No surprises here....the Israeli/Zionist propoganda machine takes very little time to get its wheels turning...

First of all -

a) we're sorry it was an accident

b) we only did it because there was a rocket launcher - missile - terrorist - beside/behind/on top of the building - here's a video to prove it

c) We thought there were no civilians there cos we scared them all away with our humane leaflets and voice mail message.

d) uh ..actually we did not do anything...it was a staged event by hezbollah,hamas, boogey man, michael jackson....anyone really it does not matter as long as we can create some doubt.

It's the same tactic Goebels used - the greater lie theory - this tired old crap comes out after virtually every israeli massacre & murder...

Pathetic!!

I posted this in response to the last forum, although it seems even more appropriate for this disscusion. The quotations from israeli official that Buchanan prefaces his piece with shed greater light on the reasoning behind the whole offensive in Lebanon and especially the Qana Massacre.
I had not heard these quotes anywhere else and what they seem to imply is quite monsterous.

How can the government responsible for saying things like this deny qana with a straight face? I suppose the same way that they have denied responsibility for just about every other war crime they have committed.

_______________________________________

This included some Israeli military and governmental quotes that appear to give greater perspective to the high rate of civilian causulties. Not a big fan of Buchanan, but he is right on regarding our Policies concerning Israel.

From the Boston Herald:

Israel's overkill enabled by immoral U.S. policy
By Patrick J. Buchanan/ Syndicated Columnist
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

"Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah," roared Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27.

"Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed," bellowed an Israeli general in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The paper then summarized what the justice minister and general were saying: "In other words, a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire." That was Thursday.

Sunday, in Qana, 57 of Haim Ramon's "terrorists," 37 of them children, were massacred with precision-guided bombs. Apparently, Katyushas had been fired from Qana, near the destroyed building.

"One who goes to sleep with rockets shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't wake up in the morning," said Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman.

Today, we hear unctuous statements about how Israel takes pains to avoid civilian casualties, drops leaflets to warn civilians to flee target areas and conforms to all the rules of civilized warfare.

But Israel's words and deeds contradict her propaganda.

Gillerman, at a pro-Israel rally in New York, thundered, "To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You're damn right we are."

Gillerman spoke the truth. No sooner had Hezbollah taken the two Israeli soldiers hostage than Israel unleashed an air war - on Lebanon. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had killed cops.

If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead in Lebanon, 19 in Israel, a ratio of 30-1.

Yet, whatever one thinks of the morality of what Israel is doing, the stupidity is paralyzing. Now, 87 percent of Lebanese back Hezbollah, and the entire Arab and Islamic world is rallying behind Hassan Nasrallah.

And how does one defend our behavior?

When Gillerman was exulting in the disproportionality of Israel's attack on Lebanon, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton was smiling smugly beside him. When the U.N. Security Council tabled a resolution condemning Hezbollah's igniting of the war, but also the excesses of Israel's reprisals, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton vetoed it. When a few congressmen sought to moderate a pro-Israeli resolution by adding words urging "all sides to protect innocent life and infrastructure," GOP leader John Boehner ordered the words taken down.

America shares full moral and political responsibility for the massacre at Qana. Our Israeli friends appear to be playing us for fools."

J

I have talked to a few people (by cellphone) in the last 2 days. they say hezbollah is threatening anyone who provides information to reporters that makes hezbollah look bad.

you must realize, that it si like iraq. everyone in world thought iraquis liked saddam. when it was over, you can see they did not. same with hezbollah. many people fear to talk bad about them. once they are disarmed, people will give you information about hezbollah that will be shocking.

Couldn't Qana's carnage have been avoided? Hezbollah made pawns out of Lebanese children
By Alan Dershowitz
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Sunday was a day of great triumph for Hezbollah. Its tactics had worked.
By launching rockets at Israeli civilians within yards of a building filled with refugees, Hezbollah had induced Israel to make a terrible mistake. Its defensive rocket had hit the civilian building.
That was Hezbollah's plan all along. As Israelis wept over the deaths of the Lebanese children, Hezbollah leaders celebrated its propaganda victory.
Yes, Hezbollah was happy that an Israeli rocket had killed Lebanese children. The children were now in paradise, martyrs to Hezbollah's cause. Israel was being condemned worldwide for "killing" children - "massacre" was the most common word used in the Arab media. Israel apologized, but that was not enough to put out the flames of anger or to quiet the shrill calls for revenge.
Israel produced evidence proving that it was largely Hezbollah's fault.
Hezbollah was using Lebanese children as human shields - surely a war crime. Hezbollah was preventing civilians - who had been repeatedly warned by Israel to leave the battle zone - from moving out of harm's way.
Hezbollah sympathizers were shown on TV defiantly tearing up the Israeli leaflets. Hezbollah had refused to build bomb shelters for ordinary civilians - only for its own leaders.
Hezbollah knew (and Israel didn't) that children were in the so-called safe house. That is why it used the safe house as a shield behind which to fire rockets at Israel.
Hezbollah used its rocket launchers as "bait" to induce Israel to fire at them in order to increase the chances that Israel's rocket would misfire and hit the "safe house."
It was a perfect plan. Hezbollah leaders knew they could count on the international community to finish their dirty work by condemning Israel rather than Hezbollah for the deaths caused deliberately by Hezbollah. Israel has, of course, rightly apologized for the deaths. Hezbollah never apologizes for deliberately causing civilian deaths, except when the deaths are of Arab children, as was the case in Nazareth.
When it comes to Israel, a lot of usually smart people stop thinking with their heads and start thinking with their guts. Most smart people know that when an armed criminal takes a hostage and fires from behind him, it is the criminal, not the policeman, who is guilty of murder if the policeman, in a reasonable effort to stop the criminal from firing, accidentally kills the hostage.
The same should be true during wartime. But you wouldn't know it if you listened only to the singular condemnations of Israel by so many in the international community.
But not all.
Just days before this Hezbollah-orchestrated tragedy, Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary general for Humanitarian Affairs, had essentially predicted it. He chided Hezbollah for being "a bunch of cowards hiding behind women and children." He said that he "cannot understand how someone could be proud that there were more women and children hurt than armed militants." And he called for the Hezbollah to stop mixing with the civilian population.
Instead, Hezbollah fired its Katyusha from behind the apartment in Qana, knowing that it was filled with civilians.
The president of Lebanon praised Hezbollah. For what? For using its children as shields? When was the last time a leader thanked the criminal for taking a hostage who was then killed in the shootout? The Arab world, the Islamic world and the rest of the Israel haters have now rallied behind Hezbollah. Hatred of Israel has even managed to heal the millennium long divisions between Shias and Sunnis.
Every day more Arabs and Muslims kill other Arabs and Muslims in the Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world than the Israelis have killed in three weeks of combat. But the international community - and the Arab world - turns a blind eye. Many Arab governments actually support the genocidal Sudanese government. Even "peaceful" nations, such as Egypt and Jordan, have killed more Muslim and Arab dissidents, extremists and terrorists than Israel has - and without much protest.
The real victory for Hezbollah is that it has caused grief and dissent in Israel over the death of the children. This will cause Israel to show more "restraint," as it has already done by declaring a 48-hour cessation of air attacks. This will give the terrorists a freer hand at launching rockets. The result will be more Israeli civilian casualties.
The sad truth is that the Israelis care more about the lives of innocent Lebanese children than Hezbollah does. As Golda Meir once said about her Arab enemies: "We can perhaps forgive them for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." How prescient.

*tear rolls down cheek*

from the dershowitz piece...

