Obama - false American Idol

From The Australian, by Gerard Baker May 16, 2008:

EVERY decade or so the people who control the way we see the world anoint some American politician the Redeemer of a Troubled Planet..... it's fairly clear now that, with the near-certain nomination by the Democrats of Barack Obama everything is in place for the media to indulge in one of the greatest, orgiastic media fiestas of hero-worship since Elvis Presley.

You will not see a finer example of the genre than the cover story of this week's Newsweek, which was entitled "The O Team". This rhapsodic inside account of Senator Obama's campaign reads a little like a cross between Fr Alban Butler's Life of St Francis and the sort of authorised biography of Kim Jong Il you can pick up in any good bookshop in Pyongyang.

Mr Obama is portrayed throughout as an immanently benevolent figure. Not human really, more a comforting presence, a light source. He is always eager to listen to all sides of an argument, always instilling confidence in the weak-willed, resolutely sticking to his high principles, and tirelessly spurning the low road of electoral politics. I stopped reading after a while but I'm sure by the end he was healing the sick, comforting the dying, restoring sight to the blind and setting prisoners free....

... the Newsweek credo was only the latest and perhaps most shameless phase of the pro-Obama liturgy in the media. Some cable TV channels prostrate themselves nightly before him. ....

...This media narrative is not only an outgrowth of the journalists' natural enthusiasm for a Democrat such as Mr Obama. It is a clever ploy to pre-emptively de-legitimise any Republican critique of the Democratic nominee. It is designed to prevent Mr McCain from asking reasonable questions about Mr Obama's strikingly vacuous political background, or raising doubts about his credentials for the presidency.

The idolatry of Mr Obama is a shame, really. The Illinois senator is indeed, an unusually talented, inspiring and charismatic figure. His very ethnicity offers an exciting departure. But he is not a saint. He is a smart and eloquent man with a personal history that is startlingly shallow set against the scale of the office he seeks to hold. It is not only legitimate, but necessary, to scrutinise his past and infer what it might tell us about his beliefs, in the absence of the normal record of achievement expected in a presidential nominee. If the last 40 years have taught us anything they have surely taught that premature canonisation is an almost certain guarantee of subsequent deep disappointment.

The Times

Israel demands UN strike 'Nakba' from its lexicon

From Ynet News, 15/5/08, by Yitzhak Benhorin:

...Israel is demanding that the UN strike the word 'Nakba' from its lexicon, this after the world body's spokeswoman uttered it, apparently by mistake, in a press briefing she held Thursday night.

'Nakba', or 'catastrophe', [is how Arab propagandists refer] to ... Israel's inception in 1948.

... Ki-moon himself was also surprised by the controversy created by his gesture, as he was not aware that the use of the term was unacceptable to Israel and is a part of the Palestinian propaganda against it.

... The UN said the word had not been used by any of the world body's institutions or officials before, and it is estimated that it was purposely 'planted' by someone into the spokeswoman's text....

Hamastan must go

From JPost.com » Opinion » Editorials May 15, 2008:

...Fifteen Israelis were wounded Wednesday - four seriously - by a Grad-model rocket that hit a shopping center in Ashkelon just hours after US President George W. Bush arrived to celebrate the state's 60th anniversary. Southern District Police chief Cmdr. Uri Bar-Lev said the rocket, fired from Beit Lahiya, had been made in Iran.

The attack on Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, came two days after 69-year-old Shuli Katz of Moshav Yesha was killed by a Kassam rocket. Her death followed the killing of Jimmy Kedoshim last Friday as he did his weekend gardening in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

One is hard-pressed to think of another country that would tolerate such a relentless barrage....

THE CURRENT Israeli policy - to absorb damage and casualties, try to strike at rocket launchers and gunmen in Gaza and periodically declare, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did on Wednesday, that the assaults are "entirely intolerable"- is no longer viable.....

... Vice Premier Haim Ramon was right when he declared on Thursday: "We have to put an end to the Hamas government." ... Israel's necessary course of action is clear:...a series of escalating steps beginning with the elimination of Hamas's key leaders, and continuing with relentless artillery fire at the sources of rocket launches, while making every effort to minimize civilian casualties.

Ultimately, so long as the danger persists, "putting an end to the Hamas government" may necessitate temporarily retaking some or even all of the Strip.

