Robert, some Koranic verses predict the return of Jews to the Jerusalem and surrounding areas. Are those just predictions (not acceptance)? Were the verses abrogated? Please advise. TIA.

Posted by: StillBreathing at July 21, 2006 9:03 AM

It's interesting that Nazareth is not only mainly Arab, it has become a Muslim-majority town when it was previously a Christian-majority town. Perhaps the Hizb hasn't gotten the demographic infor right, and thinks it's still in the business of killing Arabs of the wrong religion.

Posted by: Kepha at July 21, 2006 9:11 AM

And whats with Pat Buchanan? I thought I understood this guy even though he is a self proclaimed isolationist. A few days ago he was on MSNBC condeming Israel for attacking Lebanon without even mentioning Hezbollah.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23482

Posted by: Mackie at July 21, 2006 9:12 AM

Along the lines of Najaf, Karbala, Mecca and Medina, shouldn't Nazareth be called... the holy city of Nazareth?

Meanwhile, from the Rafidite dog dept, looks like at least 1 Saudi cleric condemns Hizbullah.

Saudi Slams Hezbollah
A leading Wahhabi cleric in Saudi Arabia has issued a scathing fatwa against Hezbollah — the latest in a series of condemnations from the usually supportive Arab world. Sheik Abdullah bin Jabreen declares it against Muslim Sharia law to support, join, or even pray for the terror group, writing, "Our advice to the Sunnis is to denounce them and shun those who join them to show their hostility to Islam and to the Muslims."
The New York Sun reports that the fatwa also condemns Iran for funding and supporting Hezbollah to further what Jabreen called its imperial ambitions.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 21, 2006 9:18 AM

I passed through Germany a few days ago, the people watching the televisions at the airport were mainly pro Israel. They seemed to understand why this has to happen. I figured it might be like here in the US the common man understands way more than our political elite. I did see a few unhappy muslims (It might have been my whoop of joy at watching the bombing) ugly American aside, I did attempt to question the Europeans and many do feel the palestinians have brought this on themselves.

Posted by: Ronin at July 21, 2006 9:20 AM

Pat Buchanan's problem is that he wasn't around when Hitler was - the dritte Reich would have been felt perfectly at home.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 21, 2006 9:20 AM

I am losing compassion for these people rather quickly. It's the muslims fault.

It's sad that children are killed in war. Part of me is sad they are casualities and the other part is thinking, in those two boys lifetimes, they could have produced 80 potential jihadists. If they had become suicide killers themselves, they could have taken out scores of innocents between them.

We have to put the deaths of these two boys SQUARELY on muslims. Their sole mission in life is to kill ALL non muslims and if they take out a few of their own, they don't really care. All part of the jihad.

Posted by: freewoman at July 21, 2006 9:58 AM

MSNBC this morning was even worse than CNN. The reporting was so incredibly biased, I'm now left wondering if Al-Jazeera doesn't have influence on some U.S. News agencies from the inside.

And Pat Buchanan has officially lost his mind and his nerve, imho.

My question to the world is simple: if we know that Israel has dropped fliers by the thousands giving advance warning of their intentions to shell and retaliate at specific regions of Lebanon -- WHY then are their people still in those areas?

Those of us here that understand the enemy of course know why: Muslims worship death and they are either forcing people to stay in their homes under threat from Hizballah, or they are staying willing in order to become martyrs for the cause.

Sure, some are innocent victims, but I still can not believe that Israel is intentionally shelling without provocation, reason and fair warning to civilians. But if they are, perhaps it is also time for us all to remember that the only way that WW II was won was through the loss of "innocent" life.

Where was all the outrage when Israel lost women and children to terrorism over the past that they vacated Lebanon and Gaza? Europe is anti-Semitic, this much is clear, because there is no outrage when Jews die.

Killing the enemy is the only way to win. Israelis have now realized that negotions do not work well, so guns will. I stand behind Israel and damn the consequences.

Posted by: Foehammer at July 21, 2006 10:23 AM

What gets me upset is when the Muslims say that they "respect" of Jesus and Mary, yet they shoot missiles into the boyhood home of Jesus. This is not being respectful.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at July 21, 2006 10:32 AM

"Brigadier General Yuval Halamish, a senior intelligence officer, said that Hezbollah was firing from civilian areas. "The firing was from built-up areas, from towns and the outskirts of villages," he said."

