Taking a break

I will be away until the end of July. During this time I will try to post some of my travel photos.

Mossad easily operating in the world of radical islamist groups

Among my luggage and the many things awaiting me before I depart for the summer vacations, I couldn't resist posting these links showing how the Mossad have infiltrated the world of radical islamists, not to our benefice in the West I suppose !

Syria Comment: Ahmed Abu Adas, Jund al-Sham and Mossad? (by t_desco)

Xymphora: Israeli spy rings in Lebanon and the Hariri assassination

Bonne lecture !

On Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Nationalism, Leftism, Fanaticism and other murderous Isms

My last post was about the impossibility for the international community to bring the Israeli government crimes against Palestinians to justice. In it I make the relation between the morality of the state and the morality of its society and ultimately its individuals, since our moral life is partly shaped by our social and institutional interactions.

On new Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians read Ur-Salim.

My point was that if a society is not capable of bringing its criminals to justice, if a world is not capable of bringing criminal states to justice, then we are doomed as human beings because our moral sentiment and judgement are what distinguish us most from animals (Although American and Dutch born Ethologist Franz De Waal argues that some Primate societies have actually rudiments of morality like behaviours of Empathy and Consolation).

I think we are all responsible for what is happening in Palestine now as we were all responsible for what happened to Jews in Nazis concentration camps. We cannot just shut our eyes and feign ignorance. Since a long time, I have been witnessing tentatives of cover ups to Israel's criminal record from a part of the European left. I have witnessed in them a form of fanatical Secularism when the Danish cartoons were published, trying to pin Europe's many social illnesses on Islam, they were helped of course by some European Muslim extremists brandishing another fanatism in the face of a growing misunderstanding between them and Eurpoean populations. I have felt in them resistance to condemn Israel forcefully. I have felt in them resistance to a one state solution sparing the lives of remaining Palestinians. I have seen an awkwardness in them defending now a two state solution at a time the two state solution is becoming impossible. And it became clear to me that all their efforts in this matter were directed at protecting the statute of Israel as a normal state not to be subjected to sanctions, boycotts and international justice...

Lately the Euston manifesto launched by British leftists and claiming that Anti-Zionism (I kid you not) was a form of racism ! And with the growing European uneasiness with Israel's daily killing of Palestinian civilians, all what French leftists from the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, a famous theater group directed by Ariane Mnouchkine, for whom I have great estime as an artist, have found was to launch another manifesto focusing on the big Issue of our Time, Islam! I felt this, bringing the Islam issue whenever Israel is in trouble, as an attempt to shift the focus from Israel on Islam.

All this was brewing in my mind when a comment on my last blog prompted me to write this one and I am grateful to its author because he have awakened in me this long overdue grudge against a part of the European left, the left with the double standards, the fanatical Secularism and the desperate cover ups to maintain Israel in the league of 'Normal States'.

Comment from Wolfie:

''I have been arguing this point (failure of Israel as a state and a society, my clarification) with other bloggers for some time, not for the reasons that you give Sophia, but arguing nevertheless in the face of accusations ranging from Anti-Semitism to blood-libel.

Zionism is based on a mixture of Marxism and Nationalism and history has shown us that both these premises are doomed to failure. Nationalism is not an inherently bad thing but it is a "flavour enhancer" and not an ingredient in the national cake, using it as an ingredient makes for bitter confectionary. Zionism (love it or loath it) served its purpose to the Israeli nation in its early days but its central tenants have doomed it to eventual failure because it does not know how to make peace and neither does it care to because it requires endless conflict in order to survive. It is like a 29 year old man who still lives with his mother suckling on her breast and throwing scorn at every girl who comes to call because none can compare to mother dearest. This highly militarised, high tech, nuclear armed and wealthy nation clings to a superannuated notion of victim status in order to justify remaining in its infantile state, it needs to grow-up, leave mummy and date girls. If it doesn't do this sometime soon it will implode from within, the cracks are already showing which is why it has been ramping up its violence towards the Palestinians - evidence of its impending crisis.

The crux of this problem was recently exemplified on British television. It was a report on the gradual disappearance of the Dead Sea. The reporter was standing on its banks with a representative from the Israeli environment ministry who was arguing that this was caused by global warming * and that the sea would just find a new level and stabilise. The BBC reporter suggested diverting water from the Gulf of Aqaba to which the government official responded : "The Europeans should pay". i.e. I want mummy's tit.

* In my local Sainsbury's supermarket almost all the sweet peppers are imported from Israel. These are grown in Israeli greenhouses all year round using hydroponics systems sourced from the river Jordan which has as a result been reduced to a trickle. This is the real reason for the disappearance of the Dead Sea. Greed.''

My answer:

''Thank you for this very fine and witty analysis which deserve to appear as a separate post if you feel like doing it. I agree 100 %.

There is a historical link between Zionism and the Left and as I said before in one of my comments, Israel is to the Left what the football match at Wembley between England and Hungary was once to Communism. 'Le communisme a existé une fois dans l'histoire, deux fois 45 minutes quand les Anglais ont perdu face à des Hongrois qui, eux, jouaient collectifs,' Jean-Luc Godard said once jokingly in his movie 'notre musique'. ('Communism existed once in history, two times 45 minutes when Hungarians won the football game at Wembley against the British because they played collectively and the British played individually,' said Jean-Luc Godard in his movie 'Our Music').''

Indeed, Kibbutzism was at the very foundation of Israel and even though today this country is one in which neoliberalism is rampant and triumphant leaving many of its citizen on the edge, Israel still represent today a 'success story' for some in the European left who considered a pilgrimage to a kibbutz in Israel as a duty and part of their intellectual and militancy education.

''Take the water problem in Israel, your comment is right to the point. The following statement is taken from a scientific study:
''The Lower Jordan Valley is usually regarded a region with severe water scarcity, but this is not the case. The per-capita availability of water is much above the average of the Middle East, but it is regionally unevenly distributed. About 94% of all usable water is used for agriculture; about 2/3 of that has drinking water quality. On the other hand, 44,000 people in the southeast of the valley do not have sufficient local drinking quality water supply to meet the basic
domestic demand. Scenario calculations show that a more sustainable water management in the region is possible if water allocation priorities are redefined. The first priority must be given to human and social needs for drinking water, to domestic/urban needs, and to water-efficient income generation activities. Agriculture should be limited to water that is not needed in other sectors.''
On the excessive use of water resources by Israel for agricultural rather than human and urban purposes.''

