News from the Lebanon

The Lebanon is an unfortunate country, what was once the Paris of the East is in a geographically important position and suffers from having powerful neighbours and a very mixed population. Interestingly the population split in the Lebanon is unknown because they have not held a census since 1932 because of sensitivity/controversy over the religious makeup of the population. It is estimated that the Lebanese population is now about 60% Muslim and 40% Christian. Wikipedia states that "Lebanon is a parliamentary, democratic republic, which implements a special system known as confessionalism. This system, meant to insure that sectarian conflict is kept at bay, attempts to fairly represent the demographic distribution of religious sects in the governing body. As such, high-ranking offices in the government are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Catholic Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister an Orthodox Christian, and the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim. The Lebanese parliament building at the Place de l'ÉtoileThis trend continues in the distribution of the 128 parliamentary seats, which are divided proportionally between Muslims and Christians. Prior to 1990, the ratio stood at 6:5 in favor of Christians; however, the Taif Accord, which put an end to the 1975-1990 civil war, adjusted the ratio to grant equal representation to followers of the two religions. According to the constitution, direct elections must be held for the parliament every four years, although for much of Lebanon’s recent history, civil war precluded the exercise of this right."

Lebanon's main problem is its neighbours, it's Southern neighbour is Israel but its more dangerous neighbour is to the East and North, Syria. Syria has increasingly wanted Lebanon as under its control, as it was prior to independence from France in the 1940's. Syria has been meddling in Lebanon's affairs for many years but recently this has reached serious levels. On February 14 2005 the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut. Syria was accused of carrying out the attack due to rift between Hariri and Damascus over the Syrian-backed constitutional amendment extending pro-Syrian President Lahoud's term in office. The assassination of Hariri marked the beginning of a series of assassination attempts that led to the loss of many prominent Lebanese figures.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously called for an investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hariri. The findings of this investigation suggested the assassination was carried out by a group with considerable resources, that it had been prepared many months in advance, and that the group had detailed knowledge of Hariri’s movements. This investigation into the Hariri assassination is ongoing and has yet to be concluded. The United Nations Security Council and the Lebanese cabinet have approved a Special Tribunal for Lebanon that would prosecute those responsible for Hariri's death. On February 28 2005, with over 50,000 people demonstrating in Martyrs' Square, Prime Minister Omar Karami and his Cabinet resigned. In response, Hezbollah organized a large counter-demonstration attended by hundreds of thousands of people, supporting Syria and accusing Israel and the United States of meddling in internal Lebanese affairs. On March 14 2005, one month after Hariri's assassination, throngs of people rallied in Martyrs' Square in Lebanon with around 1 million people. Protesters marched demanding the truth about Hariri's murder and independence from Syrian presence in Lebanon. The march reiterated their desire for a sovereign, democratic, and unified country, free of Syria's hegemony.
In the weeks following the demonstrations, bombs were detonated in Christian areas near Beirut. Although the damage was mostly material, these acts threatened to drag Lebanon back into sectarian strife. Eventually, and under pressure from the international community, Syria began withdrawing its 15,000 army from Lebanon. By April 26 2005, all uniformed Syrian soldiers had already crossed the border back to Syria. On April 27 2005, anti-Syrian Lebanese celebrated their first free-from-Syria day. UN forces led by Senegalese Brig. Gen. Mouhamadou Kandji and Lebanese Brig. Gen. Imad Anka were sent to Lebanon to verify the military withdrawal which was mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 1559. During the first parliamentary elections held after Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2005, the anti-Syrian coalition of Sunni Muslim, Druze and Christian parties led by Saad Hariri, son of assassinated ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, won a majority of seats in the new Parliament.The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), though not allied with the Rafik Hariri Martyr List during the elections, garnered strong representation in the newly elected Parliament. The political alliances were interesting in that in some areas the anti-Syrian coalition allied with Hezbollah and in others with Amal. They did not win the two-thirds majority required to force the resignation of Syrian-appointed President Lahoud voted for by Rafik Hariri parliamentary bloc, due to the unexpectedly strong showing of formerly exiled General Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement party in Mount Lebanon. Despite being staunchly anti-Syrian during his 15-year exile, upon his return Aoun aligned himself with politicians who were friendly to the Syrians in the past decade: Soleiman Franjieh Jr and Michel Murr. Their alliance dominated the north and the Matn District of Mount Lebanon. Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt joined forces with the two staunchly pro-Syrian Shiite movements, Hezbollah and Amal, to secure major wins in the South, Beqaa, as well as the Baabda and Aley districts of Mount Lebanon. This alliance proved temporary. On February 6, 2006 Hezbollah signed an understanding of disarmament with Michel Aoun, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement. After the elections, Hariri's Future Movement party, now the country's dominant political force, nominated Fouad Siniora, a former Finance Minister, to be Prime Minister.His newly formed representative government has obtained the vote of confidence from the parliament. On July 18 2005, Lebanon elected a new parliament dominated by an anti-Syrian coalition. This parliament approved a motion to free Samir Geagea, leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces, who had spent most of the past eleven years in solitary confinement in an underground cell with no access to news. The motion was endorsed by pro-Syrian Lebanese President Émile Lahoud the next day. (The above section quotes liberally from Wikipedia)

What has happened now is that another Christian politician has been killed by a car bomb. Antoine Ghanem, 64, a member of the Right-wing Christian Phalange Party, was killed along with eight other people in the attack in a Christian suburb of Beirut. He was the eighth prominent anti-Syrian figure assassinated since 2005 and the attack came just six days before parliament was scheduled to meet to elect a new president in a deeply divisive vote.

This assassination is aimed at preventing any elections from taking place and at distracting world attention from Syria's weapons programme, a plan that took a severe knock on 6 September - see my article on Syria.

An atrocity perpetrated on the Palestinians that the BBC and other Western media seemed to be uninterested in covering.

'A couple of years ago, a Palestinian refugee camp was encircled and laid siege to by an army of tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers. Attacks initiated by Palestinian militants triggered an overwhelming response from the army that took the life of almost 500 people, including many civilians. International organizations struggled to send aid to the refugee camps, where the inhabitants were left without basic amenities like electricity and running water. During the conflict, six U.N. personnel were killed when their car was bombed.

Government ministers and spokesmen tried to explain to the international community that the Palestinian militants were backed by Syria and global jihadist elements. Al Qaeda condemned the government and the army, declaring that the attack was part of a "crusade" against their Palestinian brothers.

While most will assume that the events described above took place in the West Bank or Gaza, they actually took place in Lebanon in the summer of 2007, when Palestinian terrorists attacked the Lebanese Army, which struck back with deadly force. The scene of most of the fighting was the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Northern Lebanon, which was home to the Islamist Fatah al-Islam, a group that has links with al Qaeda.

At the time, there was little international outcry. No world leader decried the "prison camps" in Lebanon. No demonstrations took place around the world; no U.N. investigation panels were created and little media attention was attracted. In fact, the plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon garners very little attention internationally.

Today, there are more than 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon who are deprived of their most basic rights. The Lebanese government has a list of tens of professions that a Palestinian is forbidden from being engaged in, including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. Palestinians are forbidden from owning property and need a special permit to leave their towns. Unlike all other foreign nationals in Lebanon, they are denied access to the health-care system. According to Amnesty international, the Palestinians in Lebanon suffer from "discrimination and marginalization" and are treated like "second class citizens" and "denied their full range of human rights."

Amnesty also states that most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have little choice but to live in overcrowded and deteriorating camps and informal gatherings that lack basic infrastructure.

In view of the worsening plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon, it is the height of irony that a Lebanese flotilla is organizing to leave the port of Tripoli in the next few days to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza. According to one of the organizers, the participants are "united by a feeling of stark injustice."

This attitude exposes the dishonesty of the whole flotilla exercise. Whether it is from Turkey, Ireland or Cyprus, those that participate in these flotillas reek of hypocrisy. There are currently 100 armed conflicts and dozens of territorial disputes around the world. There have been millions of people killed and hundreds of millions live in abject poverty without access to basic staples. And yet hundreds of high-minded "humanitarian activists" are spending millions of dollars to reach Gaza and hand money to Hamas that will never reach the innocent civilians of Gaza.

This is the same Gaza that just opened a sparkling new shopping mall that would not look out of place in any capital in Europe. Gaza, where a new Olympic-sized swimming pool was recently inaugurated and five-star hotels and restaurants offer luxurious fare.

Markets brimming with all manner of foods dot the landscape of Gaza, where Lauren Booth, journalist and "human rights activist," was pictured buying chocolate and luxurious items from a well-stocked supermarket before stating with a straight face that the "situation in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur."

No one claims that the situation in Gaza is perfect. Since the bloody coup and occupation by Hamas of Gaza in 2007, in which more than 100 Palestinians were killed, Israel has had no choice but to ensure that Hamas is not able to build up an Iranian port on the shores of the Mediterranean. Until Hamas meets the three standards laid out by the international community, namely renouncing violence, recognizing Israel's right to exist and abiding by previously signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas will continue to be shunned by the international community.

