Under the Bombs – Sous les Bombes

Thanks to Michael B. for the heads-up about this remarkable upcoming Lebanese film centred around the Israeli attack last year, Under the Bombs/ Sous Les Bombes.

Franco-Lebanese Director Philippe Aractingi filmed during the actual conflict, commencing shooting only ten days into the 34 day war that claimed well over a thousand Lebanese lives–most of them civilians; that displaced around a million residents — about a quarter of the population; and in which the Israeli regime savagely destroyed so much of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. Israeli casualties were a sixth of Lebanon’s and mostly combatants.

Remarkably, he hired only two film actors, Nada Abou Farhat and Georges Khabbaz. The rest of the cast — refugees, demonstrators, civilians, NGO officials, soldiers and journalists — all play their own role.

Keep a look-out for it at your local independent cinema. The movie website features a bi-lingual summary of the film script authors, actors, film stills, and more. For now, here is the movie trailer followed by a short snippet with the Director.

Under the bombs Trailer| La bande-annonce du film libanais Sous les bombes du realisateur Philippe Aractingi (1 min 46 s)

لشريط الدعائي ل تحت القصف اخر افلام المخرج اللبناني فيليب عرقتنج

Thanks to Reclaiming space

Survivors of the Summer War – 27 Jul 07

Excellent documentary by Al Jazeera on the situation in Lebanon one year after the conflict.

URGENT: Aid to Nahr al Bared

05.28.2007 |

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

A growing humanitarian crisis is occurring in North Lebanon at the Palestinian Camp, Nahr Al Bared Camp. Heavy fighting began on Sunday 20 May, with shelling on the camp itself beginning on Tuesday, May 22. According to statistics by UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees in the Near East, approximately 31,000 registered Palestinians live in the camp, although actual statistics, including the unregistered persons are closer to around 35,000.

When the fighting began many civilians remained still in the camps, caught in the cross-fire, and evacuated during a ceasefire and has continued with only sporadic gunfire afterwards. While exact figures are still unknown at this point the number, approximately 25% of the refugees are seeking refuge in UNRWA schools. The majority of families–approximately 75% have sought refuge with other families in the nearby Badawi Palestinian Camp in the North of Lebanon and increasingly refugees are streaming into Palestinian camps in Beirut–Shatila, Mar Elias, and Bourj al Barajneh.

Many civilians were injured and have chronic illnesses and hospitals as well as clinics are running low on medical supplies, as well as there are limited basic necessities for all the IDPs as they fled their camp with just the clothes on their back. The situation is extremely critical and requires additional aid and supplies to prevent a further increase to the already growing humanitarian crisis. Aside from international organizations, such as UNRWA, civil society organizations and grassroots groups–such as professors and students from the American University of Beirut, and the Committee of the Festival of the Right of Return, began immediate operations to gather supplies and take care of IDPs and support hospitals caring for the wounded.

Immediate funds are required to buy the supplies needed for the IDPs. We have adopted 50 families, whom the Nahr al Bared Relief Campaign is taking care of, by purchasing items inside the refugee camps to supply the refugees with the supplies they need (medicine, diapers, kitchen materials, clothing, and hygiene kits). While donations of clothing and other items are welcome, we feel it is important to collect cash donations as the economy of the Badawi refugee camp is already suffering because the NGOs inside the camp are bringing all their aid in from outside. Thus, we are supplying people inside Badawi, Bourj al Barajneh and Shatila camps with goods from their own community.

The Naher Al Bared Relief Campaign is working with Palestinian and grassroots organizations who are on the ground in the camps where people have fled: Badawi, Shatila, Bourj al Barajneh. We are seeking funds to assist us in our relief efforts. We are working as a grassroots organization because 80% of the relief from NGOs, including the Red Cross/Crescent and the UN, are only giving aid to refugees in the UNRWA schools, thus only reaching 25% of the population and no NGOs are on the ground in the camps in Shatila and Bourj al Barajneh as of yet. Thus far we have given food aid, medicine, hygiene kits, diapers, and baby formula to Nahr al Bared refugees who are internally displaced in four refugee camps in Lebanon. We have adopted 50 families in Shatila whom we will care for, in cooperation with Palestinian NGOs and political parties inside the camp, and we are seeking to raise $1500 per day to take care of these families. There are many more in need, and we will include more families depending on our fundraising; please consider giving us anywhere from $100 to $1000 to help support our efforts.

