Mideast crisis--Blog from Jerusalem
HAIFA, ISRAEL--What happened to Hezbollah? Despite earlier statements that it would oppose a foreign force in south Lebanon, Hezbollah accepted the deployment of an armed U.N. force in its midst. Despite earlier statements that it would continue to fight after the cease-fire began as long as Israel remained in south Lebanon, Hezbollah not only has not shot a single Katyusha since Israel began slowly pulling out; it did not react when Israeli soldiers shot and killed some of its armed men. Hezbollah even agreed that it would not let its fighters walk around with their guns showing.
Did Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the man who throughout the 35-day war showed strength, courage, and endurance in the face of an overwhelming power, get weak knees? Some Israeli commentators say Hezbollah is so weak it had to take a breather. Yet it appears Nasrallah was not running out of ammunition or able fighters. The day before the cease-fire went into effect, Hezbollah launched a record 250 Katyusha rockets on Israel in one day-almost double the war's daily average.
Maybe Nasrallah just doesn't need to fight anymore. Maybe, unlike Israel, he knows when to leave the battle in its zenith. He got a promise for a prisoner exchange and the return of Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms to Lebanon. Maybe he realizes that he has garnered enough success among his people (at least the Shiite ones) and in the Arab street and that any more pain caused to Lebanese by continuing the battle would be to his detriment.
As the Israelis say, "Lech basi"--Leave at the peak. Maybe now he can turn his successes inward and start demanding a fair share of resources and political clout for the Shiites of south Lebanon. Maybe he can leave the Katyushas and go into politics.
August 15
HAIFA-The war is over (for now) and the Arab and Israeli streets have determined the winner: Hezbollah. Now, not only does Israel have to develop new strategies toward unfriendly Arabs but so do Arab world leaders who have long called for conducting diplomacy with Israel.
The leaders of Arab nations such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia despise and fear Hezbollah's fundamentalist Islamic doctrines, which support an agenda of violent "resistance" to the Jewish state, and see the "Party of God" as a tool of Shiite-Muslim Iran.
But what can they do when across the Arab and Muslim world people are now hailing Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, as their hero, claiming that his use of violent "resistance"- not diplomacy - has proved to be the way to get results from Israel? The new United Nations brokered cease-fire calls for a prisoner exchange and the eventual transfer of the disputed, occupied Shebaa Farms from Israel to Lebanon-both of which have been Nasrallah's long-stated goals. (Following the 1967 Six Day War, the 10-square-mile Shebaa Farms area was recognized by the United Nations Security Council as part of the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Height, not part of Lebanon. Syria, though, has backed Hezbollah's claim that it remains Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory).
This outcome has ramifications across the region. "The approach of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia vis-à-vis Israel is that it is impossible to achieve goals through military means," explained an Arab diplomat, who asked not to be named. "So when their people think that it is easy to put pressure on Israel and embarrass Israel, it is not a good situation for those countries to be in."
To make things worse, the moderate Arab leaders-who previously criticized Nasrallah for sparking the war-have faced angry street demonstrations by citizens who spent the last five weeks sitting in front of TV sets watching dead and wounded Lebanese civilians being pulled from the rubble of Israeli-bombed buildings. In the Arab street, there are signs of public discontent with the failure of their leaders to back Nasrallah. "Arab majesties, excellencies, and highnesses, we spit on you," read one banner carried in a demonstration in Egypt.
The solution: Pay lip service to Hezbollah.
In a surprising statement, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Monday praised Hezbollah's perseverance. "They conducted themselves in a manner that showed their ability to resist and they fought with honor," said Aboul-Gheit in an interview with Reuters, adding,"but the result after all is a disaster for Lebanon."
About the Israeli military campaign he said: "It led to the difficulties that everybody is facing."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has faced daily demonstrations for not supporting Hezbollah, "will have to spend more time to convince people how weak [Egypt is], and remind them of what happened in 1967,"said the Arab diplomat referring to the devastating defeat Egypt incurred in the '67 war.
Indeed the government-backed Egyptian media has been doing just that for the past few weeks, showing clips of the '67 war on TV and discussing it in newspaper articles. "The goal," said the diplomat "is to tell the people that it's not in their interest to be brought into a war that they are not prepared for and not part of."