While Israel's policy is to continue to see that all civilian needs are addressed, it can not allow Hamas to rearm and use Gaza as a base to attack Israel and beyond. For this reason, Israel initiated a blockade, fully legal under international law, to ensure that no items can be appropriated by Hamas to attack innocent civilians. Organizations that wish to join the U.N. and the Red Cross to deliver goods or aid to Gaza are welcome to do so through the Kerem Shalom crossing or even through Egyptian ports. Those that refuse and seek to break the legal blockade to boost Hamas are interested in provocation. If Israel allows these confrontational flotillas to successfully open up a shipping lane for arms smuggling for an Iranian proxy, then the region will suffer from continuous conflict. Actions that embolden the extremists will be at the cost of the moderates and this will pose a grave danger to moving the peace process forward.

The latest flotilla preparing to leave from Lebanon fully exposes not only the hypocrisy but the danger of these provocative vigilante flotillas. The Lebanese flotilla, whose organizers claim injustice while ignoring the dire human rights situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon, amply demonstrate that these flotillas have nothing to do with humanitarian concerns and everything to do with delegitimizing Israel.'

Danny Ayalon - Israel's deputy minister of foreign affairs.

Compare an contrast the BBC and JPost

The BBC report:

"'Hezbollah arms cache' blows up
Lebanon

Reports from southern Lebanon say there have been a number of explosions at a weapons depot belonging to the Hezbollah movement.

The reports say the depot was housed in an abandoned building near the village of Khirbet Silim in the Dabsheh area. There were no reports of casualties.

Hezbollah denied any link with the blasts and attributed them to the detonation of unexploded ordnance.

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area and restricted access to the site.

No-one was injured in the explosions but they caused panic among local residents who reportedly mistook them for an Israeli air raid.

Israel and the mainly Shia Muslim militant and political movement Hezbollah fought a fierce 34-day conflict in 2006 and the area is littered with cluster munitions dropped during the Israeli bombardment.

Fighting ended under the terms of a United Nations ceasefire which banned Hezbollah from conducting any military action between the border and the Litani River to the north. "

Note the BBC hints that this may have been Israeli cluster munitions not Hezbollah weapons.


MEanwhile JPost reports the more up to date news:

"IDF: Hizbullah hiding rockets in homes

A day after an explosion uncovered a hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon, the IDF's Northern Command estimated that the group had turned hundreds of homes in the area into warehouses to store short- and medium-range Katyusha rockets.

The IDF released video footage taken from an Israeli aircraft, showing a home that had exploded on Tuesday in the village of Hirbet Selm - located some 20 kilometers north of the Lebanese border. The roof is seen in the footage with dozens of holes, which IDF ballistic experts said were the size of 122-mm. Katyusha rockets.

UNIFIL said that storing the ammunition was a "serious violation" of the UN-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The peace keeping force said that it considered the incident a "serious violation" of the UN resolution that ended the conflict, which specifies that there should be no presence of unauthorized assets or weapons in the area of operations.

Israeli defense officials had also accused Lebanon of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.

"This is a major violation of resolution 1701," one Israeli official said. "The weaponry was stored inside a village and is proof of our longstanding claim that Hizbullah uses civilian infrastructure to hide its weaponry."

Contrary to Lebanese media reports which claimed that the cache was hidden in the village before the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Israeli defense officials said that the weaponry was recently placed inside the storehouse.

According to the officials, the cache was hidden in a storehouse inside the village and contained dozens of 122mm Katyusha rockets as well as high-powered machine guns. Some of the rockets reportedly flew into the sky.

The blast took place at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, and for the first few hours, Hizbullah sealed off the area and refused to grant UNIFIL or the Lebanese army access. IDF sources said that the clearing of the home and the unexploded ordinance had taken over 24 hours.

The sources said the IDF had been aware prior to the explosion that the home was being used as a storehouse for weapons. Several months before the explosion, an IDF aircraft captured footage of several senior Hizbullah operatives entering an underground tunnel near the house and reappearing from an exit 700 m. away.

"This house was connected to an entire underground network that was built right under the noses of UNIFIL and the Lebanese army," one IDF officer said. "This is a major violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701."

The Katyusha rockets that went off in Hirbet Selm were being stored in a two-story home. It was unclear on which floor they were being stored, but the home was shown on Lebanese television in close proximity to other village buildings.

In addition to the 122-mm. rockets, IDF ballistic experts said it was likely that the home also contained mortar shells and additional types of ammunition. "

You can see the video here.

Once again Hezbollah are using (as Hamas also do) civilian homes to locate weapons thus hoping to draw Israeli fire on these houses to kill the civilian residents and so incur the wrath of the workd's easily manipulated media. Is scum too strong a word? I think not.

What happened in Southern Lebanon?

Despite the BBC's attempts to even-handedly report the claims of the Lebanese Army and Israel, their loyalty to anyone but Israel shines through. The BBC first report that:

'

An Israeli incursion into Lebanese territory provoked a clash near the border between the two countries, Lebanese State Minister Michel Faroun has said.

Three Lebanese soldiers, an Israeli officer and Lebanese journalist were killed in the fighting.

Lebanon says troops opened fire after Israeli soldiers entered its territory. Israel denied the charge.'

The BBC reluctantly have to put the Israeli side of the argument:

'Israeli Defence Forces spokesperson Lt Col Avital Liebovich has described a clash near the Israel-Lebabon border as "an ambush".

Three Lebanese soldiers, a senior Israeli officer and a Lebanese journalist were killed in an exchange of fire in the border area.

The Lebanese say they opened fire after Israeli troops entered Lebanon. The Israelis deny crossing the border.'

You might think that seems even-handed, but compare the two headlines chosen for these reports. Whilst the Lebanese side is presented as fact - 'Israel 'provoked Lebanese army' at border clash', the Israeli side is just a claim - 'Israel claims Lebanese 'ambush' on border'. The bias is subtle but invidious.

Of course the BBC have to report the UN's reaction and it's not helpful to the BBC's chosen side, so the BBC report this under the (fault on both sides) headline 'UN urges restraint after Israel-Lebanon border clash'. However if you read into the story you learn that

'UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say they have seen no evidence that Israeli soldiers had crossed into Lebanon, reports the BBC's Wyre Davies, from the border between the two countries.'

Isn't it odd how the BBC loudly report every hint of a criticism by the UN of Israel but when the UN back up Israel in a dispute, the coverage becomes rather more muted.

What happened in Southern Lebanon (update)

Further to my earlier piece I see that the BBC's bias in reporting is not the only aspect to this story to concern me. YNet report that:

'UNIFIL forces who toured the site of Tuesday's deadly exchanges of fire on the northern border said the IDF's activity did not warrant the attack launched by Lebanese Army soldiers, Israeli army officials who spoke to UNIFIL representatives said.

According to the IDF, soldiers were performing routine operations in a border-area enclave within Israeli territory when they were ambushed by Lebanese troops.

During the incident, which took place mid-day Tuesday, Lebanese soldiers ambushed an Israeli Engineering Corps force operating on the Israeli side of the border. The Israeli soldiers were clearing bushes along the border fence. According to the army, such activity has become routine since the conclusion of the Second Lebanon War.

Lieutenant Colonel Dov Harari, 45, who commanded the IDF force, was killed in the skirmish, and 30-year-old reservist Captain Ezra Lakia was seriously injured. Two Lebanese soldiers and a local reporter were also killed.

Israeli army officials believe the Lebanese force was operating under a company commander whose decision to open fire on the IDF troops was supported by higher-ranking Lebanese officers.

The Lebanese Army claimed it had opened fire on Israeli soldiers who infiltrated Lebanese territory. The IDF retaliated with artillery and tank fire, and the Air Force attacked Lebanese Army positions in the village of al-Taibeh.

A senior IDF officer called the border incident a "painful and significant milestone in the fragile relations along the northern border between the IDF, UNIFIL and the Lebanese army."

The army estimates that the Lebanese officer in charge of the attack was an extremist.

Another officer said, "We do not have the luxury of suspending our activity (along the border). There is an enemy here who is following our every step. If you don’t act – someone acts against you."'

The JPost reports that:

'A UNIFIL official in southern Lebanon confirmed Wednesday that the IDF informed the organization of its intention to conduct routine maintenance work Tuesday in the area between Israel's border fence and the international border where Lebanese Army forces opened fire on IDF soldiers, killing Lt.-Col. (res) Dov Harari, Army Radio reported.

"I can confirm that we received notification from the IDF about the work and we passed the information on to the Lebanese Army," said the Hungarian diplomat who is part of the UNIFIL force in southern Lebanon.

