Lebanon’s Daily Star reports:

‘Devil worship’ suspects arrested in Mount Lebanon

And no, this as nothing to do with Lebanese who are fans of the US or Israel (Big Satan and Little Satan respectively).

Eight people, including a Lebanese Army soldier, were arrested Friday on suspicion of blasphemy and drug possession in Mount Lebanon and handed over to the military prosecutor’s office.

A judicial source told The Daily Star that the detainees are believed to be “devil worshippers”. The suspects – five of whom are male and three female, all under the age of 25 – were also found to be self-harming.

Military Judge Saqr Saqr will charge the eight on Saturday, according to the source.

So-called devil worship can be prosecuted under the section of the penal code which outlaws blasphemy and immoral conduct.

In 2003, more than 50 people, mainly teenagers, were arrested on suspicion of devil worship and drug abuse. A handful were convicted.

The government said at the time it had adopted measures to confront what it described as the rise of the phenomenon, with the arrests following weeks of monitoring by Internal Security Forces.

Having said that, it is only a matter of time before the Lebanese accuse Israel of supplying the Zionist Death Drugs^TM or Zionist Razor Blades of Death^TM involved (hat tip: Blazing Cat Fur).

Update: This is not the first time devil worshippers have been arrested in Lebanon. From 2003 (with bonus reference to both Big and Little Satan):

A young man playing guitar near a cemetery in Beirut was arrested and referred to court Wednesday on suspicion of being a follower of “devil worshippers.”

Lebanese general prosecutor Judge Adnan Addoum referred the man, who was not identified, to the General Prosecution for further investigation.

The suspect was arrested while he was taking drugs and playing guitar near a cemetery. Police forces also found with him masks, symbols and documents that allegedly encouraged worshipping Satan.

His arrest came after a series of rumors that swept the country recently about the killings of some children by devil followers.

Addoum denied the incidents and blamed them on “rumors being spread” in a dramatic way to create chaos and sabotage the Lebanese society. He said the government was adopting measures to confront such a “devil worshipping phenomenon.”

Several people, including teenagers, have been rounded up in the past few days in various regions, but they were later freed after their families promised to watch them. They were accused of taking part in “devil worship” practices and of taking drugs.

Suspicious tapes, twisted crosses, bones and skulls were also seized.

Similar arrests of suspected devil worshippers have taken place in Morocco, where a court sentenced 14 people Thursday for participating in such rituals as listening to hard-rock music that purportedly glorified Satan. Human rights groups protested the sentences, which ranged from a month to a year, as violations of humanitarian law.

The same Beirut judge on Wednesday referred a Lebanese journalist for interrogation by the General Prosecution for writing an article deemed harmful to religion.

Akel Aweet, a writer with Lebanon’s leading An Nahar newspaper, wrote a front-page article published Tuesday titled “Letter to God” in which he defied God to prove he exists by stopping the United States and Israel from pursuing their “evil” plans against Iraq, the Palestinians and other parts of the world.

Because they obviously stand for truth and care about us.

Reuters

Hamas on Sunday accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of “misleading” Israelis by creating the false impression that there was some kind of progress in negotiations for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

In an early morning interview with Army Radio, Netanyahu confirmed that contacts started anew a number of weeks ago to gain the young man’s release.

“There has been a renewal of contact with the German negotiator,” he said, adding that his office is dealing with the Schalit dossier on a continuous basis in a variety of ways.

The central channel, he said, is “negotiation [through the German mediator] that started a number of weeks ago.” Netanyahu would not offer any details of the talks.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, told Al-Jazeera that Netanyahu’s talk about progress was aimed at “easing domestic pressure on his government.”

His words came after Channel 2 reported on Saturday that German mediator Gerhard Konrad traveled to Gaza three weeks ago to speak with Hamas about a deal for Schalit.

Hamdan confirmed that a German mediator had visited the Gaza Strip recently in another bid to achieve a breakthrough, but to no avail.

“Hamas informed the German mediator that it won’t make any concessions on its demands and there would be no return to phase zero of the talks,” Hamdan said.

He added that the mediator, whom he did not name, did not bring anything new and had only a few meetings during his stay in the Gaza Strip.

Holding Netanyahu responsible for the lack of progress in efforts to reach a prisoner-exchange agreement, the Hamas official said: “Hamas’s position is very clear. The negotiations and discussions must be resumed from the point where they stopped. We won’t return to stage zero.”

Sources close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip said that the main differences between the two sides remain over whether Israel should release Israeli Arab prisoners and those who carried out big terrorist attacks.

The sources said that Hamas and Israel would still need months to bridge the gap between them.

Meanwhile, a a senior General Staff officer has warned that our response to the kidnapping of another soldier into Gaza will be no less severe than Operation Cast lead.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:02PM: BREAKING NEWS: Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah lies.

The Israel Defense Forces is taking aim at a new claim by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah who last week presented what he said was an Israeli rifle to visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nasrallah said the weapon, placed in a felt-lined box with a row of bullets, was captured during the guerrilla group’s 2006 war with Israel.

Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said Sunday the gun appears to be an assault rifle that Israel hasn’t used since 1974 – meaning it likely wasn’t captured during the war.

Ahmadinejad had met with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah at Iran’s embassy in Beirut prior to the Iranian leader’s departure from Lebanon.

Who’d have thought?

8:35PM: UN: Bla bla bla bla.

8:12PM: Israel’s answer to SpongeBob SquarePants?

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images

8:05PM: Israel has invited the 33 rescued Chilean miners to Israel.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov on Monday extended an official invitation to the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued last week to experience a “spiritual journey” this Christmas in the Holy Land.

The men, who were trapped underground for 68 days in a mine in Chile, are invited to Israel with their spouses for a week-long, all-expense paid sightseeing tour of various sites holy to Christianity.

“Your bravery and strength of spirit, your great faith that helped you survive so long in the bowels of the earth, was an inspiration to us all,” the tourism minister wrote in his invitation. “It would be a great honor for us to welcome you as our guests in the Holy Land.”

“This December, Christians around the world – and here in the Land of Jesus – will celebrate Christmas. During that time, we welcome tens of thousands of pilgrims and we would be pleased to offer you this uplifting and extraordinary experience, as our guests.”

No word yet on whether mistresses are also invited.

5:26PM: A sculpture of comatose former PM Ariel Sharon has gone on display.

3:45PM: What, me funny? According to the blurb on YouTube, this next video is:

The first episode of the USAID-funded cartoon campaign for the Palestinian Authority, designed by PACE and developed by Sketch in Motion, Inc.

This episode is about public transportation, and sends a message to the public about safety on the roads in a humorous way. Join us as Abu Awad dodges shawarma restaurants and crazy drivers on his way through the West Bank.

I guess we all have different ideas about humor.

12:52PM: Here in Israel, something happened last week that is only slightly more likely than peace in the Middle East.

Statisticians said the probability was abysmal, conspiracy theorists said the game was rigged, but some lucky gamblers believed this could happen: In an odds-defying incident, Saturday night’s state lottery numbers were an almost identical repeat of the lottery numbers from September 21. Ninety-five people picked the lucky combination and won.

The numbers that rolled out during a live studio broadcast this past Saturday, in lottery number 2194 of Miphal HaPayis, Israel’s state lottery, were 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13, and an additional ‘strong’ number 2. Moments after the celebration in the studio, curious web surfers were amazed to notice that these same numbers happened to roll out less than a month ago; on September 21, in lottery number 2187, the winning numbers were 13, 14, 26, 32, 33, 36, and a ‘strong’ number of 1. The order in which the numbers were picked was reversed.

“We are in the business of luck, and when it comes to chances and probabilities anything is possible, even the rare and infrequent, like in this case,” said Dr. Chaim Melamed, the statistics expert for Miphal HaPayis.

Three players guessed all seven numbers correctly, including the ‘strong’ number, and won NIS 4 million ($1,116,694) each. This is the highest numbers of first prize winners since 2006. Ninety-two players guessed a combination of six numbers correctly, and won NIS 4,000-NIS 6,561 ($1,116-$1,831) each.

Melamed stated that people often gamble on numbers that won previously. “I assume it’s like the people who hang on to birthdays,” he said. “There are people that hang on to numbers that were picked in the past. This time, this wish was fulfilled. It’s rare, but it’s still luck.”

Trillion-to-one chance

According to Zvi Gilula, a professor of statistics at the Hebrew University, getting all seven lottery numbers exactly correct, under normal circumstances, is one in 18 million. Guessing six numbers correctly, excluding the ‘strong’ number, is one to 2,250,000.

Gilula, an expert on gambling, estimated the probability of the same set of numbers being randomly picked twice a few weeks apart is no higher than one in 4 trillion, or 0.00000000000025.

“Usually, this is the type of numbers they use to describe the probability of life on Mars,” Gilula said.

Yitzhak Melechson, a professor of statistics at the University of Tel Aviv, said that the incident of six numbers repeating themselves within a month is an event of once in 10,000 years, and addressed the issue of a mishap.

“A bend in the lottery machine is a much more complex issue. If certain numbers were repeated more often it could attest to something, but it’s not the case in the repeated sextet.”

9:36AM: This next story is sure to disappoint many.

Some 11,500 students, among them 500 Arab and Druze Israelis, began the academic year Sunday at the Ariel University Center of Samaria, which is located in the West Bank, beyond the Green Line.

“I scored high on my psychometric exam and could have enrolled in Tel Aviv University and other institutions, but here the enrollment process was quicker. This was the first place that accepted me, so I decided to go for it,” said 20-year-old Tayibe resident Manar Diuani, who is studying computer science.

A group of prominent Israeli artists recently caused a public uproar when they drafted a letter declaring their refusal to perform in Ariel’s new cultural hall for political reasons.