August 14
Jerusalem/Haifa—Hours after a United Nations-brokered cease-fire went into force Monday morning, stores opened their long-shut doors, traffic lights began operating, and thousands of Israelis in the north of Israel started to come out from the bomb shelters where they hid from Katyushas rockets for five difficult weeks.
The long-awaited cease-fire brought great hope to Israeli citizens and soldiers but also skepticism, and it opened the gates for the flood of criticism toward the Israeli government and military leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz have a lot of answering to do. The war between Hezbollah and the Israeli Army, which was sparked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12th, killed over 1,000 Lebanese, a third of whom were children, and 115 Israeli soldiers and 39 Israeli civilians. It forced over 700,000 Lebanese and 500,000 Israelis to abandon their homes for refuge.
Yet the Israeli soldiers are still missing and Hezbollah was not crushed. In fact, many Israelis still fear that Katyushas could come raining down. As Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist and commentator, said, "If a light-weight boxer is fighting a heavy-weight champion and is still standing in the 12th round, the victory is his—whatever the count of points says." Most Israelis, civilians and soldiers, sense that for the first time Israel has lost a war against the Arabs.
So, as the Hezbollah-Israel cease-fire began, the internal political cease-fire ended. Israeli politicians, who had kept their mouths closed and supported the government in the war, now began to open fire. Accusing shots coming from all directions called for an investigation into the war, which both left and right consider a failure. The political right accuses the leadership of waiting too long to attack on the ground and of failing to eliminate the Hezbollah threat. The political left condemns the government for getting involved in a war that it should have known it could not win and that would only cause more deaths than save lives.
The war, which at first brought both Olmert and Peretz higher public ratings, ended with calls for them to step down. An investigation into the failure to realize the war's two goals most likely will be made.
Across the north of the country, some Israelis in Haifa dared go out leisure shopping, while many others stayed indoors or underground, anxious that the cease-fire would not bring the peace they all hoped for.
Hanna Starkmann, the owner of Hotel Erna in Nahariya, remained in her empty hotel—where she lived throughout the war—many hours after the cease-fire began. "You can't know what they [Hezbollah] will do," she said. "Maybe they will breach the cease-fire. I waited 35 days to go outside: I can wait another half-day."
August 10
JERUSALEM--Even as the current war between Israel and Lebanon deepens the divide between Jews and Arabs, Israeli environmentalists are trying to save the Lebanese beaches.
Environmentalists tend to see the world without borders, knowing that polluted air in one country is likely to affect people across the border within a matter of time. They care for the whole environment and not the part only within their borders.
For that reason, Israeli environmentalists like Gideon Bromberg are deeply concerned about the oil slick off the Lebanon coast caused when Israeli jets bombed the Jiyyeh power station some 20 miles south of Beirut on July 13 and 15.
"There is a level of environmental solidarity for Lebanon also among environmentalists from Israel," Bromberg, the Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), a regional environmental organization, told U.S. News. "This is the largest oil spill ever in the eastern Mediterranean, and the implications are tremendous. We must act today in order to prevent long-term damage to the Mediterranean that will be felt for decades to come."
Bromberg has called on the Israeli defense and foreign ministries to guarantee the safety of volunteers who plan to clean the slick this weekend. FoEME has also called for an investigation into the bombing of the power plant.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Environment, the bombing caused some 30,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to spill into the sea and spread along the country's sandy beaches.
The oil is highly toxic and carcinogenic. It affects the hormone systems of all living beings and kills all marine life. Dead fish have already washed up along Lebanon's shores. Some fear the oil will kill off the endangered green turtles that bury their eggs on northern Lebanese beaches. The eggs start to hatch now and need to reach deep waters as fast as possible but have little hope of crossing the oil slick on the beach. Lebanese NGOs say that coastal fishery will be doomed for years to come, destroying the livelihood of fishermen. The blackened beaches will likely severely hurt the country's emerging tourism industry.
The roughly 60-mile-long oil slick now stretches to the Syrian port city of Tartus and threatens to reach Turkey, which is on high alert to stop it before it damages heavily tourist-visited beaches.
