Amensty: 1.8 million asked to write to Israeli government demanding safe passage for trapped civilians

Amnesty International has launched an "Urgent Action" to its 1.8 million members around the world calling on them to write to the Israeli Minister of Defence, Amir Peretz, asking him to take urgent steps to ensure safe passage for civilians in the south of Lebanon.

Israeli bombardment of roads, bridges, telecommunication transmitters, electricity networks and fuel depots throughout southern Lebanon has forced tens of thousand of civilians to flee their homes. But thousands of others who were unable to leave are now trapped in the area.

"The plight of civilians in the south of Lebanon is at crisis point. Evacuation of civilians who wish to leave must happen immediately, and emergency supplies and aid needs to reach villages in Southern Lebanon urgently," said Kate Gilmore, Amnesty International's Executive Deputy Secretary General.

"The Israeli authorities must allow immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access, as well as safe passage out of Southern Lebanon. It is absolutely shameful that humanitarian convoys trying to deliver badly needed aid cannot gain safe access."

For at least a week, neither the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), nor any other humanitarian or relief organization, has been able to reach the villages under Israeli siege. United Nations' top humanitarian official Jan Egeland on Thursday criticised Israel and Hizbullah for hindering access to 120,000 people still in South Lebanon, calling it a "disgrace".

Amnesty International delegates who visited a number of villages earlier this week reported that in at least two of them, Aitatoun and Bint Jbail, more than 200 people remain trapped, including women, children, elderly and disabled people. At least one of those trapped is a pregnant woman.

The Amnesty International delegates described the unbearable stench of rotting corpses that pervades the villages as the bodies of people killed in their homes remain under the rubble, roaming dogs often indicating where bodies are buried.

"The dire humanitarian situation is not exclusive to the villages that our delegates were able to visit, the situation of despair of those who remain trapped by the conflict is likely to be replicated in villages all over the south of Lebanon," said Kate Gilmore.

"Israel's repeated calls for residents to evacuate villages has led to massive internal displacement. The mere issuing of warnings does not excuse disrespect for the rules of war," Kate Gilmore cautioned.

Amnesty International called on Israel to respect the distinction, that is protected under law, between civilian and military objects. It must put an end to the direct, disproportionate and indiscriminate targeting of civilian objects, such as residential buildings and medical facilities.

Appeal for Cease Fire: Stop Waging War!

Civilians have been targeted in Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Forces leaving over a ‎thousand civilian deaths, 30% of whom were children. Israeli Forces are invading ‎Lebanon at this moment, and this is complicating the political, security, and ‎humanitarian situation even further.

The Lebanese Government and Hizbullah have accepted a bi-lateral cease-fire, ‎and to dispatch the Lebanese Army to the Southern Border to take charge of the security situation, assisted by ‎the UN.‎

Nonetheless, all calls for cease fire have been rejected by Israel, and the one time 48 hour ‎‎"cessation of air strikes"‎ was violated by Israel, and civilians were targeted. ‎

Please write to the "Israeli" Officials asking for an immediate cease fire, and to put an ‎end to Human Rights Violations in Lebanon that has lead to over 1100 deaths, and to demand a withdrawl ‎of Israeli forces immediately from Lebanon. Also please demand that Israel respects ‎the Geneva Convention on the protection of Civilians, and the treatment of the Prisoners of War.

Amir Peretz ‎
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence ‎
Ministry of Defence ‎
‎37 Kaplan Street ‎
Hakirya ‎
Tel Aviv 61909 ‎
‎"Israel" ‎
Fax: +972 3 691 6940; +972 3 696 2757; +972 3 691 7915 ‎
E-mail: sar@mod.gov.il; pniot@mod.gov.il; ‎

and to ‎

Chief Military Attorney ‎
Military postal code 9605 ‎
IDF ‎
‎"Israel"‎

Light vs. Fight: Eat your Hearts Out IDF!

Today, the Israelis attacked Beirut with their American supplied Fighter Jets, to destroy a TV antenna... Or was it a wash-line confused for a rocket launcher? Does it make a difference. They haven't heard the last of us yet! [For a more vivid commentry, please refer to my previous post: Give it your best Shot, Halutz! & For avoidance of doubt, I wasn't pointing a finger of Accusation]

A few weeks ago, Israelis made a point to target the Beirut Light House, the symbol of Beirut's enlightening role in the Middle East. The poor things don't know that it is minds that create light. They are not familiar with either concept: Mind or Light.

In this, they have our sympathy..

For everything else, they have the FIST.

Believe it or not, the IDF are dreamers too. Their dreams take the shape of nightmares.

They dream of turning Lebanon into rubble, and setting Beirut ablaze. Huh! Wake up and smell the ARABIC Coffee [or the cough medicine, if you're chocking with anger].

Dream on IDF (Incredibly Dumb Fools); Every rocket you drop creates a poet, Every fire you set brings in tunes of music, and every death make the Beirutis and the Lebanese cling on to life... more.. and even more.. and more.. and more.. till you run out of Offenses.

