Peace or piece what say Jimmy?

All Jimmy Carter and Obama have to do is call a peace conference and things will settle down and Hezballah will behave. After all, all Hezballah wants is peace or is it a piece of Lebanon like Hitler wanted a piece of Poland? Until Hezballah is smashed there will be no prospect of peace in Lebanon and this will not be Israel's fault. Meanwhile, this is all happening under the nose of the powerful UNFIL 2.(See 1 and 1a below.)

Jimmy's boys at it again but surely Israel must be to blame for retaliating. (See 2 below.)

Obama's Rob Malley resigns - key advisor on Middle East. (See 3 below.)

It is very early to make any prediction about the election but it would appear at this point McCain will face off against Obama. But what one can do is pose some questions about turning over the three branches to the Democrats.

First of all, Nancy Pelosi continues to pay homage to trial lawyers and disregards the security of our nation by continuing to withhold legislation that would allow phone companies immunity from law suits for helping the government in tracking the source of foreign communications.

Democrats remain beholden to labor and yet, black voters are incapable of connecting the lousy education their children receive with the non-competitive status of education in this nation which unions support. Without better education black children will remained doomed in addition to so many being raised in an unstable family unit.

Back to Pelosi, who continues to thumb her nose at Columbia. In doing so she is weakening one of our strongest allies in the region to the south while playing into the hands of our most dangerous enemy - Chavez. Pelosi does this to pay off her party's union friends. Ms. Pelosi comes from a safe district, has no fear of being defeated and thus rules as she wishes without regard to the greater national good.

Then we turn to Obama and ask ourselves how much he really knows about foreign affairs, how much executive management experience has he had and does his voting record provide insight? In each instance we draw a blank but Democrats don't seem perturbed because Obama's popularity gives them a palpable excuse to "diss" the Clintons who have become a public embarrassment.

The Clinton's have been an embarrassment all along, as the Wall Street Journal recently editorialized, but the party needed them. Now Democrats feels they can make do without them. Political loyalty is less than skin deep and the liberal wine and cheese elites have decided they prefer Obama's skin tone to Hillary's. And it is sooo politically correct to do so!

The Democrats have controlled Congress for two years. Meanwhile the economy is rocky, deficits mount, the immigration issue remains unresolved and Social Security continues hurtling a train wreck. Grid-lock seems all the Democrats have accomplished but the press and media give Reid and Pelosi a pass because they still have GW around to blame and kick.

With this as a factual background one would think voters might have some pause turning another rein over to the Democrats. You would also think McCain has some clear options in orchestrating an effective campaign based on an appeal to sound reasoning. But heat not light generally juices voters so you can't base predictions on logic.

Obama is busily engaged in portraying McCain as another GW while liberals attack McCain as a maverick. Will McCain let them have it both ways?

Then we have the Hillary crowd to ponder in what direction they will ultimately go with their Donkey tails between their legs. Remaining Hillary loyalists could take umbrage over her treatment by the party elite.

While all of this is going on the world scene remains fluid, particularly in the Middle East as Hezballah, Hamas, Iran and Syrian continue pressing their advantage. The West remains confused and incapable of mounting an effective and co-ordinated response beyond putting pressure on Israel to make concessions in the mistaken belief the Palestinian issue is at the root of all our ills.

Not a happy picture but how can one tell when so many heads remain in the sand.

Dick







1)Exclusive: Shiite Hizballah advances on Sunni strongholds across Lebanon

Military sources: After seizing control of Sunni West Beirut and besieging the seat of the pro-Western government, Hizballah fighters Saturday, April 10, turned their guns on Sunni Muslim centers in the rest of Lebanon. Some 20 fatalities are reported in three days of combat.

Heavy battles are reported in the northern town of Tripoli, in Alei and the western Beqaa Valley east of Beirut, around Tyre and Sidon in the south, the Chouf mountains in the center and the northern slopes of Mt Hermon close to Lebanon’s borders with Israel and Syria.

