Desertpeace

A new month…let us start it with a renewed Hope… Hope for PEACE! If you click HERE you will find the word PEACE in many languages…. Study them… repeat them… make them your Mantra…
Let us do it together and perhaps we can drown out the noise of guns and bombs.

Let us have Peace in August…. NOW!

Israeli bombs killed about 60 people yesterday in Qana, mostly women and children. Despite all efforts to ‘prove’ that this was not the case, they offered ‘regrets’ to the Lebanese government today.

This from a report published earlier… on one hand the government regrets the death of civilians, on the other hand they deny responsibility.

Israel “regrets the death of innocent civilians. We do not wish to have civilians involved in the war between Israel and Hezbollah,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Army spokesman Jacob Dalal rejected accusations that the Israeli military was responsible for the civilian deaths, which included many children.

The Israeli government keeps claiming that they have ‘warned residents to leave’… the following shows that that is not always possible… aside from the fear factor of being bombed while fleeing, as happened last week.
THIS from a New York Times dispatch…

The Israeli government apologized for that airstrike, as it did for the one here on Sunday. It said that residents had been warned to leave and should have already been gone.
But leaving southern Lebanon now is dangerous. The two extended families staying in the house that the Israeli missile struck — the Shalhoubs and the Hashims — had discussed leaving several times over the past two weeks. But they were poor — most worked in tobacco or construction — and the families were big and many of their members weak, with a 95-year-old, two relatives in wheelchairs and dozens of children. A taxi north, around $1,000, was unaffordable.

Israel seems to have an answer for every crime they have committed during the Lebanon fiasco… the lawyer they use in the Hague will certainly have enough of these documented lies while preparing their case when a War Crimes Tribunal gets scheduled.

This was just reported a few minutes ago…. (no apology after all)
Bethlehem- Ma’an- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused in a speech delivered on Monday evening in Tel Aviv to apologize to the civilian victims of the Israeli atrocities committed in Lebanon.

He said: “Despite our sorrow for the civilians who were forced to evacuate their homes and flee away, and despite the unintentional casualties, we don’t apologize because the residents of southern Lebanon know quite well that their enemy is Nasrallah and his associates”.

HERE we see, what zionists originally claimed to be a ‘humanitarian’ move, the real reason Israel buried 10 bodies of Lebanese citizens earlier… not to help comfort the mourners, but for use as a bargaining tool in the future.

It seems that Israel has put the United States in a very awkward situation.. one that is causing tremendous embarrassment to them. Their continued support of the Israeli atrocities has come under great criticism from some of their closest allies, including Britain and France.
So now, after all is said and done, the U.S. is now ‘pushing’ for a cease fire in the region. Israel will no doubt protest this decision, their goal was to make the entire Middle East Arabish-Rein. A goal that will probably not be put too far back on the shelf.

Looking back at the events from yesterday in Qana, one can see without doubt, that what I just said is not merely an opinion, it is an ugly fact. Once a nation starts killing innocent civilians in another nation, once that same nation continues to kill civilians in yet another nation at the same time, they must be stopped by any means possible.

If the United States is, in fact, serious about the cease fire they speak of, all they have to do is simply ‘pull the plug’ on the ongoing shipment of arms they are sending to Israel. If they are just trying to ‘save face’, the shipments can continue through a third party. Past actions of the United States have proven that they are a nation that is not to be trusted. So, I will not put too much weight on the ‘reality’ of the cease fire they speak of until the entire western world assures that it will actually happen.

AlJazeera stated the following…

Rice, who has just ended a diplomatic mission to the region, said she was returning to Washington with “an emerging consensus on what is necessary for both an urgent ceasefire and a lasting settlement”.

She said, “I am convinced we can achieve both this week and I am convinced that only by achieving both will the Lebanese people finally be able to control their country and their future and the people of Israel will finally be able to live free from the threat of attack from terrorist groups in Lebanon.”

The US secretary of state did not provide details on what both sides may have agreed, although a meeting of potential troop contributors to an international force is to be held on Monday at the UN.
The rest of the article can be seen HERE.

If you read THIS article as well you will wonder, as I am, where Rice got this from… “an emerging consensus on what is necessary for both an urgent ceasefire and a lasting settlement”. Consensus from whom???

And if you read HERE, you will see why Israel’s word is worthless. How can they ever agree to a cease fire when they cannot even honour a 48 hour truce? LIARS ARE NEVER TO BE TRUSTED!

Words are cheap when used to describe the ongoing slaughter and destruction in Lebanon and Palestine at the hands of the US-funded Israeli occupation army. No matter how eloquent or expressive, words stand helpless and ring hollow when confronted with the distressing human suffering inflicted on Lebanese and Palestinian civilians by the Israeli war machine and the utter apathy, even indifference, of world powers towards them.

Continue reading this brilliant essay by Nour Odeh, in the The Electronic Intifada HERE

Israel has declared a 48 moratorium on airstrikes in Lebanon while they investigate the ‘gap in time’ between the bombing of the building in Qana… and its collapse. Israeli journals are already hinting at the fact that it was Hezbullah itself that did the bombing and they were the ones that blocked exit to the victims inside the building.
Speilberg himself could not have dreamt up such a plot.

Israel must own up to the fact that it is GUILTY! That it has GONE TOO FAR!
THE LIES HAVE TO END NOW!! THE WAR HAS TO END NOW!!
The world has to own up to the fact THAT THIS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE!
ISRAEL MUST BE STOPPED NOW!
PEACE MUST BE RESTORED IN THE REGION NOW!
ALL AGGRESSION AGAINST INNOCENT CIVILIANS MUST END NOW!

