[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, July 25, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
July 25, 2006

In this issue:
1) Peace groups call Congress in support of Kucinich Immediate
Ceasefire Resolution
2) Israeli Cluster Munitions Hit Civilians in Lebanon - Human Rights Watch
3) Top Iraqi's White House Visit Shows Gaps With U.S.
4) UFPJ Seeks Meeting with Iraqi PM
5) U.S. and NATO Balk on Troops for Lebanon Force
6) It's Disproportionate. . .
7) The road to peace runs through Shaba Farms
8) Stop Now, Immediately
9) Bombings Hit Children Hardest
10) ADC Files Lawsuit Against Secretaries of State and Defense for
Failure to Protect US Citizens in Lebanon
11) Israeli civil rights group challenges Halutz
12) Hezbollah a tough foe for Israeli military
13) Nasrallah's Game
14) Lebanese Red Cross ambulances suffer new security incidents
15) Why is Bill Clinton in Connecticut?
16) Voice For Peace: Who Speaks for Us? - Tikkun
17) Fighting Could Harden World's Iran Stance

Summary:
Today is a national call-in day in support of the Kucinich Immediate
Ceasefire Resolution. Jewish Voice for Peace, the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee, Progressive Democrats of America,
United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, the American Friends
Service Committee and other peace organizations are asking folks call
their representatives in Congress and ask them to cosponsor and
support the Kucinich resolution. The Congressional switchboard is
202-225-3121, ask to be connected to your representative's office.
Info on your representative, including local phone numbers, can be
found at www.house.gov.

Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas
of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. Researchers confirmed
that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19
killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven
children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster
munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the
Israel-Lebanon border. "Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate
and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be used
in populated areas."

When Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki visits the White House today,
he is expected to make requests that clash sharply with President
Bush's foreign policy, the New York Times reports, signaling a
widening gap between the Iraqis and the Americans on crucial issues.
The requests will include asking President Bush to allow American-led
troops in Iraq to be tried under Iraqi law, and to call for a halt to
Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The growing differences between Iraqi and
American policies reflect an increasing disenchantment with American
power among politicians and ordinary Iraqis. Another thorny subject is
amnesty for Iraqi insurgents. He has to balance demands by some Iraqi
leaders to give amnesty to insurgents who have attacked American
troops, with fervent opposition from American politicians to any such
policy.

United for Peace and Justice has sent a letter to the Iraqi Prime
Minister requesting a meeting with representatives of the U.S. peace
movement when Al-Maliki visits New York on Thursday to discuss
cooperation in removing U.S. troops from Iraq. The letter notes that a
majority of Iraqis and Americans both support a timetable for US
withdrawal.
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3334

Support has built quickly for an international military force to be
placed in southern Lebanon, the New York Times reports, but the
question is where will the troops come from. "All the politicians are
saying, 'Great, great' to the idea of a force, but no one is saying
whose soldiers will be on the ground," said one senior European
official. "Everyone will volunteer to be in charge of the logistics in
Cyprus." There has been strong verbal support in public, but private
concerns that soldiers would be seen as allied to Israel and would
have to fight Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel wants such a force to keep
Hezbollah away from the border, allow the Lebanese government and army
to take control over all of its territory, and monitor Lebanon's
borders to ensure that Hezbollah is not resupplied with weapons. The
Europeans envision a much less robust international buffer force, one
that would follow a cease-fire and operate with the consent of the
Lebanese government in southern Lebanon.

Bush's endorsement of the violence that Israel is inflicting on
Lebanon -- a sustained bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of
civilians and can only be seen as collective punishment -- is truly
astonishing, Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post. Of course
Israel has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah's rocket
attacks. But how can this utterly disproportionate, seemingly
indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive? Destroying
the Beirut airport, blasting communications towers into oblivion and
cleansing southern Lebanon of its civilian population are not measures
the world will see as an attack on Hezbollah terrorists.

On Saturday Lebanon's Energy Minister Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah
representative, announced that once the IDF withdrew from the Shaba
Farms area, Hezbollah's role as a "liberating" army would be over, and
it would stick to a purely a defensive role, reports Zvi Bar'el in the
Israeli daily Haaretz. This is a very significant statement, Bar'el
says, because it begins to define the conditions for Hezbollah's
disarmament. The government of Lebanon, Hezbollah, the United States,
France and the United Nations have all realized now that the key to
achieving a long-term and sustainable cease-fire by means of the
deployment of the Lebanese Army in the south lies in a resolution to
the Shaba Farms dispute. Syria and Lebanon claim that the strip along
the Israel-Lebanon border is part of Lebanon and therefore Israel's
withdrawal from Lebanon was never complete; but Israel and the United
States have claimed that it is Syrian territory.