Sources report Iran’s proxy Shiite terrorists, commanding a 45,000-strong army, are bent on breaking up and disarming Lebanon’s Sunni militias, especially that of the majority leader of the Future Movement, the anti Syrian Saad Hariri.

After their victory, they aim to establish a united Muslim bloc dominated by Tehran and Damascus for confronting and then routing the pro-Western, pro-Israeli Christian camp, the traditional key to power in Lebanon.

On the fourth day of the Hizballah offensive, the pro-Western prime minister Fouad Siniora is trapped by a Hizballah-Amal siege force in his Beirut office, taking supportive calls from Western leaders who denounce Hizballah's Iranian and Syrian backers. None have offered tangible assistance for holding out against the Hizballah onslaught.

The majority leader, the anti-Syrian Saad Hariri, and his ally Druze leader Walid Jumblat were rescued Friday from their Beirut mansions by the army. Hariri's Future TV station was taken off the air and razed, and Hizballah forces are now threatening his southern Sunni stronghold in Sidon. The UN peace keeper force is deployed in this same region.


1a) Lebanon premier accuses Hezbollah of staging coup.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called on the army on Saturday to restore law and order across Lebanon and remove gunmen from the streets, accusing Hezbollah of staging an armed coup.

But Siniora also appeared to be backing away from the government decisions that triggered the street confrontation, offering a compromise that is unlikely to be accepted by Hezbollah. A similar offer from Sunni majority leader Saad Hariri earlier was rejected.

Hezbollah seized the Sunni neighborhoods of Beirut Thursday after its leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the U.S.-backed government of declaring war on his group by its recent decision to consider the group's communications network illegal and remove the airport security chief for alleged ties to the militants.

Siniora said he did not declare war on Hezbollah and the decision on the communications issue would be handed over the army to deal with, a position that the opposition had already rejected.

"The decisions have not been (officially) issued and will be referred to the army command," he said.

Siniora also said Lebanon can no longer tolerate Hezbollah keeping freely its weapons - signaling that the U.S.-backed government was toughening its stand against the Shi'ite militant opposition group despite the government coalition's loss of ground in street fighting in Beirut in the past few days.

Siniora's harsh criticism of Hezbollah, his first since the fighting began, was bound to further escalate the fierce power struggle between the government and Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition.

Addressing the army, he said: "I call on it once again to impose security on all, in all areas, deter the gunmen and immediately remove them from the street ... to restore normal life."

Although he talked tough, his embattled government appears unable to move against Hezbollah or force the army to act. The army has stayed out of the fighting and has deployed troops in the last 24 hours in some areas to protect besieged leaders of the pro-government factions. But it has not intervened with the Shiite fighters who seized large areas of Muslim west Beirut from pro-government Sunnis.

Siniora has been holed up at his government headquarters protected by Lebanese troops after Hezbollah and its allies swept through the Muslim sector of the capital after sectarian clashes that have killed 25 people.

"We can no longer accept that Hezbollah and its weapons be kept like this. The Lebanese can no longer continue to accept this situation," he said in a nationally televised addressed.

But he said government was not planning on forcefully attempting to disarm the group which has fought Israel in the 2006 Second Lebanon War and possesses a huge arsenal of rockets and guns along with thousands of fighters. He said the fate of the weapons would have to be decided through state institutions and dialogue.

"The dream of democracy in Lebanon has been dealt a poisonous stab the armed coup carried out by Hezbollah and its allies," he said, saying Beirut was an occupied, besieged city by Hezbollah and its allies.

"Hezbollah must realize that the force of arms will not intimidate us or make us retreat from our position," he said.

White House calls on Iran, Syria to halt support for Hezbollah
The White House said on Friday it was "very troubled" by Hezbollah's actions in Beirut, where its fighters routed forces loyal to Lebanon's government, and urged Iran and Syria to halt support for the Lebanese militant group.

