AFP/Daily Star: Israel Targets Christian Area in Lebanon

[TomClash]

BEIRUT, Aug 4, 2006 (AFP) - Israeli warplanes wrecked four bridges Friday along the coastal highway in north of Beirut in an apparent bid to further isolate Lebanon and pounded new targets in the southern suburbs in a blistering succession of early morning raids.

The bridges are along the northern coastal highway which was practically the only outlet by land through Syria after the bombardment of other border crossing points by the Israeli air force since the start of the offensive on Lebanon on July 12.

Israeli warplanes also again struck the main Masnaa border crossing in eastern Lebanon and the Faraya-Ouyoun Al-Simane road linking the Mount Lebanon range with the inland Bekaa Valley, the state news agency ANI said.

The targeted Christian areas in Mount Lebanon had up to now been largely spared by the Israeli attacks. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Beirut, its suburbs and the south of the country have sought refuge in Mount Lebanon.


http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74494

[magellan]

1. I wonder if this is talking about the same area

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1816547&mesg_id=1816547

:cry:

[TomClash]

2. I don't know nt

[thepurpose]

3. I don't think this is the same place mention in the other post. However

bombing escape routes for civilians after you drop leafets to tell people to leave seems to me you are attempting to murder them.

[magellan]

5. I think so too

And it isn't the first time they've done it.

On reading the OP again, it sounds like it wasn't the same area as the one in my link. But I'm really bothered by the leafleted/nonleafleted thing. There isn't enough information but I'm still deeply suspicious -- they might be corraling people, getting them to move and then bombing the areas they flee to.

btw, belated welcome to DU!

[breakaleg]

23. for some reason I find the bluntness of your post refreshing and

oddly funny.

It's unusual to see such simple analysis around here.

[Mandate My Ass]

4. The viciousness of these attacks is appalling

Those poor people must be totally terrorized. Their only way out is cut off and now they are at the mercy of the merciless.

[MadHound]

6. Because we all know that the Christian areas of Lebanon

Are really hotbeds of Hezbollah activity:eyes:

And this illegal, immoral action by Israel continues, supported only by another country involved in an illegal, immoral war, the US.

[eridani]

7. More than 80% of Christians in Lebanon support Hezbollah

There have even been Christian suicide bombers. Israelis have long since stopped giving a flying fuck about their former allies.

[TomClash]

8. It is interesting

that surprisingly little about Christian support (or lack of it) for Hezbollah is reported by MSM.

[MadHound]

12. Really? I didn't know that

One hears so little about Christians in Lebanon, or the rest of the Arab world for that matter, in the MSM. If you have a link or two in regards to this, I would be interested in perusing such material.

[eridani]

16. This one ought to make anybody think

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03pape.html?ex=1154750400&en=274cdd5c1cf26497&ei=5087%0A

ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won’t work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. At first it consisted of a small number of Shiites supported by Iran. But as more and more Lebanese came to resent Israel’s occupation, Hezbollah — never tight-knit — expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims.

In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable to, say, a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960’s. What made its rise so rapid, and will make it impossible to defeat militarily, was not its international support but the fact that it evolved from a reorientation of pre-existing Lebanese social groups.

<snip>

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

What these suicide attackers — and their heirs today — shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.

[Lindacooks]

20. Would you please post this in a thread of its own?

It's very important. Thank you.

[eridani]

25. I think it has been already--it seemed relevant here as well

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1808356

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1813946

[lumpy]

22. Thank you for posting this article.

Enlightening

[PaulaFarrell]

28. The Christians supported Israel in the first invasion

Or at least, didn't oppose them. It was the Christian Phalangists who committed the massacres of Palestiniian refugees at Sabra and Shatila while Israeli troops stood guard.

