7/31 Middle East Live Thread

Are you hearing this translator for the former SLA member? He sounds like Japanese animae!

he might have but I didn't catch it (sorry)

00:49 Body count in Qana bombing falls sharply (Haaretz)

"you should stop counting after their fingers and toes fall off."

I know!!! Gives me the creeps

00:49 Body count in Qana bombing falls sharply (Haaretz)

Oh really. Damage done...nobody reads the corrections.

Depeche Mode cancels Israeli gig

Depeche Mode haved canceled a concert in Tel Aviv on Thursday citing that technicians refused to travel to Israel.

The group was willing to perform in Israel despite ongoing fighting along the northern border. (Or Barnea)

I only remember that the city started with an M.

Isreal/US position is as far from EU/UN as you can get. What's next?

Qassams from Gaza?

from counterterrorismblog

Hezbollah executed 18 "spies" in Tyre
By Olivier Guitta

In fact, the very well informed Kuwaiti daily Al Seyassah reported that Hezbollah shot eighteen people last week. These people were suspected of being collaborators to Israel (sounds awfully like what's been happening in the Palestinian territories in the past years). The executed were accused of helping Israeli airforce to pinpoint where Hezbollah fighters were hiding by tracing signs with phosphorescent paint. Numerous witnesses to the execution were German citizens who were being evacuated by boat through Tyre.

Funny this did not make the news, right?

NO WAY!! That is GAY...I thought they would be totally against gay activities.

Cry to those using babies
By Naomi Ragen

My son is in the army. He is not the type at all, believe me. Quiet, studious, a writer, a lover of Jewish history, Talmud, ethics. He spent two years in a pre-army program in the Galilee called Karmei Hayil. He made many good friends there from all over the country, and now he and all his friends are in the army.

One of them I know well. A bit chubby, with payot (sidelocks) and a great laugh. He and my son have become like brothers. While both of them tried out for the elite paratroopers unit, only his friend made it in. He and his unit are the ones in Lebanon. They were there over a week, fighting under horrific conditions, running out of food and water. Even though the Israel Air Force dropped tons of leaflets warning civilians to flee because they were in terrorist territory and likely to be injured, they still encountered civilians.

My son spoke to his friend yesterday, and this is how he described it: "The village looked empty, and then we heard noises coming from one of the houses, so we opened fire. But when we went inside, we found two women and a child huddled in the corner of the room. We were so relieved we hadn't hurt them. We took up base in one of the empty houses. And then all of a sudden, we came under intense fire. Three rockets were fired at the house we were in. Only one managed to destroy a wall, which fell on one of us, covering him in white dust, but otherwise not hurting him.

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"I spent the whole time feeding bullets to my friend who was shooting nonstop. We managed to kill 26 terrorists. Not one of us was hurt. Our commanding officer kept walking around, touching everybody on the shoulder, smiling and encouraging us: 'We're are better than they are. Don't worry.' It calmed us all down. And really, we were much better than them. They are a lousy army. They only win when they hide behind baby carriages."

Please remember this when you hear about the "atrocity" of the Israeli bomb that killed many civilians in Kafr Qana, a place from which Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Unlike previous administrations, Mr. Olmert has my respect when he says: "They were warned to leave. It is the responsibility of Hezbollah for firing rockets amid civilians."

Terrorists and their supporters have lost the right to complain about civilian casualties, since all they have is one goal: this entire war is to target civilians. Every single one of the more than 2,500 rockets launched into Israel, is launched into populated towns filled with women and children. Just today, another explosive belt meant to kill civilians in Israel was detonated harmlessly by our forces in Nablus.

So don't cry to me about civilian casualties. Cry to those using babies and wives and mothers; cry to those who store weapons in mosques, ambulances, hospitals and private homes. Cry to those launching deadly rockets from the backyards of kindergartens and schools. Cry to the heartless men who love death, and however many of their troops or civilians die, consider themselves victorious as long as they can keep on firing rockets at our women and children.

Save your sympathy for the mothers and sisters and girlfriends of our young soldiers who would rather be sitting in study halls learning Torah, but have no choice but to risk their precious lives full of hope, goodness and endless potential, to wipe out the cancerous terrorist cells that threaten their people and all mankind. Make your choice, and save your tears.

That terrorists have been unsuccessful in killing more of our women and children is due to our army, God and prayers, not to any lack of motivation or intention on their part. If you hide behind your baby to shoot at my baby, you are responsible for getting children killed. You and you alone.

The writer is an American-born novelist and playwright who lives in Jerusalem.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744436.html

01:41 Qatar accuses unnamed Arab states of supporting IDF offensive on Lebanon (Reuters)

Did some of those bodies just happen to end up in the Qana rubble?