"As Israelis wept over the deaths of the Lebanese children"

What a ludicrous statement - the only pictures of emotion I have seen from Israelis is little girls writing messages on bombs being sent to kill their neighbours.....

dershowitz is a disgrace as a human being, a professor at Harvard,and as an American ....

It was very clear from the beginning that Israel wants to annex South Lebanon, either to expand it borders or to build the so called buffer zone. I guess they did not like the idea of leaving in 2000.

Their expansionist designs can also be seen in Palestine. When Hamas, the elected government, was ready to talk and negotiated peace; a very well staged distraction about a solider missing made sure that there was not room for peace talks.

If you have a little time please watch this documentary:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7828123714384920696

Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land - Google Video

I thought the "arab style peace lovers" and the "Iranian style justice vowers" are groupped arround the very "legal" Radio Islam site. But I see these kind of small cowered hater parazits are overall on the net. I want just to tell you small dirty people. Israel and his people will never loose 6 milion again. Or if we have to disappear we will never again do it alone. This can be painful for you ... I understand. A Jew with an arm defending himself is not exactly the image you got when you were even smaller then now. One more questions to you small dirty hitler products: Where the hell was your humanitarian heart when young people in Israel were exploded in Pubs by "G-d believers" like you?

Hezbollah cowardly hides behind innocent civilians while launching their rockets into Israeli -civilian- areas. The blood of the innocent is on Hezbollah's hands alone. Of course if you buy into the words of Kofi Annan and the good journalists at the Washington Post, you're probably inclined to believe that Israel -purposely- bombed a building full of civilians.

I don't know if Hezbollah purposely 'milked' the situation or not. I somehow find it difficult to put it past a group like Hezbollah to facilitate such a scene. I certainly doubt the ability of Jefferson Morley to discern the difference.

Being one of those who questioned the conflicting, early reporting and what it might mean I have provided your answer in this post.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/2222

Hezbollah endangering citizens by hiding amongst them is a war crime. Clearly those children would not have died at the hands of Israelis if Hezbollah's base of operations was in the nearby fields or hills. But I do not need a conspiracy theory to challenge that clean, new blue pacifier tagged to the shirt of a baby's corpse. Killing the child was terrible. Using it as a propagande prop was criminal. When someone answers that question I would be more than happy to admit I jumped to a wrong conclusion.

AJStrata

I suppose the Hezbulla fighters should stand together in an open field to make it easier to drop bombs on them.

Calling them "cowards" for being among civilians is one thing, but last I checked it is the Israeli army that is dropping 500lb bombs from far up in the sky and inflicting heavy collateral damage so as not to have to actually engage in combat.

Playing the victim card at times may work given the history, but let's keep in mind that the civilian casualty rate is always 10-1 (20-1 in this one) in any conflict the Israeli's are involved in.

The "right to defend" has little relation to the concept of disproportionate response that the global community (minus the USA) is in concensous about.

You can tell a lot about your opponent and his modus operandi by the sins that he accuses you of.

The GOP nasties in general and Bush & Co. in particular have taken this to an extreme, and it is no coincidence that their examples of their "rules of engagement" can be found ad nauseum in the Israel blogsphere.

This trait is infused with potency by the internet and the "rush" of seeing your words appear on the screen for all to read is a charge that escalates for those so inclined (where do they find the time, never mind the energy?). They hide behind nicknames like "SABRA" or "FU2" and rage on, and on, spinning wheels -- sound and fury and a whole lot of nothingness.

This is, of course, IMHO.

curtius, you should seek help :)

"What is it about the photos from Qana that made Israel's supporters prefer fantasy to fact?"

Are we now seeing a new form of "anti-Semitism" in the United States and some parts of Europe? Arabs and Muslims are now the subject of constant vitriol by these sections of the world population. Just as Jews were once considered the root of all trouble, for these people Muslims now carry the banner for barbarism, intolerance, being terrorist sympathizers, and a desire for world domination.

911, in my opinion, brought to the surface the undercurrents of anti-Muslim bias that had long existed amongst the neo-cons and certain Christian conservative groups. The Madrid and London bombings contributed to the sentiment in Europe, but for whatever reason, it does not seem to have attained the same intensity in Europe as it has in the U.S.
The desires to exonerate Israel for its excesses, that continue to be far greater in magnitude than those committed by Hizbullah, reflect that anti-Muslim/Arab bias. It is also reflected in past and especially current U.S foreign policy which can only kindly be described as pro-Israel (I suppose a case for the "Lobby" having some influence can be made ala Walt and Mersheimer).

Unfortunately the U.S is an integral part of attaining an equitable two state solution (Without its influence Israel will annex as much land as it possibly can and offer as little as it can get away with), and the Arab desire for the U.S to continue to play a vital role in mediating the conflict is a recognition of that fact, despite its one sided support to Israel.

I am appalled by those constant, repeated and monstrous attempts to "explain away news reports that Israel (and by proxy, its closest ally and arms supplier, the United States) was responsible for the deaths" of innocent civilians, most of them children, in Lebanon.

The Qana story is only one of the latest, followed yesterday by the central-eastern Bekaa Valley hospital battle (where patients were reported taken out of their beds as Israeli prisoners..), but where, of course, it has since been said by the Israelis that "there was no hospital to be found there, only Hizbollah fortifications"!!! -- Olmert).

As a Canadian, I ought to insist, for the record, that the most fanciful stories were heard from the Israelis after: 1. the entire Canadian Lebanese El-Akras family was murdered by the Israelis, in south Lebanon, 2. after Canadian Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was assassinated by the Israelis, along with three other UN peacekeepers, while on duty along the Lebanese border.

The gist of the "arguments" is invariably that either it did not happen, or somehow Hizbollah did it! Need it be said that together with world opinion, we know better?

As it saves reason and honour, your question therefore deserves repeating and to be answered, "What is it... that makes Israel's supporters prefer fantasy to fact?"

You fail to address the most obvious indication of conspiracy: the appearance of a 30-foot tall photographic banner -- featuring a picture of Condi Rice, with text about the Qana "massacre" -- within hours of the building's collapse.

Any graphics professional will tell you that such a banner would be impossible to produce in less than 24 hours.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014843.php

Why is it that when someone merely points out that Israel committed an atrocity against civilians, people get upset and want to know why we're not crying over Israeli civilians who have also been killed?

We ARE upset over anyone who gets killed in this war. Any man, woman, child who dies in this conflict is one person too many.

There, are you happy now? Good.

Now, please admit that Israel CAN BE and IS responsible for the murders of men, women, and children in Qana, other parts of southern Lebanon, and in Gaza.

And let's remember something here: If the Lebanese death toll is 10 times higher than the Israeli death toll, who is the terrorist?

I think the passengers of the 9/11 planes and the workers in the World Trade Center would have appreciated a leaflet or 2. How about the 214 US marines killed by Hezbollah. I'm sure they would have appreciated a leaflet or 2. But Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda wouldn't provide leaflets because mass carnage was the goal, not the unfortunate side effect. The "plan" of terrorism is to kill innocents. The "plan" of Israel is to kill terrorists.

It speaks volume that the W.POST allows this kind of on sided "analysis of what the International Online Media Are Saying about QANA"
No mention /ref. of anything in regard with HIZBOLLAH's possible spin on staging victims in connection with their documented use of civilian facilities & lifes as shields...?
Wondering when W.P. will next post an op-ed from BIN LADEN's view of the question & its MEDIA coverage, finally showing their true idea of journalism ethics, balanced & accurate reporting & better undertsanding of what's behind ,hem "facts"...W.P. you are so over as a trustable news organization.

