Plane Bombs Plot Foiled

[Scooter]

If my neighbour kidnaps my children I do not have the right to bomb his house and murder his family and friends. That is called taking the law into your own hands and it's not allowed because if it was we would have anarchy. The murder of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure is illegal (incidentally Israel did a real bang up job in bombing the Lebanese power station because it managed to cause an environmental disaster on top of the humanitarian one)

I'm staggered anyone with a training in the Law can possibly seek to justify such flagrant lawbreaking using the 'he started it' argument. That's the reasoning of the playground.

Any thoughts oh wise lawyer on the routine use of human shields by Hizbullah? Faking deaths for propaganda purposes? Delighting in genuine civilian deaths because the "liberal" Western media laps it up? Firing random missiles towards civilians? Failing to respect (Israel's) UN demarked borders?

Have a look for yourself: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005687.htm

(or is it just evil Zionist counter-propaganda? )

"Fauxtography:" It's all in the framing | Main | Primary night results »

"Fauxtography" alert: NYTimes and USNews;

plus Time and Reuters' Issam Kobeisi

By Michelle Malkin · August 08, 2006 08:58 PM

***scroll for updates...8/9 - The New York Times corrects...***

Case study number one: The NYTimes and the Lebanese pieta

Take a close look at the above photo. (Pay close attention to his shorts, his dustless chest, muscular torso, the dust on his hands, and the hat tucked in the crook of his arm.) You've probably seen the image before. It was part of a NYTimes photo essay series published online here. It's an iconic image of Lebanese death at the hands of Israel--even described as the Lebanese pieta. The caption accompanying the photo:

The mayor of Tyre said that in the worst hit areas, bodies were still buried under the rubble, and he appealed to the Israelis to allow government authorities time to pull them out. (Photo Tyler Hicks The New York Times)

Only guess what? The body depicted "buried under the rubble" appears to have been up and walking in the photographer's photo series of the scene throughout the day as a rescuer, not a bombing victim. Jim Hoft is all over it. Allah is on it. Take a look and tell me what you think:

Slide 2:

Slide 3:

Slide 4:

Silde 6:

Judging from his clothes, his body, his unique dusted hands, and his hat, it seems like the same man in all of the above slides. Did the pole fall on him in the last slide? Maybe. But that's certainly not what the caption about "bodies buried under rubble" as a result of an Israeli airstrike implies.

Or, as Ace asks: "Did he collapse from heat exhaustion? Or did the director here simply decided the production was long on rescuers and short on corpses?"

Ask the Times:

To send comments and suggestions (about news coverage only) or to report errors that call for correction, e-mail nytnews-at-nytimes.com or leave a message at 1-888-NYT-NEWS.

E-mail the ombudsman at public-at-nytimes.com or call (212) 556-7652.

E-mail the Editors at executive-editor-at-nytimes.com and managing-editor-at-nytimes.com

Update: Fascinating. NPR interviewed Tyler Hicks and featured his photo gallery. The pieta photo caption is very different than the NYTimes website's:

Well, that seems to make more sense. If that's accurate, why doesn't the NYTimes' own site reflect that? What exactly happened?

***

Case study number two: US News and the smelly fire

Take a close look at the cover of US News magazine. It's from the July 31 edition, titled "Lebanon's new ruins"--spotlighting the destruction of Lebanon at the hands of Israel. Thomas S. and Allah and Hot Air readers examined it carefully. The armed Lebanese man is identified on the cover as a "Hezbollah fighter near Beirut."

Near what?

The image and the story context imply that he is at the scene of an Israeli airstrike or explosion caused by IDF artillery. The same guy appears in a photo taken by none other than ex-Reuters camera man Adnan Hajj. He's pointing a gun at the site of the explosion:

Only guess what? The site is...

...as Allah points out, a garbage dump.

Dan Riehl has more on the smokescreen. Will the US News editors investigate?

Contact US News:

Email form

Editorial Offices:

1050 Thomas Jefferson Street NW

Washington, DC 20007

202-955-2000

Update: Reader Robert P. writes:

When I saw the US News photo I knew I'd seen it somewhere else as well. This exact same scene is shown on page 45 of the July 31st issue of Time Magazine. The caption reads: "The wreckage of a downed Israeli jet that was targeting Hizballa trucks billows smoke behind a Hizballah gunman in Kfar Chima, near Beirut. Jet fuel set the surrounding area ablaze." The photo credit is to Bruno Stevens - Cosmos. Upon closer inspection the blaze indeed appears to be a tire fire.

Bob Newman of KOA Radio reports that he notified Time and received an e-mail acknowledging the error, but no word on a retraction or correction to be published.

Update: Here's the Time photo and caption, via Allah and HA readers:

[Realistbear]

Of course - The Te of Piglet is even more profound

Have Rastafarian crusades ever amounted to anything more than a squabble over the Rizlas? Haven't heard of any Buddhist terror groups, but suppose man can pervert any good idea. Can't believe that there have been mass murders under Humanism, but when you give smart monkeys sharp tools, anything can happen.

The chosen people bit is particularly nutty; Hitler sincerely believed the Ayrians were the chosen people - he probably believed this just as strongly as the Zionists adhere to their particular cant. Islam does seem slightly more violent, but the Christian crusades were pretty bloody and an awful lot of Arab civillians have been slaughtered in the 2 Gulf wars. IMO, there's not much to choose between the 3 religions who seem to have the biggest market share. They've all had a couple of thousand years to sort life out and despite this huge length of time, all have comprehensively failed.

The wierd thing about the squabbling between the nutty Jews, Christians & Muslims is that they're all schisms of the same Abrahamic sect. All this squabbling over which novellist wrote which book when is, IMO, moronic and would be better discussed on Richard & Judy's book club.

Belief != Fact, no matter how strong the belief. It's sad that so many misguided individuals are led by their (human) religious leaders not to realise this.

Just read about a Buddhist terror group this week--a group of monks attacked a Christian church somewhere in Asia.

Christianity did emerge from Judaism as a fulfillment of the Old Testmant Law and the Prophets. However, the Moslem faith came along independently after 600 AD when Mohammed formed a new religion to give the Arab people a sense of identity. All of the former Arab deities were combined into "Allah" who became, accoding to their belief, the one true god and Mohammed was named as the prophet. The Moslems laid claim to Abram as the original Patriarch but it is from that point that the two faiths part ways according to which sons were of the Covenant and which were not. The Jews claim Isaac and Jacob were the sons of the covenant whereas the Muslims say that the others sons, Ishmael and Esau were. The Moslems allege that the Jews switched the names in the Old Testament around 200 AD to justify their claim on the land. As there were no known copies of the Old Testament predating around 200 AD it was difficult to prove who was right. However, in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a couple of Bedouin shepherders in caves near the Dead Sea. They contain almost complete manuscripts of the Old testmant and Isaac and Jacob appear as the sons of the covenant. Ooops.