All this must be accompanied by public diplomacy, stressing that Israel has no long-term interest in occupying Gaza, and that such action in defense of sovereign Israel's citizenry...

...Experience has long since shown that Israeli vulnerability and indecisiveness invite aggression....

Bush pledges American support for Israel

From Ynet News, 15/5/08, by Associated Press:

US president expected to reiterate American administration's commitment to help Israel in fight against al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbullah and Iranian threat in anticipated Knesset speech

US President George W. Bush on Thursday criticized the deadly tactics of extremist groups like al-Qaeda, Hizbullah and Hamas and said he looks toward the day when Muslims "recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause."

In a speech prepared for delivery the Knesset, Bush pledged that the United States has an unbreakable bond with Israel: "Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away" Bush said in his prepared address.

"This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you."

Bush took special aim at Iran and said the United States stands with Israel in opposing moves by Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons.

"Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations," The president said. "For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

Is it about borders?

From JPost.com » Opinion » Editorials » May 14, 2008:

...The Bush administration would like Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a border so that everything else - Jerusalem, settlements, the "occupation," refugees, whatever - can then fall into place. This presupposes that the Palestinians see their conflict with Israel as primarily a border dispute. Would it were so.

A 1921 British Mandate map showed Palestine's borders already divided between a Jewish homeland west of the Jordan (today Israel, the West Bank and Gaza), and an area to the east closed to Jewish settlement (today Jordan).

The Arab response to that map was: This isn't about borders.

In 1937 the Peel Commission offered another set of borders. Transjordan would, of course, remain in Arab hands, and virtually all of what was left west of the Jordan would also be Arab. The Jews would be given land from Tel Aviv running northward along the coastal plain and parts of Galilee.

The Arabs said: It's not about borders.

A third map, proposed by the UN in 1947 as General Assembly Resolution 181 - the Partition Plan - divided Palestine west of the Jordan River (the eastern bank now being Transjordan): The Jews were to be given an indefensible, checkerboard territory, the biggest chunk of which consisted of the then arid Negev. Jerusalem, the epicenter of Jewish longing since 70 CE, would be internationalized; a tiny corridor would connect Israel's truncated parts. To get to Galilee, Jews would have to traverse Arab Palestine.

The Jews took the deal. The Arabs said: It's not about borders.

On May 15, 1948 - 60 years ago today - the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Syrian and Lebanese armies, along with Palestinian irregulars, sought to throttle the birth of Israel. Their failure to do so created the 1949 Armistice Lines. The West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem were all in Arab hands. There was no "occupation."

The Jews said: Now, can we live in peace? The Arabs said: It's not about borders.

TODAY, 41 years ago, Egyptian troops moved into the Sinai as Gamal Abdel Nasser declared "total war." The Syrians, for their part, promised "annihilation." Even King Hussein figured the time was ripe to strike. But, instead of destroying Israel, the Arabs lost more territory. The heartland of Jewish civilization, Judea and Samaria, was now in Israel's hands, as was Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

Even so, the Jews said: Let's trade land for peace. In August 1967, Arab leaders assembled in Khartoum gave their reply: No peace. No negotiations. No recognition.

Ten years later, with the election of Menachem Begin, the courageous Anwar Sadat came to the Knesset with a message: "We really and truly welcome you to live among us in peace and security." Egypt and Israel then agreed on a border and signed a peace treaty. The Arabs ostracized Cairo and Sadat was assassinated. The peace never really blossomed, but the border holds.

THEN IN 1993, Yitzhak Rabin took an astonishing strategic risk, turning over parts of the West Bank to a newly-created Palestinian Authority. Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Jericho, Tulkarm and Kalkilya all came under full Palestinian jurisdiction. Other territory was placed under the PA's civil control, and the PA took charge of Gaza's Arab population centers.
The sight of green PA license plates became commonplace throughout Israel. Checkpoints were minimized. The international community poured money into the Palestinian areas.

At last, the Palestinians had the parameters of a state-in-waiting - a political horizon. The parties still had tough issues to tackle, but the reality on the ground had dramatically improved.
In 2000, Ehud Barak offered at Camp David his vision of a viable Palestinian state. Yasser Arafat's "counter-offer" was the Aksa intifada, an orgy of suicide bombings nationwide and drive-by shootings in the West Bank that would claim over 1,000 Israeli lives.

