Says Temple icons hidden in W. Bank
BOSTON GLOBE | October 15, 2006
By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent
MAR THEODOSIUS, West Bank -- Until today, the main claim to fame of this sleepy monastery, home to 10 nuns on the edge of the Judean wilderness in the West Bank, was the tradition that said the Three Wise Men slept in the caves here after visiting the infant Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.
Now, a new book contends that Mar Theodosius is the last hiding place of one of the greatest treasures of antiquity: the gold and silver vessels of the Temple in Jerusalem.
British archeologist Sean Kingsley said he followed the journey of the legendary vessels for the first time since they disappeared from public view more than 1,500 years ago and traced them to their current location in this walled monastery east of Bethlehem in the Palestinian West Bank.
Kingsley's critics say there is no evidence to support his thesis, and plenty of evidence that it's ludicrous.
The vessels in question include some of the icons of biblical Judaism -- the seven-branched gold candelabrum, bejewel ed Table of the Divine Presence, and a pair of silver trumpets.
Many people, including Israeli government officials, believe the Temple vessels are hidden somewhere in the Vatican vaults. In 1996, Religious Affairs Minister Shimon Shetreet asked officially for the pope to return them. The Vatican denied the vessels were there.
Kingsley argues that the vessels were taken from Rome when it was sacked by the Vandals in AD 455.
In his new book, ``God's Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem," published in Britain by John Murray and in the United States by Harper Collins next spring, Kingsley describes what he says was the odyssey of the priceless haul: from Jerusalem to Rome and back again via Carthage and Constantinople, to what he says is its final resting place at the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Theodosius on the edge of the Judean desert, in the village of Ubadiyah, about 6 miles east of Bethlehem.
Kingsley holds a doctorate in the arch eology of the Holy Land from Oxford University and is a visiting fellow at the Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at the University of Reading. He is managing editor of Minerva, the International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology, and was one of the archeologists who discovered the largest trove of sunken treasure ever recovered off the coast of Israel.
Kingsley says his research suggests that the precious vessels were hidden in the caves under Mar Theodosius to escape the sacking of Jerusalem by Muslim invaders in AD 614.
Nuns at the monastery said there was no treasure buried at Mar Theodosius, which was itself destroyed during the same Muslim invasion and left abandoned until the late 19th century. During a visit to the caves beneath the monastery, a reporter was told that no precious artifacts had ever been recovered from the site, probably because it was left in ruins for nearly 1,300 years and any valuables there were looted by hermits and grave robbers.
Israeli specialists scoffed at Kingsley's theories.
``I've been there several times studying the skeletons of monks who were massacred by the Persians in the seventh century," said Joe Zias, an Israeli anthropologist and archeologist. ``It doesn't have any such treasure, and if it did it was plundered by the Arabs or Persians centuries ago."
The story of the vessels has long fascinated historians. According to Josephus, a first-century Roman-Jewish historian, 50 tons of gold and silver vessels were plundered from the Temple by the Roman Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus during the conquest of Jerusalem in AD 70.
``Contemporary sources show that it survived on public display in the Temple of Peace in the Roman Forum from AD 75 into the early fifth century. Then it suddenly disappeared. Who stole God's gold?" Kingsley said in an interview.
According to his research, it was Gaiseric, king of the Vandals.
``In AD 455, Gaiseric looted and burnt Rome in 14 days and threw everything he could, including the Temple treasures, into ships and took them to the Temple of Carthage," he said. ``They would not have liquidated the loot. It gave them power."
``In AD 534, the emperor Justinian brought the Vandal king into Constantinople. The records show that they resurrected the triumphal procession in AD 71. The historian Procopius of Ceasaria clearly describes the treasures of Jerusalem being paraded at the head of this triumph."
But the treasure did not remain in Constantinople for very long.
``The emperor Justinian was a student of classical antiquity, and he was aware that every civilization that controlled the Temple treasure had eventually been consumed by it. Fearful, he sent the treasure back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in around AD 560," said Kingsley.
Procopius reported that a Jewish court adviser warned Justinian about the dangers of keeping the vessels. The emperor ``became afraid and quickly sent everything to the sanctuaries of the Christians in Jerusalem, " Procopius wrote.
During a subsequent Persian invasion, Kingsley argues, a monk called Modestus from the monastery at Mar Theodosius found himself in charge of the priceless vessels and hid them in the isolated desert caves at the monastery.
Kingsley said he peered over the wall of the monastery and saw evidence of archeological looting in the area, but hoped the Temple treasures -- if they are there -- would remain undisturbed.
Sunday, 15 October 2006
Monday, 9 October 2006
Palestinians losing faith in Hamas
Trade has dwindled; government unable to fulfill its functions
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Monday, October 9, 2006
Page A - 1
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Bethlehem, West Bank -- Mohammed Fathi looked hopefully at the trickle of pedestrians coming through the Israeli checkpoint at the main entrance to Bethlehem and let out a sigh. The assortment of necklaces hanging on his arm was growing heavy, and there seemed to be little chance of making any sales before he had to head home for the iftar, the meal marking the end of the day's Ramadan fast.
"A year ago, I would sell between 100 and 200 necklaces a week -- now I'm lucky if I sell 10," said Fathi, 23, who has been peddling trinkets to Bethlehem's tourists since he dropped out of school a decade ago.
Fathi watched in alarm as the tourist trade dwindled under the government led by Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority Presidents Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. The city's struggling economy all but collapsed from the five-year Palestinian uprising known as the intifada, the frequent Israeli military incursions and, finally, the construction of the grim security barrier that has severed Bethlehem from nearby Jerusalem and the rest of Israel and the West Bank.
When the chance came to replace the incompetent and corrupt Fatah government in January, Fathi -- like many nonaffiliated Palestinians -- voted for Hamas. Nine months later, the economic and political crisis has reached the point where he pines for the days of Arafat's cronies.
"I voted for Hamas, but I wouldn't vote for them again," said Fathi. "Look how my situation is now. Of course, Fatah are corrupt people, but at least we see something from them. There is gasoline, there is some food. There is some help. We know they take 80 percent, but at least we see 20 percent. ... I don't think any of the people here would vote for Hamas again. There is no money, there is nothing."
Before it won parliamentary elections, Hamas earned its popularity among ordinary Palestinians because it ran schools, hospitals and other social services without the corruption that riddled Fatah. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, more than 140,000 government workers -- about one-third of the working population -- have not received salaries since March, the result of an economic boycott imposed on Hamas by Israel, the United States and most Western countries because of its refusal to recognize Israel, give up terrorism or honor past peace agreements.
The Hamas government thought it would be able to bypass the boycott with support from sympathetic governments led by Iran, but the cash has not lived up to the promises.
Government schools have been shut since the start of the new school year in early September, the result of a strike by teachers who have not been paid since before the summer. Unpaid police are eking out a living by moonlighting or running protection rackets and debt-collection services.
The price of diesel has almost doubled in the past year, and gasoline has gone up by 20 percent. Crime is rising. Armed, unemployed men -- some of them nurtured during the intifada -- have begun using their weapons to hold up gas stations and other easy prey.
In the smart Ararat neighborhood of Beit Sahour, Bethlehem's neighboring town, Dina Awwad's imposing house was burgled last month, and all the jewelry and cash were stolen.
"We are totally depressed," she said. "The gunmen are using the decline in the economic situation to rob people. It came as a complete surprise. We didn't even have an alarm."
For months, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas have been engaged in fruitless talks on a unity government, but Hamas refuses to recognize Israel -- a position Haniyeh emphasized in a fiery speech Friday in Gaza City.
"We will not change our position on the issue of recognizing Israel, and any member of Hamas who recognizes Israel will leave the movement," said Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas foreign minister.
A poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center in late September suggested Hamas was losing the support it gained in January's election. The poll showed that 55.9 percent of Palestinians support the formation of a national unity government as the best way out of the current crisis. Moreover, 32 percent said they would vote for Fatah if elections were held today, while 21.9 percent said they would vote for Hamas. The sample size was 1,200 and the margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.
Last week, the simmering tensions boiled over into gunbattles on the streets of Gaza between warring Fatah and Hamas forces that left 12 Palestinians dead.
Bethlehem once bustled with Christian tourists. Figures kept by the Palestinian Tourist Police show that on an average day in September, only 239 foreigners visited, compared with more than 1,000 a day one year ago, and many thousands before the intifada.
Down Manger Street, the main road leading to the historic Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was born, the businesses told their own story. Most were shuttered. A handwritten sign at the gas station said: "Closed -- No Gas -- No Diesel."
Last Monday, masked Fatah gunmen took to Bethlehem's streets, shooting in the air, to impose a general strike intended to increase the pressure on Hamas to capitulate or step down. The house of the Hamas mayor of the neighboring village of Doha was fire-bombed, and a devout Muslim who lives in Bethlehem discovered a bomb planted under the seat of his car, which had to be defused by police.
Mahdi Abdul Hadi, director of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, warned that "the Palestinian people will go out to the streets to topple the government" if it did not resign. The growing strikes, demonstrations and now gunbattles appear to be bearing out his prediction.
"If Hamas would recognize Israel, everything would be OK, but the problem is that Hamas doesn't want to talk with Israel," said Fathi, the trinket seller. "I never went to school or university, I'm not an educated man, but I understand one thing: There is no way to reach an agreement or fix the problem between us and Israel without talking to each other.
"When I voted for Hamas, I didn't vote about the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. I voted for them to deal with the situation inside Palestine, between the people and the government," he said. "Everybody thought Hamas was good, not like Fatah. I thought we needed a change. I just need to make money, I just need to live. I just need something to make me feel I'm not like an animal. I don't want to feel like I'm a dog, or in a prison."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Monday, October 9, 2006
Page A - 1
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Bethlehem, West Bank -- Mohammed Fathi looked hopefully at the trickle of pedestrians coming through the Israeli checkpoint at the main entrance to Bethlehem and let out a sigh. The assortment of necklaces hanging on his arm was growing heavy, and there seemed to be little chance of making any sales before he had to head home for the iftar, the meal marking the end of the day's Ramadan fast.
"A year ago, I would sell between 100 and 200 necklaces a week -- now I'm lucky if I sell 10," said Fathi, 23, who has been peddling trinkets to Bethlehem's tourists since he dropped out of school a decade ago.
Fathi watched in alarm as the tourist trade dwindled under the government led by Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority Presidents Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. The city's struggling economy all but collapsed from the five-year Palestinian uprising known as the intifada, the frequent Israeli military incursions and, finally, the construction of the grim security barrier that has severed Bethlehem from nearby Jerusalem and the rest of Israel and the West Bank.
When the chance came to replace the incompetent and corrupt Fatah government in January, Fathi -- like many nonaffiliated Palestinians -- voted for Hamas. Nine months later, the economic and political crisis has reached the point where he pines for the days of Arafat's cronies.
"I voted for Hamas, but I wouldn't vote for them again," said Fathi. "Look how my situation is now. Of course, Fatah are corrupt people, but at least we see something from them. There is gasoline, there is some food. There is some help. We know they take 80 percent, but at least we see 20 percent. ... I don't think any of the people here would vote for Hamas again. There is no money, there is nothing."
Before it won parliamentary elections, Hamas earned its popularity among ordinary Palestinians because it ran schools, hospitals and other social services without the corruption that riddled Fatah. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, more than 140,000 government workers -- about one-third of the working population -- have not received salaries since March, the result of an economic boycott imposed on Hamas by Israel, the United States and most Western countries because of its refusal to recognize Israel, give up terrorism or honor past peace agreements.
The Hamas government thought it would be able to bypass the boycott with support from sympathetic governments led by Iran, but the cash has not lived up to the promises.
Government schools have been shut since the start of the new school year in early September, the result of a strike by teachers who have not been paid since before the summer. Unpaid police are eking out a living by moonlighting or running protection rackets and debt-collection services.
The price of diesel has almost doubled in the past year, and gasoline has gone up by 20 percent. Crime is rising. Armed, unemployed men -- some of them nurtured during the intifada -- have begun using their weapons to hold up gas stations and other easy prey.
In the smart Ararat neighborhood of Beit Sahour, Bethlehem's neighboring town, Dina Awwad's imposing house was burgled last month, and all the jewelry and cash were stolen.
"We are totally depressed," she said. "The gunmen are using the decline in the economic situation to rob people. It came as a complete surprise. We didn't even have an alarm."
For months, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas have been engaged in fruitless talks on a unity government, but Hamas refuses to recognize Israel -- a position Haniyeh emphasized in a fiery speech Friday in Gaza City.
"We will not change our position on the issue of recognizing Israel, and any member of Hamas who recognizes Israel will leave the movement," said Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas foreign minister.
A poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center in late September suggested Hamas was losing the support it gained in January's election. The poll showed that 55.9 percent of Palestinians support the formation of a national unity government as the best way out of the current crisis. Moreover, 32 percent said they would vote for Fatah if elections were held today, while 21.9 percent said they would vote for Hamas. The sample size was 1,200 and the margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.
Last week, the simmering tensions boiled over into gunbattles on the streets of Gaza between warring Fatah and Hamas forces that left 12 Palestinians dead.
Bethlehem once bustled with Christian tourists. Figures kept by the Palestinian Tourist Police show that on an average day in September, only 239 foreigners visited, compared with more than 1,000 a day one year ago, and many thousands before the intifada.
Down Manger Street, the main road leading to the historic Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was born, the businesses told their own story. Most were shuttered. A handwritten sign at the gas station said: "Closed -- No Gas -- No Diesel."
Last Monday, masked Fatah gunmen took to Bethlehem's streets, shooting in the air, to impose a general strike intended to increase the pressure on Hamas to capitulate or step down. The house of the Hamas mayor of the neighboring village of Doha was fire-bombed, and a devout Muslim who lives in Bethlehem discovered a bomb planted under the seat of his car, which had to be defused by police.
Mahdi Abdul Hadi, director of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, warned that "the Palestinian people will go out to the streets to topple the government" if it did not resign. The growing strikes, demonstrations and now gunbattles appear to be bearing out his prediction.
"If Hamas would recognize Israel, everything would be OK, but the problem is that Hamas doesn't want to talk with Israel," said Fathi, the trinket seller. "I never went to school or university, I'm not an educated man, but I understand one thing: There is no way to reach an agreement or fix the problem between us and Israel without talking to each other.