Here's a story: do you know why Israeli soldiers could never use women and children as "human shields" against our "freedom fighter" (terrorist) enemies? Because they willingly and delinerately _target_ women and children, e.g. in suicide bombings, to begin with.

On the other hand, the Israeli army makes every effort not to harm civilians. Yet civilians are constantly killed and injured. How so? Because we are not fighting an army, we are fighting a large group (several thousands) of cowardly guerillas shooting rockets at _our_ civilian cities and towns from _inside_ civilian concentrations in Lebanon. What are we supposed to do? Just sit there and be bombed by them?

Let me remind you this whole thing started when Hizbollah, with no prior provocation, kidnapped two soldiers from _inside_ the internationally recognized Israeli border and began shooting rockets at our northern towns. Only then did we begin our counter-attack in Lebanon. Don't believe me, check for yourselves.

Also not mentioned was the interesting photographic evidence presented at the EU Referendum Blog that suggests the presence of the same individual at both Qana incidents. While this does not prove anything in particular, it certainly raises some questions, no?

more from dershowitz ...(you mean I can get money for defending a man who basically decapitated his wife...cool bring it on I could sure use the money)...

"As Golda Meir once said about her Arab enemies: "We can perhaps forgive them for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." How prescient."

So unforgivable that you have continued to kill "their" children for another 40 plus years....

Yes yes, no surprises there, the internet can indeed misinform, especially if you read the above colom.

To note one thing, as to the number of casualties, ICRC reported thus far 37, where did the other 20 go? the writer of ths colom will probably tell us.

As for inconvenient truth, here is a blunder for you we all remember very well: the "Jenin Massacre". Some how the Palestinians reported 5000 civilians, then dropped to 500 and then, to their horror, came the UN and the ICRC and noted that 57 palestinians were killed out of which little less than half were Hamas terrorists who hid among civilians leaving the number of civilian casualties at 30. Quite a bit less than 5000 isn't it? I'll let you guess what number stuck in the memory of the writer of the above colom.

You want another inconvenient truth? Here goes. Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian aid coordinator and a known "supporter" of Israel noted in Cyprus a day after he criticized Israel for a disproportionate response that the majority of civilian casualties were the result of Hezbollah's tactic of hiding among civilians. He noted that Hezbollah was bolstering the civilian casualties as a PR weapon... sickening. To tink that in Israel they are more sad about civilian deaths in Lebanon than Hezbollah.

All these inconvenient truths along with the IDF video showing the rockets fired from Qana, make me think that if there is any misinforming internet source out there, it is the washington post who published coloms such as the one above.

Mr. Morley,
I am upset that your column, normally very fair and balanced (sorry, for the Fox reference, but you are, and they are not), would even lend credence to this reprehensible attempt at spin.
I know that your column is called world opinion round-up, but this story has only showed up (with any attempt at credence) in Israel, of course, and in America.
The first time I heard this was from the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations on Meet the Press on Sunday. I couldn't beleive it then, and I can't beleive that ANYONE with two firing brain cells would swallow it.
I guess it just goes to show the gullibility of some people, and the way in which humans are willing to beleive anything that supports their skewed view of the world in general, and the conflict in Lebanon, and the West Bank and Gaza Specifically.
Thank you for all your effort, but next time, leave the Israeli propaganda to the rest of the Washington ComPost

and of course lets not forget Golda Meir's brave decision to drop bombs on a Palestinian Refugee camp after the killing of the Israeli athletes in Munich - killing 200 plus women and children purely for guilt by association....the crime of being Palestinian within reach of israel...

Who is the man known as "Green Helmet" who was in so many of these pictures, and why was he in other, similar photos dating back to 1996?

I think I can help you out with this one. This is from various articles that can be found on the web. Note that this same fellow was at Q in 1996.

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."

"Where is the humanity? Why are these massacres being committed against civilians?" asked Naim Raqa, the head of the Lebanese civil defence unit in nearby Jawaya, who was helping the rescue.

Naim Raqahead of civil defense in the nearby town of Jouaya, sat on a pile of rubble, his black uniform covered in a fine concrete powder.

"I was in Qana in '96," the exhausted rescue worker said. "Israel, when it is weakened, commits bigger massacres.

"We were told about this massacre -- I don't know what time it was. We couldn't move at night, even in ambulances, because of the shelling. They should allow us to move so we can work."

He wiped beads of sweat from his brow.

"They were still asleep, hiding. They were all near the walls, huddled in fear. We found many of them like this," he said, drawing his knees and elbows into his chest in a fetal-like position. "The poor things thought the walls would protect them. I had the honor of removing about 15 of them."

His break was interrupted by a colleague calling for stretchers as the bodies of two more young boys were removed, their tiny pajama shorts and T-shirts covered in soil and dust.

Raqa didn't wait for the stretchers to arrive. He scooped up one child; a bystander carried the other.

Shoot and scoot! Common artillery tactic because your fired shells show up on your enemy's radar and they fire back at your guns or rocket launchers. It's counter battery fire.

So Hezbollah fires from next to an apartment building then scoots, knowing what will happen. IDF fires back, hits the apartment building. There's the basic facts of what occured. Happens all the time because Hezbollah likes the good press that furthers it's agenda.

The Washington Post and Hezbollah share an agenda, a sick one, and this silly "Conspiracy Theory" about bloggers article furthers it. I'm just sick of politicians and the media twisting everything to advance a selfish agenda rather than truth and the national interest. Shame on the Washington Post!

The only conspiracy theory is sept 11 which was planned by mozzad and executed to perfection.

Israelis are torturing Palestenians for 60 years. Most of the terrorist attacks on israel is sponsored by mozzad. Why Israelis kill israelis? Well. The plan is keep the war going so that they can wipe out palestenians with bulldozer. And world will side with them.

Even here mr Blog owner starting their own conspiracy theory. Israelis kill people and blame the dead for being innocent civilains.

I think there are limits to this kind of cruelty. I think israelis and jews are crossing mosral boundary.

People are not that stupid to see what is reality.

We all know islam is a virus and has to be curbed. But we also learn in this lebanese situation that Israel is a bad idea. It creates evil in people. Jews in america using american lives and weapons to create Greater Israel.

Stop this nonsense.

This is why world need two super power. If one goes to evil side , another has to bring them back.

America lost its moral superiority and high moral standard and behaving like nazi murderers. Actually it is not america but the people who is running america are right wing jews (leo strauss (nihilist fan) deciples)).

There was probably no conspiracy, but listen: In the Arab world they are all very happy with this tragedy proving once again the cruelty of the "Zionist Entity", In Israel the Generals and politicians are looking into this issue how to avoid such horrific events, while Israel aims at terrorists, Hizbullah is shooting at Israeli cities, and from where? They are shooting from mosques, kindergartens, schools, etc. just hoping that this sort of terrible tragedy would occur, holding women and children hostage on both sides of the border with total contempt to human lives.

"Confused":
You really are confused (Just like the Idiot in Chief and his coterie of anti-Muslim bigots was in Iraq) if you are equating Al Qaeda and Hizbullah. How about trying to explain the confusion surrounding the U.S support of a theocratic state (Israel) and its continued occupation and suppression of Palestinians?

Morley ,

You lost it my respect. I know it is your blog. But there are limits to what you can post.

I have no beef with jews in america. They bring balance to american liberal society.

But israel is created to destroy muslims from the beginning.

I am for modernize Islma and make it fit to the democratic world. I am against killing civilians even if they are muslims. Muslims are humans just like anyother. It is just that they are canvassed with a belief that do not suit this century.

