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Following his meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday, US Under Secretary for Political Affairs William Burns said US President Barack Obama strongly supports Lebanon.
The US official said his country’s efforts to reach a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians will not be at Lebanon’s expense, and added that Washington will not support Palestinian naturalization by force in the country.
“Lebanon can count on US assistance. The size of financial aid given [by Washington] to Lebanon has reached a billion dollars since 2006.
We hope and expect the Lebanese state to extend its authority over Lebanon’s [territories] fully,” Burns added.
20:04 Three Israelis share names with Dubai assassination suspects (Ch. 2)
20:53 Nasrallah threatens Israel over future conflict (Haaretz)
21:28 White House refuses to rule out military option on Iran (Reuters)
Iran's president announced Tuesday that his country is installing more advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment facility
British authorities are investigating how six British nationals apparently had their identities stolen by suspected Mossad agents on a mission to assassinate a Hamas leader in Dubai.
The West's ultimate goal is not Iran, but India and China, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by Irinn.[...]
Presently, the West experiences a rapid downturn in the economy and the leaders of the Western countries have decided to conceal reality from their peoples, he said at today's news conference.
Ahmadinejad said that NATO almost completely surrounded Russia and once Russia will understand this.
"Russia should respond to the deployment of NATO forces along its borders," he said.
Iran's "democrats" were deafeningly silent as Iran celebrated the 31st anniversary of its revolution last week. Those actually in Tehran for the occasion saw hardly any sign of them, unlike those "expert commentators" who weren't there but saw nothing but brutal suppression by a regime they say is morphing into a military dictatorship
05:52 Israel UN envoy: There won`t be Iran sanctions in the next month (Army Radio)
06:44 Dubai source says team of 17, not 11 assassins killed Al-Mabhouh (Army Radio)
09:12 Russia says technical issues delay Iran arms deal (Reuters)
16:39 S-300 missile designer: Delayed delivery to Iran political, not technical (AP)
11:34 Austria FM to Peres: Austria will act to advance sanctions against Iran (Haaretz)
13:43 U.S. official William Burns heads to Syria in sign of improving ties (Haaretz)
15:43 U.S. official Burns: Meeting with Syrian President Assad was open and productive (AP)
19:13 Interior Min. Yishai: Israel should accept only Jewish immigrants (Israel Radio)
20:07 Thousands march in Gaza to demand revenge on Israel for Dubai killing (Ch. 10)
20:15 UN: Cluster bomb ban to come into force on August 1 (DPA)
21:22 Iran says will not give up nuclear work at any price (Reuters)
22:25 Report: Clinton says U.S. not planning to attack Iran (Army Radio)
23:04 Meshal: Mabhouh assassination only strengthens Hamas (Ch. 10)
"We will not examine offers which lead to the shutting down of Tehran reactor," Mehmanparast added.
French Senate President Gerard Larcher on Wednesday reiterated support for a united and independent Lebanon and said Paris will back the Lebanese army to protect Lebanon.
During a press conference at the end of his visit to Beirut, Larcher said: "We want Lebanon independent and united. We don't interfere in Lebanese internal affairs but we back Lebanon."
08:39 Beilin: Lieberman, Ayalon causing grave damage to Israel`s foreign relations (Haaretz)
09:36 Report: Ex-Lebanon army officer says Hezbollah ill-suited to face Israel (Israel Radio)
15:49 Ahmadinejad to Nasrallah: If Israel attacks Hezbollah, it should be destroyed (AP)
21:03 U.S. State Dept.: IAEA report raises concerns over Iran`s nuclear program (Reuters)
The ability to bring essential commodities into Gaza, already under an Israeli blockade that is undermining health care, the economy and rehabilitation after last year’s devastating Israeli offensive, was further cut in January by more crossing closures, according to the latest United Nations update.
Authorities in the United Arab Emirates are probing five U.S.-issued credit-card accounts, which officials say were used by five of the 11 suspects in last month's killing of a Hamas leader in Dubai, according to a person familiar with the situation.
