+ För att spinna vidare på den av Israel ständigt upprepade lögnen om att Hezbollah gömmer sig bland civila, och att det alltså är motståndet som bär skulden när israeliska bomber spränger barn i småbitar. I en artikel som publicerades idag på DN.se sägs det åter att Hezbollah inte gärna rör sig bland civila. Se här:

En gammal Mercedes kommer i hög fart och tvärbromsar bredvid oss. Två kraftiga män i keps och skäggstubb hoppar ur och kräver oss på legitimation.

- Det är första gången jag sett Hizbollah livs levande, mumlar vår chaufför och tolk som ändå jobbat femton år i yrket.

(...)

Kassem skrattar också när han får höra att vi arresterats av Hizbollah.

- Det gör er bara gott, så får ni själva utstå lite av vad det här kriget kan föra med sig för oskyldiga människor. Och ni har förresten tur, för de allra flesta libaneser får inte heller någon chans att träffa Hizbollahsoldater.

+ BBC News: Qana makes grim history again.

In 1996, one of the deadliest single events of the whole Arab-Israeli conflict took place there - the shelling of a UN base where hundreds of local people were sheltering.

More than 100 were killed and another 100 injured, cut down by Israeli anti-personnel shells that explode in the air sending a lethal shower of shrapnel to the ground.

(...)

Israel still insists the 18 April 1996 shelling was an accident and that its forces had aimed at a legitimate militant target - a Hezbollah military unit firing mortars and rockets from near a base housing Fijian troops belonging to the UN observer force Unifil.

Then, as now, Israel accused Hezbollah of using the civilian population as human shields when they launched their attacks.

However, a UN investigation reported in May 1996 that the deaths at the Qana base were unlikely to have been the result of an accident, as claimed by the Israelis.

The UN report, by Maj-Gen Franklin van Kappen of the Netherlands, cited a shift in the fire patterns and the repeated use of shells with so-called proximity fuses over the small UN compound as evidence of an intent to kill people there.

The report also noted the presence of two Israeli helicopters and a drone in the skies over Qana, "contrary to repeated [Israeli] denials", which must have witnessed the bloodbath.

+ Det är nästan så man längtar på att Copyriot-Rasmus ska komma tillbaka från Norbergfestivalen så man får läsa någon bra förklaring på varför Israel gjorde rätt när de sprängde civila i Kana.

+ Wake up from your slumber! smular också sönder idén att Hezbollah skulle använda civilbefolkningen som mänskliga sköldar med väl underbyggda argument som tydligt visar att Israel de facto ger blanka fan i om civila dör eller inte. Med andra ord, om förekomsten av civila inte hindrar Israel från att släppa bomber - vare sig i Palestina eller Libanon - varför skulle man då försöka använda civila som sköldar?

+ 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.

+ Israel ger sig på flyende civila, igen... Israel hits Lebanon road at border with Syria.

+ Och apropå Syrien: Is the US Encouraging Israel to Attack Syria? According to Sunday's Jerusalem Post, IDF officials have been "receiving indications from the United States that the U.S. would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.

+ Forgotten army sides with Hizbullah.

+ Världens tråkigaste anarkist, Murray Bookchin, har visst trillat av pinn.

+ Juan Cole kommenterar massakern i Kana: Israeli warplanes actually continued to bomb the town while the rescue workers were pulling ragdoll-dead children out of the building.

Cole skriver också en del om hur Israels krig mot Libanon och Hezbollah får återverkningar i Irak.

+ Police spies chosen to lead war protest.

+ Dozens of children were feared dead today after Israeli missiles struck the southern Lebanese village of Qana, flattening houses on top of sleeping residents. Survivors said that more than 50 adults and children had died.







+ Fint inlägg på Ali Esbatis blogg: FN-attack med anor.

+ Israel on Saturday rejected a request by the U.N. for a three-day cease-fire in Lebanon to deliver humanitarian supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone.

Hur motiverar då Israel detta? Jo, genom att skylla på Hezbollah i vanlig ordning:

Avi Pazner, a government spokesman, said Israel already has opened safe corridors across Lebanon for such shipments and that Hezbollah guerrillas were blocking them to create a humanitarian crisis.

"There is no need for a temporary, 72-hour cease-fire because Israel has opened humanitarian corridors to and from and Lebanon," he told reporters.

Som alltid är Israel oskyldiga till allt, och följande artikel är helt irrelevant:

In Israel's sights, Lebanon truckers face death. Trucks, vans and cars have been a daily target for the Israeli military in its war with Hizbollah, killing dozens on the roads and hindering delivery of food supplies to villages in need of replenishment.

+ Two Indian soldiers with the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon were wounded and their observation post damaged by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday, a U.N. spokesman said.

+ Olmert beklagar anfall mot Kana.

I ett samtal med DN anklagade en representant för den israeliske militärtalesmannen Hizbollah för att använda civila libaneser som levande sköldar:

- Qana är avskjutningsramp för de raketer som avfyras mot staden Kiryat Shmona i norra Israel. Hundratals raketer har skjutits mot oss från Kana och dess omgivningar de senaste veckorna, och efteråt tar de betäckning i bostadshus.

I nättidskriften Salon finner man dock en ingående artikel som säger raka motsatsen:

The "hiding among civilians" myth.

Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.

(...)

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.

(...)

In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah. Does mere support for Hezbollah, or even participation in Hezbollah activities, mean your house and family are fair game? Do you need to fire rockets from your front yard? Or is it enough to be a political activist?

The Israelis are consistent: They bomb everyone and everything remotely associated with Hezbollah, including noncombatants. In effect, that means punishing Lebanon. The nation is 40 percent Shiite, and of that 40 percent, tens of thousands are employed by Hezbollah's social services, political operations, schools, and other nonmilitary functions. The "terrorist" organization Hezbollah is Lebanon's second-biggest employer.