Israel is evil. Always was. I did n't realize until now. I just happen to read some of the quotes of israeli leaders. Just read them and see the gruesome thoughts they have.

Zionism In Their Own Words


'If I knew that it was possible tosave all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, andonly half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choosethe latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these childrenbut the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.'

-- David Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).


'This country exists as thefulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous toask it to account for its legitimacy.'

-- Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971


'We walked outside, Ben-Gurionaccompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done withthe Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesturewhich said 'Drive them out!'

-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.


'[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.'

-- Israeli Prime MinisterMenachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk,"Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.


'(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls.'

-- Israeli Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers, New York Times April 1, 1988


'If we thought that instead of 200Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting ata stroke, we would use much more force....'

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.


'It is the duty of Israeli leadersto explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certainnumber of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these isthat there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without theeviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.'

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli ForeignMinister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wingTsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

'Everybody has to move, run and grabas many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish)settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everythingwe don't grab will go to them.'

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

'Israel may have the right to putothers on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewishpeople and the State of Israel on trial.'

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

Is this a poor Hezbollah website? Poor Hezbollah? Supported by Iran and Syria to $20-$40 million dollars per year. Poor Hezbollah that seduces women and children into acting as human shields so that they can become "martyrs" for Allah while the cowardly guerillas can live to fight another day. Billboards litter southern lebanon with pictures of women holding their babies in their arms, encouraging them to give up their children to become suicide bombers.

To Zain

If you want to talk about displacement and history, I would suggest two sources:

The first is the Peel committee report from 1937. There the committee predicted huge problems due to the massive land sale to Jews by Arabs... raises an interesting question about displacment.

As for who displaced who, perhaps it is best that you look into Islamic tradition and see why it is that Hezbollah has chosen the name "Khaybar" for its most advanced missile so far fired at Afula, Israel. Khaybar is one of the two places in the Kuran from which Muhammad drove the Jews who sat there for ages. This is not some Zionist propaganda, this is the Kuran admiting the Jews were there first and that Muhammad drove them away.

Just so that you have the entire picture, Jefferson, quite a few more people than we lowly few bloggers are quite interested in the questions we raised about Qana.

According to the Jerusalem Post this morning, both the IDF and the International Red Cross are now quite interested in answer the many questions we raised, including:

When did the building collapse, and what caused the collapse?

Were the photos taken of the victims staged?

Why do the bodies of the victims not show the injuries/debris one would expect in any building collapse?

Why weren't journalists allowed near the building?

Why is their such a discrepancy in the initial casualty figures cited to the world (55-60) and the number of bodes recovered by the Lebanese Red Cross (28)?

Who is the man known as "Green Helmet" who was in so many of these pictures, and why was he in other, similar photos dating back to 1996?

Hezbollah is a past master of propaganda warfare, from the faked "Jenin Massacre" of 2002 that the world media accepted nearly unquestioningly even after the "dead" got out of caskets and walked, to the questionable death of Muhammad al-Durrah, the exposed "Pallywood" stage managing of Hezbollah in the past deserves a critical eye.

It is rather sad that this critical eye is not being wielded by the professional media.

Bob Owens
Confederate Yankee Blog
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/
Former Washingtonpost.com guest blogger

Read the following quotes of jewish leaders and see who has the motivation to kill civilians. I hope you havethe brain to see it.
-------------------------------------------

'If I knew that it was possible tosave all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, andonly half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choosethe latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these childrenbut the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.'

-- David Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).


'This country exists as thefulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous toask it to account for its legitimacy.'

-- Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971


'We walked outside, Ben-Gurionaccompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done withthe Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesturewhich said 'Drive them out!'

-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.


'[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.'

-- Israeli Prime MinisterMenachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk,"Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.


'(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls.'

-- Israeli Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers, New York Times April 1, 1988


'If we thought that instead of 200Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting ata stroke, we would use much more force....'

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.


'It is the duty of Israeli leadersto explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certainnumber of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these isthat there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without theeviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.'

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli ForeignMinister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wingTsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

'Everybody has to move, run and grabas many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish)settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everythingwe don't grab will go to them.'

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

'Israel may have the right to putothers on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewishpeople and the State of Israel on trial.'

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

One simple question if the photos were not staged

why is the dirt UNDERNEATH the dead baby with the pacifier appear freshly dug as a trench.

If the baby was just pulled from the rubble how could there be a nice shovel tipped ditched underneath the baby? Clearly no matter what else happened this photo is staged

Where were all the men aged 16-45??? is it not odd to find a group of disabled and children with not men of fighting age? would you leave your family alone in a war?

First, I would presume that for integrity purposes the photojournalists would make sure that their cameras were time-synced either to local or Zulu time. If they have done that, then go back and check the "raw" photos for their time stamps and then post those times with the pictures. Have an independent observer confirm the information for integrity's sake. Doing this can put the conspiracy to rest. Not doing so, will only lead to further speculation that the photos were staged to benefit Hezbollah and hurt Israel.

Observer:

"In the Arab world they are all very happy with this tragedy proving once again the cruelty of the "Zionist Entity", "

Would you care to share what evidence led you to this opinion? I have family in the Middle East and so far all I have heard of is shock, sadness and anger. I suppose in your world Muslims are savages who would rejoice at this barbarism.

That said, I see nothing wrong with projecting this Israeli atrocity for the world to see so that, if nothing else, Israel is more selective in picking its targets next time. Going by history though, it does not seem very likely.

The Neutral Facts are:

1. Their war is Jew vs. Arab.

2. No matter what "nice things" the Jews do, the Arabs will launch an attack. So it has become Tit-for-tat. Arabs attack, Jews counter-attack. Both sides know this. Arabs will not allow Jews to let loose their straggle hold on the Palestinians which results in more attacks on the Jews.

3. The Arabs attack civilian areas with young suicide bombers and rockets. Jews attempt surgical strikes on terrorist leaders which sometimes hit civilians.

4. Currently, Arabs rain down hundreds of missiles a day on towns and cities targeting civilians with no complaint from the world at large. Jews screw up a surgical strike and that's all you hear about. Very one sided.

5. Lebanon has an elected government. The people (parents) have allowed an Internationally recognized terrorist group to become a part of their government and are now paying the price. The Lebanon Government is just as responsible as the terrorist.

6. There will never be peace between Jews and Arabs until one or the other is utterly defeated.

"Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents

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

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

How can there only be innocents on one side?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3283720,00.html

B20 -

it is not hard to drive a wedge between modern hip christians in the north with scandalous western clothes and enforcement of shia islam on them... Do not think for one second if hizbollah takes over women in the north will not be able to dress as they currently do. There was one report about how the southern shia were shocked at the dress of the northerners (where they are now refugees).. theocratic islam versus western culture.

there is a lot of "noise" that hizbollah intimidates people and if anyone has watched enough news coverage they know hizbollah controls the streets and dictates when and where reporters can go.