Cleaning up the spill is a job too big for Lebanese environmentalists, who were at a loss dealing with a 50-ton oil spill in 2003. They called for help from outside professionals.
This weekend, Lebanese environmentalists are reportedly scheduling a major cleanup of the Lebanese coast with materials brought in from Europe, and hundreds of volunteers are planning to gather at the beaches of Lebanon to start the cleanup.
But they fear becoming casualties of the war themselves.
"The constant Israeli air raids will make the operation very difficult, and an immediate cease-fire is needed if we want to save Lebanon and its environment," said a group of Lebanese NGOs in a recent press release.
FoEME hopes it can achieve at least a cessation of airstrikes and naval shellings along the coast.
"We want the military to coordinate the cleanup and allow it to take place with some measure of guarantee that volunteers that offer to clean up will not get bombed," said Bromberg, adding, "They never guarantee anything, but they are willing to coordinate."
A recent satellite photo of the disaster can be found here.
August 4
JERUSALEM-Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah promised Israelison Thursday that "if you bomb Beirut, we'll hit Tel- Aviv." Israelis don't like being threatened. It makes their blood boil. Especially coming from an enemy they consider inferior--militarily, morally, and culturally.
Nasrallah's words were followed within minutes by Israeli warplanes hitting targets in and around Beirut. The Israeli message was clear: You will not threaten us. But Israelis--citizens, military leaders, and government officials-- do take Nasrallah very seriously. They now listen closely to his speeches, which are translated into Hebrew on Israeli television. No wonder this morning Tel Aviv residents found a surprise in their mailboxes:a seven-page pamphlet titled "For every question an answer" published by the Army. It directs civilians on how to act if a long-range missile falls in the city, how to prepare the underground bomb shelter, and whom to speak with when feeling psychological stress, among other things.
One irony of this war is that Nasrallah is killing the very people he claims to support. He would like the Israeli state to cease to exist to enable Palestinians to rule the territory of Israel. But of the Israeli civilians killed by Hezbollah's Katyushas rockets, at least nine were Arab Israelis, also referred to as Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Besides being unfamiliar with the Lebanese terrain and under prepared for the guerrilla--warfare tactics of Hezbollah, young Israeli soldiers are facing another major challenge: getting by without their cell phones. After learning that Hezbollah has high-tech equipment for intercepting such conversations, Israeli soldiers were prohibited from bringing their personal phones into the battle zone. "This is very unusual and not easy for Israelis." said Maj. Gen. Miki Adelstein, commander of the Nahal Brigade.
August 2
HAIFA, ISRAEL--Israel, asserts Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has "changed the face of the Middle East." In a speech Tuesday, Olmert went on to imply that Israel had defeated Hezbollah and that the organization was no longer a threat to Israel--even as thousands of Israeli soldiers pressed their fight deeper into Lebanon.
A number of Arab leaders are hoping Olmert is right. Indeed, they think that the Israelis did not do the job fast enough. The leaders of so-called moderate Arab states--notably Sunni Muslim Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia--barely hid their disdain for Shiite Hezbollah, even as the Arab "street" instinctively rallied behind whomever would dare to take on the Jewish state. The Israelis, one Arab diplomat told me,"should have finished off Hezbollah in one or two days...Instead, this has dragged on for weeks, and our citizens are very angry. It's causing a lot of tension in the region."
For my part, I thought it would mean that I wouldn't have to worry about Katyusha rockets hitting me when I headed back up to northern Israel today to do interviews for a story for the magazine.
Lo and behold, I had just parked my car on a Haifa street when suddenly nearby sirens began wailing hysterically--sending their all-too-familiar message that a Katyusha might be on its way to this neighborhood.
I looked around somewhat frantically for a place to take cover, but the residential street was lined with homes and devoid of people. The sirens' wails rose as did my sense of helplessness until I saw a covered parking lot. I ran inside, trying not to trip in my high-heeled black-leather sandals and black below-the-knee skirt. A woman and her three children were rushing down stairs that led into a bomb shelter. (Fortunately for Israelis, most buildings have them.) I followed.
Within moments, the thumps began. The children counted. One, two. That was three. Four, five. Was that six? No, that was a door slamming. Their mother looked ready to burst into tears. With each thump, she pounded her chest.
