Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 14, 2006

Another hopeful article from Lebanon

I've been fairly pessimistic about the future of Lebanon, but it is heartening to see at least some bloggers and commenters saying what needs to be said. From Beirut Spring (who appears to be Muslim, but I could be wrong):

The time is right for liberal forces in Lebanon to speak with force and belief.

Before July 12, the debate between Hezbollah and the rest of the Lebanese had a classic pattern: When a Lebanese party reproaches Hezbollah for their weapons, they respond with a barrage of intimidation, bullying and self-righteousness. “How dare you question us?” “You sound exactly like the Israelis,” “Who are you to judge us?” sweetened with an assurance that the weapons are only for deterrence and will only be used against the “Zionist enemy,” followed by veiled (and not so veiled) threats: “we shall cut the limbs and heads of those who will try to disarm us and pull their souls out of their bodies”

The problem was not Hezbollah’s responses per say. The problem was the fact that a lot of Lebanese (mainly the Sunnis) actually felt a hint of shame for criticizing a force that appeals so much to populist Arab public opinion. Especially if you watch Aljazeera and the way they insinuate that the Lebanese who don’t support Hezbollah serve the interests of Israel.

At this junction, we need to be more righteous than Hezbollah, because our cause is, in fact, more just.

We should cast aside the shame we feel every time we pressure Hezbollah. We should have an internalized belief that our cause is righter than theirs. Our dream of a prosperous, pluralist, democratic Lebanon is much worthier than their narrow-minded medieval dream of an Islamic resurrection; our culture of life trumps their culture of death and martyrdom. A mother bragging about her son being a doctor is better than a mother bragging that her children are all “martyrs”

We should have an internal belief that modern wars are fought economically, by competing in production and innovation. A prosperous, plural Lebanon is a stronger foe than a militant, xenophobic Lebanon. Prosperity is about uniting families by preventing immigration. It’s about dignity. It’s about prestige and influence. A militant Lebanon will only create destitute, wretched and scattered about citizens who feed off other people’s charities.

When we argue with Hezbollah, we should be firm in our beliefs: We are right. They are wrong.

The comments are worthwhile as well, some also from Muslims.

PalArab Self-Death count: A grim milestone

Those wacky Palestinian Arabs just keep killing each other! Here's the result of that nastiness between Hamas and Fatah as each tries to out-terrorize the other:

On Sunday morning, 6 August 2006, unknown gunmen shot Major Mohammed Mousa al-Mousah, 40, from Habalya refugee camp, chief of the Palestinian Military Intelligence in the northern Gaza Strip. He died later from his wound. Tow other persons were also wounded in the same attack.

A nominee for a Darwin Award, that this Palestinian Arab site tries hard to put a good spin on:

On Wednesday, 9 August 2006, a Palestinian was killed in the north of Gaza by an explosion of an artillery shell, and three were injured in the center of the Gaza Strip by mishandled weapons. PCHR's preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 14:30 on Wednesday, 9 August 2006, Emad Abdallah El-Sharatha (22) was killed by the explosion of an artillery shell fired by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) that did not explode at the time it was fired. At the time of his death, Emad was trying to dismantle the shell in his house, located in the Shusha'a area, east of Jabalia refugee camp. Emad's body was torn to pieces, and extensive damage was inflicted on the house.

Yes, we are all sure that he was trying to dismantle the shell in his house! Here's a nice example of extra-judicial killings that no one cares about because the killers are Arab:

Basem Radi El-Mallah (a 29-year old resident of Faqou'a village east of Jenin) was killed by a Palestinian armed group in Jenin refugee camp. The killing was an extra-judicial execution for suspected collaboration with Israeli security services. PCHR's preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 13:00 on Sunday, 13 August 2006, an armed group led Basem El-Mallah from his place of residence in the village of Faqou'a to Jenin refugee camp. He was bound and his eyes were covered. They fired at him, killing him instantly with bullets to the upper part of the body.

