Posted by
J.P. Farris on Sunday, July 30, 2006 12:23:52 AM
I was talking to a man about current events today and told him some of the things I had learned from reading blogs. He looked at me in surprise and said, “You might not hear that on CNN.”
Hezbollah has a way of manipulating the media and making the world see only what they want them to see. The media has been focusing a lot on civilians caught in the crossfire. The stories the news media might not broadcast…at least not widely are the stories from inside Lebanon from bloggers.
The situation in Ain Ebel is unbearable. Thousands of civilians have fled to the village from nearby villages and more than 1000 rockets have hit the village, there is no more food neither clean water and diseases r spreading.
Now here comes the most sickening part:
Hezbollah has been firing rockets from the village since Day 1 hiding behind innocent people’s places and even CHURCHES. No one is allowed to argue with the Hezbollah gunmen who wont hesitate to shoot you and i ve heard about more than one shooting incident including young men from the village and Hezbollah.
Urgent appeals have been done through phone calls from terrified people who wouldnt give out their name fearing Hezbollah might harm or even eliminate them.
This is the true image of our brave Islamic Resistance, putting the civilians and their homes as body shields to the Israeli bombardements.
Let the message spread and let those criminals move out of the village once and for all.
Free Ain Ebel from the terrorists !{http://www.ouwet.com/n10452/editorials/free-ain-ebel-from-hezbollah-invasion/}
Not all villages in southern Lebanon are Shiite. Just above the abandoned SLA base at the old Majidiyya estate on the Lebanon-Israel border sits a small, quiet Druse village called Mari. You will not find Mari on any maps, but at the beginning of the current conflict Mari found itself caught between the Israeli Air Force, which apparently wanted to avoid bombing the village directly, and Hizbullah, which wanted to enter the town at all costs. You see, Mari's location would provide the militia an excellent overview of the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona (and the settlement of Metulla, which is closer but much smaller), and finding a way to operate there would give Hizbullah increased civilian cover for their Katyusha rocket fire.
Residents who have recently escaped from Mari tell of a dramatic, desperate situation in the village. The Druse residents, who have no affinity at all for Hizbullah, resisted Hizbullah's attempts to enter the village. The IAF apparently and unwittingly assisted in their resistance by bombing the roads leading into the village, cutting off the militia's ability to enter the town, at least temporarily. Hizbullah responded by cutting off the town's electricity and water supply, essentially laying seige to a town on its own side of the border, hoping that its residents would pack up and leave. Many of them have done so. My sources say that Hizbullah has been desperate to enter the village but has as of yet been unable to do so in large numbers. Residents also describe a growing humanitarian crisis in the village due to the lack of fresh water.{http://blissstreetjournal.blogspot.com/2006/07/siege-of-mari.html}
HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS ARE CAUSUNG A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY!
Passengers on board an evacuation ship told medical doctor Boris Buck from the German city of Munich that they had seen members of the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah group or their sympathisers killing 18 Lebanese people during the night.
The victims were suspected of helping the Israeli air force pick out targets.{http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Middle_East/0,,2-10-2075_1974589,00.html}
ARE THE HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS REALLY THERE TO PROTECT LEBANON?
Israeli troops pulled back from a key Lebanese border town Saturday where it battled Hezbollah for a week, claiming to have finished its mission after the bloodiest ground fight of the 18-day war. Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children.
The battle for Bint Jbail has symbolized Israel's difficulty in pushing guerrillas back from the border, whether by air bombardment or ground assault. Hezbollah on Friday escalated its cross-border attacks, firing longer-range missiles deeper into Israel than ever before.{http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/israel-pulls-out-of-hezbollah/20060728045409990004}
Israeli tanks pushed back into Gaza before dawn Saturday, a day after ending a bloody, three-day sweep that killed 30 Palestinians.
Seven tanks crossed just over Gaza's northern border, Palestinian security officials said. The army had said its withdrawal Friday was temporary and did not mean its monthlong offensive in the Gaza Strip was over.
Also Saturday, Israeli forces attacked a site on the Gaza-Egypt border where militants had been tunneling, the army said. Palestinian officials said electric cables were destroyed in the attack, knocking out power to the nearby town of Rafah.
The army said its aircraft also attacked a building housing a weapons cache in Gaza City. No injuries were reported in either incident.