I wondered, had Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and the manager of the Lebanese side of this conflict, not heard that Israel had won the war?
Indeed, I believe he did. And that's why he sent a record number of Katyushas Israel's way today. More than 225, each one carrying a message back to Olmert saying,'You did not win this war.'
Each side stakes its reputation on coming out of this conflict as a winner, not a loser. Neither can climb down the tall tree (although Olmert's statement was his first sign that he wanted the war to wind down), nor can they defeat each other.
For Arab leaders, this spells trouble. Countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia originally criticized Hezbollah for sparking the war with the capture of the Israeli soldiers on July 12. But as their outraged peoples take to the streets demonstrating against the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese civilians by the Israeli military, those countries' governmentsnot exactly democratically elected--are forced to take a tougher stance against the United States for its support of Israel in order not to cause a regional earthquake.
What worries them is that if Hezbollah exits the conflict as a winner,"it will give credit to many voices calling for armed resistance against Israel," said the Arab diplomat. "But if Hezbollah is totally crushed that will silence the voices that say destroying the Zionist state is feasible."
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, whose country is a major U.S. ally and has low-level ties with Israel, slammed Arab states for their support of the Israeli mission to dismantle Hezbollah. "I am surprised at the Arab agreement ... for Israel to end this issue and end the presence of Hezbollah in this region," he told Al-Jazeera television Tuesday, noting that some Arab states agreed that Israel complete its mission before a cease-fire.
The continuing war is particularly painful for the Jordanian and Egyptian governments, because they have diplomatic relations with Israel and encourage other states to do the same. "The Israelis have embarrassed us," the Arab diplomat told me. "We want this to end as soon as possible."
As I type, I hear Israeli fighter jets thundering overhead. I'm not sure if they are going to or coming from Lebanon. It doesn't sound as if the war is anywhere near over, but the "face of the Middle East" has definitely changed: It's much more ugly.
July 28
JERUSALEM--You can call it the 'Forgotten Front'.
A month ago today, the world watched without blinking as Israeli troops entered Gaza in an effort to retrieve a captured soldier and destroy Hamas's terror infrastructure used to build Kassam rockets, which were being lobbed on nearby Israeli cities. Then, two weeks ago, all eyes turned north toward Lebanon, where if things get out of hand they could snowball into a regional war.
But the fighting in the Gaza Strip did not stop. Israeli soldiers battling with Palestinian gunmen have occupied parts of northern and southern Gaza. On Wednesday, 22 Palestinians were killed, including three girls and 14 gunmen--more than on any other day since the fighting began in Gaza. Since the start of the military offensive, the Israeli military has conducted 202 air strikes and fired between 200 and 250 artillery shells into the strip every day. Palestinian militants have fired, on average, nine homemade rockets daily at Israel.
Of the 150 Palestinians that have been killed since the Israeli military incursion began in Gaza, approximately 31 of them have been reported to be children. About 100 families (703 people) in the southern Gaza Strip and 747 people from the northern Gaza Strip were forced to abandon their homes because of a rise in shelling by the Israeli Defense Forces. One soldier was killed in the initial invasion of the northern Gaza Strip.
The Egyptians have been trying hard to make a deal to get the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, freed. So far, they have failed to find an agreement acceptable to both sides. But Israeli military sources say that Hamas's military-wing (which is holding the soldier along with the Popular Resistance Committees) is more willing to compromise now because it can't hold the soldier forever in the strip without being discovered.
Meanwhile, both the Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza and the Palestinians suffering there are complaining. In an article in a local paper, Israeli soldiers said that despite all their work in reducing terror attacks on Israel, "we don't get any credit. Only the soldiers fighting Hezbollah do."
The Palestinians say that their situation is only getting worse and the international community is not paying much attention. After Israel bombed the Gaza power station, electricity is on for an average of only six to eight hours a day per house and water is running for two to three hours. "There is no fuel, little electricity, no energy at all. Things don't work and we have shortages," Abu Ziyad al-Ghol, a 61-year-old farmer and retired accountant from Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip told U.S. News. "I have 33 grandchildren and they are suffering very badly psychologically. They have lost their childhood."
