The Middle East Continues...

[Elok]

Originally posted by atawa
I doubt many hamas members have access to jewish temples

Don't you worry about them. They'll make their own way in, just as soon as you direct them to the fertilizer aisle.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Elok


Don't you worry about them. They'll make their own way in, just as soon as you direct them to the fertilizer aisle.

you heard about the shooting at the Seattle Jewish center?

[SlowwHand]

Hezbollah leader threatens to attack Tel Aviv
Hezbollah leader says missile attacks will stop once Israeli airstrike end.

Oshri Cohen / AP



MSNBC News Services
Updated: 51 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS - Hezbollah’s leader offered Thursday to stop rocket attacks on northern Israel in return for an end to airstrikes throughout Lebanon.

However, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah also vowed to fire rockets into Tel Aviv if Israel strikes Beirut proper. Israeli warplanes have repeatedly bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in southern suburbs of Beirut.

“If you bomb our capital Beirut, we will bomb the capital of your usurping entity... We will bomb Tel Aviv,” he said in a taped televised speech.

In issuing the threat, Nasrallah offered his first opening toward diminishing the three-week-old conflict, which has taken more than 500 Lebanese lives and killed more than 50 Israelis.

“Anytime you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city,” he said.

In his statement, Nasrallah also said his fighters have inflicted “maximum casualties” on Israeli ground troops and that his guerrillas are “fighting until the last breath and last bullet.”

Hezbollah details truce conditions
Naim Kassem, a deputy Hezbollah leader, said in separate televised remarks that Israel was "deluded" if it thought it could gain leverage in a ground campaign.

"An end of (Israeli) aggression means three things: Firstly a cease-fire, secondly the return of those evicted and, third of all, the departure of Israel from any land it might have occupied," Kassem said on Al Jazeera television.


He refused to comment on the possible deployment of international forces, saying his group gives priority to the end of the Israeli campaign.

"We will give our opinion through the right channel and we do not wish to discuss these matters through the media or get into a Byzantine argument on how decision should be made and by whom," he added.

Through the weekend
State department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday he still hopes for an agreement by Friday on a U.N. resolution that would aim to bring about an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

But with allies such as France expressing less confidence a deal can be reached so soon McCormack told reporters that the United States will keep working through the weekend to strike an agreement if necessary.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[Elok]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
you heard about the shooting at the Seattle Jewish center?

Yes, but I got the impression he wasn't Hamas, just a lone-nut "sympathizer" of sorts. That crap wouldn't work in Israel.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


you heard about the shooting at the Seattle Jewish center?

This is why I am glad he put me on his ignore list

[SlowwHand]

Awww, screw them.

HEY! What about the Brits?? Don't these jackasses want them to die, too?

Iraqi Shiites chant 'Death to Israel'

By MURTADA FARAJ, Associated Press Writer
55 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hundreds of thousands of Shiites chanting "Death to
Israel" and "Death to America" marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a massive show of support for Hezbollah in its battle against Israel.

No violence was reported during the rally in Sadr City. But at least 26 people were killed elsewhere in the country, most of them in a car bombing and gunbattle in Mosul in the north.

The demonstration was the biggest in the Middle East in support of Hezbollah since Israel launched its attacks against the guerrillas in Lebanon on July 12. The protest was organized by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political movement built around the Mahdi Army militia has been modeled after Hezbollah.

Al-Sadr summoned followers from throughout the Shiite heartland of southern
Iraq to converge on Baghdad for the rally but he himself did not attend.

Demonstrators, wearing white shrouds symbolizing willingness to die for Hezbollah, waved the guerrillas' yellow banner and chanted slogans in support of their leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, which has attained a cult status in the Arab world for its defiance of Israeli military power.

"Allah, Allah, give victory to Hassan Nasrallah," the crowd chanted.

"Mahdi Army and Hezbollah are one, let them confront us if they dare," the predominantly male crowd shouted, waving the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq. Many walked with umbrellas in the searing afternoon sun. Volunteers sprayed them with water.

