A report by columnist Sidney Blumenthal in Salon claims that Israel is receiving intelligence from the US's National Security Agency.
Blumenthal claims to be in touch with "a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation" to supply Israel with signals intelligence from American assets to help it monitor armament transfers from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. He states that President Bush has approved the intelligence sharing.
Bush is being influenced by neoconservatives in his administration led by Vice President Dick Cheney's staff and Elliot Abrams, senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council. The group, according to Blumenthal, seeks to start a 'four front war' by giving Israel the pretext to strike Iran and Syria. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been briefed, but is not a central actor in the plan.
An exceprt of the restricted-access article is provided below.
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The National Security Agency is providing signal intelligence to Israel to monitor whether Syria and Iran are supplying new armaments to Hezbollah as it fires hundreds of missiles into northern Israel, according to a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation. President Bush has approved the secret program.
Inside the administration, neoconservatives on Vice President Dick Cheney's national security staff and Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council, are prime movers behind sharing NSA intelligence with Israel, and they have discussed Syrian and Iranian supply activities as a potential pretext for Israeli bombing of both countries, the source privy to conversations about the program says. (Intelligence, including that gathered by the NSA, has been provided to Israel in the past for various purposes.) The neoconservatives are described as enthusiastic about the possibility of using NSA intelligence as a lever to widen the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas into a four-front war.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is said to have been "briefed" and to be "on board," but she is not a central actor in pushing the covert neoconservative scenario. Her "briefing" appears to be an aspect of an internal struggle to intimidate and marginalize her. Recently she has come under fire from prominent neoconservatives who oppose her support for diplomatic negotiations with Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weaponry.
Israel Prepares to Reoccupy Southern Lebanon
prisonplanet.com
It's truly ironic how the same people who so vociferously object to "Holocaust denial" - with a capital "H" - can so consistently and so thoroughly deny their obvious culpability in the wholesale slaughter - HERE and NOW, before our EYES - of hundreds of children, and people despite overwhelming worldwide condemnation of their acts. Now, THAT'S DENIAL!
Israel not only wants to make all Arabs - including children - disappear off the face of the earth, they want them to disappear without fuss.
here are VERY good reasons to suspect that Israel inflates its death count to justify their continued brutal attack against Lebanon and Gaza and there are a number of ways to eliminate these suspicions if they are mistaken. That, instead, Israel chooses to ignore them or declare them as ludicrous or "anti-semitic" rather than simply deliver solid proof is itself evidence that they exaggerate the numbers.
Ratner of the American Jewish Congress said that his organization regularly meets with news organizations and presents documentation illustrating the anti-Israel bias. "We've been successful and we find in many instances when we have the documentation the American media does respond and they do want to be responsible."
It's reassuring to hear that our media is so responsive to Zionists.
Venezuela recalls ambassador from Israel
CARACAS, Venezuela --Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he has withdrawn his country's ambassador from Israel to show his "indignation" over the military offensive in Lebanon.
We have ordered the withdrawal of our ambassador in Israel," Chavez said in a televised speech, calling Israeli attacks in Lebanon "genocide."
The leftist leader has repeatedly criticized Israel's offensive aimed at Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, noting mounting civilian deaths and saying the United Nations should act to halt the violence.
"It really causes indignation to see how the state of Israel continues bombing, killing ... with all of the power they have, with the support of the United States," Chavez said after a military parade in the northwestern state of Falcon.
The Venezuelan leader, a close ally and protege of Cuban President Fidel Castro, spoke after returning from an international tour that included Iran. While there, Chavez called the Israeli offensive in Lebanon a "fascist outrage."
"The Israeli elite repeatedly criticize Hitler's actions against the Jews, and indeed Hitler's actions must be criticized, not just against the Jews but against the world," Chavez said during his visit to Iran, adding: "It's also fascism what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people ... terrorism and fascism."
Some in Venezuela have protested against the fighting in Lebanon, including one group that burned an Israeli flag outside the Israeli embassy last month.