The "human rights" website this was taken from condemned the killing but still referred to it as an "honor killing"! Finally, we have a few examples of what PCHR refers to as "misusing weapons." The third example doesn't look too accidental to me:

Over the past two days, one Palestinian was killed and two others were injured in Gaza City, including an officer in the General Intelligence Apparatus, in incidents of misusing weapons. PCHR's preliminary investigation reveals that at approximately 08:00 on Sunday, 13 August 2006, the body of Tamer Anwar Hilles, a 19-year old resident of Sheja'eya Quarter in Gaza City, was found in the yard of the Sheja'eya School in the Jabal neighborhood, east of the city. It was learnt later that Hilles was handling a weapon with a friend in the school at approximately 21:00 on Saturday, 12 August 2006. A bullet was accidentally fired, hitting Hilles in the chest. He was killed instantly. At approximately 22:00 on Saturday, 12 August 2006, Dr. Maher Issa Ayyad, a 55-year old resident of Gaza City, was injured by a bullet from an unknown source as he was in El-Diera Hotel on the Gaza City beach front. The bullet hit Dr. Ayyad in the shoulder from above, indicating that it was fired in the air, most probably during a wedding celebration in one of the nearby wedding halls. Dr. Ayyad was taken to Shifa Hospital for treatment, where his injury was listed as light. At approximately 22:00 on Saturday, unknown gunmen in a car fired at an officer in the General Intelligence Apparatus. The officer is Mahmoud El-Ghazzawi (42). The incident took place near El-Shaf'i mosque in Zaitoon Quarter in Gaza City. The officer was hit by several bullets in the feet. He was taken to Shifa Hospital for treatment, where his injury was classified as moderate.

These four deaths puts the PalArab Self-Death count since the start of Israel's incursion at an even 50. No virgins for these guys, though, and no tearful feature stories on the BBC either, because they were unfortunate enough to have been killed by their fellow Arabs who would all live in peace if it wasn't for "occupation." UPDATE: Judeopundit notices a riot at a PalArab wedding, with knives and clubs, when one guest offered a somewhat unpopular opinion. But, no one died, so the count is still at 50. Maybe this was one of those rare weddings that didn't involve machine guns as part of the celebration.

UNIFIL stops press releases

Every day since the start of the war, UNIFIL dutifully published on its website a summary of the day's event; who shot at whom, who shot near UN positions amd who shot UN positions, as well as details of humanitarian aid provided by UNIFIL. I have been highlighting these press releases to show how often - according to the UN itself! - Hezbollah used the UN as human shields and shot rockets at UN positions, things that were never reported in the media.

But nothing was released on Saturday or Sunday.

What makes it doubly strange is that UNIFIL did release a picture of smoke from an explosion in Naquora. So it is not like UNIFIL is out of contact with the rest of the world.

Very odd.

UPDATE: They are back.

The most hypocritical people on Earth (Michael Béhé)

A Lebanese man who tells the truth, cutting through all the bull. This is the best article on the situation I have yet seen.(H/T Israel Matzav)

The politicians, journalists and intellectuals of Lebanon have, of late, been experiencing the shock of their lives. They knew full well that Hezbollah had created an independent state in our country, a state including all the ministers and parallel institutions, duplicating those of Lebanon. What they did not know – and are discovering with this war, and what has petrified them with surprise and terror – is the extent of this phagocytosis.

In fact, our country had become an extension of Iran, and our so-called political power also served as a political and military cover for the Islamists of Teheran. We suddenly discovered that Teheran had stocked more than 12,000 missiles, of all types and calibers, on our territory and that they had patiently, systematically, organized a suppletive force, with the help of the Syrians, that took over, day after day, all the rooms in the House of Lebanon. Just imagine it : we stock ground-to-ground missiles, Zilzals, on our territory and that the firing of such devices without our knowledge, has the power to spark a regional strategic conflict and, potentially, bring about the annihilation of Lebanon.

We knew that Iran, by means of Hezbollah, was building a veritable Maginot line in the south but it was the pictures of Maroun el-Ras and Bint J’bail that revealed to us the magnitude of these constructions. This amplitude made us understand several things at once : that we were no longer masters of our destiny. That we do not possess the most basic means necessary to reverse the course of this state of things and that those who turned our country into an outpost of their islamic doctrine’s combat against Israel did not have the slightest intention of willingly giving up their hold over us.