“The aftermath of a strike against Iran will be terrible not only for Asia but for us and the whole global community also,” said Chief of Russia’s General Staff General Nikolay Makarov at a news conference.
Originally posted by Vitchilo
More freedom and democracy loving goodies from Israel. Seriously, this is freaking Warsaw Ghetto 2.
Originally posted by mmiichael
Originally posted by Vitchilo
More freedom and democracy loving goodies from Israel. Seriously, this is freaking Warsaw Ghetto 2.
This is the usual line of Gaza - how much they're suffering. In fact statistically Palestinians enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the entire Middle East in terms of GDP per capita, health, population growth, life expectency, education, etc.
The Gaza Strip has been the setting of a protracted political and socio-economic crisis. Recent events have resulted in a severe deterioration of the already precarious living conditions of the people in Gaza and have further eroded a weakened health system.
The closure of Gaza since mid-2007 and the last Israeli military strike between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 have led to on-going deterioration in the social, economic and environmental determinants of health.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Association of International Development
Agencies (AIDA): “The closure of the Gaza Strip puts at risk the health of
people in Gaza and undermines the functioning of the health care system."
Now Hamas has developed a new profile as an Iranian client state. And again the constant suffering and hardship image is the marketing tool.
Sad for the ordinary Palestinians who have been pawns in a regional political game for so many decades. No country wants them as citizens - just image enhancers. Their main product line is dead bodies as photo ops for foreign media. Palestinian misery as a franchise.
Originally posted by Vitchilo
Totally right mmiichael...
Iran can't do squat, nor Hezbollah can defeat Israel, nor Syria which seems to be on the fence... Iran is posturing like that because they are afraid./quote]
That what bothers me you can only scare someone for so long until they come out swinging. If they have nothing to loose so what would they be loosing. Sooner or later one will make the wrong move and then its on
[edit on 18-2-2010 by hillbilly4rent]
Originally posted by December_Rain
If I remember correctly I exposed this lie in another thread where you posted a similar statement
Originally posted by December_Rain
If I remember correctly I exposed this lie in another thread where you posted a similar statement
townhall.com...
What gives Palestinian victims their special status—a standing that brings with it a wildly disproportionate share of the world's concern and attention?
The United Nations General Assembly, as well as the Security Council, blithely ignored the more numerous and sadistic civilian casualties in the Congo, and paid no heed to the climax of an unspeakably bloody 16 year war in Sri Lanka, while investing virtually all their time in obsessive debates over the defensive Israeli incursion into Gaza.
What makes residents of Gaza so uniquely worthy of compassion, concern and publicity from western journalists and even policy makers?
None of the most straightforward or convenient answers to these questions begin to account for the unbalanced focus on Palestinian woe.
No, the struggle between Israel and Hamas hardly counts as "the world's most dangerous conflict." The rag-tag jihadists of the Gaza strip, with their largely home-made rockets and twisted, suicidal impulses, may well be a menace to the peace of the region but hardly constitute an existential threat to civilization itself. In India, on the other hand, Islamic terror has claimed 4,000 deaths since 2004 (a far higher level of blood-letting than anywhere in the Palestinian territories or Israel proper) and the core conflict in south Asia involves two well-armed nuclear powers (Pakistan and India) who have fought several devastating wars in the recent past.
Strategic or financial considerations also fail to explain the ridiculously overwrought concentration on Israel and its enemies. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians control any oil resources, yet a titanic struggle between two of the world's three leading petro-powers (the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88) killed 1.3 million soldiers and civilians and drew distinctly limited attention from global media.
The history of displacement among Palestinians hardly makes them unique among the peoples of the world, though they've seized on the term "refugee" as the very essence of their identity. At most 750,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees after five Arab states simultaneously attacked Israel in 1948, but within the next ten years an even greater number of Jews (800,000) became refugees from persecution in Islamic nations in North Africa in the Middle East and resettled in the Jewish state. At precisely the same moment that Israel won world recognition in 1948, the partition of India and Pakistan led to 14.5 million refugees (and at least 500,000 deaths in the "Independence Riots"). The Lebanon Civil War of 1975-1990 produced 900,000 refugees (according to that tormented nation's own government) and an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 deaths in horrific clashes between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians.
