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Israeli airstrike bombs refugee shelter; Between 20 to 65 feared dead. Details soon.

It seems that Aussie Tony is facing a full scale rebellion by his own front bench over the crisis in Lebanon. Jack Straw, Tony's former Foreign Secretary and now Leader of the Commons, has issued a statement in which he said that while he grieved for innocent Israelis killed by Hezbulla rockets, he also mourned the "10 times as many innocent Lebanese men, women and children killed by Israeli fire", and warned that Israel's over zealous actions "risked destabilizing the whole of Lebanon".

Prior to Blair's meeting with Bush over the crisis, one minister after another called on Blair to distance himself from Bush's stand on Israel, and called on him to publicly criticize Israel for scale of death and destruction in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. According to one Minister, not one of Aussie Tony's front benchers offered him any support on this issue.

Foreign Minister Kim Howels issued a statement saying that is was "very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics used by Israel", going on to state, "One of the many serious worries I have is that a continuation of such tactics by Israel could destabilise the already fragile Lebanese nation."

Even Blair's closest confidants have urged him to "place distance" between himself and Bush on this issue.

Cabinet in open revolt over Blair's Israel policy 

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men. That has to stop. There has been too much suffering in Lebanon, in northern Israel and in Gaza -- which is becoming the forgotten conflict in the Middle East."

 From correspondents in United Nations

July 29, 2006
 
The UN has called for a 72-hour truce in the Middle East

UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland has made an urgent appeal for a 72-hour truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow casualties to be removed and food and medicine to be sent into the war zone.

Mr Egeland said he had proposed the truce to the UN Security Council overnight and would approach Israel and the Lebanese group, Hezbollah, to agree to the humanitarian cessation of hostilities.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has made repeated calls for a permanent cessation of hostilities and moves toward a full ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. This has so far been rejected.

Mr Egeland said: "I will again go back to the parties, to the Israelis, to the Lebanese, and ask for at least a 72 hour start of this cessation of hostilities so that we can evacuate the wounded, evacuate children, the elderly, the disabled from the crossfire in southern Lebanon."

He said hospitals and clinics would be resupplied and "emergency medical assistance" would be given to the wounded and food delivered to the tens of thousands of displaced.

Mr Egeland has just returned from a mission to Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The conflict, which erupted July 12, has left more than 600 dead in Lebanon alone, according to Mr Egeland, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in south Lebanon.

Mr Egeland said that at least one third of the casualties were children and that the overall toll would rise because many bodies were buried under rubble in isolated villages.

"The truce would be a period in which we can get generalised access to the people and that those who want to escape can escape in safety," Mr Egeland said, estimating that many thousands of people still wanted to get out of the conflict zone.

Mr Egeland said he also wanted to set up a communications link to the isolated villages "where we have basically lost contact due to the fighting and due to the destruction of roads and bridges."

The UN coordinator said the humanitarian crisis in the region was "dramatic" though relief efforts are being stepped up despite some reports of humanitarian convoys being attacked.

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men. That has to stop. There has been too much suffering in Lebanon, in northern Israel and in Gaza -- which is becoming the forgotten conflict in the Middle East."

At least 145 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have died since Israel launched a massive offensive in late June to recover a soldier captured by Gaza militants and halt rocket fire from the coastal strip.

Mr Egeland said UN agencies and other groups had the capability to send 20,000 tonnes of supplies into Lebanon over the next month but that there must be a halt to the fighting.

He said the United Nations had raised $US15 million ($19.5 million) of the $US150 million ($10.5 million) it needs for operations in Lebanon. He added that he had no plans to return to the region straight away.

Published by Antony Loewenstein July 29th, 2006 in Israel

Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 27:

Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?

From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a “terrorist centre”.

To my left smoke rises too, over the town of Khiam, where a smashed United Nations outpost remains the only memorial to the four UN soldiers - most of them decapitated by an American-made missile on Tuesday - killed by the Israeli air force.

Indian soldiers of the UN army in southern Lebanon, visibly moved by the horror of bringing their Canadian, Fijian, Chinese and Austrian comrades back in at least 20 pieces from the clearly marked UN post next to Khiam prison, left their remains at Marjayoun hospital yesterday.

In past years, I have spent hours with their comrades in this UN position, which is clearly marked in white and blue paint, with the UN’s pale blue flag opposite the Israeli frontier. Their duty was to report on all they saw: the ruthless Hizbollah missile fire out of Khiam and the brutal Israeli response against the civilians of Lebanon.

Is this why they had to die, after being targeted by the Israelis for eight hours, their officers pleading to the Israeli Defence Forces that they cease fire? An American-made Israeli helicopter saw to that.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Prime Minister displays a modicum of independence on Israel’s war in Lebanon and he’s labelled an “anti-Semite” by the Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean (heading a party on the road to irrelevance). “We don’t need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah”, he said.

What an ungrateful little puppet. 

