Beirut fishermen devastated by Israeli port attack

[tocqueville]

by Jailan Zayan
Sun Aug 6, 2:37 AM ET

UZAI, Lebanon (AFP) - The men walked sombrely past the skeletons of bombed buildings, shards of broken glass and charred metal crunching under their feet.

A day after Israel pounded areas south of Beirut, the fishermen of Uzai came to inspect the damage to the boats in their port, in the mainly Shiite southern suburb of Beirut.

Standing on scorched green fishing nets and blue ropes, Abu Mohammed looked in disbelief at the disfigured port and the 700 boats that had been wrecked by the attack.

"God help us, we'll have to start from scratch," he told his son Mohammed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060806/lf_afp/mideastconflictlebanonfishing;_ylt=AjsPzB2iJ1KPi.0x.sw8CJyBzdAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

[Kagemusha]

1. They might as well pray - no one else's gonna help them.

I was afraid I'd be reading stories like this. Teach a man how to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime... until you bomb his port and wreck his boat and 699 others.

[chimpymustgo]

2. This whole campaign is so vicious and vindictive against these innocents.

It is quite beyond my capacity to understand. It is horrifying, frightening and sad.

[tocqueville]

6. this is not really true...

people all over Europe - and specially in France due to the ancestral ties to Lebanon (a lot of those people are descendent from the Franks that ruled that part of the world for centuries during the crusades) are gathering money, food, medecine and other necessities and are shipping it to Lebanon. And most of the stuff is getting through our 4 warships, soon 6. And this time those ships are so heavily defended with helicopters and missiles that there is very little risk that they are going to be attacked "by mistake"....

[Kagemusha]

10. Let's hope that there's still ports for them to do any good then.

Without ports for unloading, aid isn't going to get through from the sea except in tiny trickles from helicopters.

[whistle]

3. I believe the term is genocide.....

Definitions of genocide on the Web:

Deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.
library.thinkquest.org/13915/gather/glossary.htm

A systematic attempt to annihilate a racial group or nation. The word was first used in 1944.
www.bl.uk/services/learning/curriculum/voices/refglos.html

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines the term as: Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures ...
www.facsnet.org/issues/specials/kosovo/glossary.php3

The on-going policy of the United States toward Aboriginal Indigenous people. Genocide is defined by the United Nations in the International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, adopted in 1947 and ratified by the United States Senate during the Reagan Administration, which is reproduced in Appendix I.
www.maquah.net/We_Have_The_Right_To_Exist/WeHaveTheRight_26Glossary.html

From the word genus (race) and (cide), killing. Coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Russian Jewish jurist, in 1944, it refers to the intentional, systematic murder of all of the people in a targeted group. The 20th century is one of recurrent genocide including the Armenians in World War I, the Jews during World War II, and post-1945, genocides took place in many areas including Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala and the former Yugoslavia.
dal.lowell.smartedu.net/projects/afglossary.html

[Kagemusha]

4. I think genocide's a bit strong here but, still...

I don't think it's Israel that's staring at destruction today.

[chimpymustgo]

7. What about "ethinic cleansing"? That's what Juan Cole calls it. I agree.

- snip -

That is why the massacre at Qana occurred. The Israelis had bombed Qana 80 times. They were destroying all of its buildings. Therefore, of course, they destroyed the building where dozens of children and families were hiding. This tactic is both collective punishment and ethnic cleansing all at once. It is not only a matter, as the Israelis claim, of hitting Hizbullah rocket launchers. They are destroying all of the buildings.

- snip -

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/28741.html

www.juancole.com

[Kagemusha]

9. Yeah, Juan's got the right idea. Olmert citing Kosovo's so rich.

Olmert's Milosevic with a NATO airforce as far as the effects on the people of Lebanon go. One wonders if the displaced people will be allowed back, or if they'll be kept away by force.

OTOH destroying whole villages by artillery (apparently the current favored tactic) could be seen as a way to keep them away without needing to actually shoot them when they attempt a return.

[peacetalksforall]

8. Well, it certainly is structurecide.

I cry for the children, their parents. siblings, and other guardians.

I also cry for their bridges and RIGHT TO LIFE.

I guess Israel resented the tit for tat and decided to go 'everything for tat'.

Well, Israel went and is going to far.

Their reasons for decimating rights to life are no longer registering with me. Goodbye Israel. You lost me. I can't drum up a defense to put into words to justify to myself the idea that you are defending yourself. Hope your citizens do something to stop your leaders and their military.

Blessed be the children. I hope they don't grow up to be killers.

Native Americans have it right. Seven generations.

Blessed be all peacemakers who have touched this earth.

[malaise]

5. When I saw the photo

of their boats, I could not believe it was anything but spite and hatred.

From the protest rally in OZ yesterday this comment stuck:
"We are one human race. We are saying what Israel is doing in Lebanon and Gaza is savage ... and has no place in any civilised society," he told the gathering.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/stop-israeli-bombing-urges-rally/2006/08/06/1154802740556.html