Israël, Libanon/Gaza, oorlog #58

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 12:55 schreef -scorpione- het volgende:

ik zie niet in waarom je de Joden de zee in wilt drijven als je slechts een ontmanteling van de staatsvorm teweeg wilt brengen.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 12:59 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

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En daar komen we bij het grote misverstand. Joden wonen al duizenden jaren in die omgeving, samen met de Arabieren (voor zover ze niet zelf Arabieren zijn/waren, semieten dus) en MOGEN daar ook wonen, daar is men niet op tegen. Het gaat hen slechts om de STAATSVORM, om het over nacht EXCLUSIEF toebedelen van stukken land waar ze al die tijd al SAMEN WOONDEN.

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Hezbollah supporters tell of bold Israeli raid gone wrong

by Patrick Rahir Sat Aug 19, 5:28 PM ET

BUDAY, Lebanon (AFP) - In the eastern Lebanese mountain village of Buday, residents say Hezbollah's strength combined with Israeli soldiers' unconvincing Arabic accents proved fatal for a daring commando raid.

And they have little doubt that the raid, which saw one soldier killed in clashes with Hezbollah fighters, targeted an Iranian-linked senior official from the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalist movement, Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek.

Israel said its raid, which drew harsh criticism from Lebanon's premier and threatened to throw off course a six-day-old truce, was aimed at preventing weapons shipments to Hezbollah from
Syria and
Iran.

But villagers in Buday, nearly all of them self-described supporters of Hezbollah which in recent days has doled out thousands of dollars in cash to those whose homes have been destroyed in southern Beirut, see a different motive.

"They came to capture Sheikh Yazbek," says one man who refuses to give his name but describes himself an an interior ministry employee in a town where Hezbollah's yellow and green flags fly proudly from every corner.

As soon as he divulges his opinion, others rush to join in.

Some say Yazbek, who is a senior member of Hezbollah's Shura consultative council and representative in Lebanon of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in charge of financial grants from Khamenei's office, was seen in the area as recently as Friday.

Yazbek, who is originally from Buday but does not reside in the village, was glimpsed attending the funerals of Hezbollah fighters who were killed during Israel's month long offensive in Lebanon, they say.

Yazbek's influence on the impoverished Bekaa Valley village is clear to see -- an imposing complex whose construction Yazbek sponsored, including a school, mosque and meeting rooms, stands in stark contrast to a dim conglomeration of cement apartment blocks.

The dawn battle between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah guerrillas took place just a few hundred meters (yards) away.

Late Friday, under cover of darkness and shielded by warplanes launching mock air raids, Israeli helicopters landed two Humvees near the eastern town of Baalbek some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Buday.

The vehicles were painted in Lebanese army colors and the Israeli soldiers were wearing Lebanese army uniforms, so the Israeli soldiers were able to move freely for several hours, residents say.

But on the outskirts of Buday, Hezbollah guerrillas were maintaining a strict patrol, and they stopped the Israeli vehicles.

After brief questioning, the Israeli soldiers responded in Arabic that they were on the same side.

Their unusual accents gave them away. The Hezbollah watchman sounded the alarm and the clash erupted.

Hezbollah fighters then rushed in from throughout the surrounding areas, says Suheil Qana, 37, who says he slept with his Kalashnikov in his hand to be ready to defend his family.

Qana awoke in the night to the sound of explosions caused when Apache helicopters fired missiles and machine gun rounds as F-16 fighters and Israeli drones overflew the area to provide cover for the commando launch.

By 6 am on Saturday, it was all over, the hen farmer says.

Residents point out bloodstains in the fields. Civil servant Hajj Mashuri Msheikh says the spots of blood are in the area where helicopters took off with the disguised vehicles and soldiers after the fighting ended.

Enormous craters are visible in the roads nearby, artillery shells are strewn across the fields and trails, and an irrigation canal is riddled with holes bored by bullets and explosions.

Eventually, two beefy men carrying pistols and walkie-talkies approach to check the identities of correspondents on the scene. Asked what happened here, one of them, a bearded man, responds.

"There were fewer than 30 Israelis. They fell during a clash," he says.

They take out a few items from a bag, war trophies. A bloodied bandage, a shell cartridge, a page written in Hebrew.

Asked for his name, the bearded man says only: "That's impossible," before climbing into a car and driving off.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 12:11 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

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De vernietiging van Israël moet je niet letterlijk nemen, dat weet je, het gaat hen slechts om de ontmanteling van de staatsvorm, meer niet, klinkt al heel wat minder erg, toch?

