Israeli Bombing of Lebanon

catstevens · Sep 1, 2006

Bombing of Liban Lait leaves a sour smell
Israeli firm lost lucrative UNIFIl supply contract to bekaa dairy in 2001
Greed!!!

By Lysandra Ohrstrom
Daily Star staff source
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
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BEIRUT: A lucrative contract to supply dairy products to United Nations peacekeepers in South Lebanon may have motivated the destruction of Lebanon's largest dairy farm, Liban Lait said Tuesday. The Bekaa-based factory had been providing the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) with milk and yogurt since it out-bid an Israeli firm in 2001, but has been inoperational since six precision-guided bombs targeted the dairy's processing plant on July 19. "The Israelis knew the outcome of conflict and they knew that they would be asking for 15,000 troops to be stationed at the border," Liban Lait's marketing manager, Mark Waked, told The Daily Star. Waked estimated the contract to be worth between $2 million and $3 million with a beefed-up UNIFIL contingent in Lebanon. "It's a worthwhile contract supplying 15,000 troops, and knowing that I'm sure they hit the plant so northern Israel could provide the milk," he said, adding that the Israelis hit a dairy factory in the Gaza Strip as well. UNIFIL's procurement department said they had not issued any invitations to bid for their dairy contract yet, and refused to specify a future date for the tender. They also declined to divulge which Israeli firm supplied UNIFIL with dairy products in the past. Nestle would not confirm rumors that its Israel branch held the contract in the past. The Middle East headquarters of Nestle did not return numerous calls from The Daily Star, and in response to an email inquiry, the company's European headquarters said that "we are not in the habit of discussing commercial relationships with any customers in the media." UNIFIL's media coordinator, Hassan Saklawi, said a cargo ship has delivered food to the Naqoura harbor every second day from a logistical base in Cyprus since the conflict began. He said UNIFIL no longer gets its milk on the local market, but could not specify the origin and brand of the new supplies. "You have to call the UN Tender Committee in New York to find out which brands come in, but we are not allowed to bring products from Israel," he said, "all I can tell you my friend is that nothing is written in Hebrew on our items OK." Liban Lait's cows and some of its utilities were spared from Israeli fire, but the entire processing plant has been burned to the ground. The company was forced to suspend 180 of the plant's estimated 250 workers Monday in what Waked called an "extended vacation." Waked hopes that Liban Lait - whose products account for 70 percent of the annual dairy consumed in Lebanon - will be able to resume regular processing within two months. For the time being they are selling fresh milk to other local dairies to be processed, and imports of long-life dairy products are filling the gap. Though no complete estimate of damages to Lebanon's industrial sector have been issued, factories suffered at least $200 million in losses.

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Allah knows best anyway
*Peace and love*

Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

catstevens · Sep 4, 2006

Villagers See Violations of a Cease-Fire That Israel Says Doesn’t Exist
And of course everything is calme & OK as nothing happened!!!!!

