Will no one hear their call?

“They killed the nation
They killed the nation

And then they say the terrorism is from us”

-Lebanese singer

I have no time now for a calm introduction as to what's happening in Lebanon. I have a question. Well, lots. But firstly- if Hezbollah is the great evil terrorist organization, why do the Lebanese people have to suffer for their actions??

While the US calls for Hezbollah to disarm, they remain silent on Israel’s massacre of civilians and complete annihilation of Lebanese infrastructure- which is, of course, called ‘self defense’. Some Arab countries have sent ambulances to Lebanon, but yesterday they came under attack on the Zahle-Dhohour Showair road between Lebanon and Syria.

Dr. Mohammed Khalifa, the Lebanese Minister of Health, said: “We can now see the mentality of Israel”

Unicef says that at least 500,000 people have been displaced by the continuing Israeli attacks.

Israel’s campaign has killed 233 people- only 26 of them were non-civilians. The death toll in northern Israel stands at 25, including 13 civilians.

Disproportionate?

No one is supporting Hezbollah’s kidnappings, nor their attacks on civilians. We are all human and we all bleed. But does Hezbollah’s acts justify the complete destruction of a country- a country that is innocent of Hezbollah’s actions?

How many more have to die? How many children?

You tell me.

To take full advantage of Flickr, you should use a JavaScript-enabled browser and
install the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player.

Comments

~Aphrodite says:

Fighting in Lebanon produces its first conscientious objector

By Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondent

The Lebanon 2006 war has produced its first conscientious objector - Staff Sergeant Itzik Shabbat, a 28-year-old TV producer. He refused to comply with an emergency order (Tsav 8) to report Tuesday for reserve duty in the territories in order to free forces in the standing army for the war in Lebanon.

Shabbat, a resident of Sderot, had not yet decided Tuesday night whether he would go to his reserve unit Wednesday and announce there that he was refusing to do reserve duty or whether he would not report at all and be considered absent.

"I know people will attack me and ask how could I not take part in this war when Qassams are falling on my hometown and Katyushas on the towns in the north," he told Haaretz. "In my opinion, only this type of opposition that I've chosen will put an end to the madness that is going on now and will shatter the false feeling that the entire home front supports this unnecessary war that is based on deceptive considerations."

He added: "Someone has to be the first to break the silence and it will be me. It is a shame that my order was signed by another Sderot resident, Defense Minister Amir Peretz."

Shabbat says he has already informed his commander and other officers in the unit of his intentions and he is prepared to pay the price.

In the past Shabbat, considered an outstanding commander, also refused to serve in the territories and sat in prison for 28 days. He was one of the signatories to the petition of the refusal movement, Courage to Refuse. However he says that his present decision is not connected with the need to relieve a unit in the territories but rather with his opposition to the war in Lebanon. The larger Yesh Gvul movement started by opposing the 1982 Lebanon war and only later the territories, too
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

yettis doings says:

Oh Aphro, I fear for the people now, in my opinion for what it is worth, we have to factions each set on destroying the other. We surely must learn from history and that tells us that it is the common folk that gets killed and maimed. You've righly stated that the superpowers are willing to allow them to do it unhindered, I have to add that the oil shieks are doing the same, if they threatened to ration the oil supplies the superpowers would act then as sure as night follows day! As you know I hold no religeous beliefs but if I did I would pray now, right now and hard. Be good, take care Paul.
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

'Syo [deleted] says:

we have to put an end to the madness that's been going on. leaders pick a fight with each other then sends his people to kill one another. we are all one and the same... the world is a big enough place for all of us to live in harmony.

we yell at one person... he throws a stone at us... we shoot him dead... they throw back grenades... we bomb them... what's next? is there no end to all the suffering? we've all seen gruesome images of what war brings... people just never learn. why? what blinds us?
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

~Aphrodite says:

Paul- I know what you mean! Right now I only know two Arab countries that are helping with the Lebanon crisis... I'm very angry that no one is making a more resilient stand. At the same time, I'm with one of the Lebanese officials (cant remember his name) who said "Everytime someone suggests something to the UN, the US vetoes it. What can we do?"
It's horrible, it's heartbreaking. Civilians are dying on both sides. Lebanon has been reduced to rubble. Meanwhile, there's a bombardment in Gaza! God help them all