[Scooter]

Just read about a Buddhist terror group this week--a group of monks attacked a Christian church somewhere in Asia.

Christianity did emerge from Judaism as a fulfillment of the Old Testmant Law and the Prophets. However, the Moslem faith came along independently after 600 AD when Mohammed formed a new religion to give the Arab people a sense of identity. All of the former Arab deities were combined into "Allah" who became, accoding to their belief, the one true god and Mohammed was named as the prophet. The Moslems laid claim to Abram as the original Patriarch but it is from that point that the two faiths part ways according to which sons were of the Covenant and which were not. The Jews claim Isaac and Jacob were the sons of the covenant whereas the Muslims say that the others sons, Ishmael and Esau were. The Moslems allege that the Jews switched the names in the Old Testament around 200 AD to justify their claim on the land. As there were no known copies of the Old Testament predating around 200 AD it was difficult to prove who was right. However, in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a couple of Bedouin shepherders in caves near the Dead Sea. They contain almost complete manuscripts of the Old testmant and Isaac and Jacob appear as the sons of the covenant. Ooops.

Islam is (possibly) descended from the Moon God cult, hence the crescent on the flags, but appropriated Jewish/Christian religious figures for their own, claiming they were always "Muslims" thousands of years before Islam, as a way of asserting dominance over all other local religions. Of course the illiterate, possibly epileptic and some would say paedophile Mohammed (he liked 9 year old girls) insisted that once all had been revealed to him by Gabriel (including a lot of false science like insisting in the Koran that the Earth is flat) there would not be any other revelations. Convenient that...

Hymey Scooterstein, Zionist Conspiracist (your interest rates are rising!)

[Rachel]

maybe it's a plot by the environmentalists? try and scare people into not flying so there's a reduction in CO2 emissions?

[Realistbear]

Once again RB you're not thinking like a lawyer. You're trying to defend Israel's right to break the law on the basis that Hezbollah also breaks the law. That's like saying "Other people in society commit murder so therefore I can too". It's a nonsensical argument and following it to its logical conclusion would result in a total breakdown in the rule of law.

Try reading the Geneva Conventions - Israel is breaking every rule in the book and eveyone knows it.

You state I am trying to defend what Hezbollah have done. Please provide a single instance of this from any of the posts I have made. Please try and stick to the facts like a lawyer rather than making inaccurate accusations. I believe Hezbollah to be terrorists who must be stopped by all LEGAL means.

I'm not taking an anti-Israel position, I'm taking a pro-law position. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference

The law is clear. If you are attacked you have a right to use all reasonable means to defend yourself. As the rockets were coming from Hezbollah sources located in Lebanon it was reasonable to hunt them down and destroy them. Self-defense is not breaking the law--international or even UK law. Murder and self-defence are not compatible. If you kill another to defend yourself or the life of another it becomes justifiable homicide. Its what happens when people die in wars. We did not murder 87,321 Germans in WW2 while defending our country. We used homicide that was justifiable to defend outsleves.

Hezbollah murdered by sending in rockets to kill whoever was in the way. To defend themselves Israel had no choice but to use justifiable homicide--kill or be killed. Hezbollah were under no threat by Israel at the time of their kidnapping of the soldiers or when they began their rocket campaign.. the act of war by Hezbollah (really "Terroism" as Hezbollah are not a nation but an organisation committted to the destruction of Israel) was accordingly illegal.

Edited August 10, 2006 by Realistbear

[Willy Weasel]

Any thoughts oh wise lawyer on the routine use of human shields by Hizbullah?

Yes - it's utterly reprehensible. You're all falling into the same trap here of assuming that because I condemn Israel's lawbreaking, I'm somehow tacitly approving of actions by Hezbollah. Israel holds itself out as a modern democracy - it's lawbreaking is therefore also hypocrisy. Hezbollah are a bunch of terrorists and you don't expect any better from them but you do expect better from a modern democracy. No-one has yet attempted to justify Israel's flouting of International Law. All you do is say "but they started it - they're even worse than us". The whole point is that Israel should be able to take the moral and legal high ground and use the machinery of International Law to defeat terrorism. What it actual does is engage in a bit of state terrorism of its own and by doing so lowers itself to the level of the terrorists. I'm ashamed of our Government for idly standing by whilst this happened.

The law is clear. If you are attacked you have a right to use all reasonable means to defend yourself. As the roskets were coming from Hezbollah sources located in Lebanon it was reasonable to hunt them down and destroy them. Self-defense is not breaking the law--international or even UK law. Murder and self-defence are nto compatible. If you kill another to defend yoursalef or the life of another it becomes justifiable homicide. Its what happens when people die in wars. We did noit murder 87,321 Germans in WW2 while defending our country. We used homicide that was justifiable to defend outsleves.

Hezbollah murdered by sending in rockets to kill whoever was in the way. To defend themselves Israel had no choice but to use justifiable homicide--kill or be killed. Hezbollah were under no threat by Israel at the time of their kidnapping of the soldiers or when they began their rocket campaign.. the act of war by Hezbollah (really "Terroism" as Hezbollah are not a nation but an organisation committted to the destruction of Israel) was accordingly illegal.

Read the Geneva Conventions - war has rules too. Israel is breaking them. End of

[Realistbear]

Yes - it's utterly reprehensible. You're all falling into the same trap here of assuming that because I condemn Israel's lawbreaking, I'm somehow tacitly approving of actions by Hezbollah. Israel holds itself out as a modern democracy - it's lawbreaking is therefore also hypocrisy. Hezbollah are a bunch of terrorists and you don't expect any better from them but you do expect better from a modern democracy. No-one has yet attempted to justify Israel's flouting of International Law. All you do is say "but they started it - they're even worse than us". The whole point is that Israel should be able to take the moral and legal high ground and use the machinery of International Law to defeat terrorism. What it actual does is engage in a bit of state terrorism of its own and by doing so lowers itself to the level of the terrorists. I'm ashamed of our Government for idly standing by whilst this happened.

Read the Geneva Conventions - war has rules too. Israel is breaking them. End of

The 1949 Geneva Conventions aimed to end attacks purely or mainly against civilians, a tactic used heavily in World War II. Article 51 of the First Protocol to the 1949 agreements (updated in 1977) states: "The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack."

Article 52 adds: "Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives..."

Therefore, there is a war crime if civilians are specifically attacked as civilians. However, it is different if they are killed as a result of a strike against a military or a "dual-use" target, (though see next answer for limits on such strikes). Article 52 tried to resolve this: "Military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action..."