Diuani, an Arab-Israeli, told Ynet the settlement issue does not concern her. “I separate studies from politics. I don’t think where I go to school will matter to anyone – only my grades and diploma will matter.”

Another Arab student, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “We did not come here because of the ideology; we came here to get an education, and we don’t want to link this to politics.”

Asad, 25, from the Druze village Hurfish, was recently discharged from the IDF after serving as an officer in a secret unit. He rents a room at the university’s dorms and is studying for a BA degree in civil engineering. “I didn’t take the psychometric exam, so the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) was out of the question. Beersheba is too far, and as a family man I wanted to stay close by,” said Asad, who is married with a daughter.

“Ariel is a large city that has existed for many years and will continue to exist without me. In this case, politics is pushed to the side,” he told Ynet.

Joana Moussa, a 20-year-old behavioral sciences student from Abu Snan, an Arab village in the Galilee region, said politics does play a role. “All of the students in Ariel fear the day will come when they’ll be told their diploma cannot be recognized because they studied in the territories. But as of today, our diploma is recognized everywhere.

“I am very pleased because the professors give us personal attention and there is no racism here. Perhaps in other places people would have commented on my name or ethnicity, but here I’m accepted for who I am,” she said.

Some three years ago Ariel College was recognized as a “university center,” a move that drew harsh criticism from leftist groups.

Bring on the boycott!

6:14AM: An anti-Israel campaigner rewrites history as he explains why Britain supported Zionism, including claims both Balfour and Churchill were “vicious antisemites.”

Of course, our intrepid historian is himself not antisemitic – just anti-Zionist – even as he explains that “Herzl, the founder of Zionism, promised that he would take the Jews away from these [revolutionary] movements and make them into colonists who would go and pillage other countries”

REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is on a two-day visit to Lebanon, spoke before a mass rally organized in is honor by Hezbollah at the Dahiya quarter of Beirut, which is considered one of the Shiite group’s strongholds.

Wednesday’s rally, which saw masses gather at a local soccer field, waving Iranian flags and chanted “Welcome” in Persian, was missing Hezbollah Chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who welcomed Ahmadinejad to Lebanon via a video feed from his bunker: “I welcome you here on behalf of the injured, the dead, the released prisoners and this people, who have fought to create the miracle of victory. You are a steadfast staff for the resistance.”

“I come from the land of the Imam Khomeini, bearing the best wishes of the Iranian people and its leaders,” Ahmadinejad told the masses. “Lebanon is the an example and school for unwavering resistance to the world’s tyrants and a university for Jihad. Visiting Lebanon and meeting the leaders is a dream come true for me.”

Ahmadinejad spoke in Persian and used an interpreter.

The Iranian leader wasted no time in attacking Israel for violating the Palestinians’ rights: “Do you see anything but crimes in the past actions of the Zionist regime? The massacre of innocent people, the use of weapons, razing homes, confiscating medicine, food and water, attacking civilians in international waters and threatening the world is an everyday occurrence for them.”

The West, he added, considers Israel “means of dominating the world,” and to that end it has given it nuclear weapons.

‘Israel’s weakness exposed’

Turning his attention to the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, the Iranian president said the two military campaigns “exposed Israel’s weakness… it is also possible that those barbaric Zionists will seek a new regional adventure to try and compensate. I say – any attack will only bring this phony regime closer to its end.”

‘A dream come true.’ Ahmadinejad

As for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the talks are taking place while Israel “is perpetuating the occupation and disrespects International Law,” he said. “The only way to resolve the problems in Palestine and bring peace to the region is to recognize the rights of the Palestinians, allow the refugees to return to their land and send the conquerors back to their homelands. The Zionists must return Palestine to its true owner, or they will be obliterated by the wrath of the Palestinian people.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:46PM: Well done to Ha’aretz for finding a way to demonize Israeli “settlers” in a story about palestinians who drowned in a well.

Three Palestinians in the West Bank drowned in a well full of olive mulch on Thursday after a boy fell into the pit and two men dived in to save him.

The freak accident at a village near Tul Karm occurred just a few days into the West Bank olive harvest season, where risks of injury are usually linked to clashes with Israeli settlers over access to olive groves.

The three drowned in a three-meter (13-foot) deep pool of thick liquid waste left over from the olive oil pressing process. Police took the owner of the press into custody for questioning.

I’m just surprised they didn’t accuse “settlers” of pushing them down the well.

3:32PM: Regarding that explosion in Iran I blogged about earlier:

More than 18 Revolutionary guards were killed and 14 others wounded in an explosion Tuesday at a base of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRG) Corps in the Western Iranian province of Lurestan, reported Iran’s official news agency IRNA Wednesday.

A Deputy Commander of the Corps said that blast resulted from a fire that spread to a munitions depot at the corps’s base in Khoramabad, 300 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran, and close to Iran’s restive Kurdistan region.

Police and fire-and-rescue teams were rushed to the IRG base and the injured were taken to a hospital in Khoramabad, the agency said.

The base houses underground launching and storage facilities for Iran’s medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, said research group Global Security.

Lorestan Governor General Hassan Shariatnejad visited the injured persons hospitalized and offered his condolences over the tragic incident. Local officials declared a two-day mourning Wednesday and a funeral was scheduled for Thursday.

Hat tip: Carl, via Shy Guy.

3:22PM: In the Independent, Adrian Hamilton argues that Israel has no future as a purely Jewish state.

But here’s the clincher:

The more closely you define Israel as a uniquely “Jewish” state, the less room there is for it to act as a co-operative member of a Muslim majority Middle East. Its role becomes that of an enclave which views itself as not just separate but in clear opposition to everyone else about it.

In other words, Hamilton opposes a Jewish state because it is not a Muslim one (hat tip: Just Journalism).

3:08PM: Oneindia News reports:

18 guards from the powerful Revolutionary Guard force were killed in an explosion in Iran’s military base on Oct 12.

According the country’s domestic media report, 14 other Guard troops were wounded in the blast at the military base, which was situated in 300 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran.

As per the report, a fire, which spread to the ammunition depot, caused the massive explosion in the military depot.

Iran is battling armed militant and separatist movements in the remote southeast along the border with Pakistan and in the far northwest along the border with Iraq.

2:42PM: Quote of the day:

“If you’re going to the Middle East to look for oil, you can skip Israel. If you’re looking for brains, look no further.
Israel has shown that it has a disproportionate amount of brains and energy.”

- Businessman Warren Buffet

2:35PM: It has been reported that Israel has one of the hottest property markets in the world.

Israel, despite perennial fears of war, has emerged as one of the hottest — and least likely — property markets in the world: Since real estate collapsed around the globe in 2008, at least one industry watchdog lists it as the fastest-rising property market on earth.

But with global economic meltdown — and the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that precipitated it — still fresh in people’s minds, officials are stepping up efforts to rein in its overheated property sector. The fear is that a property bubble could shake confidence in an economy that withstood the worst of the world’s financial crisis.

In the span of months, the central bank has raised interest rates several times and the government is rallying to build new units in this land-strapped country.

“The housing market has set off enough crises, and we’re not going to let that happen in Israel,” Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said earlier this month in announcing his sixth rate hike in just over a year.

According to Global Property Guide, a trade magazine that monitors the housing market, Israeli housing prices in the second quarter of 2010 rose sixth-fastest in a ranking of 36 countries. Four of the top five, including Singapore and Latvia, were rebounding from sharp price drops. So looking at the past two years ended in June — the last period for which there is data — Israeli real estate clocks in at No. 1.

9:46AM: If only…

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

6:10AM: Meet Hisham Abu Varia, the first Arab-Israeli IDF officer.

“The army is the entry pass into the Israeli society,” Hisham explains. “The Arab sector thinks it’s second rate here, but to get privileges one has to give and not just receive. The state protects its citizens even if they don’t serve – my parents live off income support. You must contribute to the country you live off. What other country would have an Arab Knesset member, who is being paid by the state, promoting the interests of the Islamic movement and screwing the promotion of the sector it is supposed to represent?”

Read the whole thing here.

6:05AM: Ahmadinejad speaking at the rally in Lebanon:

5:56AM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has extended Israel’s blessings to Chile following the rescue of the miners. Followed by a “I predicted this.”

Say what?

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the rescue of the Chilean miners today that it was one of those rare moments of elation,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Wednesday, adding that “the entire world has been moved by this human act of saving miners trapped in the belly of the earth. We extend our blessings and the blessing of the people of Israel to the Chilean nation and to everyone who assisted in the rescue.”

The statement goes on to mention that “Netanyahu predicted such an event – a mine disaster – in his book Terrorism: How the West can win from 1987.” Quotes from the book were sent to reporters in addition to a scanned page from the actual volume.

In his book, Netanyahu described a possible mine disaster, saying that even though only a handful of miners may be trapped, the entire world’s attention would be riveted to their welfare “for a long time.” He explained his argument, saying that it would not only be the intense media coverage of such an event that would turn people’s attention to the event, but every individual’s private feeling that it could be him or her trapped in a similar situation.

Here’s my prediction: conspiracy theorists are going to use this to argue that Israel was actually behind the mine collapse.

Money that Hizbullah received from Iran helped rebuild Lebanese houses destroyed by Israel in 2006’s Second Lebanon War, according to Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

He spoke on Saturday ahead of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon.

“Hizbullah does not trust Lebanese government bureaucracy, therefore the Iranians paid in cash,” Nasrallah said in a televised broadcast.

“The Iranian president is arriving as a guest of Lebanon, and he was invited by Lebanese President Michel Suleiman himself,” Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah also poo-poo’d recent reports of Ahmadinejad’s plans to throw stones at Israel.