By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: September 1, 2006

AITA AL SHAAB, Lebanon, Aug. 29 — A group of local men were unloading bags of donated food from a truck here Tuesday morning when the tok-tok-tok of heavy machine-gun fire rang out. Men shouted; children screamed and ran. Then, as it became clear the firing was just the Israeli tanks again up on the hillside above town, they went back to their routines. The shooting — and occasional mortar fire — goes on regularly around this village, a Hezbollah stronghold near the border. To local people, it is sheer provocation, and a flagrant breach of the cease-fire that ended the fighting on Aug. 14. To the Israelis, it is legitimate self-defense. Aita al Shaab “still has many Hezbollah fighters in it,” said Miri Eisin, (and were they fighting?) an Israeli government spokeswoman. “They don’t wear uniforms and are wary about showing their weapons, and we use all means to differentiate between those with weapons and those without.” More broadly, the shooting underscores two fundamentally different views of the uneasy truce that has held in southern Lebanon for the past two weeks. Secretary General Kofi Annan cited numbers from the United Nations forces on Tuesday indicating that Israel had violated the cease-fire nearly 70 times, while Hezbollah had done so only 4 times. But the Israelis do not believe there is a cease-fire to violate. “We are at a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, not a cease-fire,” :sunglasse Ms. Eisin said. She added that Israel had the explicit right to self-defense (and so Hezbollah) under United Nations Resolution 1701, which does not use the term cease-fire. That difference is apparent every day across southern Lebanon. Israeli tanks crisscross the dry brown hills, shooting into the fields and smashing up houses and stone walls. Teams of Israeli soldiers have planted their nation’s flag atop bluffs here and sometimes detained Lebanese men, releasing them days later. No one seems to know where the mobile Israeli units are based, or how to avoid them. Amid all that, the blue-helmeted United Nations soldiers sit in their vehicles like helpless tourists:sunglasse, many unable to speak Arabic or English .Israel has made clear that its troops will not leave Lebanon until the Lebanese Army and a strengthened United Nations peacekeeping force are capable of taking over its positions. But to many in this village — where the war began on July 12 when Hezbollah fighters crossed the border to kidnap two Israeli soldiers — Israel’s recent actions look like intimidation. “Israel is trying to scare us and make us leave,” said Nuha Srour, a stern-faced schoolteacher in a black robe and head scarf, as machine-gun fire went on in the distance. “They were surprised we came back here after the bombing.” Perhaps no one has witnessed the confusion of south Lebanon more vividly than Muhammad al-Hussein, a 32-year-old farmer from the village of Qantara. Last week he and his brother were driving to a neighboring village to buy parts for a truck. They knew the Israelis had been operating a checkpoint in the area, but were told they had withdrawn and that the road — an essential link to other towns — was safe.Instead, they found themselves passing a group of Israeli soldiers, who stopped them, Mr. Hussein recalled. The soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded the two brothers, and drove them to Israel. For the next four days, shackled hand and foot, Mr. Hussein was interrogated about his family and village, he said. He was released Monday after United Nations and Lebanese Army officials lodged complaints with Israel. On Monday evening, sitting on a terrace rimmed with pomegranate trees with a group of relatives and friends back home, Mr. Hussein could smile about his ordeal. He said the Israelis had fed him, and had not struck or mistreated him. But he seemed profoundly nervous about encountering them again, and unsure how to avoid it. “Even if you gave me a truckload of gold and diamonds, I would not go back to that place,” he said of the road, just a mile or so from his village, where the Israelis had picked him up. At the same time, Mr. Hussein also appeared to be nervous about Hezbollah. Asked whether the Israelis had asked him about the militia, he said no, and then refused to say anything about the subject. Israel’s activities have mostly taken place at night with patrols staying clear of towns. But on occasion they have made themselves oddly conspicuous. On Sunday, an Israeli flag could be seen flying prominently from a bluff just outside the Lebanese village of Shabaa, where a group of Israeli soldiers were posted with a military bulldozer. Photographers snapped pictures throughout the day, and Israeli soldiers warned approaching reporters to stay clear. Lebanese Army officials complained about the flag to the United Nations, who contacted Israel about the matter. Israeli soldiers took the flag down, a spokesman for the United Nations force, Alexander Ivanko, said Monday. But an hour after Mr. Ivanko spoke, the flag was still flying in the same spot. Another Israeli flag was raised over the weekend on a hilltop near the village of Marwaheen. On Tuesday, it appeared to have been removed.
The flags and the continuing presence of Israeli soldiers here have further angered villagers already stunned by the extent of the Israeli bombing. Even some Christians, whose villages were largely spared the destruction visited on Shiite areas, say the war has fueled their support for Hezbollah. In Aita al Shaab, public support for Hezbollah is almost total. One street where a number of Hezbollah fighters lived — commonly known even before the war as Hezbollah Street — was almost totally destroyed. Several families have returned to the ruins anyway, defiantly insisting on staying in their charred, stinking homes. Others are living alongside the ruins in green tents donated by aid groups.

“They destroyed our school in the village, but we will teach the children under the trees,” said Ms. Srour, the schoolteacher. “And we will teach them to hate Israel and love the resistance.” Ms. Srour said Israeli tanks had fired so close to her house on Sunday that several of her relatives — who had returned from Beirut only a week earlier — left the village again, fearing the war was on again. As in many southern villages, the blackened and bomb-scarred ruins here are bedecked with yellow Hezbollah banners proclaiming — somewhat paradoxically — a “divine victory” for the resistance.