(...)

Although Israel targets apartments and offices because they are considered "Hezbollah" installations, the group has a clear policy of keeping its fighters away from civilians as much as possible. This is not for humanitarian reasons -- they did, after all, take over an apartment building against the protests of the landlord, knowing full well it would be bombed -- but for military ones.

"You can be a member of Hezbollah your entire life and never see a military wing fighter with a weapon," a Lebanese military intelligence official, now retired, once told me. "They do not come out with their masks off and never operate around people if they can avoid it. They're completely afraid of collaborators. They know this is what breaks the Palestinians -- no discipline and too much showing off."

Perhaps once a year, Hezbollah will hold a military parade in the south, in which its weapons and fighters appear. Media access to these parades is tightly limited and controlled. Unlike the fighters in the half dozen other countries where I have covered insurgencies, Hezbollah fighters do not like to show off for the cameras. In Iraq, with some risk taking, you can meet with and even watch the resistance guys in action. (At least you could during my last time there.) In Afghanistan, you can lunch with Taliban fighters if you're willing to walk a day or so in the mountains. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Fatah or Hamas fighter is almost ubiquitous with his mask, gun and sloganeering to convince the Western journalist of the justice of his cause.

The Hezbollah guys, on the other hand, know that letting their fighters near outsiders of any kind -- journalists or Lebanese, even Hezbollah supporters -- is stupid. In three trips over the last week to the south, where I came near enough to the fighting to hear Israeli artillery, and not just airstrikes, I saw exactly no fighters. Guys with radios with the look of Hezbollah always found me. But no fighters on corners, no invitations to watch them shoot rockets at the Zionist enemy, nothing that can be used to track them.

+ Turkish general admits framing Kurds. The Turkish military is investigating a retired general who told a weekly magazine that he had ordered bomb attacks in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey while he was stationed there in the 1990s.

+ Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, has said that if Israel wants secure borders it must withdraw from the disputed Shebaa Farms area it has occupied since 1967.

+ Premiärminister Tony Blair står inför öppen revolt bland ledande partikamrater, i och utanför regeringen, rapporterar brittisk söndagspress. Deras kritik mot hans Israelpolitik är skarp medan Blair besöker sin allierade i Washington, president George Bush.

+ Where exactly were those Israeli soldiers when Hezbollah captured them?

+ Experter dömer ut Israels ursäkt.

+ Snyggt nog försökte Israel först skylla på Hezbollah, men fann sig sedan tvungna att erkänna: The Israeli army blamed Hezbollah rockets but a U.N. officer said it was an artillery shell fired by the Israeli Defense Force.

Tydligen har Israel en historia av att spränga FN-trupper, i samma artikel nämns en liknande attack från 1996:

In 1996, during an Israeli air and artillery offensive against Lebanon, artillery blasted a U.N. base at Qana in southern Lebanon, killing more than 100 Lebanese civilians who had taken refuge with the peacekeepers.

Också i den SvD-artikeln ovan nämns Israels vana att ge sig på FN:

Han får medhåll av Per-Erik Korström, FN-anställd i Libanon under 80-talet och numera konsult i konflikthantering:
- Jag blev förbaskad och besviken när jag fick höra talas om det som hänt. FN-styrkorna i regionen har länge haft problem i sina relationer med Israel. Under min tid blev vi ofta provocerade och beskjutna, säger han.

+ Israel Fakes a Provocation.

+ Israeli Justice Minister: IDF Entitled to Kill Everyone in South Lebanon.

+ Samtidigt i Uppsala...



+ Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need To Know.

With or without a pretext Israel wanted to invade Lebanon. So it did, and rolled up to Beirut. It shelled Lebanese towns and villages and bombed them from the air. Sharon’s forces killed maybe 20,000 people, and let Lebanese Christians slaughter hundreds of Palestinian refugees in the camps of Sabra and Chatilla.

The killing got so bad that even Ronald Reagan awoke from his slumbers and called Tel Aviv to tell Israel to stop. Sharon gave the White House the finger by bombing Beirut at the precise times -- 2.42 and 3.38 -- of two UN resolutions calling for a peaceful settlement on the matter of Palestine.

When the dust settled over the rubble, Israel bunkered down several miles inside Lebanese sovereign territory, which it illegally occupied, in defiance of all UN resolutions, for years, supervising a brutal local militia and running its own version of Abu Graibh, the torture center at the prison of Al-Khiam.

Occupy a country, torture its citizens and in the end you face resistance. In Israel’s case it was Hezbollah, and in the end Hezbollah ran Israel out of Lebanon, which is why a lot of Lebanese regard Hezbollah not as terrorists but as courageous liberators.

+ Chronology of the Latest Crisis in the Middle East.

+ An Israeli air strike today hit a truck carrying medical and food supplies donated to Lebanon by the United Arab Emirates, killing its Syrian driver and wounding two others, security sources said.

+ Via Palestinian Pundit:


Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, center, visits the Roman Orthodox Church of St. Perforious who have organized a strike in support of Lebanese and Palestinians under Israeli offensive in Gaza City, Thursday July 27.

+ Från bloggen Armageddon's Been in Effect:

Let us personify the two parties, for a moment, as kids in a neighborhood. In this case, the neighborhood is the Middle East. Let's not worry about what they are fighting over; this will only complicate the analogy. Let's just take a look at the behavior of these kids.

On one hand you have Israel; a highly trained, Karate Black Belt; additionally known to carry knives, guns, whatever. Our boy Israel is known to cut the heads off of kittens if you piss him off. He's known to burn your fucking house down if you step to him. Since his family moved into the neighborhood, they all got a lot of shit. Israel feels that the only way to deal with this opposition is to be brutal and swift in punishing anyone who makes the mistake of challenging him.