Music we will make of you bombs,

A thousand Tomorrows we will guard for every day you kill,

Words we will write of your thrashings,

Light we will make of your fires,

And Nails for you coffins we will make of your Rockets,

Haven't you learned your lessons yet - you Blind Blood-Thirsty Bats of Darkness?

In their Beauty and Resilience, Lebanon & Beirut kill you...

We are everything you're not..

Eat your hearts out!

Hearts?

Yeah sure!

After an Israeli Air Raid on S. Lebanon: Mother dies in lap of her surviving Child!

Ode of a mother and Child:

My Son,

Oh, thank God you're alive and well,
Listen, time is short,
I can hear the planes coming back;

To you I entrust a country,
As small as your tears,
but more precious than my life,

To you my son, I entrust a tune,
A song of hope, of Liberation,
A song of life, of resurrection,

To you my son, I entrust tomorrow,
Oh yes, To you my son, I entrust a Lebanon,
of the soil that will shroud thousands of those who die
...with their heads high

We will die today, and rise tomorrow,
With waving banners we will rise,
With smiling children,
10,452 smiles!

From heaven I will oversee you,
There, I will be higher than the F-16,
And from above, even from above,
I will defend this country.

A Coffee in Beirut!

Over my friend's Ahmad blog http://colddesert.blogspot.com/ , I wrote a comment, afterwhich an Israeli blogger invited himself for a coffee in Beirut. But of course, he had to be aggressive at first without dropping the victim act for one second. This was my response:

Let's not flaunt strenght at each other, we were trying to have a civilized discussion. Being stronger doesn't mean you're right. Better still let's agree, we're are Right, you are Strong [see my posting below]. Or the other way around, shall we sit and talk this through or should we proceed with killing each other? Or shall we wait till you march on to Beirut and then rockets start falling from across the Dead Sea &Aqaba & Golan from discedents and guerilla fighters who might "just" slip the attention of their governments?

If HA singlehandedly - with Syrian and Iranian support as you claim - put 2 million Israelis in bomb shelters, HA, add to it the new HA of Syria &Jordan &Egypt ...oops, forgot Gaza, sorry.. (you and I know that all the people on those fronts are just Hizbollahs-to-be if this war doesn't stop now). Katiousha anyone?

Or maybe a nuclear bomb from Iran with Pistachio flavour and Khomeini picture painted on the barrel might do the trick? Do keep in mind that Iran lost millions of its people in the Iran-Iraq war. Numbers do not matter for the Ayatollahs - not Iranian, not Israeli, and certainly not Arab numbers. They have already booked their people and ours a place in heaven. Did you make any plans for the afterlife in case of a nuclear warfare? Hurry up, the place is filling up fast.

Bottom line, Iranians can claim they are stronger and more cruel, do you want them to drop their Nuclear Arsenal on you - for God's sake? Perhaps an itsy bitsy drop of your own poison? Come ON!! Put an end to Maddness NOW before it gets out of hand! If the Iranians aim right, we'll fry from the Radiation for ages. If they aim wrong, they'll just shoot another one at you!!

As an Arab, anyobody is welcome into my home as a guest to have coffee or tea or fresh squeezed lemonade, as a guest. Leave your machine guns outside and F-16 grounded, and come to Beirut as friends - you will note that while you stroll around the down town of the city, that the Jewish neighbourhood - NOT Ghetto - neighbourhood in the middle of Solidere - is still there, and that the 20,000 Lebanese jews who chose to move abroad in 1977 because of the war are still Lebanese citizens and welcome back to their homeland and town anytime, and they are welcome to help rebuild the country that was destroyed by Mad Generals. Can you say the same about the Palestinians who were driven out - even out of courtesy?!

Come as enemies, and the cycle of violence will not cease, and coffee or tea in Beirut you won't have - nor will you have it in Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Haifa, Yafa, or anywhere outside a bomb shelter because them rockets will be falling like rain from all sides next time...

The sky will be filled with war planes and deadly rockets instead of kites and birds.

That's one nightmare, and there's a rosy dream. Wake up and smell the coffee!!

Arabs are Right, Israel is Strong: Let's go over this one more time

One questioned I received from a very learned man was:

Was their no invasion of Israel in 1948 by five Arab armies? Was their no economically mortal blockade of the Suez Canal in 1956?

Of course, I needed a strong drink to calm down. Then I thought that alcoholism would not put an end to ignorance, although it might turn one oblivious to the 4 ton bombs the Israeli Jets are dropping over civilian homes, so I decided to write down another research instead – in simple terms, for those who never read history.

It comes as a surprise to most westerners to know that before 1948, there was no such thing as Israel... there was a country called Palestine.. If green people from Mars drop into Washington D.C. and decide to establish a state of Green Folks right next to Capitol Hill, and the US Army goes in to drive them out, would that be entitled as an invasion of Greenfolksland?