You want a conspiracy theory, how about this: There is no war, it never happened, this whole thing is nothing more than one more Karl Rove political stunt. It is all designed to draw either Syria or Iran into a war and it has to happen, and it will happen, surprise, surprise, by late October. The murdering of children is the ultimate provocation, and that's the exact intention. If Syria and or Iran cannot be goaded into war, bombing will begin in October regardless, so their message is, You might as well take the bait now because we just keep picking at you, humiliating the Arab people, destroying innocent villages and causing more damage until you come out and attack us. In the words of Karl's clueless drunk puppet, "Bring It On." This war the neo-cons have been manstrabating over for over a decade now.
Why the neo cons want this war goes back many years. It arose in Y2K apocalyptic Limbaugh triumphalism no reality based details can ever derail. For Cheney and von Rumsfield it goes back even further, the red menace, the bay of pigs and the compact Herbert Walker on the Grassy Knoll. Today as the details about 9/11 are beginning to unravel and more people are beginning to suspect something stinks, your O'Riley sarcasm over the very term conspiracy theory wares thin. Everything is a conspiracy theory unless both Fox News and Buzzflash.com are both always true at the same time. This invasion of Lebanon is Cheney's war, few doubt it. The right wing noise machine and even hate radio opinion masters have been told to call it a proxy war.
Why they want the war now is all politics. First it keeps the complete debacle in Iraq off the sheeple's minds and it keeps other troubling details off the front pages such as the complete and total full scale refusal of the people of Mexico to allow another election to be stolen. For almost a month now the nation on our southern border has not had a recognized president and it has never made the news in the US once, all thanks to Cheney's war. So you want a conspiracy theory here it is. Sure Qana happened. Murdering children and humiliating the entire non-Jewish Middle East is the exact mission at the moment so to goad Syrian and Iran into a war in time for the November elections. This is Cheney's war and even the Israeli military know it's a colossal disaster.

I particularly love the pacifist's 'fanciful' re-invention of facts. Funny, no mention is made of Hizbollah's deliberate targeting of innocent civilians, and the hypocrytical supporters that cheer when Americans, Europeans, non-muslims of all color (oh, and any muslims that aren't the right type of muslim), and yes, Canadians, die at the hands of terrorists, while whaling in disgust when their own "innocent" compatriots are caught in the crossfire. Wake up. Islamic terrorists like nothing more than to see innocent lives taken, including their own family members. Anything to justify their own spoiled, self-indulgent murderous behavior.

BESIDES THE SHEER REVULSION the attempted coverup outlined above causes, shows clearly the
deliberate lies and information we're fed
regarding Israel day after day.
We hear how Americans still support Israel...I doubt it. Well before Qana and particularly after it. But like the above, where would we see real polls?
Is this all going to end well?

QANA and Denial
Nazi supporters maintained long after Nuremberg that Auschwitz never existed. Equally interestingly, the averge person saw many times the Gestapo appearing and then jews disappearing from his neighborhood. Most denied that they knew what was happening to the jews.

Qana is by no means even remotely the tragedy of Auschwith, but it is interesting to see that human psychology has not changed. Denial comes easily when facts do not align with beliefs.

Through your very long you ignored a basic fact:

From the village of Qana itself, from its streets and houses, the Hezbolla terrorists fired hundreds of rockets into Israeli towns and villages.
If I had the authoriy, I would have destroyed the entire village togehter with all its "innocent civillians".

Blaming the victim, always a good excuse for doing something wrong.How can anyone seek the moral high ground by engaging in collective punishment? In light of who notoriously used this tactic during WWII, you would think the Israelis would be the last to use this tactic.

What value does Israel have to America, besides being a good customer to US defense contractors? Israel has nukes, a strong economy and infrastructure, also a well developed, efficient military, they can take care of themselves. The special relationship between our two countries is a net loss for America. Our foreign policy needs to reflect whats in our best interest.

""Muslims are savages who rejoice in this barbarism", congratulations Zain for finally seeing the world as it is!"

You mean the fanciful fairy land that you and observer inhabit?
Actually ugly and bigoted would be more apt a description than fanciful.

When I decide which side to support, I picture myself living in the 2 different countries under the two different forms of rule and law. Let's see, southern Lebanon under Hezbollah or Tel Aviv under Israel. Iran under the Mullahs, or the U.S. under democracy. Please choose your side of support wisely because you may just get your wish to come true.

Mike:

"'fanciful' re-invention of facts."

What facts have been re-invented? Go scroll through the archives of CNN. You will find that Hizbullah did not start shelling Israeli towns until two days AFTER Israel started bombing Lebanon, had killed over sixty civilians and destroyed crucial civilian infrastructure.

The focus SHOULD be on what Israel is doing because it has killed 600 plus civilians and reduced a large part of the country to rubble. In contrast Hizbullah has killed 19 Israeli civilians and thirty soldiers. Hizbullah rockets have done minimal damage to Israeli towns. The "Fair and Balanced" thing to do would be to focus on criticizing the side causing the majority of the death and destruction ,and that is Israel.

Richard Johnson:

"Jews have as much right as Anglo-Saxons to defend themselves."

The Arabs under occupation also have a right to liberate themselves. The violence occurs because of the occupation and the continuing annexation of Arab land by Israel by virtue of the settlement movement. Get rid of the occupation, withdraw Israel to the 67 borders and then you can blame the Arabs for being violent. Until then Israel is the occupier and suppressor of a people who should do everything they can to win freedom.

Confused:

When you talk about choosing between Israel and Lebanon, please do not leave out that Israel is a Jewish theocracy that does not afford the gentiles (non Jews) the same rights as Jews. It is a nation that continues to occupy and suppress three and a half million Palestinians and refuses to let almost a million Palestinian refugees, displaced from what is now Israel (after its creation), return home. If this is the side you would choose you really are confused, and bereft of any humanistic values whatsoever.

In late April and on May 3, 2002, the UN, Amnesty International and HRW released reports about the Israeli military incursions into Jenin. The reports documented that approximately 30 Palestinian militants, 22 Palestinian civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting and thus felt no evidence that a massacre took place.

UN report

Fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the hospital in Jenin by the end of May 2002. IDF also places the death toll at approximately 52. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of the evidence that has emerged. Article (56).
UN Report was strongly criticized by Human Rights Watch as "flawed" for not having any first-hand evidence and failing to address serious questions[34].

[edit]

Human Rights Watch report

The HRW report found "no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF".

I am wondering about the facts from Qana. Mainly I am wondering about the timeline, I wasn't there so what I'm wondering is this, if the building was struck between midnight and 1 am, and it didn't collapse until around 8 am, what were all those people doing in that building at 8 am? The news stories all agree that most of the dead are women and children from 2 families, were they in the building before the bombing and they stayed in it all night or did they go into the building after it was hit but before it collapsed, if so why? Where were the rescue personal after the building was struck and before the building collapsed? So far there are no news stories that list rescue personal among those killed in the building collapse. Why did they wait for 7-8 hours ( until daylight) and after the building collapsed before they entered the building to look for people injured in the bombing? I believe that these questions are the basis for all the confusion so far. When one side in a war doesn't wear uniforms and builds firebases in residential neighborhoods that shoot unguided missile's indiscriminately at people who are not taking part in the actual conflict and build their headquarters in mosques, schools and hospitals, it does make a person wonder if we are hearing the truth about one specific bombing.

And with all of Israels negative attributes, it's still a much better place to live than southern lebanon. I am a lebanese christian. I very much support Israel helping Lebanon ride itself of the cancer that is Hezbollah, Iran, and Syrian influence. The democratic and rational portion of Lebanon is a beautiful place with beautiful people. Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran will never allow Lebanon to continue on this path towards peace and rational and that is why they must be removed from influencing Lebanon.

I believe your piece misses the real point and I'd encourage you to check my post below. I know I and many don't intend to be claiming Hizbollah killed the individuals, only that the perception of the event may have been managed and magnified. I also addressed where some number of bodies may have come from to augment the numbers.