''On nationalism, I agree, I think blood should not be shed in order for nations to live on the expanses of their populations and some national identities are simply murderous. This is why I am for the one state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem. I think Palestinians should renounce statehood and spare the remaining lives. However when you discuss the one state sokution with European leftists and pure zionists, you find an insurmontable resistance. This is my landmark for identifying someone as dogmatic leftist and/or zionist.

Thanks again for this seminal comment. Having had to deal with teen age children, I really liked the allegory. Your typical non grown up teen wants to have it all, independance, dependance and all the rest while putting all the burdens on his parents. Another point in the allegory is the self centerdness of teens and their natural agressivity. Thanks God, my children are not like that but there was a moment with my daughter during her teen age years where the situation was nearly similar but she is grown up now.''

As for Nationalism, I developped, at the insistance of some commentators, my argument (edited from its original form) for a one state solution for Palestine/Israel and against all forms of Nationalisms, specially Zionism and the two states solution, in a separate post a while ago:

''You raised one good objection for the one state solution: the national identity problem. But I think the problem is often misstated.

I would like to start by exposing the definitions (not my own but widely aknowledged definitions) of both words.

Identity is a result of a process by which one compares oneself to another and concludes to similarities and resemblances. This may be achieved by belonging to any homogenous group being ethnic, religious or something else...

A nation is a group of people whose members are related by affinities and values based on one or more of these: religion, ethnicity, language, historical and cultural traditions, and aspiring to maintain their cohesion.

There are two levels to identities, local and universal. Clearly, the religion is a universal level and not a local one. You can find Jews everywhere in the world and the world's largest Mulsim communities are not in the ME. For national identities we are then left with history and culture. Language is both a local and a universal identity.

There is rarely a mention about the land in the definition of a nation.

I live in Canada, a multicultural society built on three radically different historical and cultural identities (Indigenous, English and French) to which immigration added so many identities in the last fifty years that the demographics of the country have been radically transformed. Very often, canadians will define themselves by being unlike their neighbours of the south, the Americans, and this is the number one national definition. That does not mean that Canadians don't have a strong identity at the individual level.

Moreover, identities are built in communities before being built by Nations, they are built on Common values and a common culture or a common narrative proper to a community. In our actual world, communities are not shielded from the rest of the world, so they have to deal with their local identities within this tension or contradiction between a local and a universal identification.

However, I think the national identity problem is a fake problem. You don't need a nation to maintain your identity. I take as example the multicultural state.
Many problems arise every day in a mulitcultural society and they are taken up and treated at the levels of the legislative and judiciary. There are very little if no similarities at all between a Canadian from Alberta and a Canadian from Quebec. They don't even speak the same language. Quebecers have been trying to separate for a long time but the influx of immigrants in great numbers changed the demographics of the country and people felt that the identity problem of Quebecers around the French language and their history was becoming outdated. Quebec conducted two referenda on the separation issue and the answer of the population was 'no' twice. Recently an article in the Guardian defended the idea that Jewish honor and heritage have been more preserved by the Diaspora than by Israel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1801566,00.html

In a state, citizen need rules and law and rights to maintain a sense of harmony between different identities and cultures. Modern states are multicultural. Nations are not fighting globalisation. Cultures and local identities are fighting globalisation and they don't need to organise as a nation in order to do so. One can maintain her or his identity through the community or can emancipate from this community to reach for common values created within the multicultural state. After arriving in Canada with more than two identities (actually three), I feel today that I belong to this country which gave me a fourth identity based this time on multiculturalism and core common values. Multiculutralism gave me the occasion to realise a real synthesis between all my local identities and to reach for the other and for the better in each human being. From primary to high school my children evolved in classes where not less than fourteen nationalities were represented each year (and this is not your ordinary public school where people have no other choice to go to, I am talking here of a private school where actually parents choose to send their children to). Of course there are problems related to multiculturalism but having the same rights, people are not frustrated and not anxious and not fearful of living toghether.

In the same way there may be problems of resources and power sharing in a multicultural entity but these are matters that could be resolved and can be resolved even in a one state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Now if you are speaking of the identity of the nation itself and not its people, do you think that an abstract entity deserves that real people die every day for it ? I personally don't think so. A nation should not reflect the aspirations of a homogenous group, even if they are a majority. It should reflect and live up to the aspirations of all its citizens and it is not the citizens who should reflect the aspirations of a nation and live and die for it.

In my opinion a nation that defines its identity according to a religion like Israel is a fallacy and so is every other nation alike because religion can never and should never be an identity issue at the national level. Religion should be lived inside communities and inside the heart of the believer.

I think a one state solution for Isarel/Palestine can be built based on the preservation of cultural identities including the freedom of religion and mutual respect for these identities. I don't really care what the flag should be or what the name of such an entity can be as long as it respects its citizens and give them equal rights.''

And guess what ? One of the commentators, after harrassing me into providing a reasonable argument for my preference for the one state solution for the Isareli/Palestinian conflict never bothered reading the answer !

A Failed State and A Failed Society

Under the title: 'Israel spinning out of control', Ramzy Baroud shows how different layers of cover ups are already in motion to hide Israel's blatant and criminal responsibility in the killing of a family including five children on a Gaza beach recently.

1. ''Israel is attempting to cover blatant war crimes by media spin.''
''The army has been claiming for more than a week, based on its own evidence, that the lethal explosion was not caused by a stray shell landing on the Gaza beach but most probably by a mine placed there by Palestinian militants to prevent an Israeli naval landing.

The army’s case could be dismissed outright were it not for the racist assumptions that now prevail as Western "thought" about Arabs and Muslims.

2. Israel is not realising that the media spin not only ''instigates further animosity against Israel, but fuels a culture of propaganda and arbitrary aggression in Israel that is ripping apart Israeli society at its fragile seams. ''
How true, I always thought that a nation or a state becomes a model for the morality of its citizens. Failed states generate a context for the increase of failed morality in individuals. Morality is a social construction based on two premices, an internal individual disposition and local social interactions instilling in individuals the idea of the good as a principle for action and an ultimate goal for life.