[eridani]

30. True. And now Israel is attacking its former allies.

It seems the height of stupidity.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[eridani]

19. Not anymore. Here's some reality for you

http://www.alternet.org/story/39708/

Hezbollah is George W. Bush's enemy du jour. Although suspected of complicity in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet, Hezbollah denies ever attacking anyone outside of Lebanon and Israel. The group, which comprises the Shiite brand of Islam, doesn't even attack other sects inside Lebanon. Its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah claims Hezbollah is "like Jesus," citing the group's 2000 action in Lebanon, where Hezbollah did not take vengeance within Lebanon.

There is overwhelming support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to a poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hezbollah's fight with Israel. The level of support for Hezbollah is high among non-Shiite communities; 80.percent of Christians, 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis polled support Hezbollah.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1214522.ece

In Israel two civilians were killed by Hizbollah missiles but, as usual, Lebanon bore the brunt of the day's attacks which centred - incredibly - on the Christian heartland that has traditionally shown great sympathy towards Israel. It was the Christian Maronite community whose Phalangist militiamen were Israel's closest allies in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon yet Israel's air force yesterday attacked three highway bridges north of Beirut and - again as usual - it was the little people who died.

[bananarepublican]

26. Could Isreal be trying to bring about a "clash of Christianities"?

I know I'm being a bit of a smart-arse here but the sheer effort in trying to promote the so called "clash of civilisations" (via the MSM reporting of various false flag operations) needed commenting upon.

Let's hope that that the common sense of all peoples (as opposed to the puppet masters) prevails.

[PaulaFarrell]

27. Do you have a source for that ? n/t

[eridani]

29. See post #16 n/t

[izzie]

9. I wonder why Israel dropped the notes for these people to get out?

What's the point if the roads,air ports, ship ports and gas are all gone. How do these people do that? We saw they shut down to let the Am get out so they did care about them. Reading around on internet and many countries people are not getting out and they do not sound happy. Looks like if your into Islam your country is out of luck.

[TomClash]

10. Public relations

It is a talking point for Americans to absorb.

[QuettaKid]

11. I would love to see the look on the faces of the bushbot loving

fundies when you try and explain to them that their taxes are paying for bombs and missiles to take out their fellow chirstians.

[TomClash]

13. No they are BAD Christians

. . . and Revelations says the whole ME will be destroyed soon!

Fundies love Christ - they just don't follow him.

[izzie]

14. That is a quote that hits it right on the head

Fundies love Christ - they just don't follow him.
"No pasaran!" - Madrid,

[TomClash]

15. It's true

Ask yourself how many times the bible thumpers quote the beatitudes or the parables - never.

They always spout some Old Testament text that most jews don't follow anymore. These people are frauds.

No pasarans! PASAREMOS!

[w4rma]

17. It's like Israel is trying to *force* Bush to tell Israel to quit bombing.

Bombing Christians is going to piss off *alot* of Americans.

Maybe the Israeli leadership is only killing these civilians now to keep up their poll numbers in Israel and won't quit because their poll numbers would drop if they had to tell Israeli voters that the reason they quit was because they screwed up (as opposed to being able to tell them that they quit the slaughter becuase those darn Americans forced them to quit).

[Recursion]

21. THANK YOU!

That's exactly right. The Israeli right has always used American pressure as cover for not meeting up to their own rhetoric (and in fairness Hezbollah has done the same vis a vis Iran). But both America and Persia have left their clients out to dry here, and left them with their munitions where their mouths are.

Up until now, Israel has played bad cop to America's good cop, always with the expectation that we would rein them in before stuff got out of hand.

Well, stuff got out of hand about 3 weeks ago... and we haven't done anything. Israel is about to have to face up to the fact that we have a group of madmen in charge. And Hezbollah needs to make the analogous calculations about Tehran.

[breakaleg]

24. what are they trying to accomplish?

What they've done is isolated Beirut. But Hezbollah is not even suspected to be near Beirut. So I don't see the point.

They say they are cutting off supply lines to Syria, but it's not as if Hezbollah would try to get weapons into Beirut.

Would they target the Christians there? That makes no sense.