Israel must sometimes be able to willfully resist the need to alway demonstrate to 'the world' that they are the "morally superior" ones. It they are to achieve victory over the savages, they must annihilate these launch positions. God will know who is responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Posted by: Infidel33 at July 21, 2006 10:38 AM

CNN - Crescent News Network, I cannot stomach them anymore, they conspired to prop us Saddam and they do it with any Arab/Muslim country they can. Why? Are they owned by such or are they looking for America and her friends destruction and if so again Why?

Posted by: ErinB at July 21, 2006 10:58 AM

Fox has had a bunch of supporters of Israel on. Many are reminding viewers if the Israelis do not complete the mission they will regret it later.

Posted by: Ronin at July 21, 2006 11:08 AM

If you look at the companies that advertise on CNN, you find a lot of arab-owned airlines and such, so there anti-Israeli bias is understandable.

However, current CNN is something completely different than the one I was first saw during the first Gulf War.

From the English language newschannels available in Europe Sky News is the most tolerable one.

Posted by: Saatanan Islam at July 21, 2006 11:11 AM

The gloves should have come off long ago by all the “free world.” History has proven “negotiations and appeasement” shows weakness to these terrorist criminals. This article by Michael Rubin says it all;

Sending in the peacekeepers is a fool's game

by Michael Rubin
New York Daily News
July 20, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/979

As fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah, both the British government and the United Nations have called for the dispatch of an international peacekeeping mission to southern Lebanon. "The only way we are going to have a cessation of violence is if we have an international force deployed," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan added that such a force is "essential."

But with its long and troubled history in the region, the idea of sending a peacekeeping force should be dead on arrival.

In 1956, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers to separate the Israeli and Egyptian armies. At first the mission was successful. But in May 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sent 80,000 troops and 550 tanks to the Israeli border and demanded peacekeepers withdraw. They did. Less than three weeks later, the Six-Day War erupted. Peacekeepers unwilling to fight an aggressor and win cannot keep peace.

The UN tried again after the Yom Kippur War. In 1974, it sent a Disengagement Observer Force to separate the Israeli and Syrian armies. Butwhile the Golan Heights remained quiet, their mission was no success. Both Damascus and Jerusalem simply shifted the battleground to Lebanon.

After the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the United States, France and Italy sent peacekeepers to Beirut to separate both Israeli and Syrian forces and Lebanon's many militias. All went well initially. But on April 18, 1983, terrorists attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and, on October 23, 1983, a Hezbollah suicide truck bomber blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 servicemen. President Ronald Reagan promised to stand firm. "To remove them now," he said of the peacekeepers, "would undermine American credibility throughout the world." True, but he withdrew them anyway.

The Marines' departure from Beirut was a major defeat for peacekeeping. Not only would the Lebanese civil war continue for another six years, but terrorists also came to believe that the Western commitment to peacekeeping was ephemeral. In a 1998 interview, Osama Bin Laden called American soldiers "paper tigers," citing their withdrawal from Beirut as proof. That Annan yanked his staff from Iraq after the August 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad underscored Turtle Bay shared the same lack of resolve.

It is not only timidity that undercuts the UN's ability to keep peace, but also its susceptibility to corruption. The July 12 kidnapping that sparked the latest violence was not Hezbollah's first. On Oct. 7, 2000, more than four months after Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah guerillas using UN vehicles snatched three Israeli soldiers. After eight months of denying they witnessed the operation, UN peacekeepers in Lebanon acknowledged having a videotape, but balked at sharing it with Israel. To do so, they argued, might "undermine UN neutrality." Hezbollah executed the prisoners. And Israel learned an important lesson about trusting peacekeepers.

There is one exception though to the peacekeeping curse. The Multinational Force and Observers have for 25 years kept peace in the Sinai. Their secret? They came not to end a war, but only after a peace treaty was agreed to. But as long as Hezbollah, Syria and Iran seek to wipe Israel off the map, peacekeeping will fail.

Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.

Posted by: THSIMJ at July 21, 2006 11:21 AM

Ramiz Jeraysy, mayor of Nazareth, is a Communist who supports the extremist Islamist positions. Sky tv showed Jeraysy sitting in the family's mourning tent while an imam praised Nasrallah and Bin Laden. Jeraysy is the mayor of a Muslim majority town with a Muslim majority on the city council.

