhoubs’ was crushed. A giant crater was gouged next to it. Residents said as many as eight buildings had been destroyed over two weeks.
Collapsed buildings have been a serious problem in southern Lebanon. Dozens of bodies are still stuck under the rubble. The mayor of Tyre, Abed al-Husseini, estimated that about 75 bodies were still buried under rubble in Slifa, a village on the border.
A grocer, Hassan Faraj, stood outside his shop, near a monument to those killed in the 1996 attack. He said that Hezbollah fighters had not come to Qana, but that residents supported them strongly. There was little evidence of fighters on Sunday, but Hezbollah flags and posters of Shiite leaders trimmed the streets. “They like the resistance here,” he said.
He cautioned people not to stand in the street in front of his shop, because that was where the ambulance convoy was hit in the morning.
At the Hakoumi Hospital in Tyre, Mr. Shalhoub sat in bed. His face was slack, stunned. His relatives poured him spicy coffee, and the room filled with its scent. The survivors spoke of their faith as a salve. The children, Mr. Shalhoub said, were in paradise now.
But 24-year-old Hala Shalhoub, whose two daughters, ages 1 and 5, were killed, was moaning and rocking slightly in her hospital bed.
“I want to see them,” she said slowly. “I want to hold them.”
A relative said, “Let her cry.”
Zaineb Shalhoub, in the next bed, rested quietly.
“There’s nobody left in our village,” she said. “Not a human or a stone.”

31 July- Ha'aretz- UN Security Council rejects Annan's call for immediate cease-fire

UN Security Council rejects Annan's call for immediate cease-fire
By Haaretz Staff and Agencies
31 July 2006

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744360.html

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council late on Sunday unanimously adopted a statement deploring Israel's deadly attack on the southern Lebanese village of Qana but rejected UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for an immediate truce. The policy statement, read at a public meeting, expressed "extreme shock and distress" at the air strike by the Israel Air Force that killed at least 60 people and asked Annan to report within a week "on the circumstances of this tragic incident." It stressed "the urgency of securing a lasting, permanent and sustainable cease-fire" and affirmed the council's determination to work "without any further delay" to adopt a resolution "for a lasting settlement of the crisis."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said he opposed calling for a truce, as requested by Annan in an impassioned plea to an emergency council meeting he called after the strike on Qana, the deadliest single attack of Israel's 19-day-old war against Hezbollah militants. "We don't think that simply returning to business as usual is a way to bring about a lasting solution," Bolton said. "Rather than jump to conclusions about ceases-fires and other matters, we felt it was important to let that play out and to do what was important today, which was address the tragic loss of civilian life," Bolton told reporters. Council statements need the consent of all 15 members. The council did not mention a U.S. announcement that Israel would stop aerial bombing for 48 hours, presumably because Israel had not confirmed it. Lebanon's Foreign Ministry official, Nouhad Mahmoud: told reporters, "We were looking for stronger action, stronger language, but we believe that the statement contained language which commits the council for further action." Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said even though the text could have been stronger "the end result is quite satisfactory." Earlier Annan, at a public meeting, urged the Security Council to condemn the attack and call for an immediate end to the violence. Without his intervention, the council probably would not have met on a Sunday. "I am deeply dismayed that my earlier calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities were not heeded," Annan said. "I repeat this call once again from this chamber and I appeal to the council to do likewise." Annan said he wanted a cessation of hostilities - a limited truce to save lives while a cease-fire with detailed conditions is worked out. Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman said Qana was "a hub for Hezbollah" and said his country had "beseeched" residents to leave prior to Sunday's attack. "I am beseeching you not to play into their (Hezbollah's) hands, not to provide them with what they are seeking while sacrificing their own people as human shields and as victims," Gillerman said.