THE TRUTH IS THIS BIKE WILL NEVER GET RIDDEN AGAIN…ISRAEL KILLED THE CHILD THAT IT BELONGED TO…

This morning the Witch ( a women who by her credentials should actually act smarter than she has been) said she would call for a cease fire on Wednesday… Now it seems Olmert is begging for another 10-14 days of ALLOWED MURDER TIME. This morning’s success in killing over 60 civilians gave him a taste for more blood.
Israel is crying out…”but we dropped leaflets, we even phoned people in their homes warning them that there will be bombs dropped”… RIGHT!!!
Just like a week ago when those same leaflets were dropped in southern Lebanon… many people fled their homes in busses… only to have those busses bombed by the bloodthirsty beasts.
Israel can no longer claim that this is an exercise in self defense… this is OUTRIGHT COLD BLOODED MURDER!
There is no way that any nation can take the side of Israel at this point without having the finger of guilt pointed at them as well.
It is forbidden by Jewish Law to eat blood… when a beast is slaughtered for consumption the blood is drained from the carcass. The blood represents the life of the animal, the carcass is death.
Olmert has aquired a taste for human blood it seems…so like the man he replaced. The ‘Butcher of Beirut’ would be so proud of his golden haired boy if he was aware of what was happening today.
THIS GENOCIDE MUST END NOW….NOT WEDNESDAY… AND SURLY NOT IN 10-14 DAYS… NOW!!!

Israel has committed more murders today than most nations do in a decade. With the blessings of the Dubya administration, with the ‘overseeing’ of their witch herself, Israel has, with its’ latatest actions put itself into the same camp as nazi Germany. They have openly declared the genocide of another nation and are working to put that declaration into action.
The rest of the western world is finally waking up to the reality that Israel is an evil nation.
They must be stopped NOW! They must be brought to trial NOW! And the Bush administration must be with them… It is no longer a question of complicity… it’s partnership at this point!
This from AlJaZeera…. just sickening!

Western and Arab leaders have condemned Israel’s attack on a village in south Lebanon which killed at least 50 civilians, among them children, as protesters stormed the UN headquarters in Beirut.

Sunday’s strike, the bloodiest since Israel’s showdown with Lebanon’s Shia group Hezbollah began on July 12, prompted the Lebanese government to cancel a visit by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Lebanon’s premier, Fouad Senioria, said: “There is no place on this sad morning for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as an international investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now.”

Hezbollah threatened to retaliate, saying that “this horrific massacre [at Qana] will not go without a response”.

Rice ‘deeply saddened’

Rice said she was “deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life”. She also urged Israel to take “extraordinary care” to avoid civilian deaths in Lebanon.

And while calling for a ceasefire, she said that a truce could not mean a return to the position before the war, which was triggered by Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers in a raid out of south Lebanon on July 12.

Israel and the United States have said they want to ensure that Hezbollah can no longer carry out raids and rocket attacks and that it is eventually disarmed under a UN resolution.

Israel said it had attacked Qana on Sunday because Hezbollah was launching rockets from that area.

An Israeli foreign ministry official, Gideon Meir, said: “We deeply regret the loss of any civilian life and especially when you talk about children who are innocent.

“One must understand the Hezbollah is using their own civilian population as human shields. The Israeli defence forces dropped leaflets and warned the civilian population to leave the place because the Hezbollah turned it into a war zone.”

‘Unjustified action’

France and Britian condemned the attack.

The office of the French president, Jacques Chriac, said in a statement: “The president learnt with concern about the act of violence which cost the lives of numerous innocent victims, notably women and children in Qana.

“France condemns this unjustified action, which demonstrates more than ever the need for an immediate ceasefire without which there will only be other such incidents.”

And Britain’s foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, described the strikes as “absolutely dreadful” and “quite appalling”.

“We have repeatedly urged Israel to act proportionately,” she said.

‘Crimes’

Arab and Muslim leaders said international law had beeen violated and spoke of “crimes”.

King Abdullah of Jordan said: “This criminal aggression is an ugly crime that has been committed by the Israeli forces in the city of Qana that is a gross violation of all international statutes.”

Abdullah, a close US ally, repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire.

Iran, accused by Washington of backing Hezbollah, also condemned the raid.

“I think Israeli officials and some American ones should be tried for these sorts of crimes,” said Hamid Reza Asefi, the foreign ministry spokesman.

And the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, called the air strike “irresponsible”.

“The Arab Republic of Egypt is highly disturbed and condemns the irresponsible Israeli attack on the Lebanese village of Qana, which led to the loss of innocent victims, most of which were women and children,” a statement from the presidency said.

Egypt, which has already called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, stressed “the need for a serious international effort to issue an urgent Security Council resolution to stop military attacks immediately”.

STOP THEIR DREAM BEFORE IT BECOMES MORE OF A REALITY!

THE REALITY OF THIS MORNING’S MASSACRE… BODIES AWAITING BURIAL

Ms. Condi is here again…univited.. unwanted. She wants to see a cease fire by Wednesday. WEDNESDAY????
How many more dead children do we have to bury by then? Why not NOW???
This was just reported on AlJazeeras site. It’s UNFORGIVEABLE!!!
Brings to mind a famous quote from one of Israel’s Prime Ministers… Golda Meir.. it goes as follows..
“We will forgive you for killing our children but we will never forgive you for making us kill yours”
I’d like to see the killing stop period… on both sides… NOW, NOT WEDNESDAY!

I just received the following e mail… I think many of my readers will find it interesting..

Dear folks,

If anyone is interested —
This is the alternative analysis of what is going on, by a dissident Israeli academic — the same events, but reported from the perspective of the rest of the world. She does not advocate “appeasement” but nor does she agree with the course Israel has charted, and she knows her sources. Worth reading. As to judging whose reality is more authentic: that’s up to you.