The problem is that no one reads one year before 1948, and if they do, they selectively move two millennia in time, when Jews/Hebrews lived in Palestine, to give Historic Land rights to the Jews in Palestine.

Of course, it escapes their attention that there are plenty of Arab Jews, in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Morocco, Tunis, and perhaps the Arabs were the only Civilization in HISTORY never to prosecute the Jews. If and when in doubt, find out for yourselves. Many are flabbergasted to know that there are Christian Arabs, or Christian Palestinians. What do you expect; Jesus was born in Palestine for Jeez sake!!

Better still, no one reads how Israel was established over the land of Palestine, and at what humanitarian cost. Before 1948, or to be precise, before May 1948, there was no country on earth called Israel - for more history on that, please check the following link: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_palestine.html - Jordan is a moderate Arab state that is "friendly " and at peace with the US and Israel, so I would assume their recounts of the tragedy of Palestine should be well balanced,

Why is that legitimate for the USA but not for the Arabs? Or is it that the European settlers in America, having terminated the Native Americans "Red Indians,' and reduced them to semi-animals and worthless people, consider the land to belongs to the powerful, not to the rightful?

I fail to understand how it is acceptable for one to walk into your home, kick you out (meanwhile, rape your wife, tear you with a knife, kill your kids, steal your money), then call the police every time you try to break back in Your OWN home? Is that NOT audacious? Am I required to keep my temper and knock politely? It reminds me so much of the movie, Anger Management - Jack Nicholson? Someone drives you mad then cries foul!!

1956… In Simple Words
In 1956, Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. If you know anything of slave labor, you should check how the Egyptians were dragged in slave marches to dig the canal in the 1850s, and how Colonial Britain and France took the full proceeds of the canal because "they built it" - just like the farmers of the southern states "planted tobacco and cotton" – ignoring their labour. In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Canal as a property of the Egyptian People.


Please run a quick moral comparison with George Washington. Washington was an English man, but still he rose against England and demanded independence and land rights and equal treatments - Washington rose against HIS own country. At least, Nasser was an Arab, asking for the Egyptian Canal to belong to the Egyptian People. In military terms, Washington betrayed his homeland (England), Nasser didn't. Why do you acclaim Washington a hero but Nasser a terrorist?

"We the people," said the Egyptians, want our resources back. We the people, said Nasser, Shall take it back. What happened, England, France &Israel attacked Egypt (not the other way around). If it weren't for the Soviet Union threat to side with Egypt, they would have occupied Egypt. Let me repeat, English, French armies, and Jewish Immigrants who barely knew Hebrew at the time, want to take a canal back from Egyptians who dug the canal in 1856, with their hands, with their sweat, in their land, between the two seas that separate their country.. Land belongs to the people; Arab Egyptian Land, Arab Egyptian people, Arab Egyptian right of self Defense. No more, no less.

Israel rose on the bodies of dead Arabs in 1948, Arab states (just like Texas would run for the help of Florida) sent their armies to help their brethren.
Because, "We the people" cried the Arab Palestinians "want to have our country." Therefore, the 1956, 1967, 1973 wars were a continuation of wars not to "get Jews out of the land" only, but to "get them Palestinians back into their homes as well. Those wars did not have any relationship to the Jews history, to their origins, to their grievances against Europeans and everyone else except the Arabs. It had to do with their attitude and actions. Remember, Arabs & Muslims were the only two civilizations in history not to prosecute Jews per se. Arabs and Muslims are not responsible for the discrimination against Jews or for the prosecution of Jews or for the Holocaust. Arabs were next in Line on Hitler's list to be turned into fertilizer.

In 2006, Israel is destroying the country because it is "defending its citizens", and the US, Bush and Rice are both watching over protectively. How come Arabs had no right to "defend their citizens and sovereignty" in 1948?

An age when the victim turns oppressor, and the oppressor plays victim is a very sad age indeed. It's sadder when this happens when it happens in a world of free flow of media.

For God's sake, or for whatever you believe in's sake, go to www.google.com, type Palestine, Israel, 1948, Nakba, and Read.

Human life is sacred, human dignity is valued, human rights, including the right of having a country and a nationality is universally agreed.

Admittedly, regardless of who is right and who is wrong, both sides have committed atrocities against each other, and the conflict was not between armed forces, civilians were caught in the line of fire. Could it have been different?

Jewish life is sacred, Jewish dignity is valued, Jewish rights, including the right of having a country and a nationality is universally agreed. Of all people, we the Arabs agree.

Equally important, Arab life is sacred, Arab dignity is valued, Arab rights, including the right of retaining their country and their nationality is universally agreed. Yet all peoples of the world seem to turn the deaf ear and the blind eye.


Could it have been different? See my post tomorrow, it will be titled:

Only if Theodore Hertzel were Theodore Hertzelian?