July 27
JERUSALEM--Nine on Wednesday, two on Monday, five on Saturday, two last Thursday, and two last Wednesday. These are the numbers of Israeli soldiers killed in battle since Israel began its ground invasion.
One of the most highly trained and best-equipped armies in the world is sustaining what, for this small country, amounts to high casualties from a group of guerrilla fighters who number only a few thousand. And the Israeli Army has just begun its advance into southern Lebanon.
It should come as no surprise. Israeli recruits serve only three years in the Army. The young infantry officers who were killed serve four or five. They are trained and equipped, yes, but they have no experience conducting guerrilla warfare in the Lebanese terrain, fields, caves, and pastures. They have no experience fighting a groupthat has had six long years to quietly and intensively ready itself for this battle.
But Israel knew all along that Hezbollah was training. It has been warning for over a year that Hezbollah was planning to capture Israeli soldiers along the border. Some Israelis are starting to ask, why didn't Israeli forces prepare? The reason, I think, is arrogance. After winning so many wars against the Arabs as well as being an occupying power over the Palestinians, Israelis didn't believe that Arabs could actually surprise them.
But they have. "We have hit their military capabilities very hard," said a senior Israeli military official in a briefing this week. "They now have fewer rockets, launchers, and fighters. But they still continue."
Sitting at the head of a table wearing his military uniform, he hesitated for a moment before continuing. "I admire them," he said. "Their approach is totally combat-oriented."
On Thursday, a day after nine Israeli soldiers were killed, the security cabinet held an emergency meeting to discuss whether it would expand the ground invasion or just rely on aerial, naval, and artillery strikes on Hezbollah. It decided against bringing in more ground forces.
Israeli infantry soldiers are just not prepared for the fight. And neither are Israeli mothers. And right now, Israel needs all the internal support it can get as it sends its sons to war.
July 26
JERUSALEM--Israel wants an international force with teeth to sit in southern Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah from continuing to act as an independent army there. The Lebanese government wants the force to be under the command of the United Nations--which, for Israel, is a a nonstarter, given the history of the U.N.'s Interim Force in Lebanon. UNIFIL, the 1,990-person force that was deployed in 1978 to preserve the peace in southern Lebanon, is considered toothless by Israel. "It's only for looks," said a high-ranking Israeli military officer in a briefing with selected journalists in Tel Aviv.
Israel wants real men. Ones who will arrest Hezbollah fighters transporting weapons from Syria. Ones who will make raids on suspected Hezbollah headquarters in Shiite villages and cities. Ones who will open fire and kill an armed Hezbollah fighter going near the border with Israel, not just observe and take notes for reports to be sent on to officials. "What we want is something that is more like what they have in Afghanistan," said the officer.
Around 9,000 troops from 47 countries roam Afghanistan under NATO command with the goal of "assisting the government of Afghanistan and the international community in maintaining security within the country." (That does not include 19,000 U.S. troops trying to keep the country stable). In practice, the NATO role has turned into a combat role fighting the Taliban to ensure that the elected government stays in power and the country does not fall apart (or back to Taliban hands). Not only is there no foreseeable date for its withdrawal, but NATO also plans on almost doubling the force this year, since resistance has increased in the south.
So how would an international force fare in southern Lebanon? Without Hezbollah's agreement, would the force's very existence only encourage Hezbollah to "resist" a force seen as occupiers? Hezbollah's whole raison d'être is resistance.
Whatever force the world offers up, Israel will be the one to decide whether it will deploy or not. Israel is now slowly and painfully--but surely--fighting its way north through southern Lebanon. If it doesn't trust the international team to do the job it wants done, it won't pull out to let it come in.
July 24
JERUSALEM-Thirteen days into the Lebanese-Israeli conflict (or is it war?), the United States finally decided to do something about it. Or did it? U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice popped into Beirut for a surprise visit today and then over to Jerusalem before continuing to other parts of the world.
But is she just paying a courtesy visit, or is she working toward the cease-fire everyone in the world (except for the two parties actually engaged in shooting at each other) has called for?
The answer is likely to be found in her statement made en route from Washington to Beirut. She said the United States believes "a cease-fire is urgent"--but she added that the United States will work toward brokering a cease-fire only if it is "sustainable."