Precautions should be taken. And if there is doubt, the decision should be that the target is civilian.

The question is whether the target is making an "effective" military contribution. If it is a justified attack, then the killing of civilians as a result is not a war crime.

The question becomes--did Hezbollah in using Lebanese as human shields turn them into "dual-use targets?" By not fighting out in the open and away from a civilian population Hezbollah forced Israel to attack them where they were launching their rockets. Usually in close proximity to buildings. The rule against "dual use" was put in place to allow the destruction of what would ordinarily be used for civilian purposes such as bridges, power plants, fuel depots and the like.

[Realistbear]

Looks like the potential bombers were possibly Brits:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...6006388,00.html

British Home Secretary John Reid said 21 people had been arrested in London, its suburbs and Birmingham following a lengthy investigation, including the alleged ``main players'' in the plot. Searches continued in a number of locations.

The suspects were ``homegrown,'' though it was not immediately clear if they were all British citizens, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. Police were working closely with the South Asian community, the official said.

If the potential bombers were UK Citizens it is easy to see how the Police will have to defuse the situation and work with local Asian communities as the backlash might cause some problems. Imagine the backlash IF the terrorists had succeeded in bringing down a dozen airliners full of familes on their holidays?

Edited August 10, 2006 by Realistbear

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

I want to make a very much more substantial point too.

In all the thirty years of fighting the IRA, it apparently never crossed anyone's mind to take out the country from which the IRA emerged. I am obviously talking about the Irish Republic. Of course not, it just didn't make sense to attack a nation because of an antisocial fringe outside the control of the state.

I know that's putting it too midly but it is not innacurate in my opinion. So, why apply different policies in our new wars against a different antisocial fringe?

I think you're jumping the gun slightly ... much as I'd love to see the tanks rolling into Beeston, Slough, Brixton, Birmingham, Northampton, Manchester, South East Bucks, Bradord, Ilford, Tower Hamlets, Willesden, Hounslow, etc etc etc etc, it hasnt actually happened yet.

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

John Reid thinks that we are facing a grave threat from terrorism.

Well, no one could have predicted that after Blair and Bush's unilateralism in Iraq, and now the failure of the British and Americans to support a ceasefire in the Lebanon.

The whole situation is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We are being manipulated by the government and the media. The new "threat alert" can now be cranked up when it suits the government to divert attention from other issues.

The end result of the fear factory will be to enslave us to Blair and Browns warped ID surveillance fantasies.

THIS INSANE GOVERNMENT IS CAUSING THE GRAVEST THREAT TO THIS COUNTRY SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR BY THEIR CONSTANT SUPPORT OF UNILATERAL MILITARISM IN SEARCH OF ENERGY SECURITY.

Codswallop... the threat is coming from Muslims who have been given British citizenship. We cannot have a situation where our foreign policy is dictated by insane immigrants, which is basically what you are suggesting. There is only one solution and that is to remove the enemy within. This is no longer a "United" Kingdom... and divided we fall.

[Pooh Bear]

Just read about a Buddhist terror group this week--a group of monks attacked a Christian church somewhere in Asia.

The mind boggles - even one of the less dodgy cults can easily be perverted. The Dalai Lama is one of the most loving people on the planet as well. IMO this further proves how nuts organised religions seem to become. Guess that leaves the Rastafarians and the Humanists the least murderous? Although Jamaica doesn't sound the safest place in the world! Can't think of any other religions whose adherents haven't committed mass attrocities?

From this Blog,

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatz.htm#RelCon

I heard a while back that more people had died in the name of Jesus than in the name of Hitler. I’d always wondered if it was true, it seemed perfectly plausible given the persistence and viciousness of the Vatican during the Crusades. Unfortunately, I had found it difficult to find a number of deaths from the Crusades. But, I found in Google Answers, the above link that chronicles numerous human conflicts and includes a category for religious conflicts. The numbers are hazy, of course, when we’re speaking about conflicts hundreds or thousands of years ago when death tallies were not a priority or of mild interest like they are today.

In short, eight-hundred and nine million people have died in religious wars. That’s nearly a billion people.

Oftentimes, a retort is that secular ideals and Godless Communism have killed many more. It is true that Stalin, among others, slaughtered his own people by the millions during the industrialization of Soviet Russia. By comparison, two-hundred and nine million have died in the name of Communism. Some sixty-two million died during World War II, civilian and military, on all sides. Conclusively, more people have died in the name of religion than in the name of Communism or Hitler, or the two combined times two.

Suppose that the 3 leading (by market share) religions are killing less nowadays. Doesn't make it any better for the Israeli families who have lost children, or the order of magnitude more Lebanese families ruined.

Christianity did emerge from Judaism as a fulfillment of the Old Testmant Law and the Prophets. However, the Moslem faith came along independently after 600 AD when Mohammed formed a new religion to give the Arab people a sense of identity. All of the former Arab deities were combined into "Allah" who became, accoding to their belief, the one true god and Mohammed was named as the prophet. The Moslems laid claim to Abram as the original Patriarch but it is from that point that the two faiths part ways according to which sons were of the Covenant and which were not. The Jews claim Isaac and Jacob were the sons of the covenant whereas the Muslims say that the others sons, Ishmael and Esau were. The Moslems allege that the Jews switched the names in the Old Testament around 200 AD to justify their claim on the land. As there were no known copies of the Old Testament predating around 200 AD it was difficult to prove who was right. However, in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a couple of Bedouin shepherders in caves near the Dead Sea. They contain almost complete manuscripts of the Old testmant and Isaac and Jacob appear as the sons of the covenant. Ooops.

Can one date the scrolls with any certainty without science such as carbon dating?

It certainly sounds as though this first edition copy of one sect's novel shows that one of the other sects cribbed, copying the other sect's book. The cheating barstewards! They should at least make up a storyline of their own.

Apparently, in the Bible, words to do with killing significantly outnumber words to do with love. Doesn't sound like a very good book to live your life by, but each to their own. It is sad that so much effort is spent towards attaining various beliefs of the afterlife, rather than real life. Any god-u-like can't have intended this.

For the rabid racists (of any of the 3 main cults, or otherwise), I was born Roman Catholic (a subsect of a sect of the Abrahamic sect), and am a slightly hairy yellow colour.

Anyway, going back OT, my flight was cancelled early this morning at Gatwick. The place was packed - people were snappy, but not scared. The boards were next to hopeless and nobody really knew what was going on. Staff did their best, managers could have reacted a lot better with more information; foreigners were even more confused than everyone else.