Israel’s “new Middle East”
Tanya Reinhart, July 26 2004
Beirut is burning, hundreds of Lebanese die, hundreds of thousands lose all they ever owned and become refugees, and all the world is doing is rescuing the “foreign passport” residents of what was just two weeks ago “the Paris of the Middle East”. Lebanon must die now, because “Israel has the right to defend itself”, so goes the U.S. mantra, used to block any international attempt to impose a cease fire.
Israel, backed by the U.S., portrays its war on Lebanon as a war of self defense. It is easy to sell this message to mainstream media, because the residents of the North of Israel are also in shelters, bombarded and endangered. Israel’s claim that no country would let such an attack on its residents unanswered, finds many sympathetic ears. But let us reconstruct exactly how it all started.
On Wednesday, July 12, a Hezbollah unit attacked two armored Jeeps of the Israeli army, patrolling along Israel’s border with Lebanon. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in the attack and two were taken hostage. In a news conference held in Beirut a couple of hours later, Hezbollah’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah explained that their aim was to reach a prisoner exchange, where in return for the two captured Israeli soldiers, Israel would return three Lebanese prisoners it had refused to release in a previous prisoner exchange. Nasrallah declared that “he did not want to drag the region into war”, but added that “our current restraint is not due to weakness… if they [Israel] choose to confront us, they must be prepared for surprises.” [1]
The Israeli government, however, did not give a single moment for diplomacy, negotiations, or even cool reflection over the situation. In a cabinet meeting that same day, it authorized a massive offensive on Lebanon. As Ha’aretz reported, “In a sharp departure from Israel’s response to previous Hezbollah attacks, the cabinet session unanimously agreed that the Lebanese government should be held responsible for yesterday’s events.” Olmert declared: “This morning’s events are not a terror attack, but the act of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason and without provocation.” He added that “the Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to undermine regional stability. Lebanon is responsible, and Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions.” [2]
At the cabinet meeting, “the IDF recommended various operations aimed at the Lebanese government and strategic targets in Lebanon”, as well as a comprehensive attack on southern Lebanon (where Hezbollah’s batteries of rockets are concentrated). The government immediately approved both recommendatons. The spirit of the cabinet’s decision was succinctly summarized by Defense Minister Amir Perertz who said: “We’re skipping the stage of threats and going straight to action.”[3]
At 21.50 that same day, Ha’aretz internet edition reported that by that time Israel had already bombarded bridges in central Lebanon and attacked “Hezbollah’s posts” in southern Lebanon. [4] Amnesty International’s press release of the next day (13 July 2006) stated that in these attacks “some 40 Lebanese civilians have reportedly been killed… Among the Lebanese victims were a family of ten, including eight children, who were killed in Dweir village, near Nabatiyeh, and a family of seven, including a seven-month-old baby, who were killed in Baflay village near Tyre. More than 60 other civilians were injured in these or other attacks.”
It was at that point, early on Wednesday night, following the first Israeli attack, that Hezbollah started its rocket attack on the north of Israel. Later the same night (before the dawn of Thursday), Israel launched its first attack on Beirut, when Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut’s international airport and killed at least 27 Lebanese civilians in a series of raids. In response, Hezbollah’s rocket attacks intensified on Thursday, when “more than 100 Katyusha rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon in the largest attack of its sort since the start of the Lebanon War in 1982”. Two Israeli civilians were killed in this attack, and 132 were taken to the hospital [5]. When Israel started destroying the Shiite quarters of Beirut the following day, including a failed attempt on Nasrallah’s life, Hezbollah extended its rockets attacks to Haifa.
The way it started, there was nothing in Hezbollah’s military act, whatever one may think of it, to justify Israel’s massive disproportionate response. Lebanon has had a long-standing border dispute with Israel: In 2000, when Israel, under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, withdrew from Southern Lebanon, Israel kept a small piece of land known as the Shaba farms (near Mount Dov), which it claims belonged historically to Syria and not to Lebanon, though both Syria and Lebanon deny that. The Lebanese government has frequently appealed to the U.S. and others for Israel’s withdrawal also from this land, which has remained the center of friction in Southern Lebanon, in order to ease the tension in the area and to help the Lebanese internal negotiations over implementing UN resolutions. The most recent such appeal was in mid-April 2006, in a Washington meeting between Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and George Bush.[6] In the six years since Israel withdrew, there have been frequent border incidents between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, and cease-fire violations of the type committed now by Hezbollah, have occurred before, initiated by either side, and more frequently by Israel. None of the previous incidents resulted in Katyusha shelling of the north of Israel, which has enjoyed full calm since Israel’s withdrawal. It was possible for Israel to handle this incident as all its predecessors, with at most a local retaliation, or a prisoner exchange, or even better, with an attempt to solve this border dispute once and for all. Instead, Israel opted for a global war. As Peretz put it: “The goal is for this incident to end with Hezbollah so badly beaten that not a man in it does not regret having launched this incident [sic].”[7]
The Israeli government knew right from the start that launching its offensive would expose the north of Israel to heavy Katyusha rockets attacks. This was openly discussed at this first government’s meeting on Wednesday: “Hezbollah is likely to respond to the Israeli attacks with massive rocket launches at Israel, and in that case, the IDF might move ground forces into Lebanon”.[8] One cannot avoid the conclusion that for the Israeli army and government, endangering the lives of residents of northern Israel was a price worth paying in order to justify the planned ground offensive. They started preparing Israelis on that same Wednesday for what may be ahead: “‘We may be facing a completely different reality, in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis will, for a short time, find themselves in danger from Hezbollah’s rockets’, said a senior defense official. ‘These include residents of the center of the country.'” [9] For the Israeli military leadership, not only the Lebanese and the Palestinians, but also the Israelis are just pawns in some big military vision.
The speed at which everything happened (along with many other pieces of information) indicates that Israel has been waiting for a long time for ‘the international conditions to ripen’ for the massive war on Lebanon it has been planning. In fact, one does not need to speculate on this, since right from the start, Israeli and U.S. official sources have been pretty open in this regard. As a Senior Israeli official explained to the Washington Post on July 16, “Hezbollah’s cross-border raid has provided a ‘unique moment’ with a ‘convergence of interests’.”[10] The paper goes on to explain what this convergence of interests is:
For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.[11]
For the U.S., the Middle East is a “strategic playing field”, where the game is establishing full U.S. domination. The U.S. already controls Iraq and Afghanistan, and considers Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and a few other states as friendly cooperating regimes. But even with this massive foothold, full U.S. domination is still far from established. Iran has only been strengthened by the Iraq war and refuses to accept the decrees of the master. Throughout the Arab world, including in the “friendly regimes”, there is boiling anger at the U.S., at the heart of which is not only the occupation of Iraq, but the brutal oppression of the Palestinians, and the U.S. backing of Israel’s policies. The new axis of the four enemies of the Bush administration (Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran) are bodies viewed by the Arab world as resisting U.S. or Israel’s rule, and standing for Arab liberation. From Bush’s perspective, he only has two years to consolidate his vision of complete U.S. control of the Middle East, and to do that, all seeds of resistance should be crushed in a devastating blow that will make it clear to every single Arab that obeying the master is the only way to stay alive. If Israel is willing to do the job, and crush not only the Palestinians, but also Lebanon and Hezbollah, then the U.S., torn from the inside by growing resentment over Bush’s wars, and perhaps unable to send new soldiers to be killed for this cause right now, will give Israel all the backing it can. As Rice announced in her visit in Jerusalem on July 25, what is at stakes is “a new Middle East”. “We will prevail” – she promised Olmert.

