On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 12:43:09 -0700 joanna <123hop at comcast.net> writes:
> Well, I don't know, it seems to me that if Israel can blow up
> American
> planes and UN stations, it could also blow up the Iranian embassy. I
> mean, there's such a thing as an honest mistake, right?
I guess the Israelis could have had an "accident" like the Americans had back in 1999 when they "accidently" bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. (Who could have imagined that they would have put an embassy over there?). I suspect that the Israelis had decided that taking on Iran was a bit more than they could have handled. In fact this recent war has shown the limits of Israeli military power just as the Iraq war has shown the limits of US power.
>
> Joanna
>
> Joel Schalit wrote:
>
> > I hear tell from various sources that Al-Manar had a backup studio
> > operating out of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, which is where
> > Nasrallah is alleged to have sat out the war. One can understand
> why
> > the Israelis would not target said building.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> > On Aug 27, 2006, at 11:41 AM, Michael Givel wrote:
> >
> >>
> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Mideast_Guerrilla_TV.html
> >>
> >> Friday, August 25, 2006 · Last updated 11:35 a.m. PT
> >>
> >> Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV survived attacks
> >>
> >> By ZEINA KARAM ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
> >>
> >> BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Its headquarters was leveled, its antennas
> >> pounded, its transmissions jammed and Web site hacked. Yet,
> >> throughout 34 days of ferocious fighting between Israel and
> >> Hezbollah, the group's Al-Manar TV stayed on the air - mocking
> >> Israeli military power from studios in secret bunkers.
> >>
> >> How is a mystery. For security reasons, Al-Manar officials won't
> say
> >> where they located makeshift studios. The station stayed on the
> air
> >> even after its main offices south of Beirut were flattened by
> Israeli
> >> warplanes, beaming out live talk shows with political guests.
> >> Newscasts were broadcast on schedule.
> >>
> >> Now that the war has ended, Al-Manar's public relations chief
> Ibrahim
> >> Farhat said the broadcaster would rebuild its bombed-out
> >> headquarters. But its plans have not yet come together about where
> >> and how quickly. He said the station was still taking stock of its
> >> losses.
> >>
> >> During the conflict, which began July 12 after Hezbollah killed
> three
> >> Israeli soldiers and captured two in a cross-border raid, the
> station
> >> routinely aired reports on guerrilla rockets strikes on northern
> >> Israel and ground battles with Israeli troops.
> >>
> >> Perhaps the most important broadcasts carried exclusive videotaped
> >> speeches by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who went into
> >> hiding when the war began.
> >>
> >> And within hours of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that ended the
> >> fighting on Aug. 14, Al-Manar came out of hiding and into the
> >> sunshine, its reporters anchoring a live program in the midst of
> the
> >> rubble of destroyed buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs.
> >>
> >> advertising "A flame that will not be extinguished," read the new
> >> slogan beneath the station's logo that was hoisted on surrounding,
> >> bombed-out buildings.
> >>
> >> "It (Al-Manar) fought alongside the guerrillas ... fielding a
> unique
> >> experience of tenacity with great commitment," wrote George
> Hayek, a
> >> TV columnist for Lebanon's leading daily newspaper, An-Nahar. "Its
> >> employees were like the soldiers on the battlefield."
> >>
> >> Farhat said the station was able to continue broadcasting through
> the
> >> efforts of its employees. "Certainly, there were many
> difficulties,
> >> but the will to confront was bigger and stronger," he told The
> >> Associated Press.
> >>
> >> He said contingency plans to face such a situation were made
> several
> >> years ago, after the U.S. decision in December 2004 to place the
> >> station on its list of terror organizations. Earlier that year,
> the
> >> station was blocked from satellite programming in Australia and
> had
> >> to struggle with France to keep it from taking similar measures
> after
> >> its transmission of an anti-Semitic miniseries was denounced by
> >> Jewish lobby groups.
> >>
> >> The series - "Al-Shatat," Arabic for "The Diaspora" - was based on
> >> "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - the 20th century
> anti-Semitic
> >> text purporting to describe a plan to achieve Jewish global
> >> domination - and depicted among other scenes the killing of a
> >> Christian child on the orders of a rabbi so the child's blood
> could
> >> be added to matzos for Passover.
> >>
> >> On Wednesday, a Pakistani businessman in New York was arrested and
> >> charged with providing satellite broadcasts of Al-Manar to New
> >> York-area customers.
> >>
> >> "They (Israelis) were trying to silence Al-Manar during peace, we
> >> knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to do that by
> >> force," Farhat said.
> >>
> >> Al-Manar's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut was
> leveled
> >> in an airstrike in the early days of the monthlong war. The TV
> >> station went off the air for just a few minutes when hackers broke
> >> into its transmissions but has since been broadcast without stop,
> >> despite repeated airstrikes that knocked down transmission towers
> >> across the country. Israeli warplanes attacked an Al-Manar antenna
> >> just 15 minutes before the cease-fire took hold on Aug. 14.
> >>
> >> Since then, the station, which obtained its license from the
> Lebanese
> >> government in 1997 and is watched by many across the Arab world
> and
> >> elsewhere, has been broadcasting live programming from secret
> bunkers
> >> and bombed out areas in south and eastern Lebanon and the southern
> >> suburbs, often interviewing women who claim to be the mothers, as
> >> well as other relatives, of those killed in the Israeli attacks.
> >>
> >> Al-Manar also airs blatant propaganda videos of its fighters -
> often
> >> firing Katyushas from rocket launchers - anthems to rally fighters
> >> and marches that glorify Hezbollah guerrillas.
> >>
> >> One of the clips shows smiling Israeli generals and prime
> ministers
> >> juxtaposed against an Israeli flag, ending with the words
> "Terrorism
> >> has found a state." Another shows dead and wounded Israeli
> casualties
> >> being evacuated from southern Lebanon, with the words: "Your
> wretched
> >> fate."
> >>
> >> The clips are signed by Hezbollah's "war media" department, in
> charge
> >> of recording battles and operations on the battlefield and editing
> >> them for propaganda purposes.
> >>
> >> Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres recently ridiculed Al-Manar's
> >> coverage.
> >>
> >> "They can sing all the songs they want. We know the realities on
> the
> >> ground," he said in an interview with the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya
> >> station.
> >>
> >> President Bush said it could take time for the people of Lebanon
> and
> >> the world to come to the "sober realization" that Hezbollah lost
> the
> >> war.
> >>
> >> "The first reaction of course of Hezbollah and its supporters is
> to
> >> declare victory. I guess I would have done the same thing if I
> were
> >> them," Bush said last week.
> >>
> >> Regardless of who won on the battlefield, employees at Al-Manar
> are
> >> confident they have won having survived the war.
> >>
> >> "I feel so proud that we kept Al-Manar on the air," says Farhat.
> "And
> >> they should know they will never succeed in silencing us."
> >>
> >>
> >> ___________________________________
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> >>
> >
> >
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