That Ricin panic turned out to be a very minor drugs bust. Wonder if this will turn out to be yet another religious nut job incident, or just a scare...

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

A certain amount of paranoia will start that is for sure. Last time I flew on a Trans-Atlantic flight there were two gentlemen from a Moslem country on board wearing the white titfers, long beards, no moustache etc. They seemed like pleasant enough fellows to me. However, when they stood up mid-flight to remove something from the overhead baggage containers everyone stared at what they were doing. You could almost read their thoughts--what if..............

I suppose it wold be the same if, in WW2, a person with a German accent and carrying a suitcase spoke loudly in a crowded train station. Might make a few people uneasy. Irish accent in a London pub in the 80's might have caused a few eyebrows to rise also.

If you were overheard making that comment in Syria, Koran law might get you in trouble. Amputation of offending body parts I think?

Coudlnt have happened, German nationals were interned during World War 2.

As our courts are freeing violent career muggers because the prisons are full I'm not quite sure how we'd deal with several million of them.

[Rachel]

Coudlnt have happened, German nationals were interned during World War 2.

well, my Nan was German born but had a Czech passport, so she wan't interned (she came to UK IN 1938)... she got loads of shit for having a German accent!

Edited August 10, 2006 by Rachel

[ThePiltdownMan]

Enoch Powell warned us about this almost 40 years ago but was ignored. More recently people have shown they are happy with the "let them all in" immigration policy by their choices at the ballot box. It's only a matter of time before they get lucky, and nobody can say we haven't asked for it.

[geneer]

I believe that Ariel Sharon was a fat murdering ****.

Its nothing to do with him being a Jew. I am not anti-semitic.

He was clearly overweight. Many feel he should have been brought to justice for war crimes.

And to be blunt, he was a right wing ****.

Im not sorry he's dead, and I wish he had been dragged into the Haig.

For the record, here is a list of those resolutions against Israel deliberately vetoed by America. Interim comments on the current situation follows at the end of the [very long] list of American vetos.

July 1973, S/10974

Vote: 13 in favor, 1 veto (US), 1 abstention.

The resolution strongly deplored Israel's occupation of the Arab territories since 1967, and expressed serious concern with the Israeli authorities' lack of cooperation with the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General.

January 1976, S/11940

Vote: 9 in favor, 1 veto (US), 3 abstentions

.

The resolution called for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories since 1967, and deplored Israel's refusal to implement relevant UN resolutions. It furthermore reaffirmed the right of the Palestinian people to self determination, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

March 1976, S/12022

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

In the draft, the Security Council expressed deep concern over Israeli measures to change the character of the occupied territories, in particular Jerusalem, the establishment of Israeli settlements, human rights violations, and called for an end of such measures.

June 1976, S/12119

Vote: 10 in favor, 1 veto (US), 4 abstentions.

The resolution affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to self determination, the right of return, and the right to national independence.

April 1980, S/13911

Vote: 10 in favor, 1 veto (US), 4 abstentions.

The resolution affirmed the Palestinian right to establish an independent state, the right of return or compensation for loss of property for refugees not wishing to return, and Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories since 1967.

April 1982, S/14943

Vote: 13 in favor, 1 veto (US), 1 abstention

.

In the draft, the Security Council denounced Israeli interference with local governance in the West Bank, and its violations of the rights and liberties of the population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The resolution furthermore called on Israel to end all activities in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

April 1982, S/14985

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The draft strongly condemned the shooting of worshippers at Haram Al-Sharif on 11 April, 1982, and called on Israel to observe and apply the provisions of the Forth Geneva Convention, and other international laws.

June 1982, S/15185

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution draft condemned the Israeli non-compliance with resolutions 508 and 509, urged the parties to comply with the Hague Convention of 1907, and restated the Security Council's demands of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

June 1982, S/15255/Rev. 2

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US)

.

The resolution demanded the immediate withdrawal of Israeli and Palestinian forces from areas in and around Beirut, and that the parties would comply with resolution 508. It furthermore requested that the Secretary General would station UN military observers to supervise the ceasefire and disengagement in and around Beirut, and that the Secretary General would make proposals for the installation of a UN force to take up positions beside the Lebanese interposition force.

August 1982, S/15347/Rev. 1

Vote: 11 in favor, 1 veto (US), 3 abstentions.

The resolution strongly condemned Israel for not implementing resolutions 516 and 517, called for their immediate implementation, and decided that all UN member-states would refrain from providing Israel with weapons or other military aid until Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.

August 1983, S/15895

Vote: 13 in favor, 1 veto (US), 1 abstention.

The resolution called upon Israel to discontinue the establishment of new settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, to dismantle existing settlements, and to adhere to the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. The resolution furthermore rejected Israeli deportations and transfers of Palestinian civilians, and condemned attacks against the Arab civilian population. The Security Council also called upon other states to refrain from giving Israel any assistance related to the settlements, and stated its intention to examine ways of securing the implementation of the resolution, in the event of Israeli non-compliance

September 1985, S/17459

Vote: 10 in favor, 1 veto (US), 4 abstentions.

The resolution draft deplored the repressive measures applied by the Israeli authorities against the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and called upon Israel to immediately cease the use of repressive measures, including the use of curfews, deportations, and detentions.

January 1986, S/17769

Vote: 13 in favor, 1 veto (US), 1 abstention.

The resolution strongly deplored Israeli refusal to abide earlier Security Council resolutions, and called upon Israel to comply with these resolutions, as well as the norms of international law governing military occupation such as the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Security Council also expressed deep concern with violations of the sanctity of the Haram Al-Sharif, and with Israeli measures aimed at altering the character of the occupied territories, including Jerusalem.

January 1988, S/19466

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution called upon Israel to accept the de jure applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War to the territories occupied since 1967, and to conform to the Convention. The resolution moreover called upon Israel to refrain from practices violating the human rights of the Palestinian people.

April 1988, S/19780

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution expressed grave concerned with the Israeli use of collective punishment, including house demolitions. It condemned the policies and practices utilized by the Israeli authorities violating the human rights of the Palestinian People, especially the killing and wounding of defenseless Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army. Called on Israel to abide to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and urged it to desist from deporting Palestinians.

February 1989, S/20463

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution strongly deplored Israeli persistence in violating the human rights of the Palestinian people, in particular the shooting of Palestinian civilians, including children. It also deplored Israel's disregard of Security Council decisions, and called upon Israel to act in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention and relevant Security Council resolutions.

June 1989, S/20677

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution deplored the violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, demanded that Israel would abstain from deporting Palestinian civilians for the occupied territories, and that it would ensure the safe return of those already deported. It also called upon Israel to comply with the Fourth Geneva Convention, and requested that the Secretary General would give recommendations on measures guaranteeing compliance with the Convention, and the protection of Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories.