Syo- It's horrible. We all need to take a stand. All of us. It's utter madness. I met a Lebanese man the other day named Mathew who said that he was going to Lebanon because his children and wife are there. When is the world going to come to its senses?
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

~Aphrodite says:

Israel's long roll call of dishonour

Jonathan Cook, Electronic Lebanon, 20 July 2006

The general surprise that Lebanese civilians are taking the brunt of Israel's onslaught -- and the unwillingness in some quarters of the media to report the fact -- reflects a poor understanding of Israel's historical use of violence. Since its birth six decades ago, Israel has always been officially "going after the terrorists", but its actions have invariably harmed civilians in an indiscriminate manner.

The roll call of dishonour is long indeed, but its highlights include: the massacre of some 200 civilians in Tantura, as well as large-scale massacres in at least a dozen other Palestinian villages, during the 1948 war that established Israel; Ariel Sharon's attack on the village of Qibya in 1953 that killed 70 innocent Palestinians; the Kfar Qassem massacre inside Israel when 49 farm workers were gunned down at an improvised army checkpoint; a massacre in the same year in the refugee camp of Khan Yunis, in Gaza, in which more than 250 civilians were killed; attacks on dozens of Palestinian, Egytian and Syrian villages during the 1967 war; the killing of six unarmed Arab citizens of Israel in 1976; the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla in 1982; the unremitting use of lethal force by the army against unarmed Palestinians, often women and children, during the first intifada of 1987-93; the aerial bombardment of Qana in south Lebanon in 1996 that killed more than 100 civilians; and the endless "collateral damage" of Palestinian civilians during the second intifada, including a half-ton bomb that killed a husband and wife and their seven children a week ago.

The true reasons for these deaths are concealed from credulous observers by Israel's use of Orwellian language. When it says it is destroying the "infrastructure of terror", Israel means it is crushing all Arab resistance to its territorial ambitions in the region. The "infrastructure" includes most Arab men, women and children because they continue to support -- against Israel's wishes -- their peoples' rights to self-determination without interference from the Israeli army.

In this sense, and others, there is very little difference between what Israel is doing in Gaza to overturn the democratic wishes of the Palestinian electorate and what it is doing in Lebanon to smash any hopes of a democratic future for its northern neighbour. In Gaza, it wants Hamas destroyed because Hamas is prepared to counter Israel's unilateral policies with its own unilateral agenda; and in Lebanon, Israel wants Hizbullah obliterated because it is the only force capable, possibly, of preventing a repeat of Israel's long invasion and occupation of the 1980s and 1990s.

By rounding up the Palestinian cabinet, Israel is not destroying terror, it is clipping the political wings of Hamas, those in its leadership who are quickly learning the arts of government and searching for a space in which they can negotiate with Israel. Through its rejectionist behaviour, Israel is only confirming the doubts of those in the Hamas military wing who argue Israel always acts in bad faith.

Similarly in Lebanon, Israel is holding Hizbullah less to account with its attacks than the Lebanese people and their government, despite the latter's transparently shaky grip on the country. Israel's military strikes polarise opinion in Lebanon, weaken Fouad Siniora and his ministers, and threaten to push Lebanon over the brink into another civil war.

Israel is keen to talk about "changing the balance of power" in Gaza and Lebanon, implying that it is trying to stregthen the "democrats" against the "terrorists". But this impression is entirely false. Israeli actions are destroying what little balance of power exists in Gaza and Lebanon so that the two areas become ungovernable.

In Gaza, Israel has been engineering a debilitating struggle for power between Fatah and Hamas, while in Lebanon whatever hollow shell of national unity has existed till now is in danger of cracking under the strain of the Israeli onslaught.

Superficially at least, this seems self-destructive behaviour on Israel's part, given that it has also been striving to detect the fingerprints of outside actors in Gaza and Lebanon.

In the case of Gaza, Israel points to Syria as a safe haven for the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, to Hizbullah and Iran as sponsors of Hamas "terror" and even to a new al-Qaeda presence. In the case of Lebanon, Israel additionally identifies the strong ties between Hizbullah and Damascus and Tehran.