He added that UNIFIL does not believe IDF soldiers crossed the international border during the maintenance work, but a UNIFIL technical team will investigate Wednesday where the IDF forces were exactly in relation to the border when the Lebanese Army snipers opened fire. '

The Gloria Centre reports what actually happened:

'Along Israel's border with Lebanon, east of Metulla, some bushes were pushing in on the border fence. The fence is set in slightly from the border precisely so that Israeli soldiers can work on it. The IDF called UNIFIL and informed the UN that this work was going to be done today so that they could tell the Lebanese army that there was no aggression going on but just routine maintenance. Soldiers from UNIFIL came to observe and can be seen standing next to Israeli soldiers in the photos. Photographers were also standing by to film the operation.

But Lebanese soldiers opened fire on the Israelis who were working and in no way acting aggressively. The fact that journalists were standing next to the Lebanese soldiers shows that they knew Israel was going to do this maintenance and were observing. After the Israeli soldiers were ambushed, they returned fire. One Israeli officer was killed, another seriously wounded; three Lebanese soldiers, and a Lebanese (?) journalist were killed.'

And also the media outlets anti-Israel biased reporting.


Finally the excellent Honest Reporting analyses this story very well and here are some important extracts: 'It is vital to note that the UN demarcated Blue Line that marks the official border between Israel and Lebanon does not always follow the route of the security fence. While the IDF was operating over the fence, it was still within Israeli territory as seen on the map below.'

Honest Reporting also wonder why/how so many journalists were there to record the 'incident':

'An AP report on the incident places Ronith Daher, a Lebanese journalist and photographer... at the scene. Evidently, someone from Reuters was also there to take the... image. But why were they there in the first place taking photographs before the incident even occurred?

After all, pruning foliage is hardly headline news on an ordinary day unless something out of the ordinary was expected. UNIFIL and through it, the Lebanese Army, had been notified of the IDF's routine maintenance and even UNIFIL now admits that the Lebanese fire was unwarranted.

Also according to AP, a Lebanese journalist with the daily Al-Akhbar newspaper, Assaf Abu Rahhal, was killed when an Israeli shell landed next to him in the border village of Adeisseh. Al-Akhbar is reportedly associated with Hezbollah and has been denounced by Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt as being funded by Syria and Iran. So what was Abu Rahhal doing in the area exposing himself to IDF counter-fire?

A Reuters photographer was also on the scene in Adeisseh capturing the moments in the immediate aftermath of the IDF retaliation that led to the deaths of Abu Rahhal and three Lebanese soldiers.

...

It is an open secret that parts of the Lebanese Army have been infiltrated by Hezbollah sympathisers and operatives. So information shared by Israel with UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army invariably finds its way to Hezbollah.

Was this incident a staged and pre-planned ambush as evidenced by the presence of photographers and journalists even before the exchange of fire? Were these journalists there precisely because they had advance notice of a potential flashpoint?'

Oddly enough Honest Reporting's conclusion is one that the BBC will not like or report: 'Many media outlets, including the BBC, have given equal or more weight to Lebanese claims surrounding the nature of the incident despite the overwhelming evidence. CNN stated that "Two separate narratives emerged about the incident." Commenting on the media coverage, particularly from the New York Times, Barry Rubin says:

The truth, however, is easy to ascertain--did Israel announce the maintenance, permit the photographers and UN people to watch and then cross deliberately into Lebanon?--but Israel is being portrayed as an aggressor that caused the outbreak of fighting. So millions of people will either believe that Israel was at fault or that the event is in question.

The narrative, however, is simple: In an unprovoked attack, Lebanese soldiers fired on Israelis and murdered one soldier.'

So come on BBC how about reporting the unbiased truth about Israel for once...

Is that the whole story? BBC anti-Israel bias story

The BBC's report on Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing of a 'cheering crowd in southern Lebanon, close to the Israeli border.' Apparently 'Ten thousands of people waved Iranian, Lebanese and Hezbollah flags as he spoke in a stadium in Bint Jbeil.'

There is plenty of comment on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon and the implications and politics of this visit, so I won't comment.

What struck me was this line

'The border area between Lebanon and Israel is rarely without tension. In August, two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and a senior Israeli army officer were killed in a clash sparked by the trimming of a tree on the Israeli side of the frontier.'

'a clash', people killed on both sides; how very even-handed. Note that the Israeli death is mentioned last although it happened first. But is that line an accurate report of what actually happened? You can read the sequence of events ion my blogs at that time: here, here, here, here and here. It is this last posting that included extracts from UNIFIL's report in this incident that concluded that:

'Israel had operated within its own borders when Lebanese sniper fire targeted Israeli soldiers. The IDF had been pruning a tree that each side claimed to be within its own territory, when the Lebanese army used live fire towards the IDF force operating in the area, killing a senior officer, and provoking an exchange of fire.... Hungarian diplomat and UNIFIL spokesman Milos Strungar noted that, “the IDF had coordinated the pruning work along the border with the Lebanese Army through UNIFIL. The IDF had informed UNIFIL that it would be pruning a tree on the northern side of the border fence, but south of the international border line.” .... IDF senior officer Lt. Col. (res.) Dov Harari was shot and killed when Lebanese forces began to open fire, and IDF Officer Capt. Ezra Lakia was severely injured during the incident. Two LAF soldiers and one Lebanese journalist were also killed in the ensuing exchange of fire. '

So what would have been a more truthful way of reporting that incident?
To remind you, the BBC original line went thus:

'The border area between Lebanon and Israel is rarely without tension. In August, two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and a senior Israeli army officer were killed in a clash sparked by the trimming of a tree on the Israeli side of the frontier.'

I would suggest that it should read thus:

'The border area between Lebanon and Israel is rarely without tension. In August Lebanese snipers opened fire at Israeli troops who were trimming a tree on the Israeli side of the border as previously notified to UNIFIL. One Lebanese sniper shot and killed a senior Israeli army officer who was observing the pruning. Israeli soldiers returned fire causing the death of two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist.'

Slightly longer but a lot more accurate and presenting the deaths in order of time, not order of the importance the BBC place on lives...

The release of Samir Qantar

I blogged a little earlier today about a side issue in the Israel/Hezbollah prsioner exchange. Now I look at a rather more meaty aspect. One of the prisoners Israel has released is Samir Qantar, the BBC describe his reason for being in an Israeli prison thus:

"Samir Qantar, in jail since 1979 for a deadly guerrilla raid in which he killed three Israelis, including a child.

The killings were particularly brutal, making his release controversial in Israel."

Hidden away at the end of the BBC article is slightly more detail:

"Qantar was serving several life sentences for murder for attacking a civilian apartment block in Nahariya in 1979.

A policeman, another man and his four-year-old daughter were killed. A baby girl was accidentally smothered by her mother as she hid in a cupboard during the attack.

Qantar has denied killing the older child, reports say."

Maybe we can find some detail about these disputed killings elsewhere. Let's try Sky News, their news section has this page which recalls:

"even more so when you consider the crimes for which Samir Kuntar has been serving 542 years in jail.

He led a boat raid from Lebanon on a northern Israeli seaside town in 1979. His gang killed an Israeli soldier and then searched for hostages. They entered the home of the Haran family and seized 28-year-old Danny Haran and his daughter Einat, aged four.

They took them to the beach and, according to witnesses, Kuntar shot Danny in front of his daughter as she begged him not to kill her father.

He then bludgeoned the head of the little girl repeatedly with his rifle butt until she was dead.

Meanwhile, in the Harans' apartment, Einat's mother Smadar accidentally smothered her other, two-year-old daughter to death, while trying to keep her quiet as they hid from the attackers."

Let's look at Wikipedia and see what they have to say about Samir Kuntar:

"On April 22, 1979, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF members who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat... The group departed from the seashore of Tyre in Southern Lebanon... The goal of the operation was to attack Nahariya, 10 kilometers away from the Lebanese border. They called their operation the Nasser Operation.

Around midnight they arrived at the coastal town of Nahariya. The four murdered a policeman who came across them. The group then entered a building on Jabotinsky Street where they formed two groups. One group broke into the apartment of the Haran family before police reinforcements had arrived. They took 31 year-old Danny Haran hostage along with his four year-old daughter, Einat. The mother, Smadar Haran, was able to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbor.

Shootout and capture

Kuntar's group took Danny and Einat down to the beach, where a shootout with Israeli policemen and soldiers erupted. Israel claims that Kuntar shot Danny at close range in the back, in front of his daughter, and drowned him in the sea to ensure he was dead. Next, he smashed the head of 4 year-old Einat on beach rocks and crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle. Kuntar denied killing the 4-year-old.

Back in the crawl space, Yael was accidentally suffocated to death by her mother's attempts to quiet her whimpering, which would have revealed their hideout....

Murder of Haran family

According to Smadar Haran, her last memories of Danny and Einat are the sight of them being led away at gunpoint by Kuntar. From her hiding place, she could hear Danny reassuring Einat, who kept asking for her mother. When Yael cried for her pacifier, Smadar covered her mouth to stifle her whimpering. She remembers her daughter's tongue licking and sucking on the palm of her hand. Later, doctors and paramedics explained that the toddler had been gasping for air.