This war must be stopped now and immediately, Gideon Levy wrote
yesterday in Haaretz. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking
a toll in blood that gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is
a good time to stop the war because both sides can claim they won:
Israel harmed Hezbollah and Hezbollah harmed Israel. History shows
that no situation is better for reaching an arrangement. A decisive
victory is not in the offing. On the other hand, the price is
skyrocketing. Not only in the streets of the Arab world is more and
more hatred being sown, but also in the West. Not only hundreds of
thousands of Lebanese but tens of thousands of Westerners fleeing from
Lebanon are contributing to the depiction of Israel as a violent,
crude and destructive state. Millions of TV viewers in the West see
the images of destruction and devastation, most of which are not shown
to Israeli audiences.

55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University
Hospital are children of 15 years of age or less, Inter Press Service
reported yesterday. "This is worse than during the Lebanese civil
war," Bilal Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's
largest, told IPS.

Yesterday the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed
a federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary of State Rice and Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld failed to fulfill their constitutional to protect
US citizens in a crisis or time of war. In the lawsuit, ADC alleges
that the defendants placed US citizens in peril by not taking all
possible steps to secure the safety and well being of US citizens in
Lebanon.

In letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the Association for Civil
Rights in Israel condemned as illegal IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan
Halutz's comment that "for every Katyusha barrage on Haifa, 10 more
buildings in the Dahiya neighborhood of south Beirut will be bombed."
The association complained that Peretz must clarify to Halutz that it
is completely unacceptable to motivate military activity on revenge.
"The grave and illegal targeting of Israeli citizens does not justify
such illegal orders, which means the indiscriminate targeting of
civilians and civilian interests," the association said.

Figures released by the Israeli army show the pace of Hezbollah
rockets raining down on Israel has not slowed — and the guerrillas are
nowhere close to being neutralized, AP reported yesterday. Air power
alone is proving insufficient to rout Hezbollah, whose determination
and intimate knowledge of the terrain are making them a
tougher-than-expected foe. Mideast observers say Hezbollah only has to
remain standing — not beat Israel — to emerge victorious in Arab eyes.

Adam Shatz, writing in The Nation, speculates on the possible
motivations of Hizbollah. Since the 2000 Israeli withdrawal Hezbollah
has faced mounting pressure to lay down its arms and become a purely
political organization. By conducting a raid that was likely to
provoke a brutal Israeli reprisal, Nasrallah may have gambled that the
fury of the Lebanese would soon turn from Hezbollah to Israel, thereby
providing a justification for "the national resistance" as Lebanon's
only deterrent against Israel. If so, Israel (with the full support of
the Bush Administration) has played right into his hands, inflicting
more than 300 casualties, nearly all of them civilians, and pounding
the civilian infrastructure, eliciting sympathy for Hezbollah even
among some Lebanese Christians. By striking at Israel's Army during
its destructive campaign in Gaza, Nasrallah has earned praise
throughout the Muslim world for coming to the aid of Palestinians
abandoned by the region's authoritarian governments.

The Lebanese Red Cross Society reported five security incidents in
recent days affecting ambulances, according to an International
Committee of the Red Cross report yesterday. On 23 July two of its
ambulances were struck by munitions, although both vehicles were
clearly marked by the red cross emblem and flashing lights that were
visible at a great distance. As a result, nine people including six
Red Cross volunteers were wounded. "The ICRC is gravely concerned
about the safety of medical staff ", said Balthasar Staehelin, the
organization's delegate-general for the Middle East and North Africa.
"We have raised this issue with the Israeli authorities and urged them
to take the measures needed to avoid such incidents in the future."

