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D4net gaat naar Libanon
Ed - 05.09.2006 14:31
Vanuit ‘D4net’ zullen enkele medewerkers Libanon bezoeken van 10-27 september a.s. [ervan uitgaande dat Israël haar blokkade van luchtvaartmaatschappijen deze week opheft].
Verder op onze website een nieuw uitgebreid artikel:
9/11 vijf jaar later - De ineenstorting van de supermacht
 http://www.d4net.nl/node/55
Beste mensen/organisaties,
Vanuit ‘D4net’ zullen enkele medewerkers Libanon bezoeken van 10-27 september a.s. [ervan uitgaande dat Israël haar blokkade van luchtvaartmaatschappijen deze week opheft].
Ons doel van de reis is:
-Solidariteit betuigen, steun geven aan de Libanese bevolking
-Steun geven aan, en relaties opbouwen met onafhankelijke aktie- en belangengroepen
-Onderzoek doen naar gebruik van wapens door Israel met name de soort munitie en verarmd uranium
-Materiaal verzamelen, interviews, films, foto’s, om in NL de discussie te verdiepen over wat er zich in Libanon en het gehele Midden-Oosten afspeelt. Dit in het kader van de ‘oorlog tegen terreur’.
De delegatie bestaat uit 3 personen en wordt georganiseerd vanuit D4net:
Dromen, Denken, Durven, Doen (voormalig Autonoom Centrum). De veschillende personen hebben ervaring in soortgelijke missie in het verleden in Palestina en Oost- Timor.
Nu de gevechtshandelingen voorlopig lijken te zijn beëindigd, bestaat voor ons de kans om te proberen een positieve bijdrage te leveren, die een klein bouwsteentje kan zijn tot tot een geweldloze oplossing. Vanuit die behoefte en het al lange tijd bezig zijn met de problematiek van het Midden-Oosten heeft bij ons tot het voornemen geleid tot dit bezoek aan Beiroet en het zuiden van Libanon.
Via onder meer het solidariteitsfonds XminY zijn inmiddels contacten ontstaan met Libanezen. Waaronder ook met vertegenwoordigers van NGO’s die hulp bieden aan vluchtelingen die alles kwijt zijn. D4net wil deze organisaties op manieren die binnen ons bereik liggen steunen.
Tevens wordt in samenwerking met de contacten in het zuiden van Libanon onderzoek verricht naar het gebruik van omstreden wapens, waaronder clustermunitie en anti-tankgranaten waarin verarmd uranium. Human Rights Watch en mijnopruimingsteams hebben inmiddels kunnen aantonen dat meer dan 249 plekken in Libanon zijn bezaaid met niet ontplofte stuks munitie waaronder clustermunitie. Ook zijn er sterke aanwijzingen dat gebruik is gemaakt van uraniumhoudende munitie. Eén van de deelnemers aan deze reis is tevens werkzaam bij de stichting Laka en beschikt over expertise over het militair gebruik van verarmd uranium.
Na terugkomst in Nederland zullen we verslag doen van de bevindingen middels audiovisuele reportage, artikelen en informatie- en discussiebijeenkomsten. D4net denkt op deze manier te kunnen bijdragen aan meer analyse en debat over de gespannen en uiterst fragiele situatie in het Midden-Oosten. Hopelijk leidt dat tot diepere analyses en meer duiding over het conflict in de regio.
Vanaf 4 oktober kunnen er diverse discussie- en informatie avonden worden georganiseerd. Ons voorstel is dat mensen of organisaties die belangstelling hebben voor zo’n avond zelf deze avond organiseren wat betreft plek, uitnodigingen en eventueel andere spreker(s). Wij bieden dan ons verhaal aan met foto’s, film en mogelijke discussiepunten.
Op 4 oktober is er een informatie- en discussie avond in onze eigen ruimte op de Bilderdijkstraat 165-f te A’dam, vanaf 20 uur. Zegt het voort.
Tijdens het bezoek zullen we zoveel mogelijk dagelijks verslag doen op onze website: www.d4net.nl
Financiële steun en tips zijn welkom.
D4net
Bilderdijkstraat 165-F
1053 KP Amsterdam
020 6126172
 d4net@xs4all.nl
giro 6131418 tnv
Stichting Afval Amsterdam
 E-Mail: d4net@xs4all.nl  Website: http://www.d4net.nl
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| Lees meer over: vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten | | aanvullingen | | Bilal El-Amine, "From Beirut" | fw: - 10.09.2006 17:04
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/07/20/218220
17 Jul 2006:
"From Beirut"
Bilal El-Amine
Hi everyone. First of all, I am fine as are family and friends. We’re scattered in different places, some still in the south, some in Tyre, the rest in Beirut and its surroundings. Those who live in the southern suburbs where Hizbullah is based managed to leave before the latest strikes and are safe with relatives.
As most of you know, Hizbullah carried out a bold operation a few days ago and managed to capture two Israeli soldiers. The resistance has been saying for quite some time now that it intends to free the remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israel, most prominently Samir Qantar. Dubbed the “dean of the prisoners,” Qantar is the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israel. He was to be released along with other Lebanese prisoners in a swap between Hizbullah and Israel. The Israeli government voted not to release him and two others and stupidly kept the prisoner file open.
The Hizbullah operation was an attempt to put an end to the matter. There were several previous unsuccessful attempts that were costly to the resistance. This operation according to Nasrallah, the general-secretary of Hizbullah, was months in planning and its timing, which has been endlessly criticized, may have been logistical more than anything else.
In light of Israel’s ferocious response, it is worth noting that the capture of the two Israeli soldiers was a pure military operation and did not as much scratch an Israeli civilian. Israel’s counter is exactly the opposite—collective punishment of the civilian population by destroying the country’s infrastructure and committing ugly massacres against families and fleeing refugees as they did yesterday in the south. Who’s the terrorist in this case, even by the self-serving definitions peddled in Washington.