 
Howard asks Israel to keep Australians safe Prime Minister John Howard has urged his Israeli counterpart to keep in mind the safety of Australian citizens in southern Lebanon.

The moves comes as the Jewish state calls up 15,000 reservists, amid widening divisions on how to solve the crisis in the war-torn region.

Mr Howard had a 20-minute telephone conversation last night with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He says Mr Olmert called him to express his thanks for Australia's diplomatic support.

27 July 2006

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH LIAM BARTLETT
RADIO 6PR, PERTH

BARTLETT:

But what about the other end, what about the other end, what about any chance of any sort of regulation?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well you mean price control?

BARTLETT:

Well I mean it's biting into the back pocket of virtually every Australian.

‘Unfortunately, politics has replaced justice in the case of David Hicks.

David has been detained for four and a half years without trial, and has been in isolation for the past four months. He sits in a concrete room for 23 hours a day. He is allowed one book per week and one hour outside his cell for exercise in what best could be described as a large dog kennel, and to shower.

I will visit him shortly to see if there is any improvement in his living conditions since the recent announcement that part of the Geneva Conventions will apply to David. We have tried in the past to get David working on his high school certificate which is something that David has put his heart into. The conditions that he is kept in make this difficult to accomplish.

18th century: The German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn initiates a Jewish secularism, which focused on Jewish national identity.

1862: The German Jew Moses Hess publishes the book Rome and Jerusalem where he called for a return of Jews to Palestine. He also said that Jews would never succeed by assimilating into European societies.

1881: Pogroms of Russia result in heavy emigration to USA. Some few Jews even emigrate to Palestine, as they are motivated by religious ideas of Palestine as Jewish homeland.

From What Does It Mean

July 27, 2006

US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers

Russian Military Analysts are reporting today that the United States Military Leaders have issued an order to their propaganda media outlets to immediately cease reporting on American Troop Movements, and which these reports state are ‘massive’.

This latest American move is in apparent response to the expansion of the present Middle East war, and which many are calling World War III, with Syria having issued an ‘ultimatum’ to the United States and Israel to an immediate halt to the fighting and an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and which neither action the Americans or Israelis are likely to heed.

In response to both American and Israeli failing to heed this ultimatum "Syrian President Bashar Assad has placed the military on alert and ordered Syrian infantry commandos, armored units and anti-aircraft batteries to launch preparations for an Israeli strike" , and as reported by the Middle Eastern Online News Service today.

International talks aimed at averting a much wider war have also failed in Rome today as President Putin has likewise ordered Russia’s Military to its highest alert status in 5 years as many Kremlin Analysts predict that the Untied States and Israel are indeed intent upon the remaking of the entire Middle East through their combined war efforts.

Iranian Military Forces are likewise on their highest alert status as attacks upon them are also expected and to which the American President, fearing an expected attack upon US Forces operating in Shiite controlled areas of Iraq, has ordered them to the Sunni controlled areas around Baghdad, and which is currently embroiled in its worst violence since the outset of this war.

In an attempt by the United States to keep Russian Military forces from entering a larger Middle East War, the American backed puppet regime in Georgia has launched a sudden attack upon Abkhazia putting their US Backed Forces in direct conflict with Russian Peacekeepers.

The United States has likewise sought to neutralize Egyptian Military Forces from entering this conflict by allowing their puppet regime in Ethiopia to invade Somali in an attempt to destabilize the entire Horn of Africa region, and which has apparently succeeded in Egypt’s President-For-Life Mubarak, and another puppet regime supported by the US, announcing today his nations intent not to become involved in this present conflict.

As the World today drifts ever closer towards the abyss of Total War, the American people themselves are not being allowed to know of these serious escalation maneuvers by their Military Leaders.  But upon this wider war being started, and the shutting off to the American people of oil from the Middle East, Venezuela and Russia they will soon know the utter folly of this most dangerous path they have allowed themselves to be led upon.

US Orders Media Blackout On Troop Movements As Syria Prepares To Attack Israeli Forces

When U.S. musicians the Dixie Chicks caused a furore by apologising for coming from the same state as George Bush, the groundswell of public support for them suprised record companies and politicians alike.  To be "Dixie Chicked" became a political euphemism for not underestimating the public's support for an alternative point of view to that proposed by a regime.

Audiences rallied behind the band as a way of protesting their government's military activities, and anti-war activists world wide were given fresh faith in people's desire to live in peace.

Reading today that group is  coming to Adelaide has given me an idea.   Let's apologise to them for electing John Howard to support their warmonger of a leader.   The message would be heard loud and clear.

Sometimes music can unite people in a way that nothing else can... even Country and Western.

Rudd gifts Howard a goat .....

Prime Minister John Howard has been given a goat for his 67th birthday today.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says the goat will go to help people in Sudan as a "gift-in-kind" through an aid organisation.

He says while he was in Sudan recently he was told people needed either goats or donkeys.