“The recent reports that Ahmadinejad intended to visit the Lebanon-Israel border in order to throw stones across were ridiculous,” Nasrallah continued.

Although this seems to conflict with another report:

The Hezbollah leader said the Iranian president should drop his plan to throw a symbolic stone at the Israeli side of the border. “If Ahmadinejad will heed my advice, I will tell him, ‘Throw a stone? You can throw something much larger at Israel’.”

I don’t believe either report, since when does Nasrallah refer to Israel as anything other than the enemy or Zionist entity?

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:10PM: Palestinian Media Watch has the latest from our “peace partners” the PA.

During the month of Ramadan, PA TV broadcast a special daily quiz program from refugee camps in Lebanon and in Syria, in which residents were asked to name five cities “in Palestine” or “the countries sharing borders with Palestine” in order to win $100 cash prizes. The PA TV host gave cash prizes to those who defined Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Ramle, and others as Palestinian cities and to those who disregarded the existence of Israel as a neighboring country. Referring to Israel, the host said, “All of Palestine is occupied.”

The following are transcripts from this PA TV program,The Cedar and the Olive Tree, whose purpose was to reinforce the message that the Palestinian Authority does not recognize the legitimacy and jurisdiction of Israel anywhere. PMW is citing a number of examples from the program, including messages that recur, to demonstrate the use of repetition as one method of political indoctrination used by the Palestinian Authority and PA TV.

Notice the dumbass at 0:43 who makes the easiest $100 she’s likely to ever make.

6:24PM: The Lebanese are evidently nervous about something:

National News Agency field correspondent, Taher Abou Hamdan, reported Sunday that Israeli enemy has been acting suspiciously over the past 24 hours along the blue line, particularly along occupied Shebaa farms.

The Blue Line is a border demarcation, which covers the Lebanese-Israeli boundary. The line was published by the United Nations on 7 June 2000 for the purposes of determining whether Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon

Israeli tactics included infantry movement, motorized patrols and unmanned fighter-plane flights, all covering the blue line, and crossing over towards the Lebanese side of Ghajjar town. Patrolling soldiers surveyed the Wazzani spring and its surroundings for over half an hour, before retreating towards the Israeli side of occupied Ghajjar town.

UNIFIL and Lebanese army patrols intensified along the Lebanese side of the blue line, keeping an alert status against any sudden Israeli attack.

3:42PM: Ha’aretz has more on the female IDF soldier accused of stealing military documents pertaining to Iran.

An Israel Defense Forces soldier has been indicted for allegedly stealing a disc-on-key holding classified documents from the National Security Institute, it emerged on Sunday.

The Southern Command military court last month charged the soldier, who had served in the teleprocessing department, for endangering the security of the state. Some of the documents in question dealt with classified information on Iran.

The soldier is suspected of taking home the disc-on-key, which contained some 600 private documents, during her period of service at the NSI in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem in 2009.

The soldier claimed that she had taken the disc in order to prove security failures existed at the NSI.

The defendant took the disc-on-key precisely because she discovered that the NSI had been using it to save classified documents – something that is forbidden by the army. She confessed to the act on the same day, when investigators discovered the disc to be missing and approached her.

Her lawyer said that she had not even looked at the documents in her possession.

1:30PM: The Jerusalem Post with some worrying news (hat tip: Shy Guy)

A female soldier in the IDF has been accused of stealing military documents pertaining to Iran and endangering national security, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.

The classified documents, said to be numbering in the hundreds, were purportedly taken with a USB key.

More details were not available at the time of this report.

11:40AM: In the battle for their peoples’ hearts and minds, both PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and head Hamashole Ismail Haniyeh seem out of their olive-picking minds.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (R) assists Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest in the West Bank village of Iraq Borin near Nablus October 9, 2010. REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

Gazan Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, right, picks an olive during a tour of olive oil factories and date groves, at the beginning of olive harvest season, near the Bureij refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

But in the battle to look more ridiculous, Fayyad wins hands down.

9:20AM: Anatomy of a hit-and-run.

PMW Bulletins PA TV awards $100 prizes for denial of Israel’s existence by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik Oct. 10, 2010

Share | PA TV awards $100 prizes for denial of Israel’s existence by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik During the month of Ramadan, PA TV broadcast a special daily quiz program from refugee camps in Lebanon and in Syria, in which residents were asked to name five cities “in Palestine” or “the countries sharing borders with Palestine” in order to win $100 cash prizes. The PA TV host gave cash prizes to those who defined Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Ramle, and others as Palestinian cities and to those who disregarded the existence of Israel as a neighboring country. Referring to Israel, the host said, “All of Palestine is occupied.” The following are transcripts from this PA TV program,The Cedar and the Olive Tree, whose purpose was to reinforce the message that the Palestinian Authority does not recognize the legitimacy and jurisdiction of Israel anywhere. PMW is citing a number of examples from the program, including messages that recur, to demonstrate the use of repetition as one method of political indoctrination used by the Palestinian Authority and PA TV.

One person in particular – an attractive Christian woman with a large cross that would make Mr T proud and holding up a poster of Hassan Nasrallah – is the subject of numerous photographs.

A Lebanese Christian supporter of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah carries his pictures during a rally to mark "Quds (Jerusalem) Day" in Beirut's suburbs. REUTERS/Sharif Karim

A Lebanese Christian woman holds a picture of Hezbollah Islamist group chief Hassan Nasrallah during a ceremony marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Beirut's southern suburb on September 3, 2010. AFP PHOTO/JOSEPH EID

A Lebanese Christian supporter of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah carries his pictures during a rally to mark "Quds (Jerusalem) Day" in Beirut's suburbs September 3, 2010. REUTERS/Sharif Karim

A Christian woman supporter of Hezbollah, right, carries a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as he speaks on the occasion of Jerusalem Day in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 3, 2010. Hezbollah leader says he will not respond to a U.N.-appointed prosecutor's demand for his group to hand over all information relevant to the assassination case of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah says the group is ready to cooperate instead with the Lebanese judiciary. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Besides standing out like a sore thumb in a sea of veiled Muslim women, what seems really curious is how disinterested she looks as she holds up the poster of the Hizbullah leader. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was getting paid to be there.

Yeah, about that.

In its first issue of 2007, the Lebanese weekly current affairs magazine Ash-Shiraa, in a story on the newly-initiated downtown sit-in that would eventually last for over 18 months, published a statistic showing that that while Hezbollah paid veiled – or muhajjabat –supporters $15 per day for attending the demonstration, those who agreed to go unveiled were paid a little over $33 or 50,000 LL.

Dr. Hilal Khashan, professor of political studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB), suspected that this unique privileging of unveiled women by a party that encourages the wearing of the hijab among its women followers was because it “wanted [them] to look like Christians.” The appearance of unveiled women would have helped make the protest look like a national movement rather than a sectarian one.

Just kidding.

The head of Amnesty International’s Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that he stands by his statement that Israel is a “scum state.”

Writing in his blog, which appears on the Web site of Finland’s third largest newspaper Iltalehti, Johansson wrote on Monday that “A friend of mine who works in Israel was visiting [and] while piling wood in the shed, we got to [talking about] his favourite topic. [After] several years of residence in the Holy Land, he has come to the conclusion that ‘Israel is a scum state.’ Based on my own visit[s], which occurred during the 1970s and for the last time in the 1990s, I agree.”

—-

Asked why he termed Israel a “scum state,” Johansson told the Post in a telephone interview that it was because Israel has “repeatedly flouted international law,” and due to his “personal experiences inside and outside of Israel with meeting Israelis.”

Johansson said that his remarks were not anti-Semitic. “I actually praise Breaking the Silence,” he said, referring to an Israeli organization claiming to collect and share testimonies of former IDF soldiers over human rights violations they allegedly witnessed, while rarely providing names of troops, dates and locations of these incidents.

Asked whether there are other countries aside from Israel that, according to him, meet the definition of a “scum state,” Johansson did not specify any, but noted that there are “Russian officials” who meet the criteria.

The Amnesty International official said: “I have been on record on Finnish TV as saying George Bush is the biggest executioner in the Western Hemisphere, [I] use strong language… I am writing those [blogs] in my capacity as a private person, not as an Amnesty official.”

However, Iltalehti’s Web site clearly provides readers with his title as “director of the Finnish branch of Amnesty International,” which appears above his blog.

NGO Monitor chief Gerald Steinberg condemned Johansson’s remarks in the context of his organization as a whole. The head of the watchdog organization, which tracks anti-Israel activity among NGOs, told the Post in an e-mail on Tuesday that “Amnesty International has promoted an intense anti-Israel ideology, resulting in statements like these. Such one-sided ideological campaigns, with false allegations of war crimes, are entirely inconsistent with Amnesty’s claim to support ethical principles and universal human rights.

“Amnesty International’s new secretary general, Salil Shetty, must immediately condemn this immoral statement by the head of the Finnish chapter, freeze links to the chapter until he resigns, and take measures to end Amnesty’s central role in demonizing Israel,” he added.

Also Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International’s headquarters in London, Susanne Flood, told the Post in a telephone interview that “Amnesty would never use an expression like this toward the State of Israel, or any other state.”

Flood said that Johansson used the phrase “creep state” to describe Israel, rather than “scum,” as the initial English translation of the Finnish word found. Native Finnish speakers from Tundra Tabloids said the Finnish term used by Johansson to denigrate Israel is a “highly derogatory term,” and is frequently translated as “scum,” “scum bag” or “douche bag.”

Asked if AI plans to discipline or sack Johansson, Flood said she would have to check on his employment status, but noted that the organization generally does not comment on human resource matters.

