Israeli Bombers Hit Christian Areas
Israeli Massacre of Syrian Workers, Other Civilians
Death Toll of 38 
Courtesy the Daily Star
The Daily Star reports:
"Israeli warplanes destroyed five bridges along the main North-South coastal highway Friday, killing five people, wounding 19 others and completely isolating the capital from the North of the country.. . .The strikes destroyed the only remaining land outlet via Syria after the bombardment of other border crossing points."
Intrepid Israeli fighter jet pilots tracked down sinister terrorist cucumbers and other vicious vegetables being loaded onto a refrigerated truck by Syrian seasonal laborers. Unfortunatedly the wicked terrorist cucumbers were hiding themselves amidst civilian workers, and it was necessary to kill 26 of the latter to end the threat of pickling. Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman castigated the cucumbers as "animals." Alan Dershowitz pointed out that vegetables cannot be considered civilians.
Courtesy al-Hayat
NaharNet writes, "Twenty-six of the civilians killed in Friday's air raids died when Israeli aircraft bombed the village of Qaa in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, police and Red Cross officials said. Most of the dead were Syrian farm workers, some of whom had been loading a refrigerated vegetable truck."
The Israeli government has been destroying Lebanese factories in the Biqa' valley that have no obvious military value or particular connection to Hizbullah.
Naharnet writes: "More rockets slammed into Israel from south Lebanon early Friday, killing at least three people. Four were initially reported killed, but officials later revised the toll to three, saying one person was in a serious condition."
Displaced Lebanese in the South are facing several health problems, including lack of potable water and of fuel. Health conditions are so bad that they could generate epidemics.
Israeli bombing raids are interfering with the delivery of humanitarian aid in Lebanon.
Daniel Levy on ending the Neoconservative nightmare.
Amy Goodman's interview of me on Israel's war on Lebanon (transcript).
Thom Hartmann was kind enough to interview me on Friday at Air America.
A shout out to Al Franken with thanks for having had me on the show Thursday. Al does it with style and does it with humor.
I urge readers to support Amy Goodman and Air America-- our political lives would be much poorer without them.
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/05/2006 12:35:00 AM
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And the well-poisoners across the 'net are already trying to obfuscate by suggesting that Qana was staged. For example:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/green-helmet-mystery-continues.html
Other sites include old-time spinsters NewsMax and JihadWatch. Apparently they're getting their info from something called Israel Insider. One of the more laughable claims:
"From our stance, what is especially interesting is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did, in droves. Says Israel Insider, while Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there."
Because there's no difference between frightened civilians trying to get out with their belongings, their children, and their elderly; and journalists and rescue workers who have experience getting to a scene at all costs.
At least the IDF have admitted to this crime and apologised for it, how ever half-hearted the apology was. Trying to write it off as 'staged' evokes the claims of holocaust deniers.
Rumsfeld's outburst gives some insight in the US thinking
"If we left Iraq prematurely as the terrorists demand, the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us and all those who don't share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines"
They clearly see the whole world as their backyard, and people who want them out of their regions as evil for depriving the USA from its apparent right to interfere.
The EU may not seem to be much for giants like Rumsfeld, but it has a bigger GDP and population, and infinitely more civility than the USA.
Russia, China, and India are local too, and they have quite a few people, not as much as the great USA obviously!
The most tragic part of Rumsfeld's statement is the clear indication that leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, at any time, is seen as detremental to US policy. Is that what the American people want?
"The Israeli government has been destroying Lebanese factories in the Biqa' valley that have no obvious military value or particular connection to Hizbullah."
Except that they support an economy that Hizbollah participates in. Gangster capitalism. The perps should be tried as common criminals.
Naharnet writes: "More rockets slammed into Israel from south Lebanon early Friday, killing at least three people. Four were initially reported killed, but officials later revised the toll to three, saying one person was in a serious condition."
It would be better for Hizbollah if they were to announce a twentyfour hour ceasefire.
Displaced Lebanese in the South are facing several health problems, including lack of potable water and of fuel. Health conditions are so bad that they could generate epidemics."
With H5N1 looming large, this could be the preparation for intentional mass murder via pathogen. I mean to say it may be Israel's intent to see to the deaths of millions of Arabs. All in deniable fashion, of course.
The water plant was accidently destroyed. The food was accidently destroyed.
Pickles of mass destruction!
We did not know there were civilians in the apartment building.
They actually said that about Qana.
Suggesting that Qana was staged is in the same league as Condoleeza Rice saying she was working hard to fashion a 'sustainable ceasefire' while spending most of her time in Israel playing kissy-face with Olmert, and promising him more arms for use against the bad Hizbollah.
Perhaps she doesn't want to spend so much time in Lebanon because the Israeli Air and Defense Forces have such a great record for precision bombing.
I'm curious about a common refrain among Israel's apologists. As part of the "right to defend" itself we hear of the unrelenting rain of rockets coming from Lebanon.
I seem to recall that a few days ago, probably during Israel's pretend suspension of bombing, there was a day or two when no rockets were fired into Israel.
There was some speculation that launchers were being moved back to avoid being overrun in the ground assault but I never did hear the IDF bragging that they had so degraded Hezbollah's ability to strike that this apparent calm was the result of their actions.
Nor did I happen to catch any official announcement from Hezbollah that they were witholding fire for any specific reason but that may be because I don't have access to the news outlets that could have provided that information.
It appears to me that they were demonstrating that they are disciplined enough to refrain from attacking Israel with rockets if and when Israel curtails its own attacks. This also reinforces the notion that Hezbollah is the one acting defensively and responding to Israel's provocations rather than the other way around.
True the abduction of soldiers is seen as the spark that started this conflagration but along with the vast and complex context that that event needs to be placed within I feel it should be emphasised that those at least were military targets and not civilians.
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