November 1989, S/20945/Rev. 1

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US)

.

The resolution deplored the Israeli violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, including the siege of towns, ransacking of homes, and confiscation of property. It called upon Israel to abide to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to lift the siege, and to return confiscated property to its owners. The resolution requested that the Secretary General would conduct on-site monitoring of the situation in the occupied territories.

May 1990, S/21326

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The draft resolution attempted to establish a commission to examine the situation related to Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territories, including Jerusalem.

May 1995, S/1995/394

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution confirmed that the Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem was invalid, and called upon Israel to refrain from such actions. It also expressed its support for the Middle East peace process and urged the parties to adhere to the accord agreed upon.

March 1997, S/1997/199

Vote: 14 in favor, 1 veto (US).

The resolution expressed deep concern with the Israeli plans to build new settlements in East Jerusalem, and called upon Israel to desist from measures, including the building of settlements, that would pre-empt the final status negotiations. The resolution once again called on Israel to abide by the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

March 1997, S/1997/241

Vote: 13 in favor, 1 veto (US), 1 abstention.

The resolution demanded an end to the Israeli construction of the Jabal Abu Ghneim settlement in East Jerusalem, and to all other measures related to settlements in the occupied territories.

March 2001, S/2001/270

Vote: 9 in favor, 1 veto (US), 4 abstentions.

The resolution called for a total and immediate stop of all acts of violence, provocation, and collective punishment, as well as a complete cessation of Israeli settlement activities, and an end of the closures of the occupied territories. The resolution furthermore called for the implementation of the Sharm El-Sheikh agreement, and expressed the Security Council's willingness to set up mechanisms to protect the Palestinian civilians, including the establishment of a UN observer force.

December 2001, S/2001/1199

Vote: 12 in favor, 1 veto (US) 2 abstentions.

In the resolution, the Security Council condemned all acts of terror, extrajudiciary executions, excessive use of force and destruction of properties, and demanded an end of all acts of violence, destruction and provocation. The resolution called on the parties to resume negotiations, and to implement the recommendations of the Mitchell Report. It also encouraged the establishment of a monitoring apparatus for the above mentioned implementation.

Edited August 10, 2006 by geneer

[Pooh Bear]

Enoch Powell warned us about this almost 40 years ago but was ignored. More recently people have shown they are happy with the "let them all in" immigration policy by their choices at the ballot box. It's only a matter of time before they get lucky, and nobody can say we haven't asked for it.

It's all really sad. Humans all come from some part of africa, spend many generations in the sun/rain turning dark/light, then squabble/exploit over books & boundaries & material things. Still, the politicos & banks are making loads of money, so it goes on.

It's NuLab that dressed the UK in the short skirt.

[whiterabbit]

Enoch Powell warned us about this almost 40 years ago but was ignored. More recently people have shown they are happy with the "let them all in" immigration policy by their choices at the ballot box. It's only a matter of time before they get lucky, and nobody can say we haven't asked for it.

Agreed although I am not sure most people realised the immigration policy was such a shambles when they voted. I didn't hear Blair or Labour say they would force multicutruralism or Islamification on the country as part of their parties election maifesto :angry: They tried to sweep it under the carpet and turn eveyone who disagreed at a later date into a rascist. Now its an open issue and people can see how they have been deceived.

When finally the Islamic Jihadists get lucky with a big attack within the UK the PC and human rights brigade will de directly responsible for underming the UKs security and killing our people...............................

[Garry AKA Pod]

Im not sorry he's dead, and I wish he had been dragged into the Haig.

I believe he is still wasting precious oxygen, albeit with great help from a machine.

[shermanator]

Agreed although I am not sure most people realised the immigration policy was such a shambles when they voted. I didn't hear Blair or Labour say they would force multicutruralism or Islamification on the country as part of their parties election maifesto :angry: They tried to sweep it under the carpet and turn eveyone who disagreed at a later date into a rascist. Now its an open issue and people can see how they have been deceived.

When finally the Islamic Jihadists get lucky with a big attack within the UK the PC and human rights brigade will de directly responsible for underming the UKs security and killing our people...............................

Yes, we must never, ever forget the traitorous 'establishment' over the past 40 years who have ruined this nation.

When the UK enters a harsh economic recession (soon IMHO) there is a distinct possibility that the working classes, whose views have been constantly inored, will bite back.......and it won't be pretty.

I believe he is still wasting precious oxygen, albeit with great help from a machine.

I happen to think Sharon was a very great man. A war hero and brave politician - only he could have withdrawn from Gaza. The Guardinistas don't like him - well there's a surprise......not!

[dude]

I believe he is still wasting precious oxygen, albeit with great help from a machine.

Well is he or isn't he? Can I get the champagne out yet?

Incidentally I've just watched Newsnight. They suggest you can get in touch and give your view. And many have done just that! Are we the British getting more cynical? Good to see people questioning the official line. So if our competent and benevolent security services have already foiled this threat, how come they've just stopped Heathrow? Or is it because there is no strike planned for this week?

[Keith.G]

Israel are fighting a war they cannot win. Even with Western backing they cannot defeat a terrorist cell army that embedds itself into a civilian population unless there is a willingness to take that population out along with the Terrorists. Likewise, we could not have bombed NI to remove the Terrorist cells.

Hezbollah have been planning this war for 6 years and caught Israel off guard. They even took Warren Buffett off guard and latest news is that his factory in N Israel has been closed for the duration due to rocket attacks.

The only soltuion is for a permanent UN peacekeeping force to occupy a DMZ all round Israel to keep Hezbollah rockets out of range. We should not permit the war to get out of control and force any of the sides to resort to the big bombs as final acts of desperation.

I guess one of their aims is to get a buffer zone

Apparently the Hezbollah leaders are 'cool as investment banker' types who want to see an end to Israel

Another aim may be to put so much pressure on the Lebanese Gov't that they are forced to put pressure on Hezbollah to curtail their activity. After all they are firing rockets into Israel presumably at civilian targets

It's a bit like UKIP having their own private army and firing rockets at France - In that case our Government would presumably sort them out - but of course they would not be permitted to have their own army (also it's how the Nazi party evolved)

Unfortunately Israel must have been too extreme in it's unfair treatment and displacement of Arabs. Even though that great Isreali general Moshe Dyan crushed Arab armies in defeat he also recognised the need for Arabs to live in peace alongside jews - His philosophy so he claimed was to treat them well when at peace - His philosophy seems to have been abandoned by a succession of hard-liners - I was wondering if he'd have known how to stop the situation from getting quite this bad

As for the terrorists, see how they use dates: 9/11 becomes 8/10

We need to take the extreme step of voting Liberal to get them to stop these wars!