But not far away, Muhammad Srour, a cleric and cousin of the schoolteacher, offered a slightly different view as he poked through the shattered ruins of his house, gathering a few remaining clothes and books into plastic bags. “We’ve been beaten so badly that we still don’t want to admit we’ve been beaten,” he said. Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Jerusalem for this article, and Lynsey Addario from Aita al Shaab.

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*Peace and love*

Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

catstevens · Sep 4, 2006

New freedom fighetrs group in Lebanon

Israeli soldiers face unexpected enemy in Lebanon
(AFP) 3 September 2006
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JERUSALEM - Israeli forces still in Lebanon after a UN-brokered ceasefire have come up against an unexpected adversary -- scorpions and vipers that have sent 11 servicemen to hospital. ‘Ten troops have been bitten by scorpions since last Wednesday,’ an army spokesman told AFP Sunday. ‘They were briefly hospitalized and are not suffering from any complications.’Another soldier spent a few days in hospital after being bitten by a viper, he added.
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*Peace and love*

Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

catstevens · Sep 5, 2006

Monday 04 September 2006, source, 12:45 GMT
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Israel's public officials have been told to watch what they say in public about the Lebanese and Palestinian conflicts for fear of being prosecuted for war crimes, political sources say.

The sources say the foreign ministry has established a legal team to deal with efforts by foreign groups to arrange the prosecution abroad of Israelis involved in the war against Hezbollah guerrillas and crackdowns on Palestinians.A ministry memorandum issued to Israel's military and other government agencies urges officials to avoid belligerent remarks that could potentially be used to back up allegations they were complicit in excessive use of force in Lebanon or Gaza."The type of language now considered off-limits includes 'crushing' the enemy, and 'cleansing', 'levelling', or 'wiping out' suspected enemy emplacements," a political source who saw the memo told Reuters.The source quoted the memo as censuring one official who called for Israel to respond to Hezbollah rockets strikes against the strategic port city of Haifa during the 34-day war by "getting rid of a village in Lebanon". The foreign and justice ministries declined to comment. According to the memo, numerous war crimes lawsuits against Israeli officials were being prepared. It cited venues such as France, Belgium, Morocco and Britain, but no further details were immediately available. Three Moroccan lawyers said last month they were suing the Israeli defence minister, Amir Peretz, over the recent offensives. Israel Radio reported that a Danish politician also tried to have Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister detained and prosecuted during a recent visit to Copenhagen but the request for an arrest warrant was turned down by prosecutors.An Israeli cabinet minister said that while military officials had been singled out in foreign lawsuits, politicians were still largely immune."
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Actions speak louder than words anyway! And of course there are particular ppl to give orders!
*Peace and love*

Yours Sincerely,

Cat Stevens

catstevens · Sep 5, 2006

According to a Poll, Israelis believed Nasrallah over Peretz Subhanallah

Polls conducted by Dr. Udi Lebel, political psychology lecturer, found sad picture of Israeli PR
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Anat Breshkovsky 16:38 , 09.03.06 source

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A new study, buy Dr. Uri Lebel of the Ben Gurion Institute, Beer Sheva University, has found that another problem requires urgent treatment: Israeli PR. During the poll, entitled "the management of Israeli PR during the second Lebanon war," members of six groups were asked to watch video recordings of Israeli PR in Israel and abroad, and to answer questions. Lebel says he held polls in the past on issues of strategic press, political psychology, and army-media relations. The result of his latest poll show that Israeli PR was so lacking, that in my cases the public was forced to rely on the reports of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Lebel says a good media leader relies on three points – gripping the audience, being watchable, and giving the feeling of certainty. The participants of the poll were asked who gave the a sense of certainty regarding the continuance of the war, and who was most authentic. The results were unequivocal: The Israeli public chose Nasrallah's speeches as giving it both.

'Nasrallah contradicted the Israeli spokespeople'

Asked about Nasrallah's authenticity compared to that of Israeli spokespeople, not one Hebrew spokesperson received high authenticity marks. "We reached a really crazy situation," says Lebel. "A psychological situation which seems inconceivable: Instead of the Israeli public watching our national spokesman who tells it what is happening every day, who will minimize the chaos and who will be seen as believable, something unprecedented happened: The public perceived the enemy leader against whom we fought as having those characteristics, and waited impatiently for his speeches . Nasrallah contradicted the Israeli spokespeople more than once, many times contradicting the minister of defense – he was the first to announce the deaths of Israeli soldiers and the sad circumstances which led to them." He added: "This isn't the first time that a bereaved mother found out the truth of the death of her son in recordings released by Hizbullah, where a totally different picture is shown to what the IDF and its spokespeople have provided." Dr. Lebel believes that the figures indicate a serious crisis of leadership down the road. "It's not important if objectively the leadership did its best – now the public perceives it as cut off, unprofessional, and boastful. It won't follow the leadership to the next confrontation," he said.