As to Quranic agreement with the Biblical record of the divine promise of the Land to the Jews and of the Return of Jews to their Land, here is a relevant link:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/05/quran-agrees-with-zionism.html

I don't care whether or not the Arabs/Muslims consider these verses abrogated or not. They should be mentioned and brought up to the Arabs over and over again. Let the Arabs/Muslims explain why these verses may not be valid anymore, from an Islamic viewpoint.

Posted by: Eliyahu at July 21, 2006 11:44 AM

Jeraysy is a Christian by origin and found it hard to deal with the Islamist attacks on Christians in Nazareth at Easter 1999, as they were coming home from church on Easter. That had to with an Islamist effort to humiliate the Christians worldwide, especially the pope, mainly by taking over a piece of public land near the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth and building a Muslim structure there before the pope came there for the year 2000 celebrations.

Posted by: Eliyahu at July 21, 2006 11:49 AM

Mackie, 'pat buchannan syndrome' (PBS) is that condition whereby one's jealousy / hatred of Jews so overwhelms as to impair rational thought, and even engenders total amnesia. So, for example, when pat asks "what has hezbollah ever done to us?" it is in all earnestness. He truly has no memory of the murder of 250 U.S. Marines by hezbollah operatives as they slept in their barracks. People like this can be dangerous, in that they will willingly sell out their own country (MY country, as it happens) if they think that by so doing it would 'put the jooze in their place'. The thought of Jews defending themselves is very troubling to those who suffer from PBS.

Posted by: Infidel33 at July 21, 2006 11:56 AM

Todays CNN International News carried pictures of Hassan Nasarallah's ( I think the Sheikdom in his case is self declared, along the lines of another scumbag Ahmed Yassin), interview to Al-Jazeera (come to think of it, Al-Jazeera's interview list reads like a Who's Who in Global Jihad- they had Bin-Laden, Zarqawi, Meshaal....the list is never ending and it seems to be "a wonderful coincidence" that they seem to interview all these luminaries when half the sane world is going out for their heads).

Nasarallah gave a winding speech about how the Israeli's bombed what the Hezballah claims to be a "mosque under construction" with 23 tons of explosives......just to make the point that he was alive....point noted.....and the rest of the sane world hopes that his hours, nay, minutes are numbered and then there was an apology........(no! not for you Zionists, you are all doomed to burn in hellfire, at least thats what their peodophile prophet said)....but to two Arab children aged 3 and 7 who were killed by "friendly fire", (Damn these infidel Russian designs for the Katyusha, they never seem to strike the right targets.) Nasarallah instantly elevated them to the hallowed heights of martyrdom ........... (and now the children get to have 72 virgins as sex slaves.........oh no! What would they do with them? sadly getting martyred at such a tender age has its pitfalls; but then, that's the way that life goes........)

And that All American talkshow "Larry King Live" carried an interview with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who went on whining about how Israel was setting his precious country back by "several decades"( and boy, had it been the U.S. instead of Israel Lebanon would have gone back to the stone age yesterday). Something that struck me time and again as odd was that not a single intelligent question that needed to be asked was ever put to him, King asked him about the state of the economy, the ceasefire( ahh! only if that fine man Annan would have had his way! He would have been only too happy to send a relief team to Lebanon; chastised Israel for acting 'barbarically' and set dear son Kojo on another profitable relief contract! After all old man Kofi was always believed in strong family values! And besides, such "selfless service" deserves something in return! An oil contract here, a relief work there, after all its the U.S. tax payer who is footing the bill!)

And then, there was an interview with the relatives of the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers at which Larry King came out at his best asking questions about How they felt about their relatives ordeal and What message they would like to give Hezballah(as if anything they would tell such scumbags would count). Great going Larry you have touched a new low in journalistic decrepitude.

And then there was the reporting from Tyre some 40 miles from Lebanon's border wth Israel where a dedicated CNN reporter, Karl Penhaul, did some ambulance chasing and came with heart rending( sob! let me reach for my handkerchief; after all, these innocent civilians just did nothing more than help the friendly "fighters" set up launching sites in their back yards for some target practice at Israel. After all they were firing at the Zionists who were never supposed to retaliate.

Great Work CNN , You have touched a new low! Oh! Sorry, This is something that CNN does day in and day out "Excellence in Journalism" Indeed!