31 July- Daily Star- Global condemnation for latest Qana massacre- Nothing can justify deaths of innocents

Global condemnation for latest Qana massacre 'Nothing can justify' deaths of innocents
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74369Compiled

by Daily Star staff Monday, July 31, 2006

An Israeli air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana that killed 60 people Sunday, including 37 children, drew a barrage of fierce condemnation from around the world. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa issued a stern statement to "strongly condemn Israel's ongoing barbaric attacks on Lebanon, the latest of which is the attack on the village of Qana."
Moussa called for "an international investigation into this massacre and other Israeli war crimes committed in Lebanon."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called the attack "irresponsible" and reiterated his call for an immediate cease-fire.
"Egypt is highly disturbed and condemns the irresponsible Israeli attack on the Lebanese village of Qana which led to the loss of innocent victims, most of whom were women and children," he said.
Egypt summoned Israel's ambassador to express its outrage, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit, following his return from a brief trip to Damascus, summoned the Israeli ambassador to Cairo, Shalom Cohen, to inform him of Egypt's severe anger and complete condemnation of the Israeli strike on civilians in Lebanon," the statement said.
Jordan also condemned the raid, Israel's deadliest since it launched its offensive in Lebanon following the capture of two soldiers on July 12.
"This criminal aggression is a flagrant violation of international laws," said Jordan's King Abdullah II in a statement. "This is a horrible crime committed by the Israeli forces."
Iran blamed the bloody attack on the visit of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region.
"The result of Rice's trip is the Qana massacre," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. "Zionist regime officials, as well as some US statesmen, should be put on trial for the crimes they commit."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also condemned the attack and asked the United Nations to oversee an immediate cease-fire, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP.
"Abu Mazen [Abbas] has called the Lebanese president and prime minister and offered his deepest condolences [for] the victims of the crime that was committed by Israel ... which he condemned in the strongest possible terms," he said.
The United Arab Emirates joined the chorus of condemnations of the "ugly massacre."
"This crime ... provides new proof of Israel's systematic policy of using its destructive weapons to kill in an indiscriminate way and without consideration for international laws and conventions that protect civilians," said Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
European leaders reacted with equal disgust and horror.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett called the Israeli strike "quite appaling" and a "tragedy" for the cease-fire negotiations.
"We have repeatedly urged Israel to act proportionately," she added, when asked if Britain saw the Qana attack or the bombing campaign as a "disproportionate" response.
EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner called for an "immediate cessation of violence."
"Israel's attack on the city of Qana means an escalation of violence that is unjustifiable at a time when the international community is jointly working to find a solution to the conflict," she said in a statement. "The killings of innocent people, particularly of children, must stop now."
The United States reiterated its support for Israel but urged the Jewish state to use restraint.
White House spokesman Blaine Rethmeier, asked by AFP for a response to the Israeli attack Sunday, said there was no change in position.
The United States "continues to urge Israel to use restraint," Rethmeier said in a telephone interview.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's representative, Geir Pedersen, said he was "deeply shocked and saddened by the killing of tens of Lebanese civilians, including many children in Qana, South Lebanon, and calls for immediate cease-fire and investigation," a statement said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was dismayed by a deadly Israeli raid on the Southern Lebanese village, saying Sunday that "nothing can justify" the deaths of innocent civilians.
Pope Benedict XVI also appealed for an immediate end to the hostilities.
"In the name of God, I appeal to all those responsible for this spiral of violence, so that they immediately put down their arms on all sides," he told faithful at his summer residence on the outskirts of Rome. Pausing, slightly he stressed the word "immediately."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steimneier expressed horror at the death of dozens of people in the Israeli strike, and urged both sides not to block diplomatic efforts.
Steimneier said he had repeatedly underlined to Israel "that every use of military force, also in the framework of self-defense, must be proportionate - in particular, victims among the civilian population absolutely must be avoided."
Swedish Foreign Minister and former UN General Assembly president Jan Eliasson condemned the "madness."
"There is strong reason to condemn the attack against the housing complex in Qana leading to the deaths of civilians including children," he told AFP. "It is time to end this madness. The UN Security Council must accept its responsibility and immediately adopt a resolution to bring an end to hostilities."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Israel of "terrorism and pure fascism," while also blaming the US for endangering humanity. - Agencies

31 July- AFP- Residents flee as south Lebanon spared Israeli strikes

Residents flee as south Lebanon spared Israeli strikes
31/07/2006 10h12
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060731092402.y00knfwp.html

TYRE, Lebanon (AFP) - Israel has spared the battered region of south Lebanon from air attacks for the first time in three weeks as exhausted residents streamed north after being trapped by the bombardments.