Israel itself "pushing up" reputation of Hezbollah
The support rate of Hezbollah has reached as high as 86.9 percent, more than 70 percent of residents in Lebanon support Hezbollah's assaults against Israel patrol forces, and 63.3 percent of the people consider it impossible for the Israeli army to defeat Hezbollah, according to an opinion poll conducted by Beirut Centere for Research and Information among various religious factions in Lebanon in late July. At the early stage of Israel-Lebanon conflict, however, many Lebanese, the Christians and Suni Muslims in particular, had reservations about the actions of Hezbollah.
The Arab countries, even those nations which held the dissenting attitude toward Hezbollah, have changed their attitude gradually. Atrocities committed by Israeli troops have drawn denunciations from the Arab countries unanimously, and mass protests and demonstrations in support of Hezbollah have erupted in Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Syria, Yemen, the Sudan and Pakistan.
The support rate of Hezbollah has been uplifted on an unprecedented scale. Media in many countries, nevertheless, noted that it is Israel itself that has the very "hand to raise" the prestige of Hezbollah.
The extreme reaction and indiscriminate use of violence by the Israeli side turn out to be the opposite of what it has desired instead of attaining their anticipated objectives. Israel has long aspired to see the No. 1559 resolution of the UN Security Council get implemented, under which Hezbollah militants are disarmed and the Lebanese government forces station in southern Lebanon. The National (Alwatan) Newspaper holds that most of the Lebanese, who has maintained neutrality, cannot but hold up the banner of Hezbollah when they feel their personal interests are infringed upon by Israel.
The extreme reaction has also landed Israel in a passive position of being reproached. Particularly in the case of Qana village tragedy occurred in southern Lebanon on July 30, in which 54 innocent people, including 37 children, were killed. Many countries and some international organizations, either Arab and Muslim countries or a number of Western nations, have issued statements and bulletins to slam Israeli atrocities. Even Germany, which had long been sympathetic toward Israel, expressed its "shock" on this tragedy.
At present, the domestic security situation in Israel, particularly in northern Israel, has not been turned to the better owing to its ever-intensifying military moves. Its armed forces, which numbers less than 10,000 soldiers, can now hardly do anything in the face of armed Hezbollah militants.
In disregard of the appeal of the international community for ceasefire, as worried by the people the world over, Israel has decided to further expand its ground military actions instead of implementing its July 31 commitment to a 48-hour suspension of airstrike. Reality will surely once again prove that Israel will pay more heavily for the more extreme reactions it has taken.
Israel’s loss of innocence
Ranjan Gupta
s the strains of the sad Yiddish song faded, many thought of suffering of the Jewish people, the horrors of the holocaust, and their relentless search for the promised land. But today, for many, the images of the gas chambers have been replaced by pictures of Lebanese parents weeping over the dead bodies of their children killed by Israeli bombs. How could, as the Lebanese trade minister asked, the descendants of the holocaust kill like this?
How could Israel kill so wantonly after being victims themselves? There seems to be a new arrogance among Israelis, the belief that one Jewish life is worth dozens of Arab lives.
Several myths about Israel have been dispelled in the current war. One, of course, is about their natural sympathy. The other, about their invincible military. If anything they have shown themselves to be poor fighters. They like to destroy from the air or from tanks but fear hand-to-hand combat, which alone can win the war against the Hezbollah without killing innocent civilians. It does not take much to destroy a small country like Lebanon with US fighter planes and bombs but can Israeli soldiers stand up and fight?
Yet the strangest spectacle in the present conflict has been Israel’s total hold over the US. We witnessed the sorry spectacle of the US secretary of state looking for nods of approval from the Israeli prime minister. It is difficult to understand how Israel has become the holy cow of the US to a point where it dictates US policy. This has made Washington lose its flexibility in a crucial part of the world. Its peace plan is fractured. How can it supply planeloads of arms to Israel during the war and yet act honest broker? Today it is impossible for anyone to criticise Israel in the US, which means no debate is possible.
Next time I hear a Yiddish song, sad and haunting, I will think of that weeping Lebanese woman with her outstretched hands looking at her dead baby, and wonder how Israel could have done this and still carry on this way.
Israel, Not Hizbullah, Is Putting Civilians In Danger On
Both Sides Of The Border
By Jonathan Cook
in Nazareth
More.....