Posted by: InfidelityPersonified at July 21, 2006 12:12 PM

Remember Shalhevet Pass
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38379000/jpg/_38379243_021023hebron150b.jpg
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-%20Obstacle%20to%20Peace/Memorial/2001/Shalhevet%20Tehiya%20Pass

Posted by: Carolyn2 at July 21, 2006 12:13 PM

This one was no accident either:
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/72
Israel does not try to kill innocents.

Posted by: Carolyn2 at July 21, 2006 12:20 PM

Some friends and relatives gathering to mourn the Taluzi boys said that even though the brothers were killed by a Hezbollah rocket, they should be added to the list of Lebanese casualties. "The Israeli government is to blame for the incident,"... .

This tactic has been used by Arabs in this region since day one, yet it goes completely unreported by the major news papers in America, maybe it interferes in their love affair with these “victims” of Zionist aggression.

Posted by: Bar at July 21, 2006 12:25 PM

I don't care whether or not the Arabs/Muslims consider these verses abrogated or not.

I took Logic long ago and far away, but it seems to me that if

1.) The Koran is the immutable word of Allah and cannot be either changed or interpreted

then

2.) Nothing in it can ever be abrogated - even by big Mo himself!

Posted by: gallopinggranny at July 21, 2006 1:18 PM

Hezbollah will be revitalized if Israel re-occupies southern Lebanon.

They (and all the Islamic crazies in the world) must be licking their chops thinking of the guerilla fighting ahead.

Hezbollah NEEDS Israeli occupation to justify their existence.

Posted by: george_rem at July 21, 2006 1:27 PM

Israel will "occupy" Lebanon just long enough to dispatch the cowards who use children as their shields and protectors to meet their perfect man in the fires of hell.

Posted by: Infidel33 at July 21, 2006 1:42 PM

Pat Buchanan is a special case. I've got to admit, he's got a good sense of humor, seems like a nice guy, and nails the issue of how Europe is being transformed in specific, and how Western Countries have low demographics harms out future. This is why his dissing Israel doesn't 'fit' with his world view. I think he got irate as well about the Mohamed cartoons. He's a mind at war with itself. On the onehand, against the decline of the west, sees why the West is in peril, understands 'hordes,' but the worldest oldest hate gets in the way. Jews. Maybe they hated the moon god worshipers way back when. Maybe the moon god worshipers' lobby was viewed as powerful, but Pat's hang up on the Jews is so obvious that is warps his thinking . . . literally. Read back on some of his old columns. Blasting the Mohamad cartoons intolerance and the Muslims' response, blasting the decline of Western Society, blaming the Jews . . . something doesn't fit.

Posted by: biorabbi at July 21, 2006 1:43 PM

Let Egyptians and Jordanians and Saudis and other assorted Sunnis patrol the Lebanese border.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at July 21, 2006 1:43 PM

Israel will "occupy" Lebanon just long enough to dispatch the cowards who use children as their shields and protectors to meet their perfect man in the fires of hell.

------------------------------

Nonsense. They've tried that before and it didnt work.

They should have done the prisoner swap,
and then used terrorist techniques
(car bombs, etc) to kill the entire Hezbollah leadership in Beirut.

Posted by: george_rem at July 21, 2006 1:46 PM

The radio's initial report on the attack said only that "five settlers" had been killed, but failed to identify the victims as a pregnant woman and four young girls.

Sounds like 623 AD to me. Wonder whatever became of the slain Asma Marwan's infant & toddler children. Hopefully the Yathrib Jewish wives suckled her babies, and brought her fine children to fruition beneath the specter of a just arisen Moahammed, such as that life for Arabian Jews might have been.

610 * 623 * 732* 1066* 1215 * 1453 * 1492 * 1683 * 1928 * 1938 * 1948 * 1996 * 2001

I stand with the IDF. If they're looking for volunteers, I can be in Tel Aviv in a weekto lend a hand.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at July 21, 2006 2:01 PM

Thats odd. I have been watching CNN in the US and it is certainly not biased toward Hezbollah/Lebanon. Although it does take pains to be an "unbiased news source" so it does have "both sides". However, it is equally favorable toward the Israelis as toward anyone else.

Posted by: Skeptic at July 21, 2006 4:23 PM

George-rem. Right on. Think like a Muslim. Smile, do a deal. Withdraw from Lebanon. Play Good Dhimmi. Beg to stop bombing. Play it up.