For more information about our project please visit:
http://nahrelbareddonations.blogspot.com/

To donate funds here are the details:

Donation Account Details For tax-deductible donations to the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign please use the following account:

AUB Office of Development

https://rtf.aub.edu.lb/

Please make sure to specify that your donation is going to the Nahr el Bared refugees.

To contact us:

Rami Zurayk: Professor at the American University of Beirut Mobile: +961.3.733.227 rzurayk@aub.edu.lb

Rania Masri: Professor at the University of Balamand Mobile: +961.3.135.279 rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb

Marcy Newman: Professor at the American University of Beirut Mobile: +961.3.977.812 marcynewman@gmail.com

Source: Norman Finkelstein

When the Israelis do this, we scream at the injustice, but when the Lebanese army does it we applaud them.

 “In the first three days of the recent events involving the Lebanese army and Fateh el-Islam in the Nahr el-Bared camp, the Lebanese army committed what would amount to war crimes in a similar fashion to that of the Israeli army in Gaza and in Lebanon last summer, firing on a civilian population indiscriminately. When the Israelis do this, we scream at the injustice, but when the Lebanese army does it we applaud them. These are double standards.” Electronic Lebanon: Cheering to the beat of the Palestinians’ misery

Displaced children from Nahr al-Bared camp staying at an UNRWA school in Badawi camp. (Image courtesy of Marcy Newman)

What can I say? The fighting wasn’t against Fateh al-Islam. The fighting was against our homes. Our homes were destroyed. If you were to go inside the camp, and see the camp for yourself, you would say the same. No homes [are] left.

Electronic Lebanon: “They may accept us for a day or two but for how long?”

Beirut: before and after the July War

IDF commander: we fired more than 1 million cluster bombs

By Meron Rappaport

Ha’aretz Last update – 14:20 12 September 2006

“What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,” the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers. The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.

The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.

The cluster rounds which don’t detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.

Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.

According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would “flood” the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon.

When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered.

‘Excessive injury and unnecessary suffering’

It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.

International law forbids the use of weapons that cause “excessive injury and unnecessary suffering”, and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.

The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.

IDF: No violation of international law

In response, the IDF Spokesman’s Office stated that “International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons.

“For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession.

“The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel.”

The Defense Minister’s office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire.

http://peoplesgeography.wordpress.com/2006/09/13/some-admission-of-culpability-but-denial-still-reigns/

Israel blockade on Lebanon prevents oil spill clean-up

Posted by peoplesgeography on September 5th, 2006

by Salim Yassine Mon Sep 4, 12:49 PM ET

BEIRUT (AFP) – The Israeli blockade on Lebanon is preventing the widescale intervention needed to clean a massive oil slick caused by the Jewish state’s bombardment of a power station, Greenpeace has said.

“You have to be able to overfly Lebanese waters to pinpoint surface slicks and fuel oil deposits deeper down, as well as intervention by skimmers (cleaning boats) — and that is not possible while the blockade continues,” Greenpeace Lebanon’s spokesman Omar al-Naim told AFP Monday.”The use of pumps is also necessary, which means being able to operate freely on the surface of the sea, which is impossible because of the blockade,” Naim said.

“The more time that passes, the more the slicks are dispersed by the wind and the currents,” he added.

Naim said that unless the slicks are dealt with while they are still at sea, “the coastline will inevitably be soiled again, even if it has already been cleaned up”.

Syrian officials said on Sunday that a new oil slick had reached its shores after initial pollution at the end of July, caused by Israeli air strikes in the middle of the month against the Jiyeh power station 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of Beirut.

Two attacks by Israeli warplanes hit fuel oil storage tanks at the coastal generating station, spilling up to 15,000 tonnes of fuel into the Mediterranean and fouling three quarters of Lebanon’s 200-kilometre (124-mile) coast.

The air assaults came after Israel launched its blistering 34-day offensive on July 12 against Lebanese Shiite fighters from Hezbollah, and subsequent fires at Jiyeh burned for nearly two weeks.