The national salvation discussions that concerned the application of Resolution 1559 and which included most of the Lebanese political movements were simply for show. Iran and Syria had not invested billions of dollars on militarizing Lebanon in order to wage their war, simply to give in to the desire of the Lebanese and the international community for them to pack up their hardware and set it up back home.

And then, the indecision, the cowardice, the division and the irresponsible behavior of our leaders are such that they had no effort to make to show their talent. No need to engage a wrestling match with the other political components of the Land of Cedars. The latter showed themselves – and continue to show themselves – to be inconsistent.

Of course, our army, reshaped over the years by the Syrian occupier so it could no longer fulfill its role as protector of the nation, did not have the capacity to tackle the militamen of the Hezb [hezb-Allah : the party of Allah. Translator’s note]. Our army whom it is more dangerous to call upon – because of the explosive equilibrium that constitutes each of its brigades – than to shut up behind locked doors in its barracks. A force that is still largely loyal to its former foreign masters, to the point of being uncontrollable ; to the point of having collaborated with the Iranians to put OUR coastal radar stations at the disposal of their missiles, that almost sunk an Israeli boat off the shores of Beirut. As for the non-Hezbollah elements in the government, they knew nothing of the existence of land-to-sea missiles on our territory… That caused the totally justified destruction of all OUR radar stations by the Hebrews’ army. And even then we are getting off lightly in these goings-on.

It is easy now to whine and gripe, and to play the hypocritical role of victims. We know full well how to get others to pity us and to claim that we are never responsible for the horrors that regularly occur on our soil. Of course, that is nothing but rubbish! The Security Council’s Resolution 1559 – that demanded that OUR government deploy OUR army on OUR sovereign territory, along OUR international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on OUR land – was voted on 2 September 2004.

We had two years to put implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children but we did strictly nothing. Our greatest crime – which was not the only one! – was not that we did not succeed but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians.

Our government, from the very moment the Syrian occupier left, let ships and truckloads of arms pour into our country. Without even bothering to look at their cargo. They jeopardized all chances for the rebirth of our country by confusing the Cedar Revolution with the liberation of Beirut. In reality, we had just received the chance – a sort of unhoped-for moratorium – that allowed us to take the future into our own hands, nothing more.

To think that we were not even capable of agreeing to “hang” Émile Lahoud – Al-Assad’s puppet – on Martyrs’ Square and that he is still president of what some insist on calling our republic… There is no need to look any further : we are what we are, that is to say, not much.

All those who assume public and communicational responsibilities in this country are responsible for this catastrophe. Except those of my colleagues, journalists and editors, who are dead, assassinated by the Syrian thugs, because they were clearly less cowardly than those who survived. And Lahoud remained at Baadbé [the president of the Lebanese Republic’s palace. Editor’s note]!

And when I speak of a catastrophe, I do not mean the action accomplished by Israel in response to the aggression against its civilians and its army, which was produced from our soil and that we did strictly nothing to avoid, and for which we are consequently responsible. Any avoiding of this responsibility – some people here do not have the minimal notions of international law necessary to understand! – means that Lebanon, as a state, does not exist.

The hypocrisy goes on : even some editorialists of the respectable L’Orient-le-Jour put Hezbollah’s savagery and that of the Israelis on a par! Shame! Spinelessness! And who are we in this fable? Poor ad æternum victims of the ambitions of others?

Politicians either support this insane idea or keep silent. Those we would expect to speak, to save our image, remain silent like the others. And I am precisely alluding to general Aoun, who could have made a move by proclaiming the truth. Even his enemy, Walid Jumblatt, the Druse leader, has proved to be less… vague.

Lebanon a victim? What a joke!