[eviluncle]

Enoch Powell warned us about this almost 40 years ago but was ignored. More recently people have shown they are happy with the "let them all in" immigration policy by their choices at the ballot box. It's only a matter of time before they get lucky, and nobody can say we haven't asked for it.

It all boils down to taking ownership for one's future. Many ethnic minorities have come to the UK throughout history; that's what made our identity what it is today. Now minorities assimilate in varying degrees. The Chinese, Indian, Jewish and recently Polish populations have done this with a fair degree of success and have not exactly disadvantaged the 'indigenous' populations. Other minorities have struggled to become better integrated within British society, the reasons for this are complexed but tend to be down to the amount of baggage they bring with them. By this I mean chip's on shoulders due to some colonial power wronging their ancestors, or some Western/Zionist plot to keep them down. At best such groups underperform educationally and proceed to milk the welfare state, at worst they spread their hatred for their host like cancer cells flaring up whenever some external stimulus rattles their cages.

Unfortunately we have made a rod for our own backs by allowing such groups to turn our universities into hotbeds of anti-western thinking in exchange for H.M government receiving income from their course fees. Armies of immigration officers and community liason officers won't do a damn bit of good until we identify who asscribe to our values and who do not - an oath of allegiance would be a start, but unfortunately I fear it is too late and A. N. Guardianreader will point to Israel whenever things turn sh1tty on the home front in a bout of referred pain.

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

Intelligence says... Police have foiled... Untold death and destruction... UK on high alert...

What have they foiled? Were the bombers on the way to Heathrow loaded with explosives or did they merely intercept some fantasist emails from some moronic young men in the same way National Front fantasists may send each other emails about killing blacks?

We don't know.

How long has this operation been underway? Had it reach a critial point or is this merely a rabtit pulled from a hat to give a psychological blow to the UK population in support of a cronyist goverment?

We know Bush and Blair are under huge pressure over their green light to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and that their popularity ratings with their electorates are very low. We KNOW the US is under the spell of a extreme 'neocon' faction whose own published policies demand an imperialist, gun-toting, agenda of the US that takes in the natiopns currently being accused of 'funding terror', 'supplying missiles' at every opportunity.

People forget that just a few years ago full dimplomatic relations had been restored with Iran, Western companies like Peugot build cars there and Iran seemed to want to be more of a new India than the new North Korea by developing its industries and was breiefly a potential buyer for MG Rover. But know they must be portrayed as the axis of evil.

Returning to the current terror plot: The last time the police believed the latest package of intelligence from Blair-crony Scarlet's lot is turned out to be rot. Not just slightly off the mark. Completely false. There's at least a possibility these guys were going to be framed but the attempt fell apart. Apparently child porn's been found on a computer they seized. Perhaps it was but at one point a 'leak' suggested the Brazilian murdered by police in London had been a suspect in a rape case ( in addition to having wires coming out of him, 'jumping the barrier', wearing a heavy coat, etc. on the day of his execution)! Lies, smears, media manipulation, by the people paid to protect us - and no one has been punished. I don't trust them. Not one inch.

The has been the same, over and over. Make arrests, pump up the fear in the media, release without charge. The arrest is high profile, the release has no profile. It creates the impression of constant threats we need to fear.

Since 2001 the sheer barrage of media coverage of muslims has been incredible: Mad preachers of hate, earnest documenataries about the need integration, constant calls for 'community leaders' to 'root out' supposed problems, comments from newspaper columnists damanding muslims do this or that.

People around me joke 'God, not more about Muslims...' when they witness this vast amount of media overkill. Sometimes they joke about this with muslims they know, albeit with a slighty uncomfortable irony. It's now pretty obvious the Muslims are being turned into the 'new Jews' in the next major war - the enemy within, citizens but disployal to the state and not really part of it, planning constant outrages and conspiracies.

I work with dozens of muslims as normal as any other memeber of society and if I was being constantly told about the ills of my community and how I was collectively responsible for every nutcase that shared my culture I'd at best find it darkly amusing, at worst I'd eventually start getting angry.

Edited August 11, 2006 by CrashedOutAndBurned

[Realistbear]

"Conclusively, more people have died in the name of religion"

The above post reaches a plausible conclusion, IMO. "Religion" is often used to describe a system of practices adhered to by a group of people aimed toward a particular object or objects. Religion takes on many forms from Orthodox Christianity to Animism which is the worship of objects believed to be inhabited by spirits.

There can be the religion of the state as introduced by Lenin and brought to its pinnacle by Joe Stalin whose claimed that whatever is done in the name of the state is permissible. 15 million or so died under that ideology. Mao is thought to have taken care of 20 million plus through the precepts of the Little Red Book and the idea of fanshen which is the transformation of the mind, body and soul to a materialistic oneness with the state's objectives.

It is not so much the fact that religions become "organised" but what they put into practice that is the problem. Some like to use religion to justify certain actions. Thus the religion of the state justified Joe Stalin's purges of the peasants and non-slavic Russians. Hitler's brand of humanism that took on Aryan supremacy as the ultimate human form was used to justify the mass murder of the untermenschen (sub-humans) that included everyone who could not prove Saxon lineage. Some of the Popes in the medieval period thought that the "Holy Land" needed to be purged of the Muslims and set about the Crusades in the name of Christianity. Queen Mary I thought that it would be a good idea to burn all those who did not accept the Pope as heretics--in the name of Christianity. The Irish conflict led to the sides adopting their own brands of Christianity to justify the slaughter of the other--hence "Protestant v. Catholic." They might as well have used Buddhist v. Hindu had those religions been the cultural norm at the time. Any convenient religion will do so long as it forms a rallying cry.

The hypocrisy of all of this boils down to the fact that rarely, if ever, do the acts done in the name of a religion resemble what the religion teaches. Humanism was not about Aryian supremacy but the supremacy of the human being over all other organisms and the belief that "heavan on earth" can be arrived at through human effort by reason. This religion quickly faded somewhat in the 19th Century as Europe went back to war and died out almost completely when the shock of WW1 brought it home to mankind that we were getting worse, not better. The emerging generation of today is no longer strictly humanist but on search mode which has brought about a new relativism. Science is no longer trusted implicity beacsue it has failed to solve the world's social and physical problems. "Religion" in all its hypocritical forms is rejected.