"We have confidence in the government of Lebanon," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters after Hezbollah took control of the Muslim half of Beirut, tightening its grip in a major blow to Siniora.

"We are very troubled by the recent actions of Hezbollah," he said in Crawford, Texas, where U.S. President George W. Bush was at his ranch preparing for his daughter's wedding.

Johndroe said the United States called on Hezbollah to "stop their attempt to defy the lawful decisions taken taken by the democratically elected Lebanese government."

"We also urge Iran and Syria to stop their support of Hezbollah and its destabilizing effect on the government of Lebanon," he said. Bush has led international campaigns aimed at diplomatically isolating Tehran and Damascus.

"The United States stands firmly with the Lebanese government and the people of Lebanon," Johndroe said.

Bush is due to meet Siniora on May 18 at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at the end of a week-long visit to the Middle East.

Johndroe said the talks were expected to go ahead at this point but that U.S. officials would understand if Siniora decided to stay in Lebanon to deal with the situation there.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned leaders in the region about the events in Lebanon, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.

"I would restate our unswerving commitment and support for the Siniora government," he said. "They are doing all the right things. ... Its use and deployment of the military serve the best interests of the Lebanese people and Lebanon."

Peres says Beirut violence is 'a tragedy for all of us'
President Shimon Peres played down Israeli concerns at Hezbollah's move to expand its control, but said he hoped the Lebanese people would step back from the brink of civil war.

Peres called the latest round of violence a "tragedy," but classified it as an "internal split" having nothing to do with Israel.

"It's not a total surprise. We knew that Hezbollah is going to divide the country and lead it to the verge of a civil war," Peres told reporters.

"It has nothing to do with Israel. It's an internal split," Peres said. "It's a tragedy for them. It's a tragedy for all of us. And I hope that at the last moment they will save themselves from a bloody civil war."

Abbas urges Palestinians to stay out of conflict
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the some 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon to stay out of the current conflict between the Western-backed government and the Iranian and Syrian-backed opposition.

Abbas also warned against attempts to drag the Palestinians into the ongoing fighting between Hezbollah and forces loyal to the government.

Abbas told reporters in Ramallah that he was "following with concern" developments in Lebanon and urged the warring parties not to "drag the country into a more critical situation."

"We are concerned about Lebanon's unity and safety and we want the best relations with all its parties," he said.

"We are temporary guests there until we can return to Palestine and until then, and from previous painful experiences, we should remain neutral and respect the official Lebanese institutions and laws," he said.

Syrian and Qatari leaders said Friday that the current crisis in Lebanon is an "internal affair," while Egypt and Saudi Arabia called for an emergency Arab foreign ministers' meeting to discuss the situation, media reports said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani held talks over the situation in Beirut, after the capital was struck with a civil violence for the third day, Syria's SANA news agency said.

Both leaders have agreed that Beirut's crisis is "an internal affair" that needs to be resolved through a Lebanese dialogue.

Syria dominated Lebanon for about 30 years. Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon after the killing of former premier Rafik Hariri in 2005.

However, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have called for an immediate meeting of the Arab foreign ministers to discuss the crisis, Hossam Zaki, spokesman for Egyptian foreign ministry, was quoted as saying in MENA news agency. He said the emergency meeting is planned to be held within two days.

The joint Saudi-Egyptian call to hold the meeting came in the late hours of Thursday. Earlier, Saudi state television reported that an unnamed Saudi official called upon all Lebanese political factions to consider Lebanon's interests and resolve the crisis.

"Lebanon's plunge into blind turmoil would only be a victory foreign extremist forces," the official said.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, a key supporter of the Lebanese government, has called all Saudis residing in Lebanon to leave Beirut, the Saudi newspaper al-Sharq an-Awsat said.

"Since the tensions began, we have been sending SMS messages to the mobile phones of Saudi citizens asking those wishing to leave Lebanese territories to coordinate with the embassy in Beirut," Abdul Aziz al-Khoja, official at Saudi's foreign minister, was quoted as saying to al-Sharq al-Awsat.