Israel agreed to suspend air raids for 48 hours following global outrage over the killing of 52 civilians in strikes on the village of Qana, giving civilians the chance to flee to safer havens and to get in urgently needed aid.

The region around southern port of Tyre, the target of blistering Israeli strikes over the 20 days of its offensive, was calm with no sign of strikes from the navy, artillery or the air.

An AFP correspondent travelling on the road out of Tyre saw three dozen villagers coming in towards the city in battered pick-ups, having finally escaped their besieged homes in the southern village of Jibbain.

"We were trapped for 20 days with no food and no water. We finally escaped as the Israelis let us go," said a delighted Hassan Mahmoud Akid, 65.

A huge convoy of 33 cars, covered in white drapes, was also seen on the road north towards Tyre crammed with exhausted inhabitants of Tair-Harfa in south Lebanon.

A statement for the UN force in Lebanon said that no incident from rocket firing or aerial bombardment had been reported in its area of operations in south Lebanon since 4:00 am (0100 GMT) Monday.

The temporary halt in air attacks was announced by an aide to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who left the Middle East on Monday saying she hoped for a ceasefire this week.

"Israel has agreed to a 48-hour suspension of aerial activity in south Lebanon" pending an investigation into the attack, spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters after late-night talks between Rice and top Israeli officials.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed the announcement Monday.

"All air operations have been suspended across all of Lebanon, mainly to allow the population of the south to evacuate the region," she told AFP, adding however that Israel reserved the right to strike Hezbollah commandos preparing attacks.

Israeli artillery earlier bombarded villages in south Lebanon, including Jebbin and Kafra south of Tyre, as well as the regions of Arkoub and Rashaya Al-Fakhar in southeast Lebanon.
Police said there were also violent clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli fighters in the border region of Aadissiyeh in south Lebanon for control of a hill.

It was not clear if the clashes were part of the new incursion Israel staged on Sunday, when the army Israeli forces made a fresh push into southern Lebanon on, sparking intense firefights with Hezbollah around the village of of Taibe in the same region.

A civilian was killed Sunday evening in an Israeli air raid on the village of Deir Harfa, just before the 48 hour halt to the air strikes came into force.

And in an indication of Israeli determination to prevent Hezbollah being resupplied, Israeli air strikes also targeted areas near Lebanon's Masnaa border crossing with Syria for the second time in as many days, police said.

Israeli air raids targeted the same area overnight Saturday, closing off the main road to Damascus and wounding at least one person.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon warned that the temporary halt to air strikes in no way meant that Jewish state was ending its war against Hezbollah.

"The suspension of our aerial activities does not signify in any way the end to the war. On the contrary, this decision will allow us to win this war and lessen international pressure," Ramon told army radio.

28 July- The Independent- PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for a ceasefire

PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for ceasefire

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent - UK
Published: 28 July 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1201307.ece

Israel's Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, added to the pressure yesterday, when he interpreted that indecision as a green light to continue the bloody assault on Lebanon.

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," he told reporters.

The Prime Minister's visit takes place as 42 leading figures in politics, diplomacy, academia and the media put their names to a declaration urging Mr Blair to tell the President that Britain "can no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle-East". Their declaration, printed on the front page of today's Independent, calls on the Prime Minister to "make urgent representations to Israel to end its disproportionate and counter-productive response to Hizbollah's aggression".

After his stop-over in Washington, Mr Blair will fly on to California tonight to attend a conference with the media magnate Rupert Murdoch. An ally of Mr Murdoch, Irwin Stelzer, insisted Mr Blair was not Mr Bush's "poodle", but his "guide dog", particularly over the Middle East.

Downing Street officials said Mr Blair intended to respond to world criticism by showing urgency in seeking an end to the hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah. The Prime Minister and the President are planning to commit their governments to a lasting ceasefire by restoring the authority of the elected government against the unilateral action by Hizbollah.

