Archive for middle east
August 2, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
the news media and blogsphere is filled with misinformation regarding israel's holding of lebanese "hostages" in its jails. some claim 9,000 prisoners (but this is actually counting the Palestinian prisoners that has nothing to do with lebanon), others just say that israel is holding lebanese prisoners "without trial", which is according to their logic similar to the kidnapped soldiers held by the hezbollah.
the most coveted lebanese prisoer is Samir Kuntar. nasrallah almost blew up the 2004 prisoner exchange deal (israel released the remaining 400 lebanese prisoners it has in its jails in return for a kidnapped ex-colonel and the bodies of 3 soldiers), because israel was not willing to release Kuntar.
so who is samir kuntar and how did end up in the israeli jail. here is a short summary:
On April 22, 1979, Samir Kuntar was the leader of a group of four terrorists who entered israel from lebanon by boat. Just after midnight they arrived to Nahariya not far from the lebanese border. the four murdered a policeman they came across and broke into an apartment of the Haran family. The took 28-year-old danny haran hostage along with his four-year-old daughter einat. The mother, smadar haran, was able to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two-year-old daughter yael. Kuntar's men understood that there were more people in the house and went around looking for them, shooting and throwing hand grenades.
After holding to the hostages, a shootout with israeli police and soldiers erupted. samir kuntar shot and killed the father at close range in front of his daughter, and then murdered the four-year-old girl by smashing her head with the butt of his rifle against a rock, crushing her skull.
Tragically, the two-year-old girl was accidentally suffocated to death, when her mother desperately tried to keep her quiet. A policeman and two of Samir Kuntar's unit were also killed. Kuntar and the fourth participant in the shootout were captured. the latter, ahmed abarrass, was freed by israel in the 1986 prisoner deal in return for three israeli soldiers.
kuntar was tried and convicted for the murders of danny and einat haran. he has also admitted his complicity many times and expressed pride about the killings.
samir is a hero in lebanon. his pictures can be found in many villages. he is portrayed as a hero of the great lebanese "resistance" movement.
a true hostage held without a trial, right? if you are a hezbollah supporter and want to show your support you can find ways to do so in samir's site. if you want to read an account of that night by the mother you can find it here.
August 2, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
there is a story in salon.com with the title: the "hiding among civilians" myth
it is written by mitch prothero a journalist that has been covering several conflicts in the past few years. he makes a big statement by labeling the hezbollah activity from within civilian population a myth, since this is the rational for the israeli bombing of cities and villages. if it is a myth it means that israel is targeting civilians for the sake of targeting civilians. not different from the hezbollah.
beside making the big statement he does little in his article in terms of backing up that claim. he provides anecdotal evidence from his personal experience, which is a common and effective method to make a point but it does not do much in terms of proving the point.
israel claims they trace where the rockets are fired from, and that in many cases they indeed come from within the cities and villages.
now you can claim israel is lying and they are just killing civilians for some unknown purpose (for sure it does not serve their interst), but to buy into that theory you need to believe there is a wide spread conspiracy. thousands of soldiers and government officials are involved. which is obviously ridiculous. but it's hard to argue with conspiracy theories.
August 2, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
in the middle east flag burning is a popular way to spend a few hours when there is a nice day outside (most days), it is usually accompanied by chanting "death to israel, death to america". in what are very challenging times for businesses in lebanon, gaza and the west-bank, flag makers must be making a killing.
here is a great piece from bill maher about flag burning.
August 2, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
this article from the herald sun (a rupert murdoch owned newspaper) in australia had the title of this post sans the question mark.
they article claims it demonstrates the immorality of the hezbollah, fighting from withing the civilian population. i saw this picture in other newspapers and on TV.
i don't see how this specific picture proves anything. this is not an offensive weapon (like a katyusha rocket launcher), but rather a defensive anti-aircraft gun. since israel is conducting air raids on civilian neighborhoods i think it is legitimate for the hezbollah to deploy anti-aircraft guns among civilians.
July 31, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
another news item brought to my attention by tom.
the french foreign minister visited lebanon to show france's solidarity with lebanon. from the sound bites quoted in the media he made remarks regarding iran's role in the region. he said that "iran is a key player in the Middle East and plays an important stabilizing role in the region" and "We think more than ever than the Iranians are an important and respected actor".
maybe he meant to use "could", "should" and "would" and just forgot. maybe it was lost in translation. maybe he is just trying to fill the vacuum left by the incompetent US foreign policy and crisis handling. maybe he believes what he says.
iran could play a stabilizing role. but it is currently doing the opposite. sending money to extremists fueling violence. encouraging provocations. i can think of more stabilizing actions.
iran should be an important and respected actor. iran has the history, size, scale and aspirations to lead the muslim world. they could send money to build schools and universities in lebanon, rather than build bunkers and terrorist training camps. it could invest in infrastructure and health care, rather than invest in rockets and missiles. it could invest in growing its own economy and culture, rather than invest in building nuclear weapons.
my guess is that the french foreign minister has read the "clash of civilizations", and is trying to apply its logic to the present situation. i think his logic is flawed, or just ahead of its time. maybe once the current radical is out of office, maybe when the ayatollahs are out of power, maybe when the muslim world will stop pitying itself and blaming the west, maybe then.