LOL..Depeche Mode cancels Israeli gig....dang.

We have bases in Qatar. Is Qatar exhibiting alignment with Iran?

Someone up-thread wanted Bibi's interview with Rush...it's up on his site now....and here it is...

Benjamin Netanyahu
July 31, 2006

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We have former Prime Minister Netanyahu on the phone with us from his Knesset office in Jerusalem. We only have ten minutes, so I want to get right to it. First, welcome to the program, and great to talk to you again, sir.

NETANYAHU: Well, it's very good to talk to you, Rush.

RUSH: All right. Some observers in the United States are sensing a new Israel here: less willing to commit to total victory as in the past, on the basis of the way the current conflict with the Hezbollah group's being waged. Is that true?

NETANYAHU: I hope not. I've given my support as opposition leader to the government. The people of Israel, overwhelmingly, have given their support for victory, that is to remove the threat. Much as the US during the Cuban missile crisis said, "Those missiles have to go," we say, "Hezbollah and those missiles have to go," because otherwise there will be no peace for Lebanon, no peace for Israel, no peace for anyone.

RUSH: We're hearing -- I'm hearing -- some discontent in this country. There's some concern that the current prime minister isn't willing to unleash the full complement of Israeli ground forces. If that's true, what's the reason?

NETANYAHU: I don't know. We're in the middle of a war, and I don't want to start second-guessing. I think the important thing is to fix your eye on the goal. The goal set by the government is to remove -- eliminate the missiles and eliminate and break Hezbollah's fighting ability -- and whatever means are required, then those means should be used. Land, air, sea, you name it. I think it's important to understand, Rush, that we're not just dealing with a Hezbollah Islamic militant threat. We're dealing with an Iranian-backed assault on a western country, and we're just the first target, and they openly say that we're the first target.

We're the small state. You are the big states. Europe, though it doesn't understand it, is a middle sized state, so it doesn't really side up with us, but two million of our people are hunkered down in bunkers, when our cities are rocketed, our children are murdered, and when we respond against these terrorists who are hiding deliberately in civilian areas, they attack us. They actually, in doing so, attack themselves. I don't think that the US has any such misunderstandings, any such lack of clarity. I hope that the Israeli government doesn't have lack of clarity. We need clarity in our target, and the target is to remove our common enemy committed to our destruction and something that we have to remove as a clear and present threat to our future, to our security.
RUSH: I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not trying to foment discord between you and the prime minister, either. It's just that so many of us who support you remember past Israeli involvement -- Six Day War, Yom Kippur War -- and it just looks different this time, and so we ask questions: Why? Because like you we all know that the focus of this is Syria and Iran. We don't hear our government talking to us like that. We don't hear our government telling us that in this country. Do you ever sit there wondering, as an individual... I know these are maybe tough questions for you because you're leader of the Likud Party, and you all are very united today in this latest battle with Hezbollah. Do you ever wonder to yourself, why the US doesn't act now to take out the regime in Iran? The entire world knows who's behind this. They've been helping Al-Qaeda, attacking troops in Iraq. They're not far from getting nuclear weapons.

NETANYAHU: Well, I think this is the greatest question of our time. It is not only of monumental importance to Israel, because Iran, while denying the Holocaust took place, is openly declaring its intentions to make another Holocaust with the six million Jews of Israel that they intend to eliminate. Iran also intends to become a nuclear power, an empire, with long-range missiles that now reach every capital in Europe and within a decade would reach the Eastern Seaboard, and they have a crazy, particular Shi'ite conception of a grand apocalypse that's supposed to be taking place right about now, in which millions will die on all sides, on both sides, and this band of Shi'aism will rule the world. Now, you may ask: "How is it possible? Religious wars died in the Seventeenth Century."

Not for them. Not for them, not for the likes of Al-Qaeda who smashed into buildings in New York, and not for Iran that is building an atomic arsenal for that effect. But what they've really done here is far as the first test salvo, and the question of our response -- and by "our response," I mean not only Israel's response to Hezbollah, but the international response to Iran and its way station Syria. I think that's a crucial question that you're raising. Now, President Bush has said something very important just recently, a month ago. He said that he would not let Iran acquire nuclear weapons. That is very important. How he plans to do it, what means he plans to use, of course, he leaves with himself. But there's no question right now that there ought to be a division of labor. The US and the responsible members of the international community -- if you can find them -- they should press Iran and Syria to cease and desist the support and arming of Hezbollah, and Israel should be left to do the job that it must do, that is to disarm Hezbollah and destroy its missile arsenal.

RUSH: Has anybody...?

NETANYAHU: That's what needs to be done.

RUSH: Is anybody stopping you from doing that? Is anybody putting the brakes on you?