After Israeli troops left Friday, Palestinians streamed out of their homes, inspecting their battered houses and vehicles while rescue workers searched for bodies underneath rubble. Militants picked up mines and explosives they had planted to hit Israeli tanks.http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/29/gaza.ap/index.htmlWhat’s life like in Northern Israel right now? Here is a small picture and the link to the full article:
The lobby of the hotel in Haifa last Friday morning looked like hotel lobbies do on these occasions: Anchor people from the major networks scrabbling for a new angle for their piece at the top of the hour; Journalists putting in requests to the army to be embedded with the Israeli forces operating in Lebanon; and everyone trying to pronounce the name of Brigadier-General Ido Nechushtan, who has just finished a briefing. We do that on purpose.
Friday afternoon and sirens go off, followed almost immediately by four explosions. The hotel workers run for the shelters, journalists and others run to the promenade outside the hotel that overlooks Haifa.
The last explosion is deafening and clearly very close. Smoke rises from the center of the city. We jump into cars and rush to the spot. The rocket has plowed into the roof of a post office and exploded. Several injuries from the blast, no deaths.
This is Friday afternoon and public services are closed in Israel. One hour previously, and the post office would have been filled with the Jews and Arabs who make up the residents of this part of the city.
Being interviewed on a European radio station, the interviewer snarls at me when I mention that Haifa has a mixed Jewish/Arab population and that as we speak, many of them were sitting in bomb shelters together, hiding from Nasrallah’s rockets.
I was surprised this information could be so irritating. I didn’t dare tell him about the guy who came up to me in downtown Haifa, showed my his bombed shop front and told me he was an Arab who wants the IDF to destroy the Hizbullah.{http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3282393,00.html}
Being far from the battle field it is hard to imagine the emotional stress and tension the civilian population must be feeling.
President Bush said yesterday that he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice back to the Middle East today to negotiate an end to the bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel, amid widespread criticism that the United States has waited too long to push for an end to the conflict.
With the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain at a joint news conference, Bush defended his refusal to call for an immediate Israeli cease-fire, saying that it is important to defeat ``terrorists [who] are trying to stop the advance of freedom."{http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/07/29/bush_sending_rice_back_to_the_mideast/?page=1}
President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said Friday that they would present a plan to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah at the United Nations next week as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed into an urgent round of weekend meetings in the Middle East to hash out the details.
Facing pressure from Arab and European allies to end the violence, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, at a joint White House appearance, painted the broad outlines of a plan in which an international peacekeeping force would insert itself between the warring sides and help the weak Lebanese military take control of the southern region controlled by Hezbollah.
But aides acknowledged that the hard work of figuring out what Lebanon and Israel would accept, and how an international force would be composed, lay ahead.
Israel wants to weaken Hezbollah and push it well away from the border, and may not be ready to call off its campaign, especially when it has serious doubts that an international force would be strong enough to contain Hezbollah. And Hezbollah, which built its reputation on its willingness to fight Israel, has always rejected calls to disarm, and seems to have a flow of military and financial support from Syria and Iran.{http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print}
President Bush said Saturday that while the fighting in Lebanon is "painful and tragic," it also presents opportunity for change in the Middle East, a region that has "suffered decades of tyranny and violence."
Bush, in his weekly radio address, said he will work with allies to get a U.N. Security Council resolution mandating a multinational force in southern Lebanon, where fighting has raged between Israel and the Hezbollah militia.
"This approach will demonstrate the international community's determination to support the government of Lebanon, and defeat the threat from Hezbollah and its foreign sponsors," Bush said.{http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/29/bush.radio.ap/index.html}
But how affective is the UN? According to Bill O’Reilly:
The United Nations is impotent. That's the only diagnosis an objective person can arrive at if you look at the facts. Time and time again, the United Nations has been called upon to protect innocent people and has failed.http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BillOReilly/2006/07/29/viagra_for_the_united_nationsCan a UN sanctioned multinational force protect the peace? If Hezbollah is disarmed who knows?
Meanwhile back in the United States the tension felt in the Middle East is finding its way to American shores in the form of what can only be called “hate crimes”.
A man walked into a Jewish organization Friday afternoon and opened fire, killing one woman and injuring at least five others before he was arrested, officials said.
The gunman, who employees said claimed to be a Muslim angry at Israel, forced his way through the security door at the Jewish Federation after an employee had punched in her security code, said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a co-worker who was not at the building at the time.
Staff members said they overheard him saying "'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," Meislin-Dietrich said. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."http://news.pajamasmedia.com/2006/07/29/9903694_6_Shot_1_Fatally.shtmlWill the violence come to an end? Will there be a peaceful resolution? Will Hezbollah and Hamas release their kidnapped hostages? Will the border between southern Lebanon and Northern Israel be secured? Will the humanitarian crisis on both sides of the border be dealt with?
We can only hope and pray.