Arab MKs: Bid to bar trips to enemy states is 'racist'

Haaretz Last update - 20:53 31/10/2007
By Shahar Ilan and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents

Israeli Arab lawmakers responded angrily Wednesday to proposed legislation that would prevent anyone who travels to a country classified as an enemy state from serving as a Knesset member. The Knesset plenum approved proposals for two bills on this issue in preliminary readings on Wednesday. The bills were drafted by right-wing MKs Zevulun Orlev of National Union-National Religious Party and Esterina Tartman of Yisrael Beiteinu.

MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) said that "the Knesset is steeped in racism. Corrupt members of Knesset want a Knesset without Arabs. The face of the Knesset is the face of Esterina: Knesseterina. If I am invited [to enemy states] I will go regardless of the law. I am sure that a person who violates an unjustified law, or whose conscience is not completely clear, and is willing to pay the price and be imprisoned in order to raise public awareness regarding the injustice in the law, then that person is showing his respect to the most supreme values." Talab A-Sana (Ra`am-Ta`al) said that "the bill is opposed to peace, the Arab public, and its representatives that are visiting Arab states. This is a dark bill that constitutes political persecution, and shows what a substandard level the Knesset has reached."

The bills were approved by a majority of 52 in favor and 19 who opposed. MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) maintained that the bill was racist. Hadash Chairman MK Mohammed Barakeh said that "If we have to choose between loyalty to our people, or serving in the Knesset, then good luck to the Knesset. We don't want you." During the hearing, Barakeh called out to other MKs, "choke along with the Knesset." MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) slammed Arab MKs in return, saying, "you believe in Syrian democracy."

Robert Fisk: Olmert undone by the militia he said he could destroy

The Independent Thursday, 3 May 2007
So it has come to this. All those bodies, all those photographs of dead children - more than 1,400 cadavers (we are not including the 230 or so Hizbollah fighters and the Israeli soldiers who died) - are to be commemorated with the possible resignation of an Israeli prime minister who knew, and who cared, many Israelis suspect, little about war. Yes, Hizbollah provoked last summer's folly by capturing two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese-Israel border, but Israel's response - so totally out of proportion to the sin - produced another debacle for the Israeli army and, presumably now, for its Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.
Looking back at this terrifying, futile war, with its grotesque ambitions to "destroy" the Iranian-supported Hizbollah militia, it is incredible Mr Olmert did not realise within days that his grandiose demands would founder. Insisting the two captured Israeli soldiers should be released and the militarily powerless Lebanese government should be held responsible for their capture was never going to produce political or military results favourable to Israel. One would have to add that Tzipi Livni's demand for the Prime Mnister's resignation sits oddly with her support for this preposterous war.
A close reading of the interim report of Judge Eliahou Winograd's report on the summer war - to which Mr Olmert himself only granted the title the "Second Lebanon War" a month after it had happened - shows clearly that it was the Israeli army which ran the military, strategic and political campaign. Again and again in Winograd's report it is clear that Mr Olmert and his Defence Minister failed to challenge "in a competent way" (in the commission's devastating phrase) the plans of the Israeli army.
Day after day, for 34 days after 12 July, the Israeli air force systematically destroyed the major infrastructure of Lebanon, repeatedly claiming it was trying to avoid civilian casualties while the world's press watched its aircraft blasting men, women and children to pieces in Lebanon. Israelis, too, were savagely killed in this war by Hizbollah's Iranian-provided missiles. But it only proved the Israeli army, famous in legend and song but not in reality, could not protect their own people. Hizbollah fighters were told by their own leadership that if they would just withstand the air attacks, they could bite the Israeli land forces when they invaded.
And bite they did. In the final 24 hours of the war, 30 Israeli soldiers were killed by Hizbollah fighters and their land offensive, so loudly trumpeted by Mr Olmert, came to an end. During the conflict, a Hizbollah missile almost sank an Israeli corvette - it burnt for 24 hours and was towed back to Haifa before it was able to sink - and struck Israel's top secret military air traffic control centre at Miron. The soldiers captured on the border were never returned - pictures of them, still alive, are flaunted across the border at Israeli troops to this day - and Hizbollah, far from being destroyed, remain as powerful as ever;
And so one of Washington's last "pro-American" cabinets in the Middle East is now threatened by the very militia which Mr Olmert claimed he could destroy.