But Israel is not sacrificing its soldiers and citizens only to please the Bush administration. The “new Middle East” has been a dream of the Israeli ruling military circles since at least 1982, when Sharon led the country to the first Lebanon war with precisely this declared goal. Hezbollah’s leaders have argued for years that its real long-term role is to protect Lebanon, whose army is too weak to do this. They have said that Israel has never given up its aspirations for Lebanon and that the only reason it pulled out of Southern Lebanon in 2000 is because Hezbollah’s resistance has made maintaining the occupation too costly. Lebanon’s people know what every Israeli old enough to remember knows – that in the vision of Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding leader, Israel’s border should be “natural”, that is – the Jordan river in the East, and the Litani river of Lebanon in the north. In 1967, Israel gained control over the Jordan river, in the occupied Palestinian land, but all its attempts to establish the Litani border have failed so far.
As I argued in Israel/Palestine, already when the Israeli army left Southern Lebanon in 2000, the plans to return were ready.[12] But in Israel’s military vision, in the next round, the land should be first “cleaned” of its residents, as Israel did when it occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967, and as it is doing now in southern Lebanon. To enable Israel’s eventual realization of Ben Gurion’s vision, it is necessary to establish a “friendly regime” in Lebanon, one that will collaborate in crushing any resistance. To do this, it is necessary first to destroy the country, as in the U.S. model of Iraq. These were precisely Sharon’s declared aims in the first Lebanon war. Israel and the U.S. believe that now conditions have ripened enough that these aims can finally be realized.
==========
[1] Yoav Stern, ‘Nasrallah: Only deal will free kidnapped soliders,’ Ha’aretz July 13, 2006.
[2] Amos Harel, Aluf Benn and Gideon Alon, ‘Gov’t okays massive strikes on Lebanon,’ Ha’aretz, July 13, 2006.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Amos Har’el, ‘Israel prepares for widespread military escalation’, Ha’aretz internet edition, Last update – 21:50 12/07/2006.
[5] Amos Harel, Jack Khoury and Nir Hasson, Over 100 Katyushas hit north, Ha’aretz July 14, 2006.
[6]’Lebanese PM to lobby Pres. Bush on Israeli withdrawal from Shaba’, by Reuters, Ha’aretz, April 16, 2006 :
“Lebanon’s prime minister [is] asking U.S. President George Bush to put pressure on Israel to pull out of a border strip and thus enable his government to extend its authority over all Lebanese land… ‘Israel has to withdraw from the Shaba Farms and has to stop violating our airspace and water,’ Siniora said. This was essential if the Lebanese government was ‘to become the sole monopoly of holding weapons in the country’.., he added. ‘Very important as well is to seek the support of President Bush so that Lebanon will not become in any way a ball in the courtyard of others or… a courtyard for the confrontations of others in the region,’ Siniora said. Lebanon’s rival leaders are engaged in a ‘national dialogue’ aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis, the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. One key issue is the disarming of Hezbollah… The Shi’ite Muslim group says its weapons are still required to liberate Shaba Farms and to defend Lebanon against any Israeli threats.”
[7] Amos Harel, Aluf Benn and Gideon Alon, ‘Gov’t okays massive strikes on Lebanon’, Ha’aretz, July 13, 2006.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Robin Wright, ‘Strikes Are Called Part of Broad Strategy’, Washington Post, Sunday, July 16, 2006; A15.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Tanya Reinhart Israel-Palestine – how to end the war of 1948, Seven Stories press 2002, 2005, p. 83-87. See ‘How Israel left Lebanon’ http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart (Media articles section, as of Thursday).

I looked out of my living room window earlier and saw the following… a group of young children kicking around a soccer ball. To most, this would not look unusual… to me it was a ray brighter than the sun itself…
Why???
I live in a community in northern Jerusalem. We are surrounded on three sides by Palestinian villages. There has always been good relations between the Jewish and many Palestinian residents of this community.
But…
For the past few weeks we find the Israeli government engaged in two wars (to date undeclared), both in the South and in the North of our country. There has been quite a bit of anti-Arab sentiments heard both in the media and on the street.
But…
As I looked out of my window this was all forgotten… I saw 6 Palestinian children, 5 Jewish children, 2 Korean children and 2 Ethiopian children playing together… calling each other by their names… not names of hatred. Every religion in Israel, every colour of the rainbow in Israel… all playing together.
I always believed that one has to learn how to hate. To love and get along seems natural, totally unlearned. It is what is meant to be…
That’s what My window to the future showed me today.

I mentioned a few days ago that the main goal of any war is to make profit. War is nothing but a business… a big one.

In case anyone has any doubts about that, just read this… just posted on AlJazeera.

US to sell Arab states arms worth $5bn

The US plans to sell arms worth $4.6 billion to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.

The announcement came two weeks after the US said it would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to $210 million to help Israeli warplanes “keep peace and security in the region”.

In the newly proposed sale, battle tanks worth $2.9 billion will be sold to Saudi Arabia to protect their critical infrastructure.

AH-64 Apache helicopters worth $400 million would also go to Saudi Arabia.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would get UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, the UAE $808 million worth and Bahrain $252 million worth.

Jordan would get a potential $156 million in upgrades to 1,000 of its M113 A1 armoured personnel carriers.

