Christian support to Israel dies under hail of bombs http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Lebanon/10057969.html 08/06/2006 08:24 PM | The Telegraph Group Limited Jounieh: It was the most astonishing escalation on a particularly bloody day. For the first 24 days of Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, Lebanese Christians in the Beirut area believed they were protected from the mayhem gripping other parts of the country. But a 15-minute air raid shortly after dawn yesterday on the attractive port of Jounieh destroyed the complacency of the Christians and served to turn them against the Israelis. The capital of Lebanon's Christian heartland is unused to such violence. Even during the 15 years of the 1975-1990 civil war, when Christian and Muslim militias sowed destruction across the country, Jounieh survived unscathed a party zone of nightclubs and beach resorts 10 miles from Beirut. The Israelis' target was not the Christians of Jounieh but its bridges, two in the town and two a little to the north. The intent was to sever the last artery connecting Beirut to the outside world, and in that the Israelis succeeded. But the strikes also destroyed whatever support Israel still enjoyed among Lebanon's Christians. Among the dead was Joseph Bassil, a Christian. Out for his morning jog, he passed under the 300 metre Fidar bridge, to the north of Jounieh, just as it was destroyed by a huge bomb that pitched cars into the ravine below. Bassil was crushed to death and three motorists were killed. "Hezbollah has never bombed us here, yet Israel bombs us here so who are the terrorists?" asked Manal Azzi, a 26-year-old HIV specialist, as she stood in the chasm where the Fidar bridge had stood. "We have spent 30 years rebuilding this country and now Israel is taking us back to the Middle Ages." As the scale of the civilian casualties in the early stages of the conflict became clear, Lebanon's Christians dutifully expressed their solidarity with the Shias in the south. Yet some Christians remained unconvinced. On Thursday, the hillside resort of Broummana just outside Beirut seemed a place untouched by war. Many of Beirut's trendy Christians had escaped here at the start of the conflict, and the party was continuing in its bars and restaurants. "We cannot blame the Israelis alone for this," said Elie Dahoud. "The Shiites are our enemy and it is they who have brought Lebanon to disaster.'" But by Friday night he had changed his mind. "I was wrong," he admitted. "The Israelis no longer care who is Muslim and who is Christian. We are all enemies to them."
Your concern for mankind is duly noted... <img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1157965>
There's been unsettling reports like this of Israeli's killing Christians. There's also been even more unsettling reports of Hezbollah using Christian villages as "shields" and threatening those Christians who protest. Certainly as a rule, Christians will be protected in this conflict. Why? Well we all know where public opinion lies among Jews and Muslims. Not a lot of "cross-over" voting, LOL. However Christians while by and large supporting Israel will be QUICKLY turned off if there becomes a perception that Israel is indiscriminantly bombing Christian areas. Given that Lebanon is 40% Christian, Israel had better be VERY precise with their attacks.
AMMAN, Jordan (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council draft resolution for a Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire, if passed without meeting some Lebanese demands, is bound to mean continued fighting. And continued warfare means more unrest in the Arab world as the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah guerilla organization`s popularity reaches unprecedented levels. The draft resolution, which came after intensive negotiations between France and the United States, calls for a 'full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.' A second resolution is expected to authorize an international force for southern Lebanon. The text`s failure to demand an immediate ceasefire, and with no mention of Israeli forces pulling out of areas they captured during the past 26 days of fighting, has put the Lebanese government in a tight spot. While Beirut does not want to defy the international community, it is insisting that the resolution ensure no Israeli forces remain on its territory and to include a demand that they will not be allowed to cross the border in the future. The government, with tacit approval from Hezbollah, which has two ministers in the Cabinet, is calling for dispatching the Lebanese army with the already existing U.N. force in southern Lebanon and is rightly nervous about the idea of creating yet another buffer zone in the area. Lebanese officials fear the draft resolution, if passed without amendments that also secures the return of almost one million civilians displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon, means legitimizing another Israeli occupation of parts of southern Lebanon and creating an international buffer zone that would ensure continued resistance from Hezbollah guerillas. Hezbollah was credited for pushing the Israeli