Pressed if he is singling out Israel for disparate treatment – a manifestation of modern anti-Semitism according to some critics – Flood said that one “has to look at the full context of his articles.”

She added that Johansson assured her that he is not using his title to write the anti-Israeli blogs. But, when shown that his title was indeed being used in his blog, she conceded to this fact.

The deputy head of Mission for the Embassy of Finland in Israel, Anu Pulkkinen, told the Post on Tuesday that Johansson “is responsible for his own comments, and we are not commenting on blog writings of individual Finnish citizens.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:02PM: Return of the Zionist Death Cows.^TM

A woman was lightly wounded and a few cars were damaged Wednesday when a cow went on a rampage at a shopping center in the northern Israeli city of Nesher.

Police said the cow, which eventually headed north towards Haifa’s Checkpost Junction, was part of a herd that was grazing near the “Big” shopping center. At some point, police said, the cows entered the area of the shopping center.

The cows were eventually cleared from the area, and their owner was questioned.

Witnesses said the cow rammed into a vehicle that tried to block its path.

Magen David Adom paramedic Kobi Ben-Haim said that during the incident, which went on for more than an hour, a woman sustained light injuries when the cow grazed her back.

So there you have it. The cow was merely getting revenge. What was the woman doing grazing the cow in the first place?

1:55PM: A look at Iran vs Israel weapon capabilities.

1:45PM: Israel’s Kadima party and opposition leader Tzipi Livni thinks to herself while listening to Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair at the ‘Delegitimization of Israel’ conference (photo credit: JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images).

What the hell is wrong with his teeth?

1:40PM: Despite saying he stands behind “Israel is a scum state” comment, Frank Johansson is more standing in front of it.

Hiding it from view while he goes to town on it with a large eraser.

The article by Weinthal appears in today’s edition of the J’Lem Post, and surprise, the offending blog post by the AI chairman at the Iltalehti website has been scrubbed, thrown down the memory hole, but thanks to Vasarahammer we have the cached picture of the post. Interestingly enough, though the Amnesty International chairman (Finnish branch) is totally unrepentant, nonetheless the post has disappeared. A passive mea culpa?

11:54AM: Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East Tony Blair,speaking as keynote speaker at the August 24 symposium entitled “The De-legitimization of Israel: Threats, Challenges and Responses.”

He needn’t look much further than his own sister-in-law.

6:10AM: Turkey has seen a 90% decline in Israeli tourism.

Meanwhile, in other bad-news-for-the-Turks, a fire has destroyed many negatives of the virulently anti-Israel Turkish TV show “Ambush in the Valley of the Wolves” spinoff movie “The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine.”

6:05AM: Hassan Nasrallah, comedian.

Nasrallah  urged the Lebanese government to draw conclusions from the current electricity crisis and follow in Iran’s footsteps and build a nuclear reactor to generate electricity like the reactor in Bushehr.

“The cost of building the Bushehr reactor was less than Lebanon’s investment in the electricity network. I call on the government to build a nuclear reactor to generate electricity, and then we can also sell energy to Syria, Cyprus, and other countries in the region,” he said.

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While the US was “mindful” of Palestinian demands for a construction freeze in the West Bank, State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said Monday the issue would be discussed on September 2 in Washington, ruling it out as a precondition for direct talks.

“The issue of settlements, the issue of the moratorium… has been a topic of discussion and will be a topic of discussion when the leaders meet with Secretary Clinton on September 2,” Crowley said.

For a second straight day, Palestinian leaders have threatened to walk away from upcoming talks if Israel does not extend the settlement construction moratorium on September 26. This has led a government official on Monday to question if the Palestinians “were not looking for excuses to pull out of the talks even before they began.”

A little more than a week before Israel and the Palestinian Authority are scheduled to relaunch direct talks in Washington, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that “if Israel resumes settlement activities in the Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, we cannot continue negotiations.”

He was speaking at a press conference in Ramallah, and quoting from a letter PA President Mahmoud Abbas sent to US President Barack Obama.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu must choose “between settlements and peace,” Erekat said. “We hope that Mr. Netanyahu will choose reconciliation and not further confrontation. If Mr.

Netanyahu decides to produce new settlement tenders come September 26, he will have decided to stop the negotiations.”

Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev said in response to Erekat that the issue of the settlements “is one of the issues on the agenda of the talks, and has to be discussed. The fate of the settlements will be determined in a peace agreement, and that is the correct way to approach the matter.”

Following Erekat’s statement, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement saying that “Israel does not place any precondition to starting the direct talks.”

Meanwhile, I think it appropriate that the parties will be discussing a freeze with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of all people.

Getty Images

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:50PM: Egypt fail: How do you say “D’oh” in Arabic?

The Egyptian government was looking to buy back 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas sold to Israel as part of the deal signed in 2005, according to a Tuesday report by Egyptian daily al-Shaab.

Anonymous sources told al-Shaab that internal discussions at Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources decided that over half of the natural gas sold to Israel under the deal would have to be repurchased at $14 billion, even though it was sold for $2 billion.

Cairo officials had previously blamed the gas deal with Israel as the main reason for the increase in power outages experienced by Egyptians since 2004, as less natural gas is provided for use by domestic power suppliers, AFP reported last Sunday.

Egypt’s ruling party has been embarrassed by the increased power cuts to the population and ensuing fights between government officials over who bears responsibility for the problem,  according to the independent daily al-Shorouk report cited by AFP.

10:40PM: Hizbullah fail: The prosecutor in the assassination case of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri says that a packet of evidence handed over by Hizbullah last week was “incomplete,” and failed to add anything to what Sheik Hassan Nasrallah disclosed at a news conference earlier this month.

"I'm screwed"

8:52PM: Chairman of the Finnish Amnesty International Frank Johansson has this to say about Israel on his blog (hat tip: Tundra Tabloids via Solomonia).

“A friend of mine who works in Israel, was visiting while piling wood in the shed, we got into his favourite topic. Several years of  residence in the holy country, he has come to the conclusion that “Israel is a scum state”. On the basis of my own visit, which occurred during the 1970s and 1990s for the final time, I agree.”

Welcome to the world of English-language blogs, scumball.

Here’s hoping you’re career is finnish-ed.

8:40PM: Interesting blog from a pro-Israel Muslim.

From his profile:

I am a college student of Political Science, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, Maryland. An avid supporter of interfaith relations, I was the first Muslim president of the only international Jewish Fraternity, and am always working to use my unique experiences between two worlds to be a bridge between Muslims and Jews wherever I go.

5:36PM: Quote of the day:

“We have called repeatedly for his release, [but] the regime that holds him is not one that is terribly given to respond to international pressure or respect international law in any way, shape or form.”

“We have great sympathy for him, his family and all those who know him. He stands as a symbol and remembrance that terrorism is a very real fact in Israel’s day-to-day existence. He is a symbol of that reality and of the complete lawlessness of those in that region who threaten Israel’s existence.”

- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper commenting on the plight of Gilad Shalit

5:26PM: If you think that the Dead Sea’s high salt and mineral content makes it a very safe place to swim, think again.

5:16PM: NBA star Dwight Howard is to visit Israel “to demonstrate their solidarity with the people and State of Israel.”

5:10PM: According to Maariv columnist Ben Caspit, Rahm Emanuel used some expletives against Ron Dermer, Netanyahu Diplomatic Adviser.

In any case, the real US attitude towards the Netanyahu government hasn’t changed. Inside the room, nothing has changed about how the two parties regard each other. Both parties. This is exemplified by the following story: A little while back, Rahm Emanuel paid us a visit. A family visit, on the occasion of his son’s Bar Mitzvah. Still, Emanuel conducted some [working] meetings in Jerusalem. In the Prime Minister’s Office, among others. With Netanyahu’s Diplomatic Adviser, Ron Dermer, among others. The meeting was held at one of the offices in “the aquarium” [the Prime Minister's suite]. The tone was not amicable. At some point, it turned into shouting and cursing. Emanuel, as he regularly does, used obscene language. Don’t f*ck with me [spelled out in English and transliterated into Hebrew in the original], for example.

That word, f*ck [transliterated into Hebrew in the original], which is off-limits in the American media, appears in every second sentence Emanuel utters. Whoever translates it, does it at his own risk. Dermer, by the way, gave back as good as he got. Emanuel was angry, he claimed, because Dermer briefed certain Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, against the President and Emanuel himself. The ruckus at the meeting was bad and hasn’t leaked until now. Afterwards, Bibi went to Washington and everything calmed down.

Wow, Emanuel really does think he is Jesus.

3:12PM: Remember the controversial video of IDF soldiers dancing in Hebron to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”?

Well, a Lebanese blogger from Now Lebanon has reacted to it – by complimenting the choice of song and recognizing that the soldiers have a sense of humor.

2:32PM: This is Norway to treat a friend.

Norway’s Finance Ministry said the country’s oil fund has divested from two Israeli  companies involved in building settlements in the West Bank.

The ministry said Monday that the 2.8 trillion kroner ($440 billion) sovereign wealth fund has excluded from its portfolio construction company Danya Cebus Ltd. and its majority owner, Africa Israel Investments Ltd.

Danya Cebus has built Israeli homes in the West Bank.

The ethical council that monitors the fund’s investments warned that the fund risked “contributing to serious violations of individual rights in situations of war and conflict” by investing in the Israeli companies.

And here I was hoping for a Thor in relations.

2:24PM: Israeli Foreign Ministry officials have revealed that one of the men on the Mavi Marmara spent three years in a Turkish prison for hijacking a ferry in the Black Sea in 1996.

The Turkish newspaper Hurrieyt reported over the weekend that Erdinc Tekir, who was hurt during the IDF raid on the boat, was among the ninemember team that hijacked the Black Sea ferry to bring the 1996 war in Chechneya to the world’s attention. Tekir spent some three and a half years in prison for the incident.