The latest slick washed up on Syrian shores between the Lebanese frontier and Tartus, 260 km (161 miles) northwest of Damascus, Hassan Murjan, the head of environment services in Tartus, told AFP on Sunday.

“As long as the Lebanese coastline has not been cleaned there will be a risk for Syria,” Murjan said. “We’re waiting for the clean-up in Lebanon so we can get started again.”

According to Rick Steiner, an American expert sent to the region by the World Conservation Union at the request of the Lebanese non-governmental group Greenline, “the longer pollution lasts, the more dangerous it becomes”.

At a meeting last month in the Greek port of Pireaus, organised by the UN Environment Programme, a dozen countries promised logistical aid to battle the oil spill, considered the worst environmental catastrophe ever to befall Lebanon.

Greenpeace Mediterranean said that cleaning the massive spill could take up to a year.

Rebuilding Lebanon

Posted by peoplesgeography on September 6th, 2006

Democracy Now | Sept 5 2006

Three weeks after the ceasefire that ended the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, residents in Lebanon are struggling to rebuild. Thousands of families returning to their homes now face the daunting task of clearing away the rubble and coping with the destruction. Democracy Now!’s Ana Nogueira files a report from Lebanon.

Three weeks after the ceasefire that ended the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, residents in Lebanon are struggling to rebuild. Israel’s bombardment of the country destroyed homes, bridges, roads, water treatment plants, supermarkets and fuel tanks.

International donors pledged one billion dollars for reconstruction efforts at a conference last week in Sweden. The Lebanese government estimates it will need at least three and a half times that amount to repair the damage and the money may take months to come in.

Thousands of families returning to their homes now face the daunting task of clearing away the rubble and starting to rebuild. Democracy Now producer Ana Noguiera is in southern Beirut. She filed this report.

• Ana Nogueira reports from southern Lebanon

---

ANA NOGUEIRA: Shock and awe — the phrase accurately describes the reactions of residents of Dahiye, Beirut as they look over what remains of their neighborhood. 198 buildings were completely demolished here during the 34 days of Israeli air raids. Another 200 were so badly damaged that they will have to be brought down.SALEEM: [translated] I have friends in all of the buildings. One of them is still there under the rubble. There was a little space in front of the building. Now it’s gone. We used to play soccer here.ANA NOGUEIRA: As the bulldozers and backhoes move Dahiye’s rubble to a dumpsite on the outskirts of town, residents scour through the remains to find anything they can salvage.

NADA HAMDAN: [translated] I’m coming here to see if I’m able to get things of sentimental value from my house, so that I can tell my children about the house and let them know what Israel has done to us and how badly. This was a 12-story building. Imagine, now its height is no more than two meters.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Despite the overwhelming sense of grief and destruction here, people like Nada Hamdan feel victorious.

NADA HAMDAN: [translated] We don’t see this as destruction. We see it as a rebirth. We have our dignity, pride and steadfastness. This is not a defeat for us. It’s a defeat for Israel.

MIRVAT BASI: [translated] My name is Mirvat Basi. I used to live here in that building on the ninth floor. Now the building is destroyed. There is nothing left. Thank god, all of this does not matter. The most important thing is that we won.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Approximately 130,000 homes were destroyed or damaged in Lebanon, creating a severe housing crisis. Many homes that were damaged but remain standing are now housing two or three families in a room. Hezbollah’s rebuilding brigade, which calls itself “Construction Jihad,” and the government’s all-volunteer emergency response team, Civil Defence, are working 12 hours a day to remove the rubble. The task is daunting. This area looks like the aftermath of September 11th, but about 100 times over. Hezbollah’s ambitious promise to have Dahiye rebuilt within a year seems like a lifetime away.

At the recent donors conference in Sweden, almost $1 billion was pledged to help Lebanon rebuild. The Lebanese government has said it will give $33,000 to each family that was left homeless, but many residents are skeptical the government will come through. Ali Zreik, for example, says he has yet to meet a government representative.

ALI ZREIK: [translated] The Lebanese state has not come here to ask us what we need after all this destruction. They’re quite non-existent on the scene. All the work here is being done by the residents, by volunteers and by Hezbollah. We asked the government to come and look at us. So far, no one from the government has come here to see how they can help us.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Before the donors conference even started, Hezbollah had already doled out up to $12,000 to each family whose home was destroyed or damaged in Dahiye. This cash in hand was urgently needed for so many left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This is Sheikh Khodor Noredden from Hezbollah’s Political Council.