Someone exploiting an actual incident is more in line with what I imagine most believe. And except perhaps for local stringers who editors will likely never come to really know, I doubt many think the press is complicit, but simply negligent when it comers to trying to get a scoop, or "money" shot. I wonder, how many of you would unendingly parade your or your neighbor's dead child around raised high for all to see. It at least suggests a lack of respect for that life in service of something else.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/07/a_tyre_for_qana.html

I used to gullibly believe the Arab claims, but then I read about the JENIN "MASSACRE". I remember Arab leaders like Saab Erekat trying to spin the lie that hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinians had been wantonly "massacred" in the city of Jenin.

But it turned out to be a complete falsehood. It turned out that maybe 50 people had been killed during warfare.

So, now I'm a bit more skeptical. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Hezbollah was cynically attempting to generate another "massacre" for public consumption. It certainly serves their cause, despite the shrill denials of Hezbollah partisans like Mr. Morley.

As they say, fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Here is an account of the last time the Israelis massacred innocent civilians in Qana. This was a U.N refugee camp. What excuse was there for this?

Here is a link to a description of Robert Fisk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk

Robert Fisk
Qana, 19 April 1996

It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disembowelled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in the United Nations shelter, believing that they were safe under the world's protection. Like the Muslims of Srebrenica, the Muslims of Qana were wrong.

In front of a burning building of the UN's Fijian battalion headquarters, a girl held a corpse in her arms, the body of a grey- haired man whose eyes were staring at her, and she rocked the corpse back and forth in her arms, keening and weeping and crying the same words over and over: "My father, my father." A Fijian UN soldier stood amid a sea of bodies and, without saying a word, held aloft the body of a headless child.

"The Israelis have just told us they'll stop shelling the area", a UN soldier said, shaking with anger. "Are we supposed to thank them?" In the remains of a burning building - the conference room of the Fijian UN headquarters - a pile of corpses was burning. The roof had crashed in flames onto their bodies, cremating them in front of my eyes. When I walked towards them, I slipped on a human hand...

Israel's slaughter of civilians in this terrible 10-day offensive - 206 by last night - has been so cavalier, so ferocious, that not a Lebanese will forgive this massacre. There had been the ambulance attacked on Saturday, the sisters killed in Yohmor the day before, the 2-year-old girl decapitated by an Israeli missile four days ago. And earlier yesterday, the Israelis had slaughtered a family of 12 - the youngest was a four- day-old baby - when Israeli helicopter pilots fired missiles into their home.

Shortly afterwards, three Israeli jets dropped bombs only 250 metres from a UN convoy on which I was travelling, blasting a house 30 feet into the air in front of my eyes. Travelling back to Beirut to file my report on the Qana massacre to the Independent last night, I found two Israeli gunboats firing at the civilian cars on the river bridge north of Sidon.

Every foreign army comes to grief in Lebanon. The Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinians by Israel's militia allies in 1982 doomed Israel's 1982 invasion. Now the Israelis are stained again by the bloodbath at Qana, the scruffy little Lebanese hill town where the Lebanese believe Jesus turned water into wine.

The Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres may now wish to end this war. But the Hizbollah are not likely to let him. Israel is back in the Lebanese quagmire. Nor will the Arab world forget yesterday'a terrible scenes.

The blood of all the refugees ran quite literally in streams from the shell-smashed UN compound restaurant in which the Shiite Muslims from the hill villages of southern Lebanon - who had heeded Israel's order to leave their homes - had pathetically sought shelter. Fijian and French soldiers heaved another group of dead - they lay with their arms tightly wrapped around each other - into blankets.

A French UN trooper muttered oaths to himself as he opened a bag in which he was dropping feet, fingers, pieces of people's arms. And as we walked through this obscenity, a swarm of people burst into the compound. They had driven in wild convoys down from Tyre and began to pull the blankets off the mutilated corpses of their mothers and sons and daughters and to shriek "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great") and to threaten the UN troops.

We had suddenly become not UN troops and journalists but Westerners, Israel's allies, an object of hatred and venom. One bearded man with fierce eyes stared at us, his face dark with fury. "You are Americans", he screamed at us. "Americans are dogs. You did this. Americans are dogs."

President Bill Clinton has allied himself with Israel in its war against "terrorism" and the Lebanese, in their grief, had not forgotten this. Israel's official expression of sorrow was rubbing salt in their wounds. "I would like to be made into a bomb and blow myself up amid the Israelis", one old man said.

As for the Hizbollah, which has repeatedly promised that Israelis will pay for their killing of Lebanese civilians, its revenge cannot be long in coming. Operation Grapes of Wrath may then turn out then to be all too aptly named.

Thank you Alex for showing your true face.

There is only one word to characterize Mr. Morley's latest effort ("Qana Conspiracy Theory") DRIVEL!

The Israeli government is at the least aiding propaganda squads that are attempting to bend the Internet buzz to their side through spamming boards (and I assume blog comments, creating blogs etc.) and also fixing Internet polls.

The thing I found interesting is that the same mean sprited people doing the pro Israel spam sound like the people who were first to jump to the defense of WalMart, Microsoft, and George Bush and other Republicans before 2002 and have been usually working 10-12 hours a day since on how great Christianity Republicans and now Israel are (which indicates that Faith Based Charity money is involved now).

There is a mainstream link to the evidence that Israel does have a propaganda machine going at my blog: http://dotcommonsense.blog-city.com/

The speculation of a possible American machine that may be drawing money from the FBC program comes from my years of experience with the overwhelming right wing Internet machine in the US.

I think this needs to be checked out thoroughly though. Maybe Israelis don't mind paying tax dollars for a propaganda machine, but it would be illegal in the US and I sure don't want my money going for it.

Zain: I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians dispossessed of land in 1948, but it does not justify suicide bombing of civilians (let alone all the rejoicing we saw Palestinians engaging in on 9/11 -- they justly lost some friends that day).

Also, let's not forget that the U.N. created and approved the 1947 plan for the partition of Cis-Jordan between Israel and Palestine, and the Arabs rejected the world's plan, attacked the Jews, and started down a half-century long series of self-inflicted defeats. If Palestinians are angry, they should blame: (1) the whole world, including the U.N. which created Israel; (2) the other Arabs, who rejected the two-state solution that was much better for Palestinians than any solution they can hope to get now, and who themselves seized and occupied the Arab lands not taken by Israel during its defense of the 1948 aggression, and who themselves have herded Pelestinians into refugee camps, denied them citizenship and rights, and done absolutely nothing concrete to advance the Palestinian cause; (3) the U.N., which voted for partition, and, ever since the Palestinians rejected it, have coddled corrupt Palestinian leaders and helped to institutionalize Palestinian victimhood; and (4) themselves, for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity (responsibility: now there's a radical proposition).

You may be sore that the U.N. approved the creation of Israel in the first place, but it does not justify the slaughter of innocent civilians who have colonized Israel in reliance on the world body's creation of Israel.

We can see from the posts here, and from the reports in the world media, not to mention from just about anything one reads from the Arab street, that lots of people hate the Jews. (Clearly, lots also hate the Americans.) But G*d says that he will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel. Perhaps you don't believe it; but all the evidence confirms it. Do not be a such a sore loser in the geo-political contest. Life can still be good for Palestinian persons, just as it is good for Zoroastrians and others (including the Jews for 2000 years) who have been dispossessed of their original homelands by forces beyond their control. Palestinians have a bright future as eductated, productive, propserous urban professionals, if they take that chance. Sadly, too many (encouraged by radicals with no sympathy for the innocent victims of terror) have lost sight of the real possibilities G*d grants them in their own lives, and choose instead to waste their own lives by lashing out in shameless, self-indulgent, bloodthirsty attacks on the innocent. You terrorists and terrorist sypathizers are wasting your lives, and you will not be rewarded for it in the next life.