3. After having, in a first move, condemned the recent civilian killings, then fabricated a lie refuting its responsibility in the killings, Israel finally seems to be ready to conduct its own investigation of the killings after having felt international outrage and pressure. However, Baroud reminds us that Israel's history of investigating its army's misdeeds is laughable and certainly not serious and unbiased.

Here is a typical example of an investigation: conducted by Isarel into the killing of a 13 year old Palestinian girl:

''An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old. The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine into when she walked into a "security area" on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.
A tape recording of radio exchanges between soldiers involved in the incident, played on Israeli television, contradicts the army's account of the events and appears to show that the captain shot the girl in cold blood.
The official account claimed that Iman was shot as she walked towards an army post with her schoolbag because soldiers feared she was carrying a bomb.
But the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat. Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.
Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers swiftly identified her as a "girl of about 10" who was "scared to death".
The tape also reveals that the soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.
At that point, Captain R took the unusual decision to leave the post in pursuit of the girl. He shot her dead and then "confirmed the kill" by emptying his magazine into her body.
The tape recording is of a three-way conversation between the army watchtower, the army post's operations room and the captain, who was a company commander.
The soldier in the watchtower radioed his colleagues after he saw Iman: "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward."
Operations room: "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"
Watchtower: "A girl of about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."
A few minutes later, Iman is shot in the leg from one of the army posts.
The watchtower: "I think that one of the positions took her out."
The company commander then moves in as Iman lies wounded and helpless.
Captain R: "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
Witnesses described how the captain shot Iman twice in the head, walked away, turned back and fired a stream of bullets into her body. Doctors at Rafah's hospital said she had been shot at least 17 times.
On the tape, the company commander then "clarifies" why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."
The army's original account of the killing said that the soldiers only identified Iman as a child after she was first shot. But the tape shows that they were aware just how young the small, slight girl was before any shots were fired.
The case came to light after soldiers under the command of Captain R went to an Israeli newspaper to accuse the army of covering up the circumstances of the killing.
A subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically".
(CHRIS McGREAL / The Guardian (UK) Nov. 24, 2004)
''If you are curious, a five-count indictment was ultimately brought against Captain R. A few months ago Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that Captain "R," a Givati Brigade soldier in the IDF, would be awarded 80,000 NIS [over $15,000 USD] in compensation from the State of Israel in addition to reimbursement for NIS 2,000 of legal expenses, as part of an arrangement reached between his lawyers and the military prosecution after being acquitted of all five counts against him related to the killing of Iman!''

A second case of a cover up : The Jenin tragedy and the blocking of an international investigation.

''The Jenin Refugee Camp, the second largest refugee camp in the West Bank, was surrounded by Israeli occupation forces as part of their aggression throughout the West Bank and continuing till today. The camp was raided and tens of Palestinians were murdered and dozens of homes bulldozed. For days, the Israelis refused to allow medical personnel, journalists, Red Cross, and the UN enter the camp.
An Israeli military bulldozer driver, Moshe Nissim, left little to the imagination as he described his actions in the camp while it was besieged."They were warned by loudspeaker to get out of the house before I come, but I gave no one a chance. I didn't wait. I didn't give one blow, and wait for them to come out. I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible. I wanted to get to the other houses. To get as many as possible, I didn't give a damn about the Palestinians, but I didn't just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders."
On orders, the razing continued long after the battle was over. Dated aerial photos obtained from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs corroborate his tale, leading military expert and Amnesty International delegate Major David Holley to conclude: "There were events post-11 April that were neither militarily justifiable nor had any military necessity: the IDF leveled the final battlefield completely after the cessation of hostilities. It is surmised that the complete destruction of the ruins of battle, therefore, is punishment for its inhabitants."
Nissim concurs. "I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew they didn't mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down," he says. "They will sit quietly. Jenin will not return to what it used to be."(Peter Lagerquist, The Daily Star, 11/22/03)
Palestinians demanded an investigation.
A fact finding mission was proposed by the United Nations on April 19, 2002. Israel initially agreed to co-operate with the inquiry, but demanded a set of conditions to do so. Among the conditions, Israel demanded that the mission should include anti-terrorism experts, that the UN agree not to prosecute Israeli soldiers for potential violations of international law, and that it limit its scope exclusively to events in Jenin. The UN refused to accept the last two conditions and were forced to ultimately disband their mission.''

And what happens after an investigation is somehow forced to conclude to a guilty verdict due to the existence of facts witnessed by others than Israel ?
The Ariel Sharon case and the Sabra and Chatila massacres.

''We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense bears personal responsibility. In our opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office - and if necessary, that the Prime Minister consider whether he should exercise his authority under Section 21-A(a) of the Basic Law: the Government, according to which "the Prime Minister may, after informing the Cabinet of his intention to do so, remove a minister from office.''
After being found unfit to be Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon swiftly rose to be the Prime Minister of Israel, twice.''

I will let Jonathan Cook conclude:
''The only problem is that Israel and its security forces have been caught out lying repeatedly during this intifada and before it, not just to people on the other side of the world who cannot verify the facts but also to its own courts and public.

This week, for example, the Supreme Court ordered the army and Ministry of Defence to pull down several kilometres of the steel and concrete barrier they have erected on Palestinian land in the West Bank after it was proved that the security considerations behind the choice of the wall’s route were entirely bogus. Official documents reveal that the wall was located there to allow for the future expansion of nearly illegal Jewish settlements on yet more Palestinian land. The army and government concocted the fib and then stuck to it for more than two years. Chief Justice Aharaon Barak called their systematic lying “a grave phenomenon”.

And at the start of the intifada, back in October 2000, the government and police covered up the fact that live ammunition and sniper units trained to deal with terror attacks had been used against unarmed Arab demonstrators inside Israel. For more than six months the government and security services denied that a single live round had been fired, despite mounting evidence to the contrary that lawyers and journalists like myself had unearthed.