On the other hand we have Hizbullaah. Hizbullaah doesn't really know how to fight well, but he is a scrappy little guy. He likes to fight. He wants to fight. His urge to fight is compounded by a perceived "need" to fight Israel due to being a psycho.

The problem is this. Hizbullaah hears about how his cousin Hamas got his house torched by Israel after little Hamas spray painted Hizbullaah's house and broke out some windows. Hizbullaah was pissed, so he decided he'd tried to burn down Israel's house. The only problem is that it didn't work too well and only scortched the house a little. As a result, Israel demolishes Hibzullaah's house and gives him a good beating to boot.

So now Hiz is REALLY pissed. He goes up to Israel, socks him in the back of the head and takes off running. Israel has longer legs, but Hiz is a fast little dude and can always seem to get away.

Anyway, after a few weeks of getting socked in the head, Israel goes to Hizbullaah's house, drags him out on the front lawn and chops off his arms and legs.

Is Israel a fucking pscyho? For sure.

Is Hizbullaah a fucking idiot? Again, for SURE.

So that's my commentary on the situation. The Middle East is filled with Psychopaths and fucking idiots. Case closed.

+ "Myt att inte invandrare diskriminerar svenskar".

Personer med utländsk bakgrund ger uttryck för negativ diskriminering gentemot dem med inhemsk bakgrund i ungefär lika stor omfattning som den kända motsatta diskrimineringen. Samma sak gäller könstillhörigheten. Såväl kvinnor som män reagerar diskriminerande till förmån för det egna könet. Det visar en ny experimentell studie där undersökningsgrupper fått reagera på olika möten mellan arbetsförmedlare och arbetssökande. Bland svenska studenter med stark medvetenhet om den etniska diskrimineringens förkastlighet märktes däremot en tendens att överkompensera genom att favorisera den arbetssökande med utländsk bakgrund, skriver utredarna.

En av de två ambulanser som Israel bombade igår.

+ Hezbollah inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops as they battled for a key hilltop town in southern Lebanon for a fourth day Wednesday, with as many as 14 soldiers reported killed. Alhamdulillah.

+ Israeli troops are storing the bodies of dead Hizbullah fighters in refrigerated containers for use in a possible prisoner swap, it emerged today.

+ Israel 'ignored UN bomb warnings'.

Israel ignored repeated warnings it was shelling close to United Nations observers in southern Lebanon before an Israeli bomb killed four for them, the Irish foreign ministry has said.

The ministry said on Wednesday a senior Irish army officer had called Israeli military liasion officers at least six times to warn them that Israeli munitions were landing close to UN installations in the region.

+ För en gångs skull skräder inte Kofi Annan orden: The UN secretary general Kofi Annan says an Israeli attack on a UN observation post was "apparently deliberate". Four unarmed military observers were killed in the air strike in southern Lebanon.

+ Racism, xenophobia and far-right extremism are on the rise across Europe, according to a comprehensive survey which found that Muslim communities face mounting discrimination and prejudice.

+ Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have agreed to stop firing rockets at Israel and to free a captured Israeli soldier in a deal brokered by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

+ Karta över Israels bombningar av Libanon här.



+ So what do the Lebanese people really think? 70% support the capture of the two Israeli soldiers (73.1 among Sunnis, 96.3 among Shi`ites, 40 among Druzes, and 55 among Christians); 87% support that "the resistance fight Israeli aggression on Lebanon" (88.9 among Sunnis, 96.3 among Shi`ites, 80% among Druzes, and 80% among Christians); 8% think that America adopted a positive position toward Lebanon during this war (7.9% among Sunnis, 4 among Shi`ites, 13.6 among Druzes, and 15 among Christians).

+ How to Watch the War on the Web.

+ Chinese black helicopters circle Google Earth. WTF?

+ The Israeli air force is under orders to blast 10 buildings in south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, for every rocket the Shiite militant group fires at the Israeli port of Haifa, army radio said Monday.

+ Not all the Southern Lebanese who are fighting the brutal Israeli occupation troops are members of Hizbullah. Today, the Lebanese Communist Party announced the death of two members who were fighting the occupation troops.

+ The Israeli army has been accused of using Palestinian civilians as human shields in an operation in northern Gaza.

+ Det blir mycket Libanon och Israel nu, men.. Juan Cole har i alla fall ett långt inlägg om upptakten till kriget, och om hur Israel planerat för detta.

+ Rasmus på den annars intressanta copyright-bloggen Copyriot har nu knasat ihop totalt med en rejäl hyllning av Israels krig mot Libanon, och tillika en inte så skarp kritik av Hezbollah och den anti-imperialistiska vänstern (antisemiter!). Läs inlägget här: Kortslut inte din kompass: Hizbollah måste besegras!

Jag tillbringade en del av gårdagskvällen med att skriva ett långt motinlägg om hur Rasmus kastat om kronologin för upptakten till kriget, men den annars så fri informations-ivrande Rasmus vägrar att släppa förbi den kommentaren, så nu postar jag den i stället här i en förkortad version.

---

Rasmus hävdar felaktigt att libanesiska Hezbollah grundades 1979 för att sprida Irans shiitiska revolution vidare. Snarare bildades partiet och den väpnade rörelsen 1982 "in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon."

Så låt oss nu gå in djupare in vad som ledde fram till Israels senaste anfallskrig mot Gaza, som i sin tur ledde till kriget mot Libanon. Den 29:e april 2006 föll israeliskt artilleri över norra Gazaremsan. Sju palestinier dödades, varav två barn. Den 22:a maj spränger Israel en hel familj i luften med hjälp av amerikanska helikoptrar eller F16-plan.