He said some 70 nationals has already left Beirut on Thursday and returned back to Saudi Arabia through Syria.

More Saudis were to be evacuated from the capital on Friday, Khoja added.

Iran says trying to end tensions in Lebanon, blames U.S., Israel
Iran said it was working to end the violence in Lebanon and blamed Israel and the United States for the latest tensions, the Tehran press reported Saturday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said that Iran was continuing all possible efforts to help the various political groups in Lebanon find an understanding and end the tensions.

Hosseini said "adventurous intervention" by the U.S. and Israel was the main cause for the escalation in Lebanon.

Iran has denied providing military aid to Lebanon's radical groups and said that the nature of Tehran's support for Hezbollah was solely of a political and spiritual nature.

2) Sderot home, synagogue take direct hit as rockets pelt Negev
By Avi Issacharoff, Mijal Grinberg and Yuval Azoulay

A Qassam rocket on Saturday directly hit a home in Sderot as family members were inside, but none of them were injured. A second rocket fired from the Gaza Strip also landed in Sderot and shattered the windows of a synagogue.

Thirteen other Qassams struck southern Israel on Saturday. One of the rockets caused damage to a building near Sapir College, another landed near a Sderot yeshiva, and a third hit a water pipe in a nearby farm. The other rockets landed in open areas, with one setting a Sderot field ablaze.

No injuries were reported in any of the incidents, but one person was taken to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and treated for shock.

Earlier, Hamas and Gaza health officials said five of the group's members were killed and four others were wounded in two seperate Israel Air Force strikes on police stations in southern Gaza late Friday.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the strikes were in response to a mortar attack Friday by Hamas militants that killed Jimmy Kdoshim, a 48-year-old Israeli civilian, as he was tending the garden of his home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

A Magen David Adom rescue crew which was summoned to the scene pronounced Kdoshim dead following unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate him.

Hamas said the attack on the town of Rafah targeted a Hamas police station, killing two of its members and wounding four. The other IAF strike killed three Hamas men in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis. Hamas said the casualties were all members of the group's police force.

Three soldiers were injured in the incident - one was moderately hurt by shrapnel and evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, while two others were lightly injured by shrapnel, and are currently receiving medical treatment at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.

The IDF spokesperson also confirmed an additional strike early Saturday morning, in which the IAF attacked a group of gunmen near the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip. They confirmed the group was hit, but there was no word yet on casualties.

The radio of Gaza's ruling Hamas movement said the group was responsible for Friday's mortar fire.

"Hamas is clearly in control of the Gaza Strip and responsible for all hostile fire into Israel. We hold it accountable for today's attack and the murder of our civilians," said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman.

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, said militants had targeted a military position.

Asked if the deadly attack wouldn't make it more difficult to conclude a
truce, he replied, "We will continue to fire until the last moment before a truce is completed."

3) Key Obama Middle East adviser resigns


A principal Middle East adviser to US presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama resigned on Friday after reports surfaced that he had been in repeated contact with members of Hamas.


According to the reports, Rob Malley interviewed Hamas officials, as well as Israeli, Palestinian, and other international officials, as research for reports he wrote for the International Crisis Group, a non-partisan conflict-resolution think tank.

Malley, also a former National Security Council aide to President Bill Clinton, said that all visits with Hamas members were coordinated with the State Department, and that the government was always briefed following the meetings.

Yet despite his justifications, Malley chose on Friday to resign from the campaign so as to keep critics from getting distracted.

"To do my job, I have to meet with savory and unsavory people," he said, but added that after receiving yet another inquiry on the matter on Friday morning, he finally chose to step away from his advisory role.

"This was a distraction for me; this was a distraction for them," he said Friday night. "It is absurd, but that is what this campaign is about."

The Obama campaign downplayed the development on Friday, emphasizing that Malley's role was informal from the start.

"Mr. Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."





















My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it."

- Senator Barack Hussein Obama