They might have got away with their brazen lies too, had it not been for an unusual series of events that led to the appointment of a state inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge, Theodor Or, who quickly exposed the truth.

That happened not because of any urge by official bodies to come clean or the inevitable triumph of Israeli justice. It happened for one reason alone: the prime minister of the day, Ehud Barak, feared losing the impending general election to his rival Ariel Sharon and thought he could buy back Arab votes by setting up an inquiry.

The inhabitants of Gaza have no such leverage inside the Israeli legal and political system. They have no friends inside Israel. And now it looks like they have no friends in the international community either.''

This is a failed state and a failed society.

UPDATE: June 21st 2006

''Human Rights Watch has accused an Israeli army investigation of ignoring evidence that challenges its decision to clear the military of blame for a blast that killed seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach.

In a statement on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said the Israeli army (IDF) had excluded all evidence gathered by other sources.

It had either called into question or declined to accept evidence collected by the group, the statement said.

Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, said: "An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible.''

Moral intransigeance: In defense of Noam Chomsky

Peter Beaumont reviews Noam Chomsky's 'Failed states' . In the review he accuses Chomsky of allowing 'bile and rhetoric to replace intellectual rigour'

His arguments ?

1. Chomsky is seeing the forest and not the trees.

''Chomsky chooses to deal with America's growing democratic deficit not by putting it under a microscope, but by reaching for hyperbole.''

2. Chomsky is not seeing America's good actions (which are things from the past).

''I could find no mention of the Marshall Plan, although there is enough about American crimes in Guatemala, to which he returns repeatedly. He can find enough to say about America's misdemeanours during the Cold War; but nothing about the genuine fear of the Soviet Union, one of the most brutally efficient human-rights-abusing states in history.''

3. Chomsky's position on Serbia's NATO bombardment.

''In setting about this task quite so selectively, he allies himself with some obnoxious characters. While Chomsky was righteously indignant over suggestions in a recent Guardian interview that he defended Srebrenica, he does portray a certain sympathy for Slobodan Milosevic. Kosovo, in his reading, began in 1999 with Nato bombers, not in 1998 with Serbian police actions that cleared villages, towns and valleys of their populations. (I know this, Mr Chomsky, because I saw them do it.)''

4. Chomsky is not seeing America's good intentions !

''Where I differ from him, however, is that I reject Chomsky's view that American misdeeds are printed through history like the lettering in a stick of rock. Instead, the conclusions I have drawn from more than a decade of reporting wars on the ground is that motivations are complex, messy and contradictory, that the best intentions can spawn the worst outcomes and, occasionally, vice versa.''

5. Chomsky is very influent among bloggers and therefore Beaumont wants to save bloggers from lies (or serve them his own lies).

''It is important to recognise this fact because the Chomskian analysis has become the defining dissident voice of the blogosphere and a certain kind of far-left academia. So a sense of its integrity is crucial. It is obsessively well-read, but rather famished in original research, except when it is counting how often the liberal media say this or that in their search for hidden, and sometimes not-so-hidden, bias. Crucially, it is not interested in debate, because balance is a ruse of the liberal media elites used to con the dumb masses. Chomsky is essential to save you, dear reader, from the lies we peddle.''

My arguments in defense of Chomsky:

1. Sometimes you need to see the big picture. If you stay at the lower level analysis you might not realise the consequences of American actions in the world. It is the same for climate change. Complexe phenomena need higher level analysis.

2. Concerning Serbia, it seems to me that mainstream western media and intellectuals have adopted a narrative and they are not accepting a challenge to this narrative. They are charging every intellectual who is not adopting their narrative of treason, complicity with Milosevic and awkwardness... Not long ago, Peter Handke have seen his play cancelled in France by the director of the Odeon theater because of his presence at Milosevic's funerals. Chomsky was attacked before by Emmma Brokes in the pages of the Guardian on his position on Serbia. Western media and intellectuals cannot support challenges to their official narrative on Serbia and the NATO bombardment because this narrative established 'humanitarian interventions' as a doctrine for wars against nonfriendly regimes and their civilian populations. Invalidating the NATO bombardment of Serbia will invalidate all other subsequent imperialistic wars done in the name of 'humanitarian intervention', 'freedom' and 'democracy', like the Iraq war. These narratives are becoming powerful motives and means for the West's imperialistic hubris.

The 'I was there and I have seen it all' is a weak argument. Descriptive analysis of political events miss the cultural and historical contexts most of the time and this is a problem with current western journalism: Insensitivity to other cultures and the will to apply a monolithic cultural standard to all civilisations and judge them by this standard.

3. Chomsky is misunderstood because he speaks from a moral point of view and there are no concessions, middle of the road position to be made when you speak from this position. It is erroneous to think that adopting a middle of the road position is somehow rational and conciliatory. This is moral relativism, a moral illness eating out present western thought. Moderation is not the middle of a line drawn between two extremes, it is a point outside this line (Aristotle).

4. Missing the point on America's good actions is not a fault on Chomsky's part. Because if you are judging an accuser of a horrible crime you are going to judge it for this crime no matter what he did otherwise. Missing the point on America's good intentions is another point: you don't judge people on their intentions, you judge them on their actions ! 'L'enfer est pavé de bonnes intentions' goes a french saying: 'The hell is full with good intentions'.

5. Chomsky speaks from the position of moral intransigeance and it seems that moral intransigeance is not a virtue anymore because our western society is becoming the champion of double standards and hypocrisy, applying on other cultures moral relativism and cultural absolutism, when it is suitable and profitable.

6. The US's imperialistic project is having its way easily because of the absence of vigourous dissent on the national and international levels due to the lack of rigourous moral standards and cultural empathy. Peter Beaumont, as every other mainstream western agent of the media or intellectual, lacks both cultural empathy and rigourous moral standards.

A close look at a shocking allegation: Is Palestinian children killing at the hands of Israel resulting from their involvement in armed groups ?

In the face of international outrage at the recent suicide of Guantanamo prisoners, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who commands the Guantanamo Bay prison, had this to say:

"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed," he said, quoted by Reuters. "They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

Military officials have argued that the detainee suicide attempts are designed to gain attention and to manipulate world opinion.