SHEIKH KHODOR NOREDDEN: We have about 7,000 families homeless today. And the winter will be after two months, and the schools also will open after two months. And we have a bad state for our people here. We don’t like to replace government here, but if the government will not do anything, we will start rebuilding, after removing rubbles, which we have now.

ANA NOGUEIRA: The volunteer group, Civil Defence, which was on the frontlines removing bodies from the rubble during the war, are now also on the ground helping Hezbollah clean up. This is their chief of operations, Houssam Chamas.

HOUSSAM CHAMAS: [translated] During the war, we provided water and removed bodies from the ruins and ambulances. That was the first step. Now, we are focused on removing rubble from the streets, but it’s a difficult task, because of all the unexploded weapons. We work with architects to remove the ruins. We also help people if they want to retrieve any personal belongings from under the rubble.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Volunteers from one of the country’s largest Christian political parties, the Free Patriotic Movement, are also on the ground. This is Nicolas Ibrahim.

NICOLAS IBRAHIM: [translated] Today, we are 60 persons from the Free Patriotic Movement working in Dahiye. Every day we have work. Last Friday, we cleaned a street in [inaudible] area. Today, we cleaned a church and its surroundings, and we are distributing water here.

ANA NOGUEIRA: In southern Lebanon, the destruction is proportionately just as great, but bulldozers are few and far between. People here are manually clearing chunks of broken concrete from the roads and reshaping them into walls that contain the rubble from their homes. Again, Hezbollah is the main coordinator of these efforts. This is Hezbollah volunteer coordinator, Saeed Jamil, from the border town of Aita Chaab.

SAEED JAMIL: [translated] We are cleaning up the roads, but the bulldozers are not here yet. We are only in a first stage, which is the priority of financial compensation to the people. 90% of the houses here are completely demolished. The rest of the houses are partially damaged. So, it’s a big task ahead of us.

ANA NOGUEIRA: The yellow uniformed workers of Hezbollah’s Construction Jihad are there, too. Zihmazad Hirani explained how they go about their work.

ZIHMAZAD HIRANI: In every house we come, I check the walls. I check the whole home, okay, from the kitchen, from every, every, every room. After we check the houses, we take the file and take it to Jihad al-Bina’a. They read our files, and they assume how much money we have to pay for this person.

ANA NOGUEIRA: The only other group on the ground here is a coalition of activists under the name of Samidoun, or Steadfastness. Reminiscent of the volunteer-driven recovery group Common Ground in New Orleans, the group started by helping displaced people in Beirut and are now working with Hezbollah to help distribute the aid that is dropped off here by international NGOs. This is Samidoun volunteer, Ali Mohammed.

ALI MOHAMMED: Our duty is to cover the whole village with food, hygiene kits, and shelters, like tents, mattresses and blankets. And then, our job is to manage all the donations we get from the UN, from the Red Cross International and then from different foundations in the country. They come here. They unload the stuff. We put them in the storage. And then we start giving them to the families. The Lebanese government, we just got some food supplies from them. This is the only collaboration we got. And Hezbollah, they have been helping us on the field dealing with the people, and then they helped us with the statistics. And then, they know the families better than us. Then, they know how to deal with them better than us.

ANA NOGUEIRA: This is Aita Chaab resident and mother of five, Fatima Jamil Bajuk.

FATIMA JAMIL BAJOUK: [translated] Samidoun is distributing water and food, and we thank them for their help. Construction Jihad and Hezbollah brought architects to our house. They saw the damage, and they said they will have to demolish it and rebuild it again, because it is not stable, it is not safe.

When I came back to my village, I was shocked to see the destruction, the crimes, all the martyrs. I was disturbed by the situation. I cried a lot. But I am also happy, because Aita Chaab held on and resisted, and people are coming back. We are happy, because when we came back, even though we don’t have much, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have drinking water, we have the land that we love.

ANA NOGUEIRA: The Bush administration has offered $230 million in reconstruction aid and hopes to be considered for reconstruction contracts. But to Ayman Bajouk and many of his neighbors, the U.S. aid offer is part of the same story of war profiteering.

