Ethiopia Enters Somalia Jihad Watch argues the fall of Baidoa in Ethiopia to the Islamists would leave it largely surrounded by hostile Islamic governments “keen on strangling the country and obliterating its non-Islamic and pre-Islamic heritage”

MidEast War: 23 July 20, 2006 18:00 PDT

[Coverage continues here]

Looking north from Avivim at the Lebanon border

Frequent updates. Scroll down for more stories. Previous coverage links in right sidebar. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here.

Map users can locate the scene of recent action at Avivim at 33° 4’ 60N 35° 28’ 0E.

EXCLUSIVE @ ISSUESCENTRAL: Roger Simon interviews a Haifa teenager directly from the latter’s Israel bomb shelter.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

20:22 PDT Ynet now says that one of the four persons injured in the helicopter gunship collision has died.

19:13 PDT CNN reports that Hezbollah leader Nasrallah scoffs at Israeli offensive and promises to deliver “surprises”.

18:50 PDT AP says “Israel Hints at Full-Scale Lebanon Attack”

23:42 PDT The Jerusalem Post explains why the Bahai temple in Haifa is a tempting target for the Hezbollah. “Shi’ites consider a Baha’i an apostate who can be killed for nothing”.

20:27 PDT Kesher talk quotes an interview with former CIA Agent Bob Baer who argued that Sunni-Shi’ite war running through the entire world may be in the offing, adding that Shi’ites he knows in Damascus are packing their bags.

19:18 PDT Yoni says “Report from a friend of mine on the Lebanon-Israel border. Many Israeli troops have now moved into Lebanon.”

18:58 PDT The UNIFIL deployment map of July 2006 shows that the area in which Israel reports finding a bunker complex is near the site of Observation post 65-2 of the GhanBatt, presumably the Ghana Battalion.

[Earlier coverage here]

Stuff Bush Said After several years of bad blood between President Bush and the leadership of the NAACP, the hatchet was buried today as the president addressed the venerable organization for the first time. Over at Booker Rising, one of Shay Riley’s commenters, JC, managed to get ahold of an early draft of the speech: “Where was I? oh yeah, not participating in past conventions. Look lets cut the cr-p, you know damn well you mothaf——ers didn’t want me here..As a matter of fact, there’s proof, I had to park near two porta potties and one big azz trash can. Meanwhile Clinton got to park up front…that’s bullbleep…what?! I know the mike is on and cameras are rolling! man…back the eff up or we’re going to have a discrepancy.”

Battle of Baghdad 1 Strategy Page says “The ‘war’ in Iraq has come down to a competition between Sunni Arab and Shia death squads … leaving nearly 10,000 civilians dead … The government knows that there are only a few dozen, at most, gangs involved in all this killing. The current deal is for the Sunni Arab community to shut down their thugs, while the government takes out the Shia militias.”

Deaf in One Ear Jennifer Siegel at Forward talks about why the “major players in the liberal blogosphere were keeping, by their own admission, decidedly quiet” about the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

MidEast War: 22 [Coverage continues here.]

July 20, 2006 12:00 PDT

Israeli soldier scouting somewhere on the Israel-Lebanon border

Frequent updates. Scroll down for more stories. Previous coverage links in right sidebar. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here.

Map users can locate the scene of recent action at Avivim at 33° 4’ 60N 35° 28’ 0E.

EXCLUSIVE @ ISSUESCENTRAL: Roger Simon interviews a Haifa teenager directly from the latter’s Israel bomb shelter.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

17:20 PDT Haaretz reports that “thousands of Israeli troops are operating in south Lebanon where they are targetting Hezbollah positions. Among their activities, they are searching for tunnels dug by Hezbollah militants.”

17:14 PDT The Seattle PI reports that Arab residents of Nazareth do not blame Hezbollah for the rocket attacks which killed two children. “Everyone knows it was an accident”. Ynet (no link yet, ticker only) says Hezbollah has said the children were shahids for Palestine.