Colleen Graffy, deputy assistant U.S. secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC that the suicides were a “good P.R. move to draw attention” and “a tactic to further the jihadi cause.”

In the same vein, the deaths of Palestinian children killed by Israeli raids is said to be due to the 'use of children by palestinian armed groups for suicide and terror misssions' and to the 'dogmatisation of palestinian youths in schools and inside their families' where they are teached to 'hate Israel'.

This kind of counter claim in the face of the suffering of vulnerable people who are put down, occupied, tortured and killed, looks to me not only as a way of escaping responsibility but also as the expression of the disdain and the disregard on the part of the criminals who commit such crimes towards the humanity of their victims.

I wanted to investigate the shocking counterclaim concerning palestinian children. A review of Amnesty International (AI) reports between 2002 and 2006 on the children issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict yielded the following:
The 2006 and 2005 reports make only brief mentions of the use of children in the Palestinian Authority (PA) by armed groups, a use denied by main Palestinian armed organisations:

2006. ''Armed groups continued to use children to carry out attacks and transport explosives or weapons. Several Palestinian children were arrested by the Israeli army for their alleged involvement in such activities. The main armed groups reportedly disavowed the use of children and some blamed such abuses on local cells acting on their own initiative.''
You can consult here detailed AI documents concerning the PA.

2005. The use of children has a separate entry but is not more detailed than the 2006 report and mentions the case of a mentally disabled boy arrested by israelis wearing a suicide belt: ''Several children were involved in attacks against Israelis; two of them carried out a suicide attack inside Israel. Others were arrested by the Israeli army for their alleged involvement in such attacks. Palestinian armed groups have no declared policy of recruiting children and claim to disavow the use of children; some blamed such abuses on local cells acting on their own initiative or “collaborators” seeking to discredit the armed groups.
In March Hussam ‘Abdu, a 16-year-old boy with mental disabilities, was arrested at Huwara checkpoint, near Nablus, while wearing a suicide belt. The Israeli army had advance information about the case and had closed the checkpoint. The boy remained detained in Israel awaiting trial at the end of the year.''

2004. The 2004 report makes no mention of the use of children by Palestinian groups in military missions.

2003. The 2003 report reminds the PA that even non states have to comply with the UN convention on children's rights with the following mention:''In October the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that non-state actors establish and strictly enforce rules of engagement for military and other personnel which fully respect the rights of children as contained in the UN Children’s Convention and as protected under international humanitarian law. It also recommended that they refrain from using or targeting children in armed conflict and comply fully with Article 38 of the Convention, and as much as possible with the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.''

2002. The 2002 report is the most extensive on the the children issue but has no mention of the use of children by Palestinian armed groups. The 2002 report encompasses a period at the height of the second intifada. It enumerates the number and the names and the context of Israeli children victims of suicide attacks made by Palestinian armed groups and of Palestinian children killed by Israel. The report is damning for Israel.
''The alarming pattern of killing of Palestinian children by the IDF was established at the outset of the intifada and has continued. On the second day of the intifada, on 30 September 2000, four children were killed by IDF fire.
The following day another four children aged between 12 and 17 were again killed by other security services. Within a month some 30 Palestinian children had been killed by IDF fire and by the end of the year 2000 the number was over 80.
The rate at which Palestinian children were being killed decreased slightly during 2001 but increased again in 2002. In the first seven months of 2002 alone, more than 100 children were killed by IDF fire and the age of the victims was significantly lower than in the previous two years: in 2002, some 48% of the children killed were 12 years old or younger, as compared with some 35% in 2001 and about 13% in 2000.
In the first months of the intifada, the majority of child victims were killed as a result of the unlawful and excessive use of lethal force in response to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents, when the lives of IDF soldiers were not at risk. In 2002 the majority were those children killed when the IDF randomly opened fire, or shelled or bombarded residential neighbourhoods in Palestinian towns and villages. Most of these children were killed when there was no exchange of fire and in circumstances in which the lives of the soldiers were not at risk.''

Conclusions:

1. It is highly inhumane and hypocritical to assume that the killing of Palestinian children is the result of the use of children by Palestinian armed groups. This use is only briefly reported as an allegation in the 2005 and 2006 reports while the killings of Palestinian children have been taking place in a savage way since the beginning of the second intifada as a result of random shooting on civilians by Israel during peaceful demonstrations, attacks on civilian areas, demolition of houses, denial of access to medicare and hospitals, attacks by flechettes and booby-traps on densely populated areas and attacks by Israeli settlers.

2. Not to forget that after 2004, suicide attacks against Israel and Israeli civilians dropped dramatically and Hamas, the main organisation for armed resistance conducting terror attacks against Israel, has declared truce in 2004. So it seems to me that the claim of the use of children by armed groups coincide more with an increase in the number and the intensity of attacks on Palestinian civilians perpetrated by Israel than with attacks against Israeli civilians perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups.

3. To assume that the children killed are involved in armed groups is also to ignore what is a child and what is a combatant. The Israeli Institute for counterterrorism who, I assume, must know the difference between the two, published in June 2003, at the height of the suicide attacks on Israel by palestinian armed groups (and the alleged use of children in these attacks), the statistics and figures of combatant and civilian casualties covering a two year period from June 2001 to june 2003. The statistics speak by themselves. Israel has deliberately and indiscriminately targeted Palestinian boys and men between 14 and 39 years old.
4. In November 20th, 2004, Defence for Children International, Palestine section, published an article on its website which concluded:
''After months of media reports highlighting the role of children in the Palestinian intifada, the 2004 Global Report on the Use of Child Soldiers has found that this phenomenon remains the exception rather than the rule in Palestinian areas, although one which needs to be taken seriously.''

''Meanwhile, the report stated that both Israeli and Palestinian government forces have been implicated in the misuse of Palestinian children. While the Palestinian Authority has recruited some under-18s for its security forces, the Israeli Army and intelligence services have sought to recruit children as informers, often putting pressure on them to collaborate. The high level of child arrests has been important in this light, involving the detention of around 350 minors a year. Some of these children have reported torture and are often treated in ways that “fall short of international standards on juvenile justice,” said Forbes-Adam. ''

You can read here their 2005 report titled:'Surviving the present: Facing the future'. Once again, the report is damning for Israel and makes no mention of children's use by Palestinian armed groups.