Den 10:e juni publiceras en intervju i Aftonbladet där Helle Klein samtalar med Hamas högste ledare, Khaled Masháal:

Hamas vill förgöra staten Israel, invänder jag.
–Vi har aldrig sagt så! Vi har sagt att vi ska befria de ockuperade områdena. Vi har föreslagit Israel en tioårig vapenvila om Israel drar sig tillbaka till 1967 års gränser. Vi håller fast vid våra rättigheter. Det blir ingen fred så länge ockupationen fortsätter. Vi har aldrig utfört någon operation utanför de ockuperade områdena, säger han.
Själv blev han utsatt för ett mordförsök genom förgiftning av israelerna 1997 i Jordanien.
Varje gång en Hamas-ledare förespråkat fred har han mördats.

Samma dag som denna intervju publicerades kom droppen som fick Hamas bägare att rinna över, när israeliska örlogsfartyg attackerade en strandremsa i Gaza.

"Avslitna kroppsdelar, förstörda tält och blodiga filtar spreds över ett stort område när minst fyra granater detonerade bland palestinska familjer som hade picknick, uppger nyhetsbyrån AP.

Enligt The Independent dödades sju och minst 40 skadades. Som för att försäkra sig om att Hamas skulle vara tvugna att slå tillbaka, utförde Israel en ny massaker bara några timmar senare:

Hours after the Israeli military announced Tuesday that it was not responsible for the deadly explosion on a Gaza beach Friday, two more Israeli army missiles struck a van near Gaza's Jabalya Refugee Camp Tuesday, killing 11 people, including two children and two paramedics who arrived after the first strike.

Precis som Israel hoppats bröt Hamas vapenvilan samma natt med att skjuta raketer mot bosättningar. Den 25:e juni attackerades också en israelisk armépostering. Två israeliska soldater dog, och en tredje kidnappades av Hamas väpnade gren. Kravet för frisläppande var att Israel skulle släppa samtliga palestinska kvinnor och barn som satt fångna i israeliska fängelser. 27:e februari skriver Hamas på en dokument där de återigen implicit erkänner Israels rätt att existera. Dagen därbi spränger israeliska jaktplan broar och kraftverk i Gazaremsan och lämnar 1,4 miljoner invånare utan el under sommarens hetaste månader.

Dagen därpå 28 juni 2006 kränker israeliska jaktplan syriskt luftrum, och tar enligt Aftonbladet rentav en tur förbi presidentpalatset. Samma dag understryker Hamas återigen att de fortfarande är för en tvåstatslösning. Detta är inget nytt egentligen, men nu gäller det verkligen för Israel att försöka flytta fokus bort från denna fredstrevare. Redan den 26:e februari rapporterade Al Jazeera följande: The Palestinian prime minister-designate says Hamas is ready to recognise Israel if it gives the Palestinian people their full rights and a state in lands occupied since 1967, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Den 29:e augusti arresterar så Israel 64 Hamas-representanter, officiellt som ett svar på kidnappningen av soldaten Gilad Shalit. Men det dröjer inte länge innan israelisk media visar att aktionen varit planerad under en längre tid. Den israeliska regimen väntade bara på en förevändning. Enligt Haaretz: The detention of Hamas parliamentarians in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Mazuz on Wednesday.

Samtidigt i Israel är presidenten indragen i en sexskandal som skakar landet. Israel's president is being dogged by allegations of sexual harassment in a spiraling scandal that has pushed the country's violent standoff with Hamas off the front pages.

Den femtonde juni 2006 skriver Reuters följande: A Lebanese man has confessed to assassinating a series of senior Hezbollah and Palestinian militants over a seven-year period on behalf of Israeli intelligence, the Lebanese Army said on Tuesday.

Här kan man läsa mer om hur Israel planerat kriget mot Libanon långt innan Hezbollah kidnappade de två israeliska soldaterna.

Under julis första hälft bombar Israel nästan dagligen Gazaremsan. Den 11 juli räknas till 52 döda palestinier i attackerna, och en död israel. Den 12:e juli ger sig Hezbollah in i kriget när israeliska trupper hamnar i ett bakhåll på LIBANESISKT territorium. Se t ex Asia Times: It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. Se också Daily Kos. Hur som haver, Israel förklarade att attacken var en "krigsförklaring" och hur det gick sedan vet vi alltför väl, med dagliga massakrer och israeliska terrorbombningar som nu också satsar till att fullkomligt rasera den libanesiska ekonomin. Medicinfabriker, mjölkfarmer och fabriker sprängs sönder.

T o m israeliska Haaretz är mer kritiska mot den israeliska regimens krig än Copyriot-Rasmus, när de den 21 juli 2006 skrev:

The legitimate basis for the IDF's operation was stripped away the moment it began. It's no accident that nobody mentions the day before the attack on the Kerem Shalom fort, when the IDF kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. The difference between us and them? We kidnapped civilians and they captured a soldier, we are a state and they are a terror organization. How ridiculously pathetic Amos Gilad sounds when he says that the capture of Shalit was "illegitimate and illegal," unlike when the IDF grabs civilians from their homes.

Slutligen skriver San Francisco Chronicle, att också kriget mot Libanon planerats i mer än ett år: Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.

Finns massor mer att säga, men jag orkar inte just nu. Jag avslutar med några citat från en text av Hezbollahs "andlige fader" Sayyid Muhammad Husain Fadlallah, hämtade ur boken "Islam in transition" (Oxford, 2007 (sic)):

The Qur'an tells you, follow the style which will change your enemies into friends. This is Islam in its humane magnanimity. Imam Ali says that people are of two types, either a brother in religion or a peer in creation. The Prophet says: kindness is not bestowed on a thing save it adorns it, nor removed without defacing it.

(...)

Now in our Islamic reality the Islamists are seriously thinking of cooperating with Communists. Hizballah, for instance, despite all the question marks, meets with all groups, with Communists, with nationalists, with the Kata'ib and other Christians also. Perhaps a positive point is marked up here and a negative point there, but the sense of it all is that there is a new atmosphere which the grass roots accept. In the beginning the grass roots would not accept that an Islamist sits with a Communist; now that is acceptable. At the beginning of the last century, the nationalist, for example, was an infidel in a certain manner. Now the nationalists are in alliance with the Islamists. The Palestinian cause has grouped them all.