"I am wearing the shroud and I am ready to meet martyrdom," said Mohammed Khalaf, 35, owner of a clothes shop in the southern city of Amarah.

Al-Sadr followers painted U.S. and Israeli flags on the main road leading to the rally site, and demonstrators stepped on them — a gesture of contempt in Iraq. Alongside the painted flags was written: "These are the terrorists."

Protesters set fire to American and Israeli flags, as well as effigies of
President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, showing the men with Dracula teeth. "Saddam and Bush, Two Faces of One Coin" was scrawled on Bush's effigy.

Iraqi government television said the Defense Ministry had approved the demonstration, a sign of the public anger over Israel's offensive in Lebanon and of al-Sadr's stature as a major player in Iraqi politics.

"I consider my participation in this rally a religious duty. I am proud to join this crowd and I am ready to die for the sake of Lebanon," said Khazim al-Ibadi, 40, a government employee from Hillah.

Although the rally was about Hezbollah, it was also a show of strength by al-Sadr, and many worried that the presence of so many Shiite demonstrators — most of them from the Mahdi Army — would add to tensions in the city that has seen almost daily clashes between Shiite and Sunni extremists.

The sectarian violence escalated after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks on Sunnis nationwide.

In the latest violence Friday, at least 13 people were killed when Iraqi security forces fought street gunbattles with suspected insurgents in Mosul after a suicide car bomber blew up a police patrol, provincial police commander Maj. Gen. Withiq al-Hamdani said.

He said the suicide bombing killed four policemen and eight insurgents were killed in the subsequent gunbattle.

Also Friday, another suicide bomber killed three people on a soccer field in Hatra town near Mosul. An engineer was shot dead and an unidentified body, showing signs of torture, was found in western Baghdad.

The U.S. military said in a statement that coalition forces killed at least three "terrorists" during an air strike and multiple raids southeast of Baghdad on Thursday.

Separately. gunmen shot and killed four people and wounded eight from a Shiite family late Thursday in Dujail, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police Lt. Hussam al-Dujeili, said.

On Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a Senate committee in Washington that sectarian violence in Iraq "is probably as bad as I have seen it" and that if the spiral continued the country "could move toward civil war."

[Elok]

Er, GePap? The only person on my ignore list is Molly Bloom. And while that was a sick joke, the entire region is a sick joke nowadays, so I maintain that my remark was wholly appropriate.

[Az]

It would've been more appropriate, had it been funny.

unfunny dark humour

[Cort Haus]

Re: Awww, screw them.

Originally posted by SlowwHand
HEY! What about the Brits?? Don't these jackasses want them to die, too?

Don't worry, Sloww. They want us to die too.

[SlowwHand]

Didn't want you to feel left out. Neglected. Unhated.

[Q Classic]

I still don't see what's wrong with nuking the whole region into radioactive glass, ethnically cleansing all of the people who live there, and then divvying up the oil reserves under spheres of influence among disinterested semi-areligious parties like China, Russia, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Brazil. Maybe the US once the Christian^TM Republicans are out of power.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
I still don't see what's wrong with nuking the whole region into radioactive glass, ethnically cleansing all of the people who live there, and then divvying up the oil reserves under spheres of influence among disinterested semi-areligious parties like China, Russia, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Brazil. Maybe the US once the Christian^TM Republicans are out of power.

Because it's too hard to work the oil wells in anti-radiation suits, duh.

[Chemical Ollie]

Radioactive oil, super boosted fuel

[Lodi]

And the facts that nasty things will aerosalize in the air. Combine this with the fact that the air circulates around the Earth, this might be a problem. Check what happens from the US military's use of DU, depleted uranium.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Kontiki


Because it's too hard to work the oil wells in anti-radiation suits, duh.

Don't be ridiculous. That's what the massive robot worker armies from Korea and Japan are for.