"When I voted for Hamas, I didn't vote about the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. I voted for them to deal with the situation inside Palestine, between the people and the government," he said. "Everybody thought Hamas was good, not like Fatah. I thought we needed a change. I just need to make money, I just need to live. I just need something to make me feel I'm not like an animal. I don't want to feel like I'm a dog, or in a prison."
Sunday, 8 October 2006
Using power of the Internet to promote peace
One man's quest involves software to resolve disputes
Yair Amichai-Hamburger, who has developed conflict-resolution computer software, at the "Separation Barrier" between Israel and the West Bank. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to the Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Page F - 3
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Jerusalem -- While the Internet has become notorious as a forum for spreading messages of violence and terrorism, Yair Amichai-Hamburger believes it could become a key tool in promoting peace.
Amichai-Hamburger, an Israeli social-industrial psychologist who has written widely on the impact of the Internet on well-being, is developing new software and an Internet platform he hopes will become a cybergateway to conflict resolution around the world.
"The Internet creates a protected environment for users where they have more control over the communication process," said Amichai-Hamburger. "The Internet's unique qualities may help in the creation of positive contact between rival groups."
The new Internet platform is intended to enable groups from opposing sides in conflicts to make contact as the first step toward peacemaking. Amichai-Hamburger believes the use of the Internet for such encounters will revolutionize "people-to-people" contacts which have been used to reduce prejudice and conflict for the past half-century, but with mixed results.
From racial strife in mid-20th century America to apartheid in South Africa, Protestant-Catholic relations in Northern Ireland and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, social scientists and public policymakers have advocated "people-to-people" encounters as a key to peacemaking. Positive encounters between groups in conflict could break down barriers, create better understanding and serve as the basis for better relations in future, they contended.
Amichai-Hamburger cited the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that outlawed segregated U.S. schools. "The basic idea behind the decision of the Supreme Court was the psychological understanding that the situation could not continue. That if you want to have one nation, you can't break it up into ghettos. It was assumed that you have to have people meet each other, to see and learn the differences and the beauty of each group and their culture," said Amichai-Hamburger.
"One of the problems of intergroup contact is that members may approach it, and experience during it, high intergroup anxiety -- that is anxiety as a group member about meeting members of the other group," said Professor Miles Hewstone of Oxford University, whose theories on the "contact hypothesis" have been used to enhance contacts between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. "Contact works, when it does, by reducing such anxiety."
"I agree with Dr. Amichai-Hamburger that the Internet could be a major tool in conflict resolution," Hewstone said in a telephone interview. "I think he has got an interesting idea here that's worth pursuing."
Hewstone said he tried to create a similar computer-based platform for dialogue between Protestant and Catholic schoolchildren in Northern Ireland, but was prevented from doing so by strict British laws for protecting children's privacy that restrict external access to school Intranet systems.
"You can imagine the circumstances under which people would be more willing to divulge more personal information more quickly because they are hiding behind a computer screen, but it's still a leap of faith from there to whether they would do that in everyday life and whether it would impact on their face-to-face relations with people from the other group," he said.
The classic expression of the theory behind these encounters was "the contact hypothesis," coined by Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport in his 1954 book "The Nature of Prejudice," in which he suggested that contact between different groups would lessen prejudice.
Allport's theories had a major impact on integrated housing projects and desegregated school systems in the United States, and were used to break down the color bar in the U.S. Army, considered a model of integration for other institutions.
But more than half a century of interracial, interfaith and cross-political encounters have not always produced the desired effect. Studies of encounters in conflict situations around the world have suggested that the "contact hypothesis" works only when a range of conditions are satisfied. The contact must be pleasant, it must be fairly intimate and not casual, the participants need to perceive they are of equal status, and it must involve cooperation between groups working toward a mutually agreed goal.
Amichai-Hamburger said that use of the Internet not only reduced the anxiety that could sabotage any in-person encounter, it could also help to create near-perfect conditions for Allport's "contact hypothesis" to occur.
His theories, which are attracting increasing attention from psychologists and the high-tech industry, have applications for resolving a range of conflicts from war zones to corporate disputes.
Amichai-Hamburger, editor of "The Social Net: Understanding Human Behavior in Cyberspace," is a leading expert on the influence and use of the Internet and has advised major corporations, public service providers and political parties. After several years as vice chairman of the psychology department at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, he begins work this month as head of the Bezeq International Research Center for the study of the Psychology of Internet Use at the Inter-Disciplinary Center in Herlizya, a private Israeli university.
Although his project does not yet have its own Web site, he is overseeing a team of programmers, and is trying to raise funds from corporations that "have shown an interest in sponsoring the project," Amichai-Hamburger said without elaborating. When it is up and running, he said, access will be strictly controlled; group leaders, experts in intergroup contact and psychologists will be online with participants, who will be restricted to those committed to the aims of the encounters.
He said use of the Internet would help overcome the practical difficulties of bringing together people from warring factions. Since the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Israelis and Palestinians have been unable to engage in people-to-people projects such as Seeds of Peace because of the security barriers Israel has erected around the West Bank and Gaza.
Amichai-Hamburger said Internet encounters have proved to become much more intimate more quickly than face-to-face meetings, and people felt much more relaxed sitting at home with their computers than in a formal group. In addition, people are now accustomed to learning and communicating via the keyboard.
"For a long time, people have used the Internet for e-learning. It's quite comfortable for people to sit in their house and study through the Internet. And we know that millions of people around the world are using the Internet to communicate with others," he said.
Amichai-Hamburger said he hoped the new platform would be launched with the support of political and community leaders from all sides, whose backing would encourage their constituents to participate. It will contain a database drawing on past encounter experiences -- including failures -- as well as cultural information about the groups for participants to study before entering the dialogue.
Contacts will begin at text-only level in order to reduce the anxiety caused by appearing in public, and also in order to increase the "salience" or sense of group identity which studies have shown is crucial to the eventual success of the encounter.
"We want to change people's stereotypes," said Amichai-Hamburger. "We want people to generalize from their positive experience to their whole perception of the other group. The Internet can become a major tool in bringing about world peace."
Yair Amichai-Hamburger, who has developed conflict-resolution computer software, at the "Separation Barrier" between Israel and the West Bank. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to the Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Page F - 3
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Jerusalem -- While the Internet has become notorious as a forum for spreading messages of violence and terrorism, Yair Amichai-Hamburger believes it could become a key tool in promoting peace.
Amichai-Hamburger, an Israeli social-industrial psychologist who has written widely on the impact of the Internet on well-being, is developing new software and an Internet platform he hopes will become a cybergateway to conflict resolution around the world.
"The Internet creates a protected environment for users where they have more control over the communication process," said Amichai-Hamburger. "The Internet's unique qualities may help in the creation of positive contact between rival groups."
The new Internet platform is intended to enable groups from opposing sides in conflicts to make contact as the first step toward peacemaking. Amichai-Hamburger believes the use of the Internet for such encounters will revolutionize "people-to-people" contacts which have been used to reduce prejudice and conflict for the past half-century, but with mixed results.
From racial strife in mid-20th century America to apartheid in South Africa, Protestant-Catholic relations in Northern Ireland and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, social scientists and public policymakers have advocated "people-to-people" encounters as a key to peacemaking. Positive encounters between groups in conflict could break down barriers, create better understanding and serve as the basis for better relations in future, they contended.
Amichai-Hamburger cited the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that outlawed segregated U.S. schools. "The basic idea behind the decision of the Supreme Court was the psychological understanding that the situation could not continue. That if you want to have one nation, you can't break it up into ghettos. It was assumed that you have to have people meet each other, to see and learn the differences and the beauty of each group and their culture," said Amichai-Hamburger.
"One of the problems of intergroup contact is that members may approach it, and experience during it, high intergroup anxiety -- that is anxiety as a group member about meeting members of the other group," said Professor Miles Hewstone of Oxford University, whose theories on the "contact hypothesis" have been used to enhance contacts between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. "Contact works, when it does, by reducing such anxiety."
"I agree with Dr. Amichai-Hamburger that the Internet could be a major tool in conflict resolution," Hewstone said in a telephone interview. "I think he has got an interesting idea here that's worth pursuing."
Hewstone said he tried to create a similar computer-based platform for dialogue between Protestant and Catholic schoolchildren in Northern Ireland, but was prevented from doing so by strict British laws for protecting children's privacy that restrict external access to school Intranet systems.
"You can imagine the circumstances under which people would be more willing to divulge more personal information more quickly because they are hiding behind a computer screen, but it's still a leap of faith from there to whether they would do that in everyday life and whether it would impact on their face-to-face relations with people from the other group," he said.
The classic expression of the theory behind these encounters was "the contact hypothesis," coined by Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport in his 1954 book "The Nature of Prejudice," in which he suggested that contact between different groups would lessen prejudice.
Allport's theories had a major impact on integrated housing projects and desegregated school systems in the United States, and were used to break down the color bar in the U.S. Army, considered a model of integration for other institutions.
But more than half a century of interracial, interfaith and cross-political encounters have not always produced the desired effect. Studies of encounters in conflict situations around the world have suggested that the "contact hypothesis" works only when a range of conditions are satisfied. The contact must be pleasant, it must be fairly intimate and not casual, the participants need to perceive they are of equal status, and it must involve cooperation between groups working toward a mutually agreed goal.
Amichai-Hamburger said that use of the Internet not only reduced the anxiety that could sabotage any in-person encounter, it could also help to create near-perfect conditions for Allport's "contact hypothesis" to occur.
His theories, which are attracting increasing attention from psychologists and the high-tech industry, have applications for resolving a range of conflicts from war zones to corporate disputes.
Amichai-Hamburger, editor of "The Social Net: Understanding Human Behavior in Cyberspace," is a leading expert on the influence and use of the Internet and has advised major corporations, public service providers and political parties. After several years as vice chairman of the psychology department at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, he begins work this month as head of the Bezeq International Research Center for the study of the Psychology of Internet Use at the Inter-Disciplinary Center in Herlizya, a private Israeli university.
Although his project does not yet have its own Web site, he is overseeing a team of programmers, and is trying to raise funds from corporations that "have shown an interest in sponsoring the project," Amichai-Hamburger said without elaborating. When it is up and running, he said, access will be strictly controlled; group leaders, experts in intergroup contact and psychologists will be online with participants, who will be restricted to those committed to the aims of the encounters.
He said use of the Internet would help overcome the practical difficulties of bringing together people from warring factions. Since the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Israelis and Palestinians have been unable to engage in people-to-people projects such as Seeds of Peace because of the security barriers Israel has erected around the West Bank and Gaza.
Amichai-Hamburger said Internet encounters have proved to become much more intimate more quickly than face-to-face meetings, and people felt much more relaxed sitting at home with their computers than in a formal group. In addition, people are now accustomed to learning and communicating via the keyboard.
"For a long time, people have used the Internet for e-learning. It's quite comfortable for people to sit in their house and study through the Internet. And we know that millions of people around the world are using the Internet to communicate with others," he said.
Amichai-Hamburger said he hoped the new platform would be launched with the support of political and community leaders from all sides, whose backing would encourage their constituents to participate. It will contain a database drawing on past encounter experiences -- including failures -- as well as cultural information about the groups for participants to study before entering the dialogue.
Contacts will begin at text-only level in order to reduce the anxiety caused by appearing in public, and also in order to increase the "salience" or sense of group identity which studies have shown is crucial to the eventual success of the encounter.
"We want to change people's stereotypes," said Amichai-Hamburger. "We want people to generalize from their positive experience to their whole perception of the other group. The Internet can become a major tool in bringing about world peace."
Saturday, 23 September 2006
Israeli policy divides Palestinian families
Immigration crackdown in West Bank
BOSTON GLOBE
September 23, 2006
By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent
EL-BIREH, West Bank -- Nariman Yazbak and her 2-year-old daughter, Salma, left their home in the West Bank town of El Bireh last April for a routine visit to relatives in Jordan.
Six months later, she is still trying to return. Yazbak's husband, Rami, a human resources specialist at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, has petitioned the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government, the Israeli Army, and even written to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for help. He has filled out all the forms and presented all the necessary documentation, but no one will process the paperwork.
The Yazbaks are among the thousands of Palestinians caught in what human rights activists call a bureaucratic nightmare that has divided families, prevented visitors of Palestinian origin from visiting relatives in the West Bank, and is inducing many long-term West Bank residents to leave their homes.
Israel, which controls all the international borders leading to the West Bank, says it is not trying to break up Palestinian families. It says it is merely implementing existing immigration law and preventing foreign nationals from living in the country illegally.
But Palestinians, many of whom were born abroad and do not have Palestinian identity cards, say the Israelis suddenly clamped down after the January election of the Hamas government, when Israel broke off all ministry-level contacts with the Palestinian Authority after years of allowing them to live in the West Bank on three-month tourist visas.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says in a report issued in July that the result of the policy is ``the forced break-up of the family unit."
The report, ``Perpetual Limbo: Israel's freeze on unification of Palestinian families in the occupied territories," suggests that the Israeli crackdown is part of a broader policy to limit the growth of the Palestinian population ``by preventing the entry of spouses and children of residents, and by stimulating emigration from the area."
The Yazbaks say the result is that they will probably be forced to move abroad.
Rami Yazbak is a Palestinian, born in the West Bank, who returned in early 2000 with his Spanish-born Palestinian wife, Nariman, to their ancestral homeland.
``It was a dream to live in Palestine and to have my family, wife, and kid here," he said.
No one knows how immigrants like Nariman Yazbak can be granted Palestinian permanent residence, which under the Oslo peace accords requires the agreement of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Since the second intifadah erupted in 2000, there have been no contacts between the relevant ministries. So, like thousands of others in a similar position, for the past six years she has been leaving the country every three months and returning with a new three-month tourist visa issued at the border by the Israelis.
Until now.
In April, as Nariman and Salma returned as usual via the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge linking Jordan to the West Bank, they were stopped by immigration officials and turned back. Their passports were stamped ``Entry Denied." Rami Yazbak has contacted every Israeli and Palestinian official he can find, but so far without success.
``I need my family," he said. ``I'm giving it one last chance. We might appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, but I'm afraid they will reject it. Otherwise we will have to go to Spain and start again from zero."
For Palestinians with Jordanian citizenship, the troubles began at the start of the second intifadah in 2000, when Israel stopped allowing Jordanian-Palestinians to re enter the West Bank if they were effectively residing there.