AYMAN BAJOUK: [translated] The Americans sent $230 million in aid. I want to say to them: take it back; we don’t want your money.

ANA NOGUEIRA: Sheikh Khodor Noredden of Hezbollah’s Political Council agrees.

SHEIKH KHODOR NOREDDEN: United States of America only talk. They don’t do anything. And if they will help, they will help with conditions. And we will not accept their conditions, because if we take help from any place, we will take help without any conditions, okay? And let them go and pay for their people in New Orleans. Until now, they didn’t pay for them. Let them help their people before helping others in the world, before helping the Israeli people. Let them go to help their people in New Orleans, who we heard about them, that until now, they didn’t rebuild their cities.

ANA NOGUEIRA: For Democracy Now!, this is Ana Nogueira in Lebanon.

Lebanon: Unexploded bombs hamper rural recovery

Posted by peoplesgeography on September 6th, 2006

IRIN, 5 September 2006

RAS AL-AIN/ TYRE – Now that war is over, farmers are returning to their land in southern Lebanon only to find their crops destroyed and their livelihoods ruined while unexploded bombs are hampering recovery.

Wafi Al-Khishin fled his banana plantation in Ras Al-Ain, outside Tyre in southern Lebanon, when Isreali air-strikes began in July to stay with relatives some 80 km away in the capital Beirut.

“When we came back, we found much of our land and crops burnt,” said Al-Khishin. “And what was not destroyed directly has died because of a lack of irrigation throughout the war.”

During the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah – a Lebanon-based Islamic militant group – Israel bombed parts of Lebanon on a daily basis, frequently hitting civilian areas, infrastructure and farmland.

Southern Lebanon, said to be a Hezbollah stronghold, was particularly hard hit by Israeli bombs.

Agriculture is the third largest component of the Lebonese economy, after tourism and industry. Southern Lebanon alone accounts for roughly 30 percent of the country’s total agricultural output, now decimated by the war.

Unexploded bombs are preventing many farmers from recovering what they can from their fields.

“Not only have we lost this season’s harvest, but the destruction of the land and the continued presence of cluster bombs mean we cannot work even now that the war is over to preserve what has survived from among our trees,” said Al-Khishin.

According to a preliminary early recovery report compiled by the Lebanese government, damage caused to the agricultural sector by the conflict is manifold.

“The nature of the damages ranges from the loss of buildings, agricultural infrastructure, equipment and machinery, ruined harvests, the inability to keep export commitments, and the drastic increase in unemployment among workers in all-subsectors,” the report reads.

Direct effects of the war caused by military operations include the destruction of proper irrigation channels and sources. “When farmers returned to their land, they found most wells and man-made springs struck by bombs too,” said Radwan Waznaeh, spokesperson for the agriculture ministry.

Banana and citrus plants are among the main crops cultivated in the south. “These need frequent irrigation,” said Al-Khishin. “Without water through the war, even those trees that have survived have been rendered unusable.”

Cluster Bombs

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs remain scattered throughout south Lebanon. Most of them were dropped during the last 72 hours of the conflict, when a cessation of hostilities had already been called for by the UN Security Council.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has condemned Israel’s “immoral” use of cluster bombs.

“So long as our land remains contaminated by cluster bombs, it remains impossible for us to work on it,” said Al-Khishin. “My father insisted on walking through the farmland to check what has and hasn’t been damaged, and to check areas where he has found cluster bombs so our children won’t go near them. But it is very unsafe.”

The UN’s ongoing assessment of locations where cluster bombs have fallen has so far focussed on high priority inhabited areas. OCHA’s figure of 435 cluster bomb locations does not include farmland.

According to Tekimiti Gilbert, head of UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC) in Tyre, banana and citrus plantations have been heavily contaminated by cluster bombs. With initial work on clearing cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) now well underway on main roads, UNMACC and other agencies are now turning their attention to farmland.

“The relevant teams started to arrive last week. Ras Al-Ain is among our priorities,” said Gilbert, adding that the continued availability of funding is crucial to UXO clearance work.

Fearing for their lives during the war, hundreds of migrant workers, many of them from Syria, fled the country. Most have not returned.

But Al-Khishin and his family remain confident that once the cluster bombs have been cleared, all other problems will be surmountable.