July 31, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
tom sent me this link to a blog that is going into excruciating detail analyzing the abuse of the Qana tragedy (i refuse to call it a massacre) for PR purposes.
he also sent me a couple of links to blogs that are putting together a conspiracy theory, claiming the hezbollah is responsible for making the building collapse. i don't believe these conspiracy theories have any merit, but i don't doubt that the hezbollah is doing its best to gain as much as possible from this event.
like many things in this conflict this is done on both sides (abusing tragedies for PR purposes), and also like many other things the hezbollah is taking it to the extreme and is acting according to a completely different moral code. israel would publish photos of death and destruction, but would never parade bodies of children and pose to cameras trying to generate the most dramatic scene possible.
the palestinians did similar things in jenin a few years back. they actually spread bodies of animals in the debris, letting them rot, and then taking reporters on a "horror tour" with the unbearable smell as an extra spice to the drama.
these things are unbelievable, but true. it goes beyond cynicism. it is just disgusting.
July 31, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
gorillasushi sent me a link to a site that tries to illustrate the difference in casualties between israel and lebanon. i assume moiz syed was trying to show the imbalance between the losts (btw, i didn't check into the accuracy of the numbers, but it looks about right - taken from the BBC).
i think it is nor surprising that there is such a discrepancy. this is not a conflict between equals. israel has much more fire power and capability to inflict damage. in that sense the israeli response is indeed using "restraint" as requested by the US (i guess restraint is a relative term..)
i think the following point should be made over and over again. it is important to make the distinction between the target of the attacks. while the hezbollah is aiming its rockets at civilian population, with the intent to cause civilian deaths, israel is directing its power at military targets and infrastructure (which israel stopped doing, and i thought was a mistake), and is trying to avoid collateral damage (as the Qana incident shows israel has nothing to gain and all to lose from civilian casualties).
i think israel will be willing to live with the PR disadvantage of less casualties, vs the alternative..
July 30, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
israeli kids writing messages on artillery shells about to be launched at lebanon.
lebanse kid dressed up in hezbollah uniform looking to grow up and become a martyr.
does not look like a promising future.
July 30, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
on the 19th day of the conflict an israeli air strike on the village of Qana killed 54 60 people, among them 37 children. in 1996 an israeli bombing killed 100 civilians in Qana, which caused israel to stop its "Grapes of Wrath " operation against the hezbollah.
in israel's defense:
- israel has warned Qana residents days ago to leave the village
- hezbollah is firing rockets at israel from within the village
- while it is not clear that this is true in this case, israel usually targets a specific building when there is hezbollah militants in the building
but. and there is a big but. there are 37 dead children.
this is not an easy moral debate. in a war when an enemy is using civilian population as a shield, the other army can either engage in face-2-face, door-2-door infantry battles, or can bomb from a distance, avoiding casualties but causing collateral damage. the immorality of one side (firing and hiding among civilian population) generates immoral results by the action of the other side (killing of civilians).
i believe that israel is doing a justifiable thing when it is bombing a building where there is clear hezollah activity. the hezbollah cowardliness is as much (or even more) to blame. this is on the macro, strategic level. but in a day when israel kills 37 children, every israeli should feel blame. every israeli should seriously question whether israel is doing the right thing, are the generals going to far? maybe much of this is about pride? what is the long term solution, and do the current actions bring israel any closer to this solution?
i think this a good day to stop shooting. maybe the two sides will understand they let this madness go to far.
July 29, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics
in the past couple of weeks i have been getting several chain-emails with israeli propaganda.
below are the two most common pictures being sent around. plus there is a video of an arab american lady being interviewed in al jazeera (watch on youtube).
beside the fact that i think israelis should be able to produce a propaganda in better quality, i think that is an indication of the mood in israel. it seems like the big parts of the israeli public went back to the rhetoric of 20 years ago (before the first intifada), when israel lost its moral compass (or maybe it never had one), and everything was painted in black and white, good vs. evil. arabs are ruthless savages and israel is just an innocent small country trying to defend its meager land.
i hope that the current conflict and public despair will not erase all that was learned in recent years in terms of empathy to the other side, the realization that israel is not a saint, that the arabs are not monsters, and that diplomacy, peace negotiations and reconciliation is the only way to bring an end to the conflict.
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