(...)

Among the things I proposed in my conferences at the American University is that nothing is sacred in dialogue. I said that God dialogues with the devil as well as with the angels. The Qur'an is a book of dialogue, dialogue with polytheists, with Jews, with Christians, with hypocrites... dialogue is the matter which forms the backbone of the humanist creed. I have a book called Dialogue in the Qur'an. On the one hand dialogue can raise doubts about one's religion; on the other, doubt is not disbelief. We relate from one of the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt, Imam Sadiq, that a person came and said to him: a man doubts God and His messenger... then the Imam continued: he becomes an infidel only if he renounces. As long as he continues in moving his doubt forward toward certainty, he is not considered an infidel...

Question: But there are those who search in faith, like Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, and they are met with accusations of infidelity and threats.

Fadlallah: I wrote once in the newspaper al-Sha'b that I do not agree with this style, even in the case of Salman Rushdie. I have a saying: "Give the other thought freedom and you will cause it to recoil; persecute it and you will cause it to spread."

(...)

As for Shiite forbearance, there is in the Shiite creed the awaited Mahdi "who will fill the earth with justice and equity as it is filled with injustice and tyranny." International justice opposite international injustice. This idea is now making its way in dynamic thought so that we prepare conditions for the awaited Imam and make a State of justice here and a State of justice there. We adopt the mission of justice in the world and we stand with all just causes and against causes of injustice in the world.

(...)

Question: Aren't you apprehensive about every State and every party, your Eminence?

Fadlallah: No, I look to the positive aspects. I learn from Christ who when he passed a decaying dog and the people talking with him said, "How awful its stench," Isa said, "How white its teeth!" I think we must look to the bright side of the picture. I have a poem. I haven't memorized it, but I think of it: these stars were created by God to inspire man that there is no absolute evil, all evil bears spots of light and these spots of light gather to point to the dawn. In our Arab world the singers are still singing "O Night!" I don't hear anyone singing "O Dawn!"...

+ One in five Lebanese is now a refugee.

+ Krigsbrott nr 1232131111: Red Cross ambulances destroyed in Israeli air strike on rescue mission.

+ David Kelly did not commit suicide and may have been the victim of a murder and subsequent coverup, according to a campaigning MP. No kidding?

+ Islam is wonderful, but I can't stand the Muslims. Ett utmärkt kåseri som tar upp en problematik som jag tror många av oss konvertiter är bekanta med.

+ A five-year-old girl was among six Palestinian people killed in the latest Israeli bombing of Gaza, as the Palestinian prime minister called on the US to pressure Israel to stop its attacks.

+ Fleeing civilian vehicles hit by Israeli missiles.

+ Israeli troops: Hezbollah a tough enemy.

Israeli soldiers returning from the front in Lebanon talk of battling an intelligent, well-prepared and ruthless guerrilla army whose fighters don't seem to fear death.

(...)

The soldiers, most of whom declined to give their names under orders from superiors, described exchanges of gunfire in between houses on village streets, with Hezbollah guerrillas sometimes popping out of bushes to fire Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles.

(...)

Despite Israel's enormous firepower that it says has already killed about 100 Hezbollah fighters, some military analysts say the war isn't going particularly well for the Jewish state, which is encountering tougher than expected resistance. It has been unable to push the guerrillas back significantly or stop hundreds of their rockets from slamming into northern Israel.

For the past few days Israel has been fighting for control of the tiny southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras, located on a hilltop less than 500 yards across the border. The army said it had a significant presence in the village, but gunfire and the blasts of artillery shells could still be heard on Sunday as tanks and helicopters pounded positions inside.

+ Sectarian break-up of Iraq is now inevitable, admit officials.

+ Lebanese POWs - Israel's dirty little secret.

+ Såg precis en utmärkt - och skrämmade - dokumentär om den israeliska propagandamaskinen. Man tror man hört allt om den israeliska regimens hänsynslöshet, men ändå blir man ständigt förvånad. Kan verkligen rekommendera en titt på Peace, Propaganda and the Holy Land. (Google Video) Finns också som torrent:

Torrent Reactor
ISO Hunt
Islamic Torrents (kräver registering)

+ Via God is NOT an asshole: It must be getting close to the end of the world, because the animals are revolting. Literally. The kitten with the two faces was what really got me worried that the end was near. Then I saw the picture of the duck with four legs. Then there's the python that ate an entire electric blanket, the circus kangaroo that escaped in Ireland and the police dog that ran over a pedestrian in a truck. Come on, something weird's going on here. It's like Marlin Perkins dropped LSD or something.

+ Jan Guillou: Att borgerliga ledarskribenter börjar tveka är ett gott tecken. Grymheten och den arroganta hänsynslösheten är så stor att de borgerliga svenska ledarsidor som jag i snart 40 år sett försvara allt Israel gjort nu för första gången ter sig något tvehågsna. Enigheten är stor bland Israels vanliga advokater på dessa ledarsidor. Den här gången har Israel gått för långt. Redan nu. Och än värre kan man frukta att det ska bli.

+ Alarming new questions about the death of Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly have been raised as a major investigation cast doubt on the official verdict that he committed suicide. Oerhört förvånande.

+ Provincetown, New England's summer gay capital, is facing a rise in harassment and discrimination. But this time it's straight people who say they are being ridiculed as "breeders" and "baby makers."

+ Två bilder säger mer än tusen ord: Who backs an immediate ceasefire?

+ The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hizbollah targets in Lebanon, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

+ Opus Dei financier is found dismembered under bridge.

+ Reassessing the Hariri assassination in the light of recent events.

+ Painting the Passports Brown.

+ Trees could grow in Antarctica within century: scientist.