“We have worked this land for generations. We just need the government and agencies to keep their promises to us to do what we cannot do alone – that is clear up the cluster bombs,” said Al-Khishin.

“Rest assured, however long it takes, we will get this land back into its best condition,” he said. “We farmers will be able to restore the land, and the workers will come back once it’s possible to work again.”

This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

No ceasefire in Lebanon

Here is a list of Israeli massacres during its air war on and land invasion of Lebanon. That list may become longer soon, because Israel appears to be doing what it can to break the ceasefire, and ensure that no deal is reached. The Israeli blockade continues, thus making a mockery of their mockery of Lebanese sovereignty.

Call it a strategy of tension: the Israel are expecting to see a political and military realignment in their own establishment soon, and this may precipitate a new offensive. In the meantime, they do not wish to relinquish the current low-level mobilisation nor the opportunities for creating a casus belli that this affords.

Sourced from Lenins Tomb

Annan hopes for blockade end ‘soon’

Tuesday 05 September 2006, 18:25 Makka Time, 15:25 GMT 

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, says he hopes Israel will lift its air and sea blockade on Lebanon within 48 hours.

“I don’t want to raise any false hopes, but I hope that in the next 48 hours we will have some news on that – constructive, positive news,” Kofi Annan said after holding talks with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, in Alexandria.

Israel has the embargo on Lebanon since its 34-day war with Hezbollah ended on August 14, saying it is aimed at preventing the Shia group from re-arming.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said Israel would end the blockade once the Lebanese army, helped by international forces, could enforce an arms embargo on Hezbollah that he called “an essential element in the ceasefire”.

“When they are ready to enforce the arms embargo, Israel will be ready to move,” the spokesman, Mark Regev, said.

The Lebanese government has said it will protest at the UN against Israel’s blockade, two days after Lebanese legislators began an open-ended sit-in at the parliament building to protest against the blockade.

Jihad Azour, the Lebanese finance minister, says Lebanon is losing about $40 million daily in customs and tax revenues, and commercial business.

Israel has allowed some commercial and aid flights into Beirut airport as well as some aid cargo ships.

Qatar Airways has resumed commercial flights to Beirut, landing its first plane since the conflict, with 118 passengers on board, on Monday.

UN faces rising anger in Lebanon

08.30.2006 | Guardian
Clancy Chassay in Beirut and agencies

Cluster bombs and blockade fuel resentment towards ‘unjust’ world body as Annan leaves for Israel

The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, visited UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon yesterday, a day after he was met with protests by angry residents of Beirut’s devastated southern suburbs.

Timur Goksel, the former senior adviser and spokesman for the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), said the international organisation was now more unpopular in the region than at any point in its history.

“The UN guys are uncomfortable with the mood; they know there is lot of anger toward the UN,” said Mr Goksel, who served for 24 years with Unifil.

Mr Annan laid a wreath in Naqoura for five UN staff killed in Israeli attacks this summer and flew over swaths of southern Lebanon to see the scale of destruction.

Before departing for Israel, where he was due to meet the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the defence minister, Amir Peretz, the secretary-general called on Israel to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon, which he said the Lebanese saw as a “humiliation and infringement of their sovereignty”. He also called for the issue of the Israeli soldiers abducted by Hizbullah to be resolved “very quickly”.

In Geneva a spokesman for Unicef said 12 people had been killed by cluster bombs in southern Lebanon since the war ended. “Unexploded ordnance continues to be a major threat, especially to children,” said Michael Bociurkiw. He said 359 Israeli cluster bomb sites had been reported in the south.

In some Beirut neighbourhoods anti-UN graffiti adorns the walls and stickers reading “Unjust” in the UN’s distinctive blue font have appeared on car windows.

Many Lebanese were frustrated with “the UN’s seeming passivity” in the face of the destruction wreaked by the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah, Mr Goksel said. “There is a lot of disappointment in the street. The people wanted Annan to declare the blockade over and that the Israelis troops were leaving, but he knows his limitations.”

Bashir, the manager of an upmarket restaurant in West Beirut, said: “They [the UN] are not good. We don’t trust them. They didn’t help the civilians in the south. They are like an instrument in the hands of the Americans.”

In an interview with Lebanon’s New TV on Sunday night, screened across the Arab world, the leader of Hizbullah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said Mr Annan’s envoy Terje Roed-Larsen “serves the Israelis first and foremost”.