What makes a truce sustainable? A Lebanese source told Reuters that Rice said that Hezbollah must unconditionally return the two Israeli soldiers it captured and pull back from the border. It's not clear to me if she realizes that is not likely to happen and is saying it to gain more time or because she honestly doesn't understand how things work in the Arab world. Hezbollah would most likely kill the two soldiers rather than be forced to give them up without getting something in return and saving face. Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, of course, knows that and has called for a broad political deal that would include the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails and the Israeli withdrawal from the disputed speck of land known as Shebaa Farms so that he can convince Hezbollah that its goals have been achieved and it is no longer needed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah still claims Shebaa Farms for Lebanon, though the United Nations does not.
What is most likely is that Rice knows that her conditions are impossible and she is gaining time in order to help Israel create a situation on the ground that Israel and the United States believe will make a "sustainable truce" possible: i.e., cripple Hezbollah so that it can be replaced.
The Israeli generals want another seven to 10 days to "soften up" Hezbollah, to weaken the organization's military capabilities so that another force--international, NATO, Arab, or be what it may--can be put in southern Lebanon to prevent future attacks on Israel. Yes, they said that last week, but Hezbollah is putting up a strong resistance.
Who exactly would be in that force is the $10,000 question. NATO is spread thin around the world. The Arabs would not want to do it; they would not want to be seen defending Israel from what many Arabs perceive as a legitimate resistance movement.
Whether an international force would be able to overpower even a considerably weakened Hezbollah is the $100,000 question. The answer? Hmmm, not for long. Hezbollah will very likely have many more young volunteers join its ranks in the future as a reaction to what they and their families suffered from Israel's military attacks targeting their villages and neighborhoods. Moreover, if Syria does not get some quid pro quo, it won't have an incentive to stop the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah from Iran.
So the $1 million question remains: Is there anything that Hezbollah would find acceptable to give up its arms and go totally political? I cannot answer that question. But some say that changing the Lebanese democracy to "one man, one vote" (and ending the current voting system allocating power according to religious sect) would do it. But that would most likely mean that Hezbollah would become the ruling power of Muslim-majority Lebanon. And that is not exactly what Rice and President George Bush had in mind when they called for democracy in the Middle East.
July 21
JERUSALEM — Israel knows it cannot wipe out Hezbollah, but it does plan to change the military situation on the ground by weakening the militant organization through aerial attacks and by creating a buffer zone extending a half mile into Lebanese territory. The buffer zone will be cleared of everything, "even trees," a security official told me. When I asked him what would happen to any villages that may be in this area, he answered, "Everything will be flattened."
Knowing that it's only a matter of time until a diplomatic solution is reached, the Israeli Army is working fast to try to eliminate as many rocket launchers as it can inside of Lebanon through aerial and naval strikes. Both Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the military brass want to avoid a massive ground invasion, which would cost many soldiers' lives. Remember that in the first hours after two soldiers were captured and eight were killed, the Army sent in a tank to chase the captors. The tank did not get far inside Lebanon before it drove over a road mine, killing four Israeli soldiers. It took two days before the military could retrieve the bodies, as Hezbollah fighters fired on anyone who came near.
Israeli officials know that they can't prevent Hezbollah from firing on Israel except through an agreement, but they also want to prevent Hezbollah from crossing the international border and capturing soldiers in the future. The solution, the generals concluded, is to create a buffer zone in Lebanon a half-mile deep that is "clean of Hezbollah." In other words, a cleared area in which Hezbollah would be unable to re-establish guerrilla posts along the border. Israel would not have to physically occupy the zone with military installations, since it would be able to keep it clear through artillery power from the Israeli side of the border and through air power.
To create the buffer zone, the Israeli Army is moving in special forces to clear the area of mines before bringing in bulldozers, which will "flatten the area and remove any sign of a Hezbollah outpost and even trees so that Hezbollah can't enter again," said an official. On Wednesday, Israeli special forces with mine-sniffing German shepherds crossed into Lebanon to look for road mines before the bulldozers come in to destroy buildings and take down trees. Fighting broke out between the Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.