Bill Clinton will be stumping for Joe Lieberman in Connecticut while
Rep. Maxine Waters is stumping for his opponent, Salon reported
yesterday. Lieberman and Waters have been at it since at least 1995,
when he spoke in favor of California's anti-affirmative-action
initiative. Lieberman may have chastised Clinton, but he has also
provided a template for the other politician in the Clinton family.
Hillary Clinton has undergone a gradual transformation into a kind of
Bride of Lieberman, hawkish on the Iraq war, adamantly pro-Israel and
tracking right on social issues. If Lieberman sinks, it will raise a
lot of questions about the current Clinton strategy. Waters said there
were rumors in Washington that Clinton and his wife are freaked out by
the sudden progressive insurgency. The DLC is trying to put down a
small rebellion before it spreads. Lieberman spent Sunday stumping in
Hartford's black churches, where, according to the city's black
leaders, nobody had previously seen him in his 18 years as senator.
"His people will tell you he has been here, doing things quietly,"
former Hartford mayor Thirman Milner, now a Lamont supporter, said.
"He must have been really quiet."

Wherever one stands on the question of how much influence various
lobbying forces have on America's Middle East policy, it is clear that
American Jewish opinion, or at least the perception of that opinion,
carries significant weight, Mitchell Plitnick writes in Tikkun. From
the Washington, D.C. perspective, American Jewish opinion is that the
United States should never bring any tangible pressure, economic or
diplomatic, to bear on Israel no matter what it does. Polling data
suggest that American Jews think otherwise. A survey conducted last
year by Ameinu, an American Zionist organization, showed that 47
percent of American Jews believe the United States should indeed
pressure Israel to be more conciliatory to the Palestinians (in fact,
only 20 percent said the United States should not pressure Israel). A
2003 survey conducted by Americans for Peace Now showed strong support
for a settlement freeze. Over 70 percent of the poll's respondents
supported it.

Iran insists it will not be drawn into the Middle East fighting
between Israel and Hezbollah but may be unable to avoid fallout on the
already difficult diplomatic struggle over its nuclear program,
hardening positions on all sides, AP reports. Outside Iran, the
fighting could sharpen the resolve of Western powers and others that
claim Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Inside the country,
hard-line forces might become increasingly unwilling to make
concessions.

Articles:
2) Israeli Cluster Munitions Hit Civilians in Lebanon
Israel Must Not Use Indiscriminate Weapons
Human Rights Watch
July 24, 2006 3:11 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0724-17.htm

Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas
of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today. Researchers on the ground
in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of
Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians,
including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also
photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery
teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.

3) Top Iraqi's White House Visit Shows Gaps With U.S.
Edward Wong
July 25, 2006
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/world/middleeast/25maliki.html

When Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki visits the White House on
Tuesday for the first time, he is expected to make requests that clash
sharply with President Bush's foreign policy, Iraqi officials say,
signaling a widening gap between the Iraqis and the Americans on
crucial issues.

5) U.S. and NATO Balk on Troops for Lebanon Force
Elaine Sciolino And Steven Erlanger
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/world/middleeast/25force.html
July 25, 2006

Support is building quickly for an international military force to be
placed in southern Lebanon, but there remains a small problem: where
will the troops come from? The United States has ruled out its
soldiers' participating, NATO says it is overstretched, Britain feels
its troops are overcommitted and Germany says it is willing to
participate only if Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that it would
police, agrees to it, a highly unlikely development.

6) It's Disproportionate. . .
Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
Tuesday, July 25, 2006; A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400810.html

Bush's endorsement of the violence that Israel is inflicting on
Lebanon -- a sustained bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of
civilians and can only be seen as collective punishment -- is truly
astonishing. Of course Israel has the right to defend itself against
Hezbollah's rocket attacks. But how can this utterly disproportionate,
seemingly indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive?

7) The road to peace runs through Shaba Farms
Zvi Bar'el
Haaretz
07:34 25/07/2006  	 		
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742228.html

Saturday saw another development in the status of Fuad Siniora's
government versus the strength of Hezbollah. After the government
received "a franchise" to enter into negotiations on a
prisoner-exchange deal, Energy Minister Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah
representative, announced that once the IDF withdrew from the Shaba
Farms area, Hezbollah's role as a "liberating" army would be over, and
it would stick to a purely a defensive role. This is a very
significant statement, because it begins to define the conditions for
Hezbollah's disarmament.

8) Stop Now, Immediately
Gideon Levy
Haaretz
Monday, July 24, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0724-20.htm

This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was
unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to
end it. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking a toll in
blood that gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is a good
time to stop the war because both sides can claim they won: Israel
harmed Hezbollah and Hezbollah harmed Israel. History shows that no
situation is better for reaching an arrangement. Remember the lessons
of the Yom Kippur War.

9) Bombings Hit Children Hardest
Dahr Jamail
Inter Press Service
Monday, July 24, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0724-10.htm

About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University
Hospital are children of 15 years of age or less, hospital records
show. "This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal Masri,
assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's largest, told IPS
Monday.