“If Nasrallah is saying that, you can bet a lot of people in the region agree with him,” said Mr Goksel. “There is no doubt there is a negative perception of Larsen in the region.”

Mr Roed-Larsen has been a vocal proponent of a divisive clause within UN resolution 1559 that calls for the disarmament of Hizbullah.

Many Lebanese blame the UN for the deaths of 18 people in a southern Lebanese village when an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at a minivan. Amid the deadly air strikes, the passengers had pleaded to be allowed refuge in a nearby UN base but were turned away.

“They didn’t want a repeat of Qana,” said Mr Goksel, referring to the killing in 1996 of more than 100 people who had taken refuge in a UN base during Israel’s offensive against Hizbullah. “The people turned up at the base and the officer on the gate told them he didn’t have room for them; he went by the book.”

Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli tank shell near Gaza City yesterday. Two others were killed in a gunfight with Israeli soldiers in Nablus in the West Bank.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Lebanese lawmakers start sit-in against Israeli blockade

3 Sept 2006

Lebanese lawmakers, headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, launched an open-ended sit-in in parliament on Saturday protesting an Israel-imposed blockade on Lebanon.

“The continuation of the siege will suspend the fulfillment of (UN Security Council) Resolution 1701 and lead to its suffocation and violation. It will also have negative repercussions on the rebuilding process,” Berri said.

During a meeting ahead of the sit-in at the parliament building in Beirut, Berri proposed a series of suggestions to press Israel to lift its blockade.

Berri said he had sent telegrams to heads of some international parliamentary unions, urging them to hold similar sit-ins in solidarity with Lebanon.

He also called on the international community to start sending airplanes and ships to Lebanon in defiance of the Israeli air, maritime and land blockade on Lebanon.

The speaker made the call on Thursday, inviting 128 lawmakers from all sides to hold a sit-in in parliament until Israel lifts its seven-week-old air and sea blockade of the country.

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Noam Chomsky: Their View of the World is Through a Bombsight

Chomsky speaks to  Dr Hesham Tillawi Vidoe

Dr Chomsky speaks to Dr. Hesham Tillawi 9/11, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and the Lebanon war watch film (49 mins)

Noam Chomsky: Their View of the World is Through a Bombsight

1 Sept 2006 | The Guardian

In Lebanon, a little-honoured truce remains in effect – yet another in a decades-long series of ceasefires between Israel and its adversaries in a cycle that, as if inevitably, returns to warfare, carnage and human misery. Let’s describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretense to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and counter-charges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This is hardly the first time that Israel has invaded Lebanon to eliminate an alleged threat. The most important of the US-backed Israeli invasions of Lebanon, in 1982, was widely described in Israel as a war for the West Bank. It was undertaken to end the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s annoying calls for a diplomatic settlement. Despite many different circumstances, the July invasion falls into the same pattern.

What would break the cycle? The basic outlines of a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict have been supported by a broad international consensus for 30 years: a two-state settlement on the international border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments.

The Arab states formally accepted this proposal in 2002, as the Palestinians had long before. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that though this solution is not Hizbullah’s preference, they will not disrupt it. Iran’s “supreme leader” Ayatollah Khamenei recently reaffirmed that Iran too supports this settlement. Hamas has indicated clearly that it is prepared to negotiate for a settlement in these terms as well.

The US and Israel continue to block this political settlement, as they have done for 30 years, with brief and inconsequential exceptions. Denial may be preferred at home, but the victims do not enjoy that luxury.

US-Israeli rejectionism is not only in words but, more importantly, in actions. With decisive US backing, Israel has been formalizing its program of annexation, dismemberment of shrinking Palestinian territories and imprisonment of what remains by taking over the Jordan valley – the “convergence” program that is, astonishingly, called “courageous withdrawal” in the US.

In consequence, the Palestinians are facing national destruction. The most meaningful support for Palestine is from Hizbullah, which was formed in reaction to the 1982 invasion. It won considerable prestige by leading the effort to force Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. Also, like other Islamic movements including Hamas, Hizbullah has gained popular support by providing social services to the poor.