+ Alps Could Be Ice Free by 2100, Study Warns.

+ This image shows the aftermath of a 2,000-year-old star explosion. In the heart of the central blue dot in this image, smaller than a pinpoint, likely lies a neutron star only about 20 kilometers across. The nature of this object is like nothing detected before.

+ Mike Rivero: The Two Israeli Soldiers Were Capturde in LEBANON. The Lebanese Hezbollah movement announced Wednesday the arrest of two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were arrested as they entered the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border.

+ Turkey said yesterday that Israel's action in Lebanon to stop Hezbollah attacks meant it should be allowed to take similar steps against Kurdish guerrillas operating from northern Iraq against its forces. Despite strong opposition from America, its military is now drawing up plans for either an air or ground assault. "Whatever step needs to be taken will be taken," the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said.

+ Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.

+ USA är bäst: If someone looks like he could use a meal, be warned: Giving him a sandwich in a Las Vegas park could land you in jail. The Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that bans providing food or meals to the indigent for free or a nominal fee in parks.

+ Israel has killed so many civilians in South Lebanon that health authorities are forced to stick them in mass graves.

+ Angry Arab: Would you not agree that Muslim clerics in the Middle East (Sunnis and Shi`ites alike) expressed more outrage over Danish cartoons than over the destruction of Lebanon?

+ Srifa was a bustling hillside village. Then yesterday the Israeli jets came.

+ Two Israeli artillery shells on Wednesday landed inside a compound run by U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon who were sheltering 36 civilians, but no one was hurt, a spokesman for the UNIFIL force said. (...) In 1996, during Israel's Grapes of Wrath campaign in Lebanon, an Israeli jet struck a UNIFIL compound in the southern village of Qana, killing 106 civilians sheltering inside. Undrar hur mycket liv det skulle bli om något annat land fick för sig att bomba FN-läger?

+ Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields – protection for Israel's war machine.

+ If Israel has the right to use force in self defence, so do its neighbours.

+ Israeli warplanes targeted for the first time a Christian area of eastern Beirut on Wednesday morning.

+ Bush "gropes" Germany's (female) chancellor Merkel. Han vet verkligen hur man för sig!

+ Via Boing Boing: God Jesus Toy Robot. :D :D :D

+ Uppsnappat via Sakernas tillstånd, en utmärkt artikel av Mohamed Omar om Svenska muslimer. Texten handlar huvudsakligen om Tage Lindbom.

Här kan du läsa två texter av Lindbom, "Ljus i mörkret" och "Möte med Koranen".

+ Rigorous Intuition: The Monotony of Evil.

+ Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire in the fighting that has killed more than 260 people and displaced 500,000.

+ At least 43 Lebanese civilians were killed an d scores others were wounded in fresh Israeli air strikes across Lebanon in the early hours of Wednesday, July 19, as the occupation army said it was conducting a limited ground assault across the Lebanese border.

+ Israel satsar allt på krigsbrott nu: Latest targets of air blitz: milk and medicine.

Israel switched gears in its military campaign against Lebanon Monday and Tuesday, launching a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout the country and dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure.

The production facilities of at least five companies in key industrial sectors - including the country's largest dairy farm, Liban Lait; a paper mill; a packaging firm and a pharmaceutical plant - have been disabled or completely destroyed. Industry insiders say the losses will cripple the economy for decades to come.

+ From Israel to Lebanon. En samling förskräckliga bilder från den senaste tidens massakrer.

+ USA:s ambassadör till FN talar ut: Lebanon civilian deaths morally not same as terror victims -- Bolton.

+ Israeli children sign their missiles ‘with love’.

+ Snubblade över en rätt intressant intervju med Jan Myrdal i den libanesiska tidningen Al Intiqad: Al-Intiqad´s interview with Swedish intellectual and writer Jan Myrdal.

+ The Boy Who Sees with Sound.

+ 18 Tricks to Teach Your Body.

+ Eight Canadians, including several members of the same family, were killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon on Sunday as the Canadian government stepped up plans for an evacuation of the war-torn region.

+ Via Copyriot, en bra ledare från Expressen: Vägra ange din granne!

+ Israel steeply escalated its military campaign against Hizbollah in Lebanon yesterday with a series of air strikes that left more than 35 civilians dead, including a single strike on a convoy of families fleeing the fighting in a village near Tyre in the south of the country that killed more than 20 people, most of them children. [Se bilderna längre ner]

+ Muslim extremist admits he was spy.

Muslim leaders in Canada have reacted with fury after a radical advocate of Sharia law revealed that he had been a government spy who helped to uncover an alleged al-Qaeda plot, writes Toby Harnden.

Mubin Shaikh, 29, came forward to confirm that he was recruited by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country's equivalent of MI5, and directed a 10-day winter training course in guerrilla tactics.

During the course, which Mr Shaikh set up in a field in the remote village of Washago, Ontario, young Muslims allegedly dressed in camouflage, used guns for target practice and taped a video used to recruit others.

+ The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

+ Guantanamo general to head Nato.

+ Via Angry Arab, bilder från de senaste israeliska massakrerna på flyende civila i Libanon (varning för starka bilder):

+ It all started on July 12 when Israeli troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. They arrested two Israeli soldiers, killed eight Israelis and wounded over 20 in attacks inside Israeli territory.

+ Haaretz: A black flag.

The legitimate basis for the IDF's operation was stripped away the moment it began. It's no accident that nobody mentions the day before the attack on the Kerem Shalom fort, when the IDF kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. The difference between us and them? We kidnapped civilians and they captured a soldier, we are a state and they are a terror organization. How ridiculously pathetic Amos Gilad sounds when he says that the capture of Shalit was "illegitimate and illegal," unlike when the IDF grabs civilians from their homes. How can a senior official in the defense ministry claim that "the head of the snake" is in Damascus, when the IDF uses the exact same methods?