Wahel Hushia, 35, from the West Bank village of Katana, married a Palestinian woman from Jordan in 1999. In 2001, his wife went to visit her parents in Jordan with their baby daughter, and the Israelis never allowed them back. Hushia visits them every few months, whenever he can afford the fare, and their West Bank-born daughter, now 6, comes to stay with his family for a few weeks per year.
``We cannot have any more children, because if they are born in Jordan, the Israelis will never let them in," Hushia said. ``I last saw them four months ago."
The Palestinian Ministry for Civil Affairs reports that it has received more than 120,000 requests for family reunification since September 2000, which the Israelis refuse to process. In a few cases, after intervention by B'Tselem and other human rights groups, Israel has granted a few individual requests on a piecemeal basis, as ``exceptional cases."
East Jerusalem lawyers Ibrahim Khoury and Ehab Abu Gosh said there are dozens of similar cases before the Israeli courts.
Khoury cited the case of one family in Beit Hanina, an area of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, whose members left for the United States in 1967 but maintain extensive property holdings and visit each year to see relatives. He said the father of the family, a US citizen, was recently detained on arrival at Ben-Gurion airport and held in the cells there for three weeks before an Israeli judge ordered him released pending a final decision on his status.
The US Consulate-General in Jerusalem, which handles relations with the Palestinian territories, said it was receiving several new complaints every week from Palestinian-Americans who were being denied entry after living in the West Bank for years.
Sam Bahour, a prominent West Bank businessman, has lived in El-Bireh since 1995. He applied to Israel for residency in the West Bank before the Palestinian Authority even existed but never received a reply. For the past 11 years, he said, he has traveled to and from the West Bank via the Israeli-controlled borders with Jordan on a three-month tourist visa. But the last time he went to the Israeli authorities they refused to extend it for more than one month.
He was given until Oct. 1 to leave the West Bank, and the Israeli soldier who stuck the visa in his passport scribbled ``final permit" across it in English, Arabic, and Hebrew.
``I hope to find the decision-makers within the Israeli system and resolve the issue," said Bahour. ``If not, I will be separated from my family. My work has already been affected. I have been unable to take on any new projects in the past 45 days."
``I won't violate the visa and stay here illegally," he said. ``I won't give the Israelis that gift."
Sabine Hadad, spokeswoman for the Israeli Interior Ministry, denied there was any policy change.
``There has been a clarification of the instructions," Hadad said. `` . . . When a foreigner, from the USA or any other country, comes to the border and they know they are coming to visit the territories, they need a visitors' permit for the territories, from the army."
BOSTON GLOBE
September 23, 2006
By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent
EL-BIREH, West Bank -- Nariman Yazbak and her 2-year-old daughter, Salma, left their home in the West Bank town of El Bireh last April for a routine visit to relatives in Jordan.
Six months later, she is still trying to return. Yazbak's husband, Rami, a human resources specialist at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, has petitioned the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government, the Israeli Army, and even written to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for help. He has filled out all the forms and presented all the necessary documentation, but no one will process the paperwork.
The Yazbaks are among the thousands of Palestinians caught in what human rights activists call a bureaucratic nightmare that has divided families, prevented visitors of Palestinian origin from visiting relatives in the West Bank, and is inducing many long-term West Bank residents to leave their homes.
Israel, which controls all the international borders leading to the West Bank, says it is not trying to break up Palestinian families. It says it is merely implementing existing immigration law and preventing foreign nationals from living in the country illegally.
But Palestinians, many of whom were born abroad and do not have Palestinian identity cards, say the Israelis suddenly clamped down after the January election of the Hamas government, when Israel broke off all ministry-level contacts with the Palestinian Authority after years of allowing them to live in the West Bank on three-month tourist visas.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says in a report issued in July that the result of the policy is ``the forced break-up of the family unit."
The report, ``Perpetual Limbo: Israel's freeze on unification of Palestinian families in the occupied territories," suggests that the Israeli crackdown is part of a broader policy to limit the growth of the Palestinian population ``by preventing the entry of spouses and children of residents, and by stimulating emigration from the area."
The Yazbaks say the result is that they will probably be forced to move abroad.
Rami Yazbak is a Palestinian, born in the West Bank, who returned in early 2000 with his Spanish-born Palestinian wife, Nariman, to their ancestral homeland.
``It was a dream to live in Palestine and to have my family, wife, and kid here," he said.
No one knows how immigrants like Nariman Yazbak can be granted Palestinian permanent residence, which under the Oslo peace accords requires the agreement of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Since the second intifadah erupted in 2000, there have been no contacts between the relevant ministries. So, like thousands of others in a similar position, for the past six years she has been leaving the country every three months and returning with a new three-month tourist visa issued at the border by the Israelis.
Until now.
In April, as Nariman and Salma returned as usual via the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge linking Jordan to the West Bank, they were stopped by immigration officials and turned back. Their passports were stamped ``Entry Denied." Rami Yazbak has contacted every Israeli and Palestinian official he can find, but so far without success.
``I need my family," he said. ``I'm giving it one last chance. We might appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, but I'm afraid they will reject it. Otherwise we will have to go to Spain and start again from zero."
For Palestinians with Jordanian citizenship, the troubles began at the start of the second intifadah in 2000, when Israel stopped allowing Jordanian-Palestinians to re enter the West Bank if they were effectively residing there.
Wahel Hushia, 35, from the West Bank village of Katana, married a Palestinian woman from Jordan in 1999. In 2001, his wife went to visit her parents in Jordan with their baby daughter, and the Israelis never allowed them back. Hushia visits them every few months, whenever he can afford the fare, and their West Bank-born daughter, now 6, comes to stay with his family for a few weeks per year.
``We cannot have any more children, because if they are born in Jordan, the Israelis will never let them in," Hushia said. ``I last saw them four months ago."
The Palestinian Ministry for Civil Affairs reports that it has received more than 120,000 requests for family reunification since September 2000, which the Israelis refuse to process. In a few cases, after intervention by B'Tselem and other human rights groups, Israel has granted a few individual requests on a piecemeal basis, as ``exceptional cases."
East Jerusalem lawyers Ibrahim Khoury and Ehab Abu Gosh said there are dozens of similar cases before the Israeli courts.
Khoury cited the case of one family in Beit Hanina, an area of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, whose members left for the United States in 1967 but maintain extensive property holdings and visit each year to see relatives. He said the father of the family, a US citizen, was recently detained on arrival at Ben-Gurion airport and held in the cells there for three weeks before an Israeli judge ordered him released pending a final decision on his status.
The US Consulate-General in Jerusalem, which handles relations with the Palestinian territories, said it was receiving several new complaints every week from Palestinian-Americans who were being denied entry after living in the West Bank for years.
Sam Bahour, a prominent West Bank businessman, has lived in El-Bireh since 1995. He applied to Israel for residency in the West Bank before the Palestinian Authority even existed but never received a reply. For the past 11 years, he said, he has traveled to and from the West Bank via the Israeli-controlled borders with Jordan on a three-month tourist visa. But the last time he went to the Israeli authorities they refused to extend it for more than one month.
He was given until Oct. 1 to leave the West Bank, and the Israeli soldier who stuck the visa in his passport scribbled ``final permit" across it in English, Arabic, and Hebrew.
``I hope to find the decision-makers within the Israeli system and resolve the issue," said Bahour. ``If not, I will be separated from my family. My work has already been affected. I have been unable to take on any new projects in the past 45 days."
``I won't violate the visa and stay here illegally," he said. ``I won't give the Israelis that gift."
Sabine Hadad, spokeswoman for the Israeli Interior Ministry, denied there was any policy change.
``There has been a clarification of the instructions," Hadad said. `` . . . When a foreigner, from the USA or any other country, comes to the border and they know they are coming to visit the territories, they need a visitors' permit for the territories, from the army."
Sunday, 10 September 2006
ISRAELI FORCE TO TRIPLE IN SOUTHERN LEBANON
CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Israel's Security Cabinet gives army another month to force Hezbollah fighters north of the Litani River and halt missile attacks
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Page A-1
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Zarit, Israel -- Israeli leaders decided on Wednesday to triple the country's ground invasion force in Lebanon and extend the fight against Hezbollah to the Litani River, about 18 miles across the border.
Justice Minister Haim Ramon said the huge ground operation is necessary to achieve "the cessation of the Katyusha rockets and an alteration of the status quo in southern Lebanon." The army was given another month to complete the mission.
The deployment about-face was widely expected after a month of aerial attacks and commando raids failed to halt Hezbollah rocket fire bombarding northern Israel. It came a day after Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, was named to replace Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern command, in overseeing the Lebanon campaign.
"This operation must be won. We have no choice. It is a war of no option that was forced upon us. The consequences of this war are far-reaching for the state of Israel and for the entire region," Ramon said.
Israel's Security Cabinet debated the new battle plan for six hours in the shadow of news -- not released to the public until midnight on Wednesday -- that the nation's forces had suffered the worst losses since the fighting began: 15 dead and 25 wounded.
Until Wednesday, Israel had hoped to overcome the 3,000-strong Hezbollah fighting units with just 6,500 Israeli ground troops, backed by heavy artillery fire, aerial bombardment and armored divisions. But four weeks into the campaign, Israeli forces are still taking heavy losses in Hezbollah strongholds such as Aita al-Shaab, a Shiite village a mile across the border that they have been trying to capture since the first days of the fighting.
The Cabinet decided to hold the final order for a day or two to see whether diplomatic moves at the United Nations could bring about a cease-fire that would force Hezbollah to disarm -- a move so far rejected by the Lebanese government.
Michael Oren, fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem think tank, and author of "Six Days of War," about the 1967 conflict, said the decision should have been made three weeks ago and seemed designed to improve Israel's position in the post-battle diplomacy.
"They are going to try and reach the Litani River and expand Israel's leverage in negotiations, in the hope that Israel can hold out not just for the deployment of the Lebanese army, but for the deployment of an international force," said Oren. "Israel can't trust the Lebanese army to keep Hezbollah out because the army is half-Shiite."
Yaakov Amidror, former head of Israel's National Defense College, agreed the move should have been made weeks ago.
"This is the only decision that can help us reach our goals," said Amidror. "One is the cessation of the firing of Katyusha rockets into Israel, or at least 90 to 95 percent of them. The other is to severely cripple the Hezbollah forces, which, up until now, have felt almost no harm. It will also make the other side think twice before starting a war with Israel."
Oren said the hesitant handling of the war so far might reflect the absence of ex-soldiers in Israeli government.
"This is the first Israeli war where all the decisions have been made by a civilian government with no military experience," he said. "In the past, there have been complaints that Israeli governments have been dominated by generals and submissive to the military. This one time, when the civilians control the military, a sizable proportion of the population is dissatisfied with their handling of the war and would have preferred a more robust approach."
On Wednesday night, about 20,000 Israeli troops, together with long columns of tanks, armored cars and military bulldozers, were snaking their way up through the winding roads near the Israel-Lebanon border, poised to pour into the battlefield.
Dozens of tanks, armored cars and military support vehicles lined the road near the border village of Zarit, near the spot where a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli patrol on July 12 sparked the current conflict. Israeli reservists sat inside the armored vehicles, sheltering from the midday sun, playing backgammon or trying to catch some sleep.
The troops were forbidden from giving their full names under army regulations. Shai, a 24-year-old student from Ashdod, said he was called up more than a week ago and was still waiting to be sent into Lebanon.
Two hours later, the same road was empty, except for discarded plastic bottles and food wrappers marking the spot where the tank brigade had been waiting.
Farther along the road, the same scene was repeated several times. Either long lines of military vehicles and waiting soldiers, or discarded trash where they once stood. In some places, the roadway bore the scars of heavy half-track vehicles.
Around a corner near Manara, a convoy of 10 tanks were rumbling up the road, interspersed with fragile-looking family vehicles trying to overtake them on the hairpin bends.
A few hundreds yards across the border, Israeli artillery shells could be seen crashing into targets in the Lebanese villages where heavy fighting continued Wednesday between Israeli and Hezbollah forces. The Israeli hits sent huge clouds of white, black or brown smoke billowing into the sky, depending on the target.
Close up, the villages that served as Hezbollah strongholds clearly showed the damage of nearly a month of Israeli fire. Many of the buildings have been reduced to burned-out skeletons. Others have gaping holes, like blackened, toothless mouths. Many landmarks are simply missing, blown up by Israeli forces.
From the upper floors of some of the few remaining buildings, there were flashes of gunfire from Hezbollah forces putting up fierce resistance against the Israeli invaders. Israeli helicopters hovered behind the lines, unleashing missiles that whistled overhead before exploding with deadly force across the border.
As the fighting continued, two particularly large clouds of white smoke apparently signaled direct hits on large stores of weapons. Maj. Avi Ortal, chief of operations for the Alexandroni infantry brigade, said his soldiers had discovered more than 150 Katyusha rockets in a single house in the nearby village of Rahamin two days ago.
Ortal, a lawyer in civilian life, said his soldiers had no doubts about their duty despite losing three men last week in a battle with Hezbollah.
"I feel that the war is very moral. The fact that Hezbollah is sitting on our borders, kidnapping our soldiers, invading our sovereignty, threatening the civilian population on the borders -- is something that we had to stop," he said as plumes of black and brown smoke billowed into the air behind him from Hezbollah villages where his men were fighting, supported by Israeli artillery.
Ortal said Wednesday's Cabinet decision had no immediate effect on his men. "In terms of the mission that our brigade gets, it is very clear and we will do it. This decision has not changed anything for us," he said.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Page A-1
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Zarit, Israel -- Israeli leaders decided on Wednesday to triple the country's ground invasion force in Lebanon and extend the fight against Hezbollah to the Litani River, about 18 miles across the border.
Justice Minister Haim Ramon said the huge ground operation is necessary to achieve "the cessation of the Katyusha rockets and an alteration of the status quo in southern Lebanon." The army was given another month to complete the mission.
The deployment about-face was widely expected after a month of aerial attacks and commando raids failed to halt Hezbollah rocket fire bombarding northern Israel. It came a day after Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, was named to replace Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern command, in overseeing the Lebanon campaign.
"This operation must be won. We have no choice. It is a war of no option that was forced upon us. The consequences of this war are far-reaching for the state of Israel and for the entire region," Ramon said.
Israel's Security Cabinet debated the new battle plan for six hours in the shadow of news -- not released to the public until midnight on Wednesday -- that the nation's forces had suffered the worst losses since the fighting began: 15 dead and 25 wounded.