Javelin anti-tank missiles worth $48million would go to Oman under the deals put forward by the Pentagon’s defence security co-operation agency which administers US government-to-government arms sales.

Notices of proposed US arms sales are required by US law once they pass certain value thresholds.

They do not mean that a sale has been concluded.

Congress may block a sale if both houses pass resolutions of disapproval within 30 days of formal notification.

What is hate? What causes one to commit crimes totally unrelated to whatever it is that he does hate? Could it be that there is no logic to hate itself?
I never swallowed the poison that being anti Israel is the same thing as being anti Semitic, but, it seems, there are some that are both. Last night a Jewish woman was shot to death in a Jewish Community Centre in Seattle, Washington. A city far removed from Jerusalem or Beirut… but she was apparently killed by someone who was outraged that this very Community Centre was the scene of a large rally last weekend to demonstrate support for Israel in its fight against Hezbollah.

Right after the events of September 11th, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, Sikh Americans, and Asian-Pacific Americans, all became targets of backlash violence. Again, totally unrelated to the events of September 11th.

To me hatred has always been the largest manifestation of the lack of reason. It would be unrealistic to ask everyone to love everyone else, this will not happen in my lifetime. But, I can ask everyone to be tolerant of others, to look at those we do not love and try to find common grounds that could lead to communication, eventually to friendship.
Hatred is such a final statement that can only lead to death and destruction. It must be fought against wherever it shows its face.

Bush and Olmerts war just might be having an unplanned ‘turn around’…
Instead of the Lebanese supporting Israel’s ‘efforts’ to eliminate Hizbullah, support is growing for them instead. This was not expected by the powers behind Israel’s actions.
As a result of Israel’s new attitude, proclaiming everyone in South Lebanon an enemy.. opinions are changing.
The unexpected support for Hizbullah seems like a natural developement as Israel makes it perfectly clear who the real enemy is; themselves.
On the other hand, this is making some of Bush’s supporters reassess their positions on the crisis.
The only solution is to do everything possible to END THIS MADNESS NOW!
The zionists seem to think this whole situation is a laughing matter… as seen here in the Jerusalem Post…

In a shameful display of arrogance and outright hatred, The ‘Justice Minister’ Of Israel claims to have received implicit “authorisation” from international powers to continue its attacks in Lebanon. This from a minister of ‘JUSTICE’…

What about the justice of the Lebanese civilians? What about the justice of the children of Gaza…. do they not count?

Apparently not… the new zionist outlook on life seems to be if you are not with us… then you must die! That is truly justice.

It might be wise for the Minister of ‘Justice’ and fellow ministers to read THIS if they intend to use this example for the creation of the ‘New Israel’.

GOD HELP US ALL!

The following is taken from AlJazeera…

Israel has said it has received implicit “authorisation” from international powers to continue its attacks in Lebanon.

The Israeli justice minister, Haim Ramon, said Israel had “in effect obtained the authorisation to continue our operations” by Wednesday’s 15-nation Rome conference on the crisis in Lebanon.

Ramon said on Thursday the conference had implicitly said Israel could continue its attacks “until Hezbollah is no longer present in southern Lebanon”.

“The whole world knows that a Hezbollah victory will mean a victory for international terrorism, which will be a catastrophe for the world and for Israel.”

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, described Ramon’s interpretation as a “gross misunderstanding” of the outcome of the conference.

“I would say just the opposite – yesterday in Rome it was clear that everyone present wanted to see an end to the fighting as swiftly as possible.”

The conference failed to reach agreement on calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, instead agreeing to work to towards a ceasefire.

Ramon made his remarks before an Israeli security cabinet meeting on the crisis.

THIS was just posted…is Ms. Condi hallucinating??? What cease fire is she talking about???

THIS was just posted as well…. looks like Haim Ramon is also hallucinating…

The conflict taking place in Israel/Gaza/Lebanon might as well have a label put on it…. MADE IN U.S.A. Once a proud motto to protect American jobs… today a curse worse than death itself.
The western media, the American one in particular has been lying since day one of the crisis to legitimise the actions of the israelis. I have been doing alot of copying and pasting since the crisis started here, but it would be wrong not to help spread essays like the following one. Jonathan Cook of CounterPunch has been doing an excellent job with his reporting. Here is his latest piece… definitely worth reading.

Five Myths That Sanction Israel’s War Crimes
Primetime Lies from the American Media
By JONATHAN COOK

NAZARETH – This week I had the pleasure to appear on American radio, on the Laura Ingraham show, pitted against David Horowitz, a “Semite supremacist” who most recently made his name under the banner of Campus Watch, leading McCarthyite witch-hunts against American professors who have the impertinence to suggest that maybe, just maybe, Arabs have minds and feelings like the rest of us.

It was a revealing experience, at least for a British journalist rarely exposed to the depths of ignorance and prejudice in the United States on Middle East matters — well, apart from the regular whackos who fill my email in-tray. But five minutes of listening to Horowitz speak, and the sympathy with which his arguments were greeted by Laura (“The Professors — your book’s a great read, David”), left me a lot more frightened about the world’s future.

Horowitz’s response to every question, every development in the Middle East, whether it concerns Lebanon, the Palestinians, Syria or Iran, is the same: “They want to drive the Jews into the sea”. It’s as simple as that. Not even a superficial attempt at analysis; just the message that the Arab world is trying to finish off the genocide started by Europe. And if Laura is any yardstick, a lot of Americans buy that stuff.

Horowitz is keen to bang the square peg of the Lebanon story into the round hole of his claims that the “Jews” are facing an imminent genocide in the Middle East. And to help him, he and the massed ranks of US apologists for Israel — regulars, I suspect, of shows like Laura’s — are promoting at least four myths regarding Hizbullah’s current rockets strikes on Israel. Unless they are challenged at every turn, the danger is that they will win the ground war against common sense in the USThe first myth is that Israel was forced to pound Lebanon with its military hardware because Hizbullah began “raining down” rockets on the Galilee. Anyone with a short memory can probably recall that was not the first justification we were offered: that had to do with the two soldiers captured by Hizbullah on a border post on July 12.

