We know now that Israel’s plan of attack was “finalized more than a year ago” and that Hezbollah’s capturing of the 2 Israeli soldiers was merely a pretext to execute their strategy.

Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University clarified this point saying, “Of all Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared. In a sense, the preparation began in 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal.”

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving Power-point presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and think-tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.”

Although this simply confirms what most serious analysts suspected from the beginning, it is still interesting on many levels.

For one thing, we can be sure that top ranking officials in the Bush administration (including George Bush) not only knew of the plan, but tacitly endorsed the invasion of a friendly country who posed no threat to national security.   more »

Because Bush is so proud of himself, you do know that he has blocked every effort to stop the Israeli slaughter of Lebanese civilians. Bush has told the UN “NO.” Bush has told the European Community “NO.”

Bush has told the pro-American Lebanese prime minister “NO.” Twice. Bush is very proud of his firmness. He is enjoying Israel’s rampage and wishes he could do the same thing in Iraq.

Does it make you a Proud American that “your” president gave Israel the green light to drop bombs on convoys of villagers fleeing from Israeli shelling, on residential neighborhoods in the capital of Beirut and throughout Lebanon.

On hospitals, on power plants, on food production and storage, on ports, on civilian airports, on bridges, on roads, on every piece of infrastructure on which civilized life depends? Are you a Proud American? Or are you an Israeli puppet?

On July 20, “your” House of Representatives voted 410-8 in favor of Israel’s massive war crimes in Lebanon. Not content with making every American complicit in war crimes, “your” House of Representatives, according to the Associated Press, also “condemns enemies of the Jewish state.”   more »

The expressions of shock that Lebanese civilians are taking the brunt of Israel’s onslaught -- and the unwillingness in some quarters of the media to report the fact -- reflects a poor understanding of Israel’s historical use of violence.

Since its birth six decades ago, Israel has always been officially “going after the terrorists”, but its actions have invariably harmed civilians in an indiscriminate manner.

The roll call of dishonor is long indeed, but its highlights include: the massacre of some 200 civilians in Tantura, as well as large-scale massacres in at least a dozen other Palestinian villages, during the 1948 war that established Israel;

Ariel Sharon’s attack on the village of Qibya in 1953 that killed 70 Palestinians; the Kfar Qassem massacre inside Israel when 49 farm workers were gunned down at an improvised army checkpoint;

A massacre in the same year in the refugee camp of Khan Yunis, in Gaza, in which more than 250 civilians were killed; attacks on dozens of Palestinian, Egyptian and Syrian villages during the 1967 war;   more »

The Zionist regime’s assaults and atrocities against the innocent citizens of the Lebanese nation, which Hezbollah responded to with resolute resistance, and the silence of the malleable Arab countries are evidence of a joint U.S.-Israeli plot to eradicateall resistance to U.S. hegemony.

Israel began its all-out attack on Lebanon with vast air, ground, and sea operations, on the assumption that it would be able to achieve an immediate victory over the Lebanese Islamic resistance and impose its conditions on Beirut.

Yet, despite its state-of-the-art military equipment, the Israeli army has still been unable to penetrate deep into the Maroun al-Ras region of southern Lebanon.

The death of about 50 Israeli infantrymen and the destruction of 14 Merkava 4 tanks, which is one of the most modern types of tank in the world, were the outcome of the 10-day war between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

In a great victory for Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance forces also seriously damaged an Israeli Sa'ar 5 class missile boat, which is considered the Israeli fleet's most advanced surface ship.   more »

23 JULY

Tariq Ali: Israel's Imperial Arrogance

Nicholas Kristof: Spanish Lessons for Israel...Make Peace Not War

The BBC: A Zionist Propaganda Outlet?

Frank Rich: The Passion of the Embryos...Faith-Based Extremism

The Real Aims of the US/Zionist War In Lebanon

The Root Cause of Middle East Carnage