forces out of southern Lebanon in May 2000, ending 22 years of occupation. Lebanese analysts complain the draft resolution is providing a diplomatic and political victory for Israel after failing to accomplish its military objectives in breaking Hezbollah and stopping the group`s firing of rockets at northern Israel. That`s why the Israeli government is pleased with the resolution as it is, and the Lebanese are not. Lebanese officials warn the draft will neither guarantee Israel`s cessation of hostilities, nor Hezbollah`s resistance in the short and long term. And so long as it continues to resist, the popularity of Hezbollah and its chief, Seyyed Nasrallah, will continue to rise at home and in the Arab world. Some describe him as the Ché Guevara of the Arab world. But in today`s Arab world, where the masses are frustrated from what they see as their regimes being nothing more than client states of the growingly unpopular United States, the soft-spoken and often-calm Nasrallah represents more. Arab commentators say that not since the late Arab nationalist Egyptian president, Gamal Abdul Nasser, has an Arab leader won the hearts and minds of the Arab people across the board. Nasser, who ruled his country from 1954 until his death in 1970, was widely popular in the Arab world as he was known for his Arab nationalist stands and anti-colonialist policies. His pictures hung on the walls of many homes, his speeches, broadcast live across the region, were closely followed, raising the morale of the masses in days of defeat by Israel. He was the strongest symbol for Arab dignity and freedom in the aftermath of the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine in 1948. The fact that Nasrallah is a Shiite cleric, unlike secular, socialist Nasser, is a matter that has hardly made a difference to the predominantly Sunni Arab street that includes Christians. One secular American-Arab living in California recently told United Press International that not since Nasser has anyone 'made me proud of being an Arab again as Seyed Nasrallah, who has retrieved our dignity as Arabs.' His popularity began to expand when the Islamic Resistance Movement, the armed wing of Hezbollah, systematically fought against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and ended it six years ago; becoming the first Arab party to liberate occupied territories through armed resistance. With Hezbollah`s fierce resistance against the strongest and best-equipped military force in the Middle East in a war unleashed after the capture of two Israeli soldiers and killing of eight others in a cross-border operation on July 12, it is safe to say that Nasrallah has become a national hero for the Arabs, as well as Muslims from the Philippines to California. Thus, analysts say, the Israeli and U.S. administration`s description of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization could effectively, by extension, put tens of millions of Arabs -- regardless of faith, age or gender -- under the label of terrorists as well. But Nasrallah is no Osama bin Laden and his supporters resent any comparisons. In the past three weeks, thousands of people have taken to the streets around the world carrying pictures of the Hezbollah leader, praising him to television cameras, cursing Arab regimes for their failure to support him, and getting beat up by the local authorities in the process. Nasrallah`s black turban, clerical robes and salt-and-pepper beard has not stopped women in skimpy clothes from praising him as an Arab hero who is retrieving Arab dignity, in terms of taking tough action against what is generally seen as Israeli and American insolence and colonialism of the region. Youth and children have downloaded his picture on their cellular phones and computers, and millions glue their eyes to their television screens as they wait for his speeches broadcast on Hezbollah`s al-Manar satellite channel and carried by other Arab networks. Arab celebrities are demonstrating in the streets of Cairo in support of Hezbollah and its leader, and a famous Egyptian movie star, Hussein Fahmi, has resigned as a U.N. goodwill ambassador to protest what he said was the international organization`s failure to stop Israel and its assault on Lebanon. While sources close to Nasrallah say he did not expect or seek to be personally idolized in this manner, he sees the support as an Arab desire for freedom. Analysts say he appears to have predicted such widespread sympathy for Hezbollah`s resistance, noting what he recently said in an interview with the Qatar-based al-Jazeera news channel: While some Arab leaders were not happy with the resistance, 'I`m sure their wives and children are sympathetic to the cause, because our victory is a victory for the entire nation.' Copyright 2006 by United Press International
What makes you think Zionists who control Israel and America give a shit about Christians?!! This is what they post on their passwd protected message boards! <a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/5214/goysen6.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a> This guy has more on his site http://www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_29Mar2006.html