16:22 PDT Two IDF helicopter gunships collided over Kiryat Shmona in Israel, according to Ynet news with undetermined casualties. Update: four injuries, no reported fatalities.

15:36 PDT Continuous battle in Avivim, Israel.

14:35 PDT The Jerusalem Post: The Israel Association of Journalists has left the International Federation of Journalists due to the latter organization’s condemnation of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television network. “Al Manar gets its budget from the same people firing upon us. They are not journalists, they are terrorists and I won’t be a member of the same organization as terrorists.”

14:26 PDT AKI says the speaker of the Iranian Parliament told a rally that the fighting in Lebanon was just the beginning of a wider regional conflict. “The war has only just begun, today is the day of resistance, today is the day of the liberation of Palestine, there will be no safe place from Hezbollah’s attacks in the occupied land (Israel)”.

13:43 PDT Nasrallah won’t talk about releasing the IDF soldiers without prisoner exchange being included in the conversation.

13:20 PDT Saudi Wahhabi sheikh’s fatwa against Hezbollah: “unlawful to support, join or pray for Hezbollah.”

12:06 PDT Pro-Israel demonstration in the Netherlands.

12:00 PDT Iranians were guests of Kim Jong-Il during the North Korean missile launches.

To Vik Rubenfeld, the European press is viewing the war as “some network TV series that can be canceled at an executive’s whim.”

14:07 PDT MEMRI transcribes an al-Jazeera special TV program showing Hamas’ Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigade training in Gaza. “This is an intelligence war par excellence, which is waged above and below ground. I am in what they call a five-star tunnel, compared to the previous tunnels, which were primitive even though they were effective. I wonder whether Israel has lost the war of the minds to the counter-terrorism unit of the Al-Qassam Brigades.”

13:58 PDT Islam Online carries a Q&A session with Rima Fakhry, Member of Hizbullah’s Political Council. Fakhry says “Hizbullah has never depended on the Arab regimes”, “a large scale war is not possible”, “there is coordination with the Lebanese army from the beginning”, “the natural [Israeli] reaction would have been kidnapping Hizbullah members”.

13:48 PDT Does Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora have flip-flopper’s disease? Or is it something more simple? Carl in Jerusalem: “[My gut reaction is that …] Siniora has since been threatened by Hezbullah.

13:40 PDT Donald Sensing explains why a Saudi-based fatwa carries such weight.

13:25 PDT From the Corner, Rich Lowry speaks with an unnamed Israeli official who doubts that the IDF will conduct a large-scale ground invasion of Lebanon.

12:30 PDT More on ‘proportionality’—is Hezbollah bound by the Geneva Conventions?

12:13 PDT Is the Israeli response to “the murder of eight of its soldiers and kidnapping of two others” disproportionate? “Define proportional,” requests Hugh Hewitt @ Townhall.

[Earlier coverage here]

How Bloggers Are The Pew Internet and American Life project released a study on people who consider themselves blolggers (summary here; full report here). Mistery Pollster comments.

Overturned Pundit Guy writes on Wal-Mart’s legal victory in a Maryland court over health care costs.

Thought Police? Paul Belien @ Brussels Journal says Belgian police are harrasing him for what he’s been writing on his website.

MidEast War: 21 [Coverage continues here.]

Israeli fighter taking off from a base in northern Israel.

July 20, 2006 06:00 PDT

Frequent updates. Scroll down for more stories. Previous coverage links in right sidebar. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here.

EXCLUSIVE @ ISSUESCENTRAL: Roger Simon interviews a Haifa teenager directly from the latter’s Israel bomb shelter.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

10:29 PDT The US House of Representatives voted 410-8 to support Israel and to condemn the enemies of the secular state.

10:25 PDT Lebanese Army to join with Hezbollah?

09:58 PDT The hostilities must stop now! Demands Kofi Annan.

08:52 PDT Rocket barrages resume; Galilee region targeted. No injuries.

Ynet: “Israel asks for German help in freeing hostages”

08:26 PDT Israelis renounce membership of International Federation of Journalists over the organization’s condemnation of Israel’s bombing on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station.