Clearly for Arafat, the issue wasn't borders.

For Israelis to now take the idea of a "shelf-agreement" about borders seriously, the Palestinians would have to declare - once and for all - that their dispute with us really is about borders.

And that they accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

If they do that, the rest will fall into place.

Iran injures 100 Israelis in Askelon, IDF braces for more

from DEBKAfile, May 14, 2008, 11:17 PM (GMT+02:00):

Up to 100 injured by Iran-made rocket which wrecks crowded Ashkelon shopping mall

Jihad Islami and Popular Committees claimed the attack with Hamas' blessing. After examining the rocket shrapnel, police commander Uri Barlev confirmed it was a Grad (Katyhusha) military rocket made in Iran.

Of the 100 people injured in Ashkelon’s bustling mall, four people were seriously hurt including a mother and her four-month old baby. Two women suffered moderate injuries and the others of whom many were children were slightly hurt. Four were dug out of the debris.

The Palestinian rocket crashed without warning into the roof of the three-floor building, fired from the former Israel Dugit site in N. Gaza just when President Bush was winding up a conversation with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. The attack revived fresh demands for a major operation to put a stop to the daily attacks from the Gaza Strip. ...

...Furious complaints were heard in the streets of Ashkelon over the failure of the siren to sound an alert in time for people to take shelter from the rocket attack. Homeland Command officers explained the decision not to activate the siren by the many recent false alarms that kept the population on edge and the wish not to disturb the Bush visit.

Security minister Avi Dichter, trade and industry minister Eli Yishai decide to skip the gala banquet in the US president’s honor and travel to Ashkelon instead. Casualties have mounted recently from the daily Palestinian attacks on Israeli communities outside Gaza. Two people were killed in the last week.

from DEBKAfile May 14, 2008, 11:17 PM (GMT+02:00):

... Israeli army braces for more Palestinian attacks after Ashkelon

Israeli units around Gaza, including the air force, are on the highest alert, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, for Palestinian terror groups to follow up their rocket attack on the Ashkelon shopping mall, which injured 100 civilians, with more aggressive actions. Aside from rocket fire, according to our sources, Hamas is planning to stage mass marches Thursday, May 15, to batter the Gaza-Israel border crossings and fence.

To pre-empt this assault, the Israeli air force plan to drop bombs overnight on Hamas and Jihad Islami installations across the Gaza Strip. The rocket which crashed through the roof of the Ashkelon mall Wednesday is believed by our sources to have carried a message from Tehran to visiting US president George W, Bush that Iran’s arm was long enough to reach an American presence anywhere.

Our military sources also disclose that the Grad rocket was in fact fired by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command headed by Ahmed Jibril. A team of this terrorist group reached the Gaza Strip in the last few days via Sinai after attending a special course in the precise targeting of rockets at an installation near Tehran. The team arrived already armed with the Grad manufactured in Iran which hit the Ashkelon mall.

The Ashkelon rocket also carried a warning to prime minister Ehud Olmert that the truce plan Egypt presented to Israel was a take-it-or-leave it ultimatum and not open to negotiation.

Grand Mufti Amin al-Husaini - Nazi collaborator and emulator

This brief excerpt, from GLORIA, by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz May 13, 2008, refers to a critically important piece of history that goes a long way towards explaining the Arab attitude to Jews today. Follow the link to the full article.

Amin al-Husaini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem...implemented the German idea of organizing jihad and terror behind enemy lines....Later, he led the resistance against the British mandate authority in Palestine during uprisings in 1929 and in 1936. He fiercely opposed Jewish settlement.

... From 1941 to 1945, he lived for the most part in Berlin as a guest of the German government. The Nazis provided office space, vehicles and money, so that the Mufti and his entire entourage could stay active. In return, the Mufti used his influence in the Middle East on the Nazis' behalf and recruited Muslims for the Nazi war effort. On the airwaves of Nazi Germany's Arab language radio service, he called for a Holy War, a jihad, against the Allies and the Jews.

...Memoirs of the Grand Mufti, edited by Abd al-Karim al-Umar, were published in Damascus in 1999. (See cover photo click here.) In the memoirs, al-Husaini openly discusses his close relationship to SS chief Heinrich Himmler....[and] describes what Himmler said to him in that summer of 1943 about the persecution of the Jews.... Himmler told him that "up to now we have liquidated [abadna] around three million of them" (p. 126 -- to see Arabic excerpt click here).

