Israel has been busy...
Aug. 23rd, 2006 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerAmnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.
The human rights group says attacks on homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants were an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in the recent war.
The group also calls for a UN investigation into whether both Israel and Hezbollah broke humanitarian law.
Israel said it did not deliberately target Lebanon's civilian population.
Environmental pressure group Greenpeace has discovered large amounts of oil on the seabed off the Lebanese coast.
It is part of an oil slick created by Israeli bombing in mid-July during its military campaign in Lebanon.
Greenpeace says urgent action needs to be taken.
An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of highly toxic fuel oil poured into the Mediterranean Sea after Israeli jets bombed a power plant south of Beirut.
An Israeli court has charged the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Abdel Aziz Dweik, with being a member of the militant group Hamas.
Mr Dweik is one of dozens of Hamas officials to be detained by Israeli authorities in recent weeks.
Hamas, which leads the Palestinian government, is illegal in Israel and regarded as a terrorist organisation.
Standing in shackles before a court in an Israeli prison, Mr Dweik said the court had no right to charge him.
"It is a political trial, and I don't recognise it," Mr Dweik said. "I am an elected official."
He was also charged with having had contact with Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas political leader.
[In other words, he's being charged with (a) being a member of a political party and (b) having contact with another member of the party. Not with having plotted or supported or undertaken terrorist attacks, just for his political views.]
and, shifting slightly east, a new report concludes that the US is mostly responsible for Iran's growing strength in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, a report by UK-based think tank Chatham House says Iran can afford to continue equivocating in the dispute over its nuclear programme because of its regional supremacy.
"The US-driven agenda for confronting Iran is severely compromised by the confident ease with which Iran sits in the region," the report says.
The report argues that Iran has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the US-led "war on terror" in the Middle East.
Recent US-led wars have "eliminated two of Iran's regional rival governments - the Taleban in Afghanistan and the Saddam's Hussein regime in Iraq in April 2003".
The report says the US "has failed to replace either with coherent and stable political structures".
Iran wields more influence than the US in Iraq, the report said, and is also "a prominent presence" in Afghanistan.
The human rights group says attacks on homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants were an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in the recent war.
The group also calls for a UN investigation into whether both Israel and Hezbollah broke humanitarian law.
Israel said it did not deliberately target Lebanon's civilian population.
Environmental pressure group Greenpeace has discovered large amounts of oil on the seabed off the Lebanese coast.
It is part of an oil slick created by Israeli bombing in mid-July during its military campaign in Lebanon.
Greenpeace says urgent action needs to be taken.
An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of highly toxic fuel oil poured into the Mediterranean Sea after Israeli jets bombed a power plant south of Beirut.
An Israeli court has charged the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Abdel Aziz Dweik, with being a member of the militant group Hamas.
Mr Dweik is one of dozens of Hamas officials to be detained by Israeli authorities in recent weeks.
Hamas, which leads the Palestinian government, is illegal in Israel and regarded as a terrorist organisation.
Standing in shackles before a court in an Israeli prison, Mr Dweik said the court had no right to charge him.
"It is a political trial, and I don't recognise it," Mr Dweik said. "I am an elected official."
He was also charged with having had contact with Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas political leader.
[In other words, he's being charged with (a) being a member of a political party and (b) having contact with another member of the party. Not with having plotted or supported or undertaken terrorist attacks, just for his political views.]
and, shifting slightly east, a new report concludes that the US is mostly responsible for Iran's growing strength in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, a report by UK-based think tank Chatham House says Iran can afford to continue equivocating in the dispute over its nuclear programme because of its regional supremacy.
"The US-driven agenda for confronting Iran is severely compromised by the confident ease with which Iran sits in the region," the report says.
The report argues that Iran has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the US-led "war on terror" in the Middle East.
Recent US-led wars have "eliminated two of Iran's regional rival governments - the Taleban in Afghanistan and the Saddam's Hussein regime in Iraq in April 2003".
The report says the US "has failed to replace either with coherent and stable political structures".
Iran wields more influence than the US in Iraq, the report said, and is also "a prominent presence" in Afghanistan.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 04:38 pm (UTC)One of the biggest lies lately. It all makes me sick. Even some people from my country were stuf in Lebanon because Israel was restricting ships going out and were bombing major rouads and destroying bridges. Them bombing the UN military observation base was even more sickening. I follow the stuff happening, but it all makes me want to go into a rage or just cry... Are we all feeling so guilty of WWII still, that we let them do anything they want.