The favourite religion by which to be known in the West these days is Christianity. Anything a "Christian" does becomes the religion of Christ. Thus, when a "Christian" nation goes to war it is assumed that the object of that religion is being obeyed. The difficulty is that for "Christianity" the point is missed because its founder, Jesus, taught that we belong to the Kingdom of God which is wholly other than this present world in which we live and die. To be a citizen of the Kingdom of God it is necessary to place belief as evidenced by trust and confidence in the teachings of Christ and living them. This means that it is necessary to do some reasearch to find out what those rules are before assuming that what somebody does in the name of Christ is really what the founder of Christianity said to do.

To illustrate the point, here is a little of what some like to call an act of striking, assaulting, or "bashing" the Bible. Informing about what the Bible says is also known by some as the act of "ramming it down the throat" whereas teaching the maxims of other belief systems such as humanism or Hinduism is not. Also, belief in Jesus' teachings is sometimes described as "fundamentalism" because there are certain fundamental beliefs that are adhered to rather than an undefineable groupings of thoughts that could be interpretted in a variety of conflicting ways.

To be a Christian it is necessary to:

1. Be humble and not think too highly of yourself (blessed are those who are poor in spirit),

2. To recognize your own spiritual poverty and to show some remorse for it (blessed are those who mourn),

3. To be willing to listen and not react with anger (blessed are the meek),

4. To genuinely want truth and fair dealing (Blessed are those who seek righteousness),

5. To be merciful,

6. To be genuine and without an evil agenda (Blessed are the pure in heart),

7. To be a peacemaker,

8. To follow all of the above and to expect persecution beacsue of it.

The above are sometimes known as the Beatitudes (Matthew 7:3-10) and they form the heart of Jesus's teachings on how to "be." Some on here reject Jesus because of what so-called "Christians" purport to do in his name. The key is to separate what Jesus taught and what people do. The teachings are for the individual and my intent is not to say that anyone is perfect or can actually fulfill all or any of them. Take them for what they are--the heart of Christianity--and decide if what is so often done by those who call themselves Christians is really anything to do with what Christianity is really all about.

It boils down to a free choice. Membership in most religions is voluntary unless you live in a country where only the State religion or state mandated religion is permissible (includuing materialism or animism style religions). Its a take it or leave with Christainity as it is for the individual person to decide and cannot be mandated from the outside by the world's laws or peer group pressure. An involunatry Christian is an oxymoron as there are no conscripts into an internal belief system.

Edited August 11, 2006 by Realistbear

[geneer]

I happen to think Sharon was a very great man. A war hero and brave politician - only he could have withdrawn from Gaza. The Guardinistas don't like him - well there's a surprise......not!

He would have made a great Nazi.

Oh no...I've done it now. Compared an Israeli war criminal to a Nazi.

Thats not Irony, thats anti semetic.

The Crimes of Ariel Sharon:-

Some incorrigible optimists have suggested that only a right-wing extremist of the notoriety of Likud leader Ariel Sharon will have the credentials to broker any sort of lasting settlement with the Palestinians. Maybe so. History is not devoid of such examples. But Sharon?

Sharon's history offers a monochromatic record of moral corruption, with a documented record of war crimes going back to the early 1950s. He was born in 1928 and as a young man joined the Haganah, the underground military organization of Israel in its pre-state days. In 1953 he

was given command of Unit 101, whose mission is often described as that of retaliation against Arab attacks on Jewish villages. In fact, as can be seen from two terrible onslaughts, one of them very well known, Unit 101's purpose was that of instilling terror by the infliction of discriminate, murderous violence not only on able bodied fighters but on the young, the old, the helpless.

Sharon's first documented sortie in this role was in August of 1953 on the refugee camp of El-Bureig, south of Gaza. An Israeli history of the 101 unit records 50 refugees as having been killed; other sources allege 15 or 20. Major-General Vagn Bennike, the UN commander, reported that "bombs were thrown" by Sharon's men "through the windows of huts in which the refugees were sleeping and, as they fled, they were attacked by small arms and automatic weapons".

In October of 1953 came the attack by Sharon's unit 101 on the Jordanian village of Qibya, whose "stain" Israel's foreign minister at the time, Moshe Sharett, confided to his diary "would stick to us and not be washed away for many years". He was wrong. Though even strongly pro-Israel commentators in the West compared it to Lidice, Qibya and Sharon's role are scarcely evoked in the West today, least of all by journalists such as Deborah Sontag of the New York Times who recently wrote a whitewash of Sharon, describing him as "feisty", or the

Washington Post's man in Jerusalem who fondly invoked him after his fateful excursion to the Holy Places in Jerusalem as "the portly old warrior".

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim describes the massacre thus: "Sharon's order was to penetrate Qibya, blow up houses and inflict heavy casualties on its inhabitants. His success in carrying out the order surpassed all expectations. The full and macabre story of what happened at Qibya was

revealed only during the morning after the attack. The village had been reduced to rubble: forty-five houses had been blown up, and sixty-nine civilians, two thirds of them women and children, had been killed. Sharon and his men claimed that they believed that all the inhabitants had run away and that they had no idea that anyone was hiding inside the houses."

The UN observer on the scene reached a different conclusion: "One story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshhold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them." The slaughter in Qibya was described contemporaneously in a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council dated 16 October 1953 (S/3113) from the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Jordan to the United States. On 14 October 1953 at 9:30 at night, he wrote, Israeli troops launched a battalion-scale attack on the village of Qibya in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (at the time the West Bank was annexed to Jordan).

According to the diplomat's account, Israeli forces had entered the village and systematically murdered all occupants of houses, using automatic weapons, grenades and incendiaries. On 14 October, the bodies of 42 Arab civilians had been recovered; several more bodies were still under the wreckage. Forty houses, the village school and a reservoir had been destroyed. Quantities of unused explosives, bearing Israel army markings in Hebrew, had been found in the village. At about 3 a.m., to cover their withdrawal, Israeli support troops had begun shelling the

neighbouring villages of Budrus and Shuqba from positions in Israel.

And what of Sharon's conduct when he was head of the Southern Command of Israel's Defense Forces in the early 1970s? The Gaza "clearances" were vividly described by Phil Reeves in a piece in The London Independent on January 21 of this year.

"Thirty years have elapsed since Ariel Sharon, favourite to win Israel's forthcoming election, was the head of the Israel Defence Forces' southern command, charged with the task of 'pacifying' the recalcitrant Gaza Strip after the 1967 war. But the old men still remember it well. Especially the old men on Wreckage Street. Until late 1970, Wreckage, or Had'd, Street wasn't a street, just one of scores of narrow, nameless alleys weaving through Gaza City's Beach Camp, a shantytown cluttered with low, two-roomed houses, built with UN aid for refugees from the 1948 war who then, as now, were waiting for the international community to settle their future. The street acquired its name after an unusually prolonged visit from Mr Sharon's soldiers. Their orders were to bulldoze hundreds of homes to carve a wide, straight street. This would allow Israeli troops and their heavy armored vehicles to move easily through the camp, to exert control and hunt down men from the Palestinian Liberation Army.