+ At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed Saturday in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles fleeing a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon, a witness said.

+ At least three civilians were killed in another Israeli airstrike on the main highway linking Lebanon to Syria.

+ It is ironic, given Israel's bombing of civilian targets in Beirut, that Hizbullah is often dismissed in the west as a terrorist organisation. In fact its military record is overwhelmingly one of conflict with Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory. This is just an example of the way that the west employs an entirely different definition of terrorism to the one used in the Arab world and elsewhere, where there is a recognition that terrorism can come in many forms.

+ Via Ran Prieur: Job? Fuck It! :)

Håll i hatten för nu har äntligen Alex Jones kommit med en ny dokumentär - Terrorstorm. Har bara hunnit se första delen ännu, men av allt att döma är den ett MÅSTE att se. Ladda ner eller köp ($20) nu. På en gång. Pronto!

Här följer några torrents som borde funka:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/356323
http://isohunt.com/dl.php?id=12477369
http://torrentreactor.net/view.php?id=511579

I annat fall finns den garanterat på Conspiracy Central, men den sajten kräver registrering tror jag. För den som nöjer sig med halvkackig kvalitet finns den också på Google Video.

Edit: första timmen av filmen var bättre än den följande.

+ It seems Israel planned deliberate provoation of HAMAS and Hizbollah.

A report in the Jerusalem Post today proves very revealing. It claims that, ‘Only weeks ago, an entire reserve division was drafted in order to train for an operation such as the one the IDF is planning in response to Wednesday morning's Hizbollah attacks on IDF forces along the northern border.’

The news is revealing because it was only a little over two weeks ago that Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian fighters. One needs to ask how the Israelis knew at, or even before, he was captured that it would be taking action against Hizbollah in Lebanon.

This revealing piece of news comes on top of an earlier revelation that the Israelis had planned the arrest of top Palestinian Hamas leaders some time well before Shalit was captured as Ha’aretz reported: “The detention of Hamas parliamentarians in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Mazuz on Wednesday. The same day, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the list of Hamas officials slated for detention.”

This entire crisis has all the hallmarks and is beginning to unravel as a carefully orchestrated ploy to create a casus belli for Israel to attack and occupy the Gaza, neutralise Hamas, the democratically elected government of the Palestinians to deprive the Palestinians of any power to resist reoccupation of the Gaza, possibly on a permanent basis, and, at the same time, to neutralise Hizbollah in pursuit of regime change in Lebanon.

+ Why is the world deaf to Gaza’s cries?

How much longer must the Palestinian people be bombed, starved, humiliated and abused before the international community speaks up with one voice? How much longer will world leaders avert their eyes from the cruel way Israel is pursuing a land grab? How much longer will ordinary people prefer the World Cup and blissful ignorance to the facts of Israel’s crimes and their effects on an entire people?

The US and the EU have labeled the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority “terrorist," a move that has virtually given the Israeli government carte blanche to do its worst. George W. Bush says Israel has the right to defend itself even as it works to deliberately terrorize a civilian population. The proof of intent is Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s instruction to the IDF last Sunday: “I don’t want anyone to sleep tonight in Gaza."

Almost 50 percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents are without electricity at a time when temperatures are hitting the mid-30s C (90s F). Israel saw fit to bomb a major power station, in blatant contravention of the Geneva Conventions, during an operation sadistically titled “Operation Summer Rain."

Experts say it may take up to eight months to restore power during which time hospital patients will die, families will be left without air-conditioners, fans, refrigerators and televisions, office workers and students without essential computers.

Those of us who live in this region and who have experienced inevitable brief power outrages should ask ourselves whether we could survive months of unrelenting heat and dark without even the respite of a cooling drink.

+ The United States vetoed a UN draft resolution that would have called for an end to Israeli attacks and "disproportionate use of force" in the Gaza Strip as well as for the release of a kidnapped Israeli soldier.

+ Och om det är någon som glömt provokationen som ledde till att Hamas' väpnade gren kidnappade en israelisk soldat, så kommer här en påminnelse:

Israeli naval gunboats killed at least seven Palestinian civilians and wounded about 40 others as they relaxed in the summer heat on a beach in northern Gaza yesterday. Palestinian medical sources said that eight of the dead were from one family. The total included six women and a three-year-old girl.

+ The crisis facing Israel was compounded when its air force killed a family of nine, dropping a 550lb bomb on a house in a residential area of Gaza City early today. Nabil Abu Salmiah, a lecturer at the Islamic University - who has been described by Israel as a Hamas activist - was killed, along with his wife and their five daughters and two sons. Five of the dead children were aged between four and 11, and the other two were in their teens. The deaths will be a severe embarrassment to Israel, which has killed around 40 civilians, many of them children, in missile and shell attacks over recent weeks.

+ Samtidigt i Israel.. Israel's president is being dogged by allegations of sexual harassment in a spiraling scandal that has pushed the country's violent standoff with Hamas off the front pages.

+ Ehum, för att lätta upp stämningen lite: Natural Hallucinogen.

Och om inte det gjorde dig munter, kolla då in denna apa som spelar PacMan: Even Chimps Know to Fear Ghosts. (via Fantastic Planet)

+ "Magic mushrooms," used by Native Americans and hippies to alter consciousness, appear to have similar mystical effects on many people, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. At least one team of doctors is already testing whether using them can help terminal cancer patients come to terms with their fates. More than 60 percent of volunteers given capsules of psilocybin derived from mushrooms said they had a "full mystical experience." (...) Two months after getting the drug, 79 percent of the volunteers said they felt a moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction, according to the report published in the journal Psychopharmacology.

En annan artikel om samma studie här.

+ Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006.

+ För övrigt är det så sjukt mycket som händer just nu att jag inte riktigt vet var jag ska börja.

+ Nu tar bloggen semester i två veckor eller så. I morgon bitti bär det av till tyskarnas rike för jag ska på festival! Hej så länge!