07:39 PDT Vladimir Putin said that Israel’s offensive on Lebanon has gone far beyond the anti-terrorist operation Israel says it is conducting against the Hizbollah militia.

07:37 PDT The European Union pledges €10 million ($12.5 millon) to help civilian victims.

07:21 PDT First U.S. Evacuees Arrive in Baltimore From Lebanon.

07:05 PDT According to Haaretz, Peretz hints at ground operation in Lebanon, “saying that Hezbollah must not think itself immune from a variety of military steps in Israel’s fight against the guerilla organization.”

06:48 PDT Iraqi PM denounces Israel actions (NY Times): “Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has forcefully denounced the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, marking a sharp break with President George W. Bush’s position and highlighting the growing power of a Shiite Muslim identity across the Middle East.”

06:09 PDT Louise Arbour, UN’s high commissioner for human rights, said that at the killing of civilians under attack in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza and the West Bank could constitute war crimes: “Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians,” she said in a statement released by her Geneva office. “Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged innocent civilians is unjustifiable.”

06:04 PDT The Jerusalem Post surveys Europe’s papers: “The European press has condemned Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hizbullah as an over-the-top response to the capture and killing of its soldiers and invasion of its territory, but remains divided over what must be done to resolve the crisis.”

11: 47 PDT Underpinning Richard Cohen’s idea of “Israel as a mistake” is the “notion of Israel as a transplanted European being thrust upon an indigenous Arab ecosystem”—Disturbingly Yellow.

11:41 PDT Steve Janke measures the ‘even-handedness’ of UN Commissioner for Human Rights with regard to guided versus unguided weapons.

10:17 PDT The danger of fantasy—via Horsefeathers—demonstrated by Edward Alexander: “For nearly 40 years, academic Middle East experts and State Department inventors of quixotic “peace plans” have insisted that Israeli occupation of “Arab lands” causes Arab hatred and terror and is the “root cause” of the conflict; end the occupation, they have always said, and all will be well.

How, then, is it that, starting the very day after its withdrawal from Gaza last year and six years after its unilateral retreat from Lebanon, Israel is under attack from both those places?

08:18 PDT Marc Cooper thinks that the Democrats’ policy on Israel mirrors the Republican policy on Cuba: “They both derive from primarily domestic political considerations and not from any measured analysis of foreign policy nor any deliberation on where our true national interests reside.”

07:56 PDT Austin Bay writes on the difficulties to stop rockets fired from a hijacked state.

07:29 PDT Debbie Schlussel: “Hezbollah U.S.A.: How a U.S. Attorney, the FBI, ICE & a Congressman Helped Terror Group’s US Ops”

06:58 PDT Andrew McCarthy @ The Corner has some thought on proportionality in wartime.

06:05 PDT Little Green Footballs applauds Canadian PM Stephen Harper.

[Earlier coverage here.]

Central (Tongsun) Park Claudia Rosett writes about a case she’s been following up close: the first Oil-For-Food conviction, that of South Korean businessman Tongsun Park: “The Tongsun Park case has gotten remarkably little press, but it is both an important and a cautionary tale. It illustrates how easily the U.N., behind its veils of secrecy and diplomatic immunity, can be exploited by the most unscrupulous tyrants on the planet. And Mr. Park’s conviction is a warning to beware any “back channels” now running between the U.N. executive suite and such rogue states as North Korea and Iran.”

RinC Fausta says there was more than a back rub by President Bush to German chancellor Angela Merkel. She also has pictures of previous touchy-feely incidents with world leaders. Jim @ Gateway Pundit reminds that some weren’t as concerned with presidential groping before.

MidEast War: 20
Beirut: U.S. military helicopters fly past a U.S. embassy security position

July 20, 2006 01:00 PDT

[Coverage continues here]

Frequent updates. Scroll down for more stories. Previous coverage links in right sidebar. Links to Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict are @ Truth Laid Bear, plus a map view with pointers to the location of the bloggers in war zone. Map of war zone here.