But presumably Horowitz and his friends realized that 400 Lebanese dead and counting in little more than a week was hard to sell as a “proportionate” response. In any case Hizbullah kept telling the world how keen it was to return the soldiers in a prisoner swap.Hundreds of dead in Lebanon, at least 1,000 severely injured and more than half a million refugees — all because Israel is not ready to sit down at the negotiating table. Even Horowitz could not “advocate for Israel” on that one.

So the chronology of war has been reorganized: now we are being told that Israel was forced to attack Lebanon to defend itself from the barrage of Hizbullah rockets falling on Israeli civilians. The international community is buying the argument hook, line and sinker. “Israel has the right to defend itself”, says every politician who can find a microphone to talk into.But, if we cast our minds back, that is not how the “Middle East crisis”, as TV channels now describe it, started. It is worth recapping on those early events (and I won’t document the long history of Lebanese suffering at Israel’s hands that preceded it) before they become entirely shrouded in the mythology being peddled by Horowitz and others.

Early on July 12 Hizbullah launched a raid against an army border post, in what was in the best interpretation a foolhardy violation of Israeli sovereignty. In the fighting the Shiite militia killed three soldiers and captured two others, while Hizbullah fired a few mortars at border areas in what the Israeli army described at the time as “diversionary tactics”. As a result of the shelling, five Israelis were “lightly injured”, with most needing treatment for shock, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

Israel’s immediate response was to send a tank into Lebanon in pursuit of the Hizbullah fighters (its own foolhardy violation of Lebanese sovereignty). The tank ran over a landmine, which exploded killing four soldiers inside. Another soldier died in further clashes inside Lebanon as his unit tried to retrieve the bodies.Rather than open diplomatic channels to calm the violence down and start the process of getting its soldiers back, Israel launched bombing raids deep into Lebanese territory the same day. Given Israel’s world view that it alone has a right to project power and fear, that might have been expected.

But the next day Israel continued its rampage across the south and into Beirut, where the airport, roads, bridges, and power stations were pummelled. We now know from reports in the US media that the Israeli army had been planning such a strike against Lebanon for at least a year.

In contrast to the image of Hizbullah frothing at the mouth to destroy Israel, its leader Hassan Nasrallah held off from serious retaliation. For the first day and a half, he limited his strikes to the northern borders areas, which have faced Hizbullah attacks in the past and are well protected.

He waited till late on June 13 before turning his guns on Haifa, even though we now know he could have targeted Israel’s third largest city from the outset. A small volley of rockets directed at Haifa caused no injuries and looked more like a warning than an escalation.

It was another three days — days of constant Israeli bombardmeent of Lebanon, destroying the country and injuring countless civilians — before Nasrallah hit Haifa again, including a shell that killed eight workers in a railway depot.

No one should have been surprised. Nasrallah was doing exactly what he had threatened to do if Israel refused to negotiate and chose the path of war instead. Although the international media quoted his ominous televised message that “Haifa is just the beginning”, Nasrallah in fact made his threat conditional on Israel’s continuing strikes against Lebanon. In the same speech he warned: “As long as the enemy pursues its aggression without limits and red lines, we will pursue the confrontation without limits and red lines.” Well, Israel did, and so now has Nasrallah.The second myth is that Hizbullah’s stockpile of 12,000 rockets — the Israeli army’s estimate — poses an existential threat to Israel. According to Horowitz and others, Hizbullah collected its armoury with the sole intent of destroying the Jewish state.

If this really was Hizbullah’s intention in amassing the weapons, it has a very deluded view of what is required to wipe Israel off the map. More likely, it collected the armory in the hope that it might prove a deterrence — even if a very inadequate one, as Lebanon is now discovering — against a repeat of Israel’s invasions of 1978 and 1982, and the occupation that lasted nearly two decades afterwards.

In fact, according to other figures supplied by the Israeli army, at least 2,000 Hizbullah rockets have already been fired into Israel while the army’s bombardments have so far destroyed a further 2,000 rockets. In other words, northern Israel has already received a fifth of Hizbullah’s arsenal. As someone living in the north, and within range of the rockets, I have to say Israel does not look close to being expunged. The Galilee may be emptier, as up to third of Israeli Jews seek temporary refuge in the south, but Israel’s existence is in no doubt at all.

The third myth is that, while Israel is trying to fight a clean war by targeting only terrorists, Hizbullah prefers to bring death and destruction on innocents by firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

It is amazing that this myth even needs exploding, but after the efforts of Horowitz and co it most certainly does. As the civilian death toll in Lebanon has rocketed, international criticism of Israel has remained at the mealy-mouthed level of diplomatic requests for “restraint” and “proportionate responses”.One need only cast a quick eye over the casualty figures from this conflict to see that if Israel is targeting only Hizbullah fighters it has been making disastrous miscalculations. So far some 400 Lebanese civilians are reported dead — unfortunately for Horowitz’s story at least a third of them children. From the images coming out of Lebanon’s hospitals, many more children have survived but with terrible burns or disabling injuries.

The best estimates, though no one knows for sure, are that Hizbullah deaths are not yet close to the three-figures range.

In the latest emerging news from Lebanon, human rights groups are accusing Israel of violating international law and using cluster grenades, which kill indiscriminately. There are reports too, so far unconfirmed, that Israel has been firing illegal phosphorus incendiary bombs.

Conversely, the breakdown of the smaller number of deaths of Israelis at the hands of Hizbullah — 42 at the time of writing — show that more soldiers have been killed than civilians.

In fact, although no one is making the point, Hizbullah’s rockets have been targeted overwhelming at strategic locations: the northern economic hub of Haifa, its satellite towns and the array of military sites across the Galilee.

Nasrallah seems fully aware that Israel has an impressive civil defense program of shelters that keep most civilians out of harm’s way. Unlike Horowitz I won’t presume to read Nasrallah’s mind: whether he wants to kill large numbers of Israeli civilians or not cannot be known, given his inability to do so.