+ Last December, Pfc Steven Green was the face of the Army's happy news story, "Coalition forces keep streets of Iraq safe." (And sure thing, there he is, preparing "to blast a lock off the gate of an abandoned home.") Six months later, he's charged with the rape of an Iraqi girl possibly as young as 14, her murder and the murder of her family, including her seven-year old brother Hadeel. (Her name was Abeer Qasim Hamza. It seems most reports don't bother with that detail. Nor that she was a child, and not a young woman.)

+ Lost in translation. Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.

+ Computer Sweden is reporting that Microsoft is doing automatic real-time censoring of certain messages on MSN Messenger.

+ Kanske är det bra att den israeliska regimen totalt flippat ur och visar för hela världen att de verkligen är en terrorstat och inget annat. Problemet är ju bara att det internationella samfundet inte bryr sig. Via WRH, några av de FN-resolutioner som antagits mot Israel:

Resolution 106: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for Gaza raid".
Resolution 111: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people".
Resolution 127: " . . . 'recommends' Israel suspends it's 'no-man's zone' in Jerusalem".
Resolution 162: " . . . 'urges' Israel to comply with UN decisions".
Resolution 171: " . . . determines flagrant violations' by Israel in its attack on Syria".
Resolution 228: " . . . 'censures' Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control".
Resolution 237: " . . . 'urges' Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees".
Resolution 248: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan".
Resolution 250: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem".
Resolution 251: " . . . 'deeply deplores' Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250".
Resolution 252: " . . . 'declares invalid' Israel's acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital".
Resolution 256: " . . . 'condemns' Israeli raids on Jordan as 'flagrant violation".
Resolution 259: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation".
Resolution 262: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for attack on Beirut airport".
Resolution 265: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan".
Resolution 267: " . . . 'censures' Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem".
Resolution 270: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon".
Resolution 271: " . . . 'condemns' Israel's failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem".
Resolution 279: " . . . 'demands' withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon".
Resolution 280: " . . . 'condemns' Israeli's attacks against Lebanon".
Resolution 285: " . . . 'demands' immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon".
Resolution 298: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's changing of the status of Jerusalem".
Resolution 313: " . . . 'demands' that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon".
Resolution 316: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon".
Resolution 317: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon".
Resolution 332: " . . . 'condemns' Israel's repeated attacks against Lebanon".
Resolution 337: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for violating Lebanon's sovereignty".
Resolution 347: " . . . 'condemns' Israeli attacks on Lebanon".
Resolution 425: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon".
Resolution 427: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon.
Resolution 444: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces".
Resolution 446: " . . . 'determines' that Israeli settlements are a 'serious obstruction' to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention".
Resolution 450: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon".
Resolution 452: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories".
Resolution 465: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel's settlements program".
Resolution 467: " . . . 'strongly deplores' Israel's military intervention in Lebanon".
Resolution 468: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return".
Resolution 469: " . . . 'strongly deplores' Israel's failure to observe the council's order not to deport Palestinians".
Resolution 471: " . . . 'expresses deep concern' at Israel's failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention".
Resolution 476: " . . . 'reiterates' that Israel's claim to Jerusalem are 'null and void'".
Resolution 478: " . . . 'censures (Israel) in the strongest terms' for its claim to Jerusalem in its 'Basic Law'".
Resolution 484: " . . . 'declares it imperative' that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors".
Resolution 487: " . . . 'strongly condemns' Israel for its attack on Iraq's nuclear facility".
Resolution 497: " . . . 'decides' that Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan Heights is 'null and void' and demands that Israel rescinds its decision forthwith".
Resolution 498: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon".
Resolution 501: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops".
Resolution 509: " . . . 'demands' that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon".
Resolution 515: " . . . 'demands' that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in".
Resolution 517: " . . . 'censures' Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon".
Resolution 518: " . . . 'demands' that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon".
Resolution 520: " . . . 'condemns' Israel's attack into West Beirut".
Resolution 573: " . . . 'condemns' Israel 'vigorously' for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters.
Resolution 587: " . . . 'takes note' of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw".
Resolution 592: " . . . 'strongly deplores' the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops".
Resolution 605: " . . . 'strongly deplores' Israel's policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians.
Resolution 607: " . . . 'calls' on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Resolution 608: " . . . 'deeply regrets' that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians".
Resolution 636: " . . . 'deeply regrets' Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians.
Resolution 641: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's continuing deportation of Palestinians.
Resolution 672: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
Resolution 673: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's refusal to cooperate with the United Nations.
Resolution 681: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's resumption of the deportation of Palestinians.
Resolution 694: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return.
Resolution 726: " . . . 'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of Palestinians.
Resolution 799: ". . . 'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.

+ Via God is NOT an asshole:


:)
+ Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Palestinian Prime Minister, has emerged from days of seclusion with a defiant message suggesting the faction would not trade its newly arrested politicians for the 19-year-old Israeli corporal abducted six days ago.

Förståeligt av Hamas' ledning. Som flera tidningar rapporterat var kidnappningen av soldaten bara ett svepskäl för en israelisk attack som planerats sedan länge: The detention of Hamas parliamentarians in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Mazuz on Wednesday.

+ Gaza is three days away from a deadly humanitarian crisis unless Israel promptly restores fuel and electricity to the densely populated area after its offensive to free an abducted soldier, the United Nations aid chief warned on Thursday.

+ The new U.N. Human Rights Council voted Friday to dedicate time during each future session to a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel — a move criticized by the United States as misguided and unfair.

+ USA är inga amatörer på övergrepp de heller: The U.S. Army will investigate charges that five American soldiers were involved in the killings of four Iraqi relatives, including a woman who had been raped, military officials said Friday. It's the sixth current inquiry into the alleged slayings of Iraqi civilians by American troops.