Annan accuses Israel over attack on UN post

AP Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The UN secretary general Kofi Annan says an Israeli attack on a UN observation post was "apparently deliberate". Four unarmed military observers were killed in the air strike in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, spoke by phone to Mr Annan. Mr Olmert expressed his "deep regret" and said the peacekeepers were killed mistakenly. He expressed dismay over Mr Annan's accusation and promised a thorough investigation , saying the results would be presented to Mr Annan.
Mr Annan later called for participants at a Mideast conference to push for an immediate ceasefire to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.
Hizbollah must stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers". And Israel must put an end to all bombing, ground operations and blockades of Lebanese ports.
In a statement in Rome, Mr Annan said: "A key stipulation for such a halt in fighting would be that the parties must not, I repeat, must not take advantage of such a pause to conduct offense operations, redeploy or resupply." And he added that an international force will be vital to keeping peace.
Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, there had been several dozen incidents of firing close to UN peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine positions, some of them repeatedly, a UN official said.
As a result of these attacks, 12 UN personnel have been killed or injured, the official said.
Last night's bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as Unifil.
Four unarmed military observers were in a bunker and the bunker collapsed as a result of the bombing, the UN official said.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing " continued even during the rescue operation", Struger said.
Annan said two UN military observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, the UN official confirmed that a third body was recovered from the rubble.
The victims included observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said.
Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing said he was saddened by the news and that it showed "we should try harder to call on the parties to be restrained and to be calm and restore the peace process of the Middle East immediately".
China's official Xinhua News Agency identified the Chinese victim as Du Zhaoyu.
It was not immediately known which of the others were confirmed dead.
Annan said the "co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by prime minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."
Furthermore, he said, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout yesterday "stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack".
But Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post", calling the assertions "premature and erroneous".
He said Olmert's assurances to the secretary-general were "a clear indication" of Israel's commitment to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel.
As reports of the attack emerged, Annan rushed out of a hotel in Rome following a dinner with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon," Annan said in a statement later.
"I call on the government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop."
Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible".
The UN Security Council is expected to receive a briefing on the bombing today.
Since Israel launched a massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerillas on July 12, a Nigerian civilian employee working with Unifil and his wife had been killed in the crossfire in the southern port city of Tyre.
Five Unifil soldiers and one military observer had also been wounded, Struger said. They included four Ghanaians injured by artillery fire on Monday and a peacekeeper shot through the back on July 23.

Four UN observers die in Israeli air strike as heavy fighting continues in Lebanon