But we can see from the choice of the sites he is striking that his primary goal is to give Israelis a small taste of the disruption of normal life that is being endured by the Lebanese. He has effectively closed Haifa for more than a week, shutting its port and financial centres. Israeli TV is speaking increasingly of the damage being inflicted on the country’s economy.Because of Israel’s press censorship laws, it is impossible to discuss the locations of Israel’s military installations. But Hizbullah’s rockets are accurate enough to show that many are intended for the army’s sites in the Galilee, even if they are rarely precise enough to hit them.

It is obvious to everyone in Nazareth, for example, that the rockets landing close by, and once on, the city over the past week are searching out, and some have fallen extremely close to, the weapons factory sited near us.

Hizbullah seems to have as little concern for the collateral damage of civilian deaths as Israel — each wants the balance of terror in its favour — but it is nonsense to suggest that Hizbullah’s goals are any more ignoble than Israel’s. It is trying to dent the economy of northern Israel in retaliation for Israel’s total destruction of the Lebanese economy. Equally, it is trying to show Israel that it knows where its military installations are to be found. Both strategies appear to be having an impact, even if a minor one, on weakening Israeli resolve.

The fourth myth is a continuation of the third: Hizbullah has been endangering the lives of ordinary Lebanese by hiding among non-combatants.

We have seen this kind of dissembling by Israel and Horowitz before, though not repeated so enthusiastically by Western officials. The UN head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, who is in the region, accused Hizbullah of “cowardly blending” among the civilian population, and a similar accusation was leveled by the British foreign minister Kim Howells when he arrived in Israel.

In 2002 Israel made the same charge: that Palestinians resisting its army’s rampage through the refugee camps of the West Bank were hiding among civilians. The claim grew louder as more Palestinian civilians showed the irritating habit of getting in the way of Israeli strikes against population centres. The complaints reached a crescendo when at least two dozen civilians were killed in Jenin as Israel razed the camp with Apache helicopters and Caterpillar bulldozers.

The implication of Egeland’s cowardly statement seems to be that any Lebanese fighter, or Palestinian one, resisting Israel and its powerful military should stand in an open field, his rifle raised to the sky, waiting to see who fares worse in a shoot-out with an Apache helicopter or F-16 fighter jet. Hizbullah’s reluctance to conduct the war in this manner, we are supposed to infer, is proof that they are terrorists.

Egeland and Howells need reminding that Hizbullah’s fighters are not aliens recently arrived from training camps in Iran, whatever Horowitz claims. They belong to and are strongly supported by the Shiite community, nearly half the country’s population, and many other Lebanese. They have families, friends and neighbors living alongside them in the country’s south and the neighbourhoods of Beirut who believe Hizbullah is the best hope of defending their country from Israel’s regular onslaughts.

Given the indigenous nature of Hizbullah’s resistance, we should not be surprised at the lengths the Shiite militia is going to ensure their loved ones, and the Lebanese people more generally, are not put directly in danger by their combat.

If only the same could be said of the Israeli army and airforce. One need only look at the images of the victims of its strikes against residential neighborhoods, car, ambulances and factories to see why most of the dead being extracted from the rubble are civilians.And finally, there is a fifth myth I almost forgot to mention. That people like David Horowitz only want to tell us the truth.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democatic State” is published by Pluto Press. His website is http://www.jkcook.net

Israel is facing yet another crisis. It has been at war with Lebanon since the 12th of July, but has not officially declared war. As things stand at the moment, Israelis whose properties are damaged, or those that are forced to flee to ‘safer areas’ are not compensated in any way by the government.

The leader of the left wing zionist party Meretz, Yossi Beilin, yesterday petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to order the government to formerly declare war. Olmert must respond to the petition by Thursday of this week.

The call to declare war was endorsed earlier by the Mayor of Haifa and other northern Israeli leaders.

I have always maintained that war is a business, a big business… if this is not proof of that then what is? Here’s a way to have a war and save money at the same time.

My solution would not be to declare war, but to DECLARE PEACE!!! AND END THE HOSTILITIES NOW!!! That would be even a better money saving proposition… not to mention life saving as well.

The following is an excerp from a just posted aricle in HaAretz…

Supreme Court Justice David Cheshin yesterday ordered Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to respond by tomorrow to a petition by MK Yossi Beilin (Meretz), which demands the government formally declare that Israel is at war in Lebanon, as required by the Basic Law on Government. Under this law, should Israel find itself at war, the prime minister must inform the Knesset plenum and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as soon as possible. The petition, filed yesterday, argues that Israel has effectively been at war since July 12.

“The very act of declaring war has many implications, both practical and constitutional,” the petition said. “For instance, certain articles of the Property Tax and Compensation Fund Law go into effect. A declaration of war also enables [people] to file claims for war damages.”

It looks like Ms. Condi did some spell casting in Rome… 15 delegates meeting to discuss a truce or cease fire decide against same. This, despite Kofi Annan’s personal plea for a cease fire after 4 UN ‘peacekeepers’ were killed by an Israeli bomb earlier today.
So, the killing will continue… with the sanctions of most of the western world. That does not leave much hope for the people of Lebanon or Gaza…not much at all.

The following are excerps from an AlJazeera report just posted…

A 15-nation summit in Rome has failed to reach agreement on calling for an immediate ceasefire in southern Lebanon.

Before the talks, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, had urged the Rome conference to back an “immediate cessation of hostilities” between Israel and Hezbollah forces.
But a joint declaration read after the conference fell short of Annan’s request, instead pledging to work with “urgency” for a truce.

Annan’s view, shared by many Arab governments, was rejected by the US and Britain, who say conditions are not yet right for a lasting ceasefire.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, who had been under pressure to lean on Israel to end its offensive, said there could be “no return to the status quo ante.”

“We are all agreed that we want most urgently to end the violence on a basis that this time will be sustainable. Because unfortunately this is a region that has had too many broken ceasefires.”

During the meeting, the Lebanese prime minister said Israel should be forced to pay compensation for damage caused by military strikes on the country’s infrastructure.

Fuad Saniora also called on Wednesday for a prisoner exchange supervised by the Red Cross as part of a plan to resolve the crisis.

