Jonathan Cook, Electronic Lebanon, 7 September 2006

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5698.shtml

NAZARETH – The measure of a human rights organisation is to be found not just in the strides it takes to seek justice for the oppressed and victimised but also in the compromises it makes to keep itself out of trouble. Because of the business that human rights defenders are in, they must be held to a standard higher than we demand of others.

Unfortunately, one of the best — Human Rights Watch — has failed that test during the war in Lebanon this summer. (Lire la suite…)

Patrick Cockburn
publié le mardi 12 septembre 2006.
” Gaza est en train de mourir. Ici, sur les rivages de la Méditerranée, une grande tragédie est en train de se passer, que le monde ignore.”
Gaza est une prison.
Personne n’a le droit d’en sortir.
Et maintenant nous sommes tous en train de mourir de faim.
Une société toute entière est en train d’être détruite. Il y a 1.3 million de Palestiniens emprisonnés dans la région la plus peuplée du monde. Israël a mis fin à tout commerce. Elle a même interdit aux pêcheurs de s’éloigner des rivages alors ils pataugent dans l’écume des vagues pour essayer en vain d’attraper des poissons avec leurs filets lancés à la main

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Meron Rappaport revient dans le quotidien Haaretz sur l’utilsation par l’armée israélienne de bombes au phosphore et du grand nombre d’obus “à retardement” qui minent actuellement le sol libanais et vont nécessairement tuer encore plus de civils

« Nous avons tiré plus d’un million de sous-munitons. Ce que nous avons fait était fou et monstrueux. Nous avons arrosé des villes entières de bombes », déclare le commandant israélien d’une unité de missiles au Liban en parlant de l’usage des bombes à sous-munitions (ou fragmentation) et de l’utilisation des obus à phosphore pendant la guerre..

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The following letter was sent by Hassan El Akhras to the National Post in response to an article about the killing of the El Akhras family published in that newspaper. The Post has refused to publish this letter.

23 August 2006

Sunday July 16 was the darkest day of my life. I lost 12 members of my family. They include my father, Ali El Akhras, my cousin, Ali Al-Akhrass, and his wife, Amira, and their four children, aged 1 to 8: Salam (which means ‘Peace’), Ahmad, Zeinab and Saja as well as the children’s grandmother Haniya Al-Akhrass.

Their bodies were crushed under the rubble of our house in the southern Lebanese village of Aytaroun. Their lives were cut short by the Israeli shelling of their hideout from the bombs. (Lire la suite…)

by Rami El-Amine

Originally published by Zmag.

Racism against Arabs and Muslims long preceded the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has much of its roots in Western imperialism in the Middle East, especially Israel’s colonization of Palestine.  Yet, the escalation that we witness today can be traced to the war on terror launched after 9-11 by Bush and his neoconservative ideologues with the backing of the Democrats. Anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism has helped sell the detentions, wars, gulags, and occupations of US imperialism’s latest and boldest venture into the Middle East and South Asia.  In turn, this imperial venture has further inflamed racist views of Arabs and Muslims.   What makes this growing racism so frightening is its wide acceptance in US society, particularly by the left.  With the latter, it is not as much conscious racism as not doing enough to fight it.  Part of this may be due to ambivalence, but it also stems from a lack of a dynamic understanding of Islamism.  Broad support gives anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism a sense of legitimacy and respectability that makes building a mass movement that can end the war and occupation of Iraq difficult, if not impossible, since so much of the support for the war is fueled by fear and racism.

We thrash, curse for air
As our strangler declares, look
How violent the Arab
              – Haiku for the Head Locked by Zein El-Amine

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”Dans cette première déclaration que je fais dans les jours qui suivent le début de l’opération Promesse Sincère, j’aimerais adresser quelques mots, un mot au peuple libanais, un mot aux combattants de la résistance, un mot aux sionistes, et un mot aux gouvernants arabes. Je ne m’adresserai pas à la communauté internationale, parce que je n’ai jamais cru un seul jour qu’il existait une communauté internationale, idée partagée par beaucoup ici.”

Déclaration du Secrétaire Général du Hezbollah, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, le 14 juillet 2006.

Tadamon ! Montréal publie des discours donnés par le Secrétaire Général du Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, parce qu’ils expliquent les motivations sociales, culturelles et politiques des actions militaires du Hezbollah, et permettent de mieux comprendre le contexte dans lequel cette guerre s’est déroulée. Tadamon ! Montréal reproduit les traductions de ces discours afin de mettre en lumière la désinformation concernant le Hezbollah, et présente dans la majorité des grands médias en Amérique du Nord.
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Reporting from South Lebanon

August 27th, 2006
Hicham Takache

In the afternoon, I took my family and made a tour to the neighboring villages and towns to survey the war damage. Yohmor in particular was badly hit. This small village overlooking the Litani River was bombed mercilessly by all types of ammunition; from artillery shells, to cluster bombs, to smart bombs shot from Apache helicopters and F16 fighter jets. The damage is extensive and incredible.

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View a photo essay of Haret Hreik from independent media activist & organizer with the Samidoun coalition, Mohammad Shublaq taken on Tuesday, 15 August 2006. Haret Hreik is a neighborhood in the southern suburb of Beirut that was most heavily targeted by Israeli air-strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs or Dahye in Arabic.
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Deliberate destruction or ‘collateral damage’?

Excerpt from Amnesty International report, “Israel/Lebanon: Deliberate destruction or “collateral damage”? Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure.” Full report: www.amnesty.org.

During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment of Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale. Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns, as their inhabitants fled the bombardments. Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in air strikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. (Lire la suite…)

The UN’s humanitarian chief has accused Israel of “completely immoral” use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm

UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.

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