5. Claiming that the massive killing of palestinian children by Israel is the result of the involvement of these children in acts of war against Israel is an imposture meant to protect the criminal's image while dehumanising the victim.

The problem with Israel's 'right to exist'

Does Israel's right to exist imply the killing of children in Palestine and Iraq ?
Does Isarel's right to exist imply the destruction of Palestine ?
Does Israel's right to exist imply the destruction of the Palestinians, their culture and their society ?
Does Israel's right to exist imply the worldwide stigamtisation of Islam and Muslims ?
Does Israel's right to exist imply creating, through its neo-con American friends and defenders, perpetual chaos in the middle east in order to have its hands free to assassinate and kill any viable and human solution to the occupation of Palestine and to consolidate its imperial hold on the whole region ?
Does Israel's right to exist imply perpetual meddling in Lebanon, including the infamous Sabra and Chatila massacres and recent car bombings as well as meddling in other neighbouring Arab countries and their destabilisation ?

In addition to all of this, Israel have been practising targeted assassinations, unconventional warfare, secretly developing its nuclear arsenal and ignoring UN resolutions. And the list of Israel's crimes cited here is only symbolic, neither representative, neither exhaustive.

The world interrupted aid to the Palestinians, pushing them further into poverty, malnutrition, medicare scarcity and civil war, only to force them into...recognizing Israel's right to exist ! The recognition of Israel's right to exist in such a way by the occupied can turn into a collective act of suicide. I think the problem of the 'right to exist' is a false problem when taken in its absolute and not legal sense. Israel has been considering the 'right to exist' only in its absolute metaphysical sense. However, legally, the right to exist is mainly about the practical possibility of existence in regards to Others. There is no possible legal existence in the void, in contempt of Others. 'Right' makes reference to law. Israel is not respecting international law in its definition of its 'right to exist'. In addition, it is not respecting other people's right to exist on the same land, namely those whom Israel dispossessed, the Palestinians.

Fatah has recognised Israel before and because of Isarel's unique conception of its right to exist this has led to more shrinking of the Palestinian territories, more killings, more contempt for international resolutions and more wars in the middle east. Israel's goal is to eliminate the Palestinians and its hesitant participation in peace talks always led to the collapse of the talks. the only things Israel was able to do are cosmetic moves meant to gain time and alleviate pressure while advancing its own agenda: the greater Israel in George Bush's greater submitted, bloodied and exhausted middle east.

Israel's war on the Palestinians: A conceptual confusion meant to hide unconventional warfare

To save the Israeli prime minsiter's tour in Europe where he is looking for support for his convergence plan (to be understood as the asphyxiation of any viable future Palestinian state), Israel declared that the Palestinian family killed on the beach was killed by a landmine Planted by Hamas. This lie is not only a cover up but the expression of Israel's disdain for Palestinians and its refusal to consider them as human beings. Why would Hamas plant mines on the beach in Gaza ? To counter an Israeli invasion from the sea or to kill its own people ? Both possibilities are absurd.

At the same time Israel continued its killing of Palestinians, to 'prevent them from launching small rockets into Israel'. Nine Palestinians were killed in a Israeli air strike today. Don't you know that small rockets are actually a big threat to Israel in the sense that they were upgraded recently as WMD. So 'Israel has the right to defend itself' including killing civilians and targeted assassinations of terrorists, Olmert declared today in UK.

Targeted assassinations of Palestinian terrorrists have always puzzled me as an intentional conceptual confusion created by Israel. It is this conceptual confusion that Israel has been practising for a long time now that was inflated to its actual international proportion: 'The War on Terror'.
Either you are assassinating a terrorist and this is unlawful because a terrorist is someone who defies the law and should be charged and tried and eventually condemned on the basis of evidence, or you are fighting a war and in this case your adversary is an organised state and not an individual. Havn't the US diverted its war effort on organised states in order to justify its war on terror ? You cannot just fight a terrorist with an army. sinse terrorists are by definition civilians and not army personnel, the war on terrorism serves also to help kill civilians and terrorise those who aren't killed by serving them the 'good example'.

All these conceptual confusions are created to muzzle public debate and criticism of highly unconventional methods for war. By the term unconventional I mean warfare that is not defined by international conventions. For this and for all the crimes committed through this method, Israel should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The new Art of War or how to turn a human tragedy into an imperial opportunity

''The events of 11 September 2001 killed thousands, left many thousands more bereft, and horrified countless millions who merely bore witness. But for a few, 9/11 suggested an opportunity. In the inner circles of the United States government men of ambition seized on that opportunity with alacrity. Far from fearing a ‘global war on terror’, they welcomed it, certain of their ability to bend war to their purposes. Although the ensuing conflict has not by any means run its course, we are now in a position to begin evaluating the results of their handiwork.

One point above all stands out: the rationale for the war had next to nothing to do with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

…For the war’s architects, ‘Iraq was not a danger to avoid but a strategic opportunity,’ less a destination than a point of departure. In their eyes, 2003 was not 1945, but 1939: not a climax but the opening gambit of a vast enterprise largely hidden from public view. Allusions to Saddam as a new Hitler notwithstanding, they did not see Baghdad as Berlin but as Warsaw – a preliminary objective. For the war’s most determined proponents – Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz – toppling Saddam was the first phase of what was expected to be a long campaign. In Iraq they intended to set precedents, thereby facilitating other actions to follow. Although Bush portrayed himself as a reluctant warrior for whom armed conflict was a last resort, key members of his administration were determined that nothing should get in the way of a showdown with Saddam. ‘In crafting a strategy for Iraq,’ the undersecretary of defense Douglas Feith insisted to one baffled US general, ‘we cannot accept surrender.’ The object of the exercise was to demolish constraints on the subsequent employment of American power. Merely promulgating a doctrine of preventive war would not be enough: it was imperative actually to implement that doctrine.

