scary - hezbollah

From the excellent blog, Global Guerrillas:

Hezbollah is in the process of evolving into a more effective force. Nicholas Blanford has a great article over at the Christian Science Monitor on this.

New type of military:

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the party's leader, in February said that Hizbullah had evolved into an "unparalleled new school" that is part guerrilla force and part conventional army.

This is aka a 4GW military.

New offensive methods:

New tactics are being taught, including how to "seize and hold" positions, a requirement that Hizbullah's guerrilla fighters – traditionally schooled in hit-and-run methods – never needed before... Jawad says that the next war will be "fought more in Israel than in Lebanon," one comment of many from various fighters that suggest Hizbullah is planning commando raids into northern Israel.

In context: Simultaneous hostage dramas during a conflict to shut down city/town centers, economic activity, and sow confusion? Broad spectrum damage. Civilians are the best defensive works possible in the modern variant of the strategic barrage. As a result, these hostage dramas could last for the duration of the conflict. Message to fighters is that if they survive: they will be released in end of conflict prisoner exchange (its not necessarily a one way mission).

Wider movement :

Hizbullah's military buildup is not confined to Shiite Lebanese. Sunnis, Christians, and Druze also are being recruited into reservist units called "Saraya," or battalions... Sheikh Afif Naboulsi, a prominent Hizbullah cleric, last month was quoted as saying that next time "the Israelis will find resistance fighters from all sects and denominations."

This is a variation on open insurgency.

jimmy carter gets dissed by Israel

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's secret service declined to assist U.S. agents guarding former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit in which Israeli leaders shunned him over his plans to meet Hamas, U.S. sources said on Monday.

"They're not getting support from local security," one of the sources said, on condition of anonymity.

An Israeli security source said the Shin Bet security service provided no protection to Carter during his visit to the Jewish state because no request was made.

Asked about the Israeli account, Carter's delegation, which had previously declined to comment, told Reuters in a statement: "The Carter delegation inquired with both the lead agent of the Secret Service detail (protecting Carter) and the State Department Regional Security Officer and were told unequivocally that an official request for assistance had been made."

American sources close to the matter said the Shin Bet, which helps protect visiting dignitaries and is overseen by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, declined to meet the head of Carter's Secret Service detail or provide his team with assistance as is customary during such visits.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

From Haaretz.

Israeli town sues Google over claim it was built on Arab village
By The Associated Press

The northern town of Kiryat Yam is suing Internet giant Google for slander, a local official said Monday, because a feature of its worldwide map service shows the town was built on the ruins of an Arab village.

The dispute brings together two controversies, one old and one new. Officials from the town deny they displaced Arabs during the War of Independence, and Google is defending the practice of allowing any surfer to change information in its files.

Kiryat Yam is a town of 40,000 on the Mediterranean coast just north of the port of Haifa. An entry on Google Earth, a feature that allows users to zero in on locations around the world, alleges that the town was built on the ruins of Ghawarina, an Arab village.
...
Kiryat Yam was pulled into the dispute when a Google Earth user, Thameen Darby, inserted a note on the map saying it was built on the location of Ghawarina. Darby has inserted at least 10 such notes over Google's map of Israel.

"Kiryat Yam filed a slander complaint with Israel's police," said town official Naty Keyzilberman. "This obviously cannot be true, because Kiryat Yam was founded in 1945, he said, explaining the police complaint."

Darby, 30, a Palestinian doctor raised in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, said his mother was a refugee from to the village Balad al-Sheikh near Kiryat Yam. He said his contributions to Google Earth are part of the Nakhba - Palestinian Catastrophe information hub aimed to help displaced Palestinians understand their heritage or find the villages of their parents or grandparents.

"As far as I can know, the Arab Ghawarina locality was in the place depicted," Darby told The Associated Press. He noted that he may have not marked the exact location and "if proven wrong by reliable sources, I will be quick to reallocate it."
...
Asked to respond to the police complaint, a Google spokesman said Google Earth depends on user-generated content that reflects what people contribute, not what Google believes is accurate. The spokesman would not give his name, in keeping with company policy.

The spokesman insisted that the altered map is not illegal, and Google's
policy is not to remove such postings.

I Guess Being Learned in Torah Doesn't Always Lead to Logical Thinking

Moishe, what position would Rabbi Caine take on this?

Last update - 16:20 28/01/2008
Report: Chief Rabbi says move Gazans to a Palestine in Sinai
By Saul Sadka
...
According to Metzger, the plan would be to "take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains buses cars, like in Arizona - we are now in a generation where you can take a desert and build a city. This will be a solution for the poor people - they will have a nice county, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace."

Metzger was quoted as telling the paper that the plan was new and he had not presented it to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
...