To US and Israeli planners it therefore follows that Hizbullah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hizbullah is so deeply embedded in society that it cannot be eradicated without destroying much of Lebanon as well. Hence the scale of the attack on the country’s population and infrastructure.

In keeping with a familiar pattern, the aggression is sharply increasing the support for Hizbullah, not only in the Arab and Muslim worlds beyond, but also in Lebanon itself. Late last month, polls revealed that 87% of Lebanese support Hizbullah’s resistance against the invasion, including 80% of Christians and Druze. Even the Maronite Catholic patriarch, the spiritual leader of the most pro-western sector in Lebanon, joined Sunni and Shia religious leaders in a statement condemning the “aggression” and hailing “the resistance, mainly led by Hizbullah”. The poll also found that 90% of Lebanese regard the US as “complicit in Israel’s war crimes against the Lebanese people”.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Lebanon’s leading academic scholar on Hizbullah, observes that “these findings are all the more significant when compared to the results of a similar survey conducted just five months ago, which showed that only 58% of all Lebanese believed Hizbullah had the right to remain armed, and hence continue its resistance activity”.

The dynamics are familiar. Rami Khouri, an editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star, writes that “the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel’s persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services”.

Such popular forces will only gain in power and become more extremist if the US and Israel persist in demolishing any hope of Palestinian national rights, and in destroying Lebanon.

Even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Washington’s oldest ally in the region, was compelled to say: “If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”

It is no secret that Israel has helped to destroy secular Arab nationalism and to create Hizbullah and Hamas, just as US violence has expedited the rise of extremist Islamic fundamentalism and jihadi terror. The latest adventure is likely to create new generations of bitter and angry jihadis, just as the invasion of Iraq did.

Israeli writer Uri Avnery observed that the Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz, a former air force commander, “views the world below through a bombsight”. Much the same is true of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and other top Bush administration planners. As history reveals, that view of the world is not uncommon among those who wield most of the means of violence.

Saad-Ghorayeb describes the current violence in “apocalyptic terms”, warning that possibly “all hell would be let loose” if the outcome of the US-Israel campaign leaves a situation in which “the Shia community is seething with resentment at Israel, the US and the government that it perceives as its betrayer”.

The core issue – the Israel-Palestine conflict – can be settled by diplomacy, if the US and Israel abandon their rejectionist commitments. Other outstanding problems in the region are also susceptible to negotiation and diplomacy. Their success can never be guaranteed. But we can be reasonably confident that viewing the world through a bombsight will bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even in “apocalyptic terms”.

Noam Chomsky’s most recent book is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; he is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology www.chomsky.info

Lebanon aid pledges top $940m

Thursday 31 August 2006

International donors have pledged more than $940 million for the
reconstruction of Lebanon, nearly double the amount originally sought.

Fuad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, expressed his “great
appreciation” to the donor countries meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.

He added that the conference had been successful “not just in terms of
show of support of solidarity… but also in the pledges that have been
made that show the Lebanese people are not alone”.

In a report to the conference earlier on Thursday, the Lebanese
government had said at least $540 million was needed to help the country
recover from the month-long fighting between Israel and Hezbollah
guerrillas.

Jan Eliasson, the Swedish foreign minister, dismissed suggestions that
the aid money would trickle down to Hezbollah, the Shia militia group,
and strengthen its position in southern Lebanon.

“I don’t accept that argument,” Eliasson said before the meeting. “This
conference aims at strengthening the central government of Lebanon and
in that government Hezbollah is only a minor part.”

The war, which ended after a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 14, has
left large sections of southern Lebanon and whole neighbourhoods south
of Beirut in ruins.

An estimated one million people fled their homes during the fighting
while 1,100 Lebanese and more than 150 Israelis also died.

The Lebanese government, along with the UN Development Programme, has
identified a list of early recovery efforts, including finding housing
for displaced families, rebuilding the local infrastructure, improving
social services and clearing unexploded ordnance.

Some research has estimated that up to 70 per cent of Israeli bombs
failed to explode.

The Lebanese report said more than 50 people had been killed by such
munitions after the ceasefire and that more than 4,000 pieces of
unexploded ordnance had been destroyed.

Fighting started on July 12 after fighters from Hezbollah crossed the
Israeli-Lebanon border at Aita al-Shaab, killed three Israeli soldiers
and seized two others.

AlJazeera