Until Wednesday, Israel had hoped to overcome the 3,000-strong Hezbollah fighting units with just 6,500 Israeli ground troops, backed by heavy artillery fire, aerial bombardment and armored divisions. But four weeks into the campaign, Israeli forces are still taking heavy losses in Hezbollah strongholds such as Aita al-Shaab, a Shiite village a mile across the border that they have been trying to capture since the first days of the fighting.
The Cabinet decided to hold the final order for a day or two to see whether diplomatic moves at the United Nations could bring about a cease-fire that would force Hezbollah to disarm -- a move so far rejected by the Lebanese government.
Michael Oren, fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem think tank, and author of "Six Days of War," about the 1967 conflict, said the decision should have been made three weeks ago and seemed designed to improve Israel's position in the post-battle diplomacy.
"They are going to try and reach the Litani River and expand Israel's leverage in negotiations, in the hope that Israel can hold out not just for the deployment of the Lebanese army, but for the deployment of an international force," said Oren. "Israel can't trust the Lebanese army to keep Hezbollah out because the army is half-Shiite."
Yaakov Amidror, former head of Israel's National Defense College, agreed the move should have been made weeks ago.
"This is the only decision that can help us reach our goals," said Amidror. "One is the cessation of the firing of Katyusha rockets into Israel, or at least 90 to 95 percent of them. The other is to severely cripple the Hezbollah forces, which, up until now, have felt almost no harm. It will also make the other side think twice before starting a war with Israel."
Oren said the hesitant handling of the war so far might reflect the absence of ex-soldiers in Israeli government.
"This is the first Israeli war where all the decisions have been made by a civilian government with no military experience," he said. "In the past, there have been complaints that Israeli governments have been dominated by generals and submissive to the military. This one time, when the civilians control the military, a sizable proportion of the population is dissatisfied with their handling of the war and would have preferred a more robust approach."
On Wednesday night, about 20,000 Israeli troops, together with long columns of tanks, armored cars and military bulldozers, were snaking their way up through the winding roads near the Israel-Lebanon border, poised to pour into the battlefield.
Dozens of tanks, armored cars and military support vehicles lined the road near the border village of Zarit, near the spot where a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli patrol on July 12 sparked the current conflict. Israeli reservists sat inside the armored vehicles, sheltering from the midday sun, playing backgammon or trying to catch some sleep.
The troops were forbidden from giving their full names under army regulations. Shai, a 24-year-old student from Ashdod, said he was called up more than a week ago and was still waiting to be sent into Lebanon.
Two hours later, the same road was empty, except for discarded plastic bottles and food wrappers marking the spot where the tank brigade had been waiting.
Farther along the road, the same scene was repeated several times. Either long lines of military vehicles and waiting soldiers, or discarded trash where they once stood. In some places, the roadway bore the scars of heavy half-track vehicles.
Around a corner near Manara, a convoy of 10 tanks were rumbling up the road, interspersed with fragile-looking family vehicles trying to overtake them on the hairpin bends.
A few hundreds yards across the border, Israeli artillery shells could be seen crashing into targets in the Lebanese villages where heavy fighting continued Wednesday between Israeli and Hezbollah forces. The Israeli hits sent huge clouds of white, black or brown smoke billowing into the sky, depending on the target.
Close up, the villages that served as Hezbollah strongholds clearly showed the damage of nearly a month of Israeli fire. Many of the buildings have been reduced to burned-out skeletons. Others have gaping holes, like blackened, toothless mouths. Many landmarks are simply missing, blown up by Israeli forces.
From the upper floors of some of the few remaining buildings, there were flashes of gunfire from Hezbollah forces putting up fierce resistance against the Israeli invaders. Israeli helicopters hovered behind the lines, unleashing missiles that whistled overhead before exploding with deadly force across the border.
As the fighting continued, two particularly large clouds of white smoke apparently signaled direct hits on large stores of weapons. Maj. Avi Ortal, chief of operations for the Alexandroni infantry brigade, said his soldiers had discovered more than 150 Katyusha rockets in a single house in the nearby village of Rahamin two days ago.
Ortal, a lawyer in civilian life, said his soldiers had no doubts about their duty despite losing three men last week in a battle with Hezbollah.
"I feel that the war is very moral. The fact that Hezbollah is sitting on our borders, kidnapping our soldiers, invading our sovereignty, threatening the civilian population on the borders -- is something that we had to stop," he said as plumes of black and brown smoke billowed into the air behind him from Hezbollah villages where his men were fighting, supported by Israeli artillery.
Ortal said Wednesday's Cabinet decision had no immediate effect on his men. "In terms of the mission that our brigade gets, it is very clear and we will do it. This decision has not changed anything for us," he said.
Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Jordan gunman kills Brit and hits 6 more tourists
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday 5 September
BY MATTHEW KALMAN
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
AMMAN, Jordan - A British man was shot dead yesterday afternoon and six other Western tourists were wounded when a gunman opened fire on their tour group near the Roman amphitheater in the Jordanian capital.
The gunman was caught by onlookers after a 15-minute gun battle with cops.
"This is a cowardly terrorist attack, which we regret took place on Jordanian soil," Interior Minister Eid al-Fayez said. "This operation is considered a terrorist act unless the man is found to be deranged."
The wounded included tourists from Britain, Holland, New Zealand and Australia. The dead man was identified only as a 30-year-old Brit.
The group had just left the ancient site in the center of Amman and were climbing steps to exit when the gunman, hiding among Roman pillars, started shooting with a pistol.
A Jordanian police sergeant, Awni Zawahri, gave chase and opened fire at the gunman, igniting a 15-minute gun battle in which Zawahri was shot twice before the gunman was overpowered by onlookers.
"I saw him shooting at the tourists. They were screaming at him, but he just kept on firing until he emptied the whole clip," said shopkeeper Rommel Kamel Hamad, 30.
"He was shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great] as he fired at them," Hamad said. "Then he loaded a second clip and started shooting at the police. He shot the sergeant in the hip and the stomach but then the gun seemed to jam. When we saw he had stopped shooting, a few of us ran after him and caught him. He kicked and punched us, but we managed to hold him down until two police officers arrived, including the wounded sergeant," he said.
The gunman was identified by Jordanian officials as Nabeel Ahmed Issa Jaourah, 38, from a village northeast of Amman near the hometown of Abu Musab alZarqawi, the Al Qaeda-linked terror leader killed in June in Iraq. Jordanian authorities said they believe the man was acting alone.
The attack came despite heavy security in Jordan, a key U.S. ally, since a string of bombings at hotels last November that killed 63 people. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed to have staged that attack.
Tuesday 5 September
BY MATTHEW KALMAN
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
AMMAN, Jordan - A British man was shot dead yesterday afternoon and six other Western tourists were wounded when a gunman opened fire on their tour group near the Roman amphitheater in the Jordanian capital.
The gunman was caught by onlookers after a 15-minute gun battle with cops.
"This is a cowardly terrorist attack, which we regret took place on Jordanian soil," Interior Minister Eid al-Fayez said. "This operation is considered a terrorist act unless the man is found to be deranged."
The wounded included tourists from Britain, Holland, New Zealand and Australia. The dead man was identified only as a 30-year-old Brit.
The group had just left the ancient site in the center of Amman and were climbing steps to exit when the gunman, hiding among Roman pillars, started shooting with a pistol.
A Jordanian police sergeant, Awni Zawahri, gave chase and opened fire at the gunman, igniting a 15-minute gun battle in which Zawahri was shot twice before the gunman was overpowered by onlookers.
"I saw him shooting at the tourists. They were screaming at him, but he just kept on firing until he emptied the whole clip," said shopkeeper Rommel Kamel Hamad, 30.
"He was shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great] as he fired at them," Hamad said. "Then he loaded a second clip and started shooting at the police. He shot the sergeant in the hip and the stomach but then the gun seemed to jam. When we saw he had stopped shooting, a few of us ran after him and caught him. He kicked and punched us, but we managed to hold him down until two police officers arrived, including the wounded sergeant," he said.
The gunman was identified by Jordanian officials as Nabeel Ahmed Issa Jaourah, 38, from a village northeast of Amman near the hometown of Abu Musab alZarqawi, the Al Qaeda-linked terror leader killed in June in Iraq. Jordanian authorities said they believe the man was acting alone.
The attack came despite heavy security in Jordan, a key U.S. ally, since a string of bombings at hotels last November that killed 63 people. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed to have staged that attack.
Sunday, 27 August 2006
Israeli war protests echo 1973
As troops battled Hezbollah, outcry arose that may yet end political, military careers
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Page A - 8
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Jerusalem -- Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon ended two weeks ago, but one date keeps recurring in the endless Israeli press commentary: 1973.
That was the year of the Yom Kippur War, when Israeli intelligence failed to predict a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria that nearly overwhelmed the Jewish state. Israel's combat soldiers -- prominent among them future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- managed to eke out a victory, but the nation's leaders were forced to resign, clearing the way for a new generation led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Back in 1973, however, the process took time. The war lasted for 20 days in October. Prime Minister Golda Meir was returned to power in a general election in December, albeit with a reduced majority, and eventually resigned the following April, six months after the war.
Moti Ashkenazi, the lone combat soldier who led the protests that eventually brought about the downfall of Meir and her legendary defense minister, Moshe Dayan, recalled that it took three months before he felt able to mount his one-man vigil outside the prime minister's office in Jerusalem.
In 2006, in keeping with the rhythm of the 24-hour news cycle that broadcast the war in real time, the protests began while the fighting was still going on. Last week, Ashkenazi returned to Jerusalem to address demonstrators.
"We are the sovereign, we are the bosses, we are the ones entitled to ask the elected officials to hand back their power if they do not come up to standard," he told the crowd.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, did not lose the war against Hezbollah. On the contrary, a canny combination of military might and diplomatic finesse produced a cease-fire deal underwritten by the United Nations and secured by thousands of European troops.
If fully implemented, it will achieve Israel's strategic war aims: disarming Hezbollah, removing the threat of rocket fire on northern Israel, deploying the Lebanese army to the Israel-Lebanon border and extending Lebanese government control over the whole country.
But, as in 1973, the technical victory may not be enough to save Olmert's government or Halutz's military career. One clearly stated goal of the war -- the return of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in the raid that sparked the conflict -- remains unrealized.
As Israeli protests mount, an internal military inquiry has already been opened by Defense Minister Amir Peretz, whose job is also on the line. There are calls for a wide-ranging, independent commission to investigate the many shortcomings in the conduct of the war, from the lack of food, water and equipment for frontline troops to the failure of the top brass to order bunker-buster bombs from America in time.
Some demonstrators have even been marching to the grave of Golda Meir and then to Olmert's office. The symbolism is clear.
On Friday, the family of Sgt. Refanael Muskal, who was killed in southern Lebanon a month ago, led one such protest to Meir's grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
"The leadership failed, and it must go," said Riva Muskal, mother of the fallen soldier. "We don't need public inquiries to tell us that."
The criticism is flowing from several directions.
Combat soldiers say they were given conflicting orders, with no clear direction. Reservists say they suffered from serious shortages of equipment and indecisive leadership. The families of the 116 soldiers killed in the fighting wonder what their loved ones died for, especially the one-fifth of them who died in the two days after the cease-fire was agreed to, but before it was implemented on Aug. 14.
One of those killed on the final weekend was Uri Grossman, the 20-year-old son of celebrated Israeli author David Grossman, who had held a news conference three days earlier calling for an end to the fighting.
"We as a family have already lost the war," Grossman told mourners at his son's funeral.
And on the home front, more than 1 million residents of northern Israel are demanding to know why they had to flee their homes or hide underground in unsanitary bomb shelters as Hezbollah rockets rained down on them for more than a month, and why the government failed to provide enough food, water or financial compensation for their suffering.
"No leadership has ever before come out of a war so battered and shamed," said Yossi Sarid, a former leader of the left-wing Meretz Party who as a young man served as a political aide to the disgraced generation of 1973.
"There's nothing for it but to get rid of them," he said.
On Friday, the daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper published a poll in which 63 percent of respondents said they wanted Olmert to step down. The paper said the poll, which had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points, represented a political "earthquake" that threatens to undermine Olmert's premiership only five months after he was elected.
Whether Olmert's government will fall depends on many factors, not least the complexities of the Israeli electoral system, which has brought together the right-wing, capitalist Olmert and the socialist former union leader Peretz as partners in a government whose central pledge -- withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the West Bank -- now appears to be off the national agenda.
Many observers see the growing protests about the war as a symptom of a deeper dissatisfaction affecting Israeli society.
"Thank you, war, for creating the protest movement," wrote commentator Gideon Samet in Haaretz, a daily newspaper. "The protest is very much needed because it has come, though quite belatedly, to a country that is going off the rails."
There were other big stories in Israel last week, which together illustrated the feelings of many commentators that the country has some soul-searching to do before it can confront external issues like Lebanon or the Palestinians.
President Moshe Katsav was questioned for hours by police investigating allegations that he forced a female secretary to have sex in his office. Justice Minister Haim Ramon resigned to face charges that he also forced himself upon female employees in his ministry.
Then there was the search for Kobi Alexander, founder of the high-tech firm Comverse, who has been indicted in the United States for fraud over earnings from questionable stock options. Last, there was a bill for $10 million for two months' work, submitted by lawyers called in to save an Israeli supermarket chain from collapse.
For many Israelis, the arrogance and failure of Olmert and Halutz and their refusal to resign are symptomatic of a country that has lost its sense of spiritual heart and historical mission, replacing them with the mindless pursuit of money, sex and power.
Samet said Israel has become "a country of proliferating poverty, arrogant millionaires, insensitive bank executives with fat salaries, Third World infrastructure, crumbling city centers, a miserable Knesset and broken promises. Only a war could have brought the revulsion to the surface."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Page A - 8
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Jerusalem -- Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon ended two weeks ago, but one date keeps recurring in the endless Israeli press commentary: 1973.
That was the year of the Yom Kippur War, when Israeli intelligence failed to predict a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria that nearly overwhelmed the Jewish state. Israel's combat soldiers -- prominent among them future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- managed to eke out a victory, but the nation's leaders were forced to resign, clearing the way for a new generation led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Back in 1973, however, the process took time. The war lasted for 20 days in October. Prime Minister Golda Meir was returned to power in a general election in December, albeit with a reduced majority, and eventually resigned the following April, six months after the war.