I am most struck that the media play a points game that is based on headlines and superficial moments called photo ops.

Kana = 2 points Hisbolla
Hizbolla attacks violates intenationa border = 2 points israel
Ajaminajab (iranian lunny) and Nasrella call to wipe out israel = 2 points israel
civilian casulties = 2 point hizbolla
picture of katusha launcher in residential area = 2 points Israel
Oil= 4 point Any Arab 6 points for French and Russians
Holocaust = 2 points Israel (4 points from germany) (0 points UK)
Fear of radical Islam Nukes = 2 points Israel from US and UK 2 points Hizbolla from French
On and On and On.
The media simplistic approach is unrealistic for this complex layered story. Yes, Hizbollah has a grip over access for media and imagination. Remember the Jenin Massacare

How come no one in the media is addressing the following entirely likely take on the Israeli offensive? That is, that the "accidental" (put in quotes as a hypothesis that it is not that at all) is a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon?

It's pretty simple, I think:

1. Create collateral deaths.

2. Remind the world that Hezbollah "brought this on Lebanon".

3. Sit back and watch the infighting.

4. Repeat till Hezbollah's support in Lebanon bottoms out to its essential base.

Israeli will deny any atrocities that their armed forces has will commit in Lebanon in order to justify their brutal tactics. This is similar to the moms of the US marines who refuse to accept that their "angel" sons could do anything wrong in Iqar, like the Haditha massacre of whole family. Despite glaring facts in the face, some people who have blood on their consciences need to resort to childish explanation so that they can sleep at night. Simple fact is that Israeli army has admitted that they knew there will civilians in the Qana buidling and that they atill went ahead and bombed it because it was being used by Hezbollah fighters to launch rockets at Israel. If this happened in Pitsburgh, then whoever gave orders would face murder charge and fry in electric chair.

Where is the Arab / Muslim outrage at the bombing at the soccer field in Iraq today? Or at any of a million other atrocities that have silently passed? The selective outrage and political posturing is clear as day!

Some web sites show photos of rescue workers digging these dead bodies out of a mound of dirt(...DIRT!!!) in the basement of the "collapsed" building. There was a mound of dirt, with some soft-ball sized peices of concrete mixed in it. If these childern were killed by the re-inforced concrete building having "collapsed" on them, why were they they shown being dug out of a mound of DIRT?
The photos showed a hole in the room's ceiling, proving the building was constructed of re-inforced concrete. The hole in the ceiling also proved that, since there was still a ceiling, the building had not "collapsed".
Also, not only was there no blood on any of the dead childern, but there was NO sign of any trauma. No punctures, no contusions, no broken bones, not even a bruise or a scrape! How did they die, malaria? I thought a re-inforced concrete building "collapsed" on them ?

Many of you seem to use the argument that since Israel kills more people than Hezballah, that they are the "terrorists." How does that make any sense? Israeli military capability is far superior to the band of savages that make up Hezballah, and they will show that in order to take them out. What school of military thinking teaches that since your enemy just can't measure up to your ability, but continues to *purposely* attack civilians, that you should go easier on them? The point is to eliminate Hezballah as a threat, even while they hide amongst civilians for maximum carnage. Have any of you people whose hearts bleed for Hezballah scum ever thought about why we hold the Israelis to a higher standard? Maybe it is because their aim isn't to wantanly murder civilians, but when it happens, it is actually a tragedy. Hezballah AIMS for civilians and rejoices in the carnage, like the sadistic psychopaths they are. I am no fan of conspiracy theories, but I have zero problem assuming the worst of the subhumans who make up the Hezballah ranks. Israel isn't a perfect angel, but they don't make a habit of fighting dirty like the terrorist enemies they face. I also trust the transparency of Israeli society much more than I trust the compulsive lying, exxageration, and utter lack of objectivity that pervades Arab society as a whole. and Is there any reason why the world doesn't call for Hezballah restraint? Or why the world has come to expect the most vile behavior from its followers? Are we that cynical that we have become so accustomed to Islamic terrorist horrors, that we just shrug our shoulders? For all of you who glibly criticize Israel and the West for that matter, you should thank whatever deity you believe in that you live under the influence of the Western values system. Life according to Hezballah and other Islamic terror groups would be hell on earth for most of you. Israel is doing the dirty work for the rest of us, and is in the process fighting a battle for its own existence. Civilians are dying, yes. It is tragic, yes. But civilians die in wars, especially when fighting an enemy with no conscience.

how did the dead rapidly develop rigor mortis?

by being dead for longer than portrayed.

Maybe you should check the offical count from the Red Cross.

To Thom

I recognize the paste\copy editing you made by copying the remark on Yesha from the lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com website. I will pose the same question I posed to the original writer of this comment, Mojgan, who still has not provided a reasonable explanation for it:

If you do believe that the Yesha Rabinical Council has such a hold on Israeli policy, then how do you explain last summer's disengagement from Gaza executed by Ariel Sharon? Yesha stands for "Judea, Someron and GAZA" and I assure you that they were not for that move one bit.

I am looking forward to your response on that. Hopefully you will have a little more guts than Mojgan who originally posted the comment and decided to shy away from a response due to a justifiable fear of adhering to a famous Jewish quote: It is better to be silent and be considered a fool, then speak and prove it".

With the invasion of Lebanon, both the IDF and Hizbollah will attempt to degrade each other to the best of their ability. However, i believe Qana, the destruction of a ten story apartment building, and southern Lebanon generally is an attempt to degrade the population that supports Hizbullah.
In his book the Iron Wall, Avi Shlaim quotes Moshe Dayan a supporter of the Policy of Reprisals. "As early as 1950 he defended at a meeting of the Mapai Secretariat and members of the Knesset the policy of collective punishment against Arab villages suspected of harboring infiltrators and saboteurs. Harassing the the village, including women, children, and elderly people, he said, " is the only method that has proved effective, not justified or moral, but effective, when Arabs lay mines on our side."
Certainly Southern Lebanon, in a general sense, supports Hizbollah. While Hizbullah may not have conducted operations out of all the communities bombed does not matter under the Policy of Reprisal. As supporters of Hizbullah, they qualified for an attack.
As a young major in the IDF, Ariel Sharon lead the reprisal massacre of the village of (K)Qibya in the 1953. He would later replace satchel charges with Bulldozers, hense his nickname. Unit 101, which he commanded in this and later operations resembled the Einsatzgruppen,without the ethnic cleansing aspect, used by the Germans in World War II.

What happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? how can any Christian, Muslim or Jew kill in the name of religion - when they all acknowledge the old testament and the 10 commandments?

One this is for sure - No member of Hezbollah, the Israeli army, their leaders (or George Bush for that matter) is going to heaven, paradise or any other similar place. I hope they are all happy blowing each other up in hell for eternity.

One of the saddest things about America today is how out of touch with any semblance of reality the average American is: Saddam attacked us on 9/11. He was in league with Al Qaida. We found WMD in Iraq. The people fighting the Iraqi Civil War have Topeka next on their terrorist agenda. Global warming is a hoax. Gays are out to ruin my marriage. The estate tax will apply to me. Israel can do no wrong.

That these lies are engineered, cultivated and propagated by the GOP and its media outlets is pretty obvious to any educated adult. What to do to get this country to wake up to the reality that the rest of the world sees is a more difficult question. I want my country to return to cognitive sanity, but am a loss as to the prescription. Any suggestions?