Their joint appearance at the White House is likely to be met with scepticism. The Bush administration said this week it was seeking a "new Middle East", raising fears that the crisis in Lebanon was a proxy war between the US and Iran, Hizbollah's backers.
Senior officials in Downing Street said the Prime Minister supported the US strategy on the Middle East, which was agreed at the Sea Island G8 summit in 2004. Mr Blair is credited with persuading the President to pursue a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem. Mr Blair and Mr Bush will emphasise they are working behind the scenes to push for an urgent end to the violence on both sides in the Lebanon.

"Don't in any way underestimate the intensive nature of the diplomacy," said one senior aide to the Prime Minister. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes. We want to show that we are stepping up the search for a process that allows both sides to end the hostilities and there is urgency about that."

Mr Blair's influence on the US President, as part of the "special relationship" with America, was ridiculed after Mr Bush was heard saying "Yo, Blair" to him at the G8 summit in St Petersburg. In the recorded conversation, Mr Bush refused to allow Mr Blair to mount a diplomatic mission to the Middle East, preferring instead to send his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
Both leaders know that their time in office is running out, and officials said they saw eye to eye on four out of five of the key items on the agenda at today's meeting - the "war against terror", the need to spread democracy in the Middle East, restoring stability to Iraq, and the need to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran. They are far apart on the collapse of the world trade talks, which is also on the agenda, but other tricky issues such as the controversy over the use of British airports for US arms shipments to Israel will be put to one side. "That is matter for Mrs Beckett [the Foreign Secretary]," said one No 10 source.

Downing Street has insisted that Mr Blair has privately used influence on the Bush administration over the war in Lebanon, rather than calling publicly for a ceasefire that could not be enforced. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Blair decided to "roll his sleeves up" and work behind the scenes, rather than act as a commentator on the sidelines.
Sir Stephen Wall, one of the Prime Minister's most trusted former advisers, said Mr Blair's approach was wrong. "There have been times on trade issues when the PM should have told Bush to get his tanks off our lawn," Sir Stephen wrote in the New Statesman. "There are still times when, as well as working quietly with Congress on climate change, we should speak up about the irresponsibility of the White House.

"There are times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime minister should have been thinking less about private influence and more about public advocacy."

Day 16
* 600 may have died in Lebanon, says its Health Minister. Israeli planes attack trucks carrying medical and food supplies.
* Israel calls up 30,000 reservists, but cabinet decides not to expand its incursion into Lebanon.
* Hizbollah fires 48 rockets into northern Israel, wounding four people.
* Hamas rejects comment from Palestinian President that release of Israeli hostage is "imminent".
* Iran's President says Israel has pushed a self-destruct button.
* Security Council expresses shock and distress at Israel's bombing of a UN post but no condemnation.
* Al-Qa'ida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims to repel attacks on their countries.

27 July- Zaman- Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes

Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes
By Selcuk Gultasli Thursday, July 27, 2006 zaman.com

Jewish associations have begun to react against the Israeli offensive into Lebanon. Head of the Union of Belgian Jewish Progressives (UPJB) Dr. Jacques Ravedovitch stated that Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.
In an interview with Zaman in Brussels, Ravedovitch said that while former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon committed indirect war crimes, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unquestionably a war criminal.
Dr. Ravedovitch said it is a shame that Jews who were once exposed to the holocaust are doing the same evil things against another nation today.
According to Ravedovitch, anti-Semitism is from time to time misused by Israeli statesman, and the recently intensified Israeli offensive into Lebanon has increased hatred for Israel.
The UPJB demands that both the EU and Belgium bring the Israeli attacks to an end.
UPJB, an active Jewish Association in Belgium, accuses Israel of committing war crimes despite the statements issued by the EU and US.
Some Jews still have dreams of a “Great Israel,” Ravedovitch noted, adding that the Israeli government is absolutely against negotiations and is acting aggressively to impose its own interests as a solution.
Seen as a traitor to the Diaspora cause, Ravdeovitch said: “Peace will not be secured without the return of Israel to its pre-1967 borders. Israel should stop destroying Lebanon. It should leave Eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians and accept that Jerusalem is the common capital; they should sit at the negotiation table for talks.”
Calling the Israeli attacks shameful, Ravedovitch said: “Resistance in Palestine and Lebanon is justified. Israel is an invader. I do not approve of Hamas killing innocent people, but I defend that if there are invaders there will be resistance at the same time. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is terror.”
Accusing the West, and particularly Europe, of fearing to criticize Israel, Ravedovitch said: “The EU keeps saying that they treat Israel and Palestine equally, but how can we behave equally towards both the invader and the invadee? We asked the EU to suspend the Partnership Agreement with Israel, but they didn’t answer.”
Ravedovitch said the EU’s attitude indicates Europe still feels guilty about the holocaust, but that Israel is exploiting anti-Semitism.
He pointed out that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are different concepts.
“Anti-Zionism is a political stance. For instance, when a person criticizes Britain, he shouldn’t be called racist or anti- British. Similarly, when people criticize Israel, they do not become anti-Semites.”
The last point Ravedovitch compared the situation to the US’s failure in Vietnam, and suggested that it’s impossible for Israel to attain its objectives in Lebanon as the latest attacks into Lebanon only increased the hatred against Israel tenfold.

