No Ceasefire Before Israeli Defeat

As more Israeli tanks and troops have moved into southern Lebanon, Hezbollah remains stead

At press time, the Israeli army is moving on the town of Khiam under the guise of quelling Hezbollah rocket fire. Reports early Thursday had Israeli troops pushing about 10 kilometres into south Lebanon. Israeli Army Radio reported heavy fighting Thursday morning in south Lebanon across from the Galilee panhandle. Hezbollah’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said that his forces are underway pushing the Israelis back.

Fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed late yesterday in Ayta al-Shaab and Debel, the daily newspaper Haaretz reported, citing the Israel Defense Forces. Regardless, the Israelis are pushing forward at the risk of high casualties. On Wednesday Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a wider ground offensive in Lebanon that came as no surprise. However in a tell-tale announcement Thursday, Israel put its massive new ground offensive into southern Lebanon on hold for two or three days to give the U.N. Security Council more time to come to an agreement on a cease-fire, an Israeli Cabinet minister and senior officials said Thursday.

The U.S. and France are said to be working on differences over an Arab demand for a complete Israeli withdrawal in a UN resolution that should be voted on by the UN Security Council on today however Johan Bolton said late yesterday in New York that ``The areas that we have been discussing remain unresolved,''

South Lebanon Will Become A “Graveyard”

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to turn south Lebanon into a "graveyard" for invading Israeli troops, hours after Israel ordered an expanded ground offensive. In a televised speech, Nasrallah said Israeli attacks had not weakened its rocket capabilities and called on the Arab residents of Haifa to leave the Israeli city to avoid being hurt by the group's barrages.

"You won't be able to stay in our land, and if you come in, we'll force you out," said Sheikh Nasrallah in a recorded speech shown on Hezbollah's television station. “We will turn our precious southern land into a graveyard for the invading Zionists."

Hezbollah waged a war of attrition that was instrumental in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000. Sheikh Nasrallah, Amir of Hezbollah said that the United States was trying to impose Israeli demands on Lebanon through the draft resolution to end the fighting. He went on to say that his group supported a decision by the Lebanese Government, which includes a Hezbollah minister to deploy troops to the border if that would bolster Lebanon's calls for the resolution to include a demand for Israel's immediate withdrawal from the south. Nasrallah rejected out of hand foreign troops coming into the country.

"The least you can say about this resolution is that it is unjust and oppressive," Sheikh Nasrallah said. "If everyone sees that deploying the army will help find a way out politically that would result in the halting of aggression ... this for us is a national and honorable way out." Hezbollah, which largely controls Lebanon's southern border with Israel, had long resisted international pressure on Lebanon to deploy the Lebanese army to the south instead.

Meanwhile reaction on the Arab street clearly shows backing for Hezbollah with the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah and its chief, gaining unprecedented popularity levels. He has rapidly become the Che Guevara for some and the 'new' Hero after Egyptian president, Gamal Abdul Nasser for others.

Since the start of war, thousands of people protested against the war and supported Hezbollah by carrying pictures of Nasrallah, and praising him, as well as cursing Arab regimes for failing to support him. Israeli and US administrations describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization instead of the political party and resistance effort it is. Analysts say this labels tens of millions of Arabs and Muslims worldwide as terrorists and this has fueled mass support for the group.

No Ceasfire, Let Hezbollah Wipe Out “Israel”

Even expatriate Egyptian Liberal Ma'moun Fandy, who resides in the U.S. has weighed in on the matter in an article where he suggests the Arabs should refuse to accept a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

"Since Hezbollah is 'rubbing Israel's nose in the dirt,' defeating the Israeli army, and putting an end to its legend, something we have not seen in all of the previous Arab-Israeli wars, I am surprised at our demand, as Arabs, for a ceasefire! Please, let Hezbollah teach those scoundrels a lesson. Let Hezbollah continue its struggle to annihilate this 'foundling nation” he said.

"The history of ceasefires as far as we, the Arabs, are concerned is one big deception. Did not the international community demand that we agree to a truce in 1948? And what was the result of this truce? The result was that the 'Zionist gangs' deceived us and built the State of Israel, from whose crimes we have been suffering for 50 years, during which Israel occupied our land, massacred our children, and destroyed our houses. If only we hadn't accepted the ceasefire at that time, everything that happened would not have happened!"

Fandy went on to say "No to the ceasefire - not only because Hezbollah is winning on the ground, but also because it is winning on the television screens, and because all the Arab public stands behind Hezbollah and the secretary-general of Hezbollah. This public has never united behind any Arab leader in the past - not even behind Gamal 'Abd Al-Nasser himself. Why, at a time of such unity, at a time when people are giving that which is most precious, at a time when thousands and even hundreds of thousands are volunteering to give up their lives - why, at a time when we have all this strength at our disposal, should we demand a ceasefire?

"The Arab media is telling us day by day that the Israeli army will be defeated within an hour. It is only a question of time. The Israelis are not capable of a land fight; they can only attack from the air. Bit by bit they will run out of planes and bit by bit they will feel the defeat. They will have no choice but to enter Lebanon, and then Hezbollah will pulverize them, since the equation on the ground, in an unbalanced war between a regular army and a group that is experienced in guerilla warfare, is in Hezbollah's favor.”