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:22 schreef nikk het volgende:
het gaat hen slechts om de ontmanteling"

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 12:59 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

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En daar komen we bij het grote misverstand. Joden wonen al duizenden jaren in die omgeving, samen met de Arabieren (voor zover ze niet zelf Arabieren zijn/waren, semieten dus) en MOGEN daar ook wonen, daar is men niet op tegen. Het gaat hen slechts om de STAATSVORM, om het over nacht EXCLUSIEF toebedelen van stukken land waar ze al die tijd al SAMEN WOONDEN.

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Hezbollah has come far from the days of suicide bombings and kidnappings
By Associated Press
Saturday, August 19, 2006 - Updated: 02:21 PM EST

BAALBEK, Lebanon - There are more posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini here than in towns in his native Iran, where he toppled 2,500 years of monarchy nearly 30 years ago, established an Islamic republic, and set out to export his Shiite Muslim ideology beyond his Persian nation.
The first target of his global revolution was Baalbek, a predominantly Shiite city in religiously diverse, ethnically Arab Lebanon.
Support for the late Khomeini and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has dwindled among their own people, but here and in much of southern Lebanon, it has swelled to a fervor that once marked the early years of Iran’s Islamic revolution.
Iran’s influence is embodied in Hezbollah, the party of God, Lebanon’s most robust, organized and sophisticated Shiite group. Hezbollah has become a virtual state-within-a-state, with a small army of about 6,000 soldiers who just fought off mighty Israel.
Thanks to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiites - historically neglected and oppressed by feudal landlords - are now a rising political force. The party, with a $100 million annual budget largely supplied by Iran, runs a network of charities, holds positions in parliament and the cabinet, and has its own satellite television and radio stations.
It all began in 1982, when Khomeini dispatched about 650 of his Iranian revolutionary guards to Baalbek, ostensibly to fight off an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In the following years, that number grew to 2,000, and they set out to train local Shiite guerrillas who would soon form the core of Hezbollah.
The Iranians decorated the bleak streets of Baalbek to resemble an Iranian town, with murals of Khomeini and of women donning the chador, the all-enveloping black cover worn by many Iranian women. They set up a training camp, but they built a hospital, too.
“We were worried when Hezbollah was first set up here,” said Munira Ali, 50, a Shiite school teacher who, unlike many women in Baalbek, does not cover her head in the traditional manner.
“We thought they would put the chador on our heads,” she said, “that they would hijack the country, ban dancing and stop tourists coming to Baalbek,” famed for its ancient Roman temples. “But when we started getting to know them, we found they are more open than us, that they are cultured, educated and not at all backward.”
Today, murals still tell women that the veil is the embodiment of their honor, but unveiled women generally are not harassed, as they are in Iran. The streets of Baalbek and the largely Shiite suburbs of Beirut, or what is left of them after recent Israeli bombardment, still resemble Iranian towns. Posters and murals of fallen Hezbollah guerrillas, set against a background of red tulips, a symbol of martyrdom in Iran, adorn walls and lampposts.
After its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel occupied a southern strip of the country for 18 years. But when it unilaterally withdrew in 2000, unwilling to endure more casualties inflicted by Hezbollah, it made the party and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, instant heroes.
“Lebanon became safe for the first time in its history,” said Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah’s politburo. “This created a sense of trust among the people.”
Nasrallah, the only Arab leader to evict Israel from Arab land without having to sign a peace treaty, was now one of the most important leaders in Lebanon. And the Shiites took center stage in the country’s political arena.
Iran, however, was not the only foreign power exerting influence in Lebanon. Neighboring Syria has been a force since 1975, stationing 25,000 troops in the country until they were pulled out last year under international pressure.
Syria, too, supported Hezbollah and also Amal, another Shiite group, helping them enter mainstream politics.
But it was Nasrallah’s charisma that drew many Shiites to his party, including some who do not share his fundamentalist ideology.
Most Lebanese Shiites do not share Hezbollah’s adherence to the principle of wilayat al-faqih, or rule by the Islamic jurist - a principle that the Iranian regime is based on. Most accept Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah as the highest religious authority, a position Hezbollah reserves for Iran’s Khamenei.
During the latest conflict with Israel, Nasrallah appeared on Hezbollah’s al Manar television six times, bringing the country to a standstill as everyone tuned in. His speeches are delivered in a soft voice, without the fiery, rambling rhetoric of many Arab leaders.
Munira Ali, the schoolteacher in Baalbek, said she and many of her secular friends were drawn to Hezbollah after short, plump Nasrallah, took its helm in 1992.
“He’s honest. That’s the most important thing. He has an amazing charisma,” she said. “I don’t doubt a word he utters.”
Ali, her colleague Afrah Younes, 50, and several other Shiites interviewed said they regularly donate money to the party’s fund for the poor, the handicapped, orphans and widows.
“Hezbollah is the only group we trust,” Younes said. “You want us to give to others who steal?”
