So, about that disarming Hezbullah thing: Looks like nobody wants to do it. UNIFIL says it’s not in their mandate. The Lebanese Prime Minister Syrian Sock Puppet says UNIFIL shouldn’t be doing it, anyway, only the Lebanese army (try not to laugh now) can disarm Hezbullah. Say, wanna bet the Lebanese Army folds Hezbullah into their organization, thus “disarming” it?

“It’s clear that the Lebanese army will carry out this mission,” the Lebanese leader said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
“The multinational force is not supposed to do that and should not bother itself with it. Hizbullah is a political party represented in the government and it agreed to the seven-point plan presented to the UN by the Lebanese government.”

Let’s start a pool now.

Syria tells the UN not to come near its border: Yeah, they’d see the weapons smuggling first-hand. But Baby Assad is slipping. Doesn’t he realize the UN will turn a blind eye to the smuggling?

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Syria on Wednesday opposed deployment of an international force along its border to prevent arms shipments to Hezbollah, and Israel called the situation in Lebanon “explosive.” A cease-fire was further shaken by artillery shells and explosions that killed three Lebanese soldiers and an Israeli.

Syria has been emboldened by the fact that it sent weapons into Lebanon to its proxy army, killed Israelis without punishment, and effectively attacked Israel with impunity. Say, Ehud, whattya say to that?

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert toured northern Israel Thursday and visited, among other venues, the hospital in Nahariya directly hit by rocket fire during the Lebanon war.

“We must be prepared for (various) scenarios and ready for anything,” he said. “We must push forward deadlines and be ready for the possibility of receiving casualties under all conditions.”

During his visit, Olmert examined the hospital’s fourth floor, which sustained the most damage in the rocket attack. The prime minister observed Lebanon through the giant hole in the wall, which has not yet been renovated, and said: “We must be protected and ready.”

Anyone else out there not buying it?

Oh, wait. The U.S. says they’re ignoring Syria’s complaints.

WASHINGTON - The White House said on Wednesday that it intends to ignore Syria ’s threat to close its border with Lebanon if United Nations peacekeepers are stationed there to prevent arms shipments to Hizbullah.

Okay, now that’s funny. The Dorktator, given an international wedgie by the football team. Gotta love it.

I know! Let’s give Lebanon to Mikey: Nobody wants to be a part of the peacekeeping force, not even France, who fought hard for the bogus cease-fire that left Hezbullah nearly fully-formed.

BRUSSELS, Belgium Aug 24, 2006 (AP)— Italy, which has offered to send the largest contingent, made a plea Wednesday for more European troops to an expanded U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.

Premier Romano Prodi expressed frustration over the efforts to raise the force mandated by a U.N. resolution that ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

“It’s unthinkable that we would be there alone, and we have been working to strengthen the quantitative and international aspect of the mission in Lebanon,” Prodi told reporters at the Tuscan seaside resort of Castiglione della Pescaia, where he has been vacationing.

Someone needs to explain to me again about how the UN and the world bodies can solve the problems of the Middle East. How many mistakes can they make on this one? They force a cease-fire plan in that does not disarm the offending party. They offer up a peacekeeping force that has no ability to keep the peace because they can’t fire their weapons. And then, of course, nobody wants to put their people in the middle of a war zone to be sitting ducks and cover for terrorists.

Apparently, all the UN can do effectively is condemn Israel and block the U.S. from doing its job.

You know you’re doing your job when they hate you: Hezbullah says Tony Blair isn’t welcome in Beirut. Well, you’re not welcome in London, so there.

Oh, sure, the cats are happy, and yeah, I have to be at work tomorrow, but still, it kinda sucks to be home. I’d rather have been able to stay for two more days.

Oh, well. Lots more to tell tomorrow. Time to wrap things up and head for bed. I have an all-day workshop tomorrow with only a 30-minute break.

Before I hit the beach….

Mahmoud Abbas, who was pretending that he was going to stop the firing of kassam rockets into Israel, has had even his pretense taken from him. Can you say, “impotent”? I knew you could.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was forced earlier this week to call off plans to deploy PA security personnel in the northern Gaza Strip when several armed groups, including militias from his own Fatah movement, threatened to attack these forces, PA officials here told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Abbas had planned to deploy several hundred PA policemen and security officers in an attempt to stop the armed organizations from firing rockets at Israel, the officials said, noting that the proposed move had won the backing of the US and Israel.