In 1979, the Israeli newspaper Maariv newpaper described the attack as follows: After drowning Danny in the sea in front of Einat...., Kuntar turned his attention towards the 4 year-old. He took his rifle and then swung it across the toddler's head, knocking her to the ground. Kuntar then dragged the toddler a couple of feet to the closest rock he could find and laid her head down on a rock, with the intention of crushing it with the butt of his rifle. Einat, instinctively covered her head with her arms, Kuntar struggled with the toddler until he finally managed to clear her arms out of the way. Once her arms were out of the way, Kuntar repeatedly beat her on the head with the butt of his rifle and stomping on her body, until blood rushed out of her ears and mouth. Then, to ensure she was dead, Kuntar continued beating her over the head until her skull was crushed and she was dead."

And how did Israel treat this murderer? Hard labour and brutal treatment? No, as Wikipedia reports:

"During his imprisonment, Kuntar married an Israeli Arab woman who is an activist on behalf of militant prisoners, but divorced her. While they were married, she received a monthly stipend from the Israeli government, an entitlement due to her status as a wife of a prisoner. Also during his imprisonment Kuntar graduated from the Open University of Israel in social and political science."

What A delightful chap Samir Qantar sounds, just the sort of person that the Fatah Palestinian Government would disown... Oh sorry, it appears not

"Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday sent his regards to the families of Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar and the other four Lebanese prisoners scheduled to be transferred to Hizbullah. Abbas praised the prisoner swap and congratulated the Kuntar family."

How about his village do they have any misgivings about having a child-killer back in their village? It appears not:

"In Kuntar's home in Abey, streets were decorated with banners welcoming the return of the former member of the radical Palestine Liberation Front. "Samir Kuntar is the conscience of Lebanon, Palestine and the Arab nation. Abey welcomes the hero, prisoner Samir Kuntar," reads one sign."

At least one Lebanese has misgivings, All the Beirut News opines:

"I am very happy that Lebanese prisoners long held in Israeli jails are to be finally released. Many of these prisoners fought against the Israeli army in Lebanese territory. They are heroes. However, there is a prisoner whom I may no be so proud of and he is Samir Qantar. At the age of 16, Samir Qantar and his team departed from Tyre, Lebanon by boat to the ‘Israeli’ town of Naharyia in 1979. It seems to me that the targets were civilian, not military, and that in the fight at least one child was killed (the Israelis say Qantar crushed her skull, while he says that she was caught in the crossfire). His act of aggression that day is considered to be the greatest crime to be committed in the so-called State of Israel. Liberation of one’s land never comes through that kind of violence. Better yet is no violence at all. Whether he killed a little girl or not, combatants of any kind targeting civilians is amongst the most dishonourable of acts. Having said that there are two things I would like to point out: 1) No matter the oppression of the enemy, oppression never justifies hatred, vengeance, murder (which is not, as some claim, the targeting of Israeli soldiers on Lebanese land), or any of the derivates of the above. Today in Lebanon, Hizbullah encourages ‘honour’ and ‘dignity’ yet in a very warped sense. The killing of civilians by the Israeli Army (and they are far more numerous and intentional that Hizbullah’s fighters ever were) are condemned but little is said about Arab acts of terror (not to mention those committed by regimes against their own people). I as a Lebanese declare that we have the right to resist occupation, but such a right never licenses us to do wrong or to laud, yet alone condone, such acts...."

Of course All the Beirut News then goes on to blame Israel for "oppressing the Lebanese and Palestinians for six decades now. They have thousands of prisoners, they regularly target and kill civilians, they have driven millions of Palestinians from their lands and homes" and so on. But the fact that even such as this site have misgivings over the actions of Samir Kunrat must speak volumes, not that the BBC would agree.

Once again Israel swaps live murderers for murdered soldiers, because Israel has a moral obligation to bring its soldiers home, meanwhile Lebanon declares a national holiday to mark the swap. and the return of murderers. I think that tells you all you need to know about the difference between Israel and its neighbours. Front Page would seem to agree with me,

"Israel’s neighbors are gearing up for celebrations. For those Israelis who still have the stamina to look, these events will again reveal the chasm between Israel’s life-affirming Jewish-democratic culture and the unchanging Middle Eastern jihad-and death-culture of its neighbors.

This week most of the Olmert government’s live-terrorists-for-dead-soldiers swap with Hezbollah will be completed including the freeing of Samir Kuntar and four other live, dangerous Lebanese terrorists.... Israeli analyst Jonathan Spyer noted that “the news of the planned swap has been greeted with enthusiasm from politicians on both sides of the [Lebanese] divide.”

Against the Hezbollah-led, mostly Shiite bloc stands the March 14 Sunni-Druze-Christian bloc. Yet new Christian president Michel Suleiman (whose affiliation vis-à-vis the two blocs is a matter of dispute) and Sunni prime minister Fuad Saniora (considered anti-Hezbollah) are poised to give Kuntar and the other four terrorists a state welcome today at Beirut International Airport. Saniora said Hezbollah’s “success … in the negotiations [with Israel] is a national success for the party and for the struggle of the Lebanese because it secured national goals.…”

As for Druze leader and sharp Hezbollah-foe Walid Jumblatt, he's planning to visit Kuntar (also Druze) and congratulate him on his return, which he called a “national occasion.” Spyer reports that “other March 14 leaders spoke in similarly glowing terms.” The Lebanese daily As-Safir reported plans to make the day of the terrorists’ return a national holiday. Already today the road from the Israeli border to Sidon, and Kuntar's hometown of Abey, are hung with banners.

Israeli Middle East scholar Barry Rubin notes that “no one in the Arabic-speaking world will say a single negative word about Kuntar’s deed or his being made a hero, despite a small liberal minority’s disgust.”"

Gerald A. Honigman has an interesting article on this matter in Mich News that you may want to read.

Sand Monkey has his own opinion on this matter and well wortha read it is too.

It doesn't look good for this summer

It would appear that the pieces are being put into place for a summer war in the Middle East.

1. Syria are threatening Israel in the Golan Heights. "If Israel doesn't vacate the strategic Golan Heights before September, Syrian guerillas will immediately launch "resistance operations" against the Golan's Jewish communities, a top official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Baath party told the New York Sun in an interview. The Baath official, who spoke on condition his name be withheld, said Damascus is preparing for Israeli retaliation following Syrian guerilla attacks and for a larger war with the Jewish state in August or September. He said that in the opening salvo of any conflict, Syria has the capability to fire "hundreds" of missiles at Tel Aviv." Read more here

2. "A member of the Syrian parliament, Muhammad Habash, confirmed on Tuesday that his country was actively preparing for war with Israel, expected to break out in the summer...In an interview with Al Jazeera, Habash said it was no secret that the Syrian military was arming itself for the upcoming confrontation with the IDF." Read more here

3. The war at the "refugee" camp in north Lebanon rages on; as "Militants fired Katyusha rockets at Lebanese villages yesterday, escalating their eight-week-old battle with the army at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon...Security sources said Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al Islam fighters fired about a dozen of the 107mm rockets which landed several miles away from the Nahr El Bared camp, killing one civilian and wounding another...Fighting between the army and militants has killed at least 217 people since May 20, making it the country's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.", read more here

4. Iran may be threatening Bahrain, read more here

5. Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper reports that Damascus has ordered its citizens in Lebanon to return home by July 15, citing concerns over the “security situation in Lebanon.” And a report in the government controlled Syrian daily al-Thawra said Syrian students studying in the public Lebanese University and the Beirut Arab University were authorized to enroll in public Syrian universities for the upcoming academic year 2007-2008.

Take a look at the BBC for information on these stories and what do you find? Here is the BBC Middle East Home Page and they seem more concerned with "Iran and the UN's nuclear watchdog agree to new inspections at a key site and hail a framework for talks."

Typical BBC

Friday evening I normally grit my teeth and listen to the News Quiz, old habits die hard. Last night for some reason I was bored by the Radio 4 news and so was listening to 5Live when they went to the United Nations for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech. As I drove I was transfixed; he was making the points that needed to be made, he was criticising many of the people who needed to be criticised and he laid the blame for the many of the problems in the Middle East and beyond where it should be laid - at the feet of radical Islam. Of course the BBC couldn't stand for that and cut him off after about 15 minutes. I actually shouted "NO"  when they did this, fortunately I was alone in the car at the time. 5Live then started blathering about something else so I switched over for the end of the News Quiz. I was just in time to hear Jeremy Hardy produce one of his oh so regular attacks on Israel. The subject was something about fireworks which gave the vile Hardy the opportunity to 'jest' something along the lines of "It's a good job the Israeli Air Force didn't spot them because they would have bombed them to pieces" _ I may try and get the actual wording later but do I really want to hear that obnoxious prat again? So Jeremy, you slimy sh*t, why do you think Israel responds to rockets being fired at its land and people? What should Israel do? Lie back and submit to Islamic terror? would you prefer that?

Anyway that's the BBC ready to stop coverage of an important speech because uncomfortable (for the BBC) truths were being told but always happy to give sh*ts like Jeremy Hardy the airtime to disparage Israel.