Why did Hizbullah do this, did they not know that Israel would respond this way? I’m certain that they considered this scenario as one of several. But Hizbullah’s two decades of experience in dealing with Israel have taught it one thing and that is Tel Aviv will never budge on any matter without threat of force. Israel was compelled to leave southern Lebanon in May 2000—after over 20 years of occupation—only after the resistance gained the upper hand militarily.
The consequent prisoner swap in which nearly all Lebanese prisoners in Israel were released was only possible once Hizbullah managed to capture Israeli soldiers and offer them in exchange. As Nasrallah put it, the recent operation was the only logical conclusion given Hizbullah long experience with Israel. To get the remaining prisoners out, Israeli soldiers must be captured—Israel simply offered no other option.
The current situation only confirms Hizbullah’s experience. The whole world—and most painfully the Arab governments—have refused to lift a finger to restrain Israel. The UN met and decided to do nothing, yesterday the Arab League met and was even more insulting. The Lebanese government has yet to act, besides denouncing Hizbullah and distancing themselves from the resistance--not even providing the most basic services to the displaced and injured.
The Arab League meeting and statements by the Lebanese prime minister suggest that there is a convergence of interests between them and Israel over putting a halt to the Lebanese resistance by disarming Hizbullah and burying once and for all those forces in the region, including Hamas for example, that believe in a line of confrontation with Israel as the only road to get some semblance of justice. The Saudi royals and their slavish counterparts in Jordan and Egypt, want Arabs to submit and swallow the humiliation we are subjected to daily in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, all in the name of stability and rational thinking.
Since 1993 and the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Arab leaders, the US and the UN have been saying that negotiations and normalization with Israel are the only way to peace. But we have yet to see Israel make the smallest concession, taking the opportunity to swallow up yet more land, butcher the Palestinian people and continue to imprison thousand. Hamas’ election was but one indicator that ordinary Arabs have understood that successive peace accords have brought them nothing but further misery—only resistance, with all the suffering that comes with it, bears fruit.
Like the Palestinians, the Lebanese are all alone, abandoned to be taught a lesson by the regional and global powers. Hizbullah’s incredible response (striking a war ship and bombing as far as Haifa) shows that they perhaps considered and prepared for Israel’s ferocious response. Only their ability to strike back effectively can save Lebanon from complete destruction at the hands of Israel—the lunatics in Tel Aviv know no other language.
Bilal El-Amine
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The author, Bilal El-Amine is an active member of the Beirut IndyMedia group,
beirut.indymedia.org
Eds.
Website: http://beirut.indymedia.org/
| | John Chuckman, "When Terror Is Just Fine" | fw: - 10.09.2006 17:23
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/07/18/1858205
July 18 2006:
When Terror Is Just Fine
John Chuckman
Following the assassination of Reinhard Heidrich by Czech partisans in 1942, Hitler’s government executed all the men in the village of Lidici, sent its women and children to concentration camps, and razed the village to the ground. A few weeks later, the barbarism was repeated on the village of Lezaky.
Lidici was far from being the worst atrocity of the war, but it rightly came to symbolize heartless oppression by occupiers, what we sometimes today call state terror.
I cannot think of another historical example which better parallels Israel’s savage behavior in Lebanon. Two of its soldiers are kidnapped, and Israel quickly destroys much of the infrastructure of Lebanon, cuts the country off from the world, and kills, at this writing, two hundred civilians.
Already forgotten in the press is Israel’s behavior leading up to events in Lebanon. Israel had blown up an entire family on a Gaza beach and carried out a number of other killings and assassinations. It killed about twenty innocent people in a week or so. The pitiful efforts of people in Gaza to respond to the outrages were met by more killing and a partial invasion. Most of the cabinet of Palestine was kidnapped, and the elected Prime Minister was openly threatened with assassination.
We might try a thought experiment to bring a contemporary perspective to Israel’s behavior. Suppose we take the view of Hezbollah as a vicious, well-armed street gang in a city like Chicago, rather than a guerrilla movement in a country previously invaded by Israel. This is in fact something close to Israel’s view of Hezbollah.
Now, suppose the Chicago gang kidnapped a couple of policemen and tried to ransom some of its members out of prison. This would cause a huge response, but would that response include the Illinois National Guard bombing the city’s black ghetto areas, indiscriminately killing hundreds, destroying homes and businesses, and imprisoning tens of thousands by not allowing normal contact with the city? Would the government say it is up to the people of the ghetto to get rid of the gang?
To ask the question is to have the answer. Such ruthlessness would bring immediate, overwhelming, world-wide condemnation.
Then, we must ask why Israel isn’t condemned in the same fashion? Actually, it is condemned by much of the world, but it is praised and supported by Bush and most of the powerful, war-loving American press.
No, instead of condemnation, we get Orwellian stuff about Israel’s “measured” or “appropriate” response, as though anything short of carpet-bombing or nuclear weapons qualifies as “measured,” and about a second front opening up, as though Israel were bravely fighting a war, but there is no war, only Israel’s savage retribution against two states with groups it hates.
Somehow Israel expects a weak state like Lebanon to take on Hezbollah and eliminate it. Yet Israel is too fearful itself of casualties to take on this gang directly. It would rather bomb and threaten others into attempting it, something that if even attempted would tip Lebanon into civil war once again.
Of course, Israel’s view of civil wars in other countries is rather different than the view of those who must suffer through them. Violence weakens and effectively neutralizes them, just as the American-induced anarchy in Iraq effectively sweeps an old foe away for years to come.
Website: http://info.interactivist.net/
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