27 July- Zaman- Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes

26 July- Newsweek- Let It Bleed- Leaders at the Rome summit on the Mideast are ignoring the real bottom line: Hizbullah is winning

Let It Bleed
Leaders at the Rome summit on the Mideast are ignoring the real bottom line: Hizbullah is winning.

By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Updated: 3:57 p.m. ET July 26, 2006

July 26, 2006 - Worthy-sounding meetings of ministers, like the International Conference for Lebanon held in Rome today, rarely get very much done. The participants here were high-powered, to be sure: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the prime minister of the country in question, Fouad Siniora, plus a slew of Europeans and Arabs (but no Israelis or Hizbullahis). Instigated by Washington, it was all for show.

The assembled dignitaries expressed their “determination to work immediately to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire” in the war that started two weeks ago today when the Hizbullah militia crossed the border to capture two Israeli soldiers, and Israel responded with a massive counterattack the length and breadth of Lebanon.

But, at American insistence, the ceasefire would have to be one that’s “lasting, permanent and sustainable.” Which means the flames searing Lebanon, threatening Israel and endangering the most volatile region in the world will go on for weeks, if not months, to come. The consolation prize: a promise of “immediate humanitarian aid.”

Imagine, if you will, that arsonists have set your apartment block on fire. You call 911 and plead for help. The dispatcher tells you of her “determination to work immediately with the utmost urgency” to douse the flames, but only if plans can be agreed on for the new building to be erected when the decrepit old one has gone up in smoke. She’s stalling, hoping the arsonists will be eliminated by the conflagration. And she’s got a great vision for the way that block should look some day. That’s what counts. Not your furniture, or for that matter, your family inside …

No wonder Siniora looked distraught as the conference closed.

24 July- BBC News- Lebanon economy reels as attacks continue

Lebanon economy reels as attacks continue
By Jorn Madslien
Business reporter, BBC News
24 July 2006

In just two weeks of sustained Israeli attacks, the Lebanese economy has been knocked so far back it may never fully recover.

Almost all the war-torn country's bridges and 80% of its major roads have been crushed. Airports and ports, telecoms sites and TV towers, schools and hospitals have been bombed.

"The effect on the economy is going to be very, very drastic," says BLC Bank's chairman, Shadi Karam.

The damage to the country's infrastructure so far amounts to more than $1bn (£540m), economists estimate.

Yet the total cost could be much larger.

Much of the $50bn that has been injected into the country during the last decade to rebuild it after the 1975-1989 civil war may have been wasted if the onslaught also brings about the collapse of Lebanon's still fragile democracy, along with any faith in the nation's new beginning.

Despair

Rebuilding the infrastructure will prove a huge task. Restoring the confidence of the international community could prove an even greater challenge.

Traders at the Beirut stock exchange, which has been closed for two weeks, are still talking tough, insisting that the market will pick up once the bombs stop falling.
Yet, hard on the heels of the thousands of fleeing tourists and expatriates, investors were among the first to depart.