“Israel cannot go on indefinitely disregarding international law. It must be made to pay and we shall commence legal proceedings and spare no avenue to make Israel compensate the Lebanese people,” he said.

The Lebanese government said that 2.07 billion dollars worth of damage had been caused by Israeli attacks during the crisis.

Israel’s war against Hezbollah has killed at least 418 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians. At least 42 Israelis have also died.

First they came for the children, but I remained silent because I am not a child…

Then they came for the women, but I remained silent because I am not a woman…

Then they came for UN ‘Peacekeeping’ forces, but I still remained silent because I was not one of them…

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) — A diplomatic firestorm raged Wednesday after four U.N. observers died in southern Lebanon in what the U.N. chief said was an “apparently deliberate” Israeli airstrike.

Israel angrily denied the accusaations.

That is exactly what seems to be happening….EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE SILENT….

DEMAND THAT THIS MADNESS END NOW…. BEFORE THERE IS NO ONE LEFT TO DO THE DEMANDING!

Every child is sacred. Every child is a gift to be cherished, to be loved. A child is not born to die, a child is born to live, to mature, to reach adulthood, to have a child of its own. It is what is meant to be.
Instead, we see the child destroyed. We see the child dead. This is not natural. It is not natural for a parent to bury their child… a child should bury the parent when the time comes. That is more natural.

Another rocket, another dead child. The rocket does not distinguish between Arab or Israeli, the rocket kills.We are being brought together in mourning, Israelis and Palestinians both. We attack, they retaliate. They attack, we retaliate. What do we get from that madness? More dead children, that’s what.

We have proven that we can die together, mourn together… let us now start to live together, build together. I know we can. I know we must, for the sake of the children.

She’s here! Uninvited, unwanted, unwelcome! She’s here to let us know how much the United States wants peace. She’s here to deliver a fresh shipment of bombs to help kill off the children of Gaza and Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of the Palestinians is asking just one thing of her… ‘ to take a moral stance towards the Palestinian people…’. But she won’t be meeting with him… seems she only meets with those that agree with her. Negotiations in the true sense of the word… IGNORE THE OTHER SIDE! A new type of diplomacy.

So, thanks George (gracias) for the support… the world, this region especially, will be a much safer place without children.

The following is a summery of comments from an Associated Press report earlier this morning….

The Palestinian prime minister has said he wants the US secretary of state to force Israel to end its offensive in the Gaza Strip, but Condoleezza Rice will not meet him.

“All that we ask the American administration is to take a moral stance towards the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian suffering and to bear its responsibility as a superpower in this world,” Ismail Haniya told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

He called on America “to restrain the Israeli aggression and stop it”.

“In Gaza, there is what resembles a real human catastrophe,” Haniyeh said.

Rice arrived in Israel on Monday evening to discuss ways to end the fighting on Israel’s second front, where it is battling Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters.

She is meeting Israeli leaders and is to see Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on Tuesday, but she will not hold talks with Haniya, whose Hamas party is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US state department.

Palestinians, including Hamas, are planning a general strike and “a day of rage” to protest against the Rice visit, said Omar Assaf, who is helping co-ordinate the strike.

“Rice is responsible for the killing of children in Lebanon and Gaza. She, her administration, and her policies are not welcome here,” Assaf said.

Rice will not meet Haniya on her current visit to Palestine

Israel has lost its soul. It has been sold to the devil at long last for a shipment of bombs. Bombs to kill civilians, including children. Bombs to destroy the infrastructure of the Palestinian people making it near to impossible for them to achieve statehood in the forseeable future.

Whatever moral values the State of Israel had were lost, most likely never to be retrieved. The attrocities committed by them in the name of ‘self defense’ are unforgiveable, nothing less than the most heinous of war crimes since the holocaust itself.

All that with the complicit blessings and support of the United States. It has become obvious over the past few days who is orchestrating the terror in our region.

Following are some press clips about Ms. Condi’s visit here… and some new developements from Gaza as well…

BEIRUT, July 24 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Lebanese officials here today to try to prop up the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and to reassure Arab allies who have become increasingly impatient with the Israeli bombardment, which has killed close to 400 people, mostly Lebanese civilians…. from the New York Times.

Increasingly impatient??? With no cease fire proposal coming forth and a shipment of more bombs delivered to Israel…. IMPATIENT???? Has the English language completely lost words of description?

Also from the Times…While there was some bombing of Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik earlier today, the besieged capital was mostly quiet during Ms. Rice’s visit. She held talks with Mr. Siniora at the government’s Grand Serail building in Beirut’s downtown district for an hour but neither Ms. Rice nor Mr. Siniora made any comments.

Held talks silently??? Who is kidding who? Is this what we refer to as having talks?? ‘Neither Ms. Rice nor Mr. Siniora made any comments.’

Rice was quoted in Jerusalem as saying…

“We are concerned about the humanitarian situation,” she said. “And nobody wants to see when innocent civilians are harmed.”

That’s why more bombs are being delivered? That’s why there is no call for a cease fire? She actually sounds more intelligent when she doesn’t make a comment like she did in Beirut.

Here is what the bombs will be doing….despite the ‘fact’ that “We are concerned about the humanitarian situation,” she said. “And nobody wants to see when innocent civilians are harmed.”
I guess KILLED is not the same as harmed in her eyes. This was taken from an AlJazeera report earlier.

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.
A five-year-old Palestinian girl was the youngest casualty on Monday when an Israeli artillery shell landed in the north of the Gaza Strip.The girl died when the shell landed on her house near the town of Beit Lahiya, three other people were wounded.In another attack a 60-year-old woman and her grandson were left dead after a shell hit their donkey cart.
Ismael Haniyeh, the Palestinan prime minister, urged the US “to restrain the Israeli aggression and stop it”.”All that we ask the American administration is to take a moral stance toward the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian suffering and to bear its responsibility as a superpower in this world,” he told the Associated Press news agency.
His comments came as Israel continued its attacks in Gaza.
Yes Gaza…. the forgotten war zone…

Haniyeh wants Washington to put pressure on Israel