UNSILENT

Jerusalem Post Editor David Horovitz discusses A Terrible Silence. He quotes former Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General, Irwin Cotler:-

"On no occasion has the UN acted to prevent a genocide. Regrettably, we've had genocide again and again. Either action has come too late or there has been no intervention at all.

"Darfur is a genocide in the making. The media is still using the 2002 figure of 200,000 dead. Actually, 450,000 have already died. The media is still reporting 2.5 million displaced people. It's 4 million according to the UN's former humanitarian aid coordinator. There are mass atrocities - mass rape, forced expulsions, the bombing and burning of villages. In 2005, the UN passed a resolution banning Sudanese offensive flights. It has not been enforced. In August, the Security Council mandated the establishment of a multi-national protection force. It has not been established.

"In Darfur, the world knows and it is not acting. In Rwanda, the world knew and didn't act and 800,000 people were killed."

And then we have Iran and Hizbullah ... and on that note we say goodbye today to Kofi Annan.

A WAR CRIMINAL IS DEAD

The brutal murderer responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths was hanged this morning.

Saddam Hussein, the demented animal who perpetrated atrocities, who murdered, gassed, maimed, raped, tortured and brutalised his own people and his neighbours, who fired scud missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa, who paid the families of suicide bombers to console them in their grief, who wanted nuclear weapons and who planned genocide, is dead.

Saddam has long ago been replaced by others with the same brand of hatred in their hearts - some of them met recently in Iran. The prime target this time was the Jews of Israel but everyone, everywhere is under threat from these people and their evil plans.

Sadly therefore, the world is not a safer place today for the departure of the Butcher of Baghdad.

HELLO

HIZBULLAH PAYING FOR KASSAM ATTACKS

THE REAL BETHLEHEM

Here's a link to an article on the website of Judy Lash Balint which, contrary to what some of you might have read in your local newspaper about the situation in Bethlehem, is an honest eyewitness acoount:-

Letter from Bethlehem: Christmas 2006

WHAT DO PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS FEAR?

The Melbourne Age published an opinion piece by a Palestinian Christian Abe Ata today. Entitled "Christians are vanishing from the land of their origin" it expresses the author's concern at the declining number of Christians living under the Palestine Authority rule.

The author blames the Israelis for this as much as Hamas or the Palestine Authority. There's no mention of the fact that after the formation of the Hamas government, a fatwa was issued against the YMCA in the West Bank town of Qalqilya. Unknown gunmen set fire to the building in September. No mention of the violent attacks against Christian holy sites in the PA territories in recent years including a grenade attack on the oldest church in Gaza and the burning to the ground of a 170-year-old church in Tulkarm. No mention of Hamas' failure to honour a promise of funding for the City of Bethlehem's Christmas celebrations.

No money?

Of course not.

Hamas is using what money it can smuggle into its coffers to build up its weapons supplies, to pay its own bureaucrats and to develop its worldwide propaganda network. The Palestinian PR machine even managed to convince the Archbishop of Canterbury to scapegoat Israel for the appalling situation of Christians under PA rule - even when no evidence exists to support such claims. The truth lies more closely in views expressed by Tony Pearce, Pastor of The Bridge Christian Fellowship as quoted by Melanie Phillips in her Diary. Responding to Rowan Williams' attack on Israel he wrote:-

"Dear Dr. Williams,

I have read the article in ‘The Tablet’ in which you speak about people leaving Bethlehem in large numbers and then ask the question: ‘I would like to know how much it matters to the Israeli Government to have Christian communities in the Holy Land. Are they an embarrassment or are they part of a solution? That’s a question.’

No doubt the Israelis have already given you their answer, perhaps informing you that the Christian Arab population within the pre 1967 borders of Israel has grown from approximately 34,000 in 1948 to nearly 130,000 in 2005. Ironically this is the only part of the Middle East where the Christian population is growing.

You should really have asked the Palestinian Authority how much it matters to them that there are Christian communities in their territory. The main reason for the departure of Christians from PA administered territories is the religious persecution, murder and land grabs which stems from the increased Islamisation of the region. This is the result of the PA adopting Muslim religious law in the territories in contrast to Israel which safeguards the religious freedom on its citizens.