But Abbas Beydoun, reflecting the views of many Lebanese and some press reports, disputed the view that Hezbollah is free of corruption. About 1,000 of its men are on the Lebanese army’s payroll even though they remain Hezbollah fighters, said Beydoun, a Shiite newspaper columnist.
Following Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, “government doors opened to Shiites,” Beydoun said, with large numbers of them getting government jobs of all sorts.
Participation in government also meant money, with large, unspecified sums allocated to the Council of the South for highways, hospitals and development projects run by Hezbollah’s ally, Amal.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, expanded its network of civil institutions including hospitals, orphanages, and schools. It also beefed up its militia with sophisticated weapons, most imported from Iran but some, including American arms, bought on the international market.
In Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament, where seats are allocated according to religious identity, Hezbollah is now the largest single block with 14 deputies. The party also has two ministers in the Lebanese cabinet.
In such a system, it is impossible to get anything done without building alliances, and Hezbollah has proven adept at it. It has found unlikely allies including the right-wing Christian Phalange Party and the National Liberal Party, both supporters of Israel during the 1975-92 civil war. More recently it has allied with the Christian Maronites of Michel Aoun’s secular Free Patriotic Movement.
Despite his dependence on Iranian arms and Syrian support, experts say, Nasrallah has achieved a significant degree of autonomy from Tehran and Damascus.
Regionally, Hezbollah has championed the Palestinian cause and backs Hamas, even though it is a Sunni group.
“Their discourse and political and military activities revolve around very secular goals and objectives,” said Amal Saad Ghorayeb, a political science professor who is an expert on Hezbollah. “Their identities are multilayered; they’re not just Islamic groups, but they’re also Arabist and nationalist organizations and that’s why they have mass appeal.”
Hezbollah has, however, suggested that it would not reject a two-state solution for Palestinians.
In the beginning, Hezbollah expressed a desire to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon, but it quickly realized the impracticality in a diverse nation with large populations of Sunnis, Druse and Christians. Now, its stated goal is to stand up for the “downtrodden” Shiite population, the largest sect in Lebanon but a minority in the Arab world.
Despite its openness to other religions and sects, however, Beydoun describes Hezbollah as an internally closed party that doesn’t allow criticism or dissent.
“Its hardline supporters are not exposed to any other thoughts,” he said. “It’s what I call a fascist party similar to Stalinism, a party that survives on intelligence (gathering).”
Hezbollah members lead secluded lives in their southern Beirut suburbs and are totally immersed in party activities, socializing only with fellow members, he said. They also marry within the party.
“I was born a Hezbollah,” said Ahmed Awadneh, 29, sitting outside his home in the Beirut suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh, three days before it was bombed by Israeli warplanes. “It has mass influence over the young.”
Hezbollah has changed since the 1980s, when its name was synonymous with kidnappings of Westerners and bombings of Western military and diplomatic targets.
The group was behind a string of attacks: the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks and French military headquarters in Beirut, the 1984 bombing of the U.S. embassy in east Beirut, the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane in which an American serviceman onboard was killed.
Hezbollah now says that it opposes terrorism, and it denounced the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But it makes exceptions for Israeli targets, regarding such attacks as resistance against an oppressor.
Hezbollah is still labeled as a terrorist group by the United States, but Europeans and others agree the party has not been linked to any attack on a Western target since the 1980s.
Experts say Hezbollah has even acted as a buffer against al-Qaida in Lebanon, aborting a few attempts by the group to attack Israel from Lebanese soil. Hezbollah apparently detained 14 al-Qaida operatives in Lebanon this year and handed them over to the Lebanese army intelligence.
Al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed that on Dec. 27 it fired rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, provoking Israeli airstrikes on a Palestinian base in central Lebanon. Hezbollah said privately that it was not amused.
“That’s why we haven’t seen a very strong al-Qaida presence in Lebanon, unlike in other countries,” said Ghorayeb, the political science professor.
“It’s not for Israel’s sake obviously,” she said. Until the recent Israeli offensive, Hezbollah’s war with Israel was “bound by certain rules of the game” to which both more or less adhered to for the past 10 years.
Hezbollah’s attempts to stop al-Qaida infiltration led Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, before he was killed by American troops in Iraq, to accuse the party of acting as a border guard for Israel.
Observers say that if Hezbollah were to be dismantled, al-Qaida could fill its place and the Lebanese government would be powerless to stop it.
The conclusion of its latest war with Israel, triggered by Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12, is another watershed for the party. Will Shiites and other Lebanese hail the party for courageously fighting off the Israeli army or blame it for causing widespread devastation?
In that regard, Hezbollah appears to be off to a good start. Hours after the cease-fire went into effect, Nasrallah appeared on television with a promise to help Lebanese rebuild their homes, and even help them buy new furniture.


© Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The vehicles were painted in Lebanese army colors and the Israeli soldiers were wearing Lebanese army uniforms, so the Israeli soldiers were able to move freely for several hours, residents say.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:14 schreef Slayage het volgende:
een wapentransport onderscheppen met 2 humvees
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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:40 schreef -scorpione- het volgende:
Ik vind de staatsvormen van de andere landen in het M-O veel meer een probleem dan het land Israel trouwens.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:34 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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onwaarschijnlijk verhaal

als ze echt zo zwaar onder vuur lagen dan hadden ze die hummvees ter plekke opgeblazen ipv er met de helikopter boven gaan hangen voor zolang als het duurt die dingen eraan vast te binden want hij kan er iig niet in

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:33 schreef Chadi het volgende:

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Mag dit trouwens?

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:44 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

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Kijk in dat geval ook eens in de spiegel, een aantal er van worden door ons in het zadel gehouden.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:28 schreef -scorpione- het volgende:

Ja, Iran heeft hier echt recht van spreken bijvoorbeeld...

En mogen daar wonen klinkt ook niet echt vriendelijk en zegt nog niets over de manier waarop. Daarnaast, als men in het M-O zo graag samen wil wonen dan kan men beter in de eigen Arabische landen beginnen ipv zich blind te staren op Israel.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:50 schreef klez het volgende:

Absoluut niet. Omdat ze zaken doen met het Westen? De meest verderfelijke regimes in het MO doen geen zaken met het westen...
Wij hebben er ook zelf moeite voor moeten doen, voor onze vrijheden...

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:44 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

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Kijk in dat geval ook eens in de spiegel, een aantal er van worden door ons in het zadel gehouden.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:55 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

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Er gebeurt meer dan slechts zaken doen Klez, steek je kop niet in het zand, het is heus niet erg, of eng, om eens naar buiten te kijken, des te eerder kom je tot een permanente oplossing

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:56 schreef -scorpione- het volgende:

Hallo, heb ik die lui in het zadel geholpen? Nee. Wil niet zeggen dat ik het eens ben met wat westerse regimes doen. Als men in het M-O daar ook de schuld bij mij als westerse burger wil leggen dan prima. We zitten hier namelijk ook met een aantal kutregimes, dat is duidelijk, en daar zijn wij westerse burgers mede debet aan.

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Dit is echter geen tegenargument in de discussie. De meeste regimes in het M-O zijn nu niet het toonbeeld van samenlevingen zonder segregatie. Dus als die lui Israel dat verwijten dan is dat niets meer dan de pot verwijt de ketel. Moet ik daar dan begrip voor hebben? Dacht het niet.

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Ik zou ooit graag zien dat bestuur weer lokaal wordt op stam niveau, over de hele wereld, en dan gewoon lekker samen werken en van het leven genieten, ipv de rotzooi die nu overal wordt gecreeerd. Echter dit is een utopie. Komt het dan even goed uit dat ik een idealist ben, kan ik mooi blijven dromen

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 13:50 schreef klez het volgende:

-knip -

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 14:02 schreef Hallulama het volgende:

Ze verwijten Israël volgens mij niet zo zeer zaken die spelen op bestuurlijk niveau, ze hebben gewoon moeite met het feit dat de staat Israël daar ooit zomaar is neergezet, zonder hun instemming. De landen in de Arabische wereld stemden toen, in 1948, voornamelijk tegen.

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Op zondag 20 augustus 2006 14:01 schreef klez het volgende:

Dat weet ik wel, maar jij hebt het nu echt over randverschijnselen die door fundamentalisten tot hoofdzaak gemaakt worden.
Het schept een zeer ongezonde samenleving indien je ingaat op de angst en terreur die een relatief kleine groep extremisten benut om haar agenda door te drukken.
Zeker laat het westen na om consequent te zijn en die foute randverschijnselen de kop in te drukken, maar of indien dat wel zou gebeuren het probleem met de Islamitische extremisten opgelost zal zijn...
Ik geloof het niet. En ik weet uit ervaring dat de meeste normale Arabieren helemaal geen afscheid willen nemen van het Westen, zoals de extremisten. Daar luister ik liever naar.