When even USA Today notices the “peacekeeping” force is bogus, well, it’s bogus.

The most glaring problem is that the 30,000-man peacekeeping force, designed to separate the Israelis from Hezbollah and prevent resumption of rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel, has been slow to arrive.

The Lebanese army moved about 3,000 troops into southern Lebanon — 12,000 short of its commitment. As for the remaining 15,000 troops, other nations are waiting on France, which had signaled it would take the lead. But the French, who showed great zeal in drafting the U.N. resolution, have committed just 200 new soldiers, protesting that the rules of engagement are unclear.

U.N. officials are working on those rules with maddening languor. When they are done, countries will think about sending troops. A process that France’s U.N. ambassador said would be “swift” is turning out to be anything but.

Then there’s the question of what the peacekeepers will do, if they ever get there. It has become clear in the past week what they won’t do: disarm Hezbollah.

The Boston Herald agrees:

So far the 30,000-member force that was supposed to secure a fragile peace between Israel and Hezbollah consists of the same United Nations crew of 2,000 that has been ineffective for the past 28 years - and 3,000 members of an untested and unproven Lebanese army newly arrived on the scene.

Is it any wonder Hezbollah apparently feels free to continue smuggling arms - and Israel baited into responding?

Where are the AP headlines screaming “Hezbullah violates cease-fire“? Oh, wait. Sorry. I had a moment of insanity, it’s gone now.

A week after a UN-brokered cease-fire went into effect, IDF troops clashed with Hizbullah guerrillas in the village of Shama in the western sector of southern Lebanon Monday. Three gunmen were killed during the fighting that erupted after the Hizbullah guerrillas were spotted approaching an IDF paratrooper force.

Wait, I found the AP’s description of this event!

Israel has clashed with Hezbollah several times since the truce was declared, claiming it was acting in self-defense. Israeli aircraft also have flown over Lebanon.

And now I am beach-bound. TTFN.

Italian authorities seized a container of weapons and explosives going from Saudi Arabia to the U.S.

Gee. I wonder what they were going to use them for.

Italian authorities seized a container full of weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles and plastic explosives bound for the US from Saudi Arabia in May, Press reports said.

Il Mattino newspaper reported that the ‘arsenal’ was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unnamed ex-Soviet republic which was travelling from Saudi Arabia to the US east coast.

In addition to 70 AK-47 assault rifles and plastics used in explosives, the shipment also contained launch pads for rockets, it said.

An inquiry is under way with the participation of US secret services, said an AFP report.

Regarding the power station that the IDF took out in Gaza when it was being used as cover for rocket launches…

Israel knew exactly what it was bombing, says station manager Dr. Drar Abu-Sisi. It’s impossible to operate the station without the transformers. Replacing them would take at least a year - either by ordering new transformers or by hooking up to the Egyptian power network.

With a capacity of 140 megawatts, the power station was the most advanced in the Arab world. Israel could have paralyzed the station by simply stopping its fuel supply, without putting it out of action for months.

“Had they told us on the phone to cut the power off, we’d have done so right away,” says Abu-Sisi, who is convinced that the bombing was politically motivated.

Sure you would have. Uh huh. Yeah, right.

I’ve had a request for pictures of the beach. I haven’t gotten pictures of the beach yet, because yesterday I decided I wanted to, you know, swim and lie in the sand and swim some more and lie in the sand some more and then swim again and lie in the sand again. (We have beach umbrellas, and I have about zero tan, so I lie in the shade, thankyouverymuch.)

We got to the beach elevenish, got in the water at one minute past elevenish, or as long as it took us to set up. Stayed until lunchtime, went to the house for an hour or so, and then back to the beach until nearly six. The girls didn’t want to leave, and yet, by the time we got home, were awfully quiet and subdued.

I have high-sun supervisory duty. Heidi can’t be out in the sun between ten and two, so my job this week is to be the adult supervision during the afternoon. I think I’ve scared the girls enough about high tides and backwash and undertows and riptides. They’re showing very good ocean safety skills.