Moti Ashkenazi, the lone combat soldier who led the protests that eventually brought about the downfall of Meir and her legendary defense minister, Moshe Dayan, recalled that it took three months before he felt able to mount his one-man vigil outside the prime minister's office in Jerusalem.
In 2006, in keeping with the rhythm of the 24-hour news cycle that broadcast the war in real time, the protests began while the fighting was still going on. Last week, Ashkenazi returned to Jerusalem to address demonstrators.
"We are the sovereign, we are the bosses, we are the ones entitled to ask the elected officials to hand back their power if they do not come up to standard," he told the crowd.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, did not lose the war against Hezbollah. On the contrary, a canny combination of military might and diplomatic finesse produced a cease-fire deal underwritten by the United Nations and secured by thousands of European troops.
If fully implemented, it will achieve Israel's strategic war aims: disarming Hezbollah, removing the threat of rocket fire on northern Israel, deploying the Lebanese army to the Israel-Lebanon border and extending Lebanese government control over the whole country.
But, as in 1973, the technical victory may not be enough to save Olmert's government or Halutz's military career. One clearly stated goal of the war -- the return of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in the raid that sparked the conflict -- remains unrealized.
As Israeli protests mount, an internal military inquiry has already been opened by Defense Minister Amir Peretz, whose job is also on the line. There are calls for a wide-ranging, independent commission to investigate the many shortcomings in the conduct of the war, from the lack of food, water and equipment for frontline troops to the failure of the top brass to order bunker-buster bombs from America in time.
Some demonstrators have even been marching to the grave of Golda Meir and then to Olmert's office. The symbolism is clear.
On Friday, the family of Sgt. Refanael Muskal, who was killed in southern Lebanon a month ago, led one such protest to Meir's grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
"The leadership failed, and it must go," said Riva Muskal, mother of the fallen soldier. "We don't need public inquiries to tell us that."
The criticism is flowing from several directions.
Combat soldiers say they were given conflicting orders, with no clear direction. Reservists say they suffered from serious shortages of equipment and indecisive leadership. The families of the 116 soldiers killed in the fighting wonder what their loved ones died for, especially the one-fifth of them who died in the two days after the cease-fire was agreed to, but before it was implemented on Aug. 14.
One of those killed on the final weekend was Uri Grossman, the 20-year-old son of celebrated Israeli author David Grossman, who had held a news conference three days earlier calling for an end to the fighting.
"We as a family have already lost the war," Grossman told mourners at his son's funeral.
And on the home front, more than 1 million residents of northern Israel are demanding to know why they had to flee their homes or hide underground in unsanitary bomb shelters as Hezbollah rockets rained down on them for more than a month, and why the government failed to provide enough food, water or financial compensation for their suffering.
"No leadership has ever before come out of a war so battered and shamed," said Yossi Sarid, a former leader of the left-wing Meretz Party who as a young man served as a political aide to the disgraced generation of 1973.
"There's nothing for it but to get rid of them," he said.
On Friday, the daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper published a poll in which 63 percent of respondents said they wanted Olmert to step down. The paper said the poll, which had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points, represented a political "earthquake" that threatens to undermine Olmert's premiership only five months after he was elected.
Whether Olmert's government will fall depends on many factors, not least the complexities of the Israeli electoral system, which has brought together the right-wing, capitalist Olmert and the socialist former union leader Peretz as partners in a government whose central pledge -- withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the West Bank -- now appears to be off the national agenda.
Many observers see the growing protests about the war as a symptom of a deeper dissatisfaction affecting Israeli society.
"Thank you, war, for creating the protest movement," wrote commentator Gideon Samet in Haaretz, a daily newspaper. "The protest is very much needed because it has come, though quite belatedly, to a country that is going off the rails."
There were other big stories in Israel last week, which together illustrated the feelings of many commentators that the country has some soul-searching to do before it can confront external issues like Lebanon or the Palestinians.
President Moshe Katsav was questioned for hours by police investigating allegations that he forced a female secretary to have sex in his office. Justice Minister Haim Ramon resigned to face charges that he also forced himself upon female employees in his ministry.
Then there was the search for Kobi Alexander, founder of the high-tech firm Comverse, who has been indicted in the United States for fraud over earnings from questionable stock options. Last, there was a bill for $10 million for two months' work, submitted by lawyers called in to save an Israeli supermarket chain from collapse.
For many Israelis, the arrogance and failure of Olmert and Halutz and their refusal to resign are symptomatic of a country that has lost its sense of spiritual heart and historical mission, replacing them with the mindless pursuit of money, sex and power.
Samet said Israel has become "a country of proliferating poverty, arrogant millionaires, insensitive bank executives with fat salaries, Third World infrastructure, crumbling city centers, a miserable Knesset and broken promises. Only a war could have brought the revulsion to the surface."
Sunday, 20 August 2006
Hezbollah night-vision gear was from Britain, Israel says
It's believed to be an export to Iran in drug-fighting effort
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Page A - 7
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Night-vision equipment found in Lebanon was said by Israel to have been made by Agema, based in England and San Diego. Photo courtesy of Israeli Defense Forces
Kiryat Shemona, Israel -- Israeli intelligence officials have complained to Britain and the United States that sensitive night-vision equipment recovered from Hezbollah fighters during the war in Lebanon had been exported by Britain to Iran. British officials said the equipment had been intended for use in a U.N. anti-narcotics campaign.
Israeli officials say they believe the state-of-the-art equipment, found in Hezbollah command-and-control headquarters in southern Lebanon during the just-concluded war, was part of a British government-approved shipment of 250 pieces of night-vision equipment sent to Iran in 2003.
Israeli military intelligence confirmed that one of the pieces of equipment is a Thermo-vision 1000 LR tactical night-vision system, serial No. 155010, part No. 193960, manufactured by Agema, a high-tech equipment company with branches in Bedfordshire, England, and San Diego. A spokesman for Agema in San Diego denied all knowledge of the system.
The equipment, which needed special export-license approval from the British government, was passed to the Iranians through a program run and administered by the U.N. Drug Control Program. The equipment uses infrared imaging to provide nighttime surveillance that allows the user to detect people and vehicles moving in the dark at a range of several miles.
Use of such equipment would have enabled Hezbollah to detect and record the movements of Israeli forces inside Israel, as well as its military advance into Lebanon.
Britain and Italy both have provided specialized tracking and monitoring equipment over the past decade as part of U.N.-sponsored attempts to stem the flow of heroin and opium into Western Europe from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran is a major route for shipment of narcotics to the West.
A spokesman for the British Foreign Office in London said Saturday, "The Israeli Defense Forces have confirmed to us they have found some night-vision equipment in south Lebanon that is apparently made in Britain. We're trying to get further details to see exactly what the equipment is, who made it and who the original buyer is."
The spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Britain participates, through the U.N. drug-fighting agency, in Iran's interception program, which is run by anti-narcotics forces along the country's eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major opium poppy-growing countries.
"We've been encouraging the Iranians as part of their anti-narcotics program, and there was an export in 2003 ... as part of the heroin and opium smuggling program. This is an area where we try not to let the nuclear issue prevent cooperation on countering narcotics," he said, referring to Iran's dispute with the United Nations over its nuclear enrichment program.
The Foreign Office spokesman said officials at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv have requested serial and parts numbers of the seized equipment to try to determine how it ended up in the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas fighting Israeli forces in Lebanon.
The equipment was found by Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese village of Mis-a-Jebel on Aug. 8, in a house belonging to a 60-year-old man whose four sons were all known to be Hezbollah fighters. The discovery was disclosed in a briefing by Lt. Col. Olivier Radowicz, an Israeli army spokesman, and later confirmed in detail by Israeli military intelligence officials, who also provided photographs of the equipment taken in the house where it was discovered.
"These are tactical night-vision systems ... given to Hezbollah by Iran. The Iranians are the 100 percent provider of all the materiel, especially intelligence materiel, to Hezbollah," Radowicz said.
The discovery of the night-vision equipment, together with sophisticated recording and monitoring devices and stashes of antitank missiles and rockets, led the Israelis to believe the five-room house was the command-and-control unit for Hezbollah in the local area, he said.
In the early phases of the Israeli ground advance against Hezbollah positions across the border region, commanders complained to their superiors that nighttime operations had been hampered by the ability of Hezbollah fighters to observe and counter the Israeli moves. In more than six days of bitter fighting around the village of Mis-a-Jebel, the Israeli army lost six soldiers, and more than 20 were injured.
"The night-vision unit was used to observe the movement of troops. It's very close to the border, so it can see Israeli troops. You can also record what you are watching. Then it is connected to computers. You can obtain a perfect intelligence picture in real time about the situation. It is then connected to firing systems or to units that are going to act in accordance with the intelligence they are receiving," Radowicz said during the briefing.
"It is a system that we can find in every serious army in the world. We don't talk here about just a terrorist fantasy. We are talking here about a very serious, high-quality system of a very professional army. We're talking here about hundreds of millions of dollars given by Iran to Hezbollah in the last six years," he said.
"In every village which served as the regional command, you can find the same unit -- intelligence, weapons systems, command and control and connection -- with the units which are firing or using the mobile platforms (for firing rockets) for targeting Israel," he said.
Israeli intelligence officials said they had contacted the British and U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv to pass on information of the discovery of the night-vision equipment, requesting explanations of where the equipment had come from and how it fell into the hands of Hezbollah fighters.
Freelance journalist Bob Graham contributed to this report.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Page A - 7
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Night-vision equipment found in Lebanon was said by Israel to have been made by Agema, based in England and San Diego. Photo courtesy of Israeli Defense Forces
Kiryat Shemona, Israel -- Israeli intelligence officials have complained to Britain and the United States that sensitive night-vision equipment recovered from Hezbollah fighters during the war in Lebanon had been exported by Britain to Iran. British officials said the equipment had been intended for use in a U.N. anti-narcotics campaign.
Israeli officials say they believe the state-of-the-art equipment, found in Hezbollah command-and-control headquarters in southern Lebanon during the just-concluded war, was part of a British government-approved shipment of 250 pieces of night-vision equipment sent to Iran in 2003.
Israeli military intelligence confirmed that one of the pieces of equipment is a Thermo-vision 1000 LR tactical night-vision system, serial No. 155010, part No. 193960, manufactured by Agema, a high-tech equipment company with branches in Bedfordshire, England, and San Diego. A spokesman for Agema in San Diego denied all knowledge of the system.
The equipment, which needed special export-license approval from the British government, was passed to the Iranians through a program run and administered by the U.N. Drug Control Program. The equipment uses infrared imaging to provide nighttime surveillance that allows the user to detect people and vehicles moving in the dark at a range of several miles.
Use of such equipment would have enabled Hezbollah to detect and record the movements of Israeli forces inside Israel, as well as its military advance into Lebanon.
Britain and Italy both have provided specialized tracking and monitoring equipment over the past decade as part of U.N.-sponsored attempts to stem the flow of heroin and opium into Western Europe from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran is a major route for shipment of narcotics to the West.
A spokesman for the British Foreign Office in London said Saturday, "The Israeli Defense Forces have confirmed to us they have found some night-vision equipment in south Lebanon that is apparently made in Britain. We're trying to get further details to see exactly what the equipment is, who made it and who the original buyer is."
The spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Britain participates, through the U.N. drug-fighting agency, in Iran's interception program, which is run by anti-narcotics forces along the country's eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major opium poppy-growing countries.
"We've been encouraging the Iranians as part of their anti-narcotics program, and there was an export in 2003 ... as part of the heroin and opium smuggling program. This is an area where we try not to let the nuclear issue prevent cooperation on countering narcotics," he said, referring to Iran's dispute with the United Nations over its nuclear enrichment program.
The Foreign Office spokesman said officials at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv have requested serial and parts numbers of the seized equipment to try to determine how it ended up in the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas fighting Israeli forces in Lebanon.
The equipment was found by Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese village of Mis-a-Jebel on Aug. 8, in a house belonging to a 60-year-old man whose four sons were all known to be Hezbollah fighters. The discovery was disclosed in a briefing by Lt. Col. Olivier Radowicz, an Israeli army spokesman, and later confirmed in detail by Israeli military intelligence officials, who also provided photographs of the equipment taken in the house where it was discovered.
"These are tactical night-vision systems ... given to Hezbollah by Iran. The Iranians are the 100 percent provider of all the materiel, especially intelligence materiel, to Hezbollah," Radowicz said.
The discovery of the night-vision equipment, together with sophisticated recording and monitoring devices and stashes of antitank missiles and rockets, led the Israelis to believe the five-room house was the command-and-control unit for Hezbollah in the local area, he said.
In the early phases of the Israeli ground advance against Hezbollah positions across the border region, commanders complained to their superiors that nighttime operations had been hampered by the ability of Hezbollah fighters to observe and counter the Israeli moves. In more than six days of bitter fighting around the village of Mis-a-Jebel, the Israeli army lost six soldiers, and more than 20 were injured.
"The night-vision unit was used to observe the movement of troops. It's very close to the border, so it can see Israeli troops. You can also record what you are watching. Then it is connected to computers. You can obtain a perfect intelligence picture in real time about the situation. It is then connected to firing systems or to units that are going to act in accordance with the intelligence they are receiving," Radowicz said during the briefing.
"It is a system that we can find in every serious army in the world. We don't talk here about just a terrorist fantasy. We are talking here about a very serious, high-quality system of a very professional army. We're talking here about hundreds of millions of dollars given by Iran to Hezbollah in the last six years," he said.
"In every village which served as the regional command, you can find the same unit -- intelligence, weapons systems, command and control and connection -- with the units which are firing or using the mobile platforms (for firing rockets) for targeting Israel," he said.
Israeli intelligence officials said they had contacted the British and U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv to pass on information of the discovery of the night-vision equipment, requesting explanations of where the equipment had come from and how it fell into the hands of Hezbollah fighters.
Freelance journalist Bob Graham contributed to this report.
Saturday, 19 August 2006
PAYING WAR'S TOLL: Northern Israel's tourism fades, but cease-fire raises some hope
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Page C - 1
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Acre, Israel -- Like many residents of northern Israel, Doron Efrati has a few jobs.
By day he is a meteorologist, environmentalist and a lecturer at Western Galilee College. At home in the pastoral surroundings of Bustan Hagalil, a pastoral cooperative farming community on the outskirts of the ancient crusader city of Acre, he has built four holiday cottages on the grounds of his home that are rented out from June until September. But not this year.
