Israel's government killed another 42 Lebanese civilians in aggressive airstrikes on targets mostly unrelated to Hizbullah on Monday.

Thousands of innocent Lebanese have been forced from their homes by the bombings, especially in the South, and have headed up to Beirut (which the Israelis are also indiscriminately bombing). Some 100,000 Lebanese have fled to Syria, though Israeli bombing of roads and bridges has not made it easy for them to get out. Although, because of widespread Western racism, very few over here care about these displaced persons,  they face a desperate situation. Roads have been bombed out, and bridges are gone. Lebanese television reported on numerous villages bombed. Rescue teams attempting to take an injured woman to a better hospital with more supplies were blocked when they found the bridge destroyed.

Speaking at a boisterous rally for Israel near the United Nations headquarters this afternoon, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said she supported taking “whatever steps are necessary” to defend Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria in the military conflict in the Middle East.

The following 'Sprachregelung', Goebbel's term for his regular briefs to the German press during World War II, was sent out by Israel's General Consulat San Francisco to its  network of local moles. Most likely this is not a singular incident, but part of a world-wide campaign, ensuring that all Zionist controlled news media and lobbyists are spreading the same propaganda message. Watch out in the coming weeks and see the Zio moles do their dirty work.

The real aim is to change the regime in Lebanon and to install  a puppet government.
That was the aim of Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in  1982. It failed. But Sharon and his pupils in the military and  political leadership have never really given up on it.

As in 1982, the present operation, too, was planned and is  being carried out in full coordination with the US. As then, there is no doubt that it is coordinated with a part  of the Lebanese elite. That's the main thing. Everything else is noise and propaganda.

A week into the war, Israel's intransigence and the United States's indulgence make the prospects for peace minimal.

 Israel's attacks on Lebanon continued over the night of 17-18 July with fifty sites being hit. Many of these were said to be Hizbollah facilities, even though the targets have included a lighthouse, a medical truck and a dairy factory. In any case, the main effect has been to cause disruption across much of the country as numerous bridges are hit and movement of refugees made difficult if not impossible. The attacks continue through 18 July with equal ferocity, and no let up in sight.

Every night the city of Nablus is shaken by the sounds of war, sounds that drive away sleep. One awakens with a start, not knowing if one has slept, not slept, or if we are in a waking nightmare. There is shooting, nearby explosions resonate, go off in the distance, and return as an echo. You don't know what is happening or where it is happening. At first, you are very worried, then you stop thinking about it. One waits for daybreak with resignation. The people around tell you it is like that every day of the year here in the district of Nablus, that nothing has changed since 2000, that it is simply part of the panoply of the war of terror waged by Israel, added on top of the countless other repressive measures.

Israel continues to target Lebanon's infrastructure and bomb civilian neighborhoods. The United Nations is warning of a looming humanitarian disaster and the World Health Organization expects the number of Lebanese residents displaced to reach 900,000 by the end of today. Just before the program we reached Anthony Shadid in Beirut. He is a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post. He spoke about the mounting crisis in Lebanon.

"And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die."
--- Country Joe and the Fish 

Atrocities in the Promised Land

Words fail; ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin -- 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of Judaism. But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the U.S. political arena, in the mainstream U.S. media. Those who are horrified -- and there are many -- cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the U.S., and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring.
 

The Bush administration has given Israel a carte blanche to wage war against Lebanon, bombing and killing as it sees fit. American diplomacy in the crisis precipitated by Israeli aggression first against Gaza and then against its neighbor to the north is concentrated on blocking any move for a ceasefire and concocting a pretext for future military action against Syria and Iran.