You have nothing to say about the likes of George Rabie, featured in a recent article in the Mail on Sunday who is a taxi driver from Bethlehem and was beaten up by Muslims using his cab when they discovered he is a Christian. He said 'Every day, I experience discrimination. It is a type of racism. We are a minority so we are an easier target. Many extremists from the villages are coming into Bethlehem.'

Nor have you championed the cause of those who have been subjected to forced marriages of Christian women to Muslim men, received death threats for distributing the Bible to willing Muslims, or been intimidated into wearing traditional ultra-modest Islamic clothing. Nor have you written about the churches which have been firebombed by Muslim extremists protesting against the remarks of the Pope (most recently in Nablus, Tubas, and Gaza). Nor about the situation in which Christian Arabs have found their land expropriated by Muslims or been forced to pay bribes to win the freedom of family members jailed on trumped-up charges.
All of this is the main reason why Christian Arabs have been selling or abandoning homes and businesses, seeking to escape the chaos and corruption of the PA and move to Israel, Europe, South America, North America, or wherever they can get a visa.

Why do you have nothing to say about any of this in The Tablet or other public media? Of course you do not need to answer. We all know. No one in public life dares to make any comment even mildly critical of Islamic behaviour. On the other hand Israeli Jews are an easy target. In this way we in the west are already submitting to Islamic demands and behaving like ‘dhimmi’ citizens subject to the rule of the mosque. I find this utterly shameful and a betrayal of the Lord Jesus Christ."

He’s right.

Israelis are an easy target, aren't they?

It's always Israel and it's always the "occupation".

The perfect excuse for everything.

But why are Palestinian Christians leaving PA areas in preference for Israel and why do the Christians of Bethlehem fear Moslem terror (read it here - you won’t find it in tomorrow’s Melbourne Age)?

IMAGINE

Just imagine if your town came under constant missile attacks every day.

Sderot in southern Israel has been that way for more than fifteen months. That is, since Israel left Gaza by removing every single Jew and every Israeli settlement from this part of Palestinian territory. Israel left Gaza judenrein and ended its occupation over 1.4 million Palestinians. In return, the residents of Sderot have received an average of three "gifts" from their Palestinian neighbours every day.

This is the text of an address given by Noam Bedein at IDC Media Conference in Herzlia, Israel on 19 December 2006.

We are all aware of the reality in the southern part of Israel.

Ben Gurion’s vision in the Negev has been under lethal attack of more than 5,500 missile attacks over the past six years, with more than 1200 in the past fifteen months.

That is an average of three missile attacks a day…28 missile attacks have occurred since the "cease fire".

Yet with such staggering statistics, no public office is relating to the human side of this tragedy.

Children grow up with sirens as a part of their life.

When you hear the siren "Tseva Adom", you understand that you’ve got 15 seconds to take cover.

Yet we have revealed that there are over 8,000 citizens of the Western Negev, have no sheltered room to run to.

When you go into the office of the head of security in Sderot, you see a map of Sderot on the wall. You see dots on the map, with the head of security saying that he stopped putting dots 2 years ago, because you wouldn’t notice the map.

The conclusion: there is no street, neighborhood, community or family, which has not experienced the trauma of a missile exploding near by.

I’ve experienced it myself during a Friday night service in the synagogue.

I shall never forget the sight of the fathers not knowing which child to grab first to protect.

Only 6 psychologists work in Sderot. Half of the kindergartens aren’t protected.

Can any one imagine what’s it like to send a child to an un protected classroom?

Basically, it’s like playing Russian roulette.

Unfortunately, people in Israel, especially in the Israeli media, show an interest only when there is blood, under the principle of "only when it Bleeds it Leads".

The human tragedy, the anxiety, the trauma- that is not being shown, that is not being reported, that remains a secret to the media – especially during what is described by the government as a "ceasefire".

This is where our new information center comes in.

Its purpose is to show the human face, behind the cold media statistics and the "weather report" style of telling about a few missiles falling from the sky and nobody really being injured.

Our goal is to create awareness in Israel and in the world opinion, of what people are going through.

During my first six weeks in Sderot, I met with community workers such as: social workers, the head psychiatrist, the heads of the parents association. the security officers, the teachers, the families of victims, and the different projects that work with the community.

The task at hand was to put all this together, to liaison between reporters and groups that come to Sderot and to show them the human side of it, in an informal way and on a personal level, as a Sderot resident.