The security official said the operation "would only take a few days if no one gets in the way, but it won't take a few days because there are people there" who will resist, referring to Hezbollah fighters. He added that Israel has no intention of setting up permanent Israeli military infrastructure inside the zone, as Israel did in the 1980s. That infrastructure was dismantled when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
July 19
JERUSALEM — I got a press release yesterday from AHAVA (a Hebrew acronym for 'People for Saving Animals in the Middle East'). The Kiryat Tivon-based organization knows no borders. Not only are its volunteers distributing dishes of water and food around the streets of the north of Israel for thirsty cats that were left behind by their families who did not expect to be gone so long. Now, they are trying to save dogs in Beirut and cows in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon.
"We got a call from someone in Germany who told us that the owner of a kennel in Beirut is abandoning the city and leaving the dogs behind," said Tamara More, the voluntary CEO of the organization. "We're trying to find a way to evacuate the animals."
Unfortunately, fear of Hezbollah is preventing the rescue operation from taking place. "We told him we'd send a boat to the coast of Beirut," More told me, sounding somewhat harried over the phone. "But the man said he was afraid Hezbollah would kill him if they saw him transferring them [to Israelis]."
While people across northern Israel, southern Lebanon, and Beirut leave their homes for other parts of their country to save their own lives, many are concerned about the animals they left behind during the sweltering heat of a Middle Eastern summer. In Safed, a town in northern Israel that has been hit by Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, families who are now staying in underground bunkers called the local police station from their cellular phones to ask the policemen to go to their homes and feed their pets. The policemen agreed.
In Haifa, the streets are practically empty. Most of the city's residents are staying in their homes or bunkers. But the employees of the Haifa Educational Zoo continue to go to work to feed the animals, which are now being kept around the clock in their cement sleeping quarters in order to prevent possible injuries from falling rockets.
"We play with them and try to keep them calm," said Etty Ararat, the zoo's director. "But, the baboons are going stir-crazy. They look at us like they are asking 'What is going on?'"
Many Israelis who raise livestock refuse to leave their homes, praying the Katyusha rockets won't fall on them. "We have 150 calves," said Geula Feldinger, a tough mother of four from Sde Yaakov, an Israeli farming community. "One of our neighbors has a dairy farm and another has a chicken coop. No one is leaving. If we do, our animals will die."
In south Lebanon's villages, farmers don't have much choice. The Israeli military has called for them to leave their homes in order not to be injured by the attacks on Hezbollah targets. AHAVA is now asking the Army not to bomb pastures, stables, and dairy farms. "We are very worried; their situation is difficult," More told me.
AHAVA, which has done many cross-border rescues in the past, plans to coordinate with the Israeli Army the transfer of Lebanese animals across the border. "The animals are not terrorists," said the overworked volunteer. "If people will be willing to come to the border to pass their animals to us, we will take them—even the injured ones—and return them whenever they want."
July 18
Jerusalem — Attempting to deny Hezbollah any information useful for better aiming at targets, Israeli authorities have instructed the media not to identify the exact locations where the Katyusha rockets fall.
But driven by competition, ratings, and the Israeli public's appetite for information, TV networks and newspaper photographers are racing to the site of the latest hit. Israel's military censor is aware of the problem. "We are flexible," said Yehezkel, a worker at the censorship headquarters who declined to give his full name.
Part of the reason is that the censors have to be. "If it happened on a city street where people were killed, it's impossible to stop [the media]," Yehezkel told me.
Indeed, Amir Bar Shalom, chief military correspondent for Israel's Channel 1 television, said he got the instructions from the censor, "but I do what I want." Still, he told me, "I don't want to help Hezbollah."
So he's careful. "I show the site where Katyushas fell, I just don't show the long shot."
And he's never had a problem.
Crews for the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera have.
Israeli police have detained crews of the Qatari-owned network four times in the last two days, taking them three times to a police station and holding them for a few hours. "Then they apologize and let us go," said Al-Jazeera's bureau chief, Walid al-Omary. "They didn't ask anything, they didn't take any equipment. Nothing."
On one occasion, the Al-Jazeera crew members were filming at a point in Haifa where many TV networks line up with their cameras, including the Associated Press, Reuters, Fox News, and the Israeli channels. "The police walked over to us, asked us who we were and told us we had to go with them," al-Omary told me. Another couple of hours at the police station followed. (Al-Jazeera's crew members are all Palestinian citizens of Israel with the exception of one, a Jerusalemite, who carries an Israeli ID.)