Before the Israeli attack, Lebanon no longer existed, it was no more than a hologram. At Beirut innocent citizens like myself were forbidden access to certain areas of their own capital. But our police, our army and our judges were also excluded. That was the case, for example, of Hezbollah’s and the Syrians’ command zone in the Haret Hreik quarter (in red on the satellite map). A square measuring a kilometer wide, a capital within the capital, permanently guarded by a Horla army [1], possessing its own institutions, its schools, its crèches, its tribunals, its radio, its television and, above all… its government. A “government” that, alone decided, in the place of the figureheads of the Lebanese government – in which Hezbollah also had its ministers! – to attack a neighboring state, with which we had no substantial or grounded quarrel, and to plunge US into a bloody conflict. And if attacking a sovereign nation on its territory, assassinating eight of its soldiers, kidnapping two others and, simultaneously, launching missiles on nine of its towns does not constitute a casus belli, the latter juridical principle will seriously need revising.

Thus almost all of these cowardly politicians, including numerous shiah leaders and religious personalities themselves, are blessing each bomb that falls from a Jewish F-16 turning the insult to our sovereignty that was Haret Hreik, right in the heart of Beirut, into a lunar landscape. Without the Israelis, how could we have received another chance – that we in no way deserve! – to rebuild our country?

Each Irano-Syrian fort that Jerusalem destroys, each islamic fighter they eliminate, and Lebanon proportionally starts to live again! Once again, the soldiers of Israel are doing our work. Once again, like in 1982, we are watching – cowardly, lying low, despicable, and insulting them to boot – their heroic sacrifice that allows us to keep hoping. To not be swallowed up in the bowels of the earth. Because, of course, by dint of not giving a damn for southern Lebanon, of letting foreigners take hold of the privileges that belong to us, we no longer had the ability to recover our independence and sovereignty. If, at the end of this war, the Lebanese army retakes control over its territory and gets rid of the state within a state – that tried to suffocate the latter –, it will only be thanks to Tsahal [the Israeli Defense Forces. Translator’s note], and that, all these faint-hearted politicians, from the crook Fouad Siniora, to Saad Hariri, the son of Lebanon’s plunderer, and general Aoun all know perfectly well.

As for the destruction caused by the Israelis… that is another imposture : look at the satellite map! I have situated, as best I could, BUT IN THEIR CORRECT PROPORTIONS, the parts of my capital that have been destroyed by Israel. They are Haret Hreik – in its totality – and the dwellings of Hezbollah’s leaders, situated in the large Shi’a suburb of Dayaa (as they spell it) and that I have circled in blue.

In addition to these two zones, Tsahal has exploded a nine-storied building that housed Hezbollah’s command, in Beirut’s city center, above and slightly to the left (to the north west) of Haret Hreik on the map. It was Nasrallah’s “perch” inside the city, whereby he asserted his presence and domination over us. A depot of Syrian arms in the port, two army radars that the Shiite officers had put at the Hezb’s disposal, and a truck suspected of transporting arms, in the Christian quarter of Ashrafieh.

Moreover the road and airport infrastructures were put out of working order : they served to provide Hezbollah with arms and munitions. Apart from that, Tsahal has neither hit nor deteriorated anything, and all those who speak of the “destruction of Beirut” are either liars, Iranians, anti-Semites or absent. Even the houses situated one alley’s distance from the targets I mentioned have not been hit, they have not even suffered a scratch; on contemplating these results of this work you understand the meaning of the concept “surgical strikes” and you can admire the dexterity of the Jewish pilots.

Satellite map of Beirut (Google Earth)
Circled in red, the razed area, in blue, area where the dwellings belonging to the terrorist organization’s top brass have been destroyed (Michael Béhé)

Beirut, all the rest of Beirut, 95% of Beirut, lives and breathes better than a fortnight ago. All those who have not sided with terrorism know they have strictly nothing to fear from the Israeli planes, on the contrary! One example: last night the restaurant where I went to eat was jammed full and I had to wait until 9:30 pm to get a table. Everyone was smiling, relaxed, but no one filmed them: a strange destruction of Beirut, is it not?

Of course, there are some 500,000 refugees from the south who are experiencing a veritable tragedy and who are not smiling. But Jean [Tsadik. Editor’s note], who has his eyes fixed on Kfar Kileh, and from whom I have learned to believe each word he says, assures me that practically all the houses of the aforesaid refugees are intact. So they will be able to come back as soon as Hezbollah is vanquished.

