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Lebanon's defense minister said Sunday any group breaking the cease-fire in southern Lebanon would be "decisively dealt with" and would be considered a traitor. Defense Minister Elias Murr's comments apparently were to air concerns that factions other than Hizbullah, which he said is committed to the cease-fire, may attempt to draw Israeli retaliation by firing on the Jewish state. "We consider that when the resistance (Hizbullah) is committed not to fire rockets, then any rocket that is fired from the Lebanese territory would be considered collaboration with Israel to provide a pretext (to Israel) to strike," he told a news...

JPost.com » Iran » Article Aug. 21, 2006 11:27 | Updated Aug. 21, 2006 15:32 Israel, US foil Iran arms transfer By METEHAN DEMIR, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT ANKARA, Turkey [Print this Article] [EMail this Article] [Subscribe] [SMS Alerts] [JPost Toolbar] [JPost ePaper] Talkbacks for this article: 17 Israeli and American intelligence agencies alerted Turkish authorities last Friday that several Lebanon-bound Iranian planes, loaded with military hardware meant for the Hizbullah, were making their way through Turkish airspace, The Jerusalem Post has learned. According to information obtained by the Post, the intelligence agencies were tracking several suspicious Iranian aircraft as they...

Most U.N. resolutions don't have the shelf-life of a gallon of milk, which isn't always a bad thing. But in the case of Resolution 1701--the cease-fire agreement for Lebanon and Israel adopted unanimously this month by the Security Council--things seem to be going sour even faster than that. And that is cause for serious unease. On Thursday, Jacques Chirac confirmed a Le Monde report that his government was prepared to offer only some 200 combat engineers (in addition to the 200 French troops already in Lebanon) to what is supposed to be the resolution's centerpiece: A 15,000-man U.N. force that...

Israeli warplanes roared over Lebanon's northern Mediterranean coast and along its border with Syria on Monday, after the Lebanese defense minister warned rogue Palestinian rocket teams against attacking Israel and provoking retaliation that could unravel an already shaky cease-fire. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said countries that don't have diplomatic relations with Israel should not be permitted to contribute troops to an international peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon. That would eliminate Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh — among the only countries to have offered front-line troops for the expanded force.

The shaky, United Nations-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon suffered another blow on Sunday when the European countries that had been called upon to provide the backbone of a peacekeeping force delayed a decision on committing troops until the mission is more clearly defined. Their reservations postponed any action on the force at least until Wednesday, when the European Union will take up the issue. Haunted by their experiences in Bosnia in the 1990’s, when their forces were unable to stop widespread ethnic killing, European governments are insisting upon clarifying the chain of command and rules of engagement before plunging into the...

TEL AVIV, Israel — In the least friendly fire imaginable, Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon encountered Hezbollah wearing Israel Defense Force uniforms, the Jewish state's leading investigative news program reported. During a battle on the evening of August 6 and early hours of August 7, in the town of Hule, an IDF unit found two Hezbollah dressed in Israeli fatigues and helmets in a civilian home. The battlefield commander was forced to order his men to remove the white hats they wear on their helmets to distinguish his men from the enemy. An embedded reporter, Itai Engel, from the weekly...

Excerpt - JERUSALEM (AP)--Israel should resume negotiations with Syria and, in exchange for peace, give up the Golan Heights, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Monday. It wasn't immediately clear whether Public Security Minister Avi Dichter expressed his personal views or spoke for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. ~ snip ~

“I have more faith in Islam than in my state; I have more faith in Allah than in Hosni Mubarak,” Ms. Mahmoud said, referring to the president of Egypt. “That is why I am proud to be a Muslim.” The war in Lebanon, and the widespread conviction among Arabs that Hezbollah won that war by bloodying Israel, has fostered and validated those kinds of feelings across Egypt and the region. In interviews on streets and in newspaper commentaries circulated around the Middle East, the prevailing view is that where Arab nations failed to stand up to Israel and the United...

Syria is the "single most aggressive member of the axis of evil," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday, ruling out a resumption of negotiations with Damascus at this time. "I am the last person who will say I want to negotiate with Syria," Olmert said in unusually harsh comments. In a visit to northern Israel, Olmert noted that rockets that hit the town in 34 days of Israel-Hizbullah fighting came from Syria. According to the prime minister, "When Syria stops supporting terrorism, when it stops giving missiles to terror organizations, then we will be happy to negotiate with them." His...

"We are before a strategic and historic victory, without any exaggeration," declared Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last week. It was curious way to describe the outcome of an Israeli onslaught that destroyed much of the terrorist army’s military infrastructure; laid waste to its operational strongholds and bunkers; killed untold Hezbollah fighters; and culminated in a “ceasefire” that effectively allows Israel to continue its military offensive. Nonetheless, in line with the longstanding tradition of Israel’s regional enemies of portraying battlefield setbacks as heroic triumphs, Nasrallah was seconded by his principal sponsors, Syria and Iran, with Iran’s state-owned media proclaiming a “glorious...

[Below is a translation of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in the Knesset on August 14 after the ceasefire] We have experienced trying days of agony and mourning, sorrow and sacrifice, devastation and destruction, but also days of a great spirit that unites the nation. Our hearts skipped a beat when our soldiers went to battle to defend us. We grieve with the families who lost their sons on the battlefront and loved ones on the home front. We pray for the speedy recovery of our wounded soldiers and for the safe return of our abducted servicemen Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser and...

JERUSALEM — Any chance of long-term peace between Lebanon and Israel all but vanished last night after the Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, said his country was preparing for another round of fighting. Mr. Peretz spoke only hours after Israeli commandos mounted a raid deep inside Lebanon. Secretary-General Annan said it was a violation of the weekold U.N. cease-fire. With talks on a beefed-up peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon apparently stalled, Mr. Annan's senior envoy for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, said there was a danger of the situation "sliding out of control." Mr. Peretz issued his warning during the...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should consider stepping down. His resignation would also result in the resignation of the rest of the government, and would thereby pave the way for new elections. It is clear that conventional political wisdom would advise the prime minister not to do so. "Wait, ride out the storm, and survive," would be the traditional advice. Not this time. Sooner or later, there will be a commission of inquiry - like there was in 1973, and again in 1982. After the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir opposed setting up an investigation into the war, as did Menachem...

In the immediate aftermath of the 1973 October War, there was much joy in the Arab world because the myth of Israeli invincibility had been shattered by the surprise Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal, and the Syrian offensive that swept across the Golan Heights. ........ In Israel, there was harsh criticism of political and military chiefs alike, who were blamed for the loss of 3,000 soldiers in a war that ended without a clear victory. Prime Minister Golda Meir, defense minister Moshe Dayan, the chief of staff, David Elazar and the chief of military intelligence were all discredited and...

Reason is a whore," declared the 15th century monk Martin Luther, unleashing the bloodshed of Reformation in Europe. The words he used are subscribed now by Muslim clerks, with different in one word - the deity. "Reason," he said, "must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and... Know nothing but the word of God." The Muslim clerics and statesmen replace God with Allah. The dangers are similar. Modern interpreters found logic in Luther's pronouncements. Reason when directed by religions frenzy has an...

Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI) is vying for its share of expected IDF orders to restock its artillery shell reserve, this after some 140,000 shells were fired during the recent war in Lebanon. During the war the IDF placed an emergency order of artillery shells with the United States. In recent years the Defense Ministry has preferred to purchase shells using American military aid. Until the arrival of the new 155 mm shells from the US, the army fired many old American-made shells, some of which were duds, at targets in Lebanon. “Our production lines have had a very low...

Three weeks into the second Lebanese war with rockets raining down on the north of the country, 130 Jewish youngsters landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Their sole purpose was to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. But Israeli reality since July 12th was much different than the scene presented to these volunteers during the scout seminars they attended throughout North America when they made up their minds to come to Israel. Members of Kibbutz Yiron, one of the assigned homes for the volunteers, had been spending the last three weeks in the bomb shelters. Their life had...

British officials are investigating Israeli military allegations that night vision goggles uncovered in a Hizbullah hideout were manufactured in Britain, a Foreign Office spokesman said on Monday. “The Israeli Defense Forces have told us that they have found some night vision equipment in southern Lebanon that they believe to have been manufactured in Britain,” the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity, in line with policy. “We are seeking further details of the equipment to investigate whether it is British and, if so, by whom it was made and to whom it was sold,” the spokesman said. Britain’s The Times...

Between Friday and Saturday night, the IDF commando unit supplied the incriminating evidence. That's the official report coming from the defense establishment. The next stage will include the diplomatic struggle and air strikes. An incriminating operation is part of the covert intelligence war being waged between Israel and Hizbullah . Had the force not been exposed, the operation would have remained another covert operation taking place on the border of Syria and Lebanon , just one in a series of similar operations that are carried out throughout the year, frequently during wartime and immediately after. Incrimination means providing information. In...

Despite claims of a mounting humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, the navy is under orders to maintain a sea blockade until a multinational force completes its deployment in the south, a high-ranking naval officer told The Jerusalem Post Sunday. The officer said the blockade could continue for another "several months" pending a decision by the diplomatic echelon and was in place with the goal of preventing transfer of arms to Hizbullah. Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Sunday that Israel would continue to use all the means at its disposal to thwart attempts to smuggle weapons to Hizbullah. "We plan to insist...