"The war killed everything," said Efrati, who sat out the war with his family as the Hezbollah rockets exploded in the fields around their home.
Efrati's cottages may yet be filled. As Israel began to count the cost of the monthlong war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson announced plans to bring Israeli and foreign tourists to the north in an attempt to provide an immediate cash injection for the beleaguered region.
Tourism slumped by 25 percent in July, compared with the same month in 2005, and the many hotels and guesthouses in the north of the country were occupied only by journalists, aid workers and soldiers.
The damage to tourism, worth $3 billion each year to the Israeli economy, came as officials were expecting a record-breaking 2.5 million passenger arrivals in 2006. Officials said cancellations were already being received for 2007. The Bank of Israel said in a report that the damage to tourism alone could erase half a percentage point off the country's annual earnings.
Hirchson said Israel's first priority is to repair the physical damage caused by the rocket barrages on homes, shops and community buildings. He said officials had already received more than 8,000 compensation claims and he expects that figure to rise sharply as the full extent of the damage becomes clear.
"This was a war with heavy economic costs. We will have to deal with it and restore the situation to what it was as quickly as possible in order for the north of the country to continue to grow," Hirchson said.
"We intend to use the last two remaining weeks of the summer vacation to bring everyone to the north with an aggressive marketing campaign, so they will fill the shops, make purchases, fill the hotels and holiday cottages, eat in the restaurants and create immediate earnings for the residents of the north," he said.
Israeli officials' initial estimate of the total cost was $5.3 billion, including defense spending, emergency aid to hard-hit communities, physical damage and the consequences of a $2 billion -- or 1.5 percent loss -- in the gross domestic product.
But analysts say that the Israeli economy was robust enough at the start of the war to endure the setback. "The ability of the economy to cope with this shock is quite good and will create a situation where it will have only a temporary negative effect and not longer-term negative effect," said Gil Bufman, chief economist at Bank Leumi.
Israel's gross domestic product showed healthy annual growth of 6.2 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2006, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics, led by exports, which grew by 25.8 percent over the year.
Two huge technology deals with Bay Area companies went ahead despite the war, signaling confidence in the Israeli economy. On July 25, Palo Alto's Hewlett-Packard Co. bought Mercury Interactive Corp. for about $4.5 billion, and on July 31, SanDisk Corp. of Milpitas, the world's largest maker of memory cards in consumer electronics, agreed to buy M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. for $1.7 billion.
In May, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. paid $4 billion to buy 80 percent of Iscar Metalworking Cos., whose headquarters is in the rocket-battered town of Carmiel northern Israel. Buffett is expected to visit Israel to inspect the company next month.
The Association of Israeli Chambers of Commerce estimated the direct losses to service and trade industries in the north at 5.9 billion shekels ($1.4 billion), affecting some 60,000 businesses employing 210,000 workers. The association said the average loss in revenue was 60 percent for the period. "There is no doubt that there are businesses where the loss in revenue was total because they were closed, like restaurants, shops, cinemas and others," the association said in a statement.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Page C - 1
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Acre, Israel -- Like many residents of northern Israel, Doron Efrati has a few jobs.
By day he is a meteorologist, environmentalist and a lecturer at Western Galilee College. At home in the pastoral surroundings of Bustan Hagalil, a pastoral cooperative farming community on the outskirts of the ancient crusader city of Acre, he has built four holiday cottages on the grounds of his home that are rented out from June until September. But not this year.
"The war killed everything," said Efrati, who sat out the war with his family as the Hezbollah rockets exploded in the fields around their home.
Efrati's cottages may yet be filled. As Israel began to count the cost of the monthlong war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson announced plans to bring Israeli and foreign tourists to the north in an attempt to provide an immediate cash injection for the beleaguered region.
Tourism slumped by 25 percent in July, compared with the same month in 2005, and the many hotels and guesthouses in the north of the country were occupied only by journalists, aid workers and soldiers.
The damage to tourism, worth $3 billion each year to the Israeli economy, came as officials were expecting a record-breaking 2.5 million passenger arrivals in 2006. Officials said cancellations were already being received for 2007. The Bank of Israel said in a report that the damage to tourism alone could erase half a percentage point off the country's annual earnings.
Hirchson said Israel's first priority is to repair the physical damage caused by the rocket barrages on homes, shops and community buildings. He said officials had already received more than 8,000 compensation claims and he expects that figure to rise sharply as the full extent of the damage becomes clear.
"This was a war with heavy economic costs. We will have to deal with it and restore the situation to what it was as quickly as possible in order for the north of the country to continue to grow," Hirchson said.
"We intend to use the last two remaining weeks of the summer vacation to bring everyone to the north with an aggressive marketing campaign, so they will fill the shops, make purchases, fill the hotels and holiday cottages, eat in the restaurants and create immediate earnings for the residents of the north," he said.
Israeli officials' initial estimate of the total cost was $5.3 billion, including defense spending, emergency aid to hard-hit communities, physical damage and the consequences of a $2 billion -- or 1.5 percent loss -- in the gross domestic product.
But analysts say that the Israeli economy was robust enough at the start of the war to endure the setback. "The ability of the economy to cope with this shock is quite good and will create a situation where it will have only a temporary negative effect and not longer-term negative effect," said Gil Bufman, chief economist at Bank Leumi.
Israel's gross domestic product showed healthy annual growth of 6.2 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2006, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics, led by exports, which grew by 25.8 percent over the year.
Two huge technology deals with Bay Area companies went ahead despite the war, signaling confidence in the Israeli economy. On July 25, Palo Alto's Hewlett-Packard Co. bought Mercury Interactive Corp. for about $4.5 billion, and on July 31, SanDisk Corp. of Milpitas, the world's largest maker of memory cards in consumer electronics, agreed to buy M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. for $1.7 billion.
In May, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. paid $4 billion to buy 80 percent of Iscar Metalworking Cos., whose headquarters is in the rocket-battered town of Carmiel northern Israel. Buffett is expected to visit Israel to inspect the company next month.
The Association of Israeli Chambers of Commerce estimated the direct losses to service and trade industries in the north at 5.9 billion shekels ($1.4 billion), affecting some 60,000 businesses employing 210,000 workers. The association said the average loss in revenue was 60 percent for the period. "There is no doubt that there are businesses where the loss in revenue was total because they were closed, like restaurants, shops, cinemas and others," the association said in a statement.
Friday, 18 August 2006
Israelis in battered town start to pick up the pieces
Esther and Yigal Buskila assess the damage inflicted by a Katyusha rocket on their home in Nahariya. They had fled the attacks. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to The Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Friday, August 18, 2006
Page A - 11
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Nahariya, Israel -- Lydisia Kadosh was watching the TV news two weeks ago when she realized that the house blazing away on the screen was hers.
The burning three-story duplex in this northern Israeli town had just been hit by a Katyusha rocket, fired across the border by Hezbollah guerrillas during the 34-day war, which entered a tense cease-fire Monday.
"I saw my house exploding and going up in flames," said Kadosh, inspecting the damage Thursday. "My daughter burst into tears when she saw the pictures."
Kadosh, her husband and their four children had left Nahariya in the first week of the fighting to stay with friends and relatives. They returned home this week to find their house uninhabitable, with a huge hole in the roof and broken glass and furniture scattered everywhere.
"We have been refugees for a month, moving from place to place, and we are still refugees because we cannot live there while it is in this state," she said. "The municipality has given us a place in a hotel, but only for a short time."
The Kadoshes have plenty of company: An estimated two-thirds of the 51,000 residents of Nahariya left to escape the daily rocket bombardments.
By Thursday, most had returned, and traffic filled the streets once more. Neighbors and workers searched out friends and surveyed the damage. Huge lines developed at banks and post offices as inhabitants began sorting out their personal affairs after a month in limbo.
In the basement of the Carlton Hotel, tax officials labored from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., receiving information from thousands of people about damaged homes, cars and businesses. Some, like Kadosh, were given hotel vouchers while their homes were being repaired.
Many residents, especially those from poorer neighborhoods, complained that the compensation procedure was too bureaucratic and slow.
Nissim Assor, 57, had nowhere to escape to, so he was at home in the working-class Kiryat Assor neighborhood with his wife and five children two weeks ago when a Katyusha landed in their front garden, blowing out the windows and sending shards of metal through the door and walls.
"We escaped by a miracle," Assor said, pulling out a piece of jagged shrapnel from the pages of a cookbook where it had lodged after piercing a door, a cupboard and the book's cover. "Each day, we find more pieces in the kitchen cupboards. We have no windows, blinds or doors. We're still waiting for someone to come and fix it."
His neighbor Yigal Buskila, 36, also had nowhere to go, but he packed up his wife and 5-year-old son and headed south anyway.
"My wife and son were terribly scared. They were trembling all the time. My son still can't sleep," said Buskila, surveying the wreckage of his tiny living room and the smashed screen of his TV set. "We just turned up in cities all over the country and contacted the mayor in each place, and he found us families who were willing to take us in. We stayed a few days in each place, like refugees. People were wonderful."
Isaac Noah, a 44-year-old investment banker, also saw his home go up in flames on television after a third Katyusha hit his street, uprooting a streetlight, smashing walls, windows and part of his roof, and leaving the front of his house looking as though it had been freshly machine-gunned. "Thank God it was empty at the time," he said. "All they hurt were stones. We will rebuild them."
Around the corner, a huge banner outside the Diesenhaus Unitours travel agency declared, "The windows are broken -- but we're not!" Managing Director Nir Shilo kept the office open through the conflict but sent his staff home to work by phone and Internet. The company found accommodations for workers who wanted to leave the city with employees at its branches elsewhere in Israel.
By Thursday, the computers, telephones and electricity were up and working again, but the windows were in shards, waiting to be repaired.
"I had to stay. I believe in fate. Part of the struggle in this war was to show our enemies that even with 5,000 rockets falling in a month, the economy and life goes on," he said.
According to news reports, nearly 4,000 rockets hit northern Israel and about 12,000 homes were destroyed during the war.
Shilo said his business fell 40 percent in July, the beginning of the peak summer period, and he expected further losses for August, but he was confident the economy would recover. "My business has grown by at least 15 percent a year since 2001," he said. "It shows that people have the money to spend, and also they are of a mind to relax, to take vacations. I think that will return."
A few miles up the road, in the village of Shlomi, Shlomo Lugasi was sitting on his porch enjoying the sunshine, as he did every day throughout the war.
At 104, Lugasi is probably the oldest Israeli to survive the onslaught -- and perhaps also the toughest. He simply refused to leave the village he helped establish half a century ago, a place he picked because the name was so similar to his.
"It's much nicer now that it's quiet, without these rockets whistling over my head and exploding," Lugasi said.
"I'd prefer to have a cease-fire all the time. I believe in this peace, and I believe Israel wants peace, but I don't trust (Hassan) Nasrallah," he said, referring to the Hezbollah leader. "Nasrallah is just looking for trouble. But he'll lose in the end."
Thursday, 17 August 2006
Israeli leaders face discontent over war's payoff
NEWS ANALYSIS
Despite confident assessment by Olmert, poll shows huge drop in his approval rating
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Page A - 12
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Jerusalem -- Israeli political and military leaders say they achieved almost all the goals they set forth at the start of the 34-day war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, yet a solid majority of ordinary Israelis appear dissatisfied with the outcome.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert embarked on the military campaign after a mere three months in office, promising to cripple Hezbollah, to destroy its missile capability and to win the freedom of two Israeli soldiers whose capture on July 12 triggered the confrontation.
But instead of emerging strengthened after a decisive military victory, Olmert has seen his approval rating plummet -- 40 percent, compared with 78 percent in the first two weeks of the offensive, according to a recent TNS-Teleseker poll.
"We entered this war for justified reasons," said former Likud Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. "The kidnapping of the two soldiers was a wild action, which demanded a response. Unfortunately, we did not succeed in bringing them home. We did not disarm Hezbollah. We did not succeed in removing the missile threat. The people of Israel are asking how it is, after a month in the shelters, that the threat remains, that we can expect another round of fighting," he said.
In an effort to defuse criticism, Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Wednesday appointed a committee headed by former military Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak to investigate the army's preparations and conduct of the war. But critics said a more independent commission is needed -- a view expressed by two-thirds of respondents polled by two rival daily newspapers, Yediot Ahronot and Maariv.
The yawning gulf between the satisfaction of the Israeli establishment and the anger of the general public appears to stem from a fundamental disconnect between the leaders of the country and the people.
Military reservists sent to fight in Lebanon reported shortages of basic equipment and food. Soldiers said their commanders appeared to have little understanding of the purpose of the dangerous missions they were asked to undertake. And more than a million residents of the north feel they were forced to abandon their homes or sit in uncomfortable underground shelters for days or weeks on end, without any tangible result.
Nowhere is the gap in perceptions between the leadership and the public sharper than in the growing scandal around the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, after it emerged that he liquidated his personal investment portfolio on the day of the Hezbollah cross-border raid -- only hours before Israel's military operation began, when share values plummeted by more than 8 percent.
Labor Party legislator Colette Avital called on Halutz to resign, saying she questioned the general's priorities.
"Not only was this in my opinion unethical, I have doubts about his judgment. I hope he will consider his position," she said.
But aside from the personal conduct of the chief of staff, Israelis also had deeper concerns about the whole operation.
On Monday, hours after a cease-fire went into effect, Olmert said the Israeli offensive had ended Hezbollah's "state within a state," and "changed the strategic balance against Hezbollah." But he acknowledged that the two soldiers were not yet home, and he admitted there were "shortcomings" in prosecuting the war.
Shalom, the ex-foreign minister, said there were "some very tough questions to be asked about the conduct of the war, how decisions were made, the direction of the home front, and the diplomatic agreement -- which in my opinion is very bad for Israel."
The gap between the public's perception and the leaders' assessment extended also to the army.
"I would suggest we have met our objectives and even much better," said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a top Air Force commander on the general staff. "We knew it would take weeks or months. We weren't surprised by what happened."
But many Israelis were surprised, and deeply disappointed, that Hezbollah appears to have emerged largely intact from the battlefield, with its missile capability impaired but operative.
One former senior intelligence official said the Israeli bombing campaign -- which provoked widespread international criticism and caused many civilian deaths -- did not produce the expected results.