“This shows what kind of people were on the ship,” one Foreign Ministry official said.

“There were people with a history of violence, and willingness to use it.” The official said Israel hoped the UN panel that was established to probe the Gaza flotilla incident would look into who was on the boat. The panel needs to “shed light on what really happened for the whole world to see.”

11:32AM: Thousands of Jewish children in more than 200 schools (including 42 religious ones) from the fifth grade and up will begin mandatory studies in Arabic this school year.

“The aim is to turn the language into a cultural bridge – a means of communication. It is extremely important that every child come to know the language and the culture and thus communicate, hold conversations, and be tolerant in this country.

It would be nice if this approach was reciprocated.

8:52AM: With Iran’s leaders threatening to wipe Israel off the map, and otherwise referring to us as things like “a cancer” and “filthy bacteria,” this is how Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has addressed the Iranian people.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has joined the struggle against closing down Kol Yisrael (Israel radio) in Persian: “This is an extremely important public diplomacy tool that directly links Israel to the Iranian people, out of the regime’s reach. Today, the Kol Yisrael program in Persian is Israel’s only means of transmitting direct messages to the Iranian people. In the program’s 55 years of existence, it has built up a reputation among the Iranians for having objective and trustworthy broadcasts. Kol Yisrael in Persian must not be shut down; in fact its scope should be increased,” said Ayalon.

The deputy minister sent the following message to the Iranian people, as part of an interview he granted to the station:

“Israel bears no animosity towards the Iranian people. We have deep respect for them, and aspire to cooperate with them to bring about a better reality in the region. The problem is intrinsic to the Iranian regime and its conduct, particularly regarding the nuclear issue. This is a regime that threatens to annihilate western countries such as the United States, Great Britain and Israel. The Iranian regime spreads instability, supports terror, and oppresses its own people. It is impossible to accept atomic weapons in the hands of such a regime.

The Iranian reactor constitutes a tremendous danger to the stability of the entire region and to world peace in general because, besides nuclear armaments, Iran is also developing a missile system that threatens countries beyond the Middle East, such as Europe. Nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands will enable it to threaten all the Arab governments with its present means (subversive elements in various countries, agents, and so forth). Even now it controls bodies that function as a state within a state, in Lebanon, Palestinian areas, Yemen and other places.

Another point that does not always come up in the Iranian context, due to the nuclear threat, is the glaring violation of civil rights inside Iran. This is an aggressive dictatorial regime, and all progressive elements throughout the world should take action against it, if only for that reason. Israel congratulates the Iranian people for their efforts to liberate themselves from the burden of the oppressive regime. At every international forum, Israel has raised the issue of the suffering of the Iranian people and the cruelty of the regime ruling them. That is the main thing we can do for such an illustrious nation suffering from oppression. But in the end, it is the Iranian people themselves who must take their fate in their own hands and act to achieve their rights. The more the citizens of Iran increase their protest activities, the higher the international support will be, including Israel’s support.

In response to a question regarding the likelihood of regional war, the deputy minister replied that there is always the possibility of sudden, unplanned deterioration due to one action or another. Israel is committed to defending its citizens and if attacked will act accordingly. A fear exists that Iran – as it becomes more pressured by sanctions – will goad those under its patronage in Hizbullah and Hamas to initiate military action against Israel. There’s also a possibility that Iran will make a military move against the Arab Gulf states and harm the flow of oil to the world, in which case the entire situation will degrade into widespread confrontations. Remember that the sanctions are aimed against Iran’s efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons, and if they don’t elicit results, the United States and other nations might consider more forceful measures.”

6:06AM: This next photo is dedicated to those who do not think the PA – especially chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat – are acting like little children.

AFP

Either that, or he’s trying to perfect Blue Steel.

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He fell woefully short.

AP

An extensive history of Israeli espionage and reconnaissance activities was unveiled to the public on Monday by the leader of Hizbullah, who demanded that the government form a committee to study information that he said should be investigated as part of the probe  into former Premier Rafik Hariri’s killing.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered a two-hour presentation of the information during a news conference in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where some 150 members of the media gathered to watch him via video link.

Nasrallah disclosed that in 1997, the resistance intercepted Israeli transmissions from its aerial reconnaissance aircraft, and he aired a series of excerpts of this footage, predating Hariri’s February 14, 2005, killing.

The footage was divided into three sections: it covered extensive shots of the area between the St. George Club, where Hariri was killed by a truck bomb, and the late premier’s residence in Qoreitem, with repeated shots of turns in the road along Corniche al-Manara. Nasrallah said the footage indicated that the Israelis were likely studying methods of carrying out bombings and assassinations, since official motorcades slow down at such turns.

The footage included shots of what Nasrallah said was Hariri’s path to his vacation residence in Faqra, Kesrouan, as well as the city of Sidon, with a focus on the residence of his brother, Shafik.

“And there are no Hizbullah centers or homes of officials in these areas,” he said.

Nasrallah added that the resistance had begun assembling the footage only in the last two years, from an accumulated store of material, and hadn’t had time to compile similar excerpts of Israeli reconnaissance around the areas frequented by other politicians who were assassinated in the wake of Hariri’s killing.

“This isn’t definitive proof,” he said, “but it opens up new horizons for the investigations.”

Nasrallah added that the aerial reconnaissance footage was necessarily incomplete, because the resistance was unable to crack some of its encoding.

“Just because we don’t have footage of [a given location], doesn’t mean the Israelis didn’t take pictures of it,” he said.

The secretary general said his party wouldn’t present the evidence to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, since he had “no trust” in the body, but expressed his hope that the Lebanese government would act on it.

He added that if the STL ignored the material, “it will confirm our logic, that it’s politicized.”

Nasrallah said other information held by Hizbullah would remain secret for now, but could become public if the need arose.

—-

Nasrallah began the news conference by detailing Israel’s attempts, as far back as the mid-1990s, to plant the notion that Hizbullah intended to assassinate Hariri, and aired the confessions of an Israeli agent, Ahmad Nasrallah, who succeeded in convincing members of Hariri’s security detail that this was the case.

The Syrians, he said, took the information so seriously that they arrested Salameh, a Hizbullah operative, causing Nasrallah to lobby Syria’s then-senior intelligence figure in Lebanon, General Ghazi Kenaan, for his release.

Ahmad Nasrallah was later arrested on suspicion of being an Israeli agent, but released by the Lebanese judiciary in 2000, prior to the liberation of the south, and then fled to Israel, where Hizbullah’s leader said he was still active in recruiting agents.

Nasrallah also aired brief footage of half-a-dozen suspected Israeli agents, all Lebanese, and highlighted information obtained during their interrogations. More than 150 suspected agents have been rounded up in 2009 and

One suspect, Philipos Sader, was tasked with monitoring President Michel Sleiman and army commander General Jean Kahwaji. Nasrallah said Sader was tasked with focusing on Sleiman’s residence in Amsheet, Jbeil, and gathering information about Kahwaji’s yacht.

“If Syria, or Hizbullah, were found to be gathering such information, what would have happened?” he asked rhetorically.

Other alleged agents, Nasrallah continued, had confessed to gathering information about the movements of Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

The case of Mahmoud Rafeh, the agent who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, covered the planting of bombs in Naameh in 1999 and Zahrani in 2005. The latter incident, which saw the discovery and dismantling of the explosive, could have been an unsuccessful attempt to kill Speaker Nabih Berri.

Nasrallah raised the case of Ghassan Jidd, an Israeli agent who he said fled the country in 2009, three years after the resistance alerted the authorities to his suspicious movements. He said the resistance had evidence that Jidd was in the St. George area on February 13, 2005, a day before Hariri’s killing, but declined to describe the evidence, vowing to submit it to any concerned body.

Nasrallah’s news conference sought to highlight the fact that Israeli agents have carried out a wide range of tasks, such as helping Israeli operatives and commandos enter and exit the country, usually by sea. He urged that the sum total of Israeli espionage committee be gathered by a semi-official or official body and “mapped out,” to get a sense of the scope of this activity.

If you have time to kill (pardon the phrase), you can view Nasrallah’s desperate ranting below.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Needless to say, Israel has dismissed the accusations.

The Foreign Ministry responded to accusations by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who said Israel was involved in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The Foreign Ministry said Nasrallah’s accusation was a “ridiculous lie”.

As has former Lebanese President Amin al-Jumayyil:

Former Lebanese President Amin al-Jumayyil expressed doubt regarding “evidence” put forth by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah regarding Israel’s involvement in the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

“The data displayed by Nasrallah is insufficient in and of itself. These are simple, circumstantial testimonies that cannot be relied upon. If the international tribunal has hard evidence, it can move forward with the investigation without delay due to what Nasrallah said,” the known Hezbollah rival told Al-Jazeera in an interview.

Meanwhile, I think it’s pretty clear this is a desperate move by Nasrallah. For a start, he admitted what he presented is not “definite proof.” Furthermore, you have to ask why hadn’t Hizbullah nor Syria accused Israel of being behind the assassination as recently as last week.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

8:14PM: Other Lebanese leaders are not impressed with Hassan Nasrallah’s “evidence.”

Lebanese leaders appear none too stricken with the “evidence” brought forth by Hezbollah  Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah for Israel’s  involvement in the murder of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“He didn’t convince anyone except for the production team that prepared his speech yesterday,” said Lebanese MP Mohammad Kabbara, a member of the anti-Hezbollah camp, in a statement.

“If Nasrallah doesn’t trust the international tribunal, we ask the Lebanese people, who is the official or party he is trying to affect with this take on the assassination he’s marketing?”