In case you missed all or part of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the United Nations, here is the full transcript thanks to Haaretz. Do read it all, it is powerful and deserves to be read by every anti-Israel journalist at that bastion of hatred for Israel and spreader of lies about Israel - the BBC:

'Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established 63 years ago. On behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, I extend that hand again today. I extend it to the people of Egypt and Jordan, with renewed friendship for neighbors with whom we have made peace. I extend it to the people of Turkey, with respect and good will. I extend it to the people of Libya and Tunisia, with admiration for those trying to build a democratic future. I extend it to the other peoples of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with whom we want to forge a new beginning. I extend it to the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iran, with awe at the courage of those fighting brutal repression.

But most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, in Israel our hope for peace never wanes. Our scientists, doctors, innovators, apply their genius to improve the world of tomorrow. Our artists, our writers, enrich the heritage of humanity. Now, I know that this is not exactly the image of Israel that is often portrayed in this hall. After all, it was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland -- it was then that this was braided -- branded, rather -- shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt wasn't praised; it was denounced! And it's here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It's singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel -- the one true democracy in the Middle East.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It's the -- the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN Committee on disarmament.

You might say: That's the past. Well, here's what's happening now -- right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the UN Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world's security. You couldn't make this thing up.

So here in the UN, automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west. I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide -- they have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest place, is occupied Palestinian territory.

And yet even here in the General Assembly, the truth can sometimes break through. In 1984 when I was appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubavich. He said to me -- and ladies and gentlemen, I don't want any of you to be offended because from personal experience of serving here, I know there are many honorable men and women, many capable and decent people serving their nations here. But here's what the rebbe said to me. He said to me, you'll be serving in a house of many lies. And then he said, remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide.

Today I hope that the light of truth will shine, if only for a few minutes, in a hall that for too long has been a place of darkness for my country. So as Israel's prime minister, I didn't come here to win applause. I came here to speak the truth. (Cheers, applause.) The truth is -- the truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I want peace. The truth is that in the Middle East at all times, but especially during these turbulent days, peace must be anchored in security. The truth is that we cannot achieve peace through UN resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties. The truth is that so far the Palestinians have refused to negotiate. The truth is that Israel wants peace with a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want a state without peace. And the truth is you shouldn't let that happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, when I first came here 27 years ago, the world was divided between East and West. Since then the Cold War ended, great civilizations have risen from centuries of slumber, hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty, countless more are poised to follow, and the remarkable thing is that so far this monumental historic shift has largely occurred peacefully. Yet a malignancy is now growing between East and West that threatens the peace of all. It seeks not to liberate, but to enslave, not to build, but to destroy.

That malignancy is militant Islam. It cloaks itself in the mantle of a great faith, yet it murders Jews, Christians and Muslims alike with unforgiving impartiality. On September 11th it killed thousands of Americans, and it left the twin towers in smoldering ruins. Last night I laid a wreath on the 9/11 memorial. It was deeply moving. But as I was going there, one thing echoed in my mind: the outrageous words of the president of Iran on this podium yesterday. He implied that 9/11 was an American conspiracy. Some of you left this hall. All of you should have. (Applause.)

Since 9/11, militant Islamists slaughtered countless other innocents -- in London and Madrid, in Baghdad and Mumbai, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in every part of Israel. I believe that the greatest danger facing our world is that this fanaticism will arm itself with nuclear weapons. And this is precisely what Iran is trying to do.

Can you imagine that man who ranted here yesterday -- can you imagine him armed with nuclear weapons? The international community must stop Iran before it's too late. If Iran is not stopped, we will all face the specter of nuclear terrorism, and the Arab Spring could soon become an Iranian winter. That would be a tragedy. Millions of Arabs have taken to the streets to replace tyranny with liberty, and no one would benefit more than Israel if those committed to freedom and peace would prevail.

This is my fervent hope. But as the prime minister of Israel, I cannot risk the future of the Jewish state on wishful thinking. Leaders must see reality as it is, not as it ought to be. We must do our best to shape the future, but we cannot wish away the dangers of the present.

And the world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous. Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza. It's determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan. It's poisoned many Arab minds against Jews and Israel, against America and the West. It opposes not the policies of Israel but the existence of Israel.

Now, some argue that the spread of militant Islam, especially in these turbulent times -- if you want to slow it down, they argue, Israel must hurry to make concessions, to make territorial compromises. And this theory sounds simple. Basically it goes like this: Leave the territory, and peace will be advanced. The moderates will be strengthened, the radicals will be kept at bay. And don't worry about the pesky details of how Israel will actually defend itself; international troops will do the job.

These people say to me constantly: Just make a sweeping offer, and everything will work out. You know, there's only one problem with that theory. We've tried it and it hasn't worked. In 2000 Israel made a sweeping peace offer that met virtually all of the Palestinian demands. Arafat rejected it. The Palestinians then launched a terror attack that claimed a thousand Israeli lives.

Prime Minister Olmert afterwards made an even more sweeping offer, in 2008. President Abbas didn't even respond to it.

But Israel did more than just make sweeping offers. We actually left territory. We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch of Gaza in 2005. That didn't calm the Islamic storm, the militant Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and make it stronger.

Hezbollah and Hamas fired thousands of rockets against our cities from the very territories we vacated. See, when Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, the moderates didn't defeat the radicals, the moderates were devoured by the radicals. And I regret to say that international troops like UNIFIL in Lebanon and UBAM (ph) in Gaza didn't stop the radicals from attacking Israel.

We left Gaza hoping for peace.

We didn't freeze the settlements in Gaza, we uprooted them. We did exactly what the theory says: Get out, go back to the 1967 borders, dismantle the settlements.

And I don't think people remember how far we went to achieve this. We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We pulled children out of -- out of their schools and their kindergartens. We bulldozed synagogues. We even -- we even moved loved ones from their graves. And then, having done all that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.

Now the theory says it should all work out, and President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority now could build a peaceful state in Gaza. You can remember that the entire world applauded. They applauded our withdrawal as an act of great statesmanship. It was a bold act of peace.

But ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get peace. We got war. We got Iran, which through its proxy Hamas promptly kicked out the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a day -- in one day.

President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.

Thousands of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand that, given all this, Israelis rightly ask: What's to prevent this from happening again in the West Bank? See, most of our major cities in the south of the country are within a few dozen kilometers from Gaza. But in the center of the country, opposite the West Bank, our cities are a few hundred meters or at most a few kilometers away from the edge of the West Bank.

So I want to ask you. Would any of you -- would any of you bring danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so recklessly with the lives of your citizens? Israel is prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there. And that's why we need to have real security arrangements, which the Palestinians simply refuse to negotiate with us.

Israelis remember the bitter lessons of Gaza. Many of Israel's critics ignore them. They irresponsibly advise Israel to go down this same perilous path again. Your read what these people say and it's as if nothing happened -- just repeating the same advice, the same formulas as though none of this happened.

And these critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching concessions without first assuring Israel's security. They praise those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam as bold statesmen. They cast as enemies of peace those of us who insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.

So in the face of the labels and the libels, Israel must heed better advice. Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and which recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns.

I believe that in serious peace negotiations, these needs and concerns can be properly addressed, but they will not be addressed without negotiations. And the needs are many, because Israel is such a tiny country. Without Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Israel is all of 9 miles wide.

I want to put it for you in perspective, because you're all in the city. That's about two-thirds the length of Manhattan. It's the distance between Battery Park and Columbia University. And don't forget that the people who live in Brooklyn and New Jersey are considerably nicer than some of Israel's neighbors.

So how do you -- how do you protect such a tiny country, surrounded by people sworn to its destruction and armed to the teeth by Iran? Obviously you can't defend it from within that narrow space alone. Israel needs greater strategic depth, and that's exactly why Security Council Resolution 242 didn't require Israel to leave all the territories it captured in the Six-Day War. It talked about withdrawal from territories, to secure and defensible boundaries. And to defend itself, Israel must therefore maintain a long-term Israeli military presence in critical strategic areas in the West Bank.

I explained this to President Abbas. He answered that if a Palestinian state was to be a sovereign country, it could never accept such arrangements. Why not? America has had troops in Japan, Germany and South Korea for more than a half a century. Britain has had an airspace in Cyprus or rather an air base in Cyprus. France has forces in three independent African nations. None of these states claim that they're not sovereign countries.

And there are many other vital security issues that also must be addressed. Take the issue of airspace. Again, Israel's small dimensions create huge security problems. America can be crossed by jet airplane in six hours. To fly across Israel, it takes three minutes. So is Israel's tiny airspace to be chopped in half and given to a Palestinian state not at peace with Israel?

Our major international airport is a few kilometers away from the West Bank. Without peace, will our planes become targets for antiaircraft missiles placed in the adjacent Palestinian state? And how will we stop the smuggling into the West Bank? It's not merely the West Bank, it's the West Bank mountains. It just dominates the coastal plain where most of Israel's population sits below. How could we prevent the smuggling into these mountains of those missiles that could be fired on our cities?