Six years after first collection of Breaking the Silence testimonies, organization releases booklet of testimonies from female soldiers who served in territories. Stories include systematic humiliation of Palestinians, reckless and cruel violence, theft, killing of innocent people and cover-up. Here are only some of testimonies
www.peacewithrealism.org...
To enlighten those who may have harbored any doubts, Fathi Ahmad Hammad, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said it loud and said it proud: Palestinians deliberately use women and children as human shields.
This is the transcript of his remarks (but it is worth watching the clip just to hear the hatred in his voice):
"[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."
Hammad is a leader of the Izzedeen al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and in 2006 was elected to the Palestinian Parliament as a Hamas representative. He is also director of Al-Aqsa TV
[...]
Hammad discloses the Hamas strategy, which some have suspected but few have actually believed: use people, especially women and children, as human shields. If you won't believe me, will you believe a member of Hamas?
This strategy has been immensely successful. Fire at Israeli cities from schoolyards, and make Israel choose between allowing its own children to be targets or risking harm to others. Now we know beyond a doubt that Hamas knows what it is doing, and is doing it intentionally.
But people still will not believe. The prevailing attitude is typified in the words of Javier Solana, head of foreign policy for the European Union:
"I cannot imagine that the religious imperative, the real religious imperative, can make anybody destroy another country.... Therefore that is an abuse of religion.... I don't think the essence of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. The essence of Hamas is the liberation of the Palestinians, the liberation of their people, not the destruction of Israel."
This is the mistake Westerners, profoundly ignorant of history, make over and over again: to assume that all cultures everywhere hold the same values they do. This is a dangerous form of ethnocentrism.
Perhaps if Solana had been listening, he would have heard how Hamas repeatedly proclaims its intention to destroy Israel. He might have seen the following on the Hamas web site:
He might have read the following from the Hamas Charter:
Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it.
Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave.
The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!
Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims.
Solana's dangerous naïveté is a luxury the world cannot afford.
So what does all of this add up to?
The Palestinians have successfully sold the idea that they are resisting an occupation. Israel is the occupier, the Palestinians are resisting, so the problem can be solved by pressuring Israel politically, economically, and militarily. This is the big lie of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
For when we examine both Palestinian words and actions, we see that this is really something much different from what it seems. The rhetoric of hatred, the indoctrination of children, the Palestinians' willingness to use their own people as martyrs for the sake of blackening Israel's image, the constant threats to destroy Israel and to liberate "all" of Palestine, are all signs that this is no revolutionary movement in the Western mold. This is a jihad in the most traditional and most extreme sense of the word. This is a war for Israel's extermination.
The Palestinians say they want Israel to withdraw, but they punish Israel when it does. The most extreme factions have taken over Gaza and are threatening the same in the West Bank. And the influence of outside parties, particularly Iran, is growing.
The most disruptive force in this conflict is Iran, yet international attention is focused on Israel. The pressure on Iran to contain its nuclear program is totally ineffectual, but it is at least visible. There is no international pressure at all on Iran to withdraw its tentacles from the Palestinian territories, and to stop using Hamas and Hezbollah to torpedo any movement towards peace barely as soon as it begins. Meanwhile all the pressure in the world on Israel is not going to halt the forces trying to destroy it and push the world towards a global catastrophe whose reach will far exceed the Middle East.
"The time for promises and talk of revenge is done. Now is the time for action," he said.
Israel's nightmare is that if hostilities do break out once more, most likely if it launches pre-emptive strikes against Iran's nuclear infrastructure, the Jewish state's cities will come under an unprecedented bombardment from Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, Syria in the east, as well as Iran.