"The hope was that the aerial bombardment would soften up Hezbollah to the point where they would not be able to carry out the kind of bombing they began on the northern part of Israel. Although Israel achieved great success in knocking out much of the strategic long-range missiles, more than 70 percent, we had less success with taking out the medium- and short-range missiles and launchers. Hezbollah were putting up stiff resistance, maybe stiffer than anticipated," said the intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Intelligence is not a pure art. You cannot expect an intelligence capability to assess accurately the resistance potential of a certain group of fighters," he said. "You can ask intelligence to locate sites, to describe the technical capabilities of forces based on the equipment they have at their disposal, but you cannot expect intelligence to assess the human element and their capability in a given situation."
Israeli planners also pinned their hopes on creating internal political pressures within Lebanon against Hezbollah, but badly miscalculated.
"The expectation was that if the aerial bombardment was fierce enough, there would arise in Lebanon a very formidable backlash against Hezbollah by a majority of Lebanese citizens. This did not happen," said the official.
On the ground, soldiers reported tactical errors, lack of training and shortages of equipment. In Israel's citizen army, those shortcomings could not be kept under wraps and will now be the subject of intense debate.
"We went to war and we should have been better prepared, it's clear. The result we achieved after 30 days of fighting was certainly not the result the government had in mind when it instructed the Israeli Defense Forces to embark on this struggle," said Dan Meridor, a former Likud minister who drafted a recent report on the army's lack of preparedness for just such a guerrilla war.
"There were things that we achieved, and Hezbollah suffered a huge blow. We can see that. But the aim of returning the kidnapped soldiers, which is the reason we began, has not been achieved, nor was it possible to achieve in my opinion. Stopping the Katyusha fire was also not achieved. These are things which we should have known from the beginning it would be impossible to achieve."
Meridor said Israel achieved "significant changes" in Lebanon, "but the test of how much will be in the implementation of the agreement achieved at the Security Council."
Despite confident assessment by Olmert, poll shows huge drop in his approval rating
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Page A - 12
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Jerusalem -- Israeli political and military leaders say they achieved almost all the goals they set forth at the start of the 34-day war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, yet a solid majority of ordinary Israelis appear dissatisfied with the outcome.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert embarked on the military campaign after a mere three months in office, promising to cripple Hezbollah, to destroy its missile capability and to win the freedom of two Israeli soldiers whose capture on July 12 triggered the confrontation.
But instead of emerging strengthened after a decisive military victory, Olmert has seen his approval rating plummet -- 40 percent, compared with 78 percent in the first two weeks of the offensive, according to a recent TNS-Teleseker poll.
"We entered this war for justified reasons," said former Likud Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. "The kidnapping of the two soldiers was a wild action, which demanded a response. Unfortunately, we did not succeed in bringing them home. We did not disarm Hezbollah. We did not succeed in removing the missile threat. The people of Israel are asking how it is, after a month in the shelters, that the threat remains, that we can expect another round of fighting," he said.
In an effort to defuse criticism, Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Wednesday appointed a committee headed by former military Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak to investigate the army's preparations and conduct of the war. But critics said a more independent commission is needed -- a view expressed by two-thirds of respondents polled by two rival daily newspapers, Yediot Ahronot and Maariv.
The yawning gulf between the satisfaction of the Israeli establishment and the anger of the general public appears to stem from a fundamental disconnect between the leaders of the country and the people.
Military reservists sent to fight in Lebanon reported shortages of basic equipment and food. Soldiers said their commanders appeared to have little understanding of the purpose of the dangerous missions they were asked to undertake. And more than a million residents of the north feel they were forced to abandon their homes or sit in uncomfortable underground shelters for days or weeks on end, without any tangible result.
Nowhere is the gap in perceptions between the leadership and the public sharper than in the growing scandal around the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, after it emerged that he liquidated his personal investment portfolio on the day of the Hezbollah cross-border raid -- only hours before Israel's military operation began, when share values plummeted by more than 8 percent.
Labor Party legislator Colette Avital called on Halutz to resign, saying she questioned the general's priorities.
"Not only was this in my opinion unethical, I have doubts about his judgment. I hope he will consider his position," she said.
But aside from the personal conduct of the chief of staff, Israelis also had deeper concerns about the whole operation.
On Monday, hours after a cease-fire went into effect, Olmert said the Israeli offensive had ended Hezbollah's "state within a state," and "changed the strategic balance against Hezbollah." But he acknowledged that the two soldiers were not yet home, and he admitted there were "shortcomings" in prosecuting the war.
Shalom, the ex-foreign minister, said there were "some very tough questions to be asked about the conduct of the war, how decisions were made, the direction of the home front, and the diplomatic agreement -- which in my opinion is very bad for Israel."
The gap between the public's perception and the leaders' assessment extended also to the army.
"I would suggest we have met our objectives and even much better," said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a top Air Force commander on the general staff. "We knew it would take weeks or months. We weren't surprised by what happened."
But many Israelis were surprised, and deeply disappointed, that Hezbollah appears to have emerged largely intact from the battlefield, with its missile capability impaired but operative.
One former senior intelligence official said the Israeli bombing campaign -- which provoked widespread international criticism and caused many civilian deaths -- did not produce the expected results.
"The hope was that the aerial bombardment would soften up Hezbollah to the point where they would not be able to carry out the kind of bombing they began on the northern part of Israel. Although Israel achieved great success in knocking out much of the strategic long-range missiles, more than 70 percent, we had less success with taking out the medium- and short-range missiles and launchers. Hezbollah were putting up stiff resistance, maybe stiffer than anticipated," said the intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Intelligence is not a pure art. You cannot expect an intelligence capability to assess accurately the resistance potential of a certain group of fighters," he said. "You can ask intelligence to locate sites, to describe the technical capabilities of forces based on the equipment they have at their disposal, but you cannot expect intelligence to assess the human element and their capability in a given situation."
Israeli planners also pinned their hopes on creating internal political pressures within Lebanon against Hezbollah, but badly miscalculated.
"The expectation was that if the aerial bombardment was fierce enough, there would arise in Lebanon a very formidable backlash against Hezbollah by a majority of Lebanese citizens. This did not happen," said the official.
On the ground, soldiers reported tactical errors, lack of training and shortages of equipment. In Israel's citizen army, those shortcomings could not be kept under wraps and will now be the subject of intense debate.
"We went to war and we should have been better prepared, it's clear. The result we achieved after 30 days of fighting was certainly not the result the government had in mind when it instructed the Israeli Defense Forces to embark on this struggle," said Dan Meridor, a former Likud minister who drafted a recent report on the army's lack of preparedness for just such a guerrilla war.
"There were things that we achieved, and Hezbollah suffered a huge blow. We can see that. But the aim of returning the kidnapped soldiers, which is the reason we began, has not been achieved, nor was it possible to achieve in my opinion. Stopping the Katyusha fire was also not achieved. These are things which we should have known from the beginning it would be impossible to achieve."
Meridor said Israel achieved "significant changes" in Lebanon, "but the test of how much will be in the implementation of the agreement achieved at the Security Council."
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
Many Israelis see a strategic defeat
In Israel, critics condemn strategy behind war
BOSTON GLOBE | August 16, 2006By Anne Barnard and Matthew Kalman, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent
JERUSALEM -- Scathing indictments of the way the Israeli government and its military have conducted the longest war in the nation's history filled the country's newspapers and airwaves yesterday, as Israelis began to feel safe enough to return to their national pastime of blistering political debate.
Israeli analysts across the political spectrum branded the war against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon ``an embarrassing defeat" for a ``semi-rookie government" that should have known the goals it set for itself were ``impossible to achieve."
Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading daily newspapers, summed up the national mood by presenting readers with an online poll that asked: ``Who should resign?"
A popular nominee was the army's chief of staff, Dan Halutz, who yesterday admitted selling his entire stock portfolio, worth $27,600, in the hours between Hezbollah's initial attack and the first Israeli bombardment of Beirut.
On the second day since July 12 without Hezbollah rocket attacks, many Israelis looked around and declared themselves sorely disappointed with a war that forced a million people to flee their homes in northern Israel and killed 150 Israelis and more than 800 Lebanese. The war inflamed anger across the Muslim world -- without dealing a decisive blow to Hezbollah or bringing home the two Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping by the Lebanese militant group triggered the fighting.
The outrage came from the left and the right.
``We simply blew it," was the headline on a column in left-leaning Ha'aretz by Yoel Marcus, who asked, ``What makes an army -- or its chief of staff, to be exact -- get up one fine morning and persuade a semi-rookie government to launch an all-out war at the drop of a hat because two of our soldiers were kidnapped?"
``The question is whether [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert posed the right questions and the army gave him truthful answers. Did Olmert ask, for example, whether the army was capable of knocking Hezbollah out of commission, or at least disarming it?"
Yossi Klein Halevi, a right-leaning columnist and an analyst at Jerusalem's Shalem Center, lamented that Israel's leaders squandered ``an unprecedented green light from Washington . . . and a level of national unity and willingness to sacrifice unseen here since the 1973 Yom Kippur War," by not ordering a ground offensive.
``This is a nation whose heart has been broken," he declared in a column for The New Republic, ``by our failure to uproot the jihadist threat, which will return for another and far more deadly round."
It was a far cry from the 80-percent-plus approval ratings that Israelis gave the war at its outset -- 58 percent now say the country achieved minimal goals, if any -- or the ambitious goals that Olmert laid out on July 17, five days into the war, when he promised to wipe out Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.
``We will search every compound, target every terrorist who assists in attacking the citizens of Israel, and destroy every terrorist infrastructure, everywhere," he said then.
And Olmert faced an awkward comedown from the speech he gave Aug. 2 -- what some Israelis are calling a ``Mission Accomplished" moment, similar to President Bush's speech in front of an overly optimistic banner less than two months into the occupation of Iraq -- in which Olmert declared, ``Never again will they be able to threaten this country with missile fire."
Instead, Hezbollah managed to fire scores of missiles a day for nearly two more weeks, including 250 it launched on the last day before the cease-fire early Monday.
``If a lightweight boxer is fighting a heavyweight champion and is still standing in the 12th round, the victory is his -- whatever the count of points says," wrote Uri Avnery, a veteran political analyst and peace activist.
The flood of criticism gathered momentum a day after Bush declared that Hezbollah had been defeated and a cease-fire took effect under a UN Security Council resolution that on paper gives Israel results that it has dreamed of for years -- but that now, after the war's sacrifices, seems insufficient to many Israelis.
The resolution adopted Friday calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed, for the Lebanese Army to deploy in the southern Lebanon area where the militia has operated with impunity, and for an existing UN force there to be expanded to 15,000 troops. Olmert said Monday that the Israeli offensive had ended Hezbollah's ``state within a state," and had ``changed the strategic balance against Hezbollah."
But serious questions remain about whether the resolution will be implemented. The Lebanese government is weakened and afraid to confront Hezbollah, and the militant group's main backers, Iran and Syria, are likely to act as spoilers in the vague ``interim period" in which Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters will uneasily coexist in southern Lebanon.
Many Israelis had felt frustrated before the war broke out because unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year did not stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into Israel and capturing a soldier in a cross-border raid June 25 that triggered a re-invasion of the coastal territory.
A former defense minister from the right-wing Likud party, Moshe Arens, declared, ``The war, which according to our leaders was supposed to restore Israel's deterrent posture, has within one month succeeded in destroying it. That message will not be lost on Hamas, the Syrians, and the Iranians."
The Syrian and Iranian leaders made triumphal speeches yesterday, declaring that Hezbollah had scored a great victory over Israel that would derail US plans for a ``new Middle East."
Israeli military officials said that while they were impressed by Hezbollah's tenacity and surprised by some of its weapons, such as the missile that hit an Israeli ship early in the war, they knew about its advanced communications, elaborate tunnel networks, and tens of thousands of missiles.
``We knew it, but it's different when you see it on the battlefield," Brigadier General Ido Nehushtan told reporters Monday. ``It's not a surprise, but when you see it on the ground, it's impressive."
Still, Israelis are used to lightning victories, as in the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel defeated three Arab armies and captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip . Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, a former top intelligence officer, said the military's war plan factored in 200 rockets being shot daily at Israeli civilians.
If the military knew that, then the government may not have asked the right questions before going to war, Dan Meridor, a former Likud minister who recently drafted a report calling on the army to adapt to guerrilla warfare, told Israeli radio yesterday.
The government, he said, should have considered ``whether we should have been satisfied with a sharp attack, perhaps kidnap someone in return and then stop," and should have asked whether it was possible to stop the rocket fire or defeat Hezbollah militarily, ``things which we should have known from the beginning it would be impossible to achieve."
Monday, 14 August 2006
Israel approves cease-fire resolution
2 sides continue fight before halt takes effect
BOSTON GLOBE | August 14, 2006By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent
JERUSALEM -- The Israeli Cabinet approved the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in Israel's fighting with Hezbollah yesterday. But both sides ramped up their attacks to improve their positions ahead of the truce, which went into effect this morning.
Signs of political crisis were evident in both Israel and Lebanon. A Lebanese Cabinet meeting was postponed yesterday indefinitely amid serious disagreements over the key issue of disarming Hezbollah fighters. In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced growing calls for his resignation at what one critic called a ``humiliating defeat."
More than 20 people were killed in violence yesterday, including 15 in Lebanon, an Israeli civilian, and seven Israeli soldiers. Early today, Lebanese officials said another 11 people were killed in Israeli air raids that included a village in the Bekaa Valley and the edge of a Palestinian refugee camp.
Airstrikes continued until about 15 minutes before the cease-fire started at 8 a.m. There were no immediate reports of fighting after it went into effect.
Yesterday, Israeli jets repeatedly struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut. Hezbollah unleashed more than 250 rockets at northern Israel, its largest daily barrage in the conflict, killing an elderly man in his home in the western Galilee village of Yaarah and injuring dozens more across northern Israel, from Haifa to Kiryat Shemona, police said. Sirens wailed repeatedly during the day, sending residents running for cover in underground shelters where many have been stranded for more than a month.
Late last night, the Israeli military said it had downed two unmanned Hezbollah drones packed with explosives, the first time such a weapon had been launched.
About 30,000 Israeli forces pushed north into Lebanon on all fronts. A fleet of helicopters carried Israeli special forces commandos deeper into the nation, while tanks reportedly advanced across the countryside with infantry in their wake, seeking to expand Israeli control of the territory up to the Litani River and in some places beyond.