The defeat of the Shi’a fundamentalists of Iranian allegiance is imminent. The figures communicated by Nasrallah’s minions and by the Lebanese Red-Cross are deceiving: firstly, of the 400 dead declared by Lebanon, only 150 are real collateral civilian victims of the war, the others were militiamen without uniform serving Iran. The photographic report “Les Civils des bilans libanais” made by Stéphane Juffa for our agency constitutes, to this day, the unique tangible evidence of this gigantic morbid manipulation. Which makes this document eminently important.

Moreover, Hassan Nasrallah’s organization has not lost 200 combatants, as Tsahal claims. This figure only concerns the combats taking place on the border and even then the Israelis underestimate it, for a reason that escapes me, by about a hundred militiamen eliminated. The real count of Hezbollah’s casualties, that includes those dead in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Baalbek and their other camps, rocket and missile launchers and arms and munition depots amounts to 1,100 supplementary Hezbollah militiamen who have definitively ceased to terrorize and humiliate my country.

Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I pray that no one puts an end to the Israeli attack before it finishes shattering the terrorists. I pray that the Hebrew soldiers will penetrate all the hidden recesses of southern Lebanon and will hunt out, in our stead, the vermin that has taken root there. Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I have put the champagne ready in the refrigerator to celebrate the Israeli victory.

But contrary to them – and to paraphrase Michel Sardou [a French singer. Translator’s note] –, I recognize that they are also fighting for our liberty, another battle “where you were not present”! And in the name of my people, I wish to express my infinite gratitude to the relatives of the Israeli victims – civilian and military – whose loved ones have fallen so that I can live standing upright in my identity. They should know that I weep with them.

As for the pathetic clique that thrives at the head of my country, it is time for them to understand that after this war, after our natural allies have rid us of those who are hindering us from rebuilding a nation, a cease-fire or an armistice will not suffice. To ensure the future of Lebanon, it is time to make peace with those we have no reason to go to war against. In fact, only peace will ensure peace. Someone must tell them because in this country we have not learnt what a truism is.

Note :

[1] Michael Béhé is alluding to the book Le Horla, by Guy de Maupassant [Editor’s note].

CNN bias of the day

Just now, the Knesset voted to approve the cease-fire, and at the same time there were a number of large explosions in Beirut. The CNN reporter at the scene, Jim Clancy, said Israel's bombing was "obviously" timed to coincide with the vote.

I guess CNN reporters have ESP.

Olmert: criminally incompetent

I am generally very loathe to criticize any Israeli government from my comfortable place in the Diaspora, but I simply cannot see much at all that is positive about how the current Israeli government has handled the situation in Lebanon.

The war itself seems to have been waged incompetently. From the beginning, Israel had no clear strategy and pulled its punches. It changed its stated goals daily. Any war where one eye is on the battlefield and the other eye on worrying about world opinion is a war with no depth perception and no consistency.

The UN resolution is yet another worthless document that sounds OK in theory and will be a disaster in practice. The fact that the operative parts of the resolution ignore the Israeli captives is only the tip of the iceberg.

The resolution is heavily dependent on a useless Lebanese army, which is itself sympathetic to terrorists and views Israel as the enemy, not Hezbollah. It also allows the UN to define what defensive actions Israel is allowed to take - meaning Israel has no chance to defend itself.

And if Olmert already supported the very flawed cease-fire, why on earth did he choose the weekend after the UN vote to finally expand the operation in Lebanon - when gaining a strategic foothold becomes almost moot? Why did 24 Israeli soldiers have to die yesterday?

Olmert seems to represent more the pointy-haired boss of Dilbert than a real leader.