Eye witnesses tell stories of how construction sites that until recently were abuzz with builders have gone quiet, their foreign backers loath to pay for the construction of office blocks or shopping centres that could soon go up in smoke.

Nobody now dares hope for a quick return to the early 1970s, when Lebanon was still a Middle Eastern banking and trading hub.

The tourism industry has also been paralysed.

Hoteliers' and tour operators' high hopes for the arrival of more than 1.6 million tourists this year have turned to despair.

A ceasefire overseen by UN peace keepers would not suffice to bring the tourists back; few would want to lie on beaches patrolled by blue berets.

No reforms

Economic growth of 6%, as seen recently, is no longer possible.

Optimists talk of 2%, perhaps 3% growth, though even such modest targets could be further downgraded if the current conflict continues.
With foreigners and investors fleeing and growth stalling, the government is set to lose out on $600m in earnings and the economy will suffer a $2bn hit, according to Lebanese economist Marwan Iskander.

This is not small fry, given that the country's gross domestic product in 2005 amounted to just less than $24bn.

"We are talking fairly enormous losses here," says Mr Iskander.
Consequently, Lebanon will find it increasingly hard to service its $35bn debts, and the government will probably have to shelve its plans for economic reform, which were supposed to include the privatisation of its power and telecoms sectors, tax rises and tighter government purse strings.

"Forget reforms for the moment," says Mr Karam of BLC Bank. "We will not be in the mood for a while, possibly not for a long time to come."

Donations needed

Until that day, anybody but the most gung-ho investors will look elsewhere in the world for returns.

Indeed, even the Lebanese government will find it harder to borrow money on the international financial markets, where renowned credit rating agencies have downgraded its outlook for Lebanon's ability to repay debts.

Giant cash injections from the international community remains Lebanon's only real hope of a relatively swift recovery.

"We will definitely need $3bn in assistance in the very short term in the nature of donations rather than loans," says Mr Iskander.

"Much depends on the speed with which reconstruction can proceed, which depends on the speed and size of assistance."

In the past, donor countries have actively used their contributions as levers to ensure economic reform is carried out, though such conditionality may not be practical now.

"I hope the mood in the donor countries, which was not to give Lebanon a penny unless it reforms, will tone down," says Mr Karam.

As is often the case in the world of economics, self-interest rather than altruistic arguments are most likely to win over the donors.

Growth in the global economy could slow dramatically as a direct consequence of the spike in oil prices, that has itself partly been caused by the regional crisis.

Last week, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said "the increase in energy prices is clearly making the economy worse off both in terms of real activity and in terms of inflation".

For the international community, bailing out Lebanon as part of efforts to calm the situation in the Middle East, could prove a more tempting option than allowing the situation to escalate and thus cause a lengthy, global economic downturn.

28 July- The Independent- PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for ceasefire

PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for ceasefire
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent - UK
Published: 28 July 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1201307.ece