There is evidence, moreover, that the Grand Mufti knew about the Nazis' plans still earlier. In 1946, Dieter Wisliceny, a close collaborator of Adolf Eichmann in the "Jewish Affairs" division of the Reich Central Security Office, provided a written statement on the Grand Mufti to the Nuremberg Tribunal.

According to Wisliceny, at the beginning of 1942 Eichmann made a detailed presentation to al-Husaini on the "solution of the European Jewish question." ...The Grand Mufti, Wisliceny recalls, was "very impressed." Furthermore, al-Husaini is supposed to have put in a request to Himmler to have Eichmann send one of his assistants to Jerusalem after Germany had won the war. The representative of Eichmann was to serve as the Grand Mufti's personal advisor: i.e. when the Grand Mufti would then set about "solving the Jewish question in the Middle East."

We can infer from other documentation that this was not just a vague idea. A declassified document on Nazi war crimes from the National Archives in Washington indicates that as of mid-1942 a special SS commando unit had plans to liquidate the Jews of Cairo following the capture of the city by German forces. ...

Noble action, likely to fail, shouldn't prevent alternative action

From The Australian, by Dennis Shanahan, Political editor May 14, 2008:

THE Rudd Government is preparing a case to take Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the International Court of Justice for "inciting genocide" and denying the Jewish Holocaust. Australia is the only nation pursuing Iran's despotic leader, who has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", through international laws.

...The Labor leader said it was "strongly arguable" that Mr Ahmadinejad's conduct - statements about wiping Israel off the map, questioning whether Zionists were human beings and a conference that he convened on the veracity of the Holocaust - amounted to incitement to genocide, which was criminalised under the 1948 genocide convention.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland, who pushed the campaign against Mr Ahmadinejad when he was Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, confirmed yesterday the Government was seeking legal advice on taking Mr Ahmadinejad to the ICJ. "The Government considers the comments made by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, calling for the destruction of Israel and questioning the existence of the Holocaust, to be repugnant and offensive," Mr McClelland told The Australian yesterday. "The Government is currently taking advice on this matter."

Mr McClelland had argued that taking legal action was better than other alternatives.
"The alternative to not using these international legal mechanisms is considering wholesale invasion of countries, which itself involves, obviously, expense but more relevantly, of course, the potential for significant loss of life," Mr McClelland said....

...When Mr Rudd committed a Labor government to pursuing Mr Ahmadinejad through international laws, the Coalition government labelled the promise a "stunt" that would fail.
Brendan Nelson, then defence minister, said Mr Rudd was raising expectations that "cannot be achieved". The Opposition Leader said the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court - the body that hears cases against individuals, as opposed to the ICJ, which hears cases against countries - had found it would fail. Individuals of countries that don't recognise the ICC, such as Iran, can be charged if the UN Security Council agrees.

Alexander Downer, then the foreign minister, said Mr Ahmadinejad would have to be taken before the ICC, and only on the agreement of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Mr Downer accused Mr Rudd of knowingly misleading the Australian public and the Jewish community with a "ghastly stunt" that he knew could not be carried out and would only undermine Australia's diplomatic standing....

This action is very commendable, but if the government sees it as an alternative to other very necessary action against Iran, we're in big trouble. See this opinion from an ANALYSIS in The Australian, by Greg Sheridan May 14, 2008:

THE Rudd Government's effort to bring a legal action against Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide is almost certain to fail. Nonetheless, it is a noble endeavour worthy of every support.

Merely bringing the action, or attempting to, increases the moral and political pressure on the Iranian President. It also should help those people within the Iranian leadership who regard Ahmadinejad as not only extreme but dangerous to Iran's own interests....

...Of course, the Rudd Government's action also displays a profound solidarity with Israel - a solidarity that is just in itself and that will be much appreciated in Jerusalem. It will also, incidentally, have the effect of identifying Canberra as an antagonist of Iran, which is just what it should be while Tehran's leadership is so dangerous and extreme.

However, it is extremely unlikely to succeed as a legal action and contains one small danger. It is unlikely to succeed as a legal action simply because Iran is too powerful a state, and its oil too important to others....