10) ADC Files Lawsuit Against Secretaries of State and Defense for
Failure to Protect US Citizens in Lebanon
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
July 24, 2006
http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2865

Today, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a
federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld failed to fulfill their
constitutional and professional obligations and protect US citizens in
a crisis or time of war.


11) Civil rights group challenges Halutz
Aviram Zino
Ynet News (Yedioth Ahronoth online)				
20:06 , 07.24.06
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3280788,00.html
				
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel appealed to Defense
Minister Amir Peretz after IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz
apparently said that "for every Katyusha barrage on Haifa, 10 more
buildings in the Dahiya neighborhood of south Beirut will be bombed."
The association complained that Peretz must clarify to Halutz that it
is completely unacceptable to motivate military activity on revenge.

12) Hezbollah a tough foe for Israeli military
Steven Gutkin
Associated Press
Mon Jul 24, 4:14 PM ET
http://tinyurl.com/glkl7

Figures released by the Israeli army show the pace of Hezbollah
rockets raining down on Israel has not slowed — and the guerrillas are
nowhere close to being neutralized. Air power alone is proving
insufficient to rout Hezbollah, whose determination and intimate
knowledge of the terrain are making them a tougher-than-expected foe.
Mideast observers say Hezbollah only has to remain standing — not beat
Israel — to emerge victorious in Arab eyes.

13) Nasrallah's Game
Adam Shatz
The Nation
July 20, 2006
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/nasrallah_game

In January 2004 Sheik Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of
Hezbollah, presided over a major prisoner exchange with Israel, in
which the Lebanese guerrilla movement and political party secured the
release of more than 400 Arab prisoners in return for the bodies of
three Israeli soldiers and an Israeli businessman and alleged spy,
Elhanan Tannenbaum, whom Hezbollah had kidnapped. Moments before the
exchange was sealed, Ariel Sharon withheld three Lebanese detainees,
one of whom, Samir Kuntar, had killed a family of three in the Israeli
town of Nahariya in 1979. Nasrallah, having failed to release Kuntar
and the two other men, declared that Hezbollah would "reserve the
right" to capture Israeli soldiers until the men were freed.

14) Lebanese Red Cross ambulances suffer new security incidents
International Committee of the Red Cross
Israel/Lebanon - Bulletin 2006/03
Latest report on ICRC activities in the field (22-24 July 2006)
July 24, 2006 2:48 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0724-13.htm

Heavy bombing has continued in the south of the country over the past
three days. Medical staff from the Lebanese Red Cross Society continue
evacuating the wounded and sick under very difficult and dangerous
conditions. The Society reported five security incidents in recent
days affecting ambulances, events that highlight the obligation to
spare those engaged in medical work.

15) Why is Bill Clinton in Connecticut?
It helps his wife, and it helps Joe Lieberman connect with a group of
long-neglected voters.
Colin McEnroe
Salon
Jul. 24, 2006
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/07/24/clinton_lieberman/

"They're desperate. They're losing," Rep. Maxine Waters told me on
Saturday. The California Democrat was 3,000 miles from home in
Hartford, Conn., at Ned Lamont for Senate headquarters in the black
neighborhood known as the North End. By "they" she meant the Joe
Lieberman campaign.

16) Voice For Peace: Who Speaks for Us?
Mitchell Plitnick, director for education and policy, Jewish Voice for Peace
Tikkun Magazine
July/August 2006
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0607/plitnick

While he was preparing for his first visit to Washington as Israel's
new Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert was told not to ask for any money for
his "Convergence" plan. The message came from the State Department,
but was sent to Olmert through Malcolm Hoenlein, the Executive Vice
President of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations. Obviously, Hoenlein plays a very significant role in
relations between Israel and the United States. But how many American
Jews have even heard of him? Or of Howard Kohr, Executive Director of
AIPAC? These are names that should be known to all American Jews,
because these are the voices that are speaking for the American Jewish
collective.

17) Fighting Could Harden World's Iran Stance
Associated Press
July 25, 2006
Filed at 9:48 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mideast-Fighting-Iranian-Fallout.html

Iran insists it will not be drawn into the Middle East fighting
between Israel and Tehran's Hezbollah clients but may be unable to
avoid fallout on the already difficult diplomatic struggle over its
nuclear program -- hardening positions on all sides, experts on the
talks say.

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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org