It didn't get better. On Tuesday night, al-Omary was taken alone to the police station for six hours of questioning, he said. "They said there were claims that our broadcasts are helping Hezbollah," he said. "That's ridiculous. My work doesn't help Hezbollah. What about the Israeli stations that even name the address of the house [that was hit]? I want them to tell me, what are we broadcasting which is different from the others?" Al-Omary asserted that his network is being harassed for its coverage and because "it's easy to bother the Arabs."
I called Miki Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police. "[Al-Omary] has the right to say what he wants," he said. The issue is under investigation, he added. Channel 1's Bar Shalom said he did not know the details about the detention of Al-Jazeera's crews, but what's certain, he said, is that "the [authorities] suspect them immediately. They never suspect me."
July 17, 2006
Jerusalem—When Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed seven others in a July 12 cross-border raid, sparking an aggressive Israeli military reaction on Lebanon, a Jordanian friend of mine changed his MSN messenger user name to "F*** Hezbollah."
It stayed like that for three days as Israel pounded the southern neighborhoods of the Lebanese capital and the southern part of the country, where many supporters of Hezbollah live. Hezbollah volleyed Katyusha rockets and longer-range missiles on Israeli villages and towns. "Hezbollah f***ed up big time," he wrote me later, calling the group "pawns in the hands of the Syrians and the Iranians."
Indeed, he was not the only Arab who felt that way. Despite strong criticism of Israel's military operation in Lebanon, many Arabs—from the man in the street to the man on the throne—blamed the Syrian and Iranian-backed Shiite militia for starting the dangerous back-and-forth conflict.
A Bahraini blogger, known for speaking his mind at 'Mahmoud's Den', ridiculed the Lebanese government: " Sorry, how many armies do you actually have, Lebanon?" he wrote Sunday. "Make up your effing mind and either amalgamate all of these "resistance fighters" under your army's banner or disband them. You are a sovereign nation, right? So what the hell are you doing allowing "resistance fighters" to "defend" the South? Isn't that your army's job?"
Some Lebanese criticize their compatriots. Sami Hermez, a Lebanese academic doing research in Ramallah, tried desperately to call his family when the conflict began. Writing on electronicintifada.net, he said that Lebanese are angry at Hezbollah, which claims to be a resistance movement defending Lebanon. "Lebanon was doing just fine before Hezbollah decided to act," screamed his mother, when he was finally able to get through to her on her cell phone.
Arab and Muslim leaders often try to maintain a single stance in regards to Israel. But Hezbollah's act last Wednesday created a crack. Saudi Arabia, for one, lashed out at Hezbollah last Thursday, calling its attack inside the Israeli border "irresponsible adventurism ... that risk[s] putting in danger all the Arab countries and their achievements before these countries have said a word." Egypt and Jordan also expressed implicit criticism of Hezbollah, which gets its backing from Iran and Syria.
But the crack soon revealed itself to be a gorge. Instead of agreeing on a joint statement against Israel, the representatives of unlikely countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, joined the Egyptians, Jordanians and Saudis against the Lebanese and Syrian foreign ministers in criticizing Hezbollah's actions at an emergency session of the Arab League on Saturday. According to the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, the Kuwaiti foreign minister suggested throwing a glass of water on the Syrian foreign minister "to wake him up."
A few Arab newspaper editors have also dared to blame Hezbollah. "I do not see any reason why the Israeli soldiers have been abducted, in Gaza or in Lebanon," Mohammed Galadari, editor-in-chief of The Khaleej Times, an English-language daily published in Dubai, wrote in his Saturday column.
But as the Israeli military operation continues and the number of killed Lebanese civilians rises complete with ghastly pictures on Arab TV, even those who fault Hezbollah for starting the dangerous back-and-forth lobbying of missiles and rockets are turning their criticism towards their usual foe, Israel.
Yesterday, my Jordanian friend changed his MSN Messenger name again. Now it reads: "F*** Hezbollah and Israel. Long Live Lebanon."
Halpern is a freelance journalist in Jerusalem.