...Moreover, anything which requires UN Security Council approval will be vetoed by China, which protects Iran and numerous other tyrannies from any serious consequences at the UN.

The very small danger involved in taking the legal action is that it must not be seen as a substitute for the main game of denying Iran nuclear weapons, if necessary by punitive economic sanctions.

This is why the Israeli has not taken up the charge of incitement to genocide against Ahmadinejad. Israel's overwhelming priority is the physical safety of its citizens from the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons.

It does not want to invest big diplomatic and political resources into a process that will probably fail, or even if it has some partial success will probably produce only a slap on the wrist for Ahmadinejad.

Israel does not want its priorities confused.

Nonetheless, for the civilised world to tell Iran that its President's statements are indeed uncivilised is a righteous act.

Hizballah prevails in Lebanon

From a DEBKAfile Analysis, May 13, 2008, 1:00 PM (GMT+02:00):

Lebanese army will not step in before Hizballah fights pro-government forces to the finish

...After six days of fighting between government loyalists and Hizballah leave close to a 100 dead and 200 wounded, the Lebanese army’s demand that all combatants lay down their arms will go unheeded until the Shiite terrorists decide they have achieved their goals.

Hizballah is now focusing on the northern Tripoli region and the central mountains east of Beirut [having already grabbed control of the capital, the south and the Bekaa valley - SL] in line with those goals after deciding there is no need at this stage to topple the pro-Western Siniora government:

1. The northern port of Tripoli is important to Hizballah and Syria - both as the largest pro-Syrian Sunni stronghold in Lebanon and as a supply hub for incoming Iranian arms for Tehran’s Shiite proxy. The arms are unloaded from Iran freighters at the Syrian ports of Latakiya and Tartous and trucked to Tripoli.

2. Hizballah has a strategic interest in crushing the Druze militias of the anti-Syrian pro-government Walid Jumblatt, which control the Chouf mountains east of Beirut. Over and above this goal, DEBKAfile’s military sources stress that, after capturing most of Beirut last Saturday, Hizballah has focused on isolating and disarming the Sunni supporters of the Siniora government.

After a series of fierce clashes, Hizballah slapped down an ultimatum for Jumblatt: Pull your militiamen out of their bases and hand over your heavy weapons i.e. cannon, mortars, heavy machine guns, RPG’s and explosives, to the Lebanese army, or face the consequences. Hizballah then brought in heavy artillery, with Syrian help, and set about pounding Druze mountain positions. It is hard to see them holding out for long before Hizballah seizes control of the hills which command the entire Beirut plateau.

After the Druze militias fall, Hizballah may be expected to focus on vanquishing majority leader Saad Hariri’s Sunni forces in Sidon. This would isolate the only armed force left in Lebanon, the Christian Phalangists led by Samir Geagea.

In the face of the Iranian surrogate army’s lightning conquest of Lebanon, US president George W. Bush’s statement in Washington, on the eve of his Middle East trip, that the United States would not let Syria and Iran undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty comes very much after the fact. His offer to help Siniora by strengthening his armed forces is equally belated.

The Lebanese army is by now more an operational arm of Hizballah than an armed force that serves the government.

An angel moves on

From Yahoo News, by MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writer, Mon May 12:

WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler — credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets — died Monday.... She was 98.




Irena Sendler z"l

(Photo by Katarina Stoltz/Reuters, 14/3/08)







...President Lech Kaczynski expressed "great regret" over Sendler's death, calling her "extremely brave" and "an exceptional person." In recent years, Kaczynski had spearheaded a campaign to put Sendler's name forward as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city's welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw's Jews were forced into a walled-off ghetto.

Seeking to save the ghetto's children, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations. Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto — and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.

Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

Records show that Sendler's team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943....

"Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory," Sendler said in 2007 in a letter to the Polish Senate after lawmakers honored her efforts in 2007....



Also see our previous posting on Irena Sendler

Hezbollah 'redrawing' Mideast map

From The Washington Times, 12 May 2008, by Joshua Mitnick:

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Hezbollah's dramatic gains in Lebanon last week are just part of a regional process that began last year in the Gaza Strip and will continue in Jordan and Egypt, a Hamas official in the West Bank told The Washington Times.

Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Ramallah-based Hamas political activist and editor, said militant groups across the Middle East are gaining power at the expense of U.S.-backed regimes, just as Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon. It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Sheik Khader said in an interview.

"We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."

His remarks highlight how a growing alliance linking Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah straddles the Shi'ite-Sunni rift.

The notion of new countries falling under Islamist influence reflects a goal of Hamas' parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of replacing secular Arab regimes with Islamist governments.
In the same way that Hamas' victory over the Palestinian Authority security forces in Gaza fighting last June profoundly disturbed neighboring Arab states, fighting in Lebanon yesterday and last week has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East and spurred an emergency meeting of the Arab League.

The Arab League is sending Secretary-General Amr Moussa to mediate among the Lebanese government, Hezbollah and Sunni supporters of the government.

Hezbollah Leaves West Beirut After Beating Government Challenge

From Bloomberg.com, by Daniel Williams, May 11:

Hezbollah...handed sections of Beirut to the Lebanese army after forcing pro-Western Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to abandon efforts to curb its military activities.

Hezbollah and its allied gunmen still remained in side streets in the central Hamra district of downtown Beirut today...

...Siniora placed the implementation of two government decisions in the army's hands: to shut down Hezbollah's electronic surveillance operation at Beirut's international airport and a vast land-line telephone network.

The military...overturned the government's plans. It reinstated the head of airport security fired over the existence of the spy system and left the phone lines under Hezbollah's control.

...Hezbollah forced Siniora to back down over a key issue of contention -- whether the Shiite party ought to be permitted to maintain a separate militia and military structure. Under United Nations Security Council resolution 1559, passed in 2004, all such militias were supposed to be disbanded.

Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and Syria, and Siniora, backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab allies, have been locked in a power struggle for 18 months. Hezbollah, which counts the Shiite Amal movement and a Christian party in its bloc, is demanding a veto over government decisions.

...The Hezbollah-led takeover of western Beirut included areas largely populated by Sunni Muslims, key backers of Siniora's Sunni, Christian and Druze coalition. Gunmen torched the offices of Al-Mustaqbal, a newspaper owned by Saad Hariri, a pro- government Sunni leader.

...The army stood by during the takeover....

Swiss-funded terrorism?

From JPost, May 13, 2008:

Several American victims of terrorist attacks in Israel have filed a lawsuit seeking more than $500 million from a Swiss bank, claiming the bank made it possible for Iran to fund the terrorists.

The lawsuit says the bank, Zurich-based UBS AG, provided dollars to Iran in violation of trade sanctions and Iran funneled the money to terrorist groups. "UBS knew full well that the cash dollars it was providing to a state sponsor of terrorism such as Iran would be used to cause and facilitate terrorist attacks by Iranian-sponsored terrorist organizations," the plaintiffs say.
Their lawyer, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, said in a phone interview from Tel Aviv that the bank is liable "as much as Iran or the terrorists" for the damage caused.

A UBS spokesman in New York, Kris Kagel, said the bank would not comment. In 2004, when UBS was fined $100 million for sending dollars to Iran, Cuba, Libya and Yugoslavia, the bank said "very serious mistakes were made" but did not directly admit to the accusations.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Manhattan, lists several suicide bombings and rocket attacks between 1997 and 2001 and attributes them to the militant Hamas and Hezbollah groups...

Iran continues to snipe on Israeli civilians

From The Israel Project 12/5/08:

A 70-year-old woman was killed today (May 12) in Israel’s southern Negev region when a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists hit a house. It was the second civilian death by rockets fired from Gaza since Saturday.

....Hamas and the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, both financed by Iran, claimed responsibility for firing the rocket, which landed deeper into Israeli territory than previous Qassam attacks.

....So far this year, there have been more than 1,950 rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli civilians in southern Israel. Since June 2004, 15 people have been killed by rockets and mortars and more than 450 have been injured in the attacks.

In addition, thousands of people now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in cities, towns and communities within range of the rockets. More than 3,000 residents of Sderot, the town that has borne the brunt of the rocket fire, have fled because of the incessant bombardment.

Lebanon to West: Wake Up Fast!

From GLORIA, by Barry Rubin May 12, 2008 [my own emphasis added - SL]:

While America's secretary of state devotes her time to doomed Israel-Palestinian talks and America goes ga-ga over a candidate whose main foreign policy strategy is to talk to dictators, still another crisis strengthens radical Islamists and endangers Western friends and interests...