James Zogby, Hypocrite

"Best of the Web Today" has a couple of quotes from James Zogby, of the Arab American Institute, blaming Israel wholly for Lebanese civilian deaths:

Cooper: Jim, do you deny that Hezbollah uses civilians or at least, you know, works among and/or hides among women and children?
Zogby: The resistance movement in south Lebanon, I haven't supported the tactics that they've used in the bombings that they've participated in. I cannot see the Israelis attempting to justify the carpet bombing of many areas of Lebanon as continuing to say that they're simply targeting Hezbollah.....
Cooper: Jim, though, I mean, does Hezbollah bear any of the responsibility for any of the civilian casualties?
Zogby: I've said from the beginning that their behavior was reckless and provocative. But Israel bears the responsibility. It's like saying what Mort is saying and what those who want to make that case is saying, the girl who wore the short skirt deserved to get raped--

Now, his logic is abhorrent and offensive, but the only way you can justify Zogby's claim that Hezbollah has no responsibility for the deaths of civilians it is hiding behind is if you claim that the party doing an action is wholly responsible for that action. (Obviously even that is ridiculous, as one cannot compare the morality of purposeful acts with those of inadvertant acts. Beyond that, it completely ignores the fact that Hezbollah started this war.) The only way this makes sense is to assume in this case this is his position - that each action occurs in a vacuum and must be judged as such.

So, one would assume that Zogby would be equally adamant that Palestinian Arabs are wholly responsible for their terror acts, right? That they should be judged in a vacuum, right? Riiiiiiiiight....

ZAHN: Mr. Zogby, how much responsibility do you think Yasser Arafat should bear for the ongoing troubles in the Middle East?

ZOGBY: Well, listen, it's -- we live in a kind of an "Alice in Wonderland" world here, where Ariel Sharon is the man of peace and Arafat becomes the obstacle to peace. We've lionized one and demonized the other, and I simply don't think this picture is accurate. The man has flaws...

ZAHN: But you didn't answer the question. OK, he has...

ZOGBY: The man has flaws. There's no question about it. But remember, they were negotiating up to Taba, right before Ariel Sharon was elected, and they came awful close. It was Barak who pulled his people back. And frankly, I believe that if this administration in Washington had continued to push and if Ariel Sharon had continued the negotiations, we'd probably have a peace settlement by now.

I don't believe that the process fell apart for the reasons that this mythic-historic narrative that Israel constructed is, in fact, right. I think the Palestinians wanted -- Arafat wanted a two-state solution on the West Bank, Gaza with East Jerusalem as a capital. And frankly, the Israelis just weren't willing to give it, and they still aren't willing to give it.

And look at what they're doing now is the best -- the best answer I have. Settlement sizes have doubled. We're building roads and tearing up Palestinian houses and orchards. Palestinians are living in despair. And that before the intifada even began.

According to Zogby, responsibility is something only Jews have. Palestinian Arabs are not responsible for their actions, of course. Israel has no right to respond to terror attacks but PalArabs have every right to respond to "despair."

Even at the end of the first interview above, Zogby shows his double standard by putting Hezbollah terror in "context" but refusing to give israel the same courtesy:

ZUCKERMAN: OK. Let me just say this, we are in a situation here which is called war. War which is instigated by a terrorist organization called the Hezbollah, which attacked innocent people. They had pulled -- the Israelis had withdrawn from a U.N. sanctioned border. It was started by Hezbollah, which has it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to attack Israel and to destroy Israel.

Israel is doing this as a matter of self-defense against people who hide among women and children deliberately.

ZOGBY: After 22 years of occupation of the south, a lot of bitterness, a lot of wounds. They're not going to go away overnight. And Israel has not been an innocent bystander all this time, even in the last six years, Mort.

This man, who is a moderate compared to most Arabs, still has an almost psychotic double standard that reflects his own bigotry and bias, and for all the smooth words he speaks on CNN, he is nothing but a hypocrite.

Hezbollah keeps hitting UN positions. No international outcry.

From the UN yesterday:

Four mortar rounds from the Hezbollah side impacted directly inside a UNIFIL position in the area of Deir Mimess yesterday evening, causing extensive material damage, and destroying a fuel storage tank, but with no casualties. ... There was one incident of firing from the Hezbollah side close to a UNIFIL position in the area of Hula. Hezbollah also fired rockets from the vicinity of UN positions in Labouneh, Tibnin and At Tiri.