Other officials in Beirut said Nasrallah’s “evidence” was solely circumstantial, and therefore inadmissible.

Al-Mustaqbal movement official Mustafa Alloush, also of the anti-Hezbollah camp, said that “DNA and fingerprints are material evidence, but what Nasrallah displayed were pictures, which count as circumstantial”.

“A criminal investigation team is the only authority that can rule whether the pictures he showed are real and important, or not,” Alloush added.

The general coordinator of March 14, MP Fares Soueid, said the speech hurt Nasrallah’s reputation. “Next time there is a similar speech, I will wait for the next day to read about it in the paper,” he scoffed.

“The press conference was not worthy of a man with such prestige and the secretary-general of an organization. It served neither him nor Hezbollah. The only convincing move will be his handing over everything in his possession to the international tribunal.”

7:50PM: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Israel: Take responsibility for having killed civilians aboard the Mavi Marmara.

Aussie Dave to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu: Who the hell named you?

7:45PM: Ashton Kutcher in the Holy Land: upsetting the moonbats.

6:12PM: Lebanon is not happy about the suspension of $100 million in US aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces in the wake of last week’s border attack on IDF soldiers, but the Iranians have offered to help.

Iran has offered support to Lebanon’s army, a week after a deadly cross-border clash between Lebanon and Israel which prompted U.S. lawmakers to block funding to the Lebanese military.

The offer from Iran, which supports Lebanon’s militant Shi’ite group Hezbollah, could fuel Western concern that Tehran is increasing its influence near Israel’s northern border.

Israel said it had complained to Washington and Paris about funding provided to the Lebanese army after Lebanese soldiers killed a senior Israeli officer in a rare border skirmish that also left two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist dead.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon met Lebanese army chief Jean Kahwaji on Monday and said Tehran was ready to “cooperate with the Lebanese army in any area that would help the military in performing its national role in defending Lebanon”.

2:56PM: Interesting comments on the Nasrallah speech by a Lebanese blogger.

- Sayyed Nasrallah looked like didn’t have good sleep. He appeared drawn and exhausted.

- Sayyed Nasrallah did not present a convincing reason for why it took them so long to produce this presentation. He blamed time-consuming technical difficulties, but I don’t think anyone will buy that.

- In general, I found that the presentation was targeting emotions more than intellect. The entire thesis can be summarized in the phrase: “The Israelis are very evil. They are capable and motivated to Kill PM Hariri”. The dramatic background music, dark blurry footage and mug shots only add to the sinister image Sayyed Nasrallah wanted to project about the Israelis. This is similar to a prosecutor painting a very dark picture of a defendant’s character during a trial.

- It is not clear how much Sayyed Nasrallah will allow access to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to the material he presented. I think the burden of proof falls on Hezbollah to prove that the aerial footage was authentic, but they can always claim that the footage was hacked and is of a “sensitive” nature.

- I found the aim of the presentation was not to prove that the Israelis killed P.M Rafik Hariri, but to plant a seed of doubts in the heads of a specific segment of Arabs and Lebanese. Namely arabist Sunnis who are predisposed to blaming Israel, and who so far have been sticking to the side of the Hariri family’s version of events. I think in that respect, the presentation could have made inroads into impressionable souls.

- The point which I found most valid was this: Why didn’t the STL investigate Israeli spies who were proven to be operating around the time of Hariri’s killing? In other words, why was the STL so uninterested in the Israel line of investigation? The STL could still provide a conclusive answer to that question, but like I said, the aim of the presentation was to plant doubt in the heads of Arab viewers.

- In general, I was underwhelmed. I did not get out of this learning anything new, and I’m very interested to see the reactions in tomorrows newspapers.

2:46PM: That’s no way to treat your granny!

2:40PM: Here is more on Gaza’s newly opened Crazy Water Park, named since it is crazy just indicative of a concentration camp the place is.

While the audio is in Hebrew, you should have no trouble working out the levels of hardship being depicted.

2:26PM: Sorry for the site being offline for a number of hours today. As my host explained:

For some reason Plesk thought you went way over your bandwidth and suspended your site. I just re-activated your site and will investigate why the software did this.

Meanwhile, I am paying a fair bit for the hosting of the site. If you appreciate what I do and you’d like to contribute, please click here:

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But he thinks he knows who was.

Sami "Forni" Khater

The militant Palestinian group Hamas is alleging that Israel fired the barrage of rockets that hit the Red Sea port resorts of Israel and Jordan earlier this week, killing one Jordanian civilian, as a means to justify another assault on the Gaza Strip.

—-

Sami Khater from Hamas’ Damascus-based political bureau said on Saturday the group had “no interest” in firing the rockets and even ruled out that they had come from Egyptian territory.

Khater explained that Israel may have fired the rockets in order to blame Hamas and consequently gain a pretext to launch fresh attacks on Palestinians.

If they weren’t so adept at murdering and maiming innocent people, I’d find them rather comical.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:50PM: The latest in my A Taste of “Concentration Camp” Gaza series: Al Azhar University

8:18PM: The inspirational Sherri and Seth Mandell.

8:06PM: To quote Avram from the Frisco Kid: “Would somebody please show this poor asshole the way out of town.”

3:50PM: Britain’s Chief Rabbi has laid into British PM David Cameron over the latter’s infamous “Gaza is a prison camp” comments.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth, said the Jewish community felt “dismay” over comments made by Prime Minister David Cameron in which he described  Gaza as a “prison camp”, the Telegraph newspaper reported Sunday.

During a sermon at St John’s Wood synagogue last Saturday, Sacks urged Cameron to show more “balance” when discussing the Middle East.

The rabbi’s spokeswoman said, “In a wide ranging sermon, the Chief Rabbi made a passing reference to the dismay many in the Jewish community and far beyond feel about the prime minister’s comments on Gaza.

“The Chief Rabbi emphasized the importance that previous prime ministers have always placed on displaying balance, even when being forthright.”

During an official visit to Turkey in July, Cameron called on Israel to allow the free flow of humanitarian goods and people in and out of Gaza. He also called the storming of a Gaza-bound flotilla in late May “completely unacceptable”.

“The situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions,” said the British PM. “Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.”

In other news, does anyone else feel that “St John’s Wood synagogue” just sounds so wrong?

1:05PM: Chief Hizbullah terrorist Hassan Nasrallah is to reveal evidence allegedly implicating Israel in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will reveal “thunderous news” Monday revealing that Israel was behind the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, a party official said Saturday.

Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi told Ma’an that the evidence would be “comprehensive, revealing conclusive information” implicating Israel in the car bombing that killed Hariri in 2005.

A UN special tribunal set up to investigate the assassination will reportedly blame Hezbollah. Reports suggest that the tribunal will announce its findings before the end of 2010.

Speaking to reporters last Tuesday, Nasrallah said a Hezbollah team spent months compiling information on what he described as Israeli efforts to implicate the Shiite movement.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah met in July with Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman in an effort to diffuse the mounting political tension over possible indictments over the assassination.

In an Israellycool exclusive, I can reveal that part of their evidence is this photo, taken from near where the assassination took place.

11:18AM: Israellycool correspondent Brian of London describes his experience at – and after – the recent Diana Krall concert in Israel.

9:14AM: The lie: Iran’s Press TV claims Gaza’s power plant shut down as a result of Israel not fulfilling its obligations.

The truth: The power plant did shut down, but due to the PA reducing fuel shipments since Gaza’s Hamas government is behind on payments.

Power plant officials said a fuel shortage caused the shut-down, and blamed what it described as the PA’s refusal to ship sufficient fuel into the coastal enclave for the latest crisis.

The third time since January that the plant has been forced to close due to fuel shortage, earlier blackouts were blamed on a rocky transfer of responsibility for fuel supply to Gaza from the EU to the PA.

The Gaza Power Authority said in a statement that it held Ramallah’s finance ministry accountable, because “the government in Ramallah has not paid for industrial diesel, as agreed with the delegation of independent figures who visited Gaza recently.”

Fuel for the plant has been an ongoing issue between the governments, with Ramallah officials insisting that the plant collect a larger portion of its bills from Gaza residents, and transfer the cash to the PA to support fuel payments.

Ok, so we can expect this from Iran’s Press TV. Unfortunately, the mainstream media are serving up headlines which may give people who don’t read the entire reports the impression that Israel is to blame. Examples:

AP: Gaza power plant shuts down citing lack of fuel

AFP: Gaza power plant shuts down for lack of fuel

At least Reuters does the right thing in this case:

Fuel payments dispute forces Gaza power cuts

8:55AM: PA President Mahmoud Abbas wants everyone to know he’s ok with Jewish NATO soldiers deployed along the borders of a future palestinian state.

Because G-d forbid we’d think he hated Jews.

Mahmoud Abbas is not opposed to including Jewish soldiers in an international NATO force to be deployed along the borders of a future Palestinian state under a potential permanent peace agreement, the Palestinian president’s political adviser said Saturday.

Nimar Hamad told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that “Abbas is open to an international force along Palestinian borders of any religion or origin.”

Hamad was responding to earlier reports that Abbas opposed the deployment of Jewish soldiers along the future borders.

Hamad told Wafa that the American media had quoted Abbas as having said that he would refuse to allow Jewish soldiers on the border between Israel and the Palestinian state. “The remarks attributed to the president are baseless,” Hamad said. “The president said in his meetings with AIPAC and with Israeli journalists and world leaders that he welcomes the deployment of an international force regardless of the troops’ religion.”

It’s just Jews living inside such a state he’d have a problem with.

Meanwhile, in order to make his point, Abbas’ adviser has had to admit that Israel is not such an apartheid state after all.

