Israel OKs expansion of Lebanon campaign
Hopes dim for quick end to Mideast crisis

  thanks to Huffington Post

'Everything In My Life Is Destroyed, So I Will Fight Them'
By Dahr Jamail

The member of Hezbollah I was interviewing-let's call him Ahmed-has been shot three times during previous battles against Israeli forces on the southern Lebanese border. His brother was killed in one of these battles. It's been several years since his father was killed by an air strike in a refugee camp. "My home now in Dahaya is pulverized, so Hezbollah gave me a place to stay while this war is happening," he said, "When this war ends, where am I to go? What am I to do? Everything in my life is destroyed now, so I will fight them."

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Comments from three Israelis:

The turnabout will come quickly

First they said it would be "a few days." Then "a couple of weeks." Then "by the end of the month." Well, maybe a few months. But at the end of that time, however long that time may be, "victory will be ours." The head of Israel's Northern Command said so today, so it must be true. Unfortunately for him, things have changed since the last time Israel fought a war. Now there is the Internet, and Israel is an extremely wired country. Even if the military censors and self-censorship of the Israeli press keeps out the scenes of devestation in Lebanon, holds back on the number of Israeli soldiers killed for as long as possible, and exaggerates the military's achievements, ordinary Israelis can see for themselves that their leaders are lying. Olmert can claim world leaders support him, but Israelis can read what ordinary citizens around the world think of this bloody campaign. And so I agree with Meron Benvinisti - the turnabout among Israelis will come quickly. Israel will not stay in Lebanon 18 years this time.

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Days of darkness
By Gideon Levy

In war as in war: Israel is sinking into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to cover everything. The brakes we still had are eroding, the insensitivity and blindness that characterized Israeli society in recent years is intensifying. The home front is cut in half: the north suffers and the center is serene. But both have been taken over by tones of jingoism, ruthlessness and vengeance, and the voices of extremism that previously characterized the camp's margins are now expressing its heart. The left has once again lost its way, wrapped in silence or "admitting mistakes." Israel is exposing a unified, nationalistic face.

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Who is winning this war?
Q & A With Uri Avnery

On the 15th day of the war, Hizbullah is functioning and fighting. That by itself will go down in the annals of the Arab peoples as a shining victory. When a featherweight boxer faces a heavyweight and is still standing in the 15th round - that is a victory, whatever the final outcome.

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A nice little war
By Uri Avnery

It is the old story about the losing gambler: he cannot stop. He continues to play, in order to win his losses back. He continues to lose and continues to gamble, until he has lost everything: his ranch, his wife, his shirt.

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Robert Fisk is one of the finest journalists in the Middle East. He lives in Lebanon. Here is a series of his reports

Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel
By Robert Fisk

Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon? From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a "terrorist centre".

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On a Red Cross mission of mercy when Israeli air force came calling
By Robert Fisk

It was supposed to be a routine trip across the Lebanese killing fields for the brave men and women of the International Red Cross. Sylvie Thoral was the "team leader" of our two vehicles, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman with dark brown hair and eyes like steel. The Israelis had been informed and had given what the ICRC likes to call its "green light" to the route. And, of course, we almost died.

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Under fire in Beirut
By Robert Fisk

To Sidon. Ed Cody has found a cool, 120-mile-an-hour driver called Hassan - he has a black Mercedes which I nickname "Death Car" (because that will be the fate of anyone who gets in our way) and we zip down the coast road and turn east into the hills at Naameh, where the Israelis have just blown the bridge.

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'How can we stand by and allow this to go on?'
By Robert Fisk

They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. "Mehdi Hashem, aged seven - Qana," was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy's body lay. "Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 - Qana',' "Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one - Qana.'' And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas's little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father's shoulder on Saturday. In all, there were 56 corpses brought to the Tyre government hospital and other surgeries, and 34 of them were children. When they ran out of plastic bags, they wrapped the small corpses in carpets. Their hair was matted with dust, most had blood running from their noses.

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A Nato-led force would be in Israel's interests, but not Lebanon's
Every foreign army - including the Israelis - comes to grief in Lebanon.
By Robert Fisk

So, how come George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara - after their inevitable disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq - believe that a Nato-led force is going to survive on the south Lebanese border? The Israelis would obviously enjoy watching its deployment - it will be time for the West to take the casualties - but Hizbollah is likely to view its arrival as a proxy Israeli army. It is, after all, supposed to be a "buffer" force to protect Israel - not, as the Lebanese have quickly noted, to protect Lebanon - and the last Nato army that came to this country was literally blasted out of its mission by suicide bombers.

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What is Hizbullah?
by Juan Cole

Western and Israeli pundits keep comparing Hizbullah to al-Qaeda. It is a huge conceptual error. There is a crucial difference between an international terrorist network like al-Qaeda, which can be disrupted by good old policing techniques (such as inserting an agent in the Western Union office in Karachi), and a sub-nationalist movement.

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Some of the best commentary has been coming from Billmon:

The Clock is Running
by Billmon

And it may not leave the Israelis much time to finish taking down the Lebanese Hitler (or whatever the propaganda phrase of the moment happens to be).

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Big Muddy
by Billmon

Twelve days in, and even Ralph Peters thinks the Israelis are losing: Israel is losing this war. For a lifelong Israel supporter, that's a painful thing to write. But it's true. And the situation's worsening each day.

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The Debacle
by Billmon

If the Israelis truly are contemplating "solving" the problem with artillery they can certainly reduce Bint Jbeil to a collection of destroyed or half-destroyed buildings. Unfortunately, the history of urban warfare shows that destroyed and half-destroyed buildings usually make even more effective fortifications than the intact variety -- particularly if the enemy has had time to build underground bunkers and fire positions and connect them with trenches and/or tunnels.

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The Definition of Losing
by Billmon

It is in that sense -- the sense Clausewitz used -- that Israel is losing, and has probably lost, this war. There's always the possibility that the IDF will dream up a bold, imaginative stroke to redress the balance, like the brilliant '73 counterattack that trapped an entire Egyptian Army on the banks of the Suez Canal. But this IDF isn't showing that kind of creativity and daring. It's also not clear what kind of a stroke against a guerrilla army like Hizbullah could give Israel the smashing success it needs in the limited time left. And in lunging hastily for a badly needed victory, the IDF could stumble into an even greater defeat. It's happened many times in many wars, although not to the Israelis.

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The Show Must Go On
by Billmon

A few days ago a friend of mine -- the same one who gave me this little briefing last week -- predicted that if the Israelis continued their semi-discriminate air attacks on Lebanon, at some point they would make a big mistake, kill a bunch of innocent civilians and bring the war to a grinding halt. Even the United States would have to call for an immediate cease fire in place.

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For the Sake of the Children
by Billmon

"Today's actions in the Middle East remind us that the United States and friends and allies must work for a sustainable peace, particularly for the sake of children. George W. Bush President Attends Tee Ball Game July 30, 2006

A civil defense worker carries the body of Lebanese child recovered from the rubble of a demolished building that was struck by an Israeli airstrike at the village of Qana near the southern Lebanon city of Tyre, Sunday, July 30, 2006. (AP)