By planting the Stars and Stripes in downtown Baghdad, Gordon and Trainor write, the advocates of war intended not only to ‘implant democracy in a nation that had never known it’ but to ‘begin to redraw the political map of the region’. As ‘a demonstration of American power for Syria and other wayward regimes’, Operation Iraqi Freedom would show the consequences of defying the world’s only superpower. Even beyond the Middle East, Saddam’s demise was likely to have salutary effects, letting ‘other adversaries know they should watch their step’. ''

After the collapse of the initial rational for war against Iraq we rae left with two premises:
1. 'Implant a democracy in a nation that had never known it'.

2. Letting 'Other adversaries know they should watch their step'.

Three years after Shock and Awe, the idea of democracy seems more elusive in Iraq now than what it has been under Saddam's rule. Why ? Because under Saddam people didn't know what democracy actually was and they could dream of a democracy in which voting for their representatives meant actually participation in the political process and in the development of their country. The way things are going in Iraq now have shown Iraqis an ugly interpretation of democracy in which the voting process is disconnected from the rest; fair political representation, political auonomy from occupation forces, security, civil participation in the political process and nation building.
We are then left to conclude that the number one objective of the invasion of Iraq having failed, Americans can claim success in the number two objective: Letting 'Other adversaries know they should watch their step' . If the number one adversary is terrorrism as Americans claim, Objective nmber two hasn't worked so far. According to 2005 statistics, terror business is thriving.

But we have to look for the real adversaries if we have to allow Americans to claim victory in the number two objective. Who are then the adversaries who should learn a lesson from the America invasion of Iraq ? Here we realise that the US is giving us a large definition of the 'adversary' or a narrow one depending on which side you stand: indeed a US adversary is any country that does not abide by the US economic and foreign policy rules. This is why we are seeing more governments bending over while their citizens dissents are mounting leading sometimes to a wave of rejection of the all American superpower, something Americans and their allies call 'anti-Americanism'.
The most accurate definition for the process of 'letting adversaries know they should watch their step' is 'State terror'. By invading Iraq and applying physical terror on its population, and by proxy on all middle eastern countries, the US is, at the same time, applying virtual terror worldwide. And it is able to do it without reproach, thanks to the human tragedy of September eleventh.

Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, reviewed by Andrew Bacevich, London Review of Books.

Deaths on a Gazan beach

Reading the news on the daily occurring tragedies in Gaza and the present political impasse makes me feel distressed.
I couldn't imagine, being a privileged middle eastern woman living in the West, how people live their daily lives in Gaza. How can they work, move, earn their living, tend to their daily needs, let alone breath freely, admire beauty, feel happy, hope, love, dream and think about the future ? But the feeling is there, inside me, resting on the empathy or the implicit understanding I have for people living under tragic circumstances and stemming from my own memories of the Lebanese civil war that still vivid despite the passage of time. I myself, in a not so far past, have gotten to feel despair, feel that my life was not worthy, lose the sight of hope and of any personal future, carried away by events happening outside my own will, created by the political and military chaos which had gotten hold of me, waking up every morning with mixed feelings of anger, fatigue and profound loss.

With the heavy feeling triggered by the unfolding events in Gaza and my own personal memories of the Lebanese civil war, I would consult a map of Palestine and Gaza. I would look at Gaza, this tiny strip of less than 50 Kms long and between 6 and 14 kms large on the meditterranean sea, surrounded by hostility, hate and war. I would then ask myself: ''If I was a Gazan, where would I go for some relief, away from these daily tragedies, to dream and hope for a better time ?''
My eyes would stare at the Meditterranean and I would think that Gazans, looking for a break from daily violence, misery and tragedy, have at least the sea with its wonders, beauty, murmur, seemingly eternal life and the promise of a future, of someone friendly coming from the sea, from other shores. I would think that Gazans could go to the beach at the end of the day looking for the sweetness of a breeze, a moment of intimacy, a laugh, a play and the pretense of a normal life and the blessing that comes with it...And I would feel momentarily appeased.

The last days news of the killing of a Palestinian family picnicking on the beach in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli army were deeply distressing and unsettling for me. I no longer will be able to see the Meditterranean near Gaza with the same hopeful eyes and I will have to live with the fact that Palestinians are trapped in a place at the edge of Humanity, deprived of beauty, hope and love, surrounded by violence and left forgotten by the entire world and by Arabs, at the mercy of a Palestinian Authority with no authority subdued by an occupation state with ruthless force and no morality...

Not to forget that the ''Extermination of the two legged beasts'' was largely rehearsed by Israel in Lebanon in 1982

On June 6, twenty four years ago, Israel invaded Lebanon taking the much travelled Damascus-Beyrouth road. The first stop was the Palestinian camp of Rachidiyyé, south of Tyre, then the camp of Ain-El-Heloué, near Saida. Israeli tanks headed then to Beyrouth, the Lebanese capital and its Palestinian camps leaving behind them a trail of destruction and death. The objective was to drive the PLO out pf Lebanon and they did so pretending that it was the PLO's presence that was damaging the security of civilians that the Israeli were themselves bombing and shelling...After they drove the PLO out from Lebanon, with the cheers of the international community and the press and late outrage directed only at the methods and means employed, they continued indiscriminate shelling and air bombardment with increasing intensity targeting civilians in houses, hospitals, and schools. The culmination of this invasion came three months later in September with the Israeli army entering the Sabra and Chatila Palestinian Camps in Beyrouth with the Christian Lebanese militia to butcher thousands of defenseless women and children ...

This event signed the death certificate of the PLO who lost all its negotiations cards for a future settlment with Israel. Whatever followed after, Israel's intentions to advance peace were a hoax, including Oslo...
History will now repeat itself. Israel will do the same with Hamas and will offer even a tinier peace settlement by previous standards, based on 'generously' giving Palestinians some overpopulated and poverty stricken ghettos with no territorial continuity while spinning its reputation at the international scene as a peaceful country...

However, I think facts being what they are, spin is doomed to fail and no spin doctors in the whole world will ever succeed in salvaging Israel's and Zionism's images for centuries to come...

Noam Chomsky recalls the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the savagery of the Isareli army in his book 'Fateful triangle' (1999).