Then wait for that big victory parade in the Shia Slums of Lebanon, presided over by Nasrallah, them drop the big one, or series of daisy cutters. That would be one solution: erode not just the leadership but their Shia base. Of course, we get the moral high ground from Israel. Leaflets, ect, getting you nothing in return. Too late though for your plan of deception, but this would have been the smart move.

Kidnapped soldiers; Agree to Nasrallah's demands, surprising the world, trade for your soldiers back, be called weak by everyone, then bomb the Hizbullah victory celebration. Would that it were so.

Posted by: biorabbi at July 21, 2006 4:47 PM

"I don't care whether or not the Arabs/Muslims consider these verses abrogated or not."--Eliyahu, July 21, 2006 11:44 AM

Good point...and raising it, tactically, puts the Islamic defender in a very awkward spot.

I will add a slightly OT link. I figure this is as good a place as any to post it.

Hezbollah trained for 6 years,dug deep bunkers

Hizballah used the "hudna" to buy time to build up forces, firepower, to dig tunnels and bunkers, set up communication systems underground, and embed their military presence inextricably among the population of south Lebanon. Using a hudna or truce period as a ruse to buy time, to build up military force for the purposes of attack, was a classic a celebrated technique of Mohammad (Treaty of Hudaybiyya).

This issue should be raised anytime someone talks naively about a ceasefire. Hizballah won't accept a ceasefire until they run out of rockets and ammo or their backs are to the wall. They will then feign agreement with the U.N. to the terms of a ceasefire, and then use that time to again build up their arsenal.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2006 12:54 AM

The neutron bomb seems to be the ideal weapon for Israel to use inside the Hizballah bunkers.

Posted by: bgordon at July 22, 2006 1:57 AM

Meanwhile, behind the Lebanese government tough talk about joining Hizbullah in a war with Israel,

Saniora, Jumblatt agree: Hizbullah must be disarmed

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 22, 2006 2:26 AM

updating:
Yesterday, Sunday, another Israeli Arab [or, more specifically, an Arabic-speaking Christian] died in Israel while at work in a carpentry workshop in Qiryat Ata. The tv said that he was about to go into the workshop's shelter. Fortunately, his family did not see him as a shahid, nor were they delighted that he had died for the Cause. It's a shame for the family. Where are the Human Rights gangsters to complain about unjustified civilian deaths?

Posted by: Eliyahu at July 24, 2006 6:56 AM

OK, and now for some good news about news:

First, there was a news report from the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post (sorry, I've lost the link) that stated quite clearly that the Isralei Air Force has been avoiding Christian areas and concentrating on the muslim Hezbollah strongholds. Shops are open in the Christian areas, except for most restaurants where the people are told not to congregate. There are not many shoppers, but things are open, etc.

Second (and I love this), there was a story on CNBC around mid-day. CNBC is a full time stock-market channel. The reporters are basically cynical and don't care much whether Israel smashes the hell out of Hezbollah, as long as the reporters get a good fix on the direction of oil prices and Teva Pharmaceuticals, Inc., doen't take a big hit (it's down only about five percent).

The clincher was a great report (I missed the name of the reporter), who showed the destruction of the BANKS that have been identified by the Mossad as funding Hezbollah. Hezbollah operatives are short of funds, now. There were eight bank branches in eight towns, and all were obliterated by precision bombs from F-16s. Another major bank source in Beirut was demolished, also. Then to top it off, there was a bank (the Arab-African Bank) in Beirut that had advertised on television for contributions to Hezbollah. The reporter called it up and asked where to make contributions in the United States. She (the reporter) was told that the bank has a correspondent relationship with Wachovia Bank, and that they would accept contributions, but warned the reporter not to say the money was for Hezbollah. CNBC notified Wachovia bank, which cancelled the relationship, or so it was reported.

And the cherry on top: The Arab-African Bank was left standing, but the bank manager's house was blown up instead.

All in all, it almost makes up for not buying that Esterline stock when I had the chance. Esterline makes those flares that the aircraft drop to divert heat-seeking missles. A nifty little product now in high demand.

Alas, I'm just learning to be a profiteer. To quote one disappointed Colonel: "You know, someday this war is gonna end."

Posted by: texan at July 25, 2006 8:27 PM