I bring up these problems because they're not theoretical problems. They're very real. And for Israelis, they're life-and- death matters. All these potential cracks in Israel's security have to be sealed in a peace agreement before a Palestinian state is declared, not afterwards, because if you leave it afterwards, they won't be sealed. And these problems will explode in our face and explode the peace.

The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state. But I also want to tell you this. After such a peace agreement is signed, Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. We will be the first. (Applause.)

And there's one more thing. Hamas has been violating international law by holding our soldier Gilad Shalit captive for five years.

They haven't given even one Red Cross visit. He's held in a dungeon, in darkness, against all international norms. Gilad Shalit is the son of Aviva and Noam Shalit. He is the grandson of Zvi Shalit, who escaped the Holocaust by coming to the -- in the 1930s as a boy to the land of Israel. Gilad Shalit is the son of every Israeli family. Every nation represented here should demand his immediate release. (Applause.) If you want to -- if you want to pass a resolution about the Middle East today, that's the resolution you should pass. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, last year in Israel in Bar-Ilan University, this year in the Knesset and in the U.S. Congress, I laid out my vision for peace in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state. Yes, the Jewish state. After all, this is the body that recognized the Jewish state 64 years ago. Now, don't you think it's about time that Palestinians did the same?

The Jewish state of Israel will always protect the rights of all its minorities, including the more than 1 million Arab citizens of Israel. I wish I could say the same thing about a future Palestinian state, for as Palestinian officials made clear the other day -- in fact, I think they made it right here in New York -- they said the Palestinian state won't allow any Jews in it. They'll be Jew-free -- Judenrein. That's ethnic cleansing. There are laws today in Ramallah that make the selling of land to Jews punishable by death. That's racism. And you know which laws this evokes.

Israel has no intention whatsoever to change the democratic character of our state. We just don't want the Palestinians to try to change the Jewish character of our state. (Applause.) We want to give up -- we want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians.

President Abbas just stood here, and he said that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlements. Well, that's odd. Our conflict has been raging for -- was raging for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. So if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the -- I guess that the settlements he's talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva. Maybe that's what he meant the other day when he said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He didn't say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the settlements. The settlements are a result of the conflict. (Applause.)

The settlements have to be -- it's an issue that has to be addressed and resolved in the course of negotiations. But the core of the conflict has always been and unfortunately remains the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.

I think it's time that the Palestinian leadership recognizes what every serious international leader has recognized, from Lord Balfour and Lloyd George in 1917, to President Truman in 1948, to President Obama just two days ago right here: Israel is the Jewish state. (Applause.)

President Abbas, stop walking around this issue. Recognize the Jewish state, and make peace with us. In such a genuine peace, Israel is prepared to make painful compromises. We believe that the Palestinians should be neither the citizens of Israel nor its subjects. They should live in a free state of their own. But they should be ready, like us, for compromise. And we will know that they're ready for compromise and for peace when they start taking Israel's security requirements seriously and when they stop denying our historical connection to our ancient homeland.

I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That's like accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of Anglicizing London. You know why we're called "Jews"? Because we come from Judea.

In my office in Jerusalem, there's a -- there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That's my last name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin -- Binyamin -- the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria 4,000 years ago, and there's been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since.

And for those Jews who were exiled from our land, they never stopped dreaming of coming back: Jews in Spain, on the eve of their expulsion; Jews in the Ukraine, fleeing the pogroms; Jews fighting the Warsaw Ghetto, as the Nazis were circling around it. They never stopped praying, they never stopped yearning. They whispered: Next year in Jerusalem. Next year in the promised land.

As the prime minister of Israel, I speak for a hundred generations of Jews who were dispersed throughout the lands, who suffered every evil under the Sun, but who never gave up hope of restoring their national life in the one and only Jewish state.

Ladies and gentlemen, I continue to hope that President Abbas will be my partner in peace. I've worked hard to advance that peace. The day I came into office, I called for direct negotiations without preconditions. President Abbas didn't respond. I outlined a vision of peace of two states for two peoples. He still didn't respond. I removed hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints, to ease freedom of movement in the Palestinian areas; this facilitated a fantastic growth in the Palestinian economy. But again -- no response. I took the unprecedented step of freezing new buildings in the settlements for 10 months. No prime minister did that before, ever. (Scattered applause.) Once again -- you applaud, but there was no response. No response.

In the last few weeks, American officials have put forward ideas to restart peace talks. There were things in those ideas about borders that I didn't like. There were things there about the Jewish state that I'm sure the Palestinians didn't like.

But with all my reservations, I was willing to move forward on these American ideas.

President Abbas, why don't you join me? We have to stop negotiating about the negotiations. Let's just get on with it. Let's negotiate peace.

I spent years defending Israel on the battlefield. I spent decades defending Israel in the court of public opinion. President Abbas, you've dedicated your life to advancing the Palestinian cause. Must this conflict continue for generations, or will we enable our children and our grandchildren to speak in years ahead of how we found a way to end it? That's what we should aim for, and that's what I believe we can achieve.

In two and a half years, we met in Jerusalem only once, even though my door has always been open to you. If you wish, I'll come to Ramallah. Actually, I have a better suggestion. We've both just flown thousands of miles to New York. Now we're in the same city. We're in the same building. So let's meet here today in the United Nations. Who's there to stop us? What is there to stop us? If we genuinely want peace, what is there to stop us from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations?

And I suggest we talk openly and honestly. Let's listen to one another. Let's do as we say in the Middle East: Let's talk "doogri". That means straightforward. I'll tell you my needs and concerns. You'll tell me yours. And with God's help, we'll find the common ground of peace.

There's an old Arab saying that you cannot applaud with one hand. Well, the same is true of peace. I cannot make peace alone. I cannot make peace without you. President Abbas, I extend my hand -- the hand of Israel -- in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. We are both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your people call him Ibrahim. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land. Our destinies are intertwined. Let us realize the vision of Isaiah -- (speaks in Hebrew) -- "The people who walk in darkness will see a great light." Let that light be the light of peace.'

Good speech, isn't it? The truth has been told. So how do the BBC report it? Here's the section of the BBC News front page about the UN debate.

No link to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, presumably the BBC don't want the truth about the Middle East to pollute the minds of the people they have spent so long brainwashing to hate Israel and venerate the Palestinians.

maybe the BBC had no space on the front page, sure they would link to it on the Middle East news page...

Don't be ridiculous, but you will note that they are still reporting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's obscene claims about who was to blame for 9/11.

I will be complaining to the BBC about this censorship but I will wait until I have calmed down a bit.

UNWRA proud to support the aim of destroying Israel

From Palestinian Media Watch:

At the official launch of two German-funded UNRWA projects in southern Lebanon, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine."

The map includes both the Palestinian Authority areas as well as all of Israel. Above the map is the Palestinian flag and the inscription "Arab Palestine." The text at the bottom of the map also says "Palestine." The neighboring countries Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are all named on the map as is the Mediterranean Sea. Israel is not mentioned or designated anywhere. Several places and cities, both in Israel and from the Palestinian Authority, are included on the map of "Palestine": The Negev desert, Be'er Sheva, Rafah (Gaza), Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias and the Dead Sea.

The map was presented at the launch of an UNRWA project to improve the water supply network and rehabilitate shelters in the Rashidieh Camp, and was a gift from the "Palestinian Women's Union," the Palestinian news site pn-news.net reported.

There's more including an explanation of the significance of the pattern on that bag at Elder of Ziyon

Two Israel related stories/posts that might be of interest

Busy day today, so here's two articles that may be of interest:

1) An article in the Jerusalem Post that is as depressing as any I have read, outside of my blog. Here's something to ponder on:

'As for Pakistan, the US’s assassination of Osama bin Laden last month exposed the dirty secret of Pakistani military collaboration with al Qaida for all to see. This week’s arrest of five Pakistanis accused of acting as informants to the US in its bid to locate the al Qaida chief is further proof – if any was needed – that the $21 billion in military and economic assistance the US has showered on Pakistan since 2002 has bought it precious little in the way of strategic support or partnership from Islamabad. Recent reports indicate increased concern that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may eventually fall under the control of al Qaida sympathizers.'

The pasages about Iran and Yemen are no less depressing and the conclusion reached is this:

'What this means is that – as was the case in May 1967, when the combined Arab armies gathered with the express purpose of wiping the Jewish state off the map – today again, Israel is alone at its hour of greatest peril. All of the lesser threats now gathering from Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey will become insurmountable if Iran becomes a nuclear power.

As was the case in May 1967, Israel has arrived at a do-or-die moment. And we should all pray for the strength and courage of our leaders, our soldiers and our nation at this time.'

Israel won in 1967, I do not believe that she will do so again in 2011/12.


2) As Israel heads for extinction, David Isaac fears for the future of Christianity in a more and more Islamic Middle East. The Lebanon is used as an example and it is a very good sighter as to what is happening in the rest of the Middle East now. Here's a good summation:

'The Christian world did nothing for Lebanon’s Christians. It did nothing for Iraq’s Christians. It will do nothing for Egypt’s Christians. The reason, for the most part, is that the Christian world has stopped considering itself Christian, whereas the Muslim world has not stopped considering itself Muslim.'