"'They came at night and began marking the houses they wanted to demolish with red paint,' said Ibrahim Ghanim, 70, a retired labourer. 'In the morning they came back, and ordered everyone to leave. I remember all the soldiers shouting at people, Yalla, yalla, yalla, yalla! They threw everyone's belongings into the street. Then Sharon brought in bulldozers and started flattening the street. He did the whole lot, almost in one day. And the soldiers would beat people, can you imagine? Soldiers with guns, beating little kids!' By the time the Israeli army's work was done, hundreds of homes were destroyed, not only on Wreckage Street but throughout the camp, as Sharon ploughed out a grid of wide security roads. Many of the refugees took shelter in schools, or squeezed into the already badly over-crowded homes of relatives. Other families, usually those with a Palestinian political activist, were loaded into trucks and taken to exile in a town in the heart of the Sinai Desert, then controlled by Israel."

As Reeves reported, the devastation of Beach Camp was far from the exception. "In August 1971 alone, troops under Mr Sharon's command destroyed some 2,000 homes in the Gaza Strip, uprooting 16,000 people for the second time in their lives. Hundreds of young Palestinian men were arrested and deported to Jordan and Lebanon. Six hundred relatives of suspected guerrillas were exiled to Sinai. In the second half of 1971, 104 guerrillas were assassinated. 'The policy at that time was not to arrest suspects, but to assassinate them', said Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City".

Israeli complacency leading to their initial defeat by the Egyptians in the 1973 war was in part nurtured by the supposed impregnability of the "Bar Lev line" constructed by Sharon on the east bank of the Suez canal. The Egyptians pierced the line without undue difficulty.

In 1981 Sharon, then minister of defense, paid a visit to Israel's good friend, President Mobutu of Zaire. Lunching on Mobutu's yacht the Israeli party was asked by their host to use their good offices to get the US Congress to be more forthcoming with aid. This the Israelis managed to accomplish. As a quid pro quo Mobutu reestablished diplomatic relations with Israel. This was not Sharon's only contact with Africa. Among friends he relays fond memories of trips to Angola to observe and advise the South African forces then fighting in support of the murderous CIA stooge Jonas Savimbi.

As defense minister in Menachem Begin's second government, Sharon was the commander who led the full dress 1982 assault on Lebanon, with the express design of destroying the PLO, driving as many Palestinians as possible to Jordan and making Lebanon a client state of Israel. It was a war plan that cost untold suffering, around 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese lives, and also the deaths of over one thousand Israeli soldiers. The Israelis bombed civilian populations at will. Sharon also oversaw the infamous massacres at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The Lebanese government counted 762 bodies recovered and a further 1,200 buried privately by relatives. However, the Middle East may have been spared worse, thanks to Menachem Begin. Just as the '82 war was getting under way, Sharon approached Begin, then Prime Minister, and suggested that Begin cede control over Israel's nuclear trigger to him. Begin had just enough sense to refuse.

The slaughter in the two contiguous camps at Sabra and Shatilla took place from 6:00 at night on September 16, 1982 until 8:00 in the morning on September 18, 1982, in an area under the control of the Israel Defense Forces. The perpetrators were members of the Phalange militia, the Lebanese force that was armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanon's civil war in 1975. The victims during the 62-hour rampage included infants, children, women (including pregnant women), and the elderly, some of whom were mutilated or disemboweled before or after they were killed.

An official Israeli commission of inquiry - chaired by Yitzhak Kahan, president of Israel's Supreme Court - investigated the massacre, and in February 1983 publicly released its findings (without Appendix B, which remains secret until now).

Amid desperate attempts to cover up the evidence of direct knowledge of what was going on by Israeli military personnel, the Kahan Commission found itself compelled to find that Ariel Sharon, among other Israelis, had responsibility for the massacre. The commission's report stated: "It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for having disregarded ["entirely cognizant of" would have been a better choice of words] the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed [i.e."eagerly taken this into consideration"] to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the

non-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged". (For those who want to refresh their memories of Operation Peace for Galilee, of the massacres and the Kahan coverup we recommend Noam Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle.)

Sharon refused to resign. Finally, on February 14, 1983, he was relieved of his duties as defense minister, though he remained in the cabinet as minister without portfolio.

Sharon's career was in eclipse, but he continued to burnish his credentials as a Likud ultra. Sharon has always been against any sort of peace deal, unless on terms entirely impossible for Palestinians to accept. As Nehemia Strasler outlined in Ha'aretz on January 18 of this year, in 1979, as a member of Begin's cabinet, he voted against a peace treaty with Egypt. In 1985 he voted against the withdrawal of Israeli troops to the

so-called security zone in Southern Lebanon. In 1991 he opposed Israel's participation in the Madrid peace conference. In 1993 he voted No in the Knesset on the Oslo agreement. The following year he abstained in the Knesset on a vote over a peace treaty with Jordan. He voted against the Hebron agreement in 1997 and objected to the way in which the withdrawal from southern Lebanon was conducted.

As Begin's minister of agriculture in the late 1970s he established many of the West Bank settlements that are now a major obstruction to any peace deal. His present position? Not another square inch of land for Palestinians on the West Bank. He will agree to a Palestinian state on the existing areas presently under either total or partial Palestinian control, amounting to merely 42 per cent of the West Bank. Israel will retain control of the highways across the West Bank and the water sources. All settlements will stay in place with access by the IDF to them. Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty and he plans to continue building around the city. The Golan heights would remain under Israel's control.

It can be strongly argued that Sharon represents the long-term policy of all Israeli governments, without any obscuring fluff or verbal embroidery. For example: Ben-Gurion approved the terror missions of Unit 101. Every Israeli government has condoned settlements and

building around Jerusalem. It was Labor's Ehud Barak who okayed the military escort for Sharon on his provocative sortie that sparked the second Intifada and Barak who has overseen the lethal military repression of recent months. But that doesn't diminish Sharon's sinister shadow across the past half century. That shadow is better evoked by Palestinians and Lebanese grieving for the dead, the maimed, the displaced, or by

a young Israeli woman, Ilil Komey, 16, who confronted Sharon recently when he visited her agricultural high school outside Beersheva. "I think you sent my father into Lebanon", Ilil said. "Ariel Sharon, I accuse you of having made me suffer for 16 some odd years. I accuse you of having made my father suffer for over 16 years. I accuse you of a lot of things that made a lot of people suffer in this country. I don't think that you can now be elected as prime minister".

Edited August 11, 2006 by geneer