"APS,
AND where did you read that Jenin wasn't a massacre? "

From two of the most anti-Israel organizations out there - the UN and the BBC. Even they had to admit it. Here's the link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2165272.stm

Palestinians and Hizbollah always target civilians. Get it? They aim to kill women and children--non combatants. They are carrying on in the grand tradition of Arab militias such as the Janjaweed in Durfar targteting, killing, raping hundreds of thousands of helpless civilians--mostly women and children. In Iraq they target civilians at prayer in their houses of worship. Hizbollah rockets are not capable of being aimed at anything imparticular like the Nazi buzz bombs of WWII--so every rocket is aimed at a civilian. When you fly civilian airplanes into office towers whom are you targeting?
The Israeli's could wipe their enemies like Iran off the map in minutes; they could kill every person in Lebanon; they could target women and children all day everyday just like their Hammas and Hizbollah enemies. But they never do and they never will because they are civilized people facing some of the most barbaric fighters on the planet. Ask the Shiia in Iraq or the Africans in Darfur or the women in Arab countries such as Afghanistan who have been brutalized by their medieval laws and traditions. Israel is amazing for its restraint. If the U.S. was for years bombarded by suicide bombers and rockets from Cuba, how long would it take to wipe out the Cuban forces and who would tell the U.S. that the response is disproportinate.

Anon:

"theocratic islam versus western culture"

We have the same struggle here in this country. It's just that because conditions here are generally decent (rather than desperate) it does not usually take a violent form.

Our struggle is between theocratic pseudochristianity (the evolution deniers who choose the law of Leviticus over that of modern America) vs the liberal modernists who realize what century it is.

APS,
AND where did you read that Jenin wasn't a massacre? But I'm glad someone brought it up. Accumlating rage. What else didn't Israel do? Keep it up, keep it up.

"I'm not saying I believe in this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if Hezbollah staged the entire Qana tragedy. They knew exactly how the world would respond."

Change some of your words a little and you sound just like the conspiracy nuts who would blame 911 on the Jews.

I'm not saying I believe in this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if Israel staged the entire 911 tragedy. They knew exactly how the world would respond. (i.e the anti- Muslim/Arab backlash we are still dealing with today).

The body count may change, but it still does not change the fact that Israel has been bombing indiscriminately and has killed 600 plus civilians, one third children.
There were always alternatives that could have been used by Israel to disarm Hizbullah but it decided to show off its military muscle in a sadistic display of collective punishment. The aim is not simply to degrade hizbullah's capabilities, it is to make an example out of Lebanon for those who do not play by Israel's rules and on their timetable.

Hizbullah could have been disarmed without resorting to this brutality.

I'm not saying I believe in this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if Hezbollah staged the entire Qana tragedy. They knew exactly how the world would respond.

Remember - - - every death by the Israelis is a tragedy while every death by Hezbollah is a victory. Israel will get blamed either way.

I urge those of you who support Hezbollah to read up on how they routinely hide in hospitals, schools and mosques, putting innocent civilians in harm's way. That's not a conspiracy theory. It's the truth.

"I'm not saying I believe in this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if Hezbollah staged the entire Qana tragedy. They knew exactly how the world would respond."

Change some of your words a little and you sound just like the conspiracy nuts who would blame 911 on the Jews.

I'm not saying I believe in this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if Israel staged the entire 911 tragedy. They knew exactly how the world would respond. (i.e the anti- Muslim/Arab backlash we are still dealing with today).

The body count may change, but it still does not change the fact that Israel has been bombing indiscriminately and has killed 600 plus civilians, one third children.
There were always alternatives that could have been used by Israel to disarm Hizbullah but it decided to show off its military muscle in a sadistic display of collective punishment. The aim is not simply to degrade hizbullah's capabilities, it is to make an example out of Lebanon for those who do not play by Israel's rules and on their timetable.

Hizbullah could have been disarmed without resorting to this brutality.

Hopefully, once this tragic stupidity is over, Israel/western world will be able to finance the recontruction of infrastructure and aid for Southern Lebanon. Help Lebanon and Palenstine authority to provide services to poor instead of allowing Syria and Iran perhaps even Venezuela to help provide it. They have all the oil money and a lot of hatred towards the west with a taste for power and greatness. "Whatever"

To allow them to continue to provide services in this area will be nothing more than start the problem over again.

Love God but hate religion...

"The path of the rightous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyrany of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is trully his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger, those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is "The Lord"( Shiva, Alah or whatever the name for God your religion provides),
when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

version of Ezekiel 25:17

Dont like to quote the bible but it I say it is a wise and rightous passage no matter what religion it comes from.

This problem is nothing more than the side effect of the poor who are in arms against a common enemy, as made out by local islamic governments and religious interests.

If the Lebanese and Palesting governments were able to provide to their poor and have prosperous economies with plenty of jobs to go around, these people will not have the time or will to engage in all this hatred and constant accusation of the Jews s the cause of their dispair.

Damn all the islamic extremists! damn all the populists such as JAJAGABOURAJAD or whatever the Iranian thug they have for presidents name is. Damn The Syrian presdent with his presumtious attitude of greatness and superiority. Damn Fidel Castro and HUgo Chavez.

And DAMN George Bush for being such an imbecil and ignorant.

From Mendy:

"If I had the authoriy, I would have destroyed the entire village togehter with all its "innocent civillians".

Precisely why the only solution is for America to declare a war of annihilation against Israel while concommitantly rounding up every last Jew in America and giving them the Zyklon-B treatment.

And throw in every Evangelical, Rapture-loving Christian in the 'showers' with them.

A born-again Anti-Semite

To the guy addressing his comment to APS (sorry no better address, you posted no name). I have no idea where APS read that Jenin wasn't a massacre but I can tell you where I read it: In the UN report on the events in Jenin Section paragraph 43. You can get it out of the UN website. I do not remember the address but if you type Jenin in Wikipedia there is a direct link to it

Zain:

"When you talk about choosing between Israel and Lebanon, please do not leave out that Israel is a Jewish theocracy that does not afford the gentiles (non Jews) the same rights as Jews."

That's not entirely true. There are Christian Arabs and Druze who live peacefully side-by-side with Jews in Israel, especially in Haifa and other ares in the north. I'm sure you already know that the Druze serve in the Israeli army. This says a lot about the trust that Israel puts into these "gentiles." The Christian churches and areas of Jerusalam are open to everyone, tourists and residents alike. They are maintained well and given respect.
By the way, this was not the case during the period of 1948-1967 when Jews were not allowed access to their holy sites in Jerusalem. The area that Jews find so holy, the outer wall to the Second Temple, was desecrated by piles and piles of trash.

Jefferson:

I have no doubt that people were killed in an Israeli airstrike. But you are structuring a straw man and knocking it down.

There are questions about these photos that you haven't bothered to ask, here.

And bloggers are right to ask them.

Mr. Morley -

With all due respect (since this is your blog)... I take offense at what you wrote.

"My question is: What is it about the photos from Qana that made Israel's supporters prefer fantasy to fact?"

There is nothing wrong with questioning what actually occurred at Qana. The Israeli army is conducting their own investigation, as is the entire world, for that matter. It's a known fact that Hezbollah and other such organizations routinely position themselves among civilian populations in schools, hospitals, mosques and apartment buildings. There could be a possibility that Hezbollah staged this tragedy, and it's worth analyzing.

Your opinions about this situation are obvious. Certainly, since it's your blog, you are entitled to express those opinions. I guess I just expect more from a Washington Post columnist. As a former student of journalism, I was always taught that the purpose of a newspaper was to report the news, not make it.

Jefferson:

Human Rights Watch is repo