...Hizballah seized west Beirut and inflicted a big defeat on the pro-government side.
While Iran and Syria provide guns and strong backing to their friends, the West responds with words backed by nothing. Who can blame Hizballah and Damascus and Tehran for laughing with contempt, believing they are the tide of the future, assuming their "passionate intensity" will inevitably triumph over the weak-willed West?

...What Spain was in 1936; Lebanon is today.

...Why should Lebanese Sunni, Druze, and Christians risk their lives when the West doesn't help them? Every Israeli speaking nonsense about Syria making peace; every American claiming Damascus might split from Tehran; every European preaching appeasement has in fact been engaged in confidence-breaking measures.

...Far too much Western media, intellectual--sometimes political life--reviles Israel. But Israel is no threat to them; other forces are....

... the main victims will be Arabs, mostly Muslims, in Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, and Lebanon, killed by the various Jihad groups, or ruled by them where they take power or dominate through intimidation. And second they will be Western interests, which would not fare well in a region dominated by a combination of Islamists and those who feel they have no choice but to appease them.

When Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will negotiate with Syria and Iran over Iraq's future, he signals every Persian Gulf regime to cut its own deal with Iran. When his stances convince Hamas that he's the guy for them; when Iran and Syria conclude they merely need stand defiant and wait until January 21 for any existing pressure vanishes, the U.S. position in the Middle East is being systematically destroyed.

Note that this does not make Obama the candidate favored by Arabs in general but only by the radicals. Egyptians, Jordanians, Gulf Arabs, and the majorities in Lebanon and Iraq are very worried. This is not just an Israel problem; it is one for all non-extremists in the region. If the dictators and terrorists are smiling, it means everyone else is crying.

... Now is the time for energetic action on Lebanon to wipe that confident sneer off their faces. To contain Iran and Syria, to buck up the Lebanese government side and all those Arabs who, whatever their faults, don't want to live in an Islamist caliphate.

If you want to know what's wrong, consider Obama's May 10 statement on Lebanon. He starts out playing tough, talking about "Hezbollah's power grab in Beirut....This effort to undermine Lebanon's elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately." He calls for supporting the Lebanese government, strengthening the Lebanese army, and to "insist on disarming Hezbollah."

But how to do this? By "working with the international with the international community and the private sector to rebuild Lebanon and get its economy back on its feet."... Part of the mistake here is Obama's assumption that Hizballah (and other radicals) want stability and prosperity. In fact, they want to use instability as blackmail in their pursuit of power. ...

...The statement continues: "We must support the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions that reinforce Lebanon's sovereignty, especially resolution 1701 banning the provision of arms to Hezbollah, which is violated by Iran and Syria."

Great. But the UN is no substitute for U.S. power. As David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy writes, "It is highly unlikely that the UN -- which failed to even prevent the rearming of Hizballah--would agree to more dangerous deployments in Lebanon." America doesn't need a president whose solution is to turn over crises to the UN.

Nor can Obama pass the buck to Lebanon's army. Its commander is Syria's presidential candidate, its soldiers are mostly pro-Hizballah, and the quarter-billion dollars of U.S. aid given since 2006 may well become additional assets for Tehran.

...These are the questions Obama isn't even pretending to try to answer....

...But here's the worst part that few in America but everyone in Lebanon will understand all too well: "It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment."

Here, make no mistake, Obama is endorsing the Hizballah program. It wants a new Lebanese consensus based on it having, along with its pro-Syrian allies, 51 percent of the power. ...In effect, Obama without realizing it, is arguing for a Syrian-, Iranian-, and Hizballah-dominated Lebanon. Such talk makes moderate Arabs despair....

....The battle isn't over, which is all the more reason for real--not just verbal--international action. Hizballah has made its point for the moment, that it is the most powerful and to it every knee must bend. Yet without serious political and diplomatic support for Lebanon's government and real costs inflicted on Syria and Iran, the battle will be lost eventually.

For all those in the West who don't like Israel, then at least help the people you pretend to like. Back the Lebanese government with real power and aid, covertly or overtly, those battling the radical forces in Lebanon....

[These were brief excerpts only. Follow the link to the full article.]