EXCLUSIVE @ ISSUESCENTRAL: Roger Simon interviews a Haifa teenager directly from the latter’s Israel bomb shelter.

News Breaks (Blogs & Opinion below)

05:09 PDT Peres: Nasrallah is ‘a political fool of the first order’: “Speaking to Haaretz about the current crisis in Lebanon, Peres said: “Nobody has managed to isolate the Arab issue and destroy Lebanon like he has. He will continue, and there is no one to stop him.” Nasrallah has “made skeletons of the Arab world, and made it a laughing stock,” Peres added. “

04:31 PDT Arutz Sheva reports that Nasrallah’s exact fate is unknown after the strike on the alleged command bunker: Following the attack, Hizbullah released a statement via its Al-Manar TV broadcasts that the building was no more than a mosque under construction, and that the Hizbullah leadership was untouched. IDF sources say it is possible that the above is true, given the depth of the bunker under the building. However, even if so, it is felt that keeping the charismatic Nasrallah trapped or leashed to an underground bunker is also an achievement.”

04:08 PDT Hezbollah says no leaders killed in IAF strike.

03:47 PDT Ynet: IDF chief of staff has began preparing the soldiers and the public opinion for an extended operation.

03:20 PDT Israeli transportation minister Mofaz visited the injured railway workers in Haifa and said 50% of Hezbollah capabilities are destroyed, and that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are operating weaponry on behalf of terrorist organization.

02:52 PDT Haaretz reports that Lebanese PM Siniora has told Italian daily Corriere Della Sera that Hezbollah has created a “state within a state” in Lebanon and must be disarmed.

02:23 PDT Most US voters support Israel.

01:59 PDT Lebanese government seeks Vatican help.

01:52 PDT According to Lebanon’s Daily Star, Arab TV network al-Arabiyya reports that more than 20 people have been arrested for “spying for Israel and pinpointing targets for its warplanes in the southern suburbs.” Both the Lebanese and Hezbollah deny any knowledge of the news.

01:31 PDT Katyushas keep raining: “Hezbollah renewed rocket fire Thursday morning, as a number of Katyusha rockets landed in Tiberas, Carmiel, Safed, the western Galilee and the Upper Galilee. Warning sirens were heard in Haifa as well as in the Galilee. No injuries were reported in any of the rocket strikes.”

01:09 PDT IDF drops flyers ahead of Gaza strikes: “The IDF began distributing flyers in the Gaza Strip on Thursday morning calling on residents who have ammunition caches in or under their homes to leave their homes ahead of IDF strikes in the area.”

05:52 PDT Pixane picks a BBC report on rocket launchers stationed near the hotels where journalists are staying.

05:01 PDT Daniel Byman @ Slate: “What’s behind the enduring alliance between Syria and Iran?”

04:26 PDT Captain’s Quarters writes on the bunker strike, and notes that there’s still no confirmation of what happened other than Hezbollah’s denial because the target site is off-limits to the Lebanese police and army. Ed thinks this explains a lot about the war itself: “Got that? The Lebanese police and army are not allowed to enter onto its own land. That’s not much of an excuse for a state, especially given that the land is in the capital city of Lebanon.”

03:48 PDT Counterterrorism Blog has a quick reference guide to Hezbollah activity in North America.

03:21 PDT Israellycool discusses the airstrike against the alleged bunker where Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders where thought to be.

02:44 PDT Lisa Goldman has the full story of the now famous pictures of little Israeli girls writing on tank shells about to be used in Lebanon. As you’d expect, it’s far different from what people using it would want you to believe (HT: Allison @ AUR)

02:09 PDT Zapatero the statesman.

01:37 PDT Whacking Nasrallah and other silly computer games spawned by the war, @ An Unsealed Room.

01:13 PDT Jacob Weisberg @ Slate, back from the conflict area just before the war started, says that Bush shouldn’t be blamed for it.

This Ongoing War looks at the events during a thin slice of time (10.30 am Wednesday), and wonders if “the fear, uncertainty and doubt that come with moments like this are translating well via the media.”

[Earlier coverage here.]