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*Peace and love*

Yours Sincerely,

Cat Stevens

catstevens · Sep 6, 2006

Israel blockade on Lebanon prevents oil spill clean-up

by Salim Yassine Mon Sep 4, 12:49 PM ET source

BEIRUT (AFP) - The Israeli blockade on Lebanon is preventing the widescale intervention needed to clean a massive oil slick caused by the Jewish state's bombardment of a power station, Greenpeace has said. "You have to be able to overfly Lebanese waters to pinpoint surface slicks and fuel oil deposits deeper down, as well as intervention by skimmers (cleaning boats) -- and that is not possible while the blockade continues," Greenpeace Lebanon's spokesman Omar al-Naim told AFP Monday."The use of pumps is also necessary, which means being able to operate freely on the surface of the sea, which is impossible because of the blockade," Naim said."The more time that passes, the more the slicks are dispersed by the wind and the currents," he added.Naim said that unless the slicks are dealt with while they are still at sea, "the coastline will inevitably be soiled again, even if it has already been cleaned up".Syrian officials said on Sunday that a new oil slick had reached its shores after initial pollution at the end of July, caused by Israeli air strikes in the middle of the month against the Jiyeh power station 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of Beirut.Two attacks by Israeli warplanes hit fuel oil storage tanks at the coastal generating station, spilling up to 15,000 tonnes of fuel into the Mediterranean and fouling three quarters of Lebanon's 200-kilometre (124-mile) coast.The air assaults came after Israel launched its blistering 34-day offensive on July 12 against Lebanese Shiite fighters from Hezbollah, and subsequent fires at Jiyeh burned for nearly two weeks.The latest slick washed up on Syrian shores between the Lebanese frontier and Tartus, 260 km (161 miles) northwest of Damascus, Hassan Murjan, the head of environment services in Tartus, told AFP on Sunday."As long as the Lebanese coastline has not been cleaned there will be a risk for Syria," Murjan said. "We're waiting for the clean-up in Lebanon so we can get started again."According to Rick Steiner, an American expert sent to the region by the World Conservation Union at the request of the Lebanese non-governmental group Greenline, "the longer pollution lasts, the more dangerous it becomes".At a meeting last month in the Greek port of Pireaus, organised by the UN Environment Programme, a dozen countries promised logistical aid to battle the oil spill, considered the worst environmental catastrophe ever to befall Lebanon.Greenpeace Mediterranean said that cleaning the massive spill could take up to a year.
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Here is a photoe, this is very sad
Also I saw a footage about this disaster

AFP/File - Mon Sep 4, 12:49 PM ET source
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A Lebanese fisherman strugles to leave a small port in Beirut covered with a thick layer of oil spill, August 2006. The Israeli blockade on Lebanon is preventing the widescale intervention needed to clean a massive oil slick caused by the Jewish state's bombardment of a power station, Greenpeace has said.(AFP/File/Marwan Naamani)
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*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,

Cat Stevens

stoney-man ky · Sep 6, 2006

If you ask me, isreal should H-bomb the fuck out of all those fuckin towel-headed punk ass bitches..all you hear from them is how israel has no right to exist.. FUCK EM ALL.!! p.s no,i'm not a jew!..just a pissed-off amereican who is tired of all this shit!

catstevens · Sep 6, 2006

Hi stoney-man ky

stoney-man ky said:

all you hear from them is how israel has no right to exist..
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Israel and whateva ppl have the right to exist but the question is it is acceptable to do so by displacing the native ppl?
*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

stoney-man ky · Sep 7, 2006

yeah,right..like someone as famous as cat stevens has the time to sit around and type stuff on a computer..i think you are just some pathetic poser who
's stealing the good name of a well known and well admired musician..grow up and get a life for the love of man!! IF YOU REALLY ARE HE, then, i beg your forgivness..i am a fan of your music.

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