Okay, I didn’t really try to terrify them. I just explained to them what the waves can do to you, and taught them to respect the force that is so much fun to surf but that will turn on you in a moment. We all have the beach version of road rash (shell rash? sand rash?) from body surfing or surfing with a boogie board. The shelf of the NC beach is very different from the NJ beaches where I grew up. In New Jersey, there was a drop a short way from the shore, and you could generally pull out of the wave there and not get smashed up on the beach. There’s no such drop here, only belly-flopping on the shell fragments. And may I say: Ow.

The house really is ugly from the outside, but as I said, it’s decent inside. I love the third-floor deck, where you can sit and enjoy the ocean breeze day or night. The picture above was our view of the town from the deck last night, just before sunset. I had enough energy to take a picture, but not much more than that.

While I was watching the girls in the water yesterday, I kept wondering if that’s what my father used to do when he brought my brothers and me to the Jersey shore back in the day. But there were lifeguards there, and my father was from the school of hard knocks, so I’m thinking I’m a bit more paranoid than he was. Then again, there aren’t any lifeguards on this beach, and they’re not my kids, so perhaps I’m being a bit more careful for those reasons.

In any case, I find it easiest to watch the girls while in the water. So we swim together a lot.

Rain, rain, go away. I want to hit the beach today.

Since it’s cloudy and overcast and looks like it may rain today, and because we were all exhausted from our fun in the sun yesterday and went to bed early, thus getting up early, I can take the time out from the fabulous North Carolina Outer Banks to catch up on the news.

The AP apparently can only count Israeli cease-fire breaches: Hezbullah sent ten rockets toward IDF forces after the cease-fire was declared, and not a single headline said “Cease-fire breached by Hezbullah.” Israeli jets buzz Lebanon and Syria, and the AP goes wild. Note the headline. Hey, everyone else’s airplanes fly. Israel’s roar.

Israeli Warplanes Roar Over Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Israeli warplanes roared over Lebanon’s northern Mediterranean coast and along its border with Syria on Monday, after the Lebanese defense minister warned rogue Palestinian rocket teams against attacking Israel and provoking retaliation that could unravel an already shaky cease-fire.

Lebanon considers overflights a violation of the U.N. resolution that ended 34 days of fighting last week.

Note how the Lebanese government is toeing the Hezbullah line. “Resistance” is its name, even though Lebanon is not occupied by Israel. Right.

Defense Minister Elias Murr said he was confident that Hezbollah would hold its fire but warned Syrian-backed Palestinian militants against rocket attacks which might draw Israeli retaliation and re-ignite full-scale fighting.

“We consider that when the resistance (Hezbollah) is committed not to fire rockets, then any rocket that is fired from the Lebanese territory would be considered collaboration with Israel to provide a pretext (for Israel) to strike,” he said Sunday.

And here, of course, is more anti-Israel spin:

Israel has long accused Syria, along with Iran, of arming and supporting Hezbollah. During the war, however, Israel avoided trying to draw Syria into the conflict, apparently fearing another front or closing peace options.

Israel has long had proof that Syria and Iran are arming and supporting Hezbullah. And the IDF now has proof that Iran is subverting UN shipments of high-tech military equipment to terrorists.

British officials are investigating Israeli military allegations that night vision goggles uncovered in a Hizbullah hideout were manufactured in Britain, a Foreign Office spokesman said on Monday.

“The Israeli Defense Forces have told us that they have found some night vision equipment in southern Lebanon that they believe to have been manufactured in Britain,” the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity, in line with policy.

“We are seeking further details of the equipment to investigate whether it is British and, if so, by whom it was made and to whom it was sold,” the spokesman said.

Britain’s The Times newspaper reported Monday that Israeli officials believe the goggles may be from a consignment sold by Britain in 2003 to Iran.

The sale to Tehran was intended to bolster Iranian efforts to combat heroin smuggling across the Iran-Afghanistan border as part of the
United Nations Drugs Control Program, the newspaper claimed.

If that isn’t proof enough, this happened last Friday:

Israeli and American intelligence agencies alerted Turkish authorities last Friday that several Lebanon-bound Iranian planes, loaded with military hardware meant for the Hizbullah, were making their way through Turkish airspace, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

[…] Shortly after Turkey was tipped off, Iranian officials ordered the planes to return to their point of departure, where, according to unconfirmed Turkish reports, the arms were removed from the Iranian planes.

After offloading the arms, the planes took off again and were forced to land in Turkey for inspection by the airport authorities. Turkish aviation officials told the Post that no weapons were found on the planes.

Look for the news services to spin this as “humanitarian relief” being held up in the future—without the context that Iran’s already been caught trying to resupply Hezbullah.

The AP also has a problem with Israel’s insistence that UN peacekeepers be made up of countries that actually, you know, have ties with Israel. Because it’s not like the army of a country that you have no ties with is going to be interested in being fair to you and your people, right? Hell, the UN has already proved it will do nothing to stop Hezbullah from kidnapping IDF troops, build up an arsenal big enough to menace a nation, and shoot from beneath IDF posts. And Israel has the nerve to complain about the makeup of the UN peacekeeping force?

Israel Puts Conditions on Peacekeepers
JERUSALEM (AP) - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that countries which don’t have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state should not participate in the international peacekeeping force that will police a truce along the Lebanese border, his office said.

By the way, that peacekeeping force? Funny, but nobody wants to be a part of it. Not even France, the country that brokered the cease-fire.

Meanwhile, France called for a meeting of European Union countries this week to determine the number of troops they are prepared to contribute to the expanded U.N. peacekeeping force.

Europe has been slow to make any firm troop commitments, and U.N. officials have called on the Europeans to offer more troops to balance pledges from Muslim countries.

And, to end this on a positive note: Finland held a rally in support of Israel, and it wasn’t just Jews who showed up.

From Finland with love: Almost a week after the war in Lebanon ended, thousands of Finns gathered in Helsinki Sunday evening to express their support for Israel.

The rally, which was secured by dozens of police officers, drew local Jews as well as non-Jewish residents.

[…] Israeli Ambassador in Finland, Shemi Tzur, told Ynet the evening newscast opened with a report about the rally, which apparently drew 2,800 participants. The television report noted that the rally “proved beyond any doubt the Israeli power and the fact there’s great sympathy for Israel.”

“People arrived from all over Finland. Some of them traveled almost the whole night – 10 hours – in order to reach Helsinki,” Tzur said. “The protesters marched through Helsinki’s two major streets on Sunday, while all coffee shops were packed. Reactions on the street were great – people yelled out ‘let’s go Israel.’”

That’s wonderful to hear.

For some strange reason (Andrew Ian Dodge wonders about it too), the attempt to blow up two large and quite complex sets of explosive substances on two separate trains (but timed to explode simultaneously), passed almost unnoticed by MSM.

Of course, there were no victims (thank heavens) in this case and, besides, the “inhuman atrocities perpetrated by the Zionists” in Lebanon were at the forefront of our progressive media. Still, the case warrants more attention than it has received - if only due to the size and sophistication of the planned mass murder act.

From Deutsche Welle:

The head of the Federal Crime Office, Joerg Ziercke, said the bombs were packed into identical black cases and consisted of gas canisters, alarm clocks, wires and batteries and soft drink bottles filled with a flammable liquid.

“The cases had been supposed to explode 10 minutes before the trains arrived at the stations,” Ziercke said. “It’s more likely than unlikely that there was a terrorist background,” he said. If the around 25-kilo (55-lb.) suitcase bombs had exploded they would have lead to “a fireball” in the train carriages and an “indeterminate number of injured and possible deaths,” Ziercke said.
He added that a 100-strong team of investigators was still trying to establish why the devices failed to explode.

A note in the case found in Koblenz contained Arabic writing and a telephone number in Lebanon, and packets of starch with labels in Arabic and English were also found.

The Lebanese connection that is hinted at in several different sources is particularly inexplicable. If, as Ray of David’s MedienKritik says, “The bombings were likely intended to “send a message to the West” over the Israeli-Lebanese conflict.“, the way of sending the message - via a mass murder of innocent Germans, whose country is one of the least involved in the latest crisis - raises a serious doubt about mental stability of the initiators of this act, let alone the two dummies who went on this “mission”.

Anyway, one of the suspects is already in the nick. He was caught, most probably trying to correct his previous mistake.

News reports in Germany said that German police had arrested one of the two suspected suitcase bombers at the railway station in the northern city of Kiel on Saturday. The authorities also found explosives at the station, according to German public broadcaster ARD.