By Donald Macintyre in Avivim, northern Israel
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.
The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.
Milos Struger, the spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), the 28-year old-year old peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said rescue workers had to dig through the rubble but that Israeli fire " continued even during the rescue operation".
In Rome, where he had been discussing the 14-day-old conflict with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr Annan protested at what he called the "apparently deliberate targeting" by the Israel Defence Forces of the post and demanded a full investigation. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israel has long criticised Unifil for being "innefective" and not standing up to Hizbollah. Beside triggering a probable wave of international protest, the deaths of the four observers may complicate further the search for a ceaefire agreement under which a multinational force would take over control of the southern border areas of Lebanon.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, also warned that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could trigger "a hurricane" of broader fighting in the Middle East. Iran is a major backer of Hizbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel. In his comments, he referred to a proverb that says: " He who raises the wind will get a hurricane." He added: "That proverb fully relates to the Middle East, which is a very volatile region. And it will be a strong hurricane which will strike really hard."
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, facing popular anger over Israel's offensive, toughened their stance yesterday warning the US that Israeli militarism could lead to a wider conflict in the region.
Meanwhile, Da'aa Abbas, 15, became the fourth Arab Israeli to die in the conflict ­ killed in the Galilee village of Maghar as Hizbollah launched 90 to 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said Israel will enforce a " security zone" in southern Lebanon until such time as a multinational force moves in to control the Lebanese border area. The remarks by Mr Peretz appeared to set the seal on Israel's conversion to the idea of a Western-led international military deployment to keep Hizbollah guerrillas from threatening Israel, if and when the still slow-moving diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire succeed.
Beirut was heavily bombarded from the air yesterday after Israeli military aircraft killed six people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli troops sealed off the town of Bint Jbeil, 15 miles farther south, which it regards as a Hizbollah stronghold.
Ms Rice said yesterday, after meeting Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Israel that any Lebanon ceasefire would have to be " enduring" as well as urgent, and that the US was seeking a "new Middle East".
Ms Rice, who arrived in Rome last night to meet European and Arab leaders, supposedly to thrash out terms of a putative ceasefire, said there was " no desire" on the part of US officials to come back weeks or months after a ceasefire because, she implied, Hizbollah had again found a way to undermine it.
Her remarks came as Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs envoy, said he would be calling for a "ceasefire process" at the summit, and added that European countries would have to take part. " Without European, without some Europeans, the force will not exist," he said.
There have been suggestions in Israel that such a force, which it would prefer to be under the aegis of Nato, would require 20,000 troops ­ twice as many as the deployment being talked about in Western capitals. While Mr Solana did not say so, France has been seen as a potential contributor.
Mr Solana refrained from saying he would call for an "immediate ceasefire" ­ apparently out of deference to Britain, which has joined the US in refraining from such a demand.
Israeli officials have suggested that the US has informally given licence to Israel to maintain its assault in Lebanon until at least the beginning of next week.
The death of the Arab Israel girl came amid continuing indications from Israeli officers, and troops at the border, of the stiff resistance put up by Hizbollah to the tank and infantry incursions into southern Lebanon over the past few days. Heavy fighting around the village of Maroun ar-Ras cost the lives of seven Israeli soldiers at the end of last week.
Brigadier General Shuki Shachar, the deputy head of the Israeli Defence Forces northern command, said the army had taken the "high positions" around Beit Jbeil to pursue its operations against Hizbollah rather than occupying the town itself after persuading most of its 20,000 civilians to leave. He said the civilians would not be allowed back as long as Hizbollah threatened Israel. Major Eran Carraso, who served in Lebanon before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, said the effectiveness of Hizbollah forces had notably improved.
A 21-year-old tank commander who had just spent 80 hours in Lebanon and gave only his first name, Erez, said the operation had been very different from his service in the West Bank. But he insisted that Hizbollah fighters were "cowards" because they fired missiles and then went into hiding.
One of the more remarkable sights on the border yesterday was the return of a foot patrol with llamas, which the Israeli army recently decided were especially suitable beasts of burden for operations inside the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon.

The mounting toll
* Number of Lebanese people killed in the two-week conflict: 422, of whom 375 were civilians.
* A further 27 Hizbollah guerrillas have been killed and 20 Lebanese soldiers.
* Number of Israeli dead since the conflict began: 42, of whom 18 were civilians and 24 soldiers.
* Number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since the capture of Cpl Gilad Shalit: 121.
* Number of Israeli air strikes on Lebanon yesterday: 100.
* Hizbollah rockets fired yesterday: 80.
* The Israel Defence Force claimed yesterday to have hit 10 Hizbollah buildings.
* That adds up to an estimated $1bn ($600m) in damage to infrastructure.
* Number of Lebanese bridges destroyed: 105
* The number of Israeli bridges destroyed: 0.
* Number of Lebanese ports bombed: 3.
* Estimate of the number of Lebanese people displaced in the fighting: 750,000.
* Lebanon has 2,000 UN troops who have been in the south since 1978.
* The value of arms exported to Israel from the UK in the past 18 months: £25m.
* The number of Britons evacuated from Lebanon by yesterday evening: 2,526.
* Israel's military spending: $9.45bn (in 1995); Lebanon: $540

Robert Fisk: Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross on the roof of each ambulance

From Qlaya, Southern Lebanon
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006

The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.

It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.

And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?

The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.

This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.

In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.

In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.

According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'

Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.

The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.

Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.

The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.