''The first target was the Palestinian camp of Rashidiyeh south of Tyre, much of which, by the second day of the invasion, "had become a field of rubble." There was ineffectual resistance, but as an officer of the UN peace-keeping force swept aside in the Israeli invasion later remarked: "It was like shooting sparrdws with cannon." The 9000 residents of the camp-which had been regularly bombed and shelled for years from land, sea and air-either fled, or were herded to the beach where they could watch the destruction of much of what remained by the Israeli forces. All teen-age and adult males were blindfolded and bound, and taken to camps where little has been heard about them since.''

''Israel's strategy was to drive the Palestinians to largely-Muslim West Beirut (apart from those who were killed, dispersed or imprisoned), then to besiege the city, cutting off water, food, medical supplies and electricity, and to subject it to increasingly heavy bombardment. Naturally, the native Lebanese population was also severely battered. These measures had little impact on the PLO guerrilla fighters in Beirut, but civilians suffered increasingly brutal punishment. The correct calculation was that by this device, the PLO would be compelled to leave West Beirut to save it from total annihilation. It was assumed, also correctly, that American intellectuals could be found to carry out the task of showing that this too was a remarkable exercise in humanity and a historically unique display of "purity of arms," even having the audacity to claim that it was the PLO, not the Israeli attackers, who were "holding the city and its population hostage"-a charge duly intoned by New York Times editors and many others.''

''The attackers used highly sophisticated U.S. weapons, including "shells and bombs designed to penetrate through the buildings before they explode," collapsing buildings inwards, and phosphorus bombs to set fires and cause untreatable burns. Hospitals were closed down or destroyed. Much of the Am el-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon was "flat as a parking lot" when Connell saw it, though 7-8000 Palestinians had drifted back-mostly women and children, since the men were "either fighting or arrested or dead." The Israelis bulldozed the mosque at the edge of the camp searching for arms, but "found 90 or 100 bodies under it instead, completely rotted away." Writing before the Beirut massacres but after the PLO had departed, he notes that "there could be a bloodbath in west Beirut" if no protection is given to the remnants of the population.

The Israeli press also reported the strategy of the invading army. One journalist observing the bombardment of Beirut in the early days describes it as follows:

With deadly accuracy, the big guns laid waste whole rows of houses and apartment blocks believed to be PLO positions. The fields were pitted with craters. . . Israeli strategy at that point was obvious-to clean away a no-man's land through which Israeli tanks could advance and prevent any PLO breakout.''

''The military tactics, as widely reported by the Israeli and foreign press, were simple. Since Israel had total command of the air and overwhelming superiority in firepower from land, sea and air, the IDF simply blasted away everything before it, then sent soldiers in to "clean out" what was left. We return to some descriptions of these tactics by Israeli military analysts. The tactics are familiar from Vietnam and other wars where a modern high technology army faces a vastly outmatched enemy. The difference lies in the fact that in other such cases, one rarely hears tales of great heroism and "purity of arms," though to be accurate, these stories were more prevalent among American "supporters" than Israeli soldiers, many of whom were appalled at what they were ordered to do.''

''The Lebanese government casualty figures are based on police records, which in turn are based on actual counts in hospitals, clinics and civil defense centers. These figures, according to police spokesmen, do "not include people buried in mass graves in areas where Lebanese authorities were not informed." The figures, including the figure of 19,000 dead and over 30,000 wounded, must surely be underestimates''

''Repeatedly, Israel blocked international relief efforts and prevented food and medical supplies from reaching victims.* Israeli military forces also appear to have gone out of their way to destroy medical facilities-at least, if one wants to believe Israeli government claims about "pinpoint accuracy" in bombardment. "International agencies agree that the civilian death toll would have been considerably higher had it not been for the medical facilities that the Palestine Liberation Organization provides for Its own people"'-and, in fact, for many poor Lebanese-so it is not surprising that these were a particular target of attack.''

''An American nurse working in Beirut, who was appalled by the "watered-down descriptions in American newspapers," reported that Israel "dropped bombs on everything, including hospitals, orphanages and, in one case, a school bus carrying 35 young schoolgirls who were traveling on an open road"; she cared for the survivors. The U.S. Navy Lieut. Commander in charge of removing unexploded ordnance in Beirut reports that "we found five bombs in an orphanage with about 45 cluster bombs in the front yard. We were called there after five children were injured and four killed." About 3-5% of the shells and bombs failed to go off and are considered highly dangerous, he said. This particular orphanage, then, must have been heavily bombed.

One of the most devastating critiques of Israeli military practices was provided inadvertently by an Israeli pilot who took part in the bombing, an Air Force major, who described the careful selection of targets and the precision bombing that made error almost impossible. Observing the effects, one can draw one's own conclusions. He also expressed his own personal philosophy, saying "if you want to achieve peace, you should fight." "Look at the American-Japanese war," he added. "In order to achieve an end, they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

''The bombings continued, reaching their peak of ferocity well after agreement had been reached on the evacuation of the PLO. Military correspondent Hirsh Goodman wrote that "the irrational, unprovoked and unauthorized bombing of Beirut after an agreement in principle regarding the PLO's withdrawal had been concluded between all the parties concerned should have caused [Defense Minister Sharon's] dismissal," but did not.

The 1l-hour bombing on August 12 evoked worldwide condemnation, even from the U.S.. and the direct attack was halted. The consensus of eye witnesses was expressed by Charles Powers:

To many people. in fact, the siege of Beirut seemed gratuitous brutality. . . The arsenal of weapons, unleashed in a way that has not been seen since the Vietnam war, clearly horrified those who saw the results firsthand and through film and news reports at a distance. The use of cluster bombs and white phosphorus shells, a vicious weapon. was widespread.

The Israeli government, which regarded news coverage from Lebanon as unfair, began to treat the war as a public-relations problem. Radio Israel spoke continually of the need to present the war in the "correct" light. particularly in the United States. In the end, however, Israel created in West Beirut a whole set of facts that no amount of packaging could disguise. In the last hours of the last air attack on Beirut, Israeli planes carpet-bombed Borj el Brajne [a Palestinian refugee camp]. There were no fighting men left there. only the damaged homes of Palestinian families, who once again would have to leave and find another place to live. All of West Beirut, finally, was living in wreckage and garbage and loss.

But the PLO was leaving. Somewhere, the taste of victory must be sweet.''

Read the full chapter...