Hamad added that Abbas refuses outright to have Israeli soldiers deployed along the borders, regardless of their religion, as “it is common knowledge that there are many non-Jewish soldiers serving in the Israeli army.”

6:05AM: In the wake of the Lebanese army soldiers attack on IDF troops last week and suggestions they were trained and armed by the Pentagon, US Congressman Ron Klein is demanding an investigation.

A Florida congressman is seeking an investigation into whether American equipment was used by Lebanese forces who fired on Israel last week or if the soldiers had received US-funded training.

Democrat Rep. Ron Klein, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, requested the investigation in a letter sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday.

“I would like to formally and respectfully request an investigation into the incident on the Lebanese-Israeli border,” Klein wrote, referring to Israel’s brush-clearing activity on Tuesday that triggered an attack from Lebanese soldiers on the IDF, killing one officer and seriously wounding another.

Israel returned fire and killed three Lebanese troops and a journalist.

“In addition, if the Lebanese government had authorized this attack, I would be very concerned about continuing to provide military support to Lebanon,” Klein wrote.

The US has provided $600 million in aid to the Lebanese military, largely for education and training, as well as some US-made equipment, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Thursday.

Asked about Klein’s concerns, which had appeared in The Jerusalem Post before his letter was sent, Crowley responded, “We provide support to Lebanon because it is in our interest to do so.

We do so in close cooperation with the international community for the express purpose of improving the government of Lebanon’s security capability, protecting its sovereignty, and contributing to broad security across the region.”

Despite media reports that American guns might have been used by the Lebanese soldiers who fired at the IDF force, Crowley stressed, “We have no indication that US equipment played any role in this incident earlier this week.”

He also said, “In any US-origin equipment that’s been provided to Lebanon, we have very strong end-use monitoring to make sure it is used appropriately.”

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AP Photo/Ronith Daher

The exchange of fire began when Israeli soldiers approached the border in order to trim some bushes that had grown along the fence. The operation had been coordinated in advance with UNIFIL, which in turn informed the Lebanese army.

As in previous cases of such Israeli activity, the Lebanese army deployed soldiers to the area. After a round of yelling, unanswered by the Israeli troops, Lebanese snipers opened deliberate fire at the IDF observation post several hundred meters into Israel, the IDF said. Harari and Lakia had manned the observation post, and both sustained serious gunfire wounds.

According to information gathered by the IDF, the sniper fire was ordered by a commanding officer within the Lebanese army. The IDF has found no indication that the officer received an order to open fire, and believe that the decision was his alone. However, it is known that the particular officer was influenced by inciting remarks against Israel made by the top commanders of the Lebanese army in the recent past.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:22PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has issued the following statement following recent events.

10:40PM: Elvis Costello’s wife Diana Krall is performing in Israel as we speak, despite her husband’s much publicized d**** move.

8:34PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has blamed Hamas for the  rocket attack on Eilat, and stated we will retaliate, following Egyptian confirmation of Hamas’ involvement.

6:15PM: Some in the mainstream media are recognizing – and reporting – that Gaza is not quite the concentration camp others would lead you to believe.

6:08PM: A few more examples of media bias from today.

An Israeli soldier directs a mechanical grabber back to the site of an exchange of fire between Israeli and Lebanese troops along the border between Israel and Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010. The Israeli military says it is uprooting more trees in the same area where its forces engaged in a deadly clash with Lebanese soldiers. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

The words “The Israeli military says it is uprooting more trees in the same area where its forces engaged in a deadly clash with Lebanese soldiers” suggest the IDF initiated the fighting. Something like “where its forces were attacked by Lebanese soldiers” would be more accurate.

Israeli soldiers use a mechanical grabber to cut trees in disputed land, claimed by both Israel and Lebanon near the southern village of Adaisseh, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010. The Israeli military said it would cut more trees Wednesday in the tense border area where Israel and Lebanon fought the most serious battle between the countries in four years, touched off by a dispute over a cypress tree. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

In this case, the AP caption writer refers to the area as “disputed land”, without any mention of the fact that it was within Israeli territory as recognized by the UN. Furthermore, the suggestion that the battle was triggered “by a dispute over a cypress tree” ignores the emerging evidence that this was a staged provocation.

3:55PM: Fisking Fisk.

And while it may be too early in Wednesday’s news cycle for other outlets to do the same, a comment piece by Robert Fisk in today’s Independent (‘Israel-Lebanon tensions flare after skirmish leaves four dead‘) stands out for its stark confusion of basic facts and its dismissal of contradictory evidence that was known well before his piece went to press.

Ignoring Israel’s claims that it had been operating within its own border, and had in fact coordinated its maintenance work with UNIFIL beforehand, Fisk states simply that, ‘No one is exactly sure where the Israeli-Lebanese border is.’ UNIFIL’s statement today would be meaningless if this were the case. Even whilst clarifying that the Blue Line does not necessarily run along the technical fence, Fisk observes only that, ‘from the Lebanese perspective’, the ‘technical fence’ is behind the border.

Fisk also cites the Lebanese narrative that had the LAF ‘open[ing] fire into the air’ when the IDF crossed the fence, precipitating Israelis return of fire targeting Lebanese troops. According to Fisk, it was only after Israel had killed three LAF soldiers and a Lebanese journalist that the LAF ‘on orders from Beirut, fired back and killed an Israeli lieutenant-colonel.’

At no point does Fisk present the Israeli sequence of events that was widely circulated yesterday and as described by IDF Lt Col Avital Leibovich in a conference call to which Just Journalism was privy:

When asked about the LAF’s claim that its forces first fired into the air, then at Israeli troops, Leibovich responded that it was not the Israeli maintenance crew itself that was first targeted by gunfire, but rather a gathering of senior IDF commanders who were standing nearby, a clear sign, she maintained, of a Lebanese ‘provocation’.

Instead, Fisk writes suggestively that ‘Israel said the whole thing was a misunderstanding’, a claim clearly contradicted by Leibovich’s insistence that ‘we put responsibility [for the violence] on the Lebanese Armed Forces’.

Fisk’s formulation also implies that Israel had adopted a non-judgmental tone in accounting for yesterday’s violence, if not hinted at its own potential wrongdoing. However, as statements by Leibovich and other Israeli spokespersons demonstrate, at no point and in no way had Israel done so.

3:50PM: Here’s the audio of the Israel Army Radio’s interview with UNIFIL Spokesman Milos Struger (via IDF Spox).

2:15PM: Here’s a detailed account of yesterday’s clash which draws on some of the issues I have raised.

The August 3, 2010, armed clash along the Israeli-Lebanese border was a significant strategic incident.

On Thursday, July 29, 2010, Israel notified UNIFIL that a few Israeli soldiers would be crossing the security fence in order to cut a tree and remove a few shrubs in Israeli territory but near the Blue Line (the actual border between Israel and Lebanon). This foliage blocks the view of Israeli security cameras positioned deep inside Israel. Israel also notified UNIFIL that these soldiers would be escorted by a small patrol which would stay south of the security fence.

The Israeli notification was in accordance with UNSC resolution 1701. UNIFIL then informed the nearby positions of the Lebanese Armed Forces about the planned Israeli activities in order to ensure that there was no misunderstanding. The Lebanese Army notified the local HizbAllah force.

Significantly, the Lebanese Army unit deployed along the border with Israel is the 9th Division, whose commanders and troops are Shi’ites and recruited from the same manpower pool as the HizbAllah.

Around 10:30am on August 3, 2010, about 10 Israeli soldiers with saws crossed the gate in the security fence on foot. This detachment was covered by an Israeli patrol which included a few tanks, armored vehicles, and a command vehicle. As UNIFIL had been informed, the patrol stayed 200-300 meters south of the fence.

When the soldiers approached the tree, they were attacked by small arms automatic fire from both the Lebanese Army’s position just across the border and “civilians” (HizbAllah fighters) in the nearby village of Adissyeh.

Immediately, a few Israeli commanders ran from the command vehicle toward the fence to see what was happening. Snipers hiding in the bush adjacent to the Lebanese Army position fired on them, killing the Israeli battalion commander (a lieutenant-colonel) and critically wounding the company commander (a captain). The sniper fire came from a professional ambush that had been organized on the basis of the advance warning provided by UNIFIL.

Meanwhile, the shooting at the Israeli soldiers north of the fence intensified. Israeli forces opened small-arms and mortar fire on the sources of fire in the Lebanese Army position and in a couple of unfinished houses in Adissyeh. Two Israeli tanks and an armored personnel carrier moved forward toward the fence in order to evacuate the stranded soldiers. At this point a UNIFIL patrol arrived on the scene and the UN officers urged both sides to ceasefire. The firing stopped a few minutes later.

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Escorted by the UN patrol, the two Israeli tanks and the armored personnel carrier continued to advance toward the gate in the fence in order to evacuate the soldiers. Suddenly an anti-tank missile was fired from either the Lebanese Army position or the bush immediately near it. The missile barely missed the UNIFIL vehicle and the tanks. The Israeli tanks opened fire on the missile launcher.

Major activity followed. Intense fire — small arms, heavy machineguns, mortars, and RPGs — was opened from both several Lebanese Army positions as well as HizbAllah positions in Adissyeh. Israel rushed additional tanks and artillery to the area and started bombarding all Lebanese positions. One or two Katyusha rockets were launched toward Israel, impacted in open space and caused no damage.

A pair of Israeli combat helicopters arrived on the scene. They attacked the main Lebanese Army position near Adissyeh, and subsequently the Lebanese Army battalion headquarters in the village of Al-Taybeh. The helicopters also attacked and destroyed several Lebanese Army armored vehicles which were parked near the headquarters. Three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist (from the pro-HizbAllah newspaper Al-Akhbar) who was with the troops in Al-Taybeh were killed. Another soldier was killed in the position near Adissyeh. A total of five to six soldiers were wounded. There is no reliable information about HizbAllah casualties.