Today:

One Katyusha rocket from the Hezbollah side impacted directly inside the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura yesterday evening, causing extensive material damage, and lightly wounding one French soldier. One artillery round from an unknown source impacted 10 meters from a UNIFIL position in the area of Hula last night. Hezbollah fired small arms at a UNIFIL APC moving on the coastal road some 5km north of Naqoura this morning, causing some damage on the vehicle, but no injuries. Hezbollah also fired from the vicinity of UN positions in Labouneh, Tibnin, Brashit and Haris.

AP TV: Inherent bias in all TV news against Israel (LGF)

Little Green Footballs published an amazing article describing the business model of Associated Press TV News, which provides raw video images to all major broadcasters in much the same way AP and Reuters provides raw photographs to newspapers.

It has many of the inherent problems that the wire services have that can skew the news for the pro-Arab agenda: hiring local stringers to take the video and providing their own descriptions of the events which may or may not be biased or even accurate. The subscribing news services like BBC, CNN and Fox decide what to air and how to describe it, but the basic information is provided by APTN.

The most troubling part, though, is that Arab states hire the same APTN to provide entire newscasts for them, not just clips. The same people who have to create news programs for Arab TV (with the biases that they require) are coworkers with the ones who provide the supposedly unbiased clips. This has two effects: the initial footage is slanted towards what Arab audiences want to see, and access to historic video has to be approved by APTN. As the author of the article mentions, this may be why the TV news never shows Palestinian celebrations of 9/11 or the Arab lynch mob in Ramallah in clips - AP may be refusing to allow such "sensitive" video to be rebroadcast.

Read the whole article. If the media's entire business model is skewed against impartiality, these things need to be exposed.

Thank you so much to those who made the original Elder Challenge a success. As you can see on the sidebar, between our sponsors and donors we have raised almost $5200 for Israeli charities so far.

Version 3 is a twist on the earlier matching programs. Donors can give to the charities of their choice as they usually do, and send (sanitized) receipts to me at elderchallenge -at- gmail.com.

I will list specific donations on the sidebar (anonymously, of course.) Anyone who wants to match an existing donation can then do so, and let me know.

So, for example, at one point in time we may see that someone donated $18 to Mogen Dovid Adom, someone else gave $36 to the One Israel Fund and a third gave $50 to Zaka. If you want to match any of these donations, just donate it yourself, send me the receipt telling me it was a matching donation, and I'll keep the totals updated and inform the original donor that their donation has been matched.

It is a little shticky but the point is, of course, to make sure that we keep the money going to those who need it.

If you want to donate to a different Israeli charity, feel free to do so - just make sure that it can be paid online, give us a web address and if people want to match, they can.

I will keep the two running totals on the sidebar of the amount donated and the amount matched.

I hope this isn't too confusing!

The new challenge starts immediately. We'll try for $1000 donated and another $1000 matched in the next 10 days, by August 21.

Thanks again to all who donated and especially for the generous people who sponsored Version 2 of the challenge!

!תזכו למצוות

Michigan Muslims threaten Jews, support terror

I wrote in May about how the Muslim community in Dearborn, Michigan was openly pro-Hezbollah. I also wondered last month whether there was active fundraising for terror in the same community.

NPR buries interesting details in the middle of a story about Lebanese-Americans:

New Support for Hezbollah
Osama Siblani runs the Arab-American News, America's largest such newspaper. He says the fighting is fueling anger in his community -- not at Hezbollah, but at the Bush administration.

"The anger that you see in the Arab community, you do not see in the eyes of the American community," says Siblani. "They're not viewing the same thing. And the perspective you get out of Jazeera or Arabiya, you do not get it out of Fox News or CNN."

Siblani says many in the community who opposed Hezbollah before the fighting have now changed their minds. The U.S. State Department has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Siblani disagrees.

"The terrorist here is the Bush administration," he says.

Daily Demonstrations

Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community.

Those who regularly attend the demonstrations tend to be the most strident.

"Oh, Jews, remember Khaibar," the marchers chant. "The army of the Prophet will return."

The line is a reference to Khaibar, a Jewish town north of Medina that, according to Islamic tradition, was overtaken by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Once defeated, the surviving Jews of Khaibar were forced into serfdom. Two decades later, they were expelled from the Arabian peninsula.