That would be the first time that Israel had to fight an all-out war, in which its long-held military superiority would be of little value because the conflict would be fought at long range, not with tanks and infantry.
Its air force and Jericho ballistic missiles would go into action and would undoubtedly do much damage. But Israeli civilian casualties would likely be extremely heavy.
Israel would have its nuclear option. But dropping nuclear bombs or unleashing nuclear-tipped Jerichos would leave Israel open to a maelstrom of global condemnation and international isolation.
08:53 Report: U.K. knew Mossad was using fake passports for Dubai hit (Haaretz)
02:08 U.S.: Iran facing significant technical problems in nuclear program (Reuters)
Originally posted by mmiichael
I think all that exposed was the ability to cherry pick articles and sources that reinforce a certain propaganda.
I also note the ability to come up with a dozen links within minutes all pushing the same anti-Israel agenda pretty much says it all.
The position of the Middle East regimes on the Palestinians as people is unambiguous. Jordan, the British designated Palestinian state expelled them for trying to bring down the monarchy, Kuwait, a second home, threw out 450,000 when they sided with Saddam Hussein. Lebanon will not allow them citizenship. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and every other Sunni regime will not even allow them in as guest workers. Even Iran will not accept them. Support comes almost exclusively in the form of weapons purchasing budget and incitement.
The perpetual withholding of funds for improved infrastructure is also documented. The Palestinians are the victims of manipulation by their own and neighbouring state leaders.
There have been endless efforts to reconcile differences between Israel and the Palestinians. Today 15-20% of the Israeli population is Arab. These 1.5 Million Muslims have learned the advantage of co-operation.
The Palestinians have chosen a different path. A destructive welfare state as opposed to a productive one trying to live in peace. Self-promotion of victimhood is the means.
An interesting perspective on who has suffered in the Middle East and how it is exploited for by some for self-gain:
What gives Palestinian victims their special status—a standing that brings with it a wildly disproportionate share of the world's concern and attention?
The United Nations General Assembly, as well as the Security Council, blithely ignored the more numerous and sadistic civilian casualties in the Congo, and paid no heed to the climax of an unspeakably bloody 16 year war in Sri Lanka, while investing virtually all their time in obsessive debates over the defensive Israeli incursion into Gaza.
What makes residents of Gaza so uniquely worthy of compassion, concern and publicity from western journalists and even policy makers?None of the most straightforward or convenient answers to these questions begin to account for the unbalanced focus on Palestinian woe.
No, the struggle between Israel and Hamas hardly counts as "the world's most dangerous conflict." The rag-tag jihadists of the Gaza strip, with their largely home-made rockets and twisted, suicidal impulses, may well be a menace to the peace of the region but hardly constitute an existential threat to civilization itself. In India, on the other hand, Islamic terror has claimed 4,000 deaths since 2004 (a far higher level of blood-letting than anywhere in the Palestinian territories or Israel proper) and the core conflict in south Asia involves two well-armed nuclear powers (Pakistan and India) who have fought several devastating wars in the recent past.
Strategic or financial considerations also fail to explain the ridiculously overwrought concentration on Israel and its enemies. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians control any oil resources, yet a titanic struggle between two of the world's three leading petro-powers (the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88) killed 1.3 million soldiers and civilians and drew distinctly limited attention from global media.
The history of displacement among Palestinians hardly makes them unique among the peoples of the world, though they've seized on the term "refugee" as the very essence of their identity. At most 750,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees after five Arab states simultaneously attacked
Israel in 1948, but within the next ten years an even greater number of Jews (800,000) became refugees from persecution in Islamic nations in North Africa in the Middle East and resettled in the Jewish state. At precisely the same moment that Israel won world recognition in 1948, the partition of India and Pakistan led to 14.5 million refugees (and at least 500,000 deaths in the "Independence Riots"). The Lebanon Civil War of 1975-1990 produced 900,000 refugees (according to that tormented nation's own government) and an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 deaths in horrific clashes between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians.