Saturday, July 15, 2006
Middle East Action
Lebanon continued to suffer under the punishment of Israeli bombardment. Israeli forces used loudspeakers to tell villagers in Marwahin (a village in southern Lebanon) to leave. No reason was given. Villagers gathered in vehicles and exited the village. They were turned away from a UN peacekeeper position. Shortly thereafter, an Israeli missile struck the convoy and killed a dozen people, including women and children.
Husan Hutait, an advisor to Lebanon’s Health Minister, put the total death toll of Lebanese at 79.
Meanwhile, in Egypt about 5,000 protestors gathered to protest Israel’s military bombardment of Lebanon. In Jordan about 2,000 gathered. Saudi Arabia issued a statement condemning the actions of Hezbollah. Al-Ahram noted the reactions of many who believe that Israel and the United States are complicit in this behavior. They cited the example of the American occupation of Iraq as evidence that the United States is the moral equivalent of Israel.
Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, echoed the language of President Bush, calling Hezbollah part of an “Axis of Terror” along with Hamas, Syria, and Iran.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to bombard Gaza. The Palestinian Economy Ministry was struck. The offices of the Prime Minister and Interior Minister have also been destroyed.
In other news, now that sanctions against Libya have been lifted major US corporations are eager to do business there. The two biggest potential investors? Bechtel and Exxon, of course.
In this article Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the International Institute of Economics, was very frank with Aljazeera: “I do think Libya will continue in its autocratic ways while no longer being antagonistic towards the West. Al-Qadhafi could become no more autocratic than the King of Morocco, whom we like a lot.”
In the words of Ace Ventura, re-heh-eally? Please google for yourself the questionable record of the King of Morocco, the autocrat who created the ERC, a human rights commission that was supposed to investigate the human rights abuses of his father’s (Hassan II) reign. However, the commission wasn’t allowed to mention his father by name, nor was it allowed to investigate human rights violations since 1999, of which there are many.
There is an interesting article at Al-Ahram regarding Israeli press censorship.
Correction
Thursday I mentioned “hundreds” of Palestinians had died, based on reports mostly from Al-Ahram. The number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank just over the past few weeks approximates the number of Lebanese dead so far, or 70 or so, according to other reports from Aljazeera and Al-Ahram. My apologies. Under Thursday’s “Further Military Action” entry substitute “dozens” for “hundreds.”
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 11:03 AM 