And here is the conclusion:

'The Arabs never lost that feeling that they should rule by divine right. Indeed, in the midst of an Islamist resurgence they believe this more than ever. The Christian West, on the other hand, has replaced its Christianity with a toxic blend of multiculturalism, environmentalism and assorted politically correct pieties.

Given the imbalance, which side do you think will win?'

Lebanon

I have blogged before about the unfortunate country that is The Lebanon and the unwillingness of the rest of the world to look after its interests. In the past few days the Iranians, via their proxy army of Hezbollah (The Army of Allah), have started yet another attempt to take over The Lebanon. Of course since Israel is not involved, the coverage in the UK has been muted. Our media like to keep story lines simple for the "proles" who they must entertain and inform; the Middle East is therefore portrayed as a place whose peacefulness was disturbed by the unwelcome introduction of European Jews into Palestine when Israel was foisted on the area by the British and Americans. Compare the coverage given to this attempted takeover of a sovereign country by Iranian backed terrorists to that of the Israeli incursions to take on the same terrorists a few years ago. This sort of media bias makes me feel so angry and certainly more angry that I want to feel today.

Jimmy Carter does it again

Just when you think that Jimmy Carter must have said all the rubbish one man was capable of, he proves you wrong... World Net Daily report that:

"The Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist organization lacks missiles to "defend" itself from Israeli aircraft, former President Jimmy Carter claimed upon returning from a trip last week to Lebanon.

"The general showed us a graph of the many flights of Israeli planes over all parts of Lebanon, averaging about a dozen each day. Neither Hezbollah nor the Lebanese Armed Forces have any anti-aircraft weapons for defense," wrote Carter in a first-person report posted on his Carter Center website.

Carter was recounting how upon his trip to the region, Italian General Claudio Graziano, chief of the UNIFIL international forces deployed in southern Lebanon, brought him on a tour of the Israeli-Lebanese border.

"At one site near the border, two different Israeli tanks came about 70 yards from us to observe our group," Carter wrote, before claiming Hezbollah lacks anti-aircraft weapons for "defense" against Israeli over flights. "

Jimmy Carter never happier than when he is shilling for his Arab friends and trying his best to destroy Israel.

Hasan Nasrallah 1988 video: "Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic"

'Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic, governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi], and his rightful deputy, the Jurisprudent Ruler, Imam Khomeini," he said.'

More here http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/nasrallah-1988-video-lebanon-should-not.html

But not on the Hezbollah supporting BBC.

Life and death for one Ethopian servant in Lebanon

Al Jazeera reports that:

'An Ethiopian domestic worker in Lebanon who was filmed being physically abused in public has committed suicide, local media have reported.

The video, first aired by Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) last week, caused outrage by showing a man abusing Alem Dechasa as she cried on a street outside the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut.

The man was shown grabbing Dechasa and telling her, "get into the car" while she screamed out, "no, no, no". Another man then assisted in dragging Dechasa into the back of a car as she struggled to resist.

Asaminew Debelie Bonssa, Ethiopian general consul in Lebanon, told The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut that Dechasa committed suicide by hanging herself early on Wednesday morning at a psychiatric hospital where she had been taken after the incident.

Bonssa told The Daily Star that he had seen Dechasa on Saturday in the hospital and that she was making plans to return to Ethiopia.'

Reports of domestic worker abuse across many Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond are widespread, with many workers allegedly locked in employers’ homes. There is little doubt that many black African women are kept as little better than slaves by rich Muslims, where are the protests by Western human rights groups? .

News from The Lebanon

From Yahoo News "BEIRUT, Lebanon - A car bomb Friday killed one of Lebanon's top terrorism investigators who was probing assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures and a series of other attacks in recent years. Capt. Wissam Eid, 31, worked for the police intelligence agency which is closely tied to the Western-backed government and had survived two previous assassination attempts. The attack also killed his bodyguard and three passers-by and wounded 37 people, police said."


I wonder who might have wanted Captain Eid dead?

More from the Lebanon

I have blogged before about the Lebanon's troubles. It would seem that they are about to take another turn for the worse. "Lebanon is bracing itself for violence after the pro-Syrian president declared a state of emergency to stop power passing to rivals loyal to the prime minister. Just hours before his presidential term expired at midnight, President Emile Lahoud said he was handing power to the army to "preserve security all over the Lebanese territory"..Fears also spread that groups loyal to Syria, including the powerful and militant Shia group Hizbollah, may move to set up a parallel government."

How many more Lebanese must die before the world realises that Syria must be kept out of their neighbour?

Don't say that there was no warning

Israel National News reports that:

"Hizbullah’s commander in southern Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Kawuk, announced that the terrorist organization’s will renew its attacks on Israeli civilians once the ransom deal is done. “We will soon achieve a great victory due to the deal to release our prisoners in Israel,” he said,” and then we will reach a new level to free the Shebaa Farms....Hizbullah’s return to southern Lebanon is forbidden by international law under UN Security Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Lebanon War."

The renewed attacks will still be a surprise to the BBC as they just KNOW that Hizbullah will be faithful to any ceasefire.

Thursday afternoon catch-up

The usual story; too many open tabs and nowhere near enough time.

1) Are Hezbollah setting up a base in Cuba? Naharnet have the story:

'A U.S. Republican lawmaker has warned that Hizbullah could build "missile sites" in Cuba and pose a threat to the United States.

"Why would you normalize trade with a country that sponsors terror?" Rep. Michele Bachmann asked an audience of supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Monday, in response to a question about her position on trading with Cuba.

"There are reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hizbullah,” she said.

The Shiite party “is looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you are 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don't want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hizbullah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. This would be foolish," she added.

Bachmann was apparently referring to an unsourced report in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera earlier this month about how a handful of Hizbullah members have set up some sort of encampment in Cuba.

The report was never backed up in major publications but was picked up by conservative blogs like Glenn Beck's The Blaze and Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace.'

2) Has the Obama government armed Mexican drugs barons? pajamas media says that they have, that it is not accidental and that the Obama supporting media have deliberately ignored the story:

'Monday’s revelations by Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars and David Codrea at the Gun Rights Examiner, corroborated here at PJMedia and expounded upon at Fox News, comprise a “smoking gun” of the one of the most stunning political scandals in U.S. history.

As William Lajeunesse writes at Fox:

Not only did U.S. officials approve, allow and assist in the sale of more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa cartel — the federal government used taxpayer money to buy semi-automatic weapons, sold them to criminals and then watched as the guns disappeared.

I don’t wish to understate it: elements of the U.S. Departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, and Treasury are responsible for supplying an arsenal to narco-terrorists waging a civil war against an American ally. Our federal government may bear responsibility for at least 200 murders committed with “walked” firearms, in what Mexican Attorney General Marisela Morales describes as a “betrayal” of her country by the Obama administration.

...

But despite the revelations from of documents and testimony obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and repeated calls for full disclosure from senators and congressmen, mainstream media organizations have done everything in their power to bury the scandal. This can only be viewed as a partisan media’s attempt to protect a criminal executive branch.'

3) What really caused the Eurozone crisis? The Street Light Blog has an interesting quotation from Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, from his recent piece in the Financial Times:

Whatever role the markets have played in catalysing the sovereign debt crisis, it is an undisputable fact that excessive state spending has led to unsustainable levels of debt and deficits that now threaten our economic welfare.

4)  Are BBC employees more 'of the left' than 'of the right'? The BBC is meant not to be biased, indeed we are told that impartiality is in its genes. This old Conservative Home piece says otherwise:

'One of the great things about Facebook is that you can find the nichest of niche groups of like-minded people. It has an advertising package to match. You can, for example, upload an ad banner that will appear 10,000 times to female twenty-somethings who live in York and enjoy listening to jazz. This kind of micro-targeting has got to be the next stage of the Party's online advertising campaign. The advertising package has other uses...

BBC employees went Facebook mad earlier this year with 10,580 now having profiles on the social networking site. Many of them chose to specify their political views as either liberal, moderate or conservative (there isn't a socialist option available to the chagrin of many). An advanced search reveals that more than 11 times the number of BBC employees on Facebook list themselves as liberal than conservative:
BBC - 10,580
BBC liberals - 1,340
BBC moderates - 340
BBC conservatives - 120

Former BBC journalist Robin Aitken, who has still yet to be properly interviewed by any of his many former colleagues about his whistle-blowing on its institutional biases, said you couldn't make a cricket team out of the number of Tories at the corporation. He wasn't far wrong!

To show that these proportions don't merely reflect the fact that the student-dominated Facebook is full of young liberal trendies anyway, a search of the UK-wide Facebook population reveals a liberal to conservative ratio of just 2.5 to 1, that's four times less liberal than those on the BBC network:
UK -  6,407,580
UK liberals - 545,240
UK moderates - 251,320              
UK conservatives - 216,660
Narrowing it down to the London network where most BBC employees reside, the ratio is still just nigh of 3 to 1 at 147,340 to 51,760.'