We've managed to host several groups, including The American Jewish Congress and AFSI, and most recently escorted American talk show host Gordon Liddy, who broadcast his radio show with 6 million listeners as the guest of our center in Sderot.

And we have been publishing timely investigative pieces in the Jerusalem Post, Israel National News and Israel Insider, while providing news reports for English Radio of Kol Yisrael and Shalom USA in Baltimore.

Our articles about the lack of protection for of the schools in Sderot reached important Jews in London, who confronted the Israeli ambassador in London with the letter that our agency had received from the Prime Minister’s advisor that the government was simply not going to add more protection for the schools.

That process produced a change in policy and a government decision to indeed allocate the necessary funds to protect all of the schools. in SderotPresently, our information center is working on an investigative piece about the Israel Tax Authority and their local representatives known as MAS RECUSH, in which we are investigating how and why people don't get their homes and stores repaired for long periods of time, and how the government tries to wait until people take money out of pockets that they do not have to cover the costs themselves until the Israel Tax Authority finally comes through with help.

Our center looks forward to take part in building a trauma center.

We were pleased to receive an offer from an architect from Tennessee who wants to volunteer his time in the design of the Trauma center, after reading our article about what the children in the Kindergartens go through these days.

Our center looks forward to bringing more volunteers from outside of Sderot.

My sister, who acts as a clown therapist, bringing a bus full of clowns to Sderot.

Our Center looks forward to recruiting help from the "Ayaliem project".

Students at the Sapir College who are now building Yeshuvim in the Negev.

And, most importantly, our center looks forward to being the only physical representative for the foreign press in the Negev, with the ability to function in seven languages.

At this moment, our center is getting ready for the next round of death and destruction.

We are ready to film with our video as the missiles fall, to interview the people who are affected, to place our material on our new web-site, only three weeks old and with more than 2000 people who have scrolled through the web-site.

Our information center runs as a private company, with a small borrowed computer.

Our center needs help to acquire state of the art computer equipment, to get a van to show reporters around, to cover expenses for volunteers and to hire staff.

We will do this by forming a membership support organization, by raising funds through a non profit organization in the US, and by selling shares in our small corporation.

On a personal note, after returning after a 13 months of travel by my self in the Far East, and coming home, it seemed like people had given up, that people had convinced themselves that they do not have the powers to do any thing about their situation.

Yes, it's so easy to just care only about ourselves, our own careers, and our families.

We have to wake up, and to understand that even we, the simple people can make a difference in this reality.

I may be a little "pisher", as my Grandmother called me once.

I know, however, that it is possible to make even the smallest change.

It's not even a question of believing or not.

It's a fact.

THE BIG LIE

The Big Lie About the Middle East

There are at least a million big lies about the Middle East.

Lisa Beyer exposes one of them in Time Magazine.

"To promote the canard that the troubles of the Arab world are rooted in the Palestinians' misfortune does great harm. It encourages the Arabs to continue to avoid addressing their colossal societal and political ills by hiding behind their Great Excuse: it's all Israel's fault. Certainly, Israel has at times been an obnoxious neighbor, but God help the Arab leaders, propagandists and apologists if a day ever comes when the Arab-Israeli mess is unraveled. One wonders how they would then explain why in Egypt 4 of every 10 people are illiterate; Saudi Arabian Shi'ites (not to mention women) are second-class citizens; 11% of Syrians live below subsistence level; and Jordan's King can unilaterally dissolve Parliament, as he did in 2001. Or why no Middle Eastern government but Israel's and to some extent Lebanon's tolerates freedom of assembly or speech, or democratic institutions like a robust press or civic organizations with independence and clout--let alone unfettered competitive elections."

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Former Ku Klux Klan leaders, Holocaust deniers, whacky Jewish ant-Zionists, Iranian fascists and an assortment of wierd hangers on - all of them gathering in Tehran to vent their hateful philosophies.

HOLOCAUST CONFERENCE SPARKS OUTRAGE

The problem of course is that this disgusting little group not only advocates that the Holocaust was nowhere near as bad as it is painted in the history books but they make it very clear that their aim is to see Israel "wiped off the map".

And they have the support of the usual suspects on the far left with who they make strange bedfellows indeed.

CIVILIAN BATTLEGROUND

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal editorial asks the question "Whose War Crimes?" and discusses the latest evidence about how terrorists used civilians in Lebanon and manipulated parts of the media to further their murderous cause.

The editorial discusses the modus operandi of the Islamists who "seek to use the restraint of Western powers against them. They shoot at our civilians from the safety of their own civilian enclaves that they know we are reluctant to attack. Then if by chance their civilians are killed, they call in CNN and al-Jazeera cameras and wait for the likes of Mr. Roth [Executive Director of Human Rights Watch] to denounce America or Israel for war crimes."

The real war criminals are being aided and abeted by their supporters in the media who chose to remain silent in the face of the overwhelming evidence that groups like Hizbullah and Hamas put innocent civilians at risk by deliberately deploying their forces in cities, towns and often private homes.

You can see some of the evidence including interviews with captured Hizbullah terrorists, captured Hizbullah documents, onsite and aerial photography and other first-hand evidence on the American Jewish Congress website.

LET'S TALK TO EACH OTHER

According to Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, the Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh is in Tehran outlining his Hamas-led government's policies with respect to its neighbour Israel.

Haniyeh told a crowd at an Iranian mosque at Friday prayers that Hamas will -

(a) never recognize Israel,

(b) will fight for Jerusalem, and

(c) will resist U.S. pressure to moderate.

Of course, Hanyieh won't change the Hamas Charter either. That's the document that invokes the anti-Semitic forgery the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and calls on followers to kill the Jews.

And on that basis, it's time for the United Nations to pressure Israel into commencing peace talks with Haniyeh's government.

ISRAEL AND ITS CRITICS

This New York Times article by Greg Myre Offering Video, Israel Answers Critics on War confirms that Israel has all the evidence necessary to prove what it was saying all along during the July/August war with Hizbullah; that the terrorist organisation "systematically fired from civilian neighborhoods in southern Lebanon and took cover in those areas to shield itself from attack."

Clearly, one would now expect the story to be picked up by the local media here in Australia, particularly by the Melbourne Age which did such a marvellous hatchet job on the Israelis through its on-the-spot reporter Ed O'Loughlin who heard no evil, saw no evil and spoke no evil about the Hizbullah fighters.

Here's an excerpt from Myre's article:-

"Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese Army general, said of the Israeli allegations, 'Of course there are hidden invisible tunnels, bunkers of missile launchers, bunkers of explosive charges amongst civilians.'

He added: 'You cannot separate the southern society from Hezbollah, because Hezbollah is the society and the society is Hezbollah. Hezbollah is holding this society together through its political, military and economic services. It is providing the welfare for the south.'

Asked whether Hezbollah should be seen as responsible for the deaths of Lebanese civilians in the war, he replied: 'Of course Hezbollah is responsible. But these people are ready to sacrifice their lives for Hezbollah. If you tell them, Your relative died, they will tell you No, he was a martyr. The party’s military preparations from 2000 till 2006 took place in their areas. They were of course done with complete secrecy, but in accordance with the civilians."

Nice, but someone forgot to inform Ed about all this ...

MORE ON THAT CULTURE OF VIOLENCE

Evelyn Gordon debunks what is fast becoming a hoary old chestnut about the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict being the pre-requisite to solving all the problems of the Muslim world in A CULTURE OF VIOLENCE.

Just last week, Sunni insurgents butchered 160 Shia in Baghdad but the likes of Kofi Annan, Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair would have us believe that the passion of the murderers were inflamed by their perception of injustices to Palestinians. Same goes for Arab Muslims who are committing genocide against blacks in Sudan or for those who slaughtered innocents on trains in Mumbai or in the bars of Bali.

It's all gibberish spoken in the furtherance of apologising for that culture of violence.

A STAGED LEGACY

James Kirchick writes in today's online edition of The New Republic about THE STAGED LEGACY OF RACHEL CORRIE.

"My Name is Rachel Corrie" is a one-woman show playing in New York about the International Solidarity Movement activist who died in 2003 after being crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in disputed circumstances while attempting to prevent the destruction of Palestinian houses near the Gaza/Egypt border.

The play opened in London two years ago to mixed reviews. The more prescient observers recognised immediately that it was nothing more than a simple piece of agitprop designed to promote antagonism towards the Jewish state.

The ISM is an organization which supports the Palestinian "armed struggle" while at the same time claiming to be "anti war". As such, it has been reasonably successful in recruiting naive young activists like Corrie to do their handiwork (i.e. disrupt the IDF's attempts to protect its own citizens from terrorism) in the Palestinian territories.

Kirchick points out that while the play takes us into the streets of the Rafah refugee camp where Corrie worked just before her death, "there is hardly any mention of the Palestinian people she was so committed to."

He adds -

"We hear machine guns, helicopter blades, and tanks (though never the sounds of suicide bombs). If you watched 'My Name is Rachel Corrie' knowing little about this decades-long crisis, you would leave thinking that Israelis are sadistic monsters who kill Palestinians at random, destroy olive groves, and harass women and children for the sheer thrill of it. The few mentions of terrorism or suicide bombing are vague, and only in reference to 'the right of people to legitimate armed struggle.' Never is it suggested that these acts take place against civilian targets, not soldiers (though, in her diary, Corrie excuses that, too)."

And this highlights what is so sad about the Palestinian narrative.

While many Palestinians and Israelis would like to see a peaceful and a just solution to the conflict, it seems that for some Palestinians and their supporters, the propaganda war and the lies and deceit never stop.

Earlier this week, the Age published a letter from reader Moammar Mashni of Hawthorn. Incredibly the letter that follows was headed "A glimmer of hope in the Middle East" -

"HOPES of renewed peace negotiations in Palestine/Israel were lifted this past weekend after a truce was announced. Since June, Israel has blasted its way through the towns and villages of Gaza, killing more than 500 Palestinians. Five Israelis have also died since the assault began.

Without being too pessimistic, one wonders what will be the trigger for the collapse of this current truce. Reports of militants firing rockets from Gaza have already begun filtering out (The Age, 27/11), which will no doubt be the pretext for another bombardment of the Palestinians. These home-made rockets have killed eight Israelis in five years and in response Israel has killed over 4000 Palestinians. Such disproportionate force is precisely why mutterings of an Israeli peace pact are met with scepticism by the Palestinians."

Putting aside for a moment the reasons why the Age could see fit to publish such a deceptive piece of drivel, the letter shows how difficult it is going to be for the current ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian terrorists to hold.

Apologists for Palestinian terror feel it is necessary to portray events even untruthfully and without any ethics if it can win an argument.

In his letter, Mashni ignores the reasons why Israel started operating in Gaza in June of this year. He ignores the fact that the Israeli death toll at the hands of Palestinian terror during the Second Intifada was in far in excess of eight; in fact it was in excess of 1,000!

Also conveniently ignored is the fact that the majority of the Palestinian casualties were armed combatants or put in harm's way by terrorists.

So, even at a time when they should be looking forward to an era of peace in the region, the public is fed a never ending stream of deceit from the Palestinian propaganda machine.

And this is what I see as the staged legacy of Rachel Corrie and the tacky little play that carries her name.

[And yes, I have read and been bored by the terrible script]

Q: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP GRANDMA?

A: A mass murderer in the employ of Hamas.

WHY I'M BACKING ISRAEL

Lorna Fitzsimmons tells WHY I'M BACKING ISRAEL in the London Guardian.

Compare this with the hateful piece of propagandist garbage put out by Terry Lane in yesterday's Sunday Age about which I will have more to say in due course.

THE HUMAN RIGHTS FARCE

Thanks to HONEST REPORTING for bringing to our attention this New York Times article entitled A DISCREDIT TO THE UNITED NATIONS.

"The council is new, but its deliberations have already fallen into a shameful pattern. When it comes to the world’s worst and most consistent human rights violators, like China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar and Sudan, there has been a tendency to muffle words and conclusions and shift the focus from individual and political rights to broader economic and social questions.

"But when it comes to criticizing Israel for violations committed in a wartime context that includes armed attacks against its citizens and soldiers, the council seems to change personality, turning harshly critical and uninterested in broader contexts."

There's a lot more to ot than this because the New York Times report represents a virtual oasis in a desert of reporting on this corrupt organisation.

Thinks about it when next you read of the daily deaths and the despair of Darfur or even about the massacres taking place in Irak and described as a "sectarian war".

It seems that the "human rights" gang at the U.N. only springs into action when Israel tries to defend its citizens against gangsters who who like to do the same thing to the Jews as their kindred spirits in Sudan are doing to the defenceless Darfurians.

SAFE AS HOUSES

What's wrong with the above picture?

The two elderly characters are a priest and a nun from Michigan who have joined dozens of Palestinians who gather at certain Gaza houses in effort to prevent Israel from bombing the houses. The Israelis say they are houses used by terrorists involved in the organisation of such activities as planning attacks on Israeli civilians and the storage of weapons. The human shields say that if family members are involved in violence the Israelis should come and arrest them and not destroy homes populated by entire families.

Right.

And if these houses were located in Michigan, U.S.A, it's a sure fire bet that the responsible authorities would come and arrest them. However, in Jabalya, Gaza things are a little different.

The "responsible" authority is the popularly elected Hamas government which runs part of the local terrorist infrastructure. If the Israelis went into Jabalaya to arrest the thugs, then human shields would come out to protect them as they did last week in Beit Hannoun. And who knows?
A large number of non-combatants might die.

Meanwhile, our smiling holy people claim they are equally disturbed about the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel by Palestinian terrorists.

Sister Mary Ellen told Ynet that she was well aware of the Qassams and that, "I adamantly oppose and condemn the firings like I condemn all violence." [NEW IN GAZA: PRIEST, NUN, HUMAN SHIELDS]

Nice, but does she really believe that?

Surely, Sister Mary Ellen should be sitting and protecting the residents of Sderot from the Palestinian terrorists who target civilians and do so irrespective of the presence in the vicinty of priests or nuns acting as human shields.

The good sister knows full well that Israel would not target her where she is at present and that as long as she's shielding the terrorists from the Israelis, then she's as safe as houses.

THE UNITED NATIONS STANDS WITH HIZBULLAH AND HAMAS

UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Louise Arbour, who was visiting the Israeli town of Sderot, when Quassam rocket fire killed an Israeli civilian and wounded several others, has decided not to meet with the families of kidnapped soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and Gilad Shalit despite approaches from their families.

According to Benny Regev, brother of Eldad, "...the decision of the Commissioner Arbour not to meet with the families of the kidnapped soldiers during her visit to Israel should set off red lights in Israel and the other 15 countries that are signed on UN Resolution 1701. The UN is not interested in the fate of the soldiers, and maybe it doesn't even stand behind the resolution."

The UN is not lifting a finger to prevent a massive arms smuggling operation from Syria into Hizbullah's hands in Lebanon (despite an enlarged presence there) so why on earth would we expect it to stand by the Israeli captives of Hizbullah and Hamas or give any solace to their families?

WHEN WILL THE HAMAS LEADERSHIP BE TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES?

The second Israeli civilian in a week, Yaakov Yaakobovich, 43 of Sderot has died as a result of Palestinian Quassam rocket attacks and Hamas continues to threaten to rain its rockets down on Israeli towns and villages.

According to a report in Ha'aretz Man dies of wounds sustained in Qassam strike on Sderot, Abu Obayed, a spokesman from the ruling Hamas' military wing, told Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday that unless Israel stopped its campaign of tragetting those who fire these rockets it would have to "empty Sderot of its residents." Obayed added that "the range and quality of Qassam rockets had improved", no doubt as a result of the increased smuggling along Gaza's border with Egypt which the Egyptians are supposed to be monitoring.

It seemes to have escaped the world's attention that such threats combined with the continuation of Quassam rocket attacks against non combattants is a war crime. The question is when will this thug and the Hamas leadership he represents be tried for war crimes?

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, was visiting in Sderot at the time of the attack. When are we going to hear something about this from her and her boss, Mr. Annan?

BIONIC WARFARE

Reuters reports that Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets - ISRAEL DEVELOPING ANTI-MILITANT "BIONIC HORNET".

According to Reuters, the technology is being developed to "combat militants" but it's more likely that this state of the art weapon will be unleashed on Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists (like the one in the photograph above).

I just wonder if the Israelis provide their enemies the usual courtesy of a telephone call before they strike!

POSTSCRIPT: I note that Reuters is still falling for the Hizbullah line that the majority of the 1,200 Lebanese killed during the 34-day war in Lebanon were "civilians". The distinction between civilians and terrorists is of course, totally blurred when you understand that Hizbullah is an army of civilian terrorists.