NETANYAHU: I don't think so. Not yet, I have to say. I don't think that, you know, we've had -- all wars have limited time. You know, it's not an unlimited amount of time anyway, and I've said that from day one, and the time that you have available you should use with the power that you have available. The more power you use, the less time you need. So obviously we don't have unlimited time and therefore we should use more power, a lot more power to crush Hezbollah. That's what's required, and I think if Israel shows this resolve, if the Israeli government shows this resolve, then America -- first of all America -- would respect it. At the end of the day, so would the Arabs.
RUSH: Let me try this question. It's a little bit of a lengthy question, and I know the phone connection here is not the best but I want to ask you this because it's a topic that's really roiling much of the American population, and that is that the war has two aspects: the PR spin war and the reality.

NETANYAHU: Right.

RUSH: The media, Mr. Prime Minister, suggest that Israel is losing the PR media war and has got to change its tactics so that it can win the PR media war. I don't think that Israel can ever win a media war and I don't think George Bush can ever win a media war, because the world's media is not interested in the facts of reality in this current conflict. You can point out the reality of the Hezbollah people using civilian human shields all day long; it still will be ignored. Do you think you can lose the real conflict with Hezbollah if you also lose the spin war, or do you not care about that, just focus on the reality of actually winning the war as that used to be defined?

NETANYAHU: First of all, win the war. Win the war on the ground and win it quickly and decisively. That would be, always, my first preference. Secondly, you're quite right that from the Twentieth Century on we've learned that to cement a military victory you must have a political victory. To have a political victory you must win the battle for public opinion. To win the battle for public opinion, you must convince that public that your cause is just and the cause of your enemy is unjust. There's never been a more just war than this one, that's obvious. We are fired upon from Lebanon and from Gaza when we left and vacated every square inch, in a totally unprovoked manner. Our soldiers were kidnapped and murdered; our cities were rocketed upon. So this is a just war. Now, can Americans understand that? I happen to think that Americans understand that very well and overwhelmingly so. I don't believe that is the case in Europe -- Western Europe, at least, perhaps in Eastern Europe where they understand power a little better. But Western Europe shows signs of debilitation, signs it's not understanding where their interests are and where morality is. They view everything in a post-colonial prism so to them we are colonialists. We, who are living in our land --

RUSH: Right.

NETANYAHU: -- who are gripping onto our land for 3,000 years, we're supposed to be the colonials. But nevertheless I sense a crack in Europe, too. It is not that they support Israel. It is that they don't support the Islamists, and they don't support the Islamists because they are being plagued by the same plague. So for them it's a pox on both your houses, but what America knows Europe doesn't know. It's our house. It's the same house. Israel, America, the free societies of Europe, we're the same house, and the likes of Iran and Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, they want to destroy our house. Israel, to be sure, will be their #1 target but we're only their first target, and they say so. They want eventually to get you, and they have no problem and no inhibition firing upon civilians, hiding among civilians. These are, by the way, two war crimes, according to the Geneva Convention. Not only can you not deliberately fire on civilians, you cannot deliberately hide among civilians. You have here this criminal organization supported by criminal regimes with a criminal goal of destroying Israel, but ultimately destroying the West. Let's not be fooled. Let's gear ourselves and fight this battle and let's win it.
RUSH: Well, we admire every effort you're making. We really do. It's tough to wage war on an enemy that considers the death of its own children a victory. Just one more question, because I know your time is limited and you have to go. But I'm trying to figure out how you have a ceasefire, how we can have a ceasefire, with terrorists who are backed by Iran which have as their goal the destruction of Israel. Has anybody, any country, anybody from the United Nations or anybody else explained to you in Israel how this ceasefire, a "sustainable, meaningful ceasefire" with a bunch of terrorists, would actually work?

NETANYAHU: No, I don't think so. I don't think a ceasefire by itself will work. I think it will work the other way. I think running away from terror or not finishing terror gets terror to come back and bite you, bite you even with greater bites. I think that the important thing is what are the conditions that lead to a ceasefire, and it seems to me that the most important thing is to dismantle Hezbollah's fighting ability and destroy that missile arsenal. That's when you should have a ceasefire --

RUSH: Right.

NETANYAHU: -- when they can't fire anymore.

RUSH: All right, so what you're subscribing describing here is a ceasefire that results from your victory?

NETANYAHU: Yes.

RUSH: Exactly. Makes perfect sense to everybody. Well, look, I'm glad you made time for us today, Mr. Prime Minister. I know it's hectic for you right now. We appreciate the time very much and the best to you.

NETANYAHU: Always good to talk to you, Rush. Thank you. Thank you for your support.

RUSH: You bet. That's former prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Qatar also dissented in the UN Security council vote on Iran today.