5) Social engineering in education continues apace, as The Independent reports that:

'A controversial plan to rank all A-level students according to the schools they attend – which would allow universities to discriminate against pupils from private schools – is unveiled today by Britain's biggest exam board.

The plan by the exam board AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) provoked a storm of argument among academics and independent schools. There were immediate fears that candidates will be penalised simply because they achieve good A-level results at a good school. Independent schools are also alarmed that the approach could discriminate against disadvantaged pupils to whom they have offered scholarships.'

6) I dislike Marcus Brigstocke, well who doesn't, so I was pleased to see this New Statesman article from 2008 , here's the conclusion:

'All Brigstocke does is preach to the choir. He is the poster boy for an effete, obsolete, undergraduate, Meccano-set humour that can be snapped together in short order. Absolutely nobody, apart from BBC commissioning editors, thinks Brigstocke is funny. He is, in fact, the very opposite of funny. He is the new Jim Davidson.'

7) The Mail discovers that a convicted aider of would-be Islamic terrorists cannot be deported because of human rights legislation and as a result travels on the very tube trains, amongst the very people that he was convicted of trying to assist in the killing of. Richard Littlejohn  has his own take on the story.


8) Archbishop Cranmer ties together the fuss over Andy Coulson receiving severance pay after leaving News International and whilst being employed by the Conservative party with the lack of fuss over Chris Patten's  EU pension. The EU pension point is one that I have raised over and over again, most often with reference to Peter Mandelson. Here's part of the Archbishop's article:

'Robert Peston (BBC) broke the story (which some already knew) that Mr Coulson continued to receive money as part of a 'severance package'. His Grace has done a bit of fishing around on this, and such arrangements are not at all unusual under 'compromise agreements': the reasons may relate to taxation, or some clause to stagger payments to ensure the compromise conditions are met. So the issue appears to be that Mr Coulson was apparently serving two masters - in the words of John Prescott, he was a 'double agent being paid by the Tories & Murdoch'.

If that is the principal objection - or perception - how can Lord Patten simultaneously be Chairman of the BBC Trust and in receipt of an EU pension? He readily gave up jobs (with the Global Leadership Foundation, the International Crisis Group and Medical Aid to Palestine) which might have been perceived as a conflict of interests, but his EU pension of around £100,000 per annum continues to be paid.

Lord Patten's pension is conditional upon him doing nothing to harm the interests of the European Union. According to Article 213 of the Treaty establishing the European Community:

The Members of the Commission shall, in the general interest of the Community, be completely independent in the performance of their duties.

In the performance of these duties, they shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or from any other body. They shall refrain from any action incompatible with their duties. Each Member State undertakes to respect this principle and not to seek to influence the Members of the Commission in the performance of their tasks.

The Members of the Commission may not, during their term of office, engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not. When entering upon their duties they shall give a solemn undertaking that, both during and after their term of office, they will respect the obligations arising therefrom and in particular their duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments or benefits. In the event of any breach of these obligations, the Court of Justice may, on application by the Council or the Commission, rule that the Member concerned be, according to the circumstances, either compulsorily retired in accordance with Article 216 or deprived of his right to a pension or other benefits in its stead.

...

 

The BBC already manifests considerable pro-EU bias, but Lord Patten is perceptibly unable to address this lest he be accused of acting against the interests of the Union.

Now, Lord Patten may be an honorable man. But, as Lord Prescott has pointed out, there is the perception of a conflict - of being a 'double agent'.

Why, pray, is the media kicking up such a fuss over payments to Andy Coulson from 2007, but not batting an eyelid over the hundreds of thousands of pieces of silver still being paid to keep the state broadcaster in thrall to the EU?'

9) Why are Turkey kicking up such a fuss over Israel and also Cyprus? The answer is not just anti-Semitism, it is also Gas - lots of GAS. Eagle Speak has the full story:

'So, Turkey has been shaking the war stick at Israel, making big noise over the Israeli blockade of Gaza that last year resulted in the stopping of Turkish ship and the violence that followed. In addition, Turkey is most unhappy with the discovery of large amounts of natural gas beneath the waters off Israel and Cyprus.

...

For Cypriots who always had an Arab-envy, seeing their neighbors drawn in oil while they have to import every drop of it, has been frustrating if not intoxicating. Loren Steffy, the business columnist for the Houston Chronicle, reports: “Just as the Israeli discoveries may transform that country from an energy importer to an exporter, a similar find off the coast of Cyprus could turn the island nation into a major European energy hub”.

Terry Gerhart, the Vice President for international operations of Houston-based Noble Energy declares: “Cyprus could be on the verge of a natural gas revolution. Gas will strengthen the Cypriot economy for decades to come. Cyprus will become the Mediterranean’s energy hub”.

Well, maybe - both Cyprus and Israel are going to have some serious challenges - as noted here:

From Israel, there is good news and bad news.

The good news – and it is huge – is that Israel will soon be awash in natural gas. Gas discovered on the country's outer continental shelf will turn the country from being hydrocarbon-deprived to being a net exporter.

Indeed, Israel is set to become so rich that it is laying the groundwork for creating a sovereign wealth fund for overseas investments in order to protect the country from inflation and the shekel from getting too strong.

The bad news is that with Hezbollah poised to control Lebanon's government, Iran has de facto arrived on Israel's northern border. Even without an Iranian nuclear weapon, this is a grave deterioration in Israel's security.

Already Lebanon has asked the United Nations to guarantee that Israel does not violate the integrity of Lebanon's outer continental shelf, where Iran plans to help Lebanon drill for gas.

Geology is about to change the political geography of the world's most combustible neighborhood.

The two huge gas discoveries are in the Tamar and Leviathan fields. Taken together, the gas reserves are estimated at 26 trillion cubic feet or 10 times larger than Britain's North Sea discoveries.

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has drilled on land for oil and gas with very little success. While the Arab Gulf countries have found and produced massive quantities of oil and gas, Israel has scrounged in the international markets for its hydrocarbons, including coal.

Israel's isolation made this difficult and expensive. In recent years, it has bought gas from Egypt. But Egypt will lose its good customer.

Turkey, once Israel's only Moslem friend – until the botched seizure of a humanitarian ship bound for blockaded Gaza – will be affected too. There were plans for a pipeline that would carry gas from Azerbaijan across Turkey and undersea to Israel. That economic boost will no longer be going to Turkey, but instead will probably go to Greece and Greek Cyprus. There have been preliminary discussions between Israel and Greece about shipping gas through Greece, by an undersea pipeline or a liquefied natural gas train, as an entry point into Europe.

So now, we see new headlines Turkey rattles sabres over Cypriot natural gas drilling:

Prospects of an underwater natural gas bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean have sparked a fresh row between Turkey and the divided island of Cyprus that is also embroiling Greece and Israel.

The Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, warned last week that he was ready to send warships to the area, both to escort Turkish aid convoys to the Gaza Strip and to monitor Cypriot and Israeli energy projects.

How far Turkey is prepared to escalate tensions will become clearer in coming days.

A Texas-based company, Noble Energy, is due to launch exploratory drilling south of Cyprus soon on behalf of the Greek Cypriots, who represent the island internationally and in the European Union.

Asked about those plans, Egemen Bagis, Turkey's EU minister, warned this month: "It is for this [reason] that countries have warships. It is for this that we have equipment and train our navies."

In the past, Turkey has proved ready to back its positions in maritime disputes with military muscle.

Why is Turkey involved? Ah, the "Cyprus Problem!" '

Turkey invaded and occupied Northern Cyprus but that  gives them a foothold on the island and thus the chance to try and lay claim to Cyprus's gas finds...


10) Finally as the Eurozone gets closer and closer to the abyss, Stop Turkey has an interesting article:

'Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has called for a United States of Europe to be created with Turkey as a full member and Russia as an associate member.

We should "not dither any longer, but get serious with the European core," he said, pointing to the international competition of different world region: otherwise Europe and its nation states will "sink into insignificance" between Asia under Chinese leadership and a re-strengthened America. Schröder supports the goal of a United States of Europe that Ursula von der Leyen[a German politician] had brought up. "The Europe I imagine is more strongly integrated, supplemented with the membership of Turkey and an association with Russia."

Since leaving political office, Schröder has been involved in energy and pipeline projects that involve Russia and Turkey.

He also calls for a joint European finance minister:

"National sovereignty must be relinquished", referring to parliamentary budget rights.

"What the national parliaments give up must go to the European parliament as the highest authority." In addition, he imagines that a "special committee" of the EU parliament could be formed, "consisting of the members of the Euro zone and taking over this monitoring function".

"Great Britain creates the biggest problems." The country is not in the euro, "but the British still want to have a say in the design of the business area." That doesn't go together.'

The answer is always closer union and bringing Turkey into the EU will aid in the destruction of the Judeo-Christian identity of the EU.