“The person appears to be one of the two suspects that have been sought since yesterday with the help of video footage that was made public,” the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

I hope that we’ll know more about this soon. And that the masterminds behind this dastardly deed will be caught.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Noun: hypocrisy

1. An expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction
2. Insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have

The definition above comes from my WordWeb dictionary. Effing convenient, you just press a shortcut key and presto! Still, a better definition (by example) of hypocrisy will be “do as I say and not as I do”. At least for the purpose of this post here.

It started with a friend (who decided to remain unnamed) sending me a link to an article in Pravda (knowing Russian is a heavy cross sometimes). It appears that the friend does not need my hardly existent expertise in all things Russian, since the article is authored by a person with a double-barreled British name - Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey.

Not knowing Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey from a Brazilian bullfrog and, in general, being wary of double-barreled names and especially their carriers, I have started googling. Thanks deity, Scott Burgess provides here the full and clear definition of this person.

I have just discovered the wonderful Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey of the pravda.ru editorial staff. I really must take readers to task for not having previously informed me of this luminary’s work. Mr. Bancroft-Hinchey, who feels that “the main trait that journalists must have is modesty,” describes himself as “one of the leading English song-writers of the 1980s.” Presumably disenchanted with the glamour of “three Eurovision contests, three albums, two maxi-singles and five singles,” he turned to journalism to satisfy his “need to talk and tell.”

Scott’s article linked above is highly recommended. And hilarious, too.

So, a song writer turned journalist. No problems, it could happen to the best of us. Additional googling, however, shows that, besides being one of the Pravda regulars, our friend Timothy B.H. frequently appears on places like rense dot com, mindfully dot org and other places much, much more odious than even Pravda. And now Timothy makes a case for putting the State of Israel on trial:

The State of Israel is hereby accused of committing War Crimes in the conflict with Hezbollah IN Lebanon (July 12th to August 12th 2006). We present and document four counts where the Geneva Convention has been seriously breached.

Copiously quoting from the Geneva Convention, the man uses a highly polished legal language (does he have another talent, hitherto hidden?). Of course, the vehicle of this article, the infamous Pravda, the same august organ that used to rain fire and brimstone on Chechnya, is hardly suitable for a discussion of Geneva Convention or, for that matter, of anything human or humane. But not being of a legal persuasion myself, I was in a quandary.

Thankfully, another friend send me another article, by another Brit. This time it is Frederick Forsyth. True, Forsyth could not boast about any songs on Eurovision, albums, singles or doubles etc. But he can be proud of a long and colorful career as a reporter and a writer, and is an ex-RAF pilot to boot.

And the article saves me a lot of work answering the odious piece by and odious person in an odious media organ, so here are some key quotes from it:

It must surely be true that the level of lies and hypocrisy that a society can tolerate is in direct proportion to the degeneration of that culture. Personally I am not particularly pro or anti Israel, pro or anti Arab or pro or anti Islam. But I do have a dislike of myth, hypocrisy and lies as opposed to reality, fairness and truth.

Watching the bombing of Lebanon it is impossible not to feel horror and pity for the innocent civilians killed, wounded or rendered homeless. But certain of our politicians, seeking easy populism and the cheapest round of applause in modern history, have called the Israeli response “disproportionate.” Among the politicos are Jack Straw and that master of EU negotiations William Hague.

…

Here is my point. In all those 73 days of bombing Serbia I never heard one British moralist use the word “disproportionate.” The entire point of Hezbollah is not to resolve some border dispute with Israel; its aim is to wipe Israel off the map, as expressed by Hezbollah”s master, the crazed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. That aim includes the eradication of every Israeli Jew; i.e. genocide. Serbia never once threatened to wipe the UK off the map or slaughter our citizens, yet Straw, in office in 1999, and Hague, leading the Conservative Party, never objected to Serbia being bombed.

As an ex-RAF officer I am persuaded the Israelis fighter pilots are hitting civilian-free targets with 95% of their strikes. These are the hits no TV network bothers to cover. It is the 5% that causes the coverage and the horror: wrong target, unseen civilians in the cellar, misfire, unavoidable collateral casualties. Unavoidable? Israel has said in effect, “If you seek to wipe us out we will defend ourselves to the death. You offer us no quarter, so we will offer none to you. But if you choose intentionally, inadvertently, or through the stupidity of your government to protect and shelter the killers among yourselves then with deepest regret, we cannot guarantee your exemption.“

That’s it. Mr Double-Barrel. Take it and swallow it.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews