Hezbollah 'ready for any confrontation with Israel'

The Hezbollah deputy chief says his organization is ready for any confrontation with Israel, but that a war "was not in Israel's interest" following its "defeat" in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Asked his opinion on the recent election results in Israel, Naim Qassem told French newspaper Le Figaro that he saw "no difference between [Tzipi] Livni, [Ehud] Barak and [Benjamin] Netanyahu." He added that "Israel remains an aggressor state."

Qassem further reiterated the intention of Hezbollah to avenge the assassination of the organization's senior military figure Imad Mughniyah. "We have no doubt that Israel is behind the murder. We vowed to respond. It is our right," he said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1067514.html

A Choice Between Peace and Peril

AP photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a ceremony in Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.

By Chris Hedges

Bibi Netanyahu’s assumption of power in Israel sets the stage for a huge campaign by the Israeli government, and its well-oiled lobby groups in Washington, to push us into a war with Iran.

Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. But reality rarely impedes on politics. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, along with Netanyahu, all talk as if Iran is on the brink of dropping the big one on the Jewish state.

Netanyahu on Friday named Iran as Israel’s main threat after he was called to form a new government following the Feb. 20 elections.

“Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence,” Netanyahu said at a ceremony at President Shimon Peres’ official residence. “The terrorist forces of Iran threaten us from the north,” the presumptive prime minister said in reference to Lebanon and Syria, where Israel says Tehran supplies arms to Hezbollah and Hamas. “For decades, Israel has not faced such formidable challenges.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090223_a_choice_between_peace_and_peril/

Israel Amnesty calls on US to suspend arms sales to Israel

Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel's extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles.

In a report released today, Amnesty International listed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the US president, Barack Obama, to suspend military aid to Israel.

The human rights group said those arming both sides in the conflict "will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/israel-arms-embargo-gaza

Shoes Thrown at Israeli Soldier in Holand

In another copycat shoe-throwing incident against Israelis in Europe, Amsterdam police on Sunday arrested three people who hurled footwear at an Israeli army officer while he was lecturing at a hotel in the Dutch capital.

"Fifty demonstrators waited for me outside the Apollo Hotel, chanting nasty slogans," he said. "Three entered the room, shouting and throwing four shoes at my direction." He said the hecklers were "typically Dutch-looking."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1066383.html

Disowning Israel's Arab Minority

Even before a new coalition could emerge, Israel's latest election was historic. It marked the collapse of Labor, the party that can plausibly claim to have founded Israel and produced its most celebrated prime ministers, from David Ben-Gurion (as head of Labor's predecessor, Mapai), through Golda Meir to Yitzhak Rabin. The last vestige of old Labor is Shimon Peres, who--with fitting irony--is the country's president only because he quit the party. Israel's political spectrum is now dominated by three right-wing groups: Likud, Kadima (the Likud offshoot founded by Ariel Sharon) and Yisrael Beytenu, a party of Russian immigrants. But while most commentators focus on the future of the peace process and the two-state solution, a deeper and more existential question is growing within the heart of Israel.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/fareed_zakaria/2009/02/israels_existential_dilemma.html

MAKING OF AN EMPIRE!