Tony Blair will face fresh pressure over the Middle East crisis today when he arrives in Washington to meet President George Bush. Senior Downing Street aides said the two leaders intended to show the world they were seeking an urgent end to the hostilities in Lebanon, despite the failure of the much vaunted Rome summit on Wednesday to deliver a unified call for a truce.
Israel's Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, added to the pressure yesterday, when he interpreted that indecision as a green light to continue the bloody assault on Lebanon.
"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," he told reporters.
The Prime Minister's visit takes place as 42 leading figures in politics, diplomacy, academia and the media put their names to a declaration urging Mr Blair to tell the President that Britain "can no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle-East". Their declaration, printed on the front page of today's Independent, calls on the Prime Minister to "make urgent representations to Israel to end its disproportionate and counter-productive response to Hizbollah's aggression".
After his stop-over in Washington, Mr Blair will fly on to California tonight to attend a conference with the media magnate Rupert Murdoch. An ally of Mr Murdoch, Irwin Stelzer, insisted Mr Blair was not Mr Bush's "poodle", but his "guide dog", particularly over the Middle East.
Downing Street officials said Mr Blair intended to respond to world criticism by showing urgency in seeking an end to the hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah. The Prime Minister and the President are planning to commit their governments to a lasting ceasefire by restoring the authority of the elected government against the unilateral action by Hizbollah.
Their joint appearance at the White House is likely to be met with scepticism. The Bush administration said this week it was seeking a "new Middle East", raising fears that the crisis in Lebanon was a proxy war between the US and Iran, Hizbollah's backers.
Senior officials in Downing Street said the Prime Minister supported the US strategy on the Middle East, which was agreed at the Sea Island G8 summit in 2004. Mr Blair is credited with persuading the President to pursue a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem. Mr Blair and Mr Bush will emphasise they are working behind the scenes to push for an urgent end to the violence on both sides in the Lebanon.
"Don't in any way underestimate the intensive nature of the diplomacy," said one senior aide to the Prime Minister. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes. We want to show that we are stepping up the search for a process that allows both sides to end the hostilities and there is urgency about that."
Mr Blair's influence on the US President, as part of the "special relationship" with America, was ridiculed after Mr Bush was heard saying "Yo, Blair" to him at the G8 summit in St Petersburg. In the recorded conversation, Mr Bush refused to allow Mr Blair to mount a diplomatic mission to the Middle East, preferring instead to send his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
Both leaders know that their time in office is running out, and officials said they saw eye to eye on four out of five of the key items on the agenda at today's meeting - the "war against terror", the need to spread democracy in the Middle East, restoring stability to Iraq, and the need to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran. They are far apart on the collapse of the world trade talks, which is also on the agenda, but other tricky issues such as the controversy over the use of British airports for US arms shipments to Israel will be put to one side. "That is matter for Mrs Beckett [the Foreign Secretary]," said one No 10 source.
Downing Street has insisted that Mr Blair has privately used influence on the Bush administration over the war in Lebanon, rather than calling publicly for a ceasefire that could not be enforced. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Blair decided to "roll his sleeves up" and work behind the scenes, rather than act as a commentator on the sidelines.
Sir Stephen Wall, one of the Prime Minister's most trusted former advisers, said Mr Blair's approach was wrong. "There have been times on trade issues when the PM should have told Bush to get his tanks off our lawn," Sir Stephen wrote in the New Statesman. "There are still times when, as well as working quietly with Congress on climate change, we should speak up about the irresponsibility of the White House.
"There are times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime minister should have been thinking less about private influence and more about public advocacy."
Day 16
* 600 may have died in Lebanon, says its Health Minister. Israeli planes attack trucks carrying medical and food supplies.
* Israel calls up 30,000 reservists, but cabinet decides not to expand its incursion into Lebanon.
* Hizbollah fires 48 rockets into northern Israel, wounding four people.
* Hamas rejects comment from Palestinian President that release of Israeli hostage is "imminent".
* Iran's President says Israel has pushed a self-destruct button.
* Security Council expresses shock and distress at Israel's bombing of a UN post but no condemnation.
* Al-Qa'ida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims to repel attacks on their countries.
Tony Blair will face fresh pressure over the Middle East crisis today when he arrives in Washington to meet President George Bush. Senior Downing Street aides said the two leaders intended to show the world they were seeking an urgent end to the hostilities in Lebanon, despite the failure of the much vaunted Rome summit on Wednesday to deliver a unified call for a truce.
Israel's Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, added to the pressure yesterday, when he interpreted that indecision as a green light to continue the bloody assault on Lebanon.