So why would Israel want Lebanon and Gaza to be ravaged by factional fighting of the kind that might make them more vulnerable to this kind of unwelcome interference from outside?

A history lesson or two helps clarify Israel's reasoning.

In the occupied Palestinian territories, Hamas was born during the upheavals of the first intifada and encouraged by Israel as a counterweight to the unifying secular Palestinian nationalism of Yasser Arafat.

In Lebanon, the Shiite militia Hizbullah was the inevitable byproduct of Israel's occupation of the south and its establishment of a mostly Christian proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, against the Muslim majority.

In both cases it is clear Israel hoped that, by Islamising its opponents in these regional conflicts, it would delegitimise them in the eyes of Western allies and that it could cultivate sectarianism as a way to further weaken the social cohesiveness of its neighbours.

Recently Israel has encouraged the slide deeper into Islamic extremism through its policies of unilateralism and its refusal to negotiate.

The same set of policies is being continued now in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon: the shattering of these two societies will only deepen the trend toward radical Islam. Islamic movements not only offer the best hope of local resistance to Israel for these weakened societies but they also offer a parallel social infrastructure of health care and welfare services as state institutions collapse.

There is immediate advantage for Israel in this outcome. With secular society crushed and Islamic resistance movements filling the void, Israel will be able to reinforce the impression of many in the West that Israel is on the front line of global "war of terror" being waged by a single implacable enemy, Islam. Israel's ability to persuade the world that this war is being waged against the whole "civilised" Judeo-Christian West will be made that bit easier.

As a result, Israel may be able to drag its paymaster, the United States, deeper into the mire of the Middle East as a junior partner rather than as an honest broker, giving Israel cover while it carves up yet more Palestinian land for annexation, puts further pressure on the Palestinains to leave their homeland, and destablises its regional enemies so that they are powerless to offer protest or resistance.

For some time President Bush has found himself in no position to criticise Israeli actions when Tel Aviv claims to be doing no more to the Palestinians than the US is doing to the Iraqis. If the US allows itself to be handcuffed to Israel's even more extreme version of the "war on terror", the consequences will be dire not just for the Palestinians or the region, but for all of us.
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

AnomalousNYC says:

"If the US allows itself to be handcuffed to Israel's even more extreme version of the "war on terror", the consequences will be dire not just for the Palestinians or the region, but for all of us."

Very important article, thanks for sharing. The photo is painfully powerful.
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

olderf says:

Why aren't Zionists attacked by sharks?
Professional courtesy!
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

Spookz~[www.5lejna.com] says:

love the concept
Posted 37 months ago. ( permalink )

Nana&Bump says:

Great shot! Very cool idea
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Would you like to comment?

[?]

	~Aphrodite's photostream
		186 uploads

This photo also belongs to:

	The Song of Palestine (Set)
		10 items

	Emotions (Pool)
		0

	Controversial (Pool)
		0

	world peace (Pool)
		0

	THINK! (Pool)
		0

	Say NO to ALL terrorism; Flickrians for peace! (Pool)
		0

	Human Rights (Pool)
		0

	Dramatic (Pool)
		0

	Chaotic World (Pool)
		0

	Stop the WAR CRIMES in Lebanon and the OPTs (Pool)
		0

	Save Lebanon لبنان. for a peaceful modern Lebanon (Pool)
		0

7 people call this photo a favorite

Additional Information

Some rights reserved Anyone can see this photo

Taken with a Nikon Coolpix P1.
More properties
Taken on July 19, 2006
Viewed 1,581 times

Add to your map

Yay location removed

...

(Some formats are OK.)

Or, remove it from the map.

Go to the map

You	Sign in \| Create Your Free Account
Explore	Places \| Last 7 Days \| This Month \| Popular Tags \| The Commons \| Creative Commons \| Search
Help	Community Guidelines \| The Help Forum \| FAQ \| Sitemap \| Get Help

Will no one hear their call?

Comments

~Aphrodite says:

yettis doings says:

'Syo [deleted] says:

~Aphrodite says:

~Aphrodite says:

AnomalousNYC says:

olderf says:

Spookz~[www.5lejna.com] says:

Nana&Bump says:

Would you like to comment?

Tags

Additional Information