Israeli artillery pounded suspected Hezbollah targets in Beirut and locations across southern Lebanon including the port city of Tyre, where several petrol stations and buildings were destroyed. Apache helicopter gunships unleashed scores of missiles at houses, rocket launchers, and other targets marked by Israeli commandos, leveling dozens of buildings and sending huge columns of smoke and flame into the sky across the south of the country, Lebanese media reported.
There were pitched battles between Israeli and Hezbollah forces with casualties reported on both sides. The Israeli Army said seven of its soldiers were killed. It was unclear how many Hezbollah casualties there were.
Early today, the Israeli Army said it estimates that it has killed at least 530 Hezbollah guerrillas in the month of fighting, Reuters reported. The army said it had released the names of 180 fighters whose deaths had been confirmed.
One of the 24 Israeli military fatalities on Saturday was Uri Grossman, 20, the son of the celebrated Israeli author David Grossman. Uri Grossman was killed in a rocket attack on his tank. Two days earlier, his father signed a public protest calling for an end to the conflict.
A political impasse was brewing in Lebanon, despite the government's official backing for the UN resolution, which it announced on Saturday. A Cabinet meeting scheduled for yesterday to plan the deployment of the Lebanese Army to the south of the country was postponed after Hezbollah refused to disarm, a key element of the UN plan, according to reports on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
In a speech broadcast Saturday on his Al-Manar television station, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah grudgingly accepted the UN resolution but said that his forces had a ``natural right" to confront Israeli forces ``as long as there is Israeli military movement, Israeli field aggression, and Israeli soldiers occupying our land."
``Once we reach what is called the cessation of hostilities, the resistance will abide by it without hesitation," Nasrallah promised, adding that he had reservations about the ``unjust and unfair" resolution.
In Israel, the approaching cease-fire was greeted with mixed emotions. There was relief at the prospect of an end to the fighting and the return of hundreds of thousands of Israelis to their homes in the north of the country. But it was coupled with dismay at the poor performance of the government and the army, reflected in plunging support for Olmert and the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz.
Israeli military chiefs said their troops would hold their positions and would continue to attack Hezbollah positions if fired upon. They estimated it would be up to two weeks before the 15,000-strong UN force is ready to take control of the territory Israel seized in the fighting.
``We are ready to respect the cease-fire and we hope the other side respects it. The IDF will respect the cease-fire, but will defend its forces, and if fire is renewed, it will act," said Major General Benny Gantz, commander of Israeli ground forces.
The cease-fire agreement also unleashed a wave of criticism against Olmert that has been building as the fighting dragged on without any success in ending Hezbollah rocket fire.
Prominent commentator Ari Shavit, writing in the Haaretz daily newspaper on Friday, called on Olmert to resign.
``You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat, and remain in power," wrote Shavit. ``There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make in the past month."
``Olmert began this war with almost wall-to-wall national support," said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow of the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center think tank and a prominent Olmert supporter. ``He's ending this war with a frayed and wounded nation that feels itself to be leaderless."
But after the text of the UN resolution changed Friday, Olmert was hoping he had done enough to silence his critics.
Shimon Peres, Israel's deputy prime minister, said the Security Council resolution granted Israel ``maximum legitimacy."
``This resolution endorses Israel the whole way," Peres said. ``It says it was Hezbollah who attacked and has to return the kidnapped soldiers, and establishes a [buffer] zone with 15,000 Lebanese soldiers and a UNIFIL with more soldiers from different forces. "
But Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the rightist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, described the diplomatic gains as ``an illusion."
``The United Nations Security Council resolution essentially endorses Hezbollah as a legitimate force which will dominate the Lebanese Army within a year," Lieberman said. ``This is not a diplomatic solution but a temporary cease-fire with all that implies."
``If we have not succeeded in stopping the Katyushas, we have lost," said Moshe Arens, a former defense minister for the rightist Likud party. ``According to the Security Council resolution, in the current situation the state of Israel comes out humiliated. We are essentially giving Hezbollah and our enemies a shot of encouragement for another offensive against us."
On Israel's home front, Eliezer Goldberg, a retired supreme court judge and former state comptroller, said Israel's treatment of citizens in the north, hundreds of thousands of whom were forced to abandon their homes or sit in cramped, unventilated bomb shelters for a month, was ``negligent and irresponsible."
Weekend opinion polls suggested that Israelis did not believe Olmert handled the crisis successfully. Only 20 percent of respondents to a survey for Haaretz believed Israel had ``won" the conflict against Hezbollah, with 30 percent saying Israel was losing. The same poll saw Olmert's approval rating plunge to 48 percent from 75 percent a month ago.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Eye For an Eye
Israel shadow-boxes with a surprisingly high-tech foe. Inside the new Hizbullah.
Newsweek Aug. 14, 2006
— Hizbullah's fighters were as elusive last week as they were deadly. Thousands of them were dug in around southern Lebanon, and yet encounters with the hundreds of journalists also in the area were rare, and furtive. Like Hussein, as he chose to call himself, who popped out of the rubble in the blasted town of Bint Jbeil, site of what Hizbullah is calling its Great Victory, to crow a little. He was in civvies, the only way the Hizbullah fighters appear in public, but the walkie-talkie under his loose shirt was a giveaway. The hillside nearby glittered with metal in the bright sun. Here and there lay shell casings, mortar tubes, mangled shrapnel from artillery and bombs. Thousands of cartridges, the gold ones from Israeli M-16s, the duller brown from Hizbullah's AK-47s, all mixed together. This was asymmetrical warfare with a fearful symmetry. Hussein picked up a handful of empty brass. "Very close-range fighting," he said, jingling them in his palm. "You can imagine what weapons we have and what weapons they have."
In an olive grove about five miles away, it wasn't necessary to imagine. Under camo netting, half-covered with the broad-leafed branches of a fig tree, was a GMC truck with a rocket-launching platform, probably for the 122mm Katyusha, fired wildly into Israel. It was untouched, unlike its twin a football field away, which lay mangled in an Israeli counterstrike. There was no sign of Hizbullah fighters, though, and locals spoke of seeing little kids running like mad from the rocket batteries after they fired. In Khiam, a teenager on a motor scooter rolled through town, apparently minding his own business—except that the ear bud of the walkie-talkie hidden under his shirt identified him as one of Hizbullah's many scouts. They were hard to find—until they wanted to be found.
Hizbullah is proving to be something altogether new, an Arab guerrilla army with sophisticated weaponry and remarkable discipline. Its soldiers have the jihadist rhetoric of fighting to the death, but wear body armor and use satcoms to coordinate their attacks. Their tactics may be from Che, but their arms are from Iran, and not just AK-47s and RPGs. They've reportedly destroyed three of Israel's advanced Merkava tanks with wire-guided missiles and powerful mines, crippled an Israeli warship with a surface-to-sea missile, sent up drones on reconnaissance missions, implanted listening devices along the border and set up their ambushes using night-vision goggles.
NEWSWEEK has learned from a source briefed in recent weeks by Israel's top leaders and military brass that Hizbullah even managed to eavesdrop successfully on Israel's military communications as its Lebanese incursion began. When Lt. Eli Kahn, commander of an elite Israeli parachutists outfit, turned a corner in the southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras early in the month-old war, he came face to face with this new enemy. "He had sophisticated equipment like mine and looked more like a commando," he recalled. Lieutenant Kahn ducked back around the corner and reached for a grenade, but before he could pull the pin, the Hizbullah fighter had tossed one around the corner himself. The Israeli picked it up and threw it back, just in time. "They didn't retreat," says Danny Yatom, a former director of the Mossad. "They continued to fight until the death."
That combination of modern lethality and Old World fanaticism has taken a deadly toll. By the end of last week, 45 Israeli soldiers had died, and as many as 250 Hizbullah fighters had perished. Thirty-three Israeli civilians had been killed in the rocket barrages, while more than 480 Lebanese had died. But Hizbullah was boasting of its success. As Israel continued to push its ground offensive, progress was painfully slow, one small Lebanese village at a time.
Diplomacy was stalled, too, despite agreement on a U.N. ceasefire resolution expected to pass early this week. By Saturday the Israeli Defense Forces, with six brigades—close to 7,000 soldiers—could claim only to have subdued half a dozen villages, a long way from their goal of establishing a secure buffer zone, possibly as far north as the Litani River.
Israel's cabinet approved the ground campaign after its air war had failed to suppress Hizbullah's fire. On Wednesday the Israelis declared they'd destroyed two thirds of Hizbullah's missile arsenal, but on Thursday Hizbullah launched more than 200, with almost as many on Friday. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to strike Tel Aviv if Israel bombed Beirut again, and some thought he might be able to.
The whole calculus of this sort of warfare has changed, as even the Israelis gave grudging high marks to their opponents. The sort of weaponry Hizbullah is deploying is normally associated with a state, and states can be easily deterred by a superior military force like Israel's. They have cities to protect, vital infrastructure. Hizbullah depends to some extent on supplies coming from Iran via Damascus, and last week Israel bombed the last roads from Syria into its neighbor. But the organization is believed to have laid in supplies for at least another month, and when it suits, the Hizbullah fighters can disappear into the population. "We live on onions and tomatoes," said Hussein in Bint Jbeil, as he pulled one off a vine in an abandoned garden.
Last week, when Sheik Ahmed Murad, a Hizbullah spokesman, showed up at the Tyre Hospital to rant against the civilian casualties Israel had inflicted, he was in his Shiite cleric's turban and robes. After the press conference, Murad was escorted away by three bodyguards, then reappeared on the street in untucked shirt and slacks, apparently just another civilian. "Their strategy is a strategy of disappearance," says one Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was talking about operations. "They are well prepared for this kind of invasion. [But] we are much stronger than them. We can bring a much greater force than they can deal with."
But the Hizbullah guerrillas are well aware of that, too, and they know how averse the Israeli military and public have always been to taking casualties. "The strategy is to make them lose as many [soldiers] as possible," said Hussein, on the cartridge-strewn hillside at Bint Jbeil. "Israel doesn't care about the [loss of a] tank. They care about the people."
As the prospect of a quick victory faded from Israeli view, Israel's military tried to regain the initiative, raiding a Hizbullah safe house in Tyre on Saturday, killing at least three militants in a ferocious shoot-out. Earlier in the week it took five Hizbullah prisoners in a raid on a hospital in Baalbek, in Hizbullah's Bekaa Valley heartland. "It was an attempt to re-create the days of Entebbe," said a senior Israeli security source who is not authorized to speak on the record.
How did Hizbullah morph from its terrorist roots 20 years ago to the formidably organized force of today? The short answer is: experience, leadership and Iran. The group was first pulled together in 1982 by members of Ayatollah Khomeini's Revolutionary Guards as a way to spread Tehran's influence while fighting against Israeli forces that had laid siege to Beirut. The following year the organization became infamous for the suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut that cost 241 Americans their lives, and a simultaneous attack on French forces that killed 56. Soon, Hizbullah added airline hijackings and the taking of American and European hostages to its repertoire.
In 1992, Israeli helicopters blew up the then leader of Hizbullah, Abbas al-Musawi, along with his wife and son. His successor was Hassan Nasrallah, who set a new course for the organization. Under Nasrallah, the militia grew quickly into the single most disciplined and powerful political force in the country. It built schools, hospitals, provided social services and got its members elected to Parliament. At the same time, its soldiers honed their skills at guerrilla warfare battling against Israeli troops still occupying southern Lebanon, studying their tactics, learning their weak points.
All this cost money, but there was plenty to be had. By Israeli estimates Iran has underwritten Hizbullah with $100 million a year. But Hizbullah also gets contributions and "tax" payments from wealthy Shiites in Lebanon and abroad, and revenues from both legal and illegal businesses worldwide. According to a recent study by terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp at the Swedish National Defense College, its shopping list included night-vision goggles, Global Positioning Systems, advanced software for aircraft design, stun guns, nitrogen cutters, naval equipment, laser range finders and even ultrasonic dog repellers.
Over the years, Nasrallah has dressed like a cleric, but talked like a clear-eyed politician, reciting facts that suited him, cracking jokes and vowing to keep his promises. Cool and charismatic, he broadcast his message not only to all of Lebanon, but to much of the Arab and Muslim world over Hizbullah's Al-Manar satellite television station. The organization's purpose, Nasrallah said, was to fight Israeli occupation. When that ended with an Israeli pullout from South Lebanon in 2000, he argued that Hizbullah must keep its arms and build up its arsenal. The reason: "deterrence."
The effects of Hizbullah's buildup were a dismaying surprise to the Israelis from almost the first day of fighting, when Israel launched a massive retaliation for a Hizbullah raid across the border that had cost them eight soldiers killed and two captured. "The Iranians invested far more than people thought," said the source, who had been briefed by Israel's most senior leaders. "The command and control centers were state of the art. They built a whole network of underground tunnels that enabled them to trap Israeli soldiers ... They were eavesdropping on Israeli military communications with the equipment they received."
Hizbullah's high-tech communications heighten its classic advantage as a guerrilla force fighting on home turf. "The plan was to go deep, but we didn't finish it," said 19-year-old Nahum Fowler, a corporal in Israel's Nahal Brigade who fought in South Lebanon last week. "They know what they're doing. They know their villages really well." His unit never saw the enemy, he said. "We mostly heard them."
A diplomatic end to the fighting may be just as hard to find as Hizbullah's rocket launchers. By last weekend the French and Americans finally agreed on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling for "a full cessation of hostilities." But diplomats cautioned this is the beginning of a process, not the end of it. Hizbullah quickly said it would keep fighting as long as Israeli troops were left on Lebanese territory. And Israeli Ambassador to Washington Daniel Ayalon told NEWSWEEK on Saturday that Israel expects Hizbullah to do more now than just hold its fire. "What is important to us is not just that Hizbullah's operations end but also the arms shipments from Iran and Syria. And first they must release the two abducted soldiers." In that case, countries like France and Italy would be reluctant to honor pledges to send peacekeeping troops. "An international force arriving in Lebanon without the war having been stopped ... would be exposed to Iraq-style risks," said Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema. Worse, they would be up against Hizbullah.
With Richard Wolffe, Michael Hirsh, Dan Ephron and John Barry in Washington and Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem
EDITOR'S NOTE: The death toll rose still further as this week began, with the deadliest Hizbullah attacks yet killing 15 people—nine of them reported to be Israeli military reservists—in northern Israel on Sunday. Israeli strikes killed at least 17 in southern Lebanon on the same day.
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