The fire subsided after little over two and a half hours.

This was a very serious incident for two reasons:

1. The incident started as a pre-planned pre-meditated provocation against the Israeli patrol on the basis of information provided via UNIFIL. The mere invitation by the Army of the Al-Akhbar correspondent to cover the clash suggests that this was a pre-planned incident. The incident was conducted jointly by Lebanese Army forces and HizbAllah forces, proving that the close cooperation which HizbAllah leader Hassan Nasrallah had boasted about repeatedly is indeed working (at least with the Army’s Shi’ite units such as the 9th Division).

2. Earlier, on Monday, August 2, 2010, HizbAllah and Iranian media warned that the Israeli cabinet had considered “the prospects of an upcoming war on the Lebanese, Syrian and Gaza fronts in anticipation of tensions on the Lebanese domestic scene” because of the impending indictment of senior HizbAllah officials by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). The HizbAllah, Syria, and Iran are calling on all Lebanese to ignore the STL and instead rally and close ranks behind the “Resistance” in order to confront the Israeli threat. Under these circumstances, the incident on the Israeli-Lebanese border should be considered a made-to-order “proof” of the HizbAllah and Iranian warnings.

Indeed, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman denounced the fighting and urged the Army and all Lebanese to “stand up to Israel’s violation of Resolution 1701, whatever the price”. According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad stated that the “Israeli attack proves once again that Israel is constantly working to destabilize security in Lebanon and the region. Syria stresses that it is standing by its sister Lebanon in the face of the criminal Israeli aggression and calls on the UN to condemn and stop this aggression.”

However, the main event in the aftermath of the clash is an anticipated major speech by Hassan Nasrallah. The speech was scheduled for 20:30 on August 3, 2010 (Lebanon time), but its exact time was being constantly changed. Senior HizbAllah officials predict that Nasrallah’s speech “will mark a turning point” for Lebanon and the entire Middle East. They explained that Nasrallah would “focus on the national and Islamic dimension of the July [2006] war” and its implications for the current situation in the entire region. Nasrallah’s speech, the Senior HizbAllah officials stress, “will mainly be devoted to talk about the meaning of victory against Israel” in both past wars and in the historic confrontation still to come.

Given the above, the August 2, 2010, rocket firing from southern Sinai of Aqaba, Eilat, and a base of the US-led Multinational Force & Observers Organization in Sinai might also be part of this kind of made-to-order “proof” of Israeli aggression. Significantly, the six 122mm GRAD rockets fired from Sinai were made in Iran or North Korea, strongly suggesting that the perpetrators were Iran-sponsored main group rather than a Palestinian fringe entity.

11:26AM: If true, this would answer my question below: Why was this (yesterday’s clash and it’s lead-up) all meticulously filmed?

Journalists and photographers were briefed in advance of the intention to ambush IDF troops and were therefore present at the site of Tuesday’s deadly clash between Israeli and Lebanese forces, IDF officials charge.

The lethal skirmish ensued after IDF forces performing routine operations in a border-area enclave came under Lebanese fire. The Israeli troops fired back, killing three Lebanese soldiers and a local journalist.

The killed correspondent, Assaf Abu Rahal, worked for Hezbollah-affiliated Beirut daily al-Akhbar.

Another journalist, Ali Shuaib from Hezbollah’s al-Manar station, was wounded in the incident and was taken to hospital for treatment.

IDF officials raised questions about the presence of journalists and even broadcast trucks at the scene even before the clash ensued, charging this further reinforces suspicions that the incident was a well-planned Lebanese ambush.

“If this incident was not planned in advance, why did field commanders in the Lebanese army bother to dispatch journalists to the area and ensure that cameras were present at the site?” one IDF official said.

11:20AM: Lebanon has admitted its army fired first.

In a statement issued to AFP and quoted by Lebanese daily al-Nahar Wednesday, the spokesman said that “the Lebanese Army opened fire first at Israeli soldiers who entered Lebanese territory…this constituted defense of our sovereignty and is an absolute right.”

You’ve seen the video. You’ve seen the map. You’ve seen the statements of the UNIFIL official. Do the Lebanese take us for fools?

11:16AM: BBC debate on the topic “Are we too critical of Israel?”

10:05AM: A UNIFIL official has confirmed the IDF did not cross the border into Lebanon.

Israel Defense Forces did not cross the border with Lebanon before the deadly clash between Israeli and Lebanese forces, a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) official told Army Radio on Wednesday, adding that the UN force had been dealing with complaints of Lebanese provocations on a daily basis.

—-

Milos Strugar, UNIFIL’s senior political adviser said that the IDF had “informed UNIFIL that it was going to conduct maintenance works” on the border, adding that while the Israeli unit had been “on the northern side of the border fence,” it was nonetheless “south of the international borderline.”

However, the UNIFIL official added that the information he had was “preliminary,” adding that he will look into the evidence “more thoroughly” later in the day.

“The situation became tense right away, with the Lebanon army also being there,” Strugar said, adding that UNIFIL forces had tried “to calm the situation and allow the IDF to work.”

Asserting the IDF’s claim that it had informed the Lebanese side of the planned border works, Strugar said that UNIFIL had received a message from the IDF “regarding these works, and we had passed that on to the Lebanese army.”

“We deal with complaints on provocations of Lebanese soldiers against IDF units on a daily basis, Strugar told Army Radio, adding incidents occur “almost every day, there’s a lot of tension round the border, but what happened is the worst incident since 2006

Meanwhile, more details of yesterday’s events:

The incident began at about 8 A.M. Tuesday, when IDF Northern Command informed UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, that it planned to clear vegetation along the border fence that was disrupting its soldiers’ line of sight – an operation the IDF termed “routine maintenance,” of the type it performs regularly.

UNIFIL asked the IDF to delay the operation on the grounds that the force’s commander was then in New York. But the IDF did not see this as valid grounds for delay, so at 10:30 A.M. the work began.

UNIFIL, as is the norm, had informed the Lebanese Army of the planned operation, and a Lebanese force was sent to observe from its side of the border. Some of the Lebanese troops began cursing the IDF soldiers and shouting at them to leave, but the Israelis did not respond.

A few minutes later, at about 12:10 P.M., the IDF battalion and company commanders – who were supervising the truck’s work from a lookout post about 100 meters away – suddenly came under sniper fire from a house east of the Lebanese village of Adeisa. Harari, the battalion commander, was hit in the head and Capt. Ezra Lakiya, the company commander, in the chest. Lakiya is now being treated at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

The IDF said such an ambush would probably have been prepared two or three hours in advance.

In response, the IDF soldiers and an IDF tank opened fire, and the Lebanese soldiers fled. An IDF artillery battery then targeted three nearby Lebanese Army outposts.

At that point, UNIFIL asked the IDF to cease its fire so the wounded could be evacuated, and at 1:20 P.M., the IDF complied.

At about 2 P.M., however, Lebanese soldiers fired four rocket-propelled grenades at an IDF tank. They missed their target, but the IDF responded: A helicopter fired several missiles at a Lebanese Army battalion headquarters deeper inside Lebanon.

This does not explain why UNIFIL were shouting for the IDF to stop as we saw in the video I posted earlier, unless it was UNIFIL asking the IDF to stop firing as described above. But there are a number of problems with that:

• We do not hear the IDF firing at the time.
• In the video, the instructions to stop occur before the firing
• UNIFIL also tells the IDF “Down!”, which does not make sense in the context of firing. Neither does their body language (surely they would be moving for cover), nor the nonchalance of the Lebanese soldiers next to them

7:38AM: Interesting new (unconfirmed) details of yesterday’s clashes have emerged which, if true, suggest yesterday was a Hizbullah-coordinated assault/staged provocation (possibly designed to divert attention from the Hariri probe as previously suggested):

• A Katyusha rocket was reportedly fired into northern Israeli. (You may recall I posted about reports of a Katusha yesterday in the 1:40PM update)
• A Katushya was ready for firing on a truck in Lebanon
• Many of the Lebanese forces at the border, in particularly the Division 9 Lebanese Army border patrol, consist of Shiite Muslims, believed to be loyal to Hezbollah.

7:18AM: Israel has sent messages through third parties to both Syria and Lebanon not to allow any party to try and divert attention by provoking us.

Meanwhile, there are those who think the “deliberate ambush” may have been designed to divert attention from the Hariri probe.

Which is interesting, given yesterday’s statements by Hassan Nasrallah, in which he blamed Israel for killing Hariri (although Hizbullah were not ostensibly involved in yesterday’s attack, they are in cahoots with the Lebanese army).

7:10AM: Now that I have slept and re-watched the previous video, I have the following questions:

• Why were the UNIFIL soldiers telling the IDF to stop (presumably to stop cutting down the tree), if this was all coordinated in advance and the IDF was within Israeli territory? (which has subsequently been confirmed by UNIFIL)
• At the 11 second mark of the video, why does the UNIFIL soldier give a thumbs up before seeming to join the “stop” chorus?
• Why was this all meticulously filmed?
• Why do the Lebanese “warning shots” (as they claim they were) sound like machine gun fire?

12:44AM: Video of the attack starting.

12:38AM: For those of you who think all Hizbullah terrorist supporters are necessarily fugly beardos (male and female alike).

A Hezbollah supporter, holds a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah during a rally marking the fourth anniversary of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, in Beirut's southern suburb, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010. Nasrallah praised the army for their "heroic" stand against Israel on Tuesday. He warned in a televised speech to thousands of supporters south of Beirut that his fighters would intervene if Israeli troops ever attack Lebanese forces again. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Damn!

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