So half of the Dearborn Muslim community attends demonstrations with explicit death threats against Jews. NPR calls them "strident."

As usual, Debbie Schlussel is all over this story, and her regular reports covering the Muslim communities in Michigan are chilling.

One must also ask: if the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, how come the biggest terror supporters almost invariably come from the largest Muslim communities, and terrorists invariably hide in those same communities? One would think that the peaceful majority would have a moderating effect.

Does Hezbollah already own Lebanon?

I can't claim to be an expert on Lebanon's history or psyche. But what can one make of the following recent news items:

The Lebanese Prime Minister's comments are indistinguishable from Hezbollah's.
A poll claims that 87% of Lebanese now support Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Army allowed Hezbollah to import arms openly from Syria.

And then...

Hezbollah is interested in the plan where the Lebanese army replaces them south of the Litani river.

The only way this all makes sense is if Hezbollah is already confident that they own Lebanon, and therefore a Lebanese force at the border with Israel is synonymous with Hezbollah itself.

Lebanon is 60% Muslim and 40% Christian, so the Lebanon poll numbers may be considered suspect. But Hezbollah seems to have already established a network of fear, a modern Arab KGB, where politicians and the media are afraid to say anything that might upset them.

Lebanon may already be lost.

UPDATE: Meryl Yourish makes a similar point about Hezbollah and the Lebanese army, and adds evidence that the Lebanese army helped Hezbollah target the Israeli naval vessel in mid-July.

AP practically writing press releases for Hezbollah

Confederate Yankee writes a good essay about Hezbollah's media manipulation. Here's part:

Scan the photos coming out of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, and you'll see and unending stream of dramatic photos of dead women and children and anguished rescue workers climbing through the remains of bombed-out residential buildings, and you will see heart-rending photos of toys in the rubble. You will see mourning. You will see pain. You will see a civilian infrastructure in tatters.

What you will not see, except in very rare cases, is Hezbollah.

The "Party of God," well-known for their parades of armed masked men in the past, have vanished into the ether. You will see no Hezbollah fighters brandishing their weapons with bravado. You will see no photos of Hezbollah’s rocket launchers or rockets prepared to fire upon Israel’s civilian population. You will see no photographs of shattered launchers or weapons caches or even fighting aged men amid the rubble. The media itself quietly reports that anyone who does take such pictures may be killed, though you wouldn’t know it from the amount of attention that disturbing detail has received in the press.

Hezbollah is fighting the Victim's War, hiding behind civilians that they set up as targeted pawns by firing rockets from inside Lebanon's villages, cites, and towns, from outside apartment buildings, hospitals and schools in residential neighborhoods.

It is a war of cowards, largely covered by sympathetic Arab Muslim stringers and their Hezbollah minders who determine what can and what cannot be reported; a war in which the "professional" media is all too complicit.

Well, here are one of those rare cases, along with a caption that is so fawning that one almost has to assume that the author is on the Hezbollah payroll:

A Hezbollah volunteer carries pots and pans, as he passes next to bags full of food trays with rice before delivering them tosome of the hundreds of thousands of refugees now living in schools across the capital at a makeshift Hezbollah-run kitchen in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday Aug. 10, 2006. Even now, despite crippling Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed most of Hezbollah offices across the country, the guerrilla group is actively assisting in relief efforts. Hezbollah runs a sophisticated network of schools, clinics and social services deeply rooted in the Shiite Muslim community.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah volunteers fill food trays with rice before delivering them to some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees now living in schools across the capital, at a makeshift Hezbollah-run kitchen in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday Aug. 10, 2006. Even now, despite crippling Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed most of Hezbollah offices across the country, the guerrilla group is actively assisting in relief efforts. Hezbollah runs a sophisticated network of schools, clinics and social services deeply rooted in the Shiite Muslim community.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

This has been a Green Helmet production

A German TV magazine shows video of "Green Helmet Man" directing photographers and videographers in Qana, as well as staging multiple scenes with the same dead boy's body to get a better shot.