"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation," he told reporters.
The Prime Minister's visit takes place as 42 leading figures in politics, diplomacy, academia and the media put their names to a declaration urging Mr Blair to tell the President that Britain "can no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle-East". Their declaration, printed on the front page of today's Independent, calls on the Prime Minister to "make urgent representations to Israel to end its disproportionate and counter-productive response to Hizbollah's aggression".
After his stop-over in Washington, Mr Blair will fly on to California tonight to attend a conference with the media magnate Rupert Murdoch. An ally of Mr Murdoch, Irwin Stelzer, insisted Mr Blair was not Mr Bush's "poodle", but his "guide dog", particularly over the Middle East.
Downing Street officials said Mr Blair intended to respond to world criticism by showing urgency in seeking an end to the hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah. The Prime Minister and the President are planning to commit their governments to a lasting ceasefire by restoring the authority of the elected government against the unilateral action by Hizbollah.
Their joint appearance at the White House is likely to be met with scepticism. The Bush administration said this week it was seeking a "new Middle East", raising fears that the crisis in Lebanon was a proxy war between the US and Iran, Hizbollah's backers.
Senior officials in Downing Street said the Prime Minister supported the US strategy on the Middle East, which was agreed at the Sea Island G8 summit in 2004. Mr Blair is credited with persuading the President to pursue a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem. Mr Blair and Mr Bush will emphasise they are working behind the scenes to push for an urgent end to the violence on both sides in the Lebanon.
"Don't in any way underestimate the intensive nature of the diplomacy," said one senior aide to the Prime Minister. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes. We want to show that we are stepping up the search for a process that allows both sides to end the hostilities and there is urgency about that."
Mr Blair's influence on the US President, as part of the "special relationship" with America, was ridiculed after Mr Bush was heard saying "Yo, Blair" to him at the G8 summit in St Petersburg. In the recorded conversation, Mr Bush refused to allow Mr Blair to mount a diplomatic mission to the Middle East, preferring instead to send his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
Both leaders know that their time in office is running out, and officials said they saw eye to eye on four out of five of the key items on the agenda at today's meeting - the "war against terror", the need to spread democracy in the Middle East, restoring stability to Iraq, and the need to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran. They are far apart on the collapse of the world trade talks, which is also on the agenda, but other tricky issues such as the controversy over the use of British airports for US arms shipments to Israel will be put to one side. "That is matter for Mrs Beckett [the Foreign Secretary]," said one No 10 source.
Downing Street has insisted that Mr Blair has privately used influence on the Bush administration over the war in Lebanon, rather than calling publicly for a ceasefire that could not be enforced. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Blair decided to "roll his sleeves up" and work behind the scenes, rather than act as a commentator on the sidelines.
Sir Stephen Wall, one of the Prime Minister's most trusted former advisers, said Mr Blair's approach was wrong. "There have been times on trade issues when the PM should have told Bush to get his tanks off our lawn," Sir Stephen wrote in the New Statesman. "There are still times when, as well as working quietly with Congress on climate change, we should speak up about the irresponsibility of the White House.
"There are times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime minister should have been thinking less about private influence and more about public advocacy."
Day 16
* 600 may have died in Lebanon, says its Health Minister. Israeli planes attack trucks carrying medical and food supplies.
* Israel calls up 30,000 reservists, but cabinet decides not to expand its incursion into Lebanon.
* Hizbollah fires 48 rockets into northern Israel, wounding four people.
* Hamas rejects comment from Palestinian President that release of Israeli hostage is "imminent".
* Iran's President says Israel has pushed a self-destruct button.
* Security Council expresses shock and distress at Israel's bombing of a UN post but no condemnation.
* Al-Qa'ida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims to repel attacks on their countries.

Articles about Lebanon

Monday, July 31, 2006

EXCELLENT REPORT- 31 July- Hizballah: A Primer

30 July- Ha'aretz- Days of Darkness

31 July- The Guardian- They found them huddled together- More than 60 people, including 34 children, killed by Israeli attack on home

31 July- New York Times- A Night of Death and Terror for Lebanese Villagers

31 July- Ha'aretz- UN Security Council rejects Annan's call for immediate cease-fire

31 July- Daily Star- Global condemnation for latest Qana massacre- Nothing can justify deaths of innocents

31 July- AFP- Residents flee as south Lebanon spared Israeli strikes

28 July- The Independent- PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for a ceasefire

27 July- Zaman- Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes

27 July- Zaman- Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes

26 July- Newsweek- Let It Bleed- Leaders at the Rome summit on the Mideast are ignoring the real bottom line: Hizbullah is winning

24 July- BBC News- Lebanon economy reels as attacks continue

28 July- The Independent- PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for ceasefire

About Me

Links

Previous Posts

Archives